Holy Vs. Discipline

[Shine 144]

Hi,

 

So I am going to start gearing up my priest again, and I wish to be healer with shadow offspec.

 

Now is there any particular benefit from either holy or discipline and which works better in what setting.

 

I usually play 10 man normal (although it is now often between 13 and 17 flex) and my guild does have a discipline priest already, but most of the time that priest is not going along with us and/or is going along on other characters. (I am perfectly aware that multiple discipline priest will only be a nuisance to eachother.)

 

So I jumped up and down from holy to disc and back over the years and I was wondering if there is any advise on which one to pick now.

 

My raid is normally made up of at least a Monk Tank (the main tank together with a DK, but since I'm that DK I cannot tank while healing with a priest ^^)

various other classes could tank for us aswell.

Mostly shaman healers, although some priest will sometimes log (In this case I will likely be tanking) we also have a pally heals, and the occasional druid. (We're working on getting monk heals aswell)

DPS is mostly shamans/mages, a DK here and there. Mostly ranged although we do aim to bring melee to fights aswell.

 

That's pretty much it.

Any advise is welcome.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Shine

[Peelyon 416]

Up until a month ago I have always played holy.  I'm not sure whether it was my reluctance to try something different, or the fact that my holy hps was always fairly competitive with other healers in my raid group.  Either way I was pretty stubborn and never gave disc a chance (had a dps offspec).

 

Since coming back to WoW after a small break I thought I would give it disc a try and I must admit I was a bit silly not trying it sooner.

 

Although I will always love holy, on certain encounters where heals were easier I would just get bored.  With atonement healing even if times of low damage I can just dps as much as I like in discipline spec, and I have found I find it a lot more engaging.

 

I still have holy as my other spec but at the moment my heals seem comfortable enough and I'm actually adding a fair amount of damage to the encounter as well.

 

Obviously some fights tend towards either spec, and having that versatility to change is quite nice but if I had to choose just one at the moment (assuming you will be keeping your shadow ofc) I would probably choose discipline.

[Shine 144]

thanks for your input, I will keep your words in mind.

 

For the Record, I am going to stick with shadow, so it is either holy or disc.

[Szah 3]

I would say it depends on the situation, if you're the "third healer", the one you bring to get more heals, goes dps when you two-heal and is always a step behind other two in healing done, it doesn't really matter. Both Holy and Disc can do that very well, pick the one you like the most. Holy may have the upper hand here, since haste is good for both Holy and Shadow, which will make it easier to dual-spec.

 

However, if you're one of the "other two" Healers, I would recommend to go Discipline. As much as I would like to recommend Holy in 10 man, I can't do it in good faith. It just feels very underwhelming at the moment and it feels too often as if you're trying very hard to achieve very little. In short: Holy will get the job done, but Discipline can make the difference between a kill and a wipe.

 

Keeping that in mind, if you're raiding flex with the occasional normal, playing your spec well is going to make a much bigger difference than choosing the right spec.Play the spec you like the most and try to make the best out of it.

If you're going for fun, go Holy. It's the most awesome healing spec in the game :)

[Isfadar 0]

New poster here! I've recently started back up again and decided to play my priest. After all this talk about how disc is the craziest specialization I decided why not. That was in 5.3 mind you. Now in 5.4 I find my numbers a bit sub par compared to a Resto Shaman or Resto Druid. I just cant seem to keep up. But it may be a gear thing. For you being such a low iLvl I say do what you want they are both comparable in 10 man, just don't get frustrated when a Shaman or Druid out heal you. It is bound to happen. Good Luck with your decision! Now, back to regemming.

[Omnae 8]

Since you are running flex I would just advise you too try out one spec one week then the other spec the next week or in two week changes and see which you feel is better for your group. Although if you are two healing things I would have to say disc will be better but with three healing both are pretty good. 

 

As for stat priority you can use crit > master > haste for both in 10m and do fine. I believe holy for 10m is crit anyway.

 

I personally love disc because you need to know the fights a lil better and be able to preemptively bubble people where as holy is more reactive/rolling renews on the group.

[Szah 3]

I agree with the first part of your post Omnae.

 

But then you got me going :)

 

As for stat priority you can use crit > master > haste for both in 10m and do fine. I believe holy for 10m is crit anyway.

 

Holy should never go crit. Never.

 

 

 

 

 

I personally love disc because you need to know the fights a lil better and be able to preemptively bubble people where as holy is more reactive/rolling renews on the group.

 

 

As Holy it is far more important to really know the fight. Being in the right chakra at the right moment is the most important thing you have to do as Holy. As discipline you only need to know when to put bubbles up :)

[Omnae 8]

Holy should never go crit. Never.

After the first haste break point crit is ranked higher, even by icy veins standards for 10m holy.

