ZOMG I'm Disc!Follow

I never thought I'd see the day. But due to RL scheduling issues I've had to stop raiding for the time being, which makes me look like this: . I've been drowning my sorrows in a little PVP, which mostly makes me look like this:, but sometimes more like this:.

I have next to no prior experience with PVP, so I'm just doing battlegrounds right now. Holy has been fabulous for this. PoM + CoH + SoL = WIN. But eventually I'd like to try some 2x2 arena with my husband's rogue. I'm not sane enough to entirely discount dabbling in this as Holy, but even a die-hard Holy fan like me can acknowledge that Disc is the more likely choice. So I decided to respec and practice and try to get the fundamentals of Disc down. My total time played as Disc before this was before 3.0 and only for 2 days.

This was me for the first 10 minutes:

"Lolwut? Where's my CoH?"
"What does this button do?"
"How come I can't cast Penance on myself?"
"What did I bind Holy Nova to, again?"
"Why do I still have mana?"

Cheers to the priest class for having so much variety that one little respec can make me this clueless.

Muhahahahahaha! My master plan has been put into action. Soon you will bow to the one true disc king!

I can imagine though, if you've been holy since WOTLK disc isn't something easy to jump in. The thing is that the shadow spec, the holy spec, and the 0/0/0 spec heal mostly the same way - disc is the odd man out.

But aye, keep us informed =)

Yep. And though I recognize it's a great spec, we'll see if the playstyle is for me. I'm not looking to be all arena uberl33t or anything, so if I don't end up enjoying Disc, I'll just go Holy and work with what works for me. But I can't really make an informed decision until I've given Disc a fair shake.

Pain Suppression:

Use it as an extra "shield" when PW:S is on CD or your target has the Weakened Soul debuff, Penance is on CD, and Flash Heal won't cut it. Also when you're forced to stay out of LOS. It's essentially a tool to buy yourself some time. Obviously also works great in a place like Ahn'Kahet to heal through an enrage. Only thing to watch out for when casting it on a tank is that there is a solid threat lead so the 5% reduction won't make the mob eat the dps.

It also makes it less likely that your shield will be dispelled, making it easier to survive a Bestial Wrath for example. Key here is to cast it BEFORE the shield is gone.

Power Infusion:

It's obviously your friend whenever you need to heal trough large amounts of damage, be it on a single target or healing the group.

The haste bonus is amazing. 20% from PI, another 25% from Borrowed Time, and possibly another 5 from Enlightenment make Penance for example a 1 second nuke.

You probably won't be stressed for mana, but somebody else in your group might be. They'll be thankful for saving 20% mana on their spells.

Very nice to use offensively too, especially in arena to focus-fire somebody down. Massive boost for caster dps.


Used early in a fight BOTH will be available again thanks to the rather short 2/3 minute CD.


Most important instant cast in PvP is PoM. Use it on yourself when you can be sure that you're being targeted and about to take damage. That way everybody else is still getting healed while you're trying to survive and busy with yourself. If you have it on yourself and you don't take damage, use SW:D to send it flying again while waiting for it's CD to expire.

Holy is about mana management. With disc you're managing cooldowns.


Edited, Feb 2nd 2009 1:42am by Kanngarnix

Bah, I keep thinking of things...

Inner Focus changes dramatically for a Disc Priest. Used right before Penance, it increases crit chance for as long as you're channeling, so it's again a tool that drastically increases your healing if needed rather than just something you'd use to save mana.

Edited, Feb 2nd 2009 2:02am by Kanngarnix

If I need to hit PoH, I tap Inner Focus first to crit on multiple group members and proc multiple Divine Aegis bubbles for the group.

Can't reply, still in shock....

I’ve been PVP Discipline since Season 1, so I do have some perspective that might help you folks. I’ll see what I can do about writing a FAQ, but for now I’ll just share the first things that come to mind.

PVP healing is an exercise in predicting who is going to get hammered next. Watching health bars isn’t much use here. I like to tab-target to an opponent, then hit F to target their target. This person is about to be damaged. Give them a Shield. If they’re hurt already, hit them with Penance, then with a Flash Heal if they’re still low. If they’re not hurt, give them Renew and/or PoM. Then tab-target and focus to get a new healing target.

Pain Suppression is worth saving until you’re facing a Shaman, Priest or spellsteal-crazy Mage. Throw up your Shield, then Pain Suppression to protect it and also lower incoming damage. Follow up with Renew or PoM, then as usual Penance and Flash Heal.

