So I played shadow this whole expansion and only switched to Disc or Holy to heal groups but now I would like to try playing those specs full time for solo leveling in DF.
Looking at the Disc preview talents it looks fun.
So, having never played a heal spec priest in solo content how is it? does anyone do it? what current talents do you like? Etc
any info about this playstyle is welcome, including the negative if there is any
You’re basically unkillable, but it takes longer to kill stuff. Avoid mastery, since it doesn’t help your dps any.
When I play a new Priest I always select Holy as the spec. I find that the proper rotation for Holy puts out nearly twice the damage of a Shadow Priest.
Do not do this in Dungeons or Raids. They will kick you for doing it. This comes from personal experience.
That’s the way I see it.
Discipline priests are pretty much un-killable in most solo content. It’s a toss-up which is more survivable between them and affliction warlocks.
I am not sure how it will be in DF, but I have leveled as a holy priest solo since Cata. I enjoy it. And I don’t just spam dungeons to level I quest and occasionally run dungeons.
I’ve leveled the last four expansions on my priest as holy, so it’s definitely doable, but as Orcus says, it takes longer to kill stuff. I did run into a problem once (in Legion I think) where there was a quest mob that could heal itself and I couldn’t muster enough DPS to overcome that mob’s healing–had to call in a friend to help kill it. Aside from that one incident in 4 xpacs, it was slow & steady.
Disc was great in legion but I actually do more damage in BFA and SL as holy.
I solo a Holy Priest because I found they were better at dealing damage than Shadow was at healing.
They are both healing specs, meaning you do not DPS to kill things fast like shadow does. Keep that in mind.
I have always leveled my priest as disc, it’s slower but as someone else said you are essentially invincible so long as you play with two total brain cells. Shadow might hit a little harder but I don’t like having to take time to heal myself up; disc you stay topped off just shielding yourself and hitting stuff, so it’s nice and simple.
Leveling a hunter recently made me realize how miserably low the DPS is though. It’s hard to go back to questing on a healer after that.
Shadow should be better for leveling just because it’s a DPS spec, but… Depending on how you level, sometimes what is more important is single target damage and healing. I don’t think anybody argues that Shadow is bad at damage overall in group content. But leveling solo is another matter. For difficult mobs, you may have better luck with holy or disc compared to shadow. Of course these things don’t matter much when geared up, we are talking about leveling i assume.
That is definitely not a lie. I can’t play a shadow priest to save my soul.
Pretty much unkillable if you play holy or disc in solo world content, but honestly its really hard to die in world content with any class and spec. Other than that you’ll notice that things die A LOT slower when you’re dpsing as a healer. You may enjoy soloing as holy more, because they are capable of some decent burst damage. Im disc like 95% of the time, so i’m used to it, but you may consider the lower damage a bit of a slog. If you’re leveling, healing gets you faster dungeon queues, so theres a benefit.
On my priest, I’ve played discipline since Burning Crusade. It can take a while to kill things when solo but it is possible. I’ve always been able to complete things on her.