Trying to decide on a healer to play primarily for pvp mainly arenas and some pve. I have both classes at 50 right now and am trying to just decide which one I want to main.
Having played both a little in some dungeons and battlegrounds rn holy paladins playstyle feels clunky? With having to be in melee range to get holy power. While disc priest feels a little more natural by doing damage to heal and protect. But I supposed at max lv and some gear and conduits etc maybe both play differently.
What are your guys opinions ?
I would say disc priests are a lot more consistent. And holy pala has bigger burst due to their cooldowns.
They are both healers with strong defensive cooldowns and good utility, and they both deal good damage for healer specs.
One big difference to note is. While disc priests heal by doing damage, holy paladins have to choose whether to heal or deal damage. There is no atonement mechanic for holy. Basically every ability and resource in the holy paladin kit can be used for damage or used for healing, and choosing when to do what is a big part of holy. Disc seems like it has more of a set goal in how it operates, but I haven’t played it so I can’t say for sure.
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Disc offers more flexibility and meshes with most comps pretty well. If I was going to play any other healer it would probably be disc.
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The discipline playstyle has never clicked for me, so I would choose holy paladin. But yeah, hpals are probably the clunkiest spec in the game. They are effective, but playing them feels like a pain at times.
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Disc and Holy are both ranked as top tier healers right now from what I know. But Disc is probably more fun.
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Disc is great and escpecially good for healer mains since there’s always holy (which isn’t meta, but gives you a breath of fresh air when disc gets boring in a content).
Also has been consistent good since BfA with some lows, but never hated and always high skill ceiling which provides tons of room to feel like you’ve improved. Holy Paladin feels like, once you get it you got it and rinse and repeat every fight.
A little bit of a high jack here but, I’m in a similar boat. I’ve never really healed before and am looking for something fresh and do have a priest and paladin. Rolling shadow and protection atm.
Which one is better to ease myself into healing? I have heard disc has quite the skill cap. I need something exciting and fast paced (loving protection for the apm).
I’ve kind of already got that stale feel for shadowlands and dpsing and am hoping healing will bring back my interest in the game. It’s hectic last time I tried which may have been as far back as cata.
More of a filthy casual I’ll admit. Bgs, mythic + is probably going to be my go to. Any help or advice or any other healer suggestions would be fine. It’s so quick and easy to level now.
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So, I have decided to bite the bullet and shelve my pally and boost a priest. I am not max lv yet but have healed some dungeons as disc and random sub 60 bgs. So far I like it a lot more than holy paladins play style. It feels more natural? For me after being a dps main for years shielding allies and getting atonements up then doing damage to heal any damage received. The rotation feels a but smoother than holy pally as well since I do not have to switch between melee and caster.
I am looking forward to trying out holy also. I do see where people say disc has a higher skill ceiling with needing to predict oncoming damage at times.
I hope this helps. 
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I wouldn’t recommend Hpal if you’re looking to “ease into healing”, it’s a different beast than any other healer. Personally I’d run Holy Priest the first few days of healing (reactive and straightforward) and then delve into Disc
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Thank you for the reply. I shall try it out. Just a quick question, I usually skip traight to bfa for leveling. Will the toolkit at such a low level be OK for bfa dungeons? I remember a few of them being very tough. Well, for me starting out as a healer anyway 
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While disc early on does not have its full kit I did not really have a problem. Though I imagine holy is much easier before max lv so you can always try that out too.
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Oh awesome, thanks so much for the heads up. I think I’ll queue up and alternate between the two. Can’t wait to give it a shot!
Is healbot definitely something I should be using? I certainly want to be as effective as I can
My question for you all would be: which healer between disc and hpal are better in groups that make mistakes? Which is better at saving a bad group?
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Disc is a more enjoyable play style for me.
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I personally don’t have enough brain space for all keybindings for all damage spells and healing spells. I used to use healbot but have moved over to Vuhdo. They do the same thing healbot just looks dated and I’d get weird visual bugs sometimes.
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I remember when it was just a shield spec. “shield + pennance” and that was it lol.
Do you want to DPS in melee or DPS at range.
- Basically the choice is that.
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I raid on my disc, but am switching the my hpal for mythic +. Disc is far more offensive and has a more diverse set of cooldowns, but I feel it doesn’t handle the really heavy moments as well as my hpal. I recommend messing around with talents on your hpal, as there are a lot of variations and it took me a while to figure out which one I like best.
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