Disc vs, Holy

So my priest hit 85 last friday and I've been doing 5 mans to gear up.

First I tried out holy. I really find the chakra mechanic fun and the abilty to massively aoe heal was nice. The problem was 1. mana regen and 2. lightwell is awesome and I need to tell people to use it or they won't use it, even though its by far the most mana effective heal.

Last night I tried out disc. Definately noticed better mana regen, and single target healing. Just really was having problems with spike aoe damage. Also is it common to smite heal during a bit so I can pop wings or is that just me being a nub.

My question is what seems to be better for 5-mans and raids, how does gear scale and while I think i have holy playstyle down, how does one go about disc seeing as how you need to predict damage beforehand with bubbles and the whole atonement thing.

Just to make sure, you do realise you don't have to take an AA build if you don't want to - I don't believe Nika's disc priest is AA. It depends on if you like the playstyle of "dps to heal" or not.

I'm currently time constrained as I need to get to work, but briefly what I do:

Bubble at least the tank, pop a PoM on them, and then Holy Fire on cooldown, and Smite in between. If someone's an idiot, Archangel, Penance, GH if needed. You can refresh PoM if you want, I usually refresh PW:S on the tank for the Rapture effect.

Disc does get a slight change in 4.3; the radius of Atonement goes from 15 yards to 100 yards so you can also heal ranged and/or yourself with HF/Smite.

With the spike AoE, don't forget that Inner Focus is on a 45 second cooldown, that's a perfect time to do PoH (use that with Archangel if you can pull it off). I generally only have trouble with spike AoE if people are retards (or I get a stupid moment).

(On the other hand, I can't figure out Holy, but I've also never liked it so, my (lack of) interest in figuring out which Chakra when probably has something to do with it.)

While I can't really talk to the gear scaling, if you aren't planning to do any smite healing, there is no point in picking up Atonement or Archangel. I like the smite heal playstyle though, and it's especially good during burn phases ("free" healing while throwing in a little extra dps.) If you haven't already, you should macro Inner focus to gheal/poh. With the short cd of it, it more or less makes gheal = to heal/smite from a heal per mana standpoint. Also, if you're stacking spirit as disc... don't. Your primary focus is int and then either haste/mastery (I usually go haste, since it meshes well with my shadow spec.)

Holy on the other hand wants spirit/haste (have to find a balance between throughput and longevity.) A tip I got from Lev about holy... don't waste mana on renew (which means you don't need the talents/glyph for it either.) After removing that from my holy healing list, my longevity improved greatly (though there are still some issues in aoe spamming phases, just have to get more accustomed there.) You also shouldn't be using bubble as holy, especially if there is a disc priest healing along side you.

Another mana helpful hint... use shadowfiend early and often (it helps that I have the t12 2pc bonus from my shadow set, hooray for reduced cd!)

As for which is better for raids, it depends... tank healing would definitely lean to disc whereas holy is great for raid healing. 5-mans will ultimately depend on your preference, but I find I can smite heal more easily there than in raids, and haven't done much 5-man holy healing.

Amirya wrote:Disc does get a slight change in 4.3; the radius of Atonement goes from 15 yards to 100 yards so you can also heal ranged and/or yourself with HF/Smite.

This makes me incredibly happy.

i play a holy and all i can say is get gear...
holy sucks balls on mana regen until you are around 340 ilvl
and the more gear you get the better your regen is
like skye said...dont waste mana on renew
just focus on getting spirit and haste, and some mastery but its only above crit

can you provide an armory link?
or at least a name and server?

Skye1013 wrote:

Amirya wrote:Disc does get a slight change in 4.3; the radius of Atonement goes from 15 yards to 100 yards so you can also heal ranged and/or yourself with HF/Smite.

This makes me incredibly happy.

I actually squealed happily when I read that change.

As said though, don't stack spirit, Rapture is sufficient. As Disc, I prefer to do int > mastery=haste > crit, since mastery affects PW:S, which you would be using for Rapture.

Ya I'm aware of the need for gaer for holy, I was askin a priest in my guild how much spirit he had and he said around 3300 while my preist was at around 2k. I'm not using renew unless I'm in chakra:serenity and even then you really only need to cast it once.

I'm doing most of what yall said, I have innerwill macro'd to PoH GH and BH., as well as mouseover macros for grid. I just wasnt sure how viable atonement was because I havent seen a smite priest since this one arena match about 2 months ago. That range change would be awesome.

Also for holy I read on ensidia's site (manaflask) that haste is better for low ilvls but at firelands mastery and haste are about equal.

Neat little thing I found last night. If your in a chakra state when you re-spec you stay in that chakra state, S i got to be a disc priest with chakra:serentiy. The ticket I posted was answered in about 4minutes xD


My char is astrologic on stormrage, his gear is shit, i have no chants, things are forged to spirit cuz i was just holy and I accidently got the shadowpriest t11 pants cuz i was like spirit. I grabbed the atonement talents cuz I figured event If im not really smiting all the time I can still have that CD.

Amirya wrote:Just to make sure, you do realise you don't have to take an AA build if you don't want to - I don't believe Nika's disc priest is AA. It depends on if you like the playstyle of "dps to heal" or not.

:O Wow, good memory.

I really miss the wings of AA, but smiting just didn't suit me.

It makes me sad I can't find the patch notes now that said that about the range change , I just remember it was in the very early 4.3 notes (I double checked the numbers to make sure it wasn't actually a decrease to 10 yards).

And I remembered your priest wasn't AA, Nika, because you specifically mentioned you hated the "dps to heal" playstyle (and I planned on looking at your tree to dump my priest's shadow spec and try a non-AA disc spec).

Edit: I can't find the actual numbers regarding Atonement anymore, just now that it takes into account combat reach so it can be used on Al'Akir and Ragnaros. I guess that means the same thing...

Amirya wrote:It makes me sad I can't find the patch notes now that said that about the range change

Discipline
Atonement will now account for the target enemy's combat reach when calculating proper range, enabling it to be used on large creatures such as Ragnaros and Ala'kir.

I enjoy reading posts over at Plusheal. Derevka is a priest moderator over there and knows just about everything you want to know.

Here's a consolidated list stickies for both holy and disc.

http://plusheal.com/forum/m/1833799/vie ... ns-threads

Dropping a shield on someone for the Borrowed Time buff helps out immensely for Prayer of Healing.

You can have Grace on numerous targets as well so try to spread the direct heals around ahead of time to help out with AoE heals.

Edit: Oops. Thanks Kelaan.

Linked: http://plusheal.com/forum/m/1833799/viewthread/992099-important-priest-links-discussions-threads

I'm ashamed of my guild some days. Just wow, and the rest of the thread is suspect as well.

Follow the links to plusheal and don't look back here ever. Paladins are terrible Priests.

To be fair... I've been a priest far longer than a paladin... however that's with a shadow primary spec... so... yeah.

and i havent healed on my preist in a while...

besides ive always been more of a tank then a healer

I'm still unsure if I avoided Lev's hate or not . . .

/crosses fingers

No one has.

lev's rage is infamous

... and apparently infinite.