 

 

As Holy it is far more important to really know the fight. Being in the right chakra at the right moment is the most important thing you have to do as Holy. As discipline you only need to know when to put bubbles up

Not necessarily more important, most of the time your going to be in serenity unless there's high constant raid dmg then you swap to sanctuary which is something you can react to and still be fine.

Edited September 27, 2013 by Omnae

[Adhemar 3]

Disc really shines in 10 mans because you can contribute a significant amount to DPS and provide shield buffers. Either resto spec is currently able to do what holy does better than holy, so I find the shield and DPS niche to be much more valuable. I'm generally 5-6% of the raid's damage and there's nothing that can exactly take the place of spirit shell. Plus, the quick reaction burst of PW:S and Pennance are the best around for those "OMG heal the tank RIGHT NOW" moments.

Holy has much better raw throughput (especially AoE) and that will tend to increase in effectiveness the larger your raid gets.

[LostDignity 12]

I'm completely biased for Holy. In this tier i believe for 2 healing Holy is better, and 3 healing Disc priest is better because of the dps. However its completely reliant on who your healing partners are :). (e.g. Holy+Druids are too alike so Disc+Druid is better). Holy doesn't have strong smart heals (e.g. CoH), so expect to not top healing meters, unless youre on Norushen!!!!

[Pawpawpawpaw 1]

Can't really give  you a good advise on this since i raid 25man. We usually raid priest (sometimes 2) shammy, druid, monk, paladin (it depends we usually take 5 healers for each fight).

 

What I learned from last month's raiding is that if druid/monk are not there I, as a holy priest, get to heal a considerable amount, in contrast, If druid/monk are in raid, i can't compete with them as holy (specially the druid). Important note is that I don't have legendary cloak yet and they have about 10ilvls on me (and I have bad trinkets).

 

Dispite this, during the last two weeks I've tried discipline and i came up with 2 facts.

I get alot more hps (we talking hc modes) than I did with holy (on 90% of the fights) and i ease the burden on all the healers since they don't have to heal as much.

 

My conclusion is that yes, you can heal as holy priest but a druid, specially a druid, in 25man (at least) will always surpass you and you'll overheal like crazy (so will he but you'll heal less and spend more mana than him).

 

I'm not sure if i've explained myself well, or if this is even on-topic but dispite loving to heal as holy (alot more than disc), discipline just seems alot more effective atm.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Pawpawpawpaw

[Nemo 27]

In reference to the post above:

When changing form holy to disc, you will nearly always see an increase in hps, simply because your shields will always take preference to any other 'heals'.

This doesn't mean that you actually contribute more than you did before.

Healing is a matter of timing and teamwork. Hps is a horrid measure for both of these.

With regards to Shine's original question: I used to two heal with a holy priest (I play a resto druid), and we were always competing for the top spot on the hps charts. Holy can be hard to utilize to full effect, but when you learn to do so, it absolutely wrecks the charts.

That also reflects my personal experience playing a priest. Disc is a lot easier (once you've got your targeting macros set up nice), but holy is more challenging and (I think) more fun.

[Pawpawpawpaw 1]

In reference to the post above:

When changing form holy to disc, you will nearly always see an increase in hps, simply because your shields will always take preference to any other 'heals'.

This doesn't mean that you actually contribute more than you did before.

Healing is a matter of timing and teamwork. Hps is a horrid measure for both of these.

With regards to Shine's original question: I used to two heal with a holy priest (I play a resto druid), and we were always competing for the top spot on the hps charts. Holy can be hard to utilize to full effect, but when you learn to do so, it absolutely wrecks the charts.

That also reflects my personal experience playing a priest. Disc is a lot easier (once you've got your targeting macros set up nice), but holy is more challenging and (I think) more fun.

 

 

 

When there's less dmg (because of the absorb) there's no need to heal as much. As i said before we have 1 player of each healing class (2 priests only) and when healing with a paladin, shaman, monk and a druid, discipline is atm and in SoO better than holy in every aspect.

 

Fact: I changed from holy to disc, I healed more, overhealed less (almost none), other healers healed less (fight wasn't so intensive for everyone). But as I said before it's all about the healing comp. On a different note, no healer does disc's job better (absorbs) whereas holy competes with rdruids and I feel that druid has the upperhand in 25man.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Pawpawpawpaw

[shinbou 0]

If you do want to play disc, 2 discs are possible in a 10 man with good comunication. Ive done this tier and big part of ToT with 2 disc and a druid healer until garrosh. On garrosh i am now holy instead of disc, cause of the aoe healing needed. And it works out really well. We are pretty casual, so our progress amount is certaintly not due to lack/bad combination of healing. 

 

Also about the above posts, i felt the same. About all fights my hps is higher on disc then holy (with 2 discs in this case), but it could have something to do with the fact disc always be casting and holy heals by reacting to damage. That doesnt mean that holy is worse then disc tho i think, hps isnt everything. Tho it can be frustrating  Tho it might also be cause im just better with disc then holy as i havent played it since start of MoP.

Edited December 2, 2013 by shinbou