Hello everyone,
I just wanted to come here and ask for some assistance in terms of disc priest healing. I just made an alt priest and at first is was a lot of fun, I could keep up with incoming damage and sort of predict when damage would spike. Now nearing the level forty bracket it’s hectic to keep anybody alive, the tanks I’ve tried to heal get chunked for massive damage and I don’t have enough time to focus on damage to pump out big numbers. Is there something I’m doing wrong or is it just really difficult to play as a disc priest in low levels?
It’s not you, it’s the game. When Blizz introduced the scaling system in 7.3.5, it seriously threw off the tuning in a lot of the middle leveling areas. All healers become reduced to spamming their biggest heals, and for Disc that means basically atonement becomes useless and you’re reduced to spamming Shadow Mend and direct Penance. The Castigation talent or Twist of Fate should help. You can go Holy for a bit of an easier time, though still expect to be spamming Flash Heal / Serenity a lot. It gets better around MoP and atonement doesn’t hit like a wet noodle anymore, so do whatever you need to do to get through it. Sorry I can’t give you better news!
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Well I certainly appreciate the information! I was beginning to think maybe I just wasn’t so good at playing priest, is disc fun in current content by chance?
Disc is extremely fun in current content! In Raid and M+ both.
Some affixes are a bit more difficult in M+ to deal with, but overall I am really enjoying it.
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One mistake I often make on my disc priest is forgetting about the smite absorb debuff. When you smite an enemy it places a debuff on them absorbing a percentage of the damage their next hit does. This helps mitigate tank damage. Smite is also very strong for atonement heals, and spamming smite after Radiance is typically a good idea.
You want to avoid being in a situation where you’re spamming shadow mend (though we’ve all been there) because now you’re losing the smite debuff and any potential aoe heals you get from it. When you do cast shadow mend try to immediately follow with a shield to absorb the dot.
Another thing is to try to make sure you fit in as many Shadow Word: Pain dots on enemy targets as possible. Those small ticks add up to a decent amount of healing over time on your allies with atonement up.
Don’t be afraid to just cast Radiance when available and spam a single enemy target with penance and smite to heal your group up. Another option is to try rotating your cooldowns on pulls: Pain Suppression on one, Repentance on the next, Barrier on the next, etc. This will reduce the amount of healing you need to do per pull.
The biggest problem with Disc is getting caught up in direct heals. You want to avoid direct heals whenever possible and try to do all of your healing through atonement. Ideally you should only be targeting party members to throw up shields and the occasional shadowmend. I know that in reality sh!t happens and I’ve done plenty of shadowmend spamming myself, but I find that I do better when I just focus on my atonement throughput and try to avoid panicking and spamming shadowmend and penance to direct heal party members.
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Overall great advise, there’s only one point where I disagree with your suggestions:
Quite the opposite, you should never (or almost never) follow a shadow mend with a pw:shield on the same target, that’s a big waste both in mana and a global that you could have used for something better, if the target is not going to continue to take damage then your atonement should take care of the dot by itself, otherwise if he’s going to continue to take damage, well that damage will eat the dot anyway.
Everything else you said is great advise!, well except for the “Repentance” part, I think you meant “Rapture”
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Keep in mind this guy’s level 40, he can’t utilize a lot of that advice at that level.
Dilvah, no one can tell you whether you will find Disc fun as it’s very subjective. Some people love it, some hate it. Surprisingly not a lot of middle ground. 
It’s a very fast paced, frenetic spec with constant target switching and a lot of things to keep track of. It’s also got a steep learning curve and can be punishing of mistakes. The thrill of pulling it off is absolutely worth it for those who love it - for those who don’t, it’s just frustrating. The nice thing is, you can balance it off with Holy, which is a lot more intuitive and forgiving.
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Generally speaking, you should go with the defensive build in dungeons while leveling. Schism-Solace-Penance is very niche. I would not bother with it until you get to max level and start raiding. Even in Mythic+, the defensive build is superior unless you are playing with pros.
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Eh while leveling I found the defensive build boring. Once you get over level 90-100 you pretty much just AFK dungeons. with the offensive build I was doing some boss fights where I was top DPS, granted was in full heirlooms.
Yea with disc if you get behind its going to cost allot of mana to catch yourself back up with shadowmend spam rather then through atonement.
It’s a double edge sword for me pugging currently. I’m trying to drink because im close to oom but the tank is already pulling the next pack so I can’t be there to spread atonements and SWP. So i’m already at a disadvantage. Benefits of pugging.
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That’s good to hear! I wanted to level a couple toons for healing for when my guild pushes for progression so I figured priest would be a good alt.
Something you pretty much absolutely need as disc heals is mouse over macros. This means you can keep the enemy as your target and just hover your mouse over another friendly target to heal them, apply shields, pain suppression etc… Here are the instructions on how to create these. Seriously changes the disc game.
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