Advantages and Disadvantages of Disc/Holy? (Priest) PvE

[innocentguy]

TBH, I struggle when using disc to heal in 5-mans. You definitely have a much lower healing output in disc than in Holy.

However, Disc is fantastic for raids. In 5-mans, you can shield everyone but the shield pops fast (lets face facts) and we can't put it back on anytime soon. In raids, there are alot more people to shield and by the time you finish shielding everyone the weakened soul debuff is probably over on the first guy you shielded.

Shielding also helps in quite a few major boss fights. LK for example, where shields prevent Defile from spreading and also make it easier to get rid of Infest.

I also feel that disc is alot more gear dependent though.

[Intervention]

5man healing is okay but yes it can be annoying, just control your CDs.

Discipline mana consumption is a bit of a killer so in that sense it can be a little dependent on gear and in 5man you are healing a lot more than say a druid or a shaman.

But yes, 10man raids and especially 25 man raids discipline priests are fantastic.

[Nyaneve]

I honestly find no problem while healing 5 mans as Disc. My bubbles are strong and penance/FH are always ready to heal. I've faced some mana issues as Disc, but you shouldn't try to avoid Spirit in the earlier phases. I'm almost completely geared on spirit ATM.

[Intervention]

Dunno why you are geared for spirit... If you are having mana issues go for MP5 or intellect so you can at least gain more from them than spriit which gives you nothing other than regen...

[Nyaneve]

Mp5 gives nothing other than regen as well. At least spirit can scale with a few buffs, but then again, a heavily geared Disc priest needn't worry about anything other than SP, while I'm still low geared with a small mana pool.

NOTE: Spirit is not really desired by us, as we do not benefit from it in any way other than MP5, which you probably guessed, we can also acquire from MP5. But do not pass up on upgrades that come and fart in your face just because they have Spirit on them (I said Spirit is not desired by us, not that it is useless for us).

Also, there are very few non-spirit cloth items before T10 because Mages, Locks and Druids (that roll on said cloth items) have a significant benefit from Spirit. I guess Blizz got bored of Spirit items for DD classes?

[Intervention]

It's inevitable you'll get spirit but you'll gain more regen from mp5 anyway. Obviously from both you gain regen but question is, which would you get more use from? mp5 is the answer i believe.

And if i had a choice between intellect and spirit, intellect is easily the choice here.

[Kindzadza]

For endgame both stats are terrible.But if you have troubles keeping mana,don't gem neither of those.Better increase your mana pool with intelect and use a MP5 trinket.

[Nyaneve]

However, contrary to common beliefs, MP5 is no longer clearly better than spirit for discipline priests. If you look at the end results, discipline priests gain around 0.45 MP5 from 1 point of spirit in the given scenario. Since itemization lets you usually choose between 2 spirit and 1 mp5, 2 spirit gives you around 0.9 MP5.

Now, according to this, MP5 is still around 10% better than spirit (around 5% for humans). However, this result is highly sensitive to the int baseline and the assumed times OO5SR. Here are some examples how this can affect results:

Time OO5SR changed from 5% to 10% for disc: 1 spi -> 0,4941 mp5 for human disc priests
Int baseline changed from 2000 to 2200 for disc: 1 spi -> 0,4946 mp5 for human disc priests

Rule of thumb:
Don't lose any sleep over choosing MP5 vs. spirit. If you are at around ilvl 264, choose spirit over MP5, given the choice. At sub-264 levels, use MP5 if given the choice. If you want to use the item for a shadow or holy secondary spec, always use spirit.

As an addon, I believe that the discussion was limited to Mp5 vs Spirit here, but yeah, Intellect is the go to stat if you're looking at mana gains from Replenishment effects.

[innocentguy]

Well from my experience holy is better for 5-mans especially if you are low-geared. The weakened soul debuff makes disc in 5-mans difficult as you can't shield as often as in raids. Your healing output is also definitely lower in disc than in holy. And due to Borrowed Time, PW: S is extremely dependent on spellpower which you will have a lack of with low gear.

However I am falling in love with disc for raids. Shields are really an effective way of keeping the raid alive. Especially if you have holy paladins with you. In fights that have constant DoTs, shields help to keep the hp of the raid up and hpalas don't have to cast 20k heals on someone who only lost 5k hp due to a DoT, an amount that a single shield can block. Shields are useful for marrow, for LK (infest, defile). And no other class can shield as effectively as a priest.

[Etro]

With me it was the opposite.

When i was a fresh 80 my mana pool couldn't afford holy spec, i'd go oom in no time. So i had to go with disc (even disliking it) to ensure that i can at least heal and don't go oom in the middle of combat. As a disc you don't have to heal much either. Your main spell as disc is PW:S which absorbs damage. If i had to heal i'd use FH and some PoM, and that was all.

My mana pool could only afford holy passed beyond 5k GS.

[innocentguy]

With me it was the opposite.

When i was a fresh 80 my mana pool couldn't afford holy spec, i'd go oom in no time. So i had to go with disc (even disliking it) to ensure that i can at least heal and don't go oom in the middle of combat. As a disc you don't have to heal much either. Your main spell as disc is PW:S which absorbs damage. If i had to heal i'd use FH and some PoM, and that was all.

My mana pool could only afford holy passed beyond 5k GS.

I had no problems as a fresh 80 healing with holy o.O It's all about mana conservation. Every healing class has it's mana efficient spells. Renew and CoH, PoM are great examples of such spells. I glyph-ed Renew as a fresh 80 to get more throughput out of it. Using mostly Renew, Greater Heal and CoH rather than Flash heal and Prayer of Healing doesn't put that much stress on your MP. You don't have 4P, so FH ain't that great. The party doesn't need to have 100% hp a 100% of the time. It's okay sometimes to wait for the CD on CoH and even Guardian Spirit (glyph-ed).

