So I haven’t played Priest since WoD but I want to level up an Alliance character for the story and mounts in 8.1.5 so I’m looking to pick up my old priest again. For someone who hasn’t done any healing in awhile which spec is easier to pick up right now? I’m not really looking to push mythic+ keys I just want to know what’s going to be more forgiving for someone who hasn’t played the class in awhile.
I know that in regards to Priests, Disc seems to be the way to go currently. I can’t tell you how many Disc Priests will top the meters, along side Resto Druids. They are even more so viable in PvP situations as well. I’ve literally had 3-4 people trying to take one Disc down, and they give up and walk off, almost 95% of the time. Good luck with your Mythic pushes.
What patch are you playing? They’re not doing to hot in pvp atm.
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In terms of ease, 100% Holy. Disc has a steep learning curve and is much more punishing. Holy is very easy to pick up and do well with, being very intuitive and forgiving.
Babydoll, I don’t know if you’re going off outdated numbers, but Disc is one of the lower throughput healers right now, and is having quite a hard time in PVP.
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Most of the Priests Im around are topping meters, and in World pvp measures, they are almost unkillable.
Im not the only one who things the same about this class spec either. There’s a number of Disc postings about the same topic.
When Im seeing a small handful of people, struggling to kill one Disc, broader opinions form.
Play with better players… disc is nowhere near where they were…
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If multiple people are struggling to kill a disc priest, they’re more than likely not good. Wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t even interrupting, or trying to lock the priest down.
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If you want an easy spec play Holy. If you want a fun spec, play Disc.
Disc is harder to play competently but once you make it through the learning curve it is so much more rewarding. If you want to run normal dungeons for leveling go with Disc because they are pretty easy and it is a good opportunity to learn the spec without a lot of pressure.
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Anecdotes aren’t definitive proof. You can have individual priests who are quite good and top the meters, but on average, priest is low throughput HPS. Here’s cumulative data for Disc in normal and heroic raid:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/21#metric=hps&difficulty=3
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/21#metric=hps&difficulty=4
Now it certainly brings added dps, and damage reduction that doesn’t show up on the meters, but in pure HPS meters, Disc averages below average or last. I don’t know of any similar graphs / data available for dungeon HPS, but the consensus is it’s also low.
Unless you mean something OTHER than HPS meters?
As for PVP, I don’t have any data on that either, but if you have data showing Disc’s performance in PVP, I am interested in seeing it.
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I do alright in rated BGs, but arena Im just a sitting duck.
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Disc is great in World PvP. Can either kill or stalemate any class 1v1, which makes you fearless while questing with Warmode on. Also is the better spec for M+ if you plan to go that route.
Holy is in a great spot for raiding if that’s what you plan to do, and is a more forgiving spec to play. You can be more successful as holy with less skill then disc.
Disc you have to know the damage patern’s and plan for damage with throwing out atonements before it hits then bursting as it does, where holy it’s just healing cycling your three main heals.
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I think at the top 1 or 2% of priest healers disc is better when played near perfectly, but unless you are either a very experienced mythic raider or pushing content like +15 or higher M+, holy is the way to go in my personal opinion. I probably see at least 10 bad or mediocre disc priests for every decent one.
As a way of explaining, to play holy to maximize it’s potential, the main thing you do is cast your cooldown spells (pom, halo/star, circle, holy words), on cooldown, time your big cooldowns correctly (hymn, salv/apoth), and then cast the correct filler heals. On the other hand, disc requires you to properly manage atonement buffs, watch cooldowns (together these two require you to predict damage and prepare for it 5-10 seconds in advance), use big cooldowns correctly, and the filler is a mix of applying atonement/spot healing and doing a proper DPS rotation, which has its own cooldowns and requires you to manage dot and debuff timers as well. The atonement mechanic takes a lot of practice to master, especially in a raid environment, and can be really difficult if you aren’t already used to the DPS playstyle and disc’s cooldowns. Holy is by far easier to jump into and play if you haven’t been on priest in a while. I’ll also note that disc is way different now than it was on WoD - my recollection from when I played disc for a while then was that shield spam was a lot stronger than it is now.
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Personally I am enjoying holy more than disc for the top ups and the heal panic buttons. I feel like holy is more forgiving especially when your group stands in fire. And I love the visuals
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you are about 3 patches late disc are the worst pvp healer currently
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40 lifetime hk’s
9 years played 50k hk’s how much pvp do you even do
Disc is dead in pvp
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Disc got nerfed hard in PvP. I used to be able to survive dogpiles of up to 8 people (or 2-4 if they were actually trying to lock me down), now I can’t stand up to 2-3 who know what they’re doing.
Which…I suppose is how it’s supposed to be? But seeing as how Disc struggles in M+ from lack of throughput, not real encouraging for the spec.
Holy is fine in all things PvE, very easy to learn to play. Shadow is topping DPS meters too, if you don’t want to play heals.
Disc does not struggle in M+ from a lack of throughput.