Pure DPS? Pallies do it better. (I feel lucky to pull 15k DPS on my Disc Priest during pulls whereas my Holy Paladin can easily do 30k DPS)
Poison cleanse in addition to magic and diseases? Pallies do it better.
Sacs, Immunities, and other utilities? Pallies do it better.
Arena? Pallies do it better.
External tank/group cooldowns? Pallies do it better.
Personal survivability? Pallies do it better.
Currently trying to think of a single thing that Priests have over Paladins, not including Holy Priests because it’s a joke of a spec. Can we get this fixed in Shadowlands? Disc only shines in one thing: raids, where they’re tied with… Holy Paladins.
To maximize efficiency, Paladins are required to heal from melee range (glimmerdin as holydins pretty bad). Being in melee range entails more risks like cleaves etc. and disrupts your vision incase the boss/mob you’re hitting blocks something.
Then again, yes, if played to a maximum glimmerdins are overall better than both of our healing specs.
Priests need a bump up in M+ either in throughput (disc) or survivability (holy). I dont understand why blizz isnt looking at buffing M+ talents like lenience or just outright nerfing evangelism and balancing disc around something else. (w/o evangelism disc is throughput wouldn’t be oppressive to warrant a nerf to our overall kit)
Priests have much better damage mitigation than paladins. All of our cooldowns are just that - paladins only have Devotion Aura and Blessing of Sacrifice and Protection which only affect one target.
I agree on the damage part though. I know it’s only a consequence of Azerite Traits but it really needs to addressed.
It seems as though glimmer is just a simpler atonement too. No ramp time required. No understanding of the fight. Just holy shock on cool down and make sure you don’t holy shock something with glimmer already applied. Nothing compared to the ramp of disc
Holy shock on CD isn’t as easy as you think. You’ll need to crusader strike to reduce CD recovery. Also, pally throughput can be somewhat random. If your holy shock does not trigger divine purpose, you’ll be left starved or forced to throw a flash of light.
Anyway back on topic it seems that holy priests excel in scaling content (heroics that have more than 20 players etc) while disc seem to cap out at mythic raids (20’s) perhaps its because maximum amount of atttonement (at a time) caps out at 20 (or less)
It’s only in M+ content that we really need help (as we are also affix dependent)
As a Disc Priest I can defend her. She’s weak but very smart. She brings Intellect and needs Plate. Without plate she is nothing. Are there better classes than disc priest, of course. But really living out your character is impossible with plate that being said. Go find a holy pally in the real world. The game is about choices and if your choice is holy pally over disc priest you know where to find her.
The decision makers at Blizz gave up on BfA class balance in a long time ago.
Glimmer is still too strong despite the target cap, and Pally has too many utility/damage reduction spells compared to any other healer. (imo don’t nerf pally, buff other classes)
Resto druids have seen no M+ nerfs and until a few days ago almost no Raid buffs.
Disc has only seen nerfs because their raid healing/damage/utility has been absurd the whole expansion, but they haven’t compensated for those nerfs in M+ so now Disc feels real bad in 5 mans.
Shaman have seen no love at all this expansion.
Monk got a nice buff in Conflict and Strife for M+, and…yeah, that’s about it.
Holy Priest has been the worst M+ class since early Legion and remains the worst to this day 3 years later. Literally no M+ buffs of any kind have happened all expansion.
They have pushed all their resources to Shadowlands. The only class balance we have had all patch was a few 3-5% damage buffs and Druids getting some mana cost reduction. They have stopped caring about BfA. So I wouldn’t expect them to care one bit about class performance for the rest of the Xpack.
As far as unusable spells go Priest have to many to count. She is ready for the battle to change directions. If you don’t give her a reason to she will be just fine, but you have a problem with that somehow. I’ve found groups who can use priests and others who can’t. It’s a play style. I don’t have to have a reason to defend her all you care is that I do. I’m here to fight for her and I do. I think she’s the greatest and so do you.
Three things priest healers have over pallies, in my opinion:
First, disc is here to stay, glimmer is gone soon. Second, if you main Disc or Holy, you have a second healer option minus 98% of the grind. Third, not disc, but holy has hots–maybe not druid hots, but EOL and renew–which some of us like a lot.
Just my two cents. And no, that is not to say priests are better. Just a few things they have over pallies.