I never see Holy priest in raids. Not in normal, not in heroic, neither 10 nor 25 men.
Every priest healer is Disc spec.
Why is that? Do Holy priests suck at healing?
I never see Holy priest in raids. Not in normal, not in heroic, neither 10 nor 25 men.
Every priest healer is Disc spec.
Why is that? Do Holy priests suck at healing?
Less effort for similar or better results. What's up with your user name, are you trying hard to be witty or just insulting?
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
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Actually playing disc properly requires more effort than playing holy at the same level. Disc has alot of small things to watch and more buttons to use to min/max. Ofcourse you can often just dps and heal vis atonment and just press barrier/ps/T90 when needed and be just fine but lets not assume that Holy is somewhat really hard and thats why people don't play it.
IMO the main reason that disc is so popular compared to holy is the way that current healing model works. 90%+ of the fights favour disc beacuse, appart from constant tank damage, raid is being damaged on the set-in timers and disc can anticipate that and prepare absorbs. If there were more fights with constant raidwide damage or random spikes of damage holy would see much more play since when holy mastery doesn't go to overhealing it's throughput is much stronger than disc's. Also disc can much easier switch between dpsing and healing during low-damage phases while, holy thanks to chakra is stuck in it for some time.
It does not suck. But to play holy well (not excellent, just well) you need about thrice the focus you need to play discipline well. Hell, on farm encounters or in easy phases I just use my mouse macro that spams a few spells (PoM, AA, Attonement trio) and it performs too much.
Holy is itself is fine, put it into the current healing model with other healers and there isn't much room for it.
Disc just sits above the rest. You can essentially do the same amount of healing as disc regardless of what your other healers are doing
This here and the above comments on ease of play explain why Disc is more prevalent than Holy in raids. Disc is also significantly more forgiving than Holy of lower gear levels, so that makes it attractive. Why go Holy and contribute sub-par healing and twice the effort when you can go Disc and do great healing with relatively low levels of effort (depending on raid level of course! but if you're in LFR or Flex with those levels of gear, Disc will outperform Holy given equal player ability).
Every raid I've been in this tier that contains both types of healing Priest has the Disc outperform the Holy Priest. Disc is basically broken and overpowered, something that will be fixed in WoD.
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Maybe he's a very hirsute Jew?
Why heal damage when you can just make your raid not take any?
Eh. I have to disagree. Getting numbers with disc is very gear oriented (we didn't start to spiral out of control untill late-ToT, so at +535 avg Ilvl with proper gear). Keeping mana up as disc isn't if you just gem spirit as most new healers tend to, while it is as holy, though. That might be why you think it's "more forgiving", but generally, disc has a lower output at low levels than holy and thus requires more of you to perform on the same level.
And with that said, let's drop the whole "holy is so much harder to play than disc"-act. Use a few spells on CD like any other healer (even disc), and that's about it. Yea, hard stuff.
Disc is just easier once you reach a certain gear level (and probably outgear the content you do). I don't have to micro-manage my spells too much and can just spam Smite/ Holy Fire/ Penance and drop Divine Star for the bigger spikes. However I like to switch to Holy for Malk and Thok. In the end Holy is fine, but inferior to Disc.
What's up with your post, are you trying to be witty or can you contribute to the topic?
I switched to Disc largely because I found Disc more forgiving in mediocre gear and I really don't like Chakra. Holy isn't hard to play, but does take more awareness of synergies in order to perform well; which is a fun mechanic, and one I like. Disc also allows for questing/leveling/dailies without having to go into the horrible Shadow spec (I hate Shadow), so that's nice too.
Finally, as others have pointed out, Disc is *different* than the other healers, and that's a great change of pace.
There is four throughput oriented healing specs in game, one half and half (pala) and one absorb focused. It's statistical fact that most of the time your raid gets better mileage with priest going disc when three out of five possible healing classes can only do raw healing.
I think it was said best up here somewhere; holy lovers play holy. If you don't mind which spec you play, disc is easily superior.
WoD may offer a slight tipping in the balance however. Disc will always be top at the end of a tier though, just due to the way absorbs scale.
Personally, I'm a holy lover. And no, holy isn't hard to play, but to keep up you really have to know what you're doing. Disc is a bit more forgiving.
The irony is that Disc shouldn't be forgiving. As a damage mitigation spec it should require the player to be planning ahead, to be aware of what is going to happen, and prep their raid for dealing with the incoming damage. It should require the player to make intelligent use of their CDs and abilities, not just spam them when they're up and ultimately take a very pro-active approach which is different from the largely reactive nature of all the other healers.
But because it's a broken spec right now, it is more forgiving and generally easier to play.