I’m not really talking about skill-cap though… Yes when talking about playing at the absolute highest level of play all of those factors apply to any healer, the reality is that VERY few people actually play at that level. I’m talking about what it takes to play the spec to a level in which you are being effective or “good” even.
While every spec benefits from anticipation and encounter knowledge, the extend to how much it matters is what varies. In most cases that’s more of an advanced thing that you can start doing to get that little extra and it does make you a better player, but it’s not at all required to be generally effective and you can generally just wing-it and produce effective healing. The difference with Disc is that all of this is required from the start to even be effective with the spec, this is what gives it a higher entry barrier and it’s a more difficult spec to pick-up and play (not really for skill-cap).
For skill-cap I actually don’t think any spec is really higher than the rest or doesn’t matter if one is tbh, spec specific mechanics don’t really matter or make much of a difference for someone able to play at that level (which again, almost no-one does). This is also why you see the very best players being able to easily swap between different specs and master them really quickly.
But going back to the main discussion of wether the spec is well designed or not, you seem to be married to the idea that you need 3 or 4 different spells that essentially do the same thing to have a well-designed spec (with different coefficients in terms of mana, healing, and cast time ofc which leads them to have different priority). That’s indeed an acceptable model for a spec like Holy which focuses on doing one thing which is direct reactive healing and almost all of your healing comes from that then ofc you need multiple tools for that.
Imho if we talk about specs that are a bit less conventional and get their healing form a more diverse approach, like Disc which gets some from direct healing, some from DPSing, and some from prevention and mitigation. Then you will obviously not have as many tools for direct healing as the spec that specializes on that.
Disc is imho a well designed spec because with what looks like a very basic kit: PW:Shield, PW:Radiance, Shadowmend, Penance, and your DPS rotation you are able to cover pretty much every scenario (oh and your CDs, cooldown usage is pretty big for Disc). Using less tools to accomplish the same thing as others imho shows a more “elegant” solution to the toolkit design problem and it’s not because the few spells are overpowered or anything but because they come together nicely and are flexible enough to achieve that.
And extra points because despite having a pretty basic kit it actually allows for a great deal of skill-expression, often more than what other specs have, again it’s not from the kit itself being complex but from factors like being a proactive healing spec and getting its throughput from different areas (some from direct healing, some from DPSing, some from mitigation).
Now I don’t think a spec being “easier” or “harder” to play has much to do with being well designed or not, some specs are intended to be easier and some to be a bit more challenging… But if the argument is that Disc is poorly designed because there’s no room for skill expression then explain how can there be no room for skill expression yet be the spec that considered harder to pick-up and play (that’s not me saying it, it’s basically consensus).
