I recently decided to level my priest again. I’ve been playing shadow for you’re last few weeks. It’s fun.
I like being able to supply multiple roles though, so I want to give healing a shot on the priest.
I tried Disc out a few nights ago. I played Disc a bit during Legion and figured it’d be about the same.
Turns out I’m an old man now that can’t focus on dpsing and healing at the same time. Lol. My biggest problem was that I was trying to let my atonement be my only source of healing. (Dungeons by the way) and it was a bit hectic. Maybe I need to think of it less as a dps spec that also heals and more of a healer (hard casting) who also dps’s to keep what’s essentially a rolling HoT.
But… I want to try out Holy. Is it still in good shape after the Dragonflight changes/talents? Do you ever struggle keeping people up in regular content?
Last I saw Holy had a lot of healing spells. Like, button bloat numbers.
Is holy at all complex or is it still fairly straight forward?
Do you enjoy it or are you more into Disc?
Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? I want to hear what you think.
This isn’t how Disc plays.
A ton of your healing in dungeons comes from Radiance and PW:S. You basically want to use PW:S on CD, and radiance on group damage (followed by your burst). Renew if you only need atonement on one target, and flash heal whenever you’ve got surge. Atonement will never be strong enough to heal all the damage. Even in legion’s strongest era for atonement we were hitting shadowmend a lot. 
You’ll definitely hit way more damage buttons on Disc, but it’s still getting a ton of healing outside it.
I’ve played Holy in 20 keys last season and something like a 14 key this season so far? It’s fine right now. Not a very complex spec, no. You pretty much hit holy fire and divine star as often as possible for damage, and healing is far more similar to other healing specs, because it’s mostly direct healing.
Holy does have a ‘noob trab’ in Prayer of Healing, which is not strong enough to worry about casting in dungeons, even if talented into. You’re mostly going to single target heal things, with holy words to keep up your divine image as well as on demand burst healing.
But overall, Holy’s the easier healer to get into.
Personally I like playing both, generally tend to play more Disc in dungeons and Holy in raids.
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Both priest specs can heal any level of M+ content, Holy is just (arguably) the worst at it of all healers. On top of that, as Capslock said it’s basically just standing there spamming flash heal and heal with a filler spell thrown in whenever someone isn’t on the brink of death, or a Holy Word when someone is.
As far as keeping people up, as long as there isn’t big sustained rot damage going out, keeping the group up is easy. But in this season a fight like Asaad in Vortex Pinnacle is near impossible unless you coordinate CDs with your group to kill adds, and time your lust. Holy just lacks any worthwhile aoe heals for situations like that (see Prayer of Healing’s 2 second cast time for 10k heals per player)
Holy is definitely the easiest healer to wrap your head around, and you can do any level content on them, just don’t expect to push very high without a solid/coordinated group using defensives and communicating.
Disc is much harder to play, but offers more utility, and worlds better aoe burst healing. You can struggle healing a single target if Penance is on CD, but you have Power Word Life. The rest of your time is spend throwing out shields/renews and dpsing. Night and Day to Holy.
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If you want to learn how to disc priest, I suggest to watch AutomaticJak. That’s how I learned. It’s fun and now, being a holy main since WoTLK, I can’t holy because I love Disc too much. But Atonement IS without a doubt your biggest heals! You just have to know when to have it up, which is the hardest part of playing disc…knowing when to shield, when to burst, etc. Holy is easier to spam heals, but Disc you really should be spamming Smite and Mind Blast.
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Holy is probably better on fights with a lot going on, has a lot more instant cast abilities.
After trying M+ this week I’ve found holy easier for some dungeons especially neltharus and neth lair with their sustained damage profiles on certain bosses.
With s1 tier set you keep using CoH, PoM and use PoH once you’ve procd the tier set. Keep your naaru guy up to help out and use your instant flash heal procs as you need. Very simple healer tbh, doesn’t do as much damage as disc by about 10k overall but you’ll probably find the new season easier to learn using holy. Warlord Sagha was much easier on holy compared to disc.
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