As a fresh 80, you don't have alot of spellpower which means that your PW: S is kinda weak... I preferred Holy as a fresh 80 cos Holy gets you as much as you can get out of the little stats that you have.

[Etro]

Holy at fresh dungeon runs is very much tank and time dependant. If the tank in your party is geared and skill enough, then sure, holy is a better option. But that was not the most common case, at least in my case. I just couldn't keep alive a 4.3k gs tank alive long enough with my 20k mana pool. Or if the low DPS were talking some time into killing a boss. But as disc, the group had more survivability with only me being in there. Plus, you get more intellect, FH cost reduction, rapture and grace.

[innocentguy]

Holy at fresh dungeon runs is very much tank and time dependant. If the tank in your party is geared and skill enough, then sure, holy is a better option. But that was not the most common case, at least in my case. I just couldn't keep alive a 4.3k gs tank alive long enough with my 20k mana pool. Or if the low DPS were talking some time into killing a boss. But as disc, the group had more survivability with only me being in there. Plus, you get more intellect, FH cost reduction, rapture and grace.

Hmmm I do agree that low geared Hpriests are quite tank dependent due to lack of mana... Especially if random dps-ers just insist on pulling threat. No choice but to let them die sometimes... I don't understand how you couldn't keep a 4.3k gs tank alive though. I managed with glyped Renew, glyped Guardian Spirit and using GH over FH or heal or lesser heal... Even low geared, GH does heal for a considerable amount. Test of Faith helped i guess. 12% heal increase and shizz. This is not in dungeons like Ahn' Kahet however... Those were bugged when I was low geared too so...

I tried both disc and holy as a low geared priest and i preferred holy. Holy gets you more SP from your gear, and more efficient heals. Disc gives you quite a bit of intellect, but heals in disc are weak. And PW: S is very weak with low spellpower. You also can't put PW: S back on anytime soon after casting one. Penance is by far the best single target priest heal ever though. But it does have a CD and GH does not.

Rapture in 5-mans doesn't beat Flash of Light and Improved Healing I think... Not to mention Holy Concentration. I didn't use Flash of Light as a low geared Hpriest though (was still trying out builds, not that it ain't good cos it's great). Rapture is totally badass in raids though XD Can't get over the 15k mana from Rapture in Lady D =)

Grace is totaly made up for with so many other talents in the Holy tree. Grace is also limited to one target...

[Etro]

A low geared tank will often loose agro and you can't spam GH without going OOM almost immediatley when low geared. Renew is too slow and heals little per tick compared of how fast the tank recieves damage.

With disc heals don't need to be powerful, they focus on damage reduction. With damage reduction you don't need to heal as much. And although you can't spam PW:S, you still have Inspiration, Divine Aegis that are awesome with Renewed Hope.

Rapture is not as good in dungeons as in raids, but it still gives you mana back.

[innocentguy]

A low geared tank will often loose agro and you can't spam GH without going OOM almost immediatley when low geared. Renew is too slow and heals little per tick compared of how fast the tank recieves damage.

With disc heals don't need to be powerful, they focus on damage reduction. With damage reduction you don't need to heal as much. And although you can't spam PW:S, you still have Inspiration, Divine Aegis that are awesome with Renewed Hope.

Rapture is not as good in dungeons as in raids, but it still gives you mana back.

That's why i glyped Renew... I don't know what was your personal experience but... I had a much easier time healing with Holy than Disc with weak gear.

Inspiration is a Holy talent that hpriests get too...

Divine Aegis only procs on crits that you won't get often with low gear.

Lets do some math here. With some numbers that I remember from my 4k gs days.

Renewed Hope = 3% damage reduction.

PW: S absorbs 4k maybe on low gear and costs 600 mana in disc. That's 2 ticks of Renew which costs 500 mana. Renew can crit for 1st tick (Empowered Renew).

GH costs 1k mana but heals 10k on holy. It heals 7k on disc and costs 1.2k mana. GH crits for 15k on holy, and on disc it crits for 10k + 3k divine aegis = 13k.

Rapture only can occur once every 12 sec, or rather 15 sec if you are only using it on the tank. With 15k mana (being low geared), that's ~400 mana per 12 sec or 33.3 mp5. Not bad I suppose.

Spiritual Healing improves healing by 10%. Test of Faith by 12% with target below 50% hp. Both Holy tree. Compared to 4% from Focused Power and 10% from Grace on disc. Grace is also single target.

Crit chance increased by 7% for targets with Weakened soul debuff for disc. Without debuff 3%.

Mental Strength increases Intellect by 15% i.e. 15k mana --> 18k. Better than Spirit of Redemption's 5% spirit increase.

Power Infusion reduces mana costs by 20% and has a cd of 1.6 min. Guardian Spirit increases healing received by 40% and glyphed, has a cd of 1 min 10 sec, unless it saves your tank's life in which case it has a cd of 3 min.

Pain Suppression reduces damage taken by 40%, but also reduces threat by 5%.

Holy has CoH. Disc has to rely on PoH for aoe heals. PoM in dungeons isn't amazing. CoH also frequently procs Flash of Light.

I'm not gonna add em up. Every1 has different experiences and playing styles anyway. I found holy much better and easier to use. In disc you can do well if you make use of your cooldowns i guess. Inner Focus, Power Infusion, Pain Suppression... But I'm much too lazy to do that and players new to priests wouldn't know how to use them well too.