I’m a very aggressive player, always looking for offensive windows between heals. I have Power Infusion macro’d to Mana Burn for when I’m facing off against enemy casters and healers. I win that war most of the time.

Borrowed Time is amazing. It gives you all that spell haste until you cast something that isn’t an instant or channeled, so you can whip out instants with 1.2 second cooldowns, followed by Penance, followed by Flash Heal or Binding Heal or Mana Burn or Holy Fire. In my experience I can get off two hasted instants and a hasted Penance and still reliably get off a hasted spell. It’s possible but risky to squeeze in a third hasted instant—more spell haste makes it more reliable, high latency makes it riskier.

You can’t Penance yourself. But you can write a macro that casts Desperate Prayer/Flash Heal when you have yourself or an enemy targeted and Penance if you have a friend targeted. Write it as a cast sequence macro that resets to the first term (Desperate Prayer) when its cooldown has elapsed.

Always be dispelling, both defensively and offensively.

I am a big advocate of Silent Resolve. Considering how many of the tools in your ******* are dispellable buffs and DoTs, 30% dispel resistance seems like a no-brainer to me.

Keep Psychic Scream on cooldown. Seriously, use it every chance you get, and learn to look for knots of enemies to rush and scatter. You can CC five people at a time with this golden spell.

Finally, look for reliable players and bond with them. Flatter them shamelessly and when they make the slightest gesture at protecting you, praise them like they just cured cancer. You’re trying to cultivate a wall of linebackers who unleash their DPS on incoming threats while you keep them standing. You will never be as effective as a solo healer as you would be as part of a team.

A tiny but seemingly obvious addition to Emmit's post:

Use targettarget macros.

A tank once asked me if I enjoyed being discipline. My response is that I love it, but it can make tanks a little anxious. It is not uncommon during a fight that I let a tank go down 15k and be able to top him off in around 5 seconds. Shield (glyphed)1k , Penance 7.5k, then Gheal 6k. These are conservative numbers and don't take into account crits and the pre-emptive nature of Shield. A quick estimate (I'm assuming at least one crit and DA stacking with shield- I am not sure if or how the two stack at the moment) makes this around 22k effective healing applied in five seconds with 3 buttons pressed.

I've played shadow and holy, now am considering disc. How is disc for questing in Northrend? I'm still doing the rep grind and regular quests even tho I'm 80. I love being shadow, but on my realm, I cannot get instance runs at all (ppl want healers not shadow dps). So I don't have any 80 instance gear right now. Just what I've been able to get from the AH.

Here are my findings. This is battleground only, still haven't set foot in arena:

Pros of Disc over Holy:
1. Much more mana efficient.
2. Higher survivability with Pain Suppression.
3. Kick-*** burst healing capability with Shield-Penance-Flash Heal

Pros of Holy over Disc:
1. More instant casts = higher mobility.
2. Much easier to heal multiple targets at once.
3. Pain Suppression is hard to spell.

IMO, a Holy "PVP" build would also look closer to a Holy PVE build than the 2 Disc builds would, so for casuals it might be a better choice for both 5 mans and battlegrounds without having to respec, at least until dual spec shows up.

I was leveling as holy spec and did Heroic and raid in holy spec during TBC. I am interested on the Disc tree but unable to spec to that due to guild required me to spec holy. Now at level 80 I am spec disc as a healer and I found it fun and the healing style is very different from holy spec. From what I have understand, holy talent boost up the heal output for the spell where big number to top up the party or the Tank, hence holy style will always topping up the tank and the group. Holy healing is to heal up the damage taken. Holy healing also focus on spirit to get mana regeneration from high MP5.

As for Disc spec, I only started to heal as disc for the pass few months and disc spec is concentrated more on the avoidance and absorption of damage taken by the tank and party. PW : Shield, Divine Aegis, Pain suppresion, Grace, Borrowed time. All this talent is to increase the damage absorption for the tank or the group hence most of the time the tank will either be full health or drop 10k of health after the shield expired, but we can still top them up easily with PoM, Penance and we can also apply renew before the shield wear off. Disc priest regen froom casting flash heal, greater heal, penance and the damage absorption by our shield no matter it is on tank or on any other party member. With the talent mentioned above that boost up the damage absorption mean more mana regen for disc priest. Disc priest would prefer Int more then spirit because more int mean bigger mana pool where the calculation of mana regen is based on. As for the healing style, Disc spec is better for Tank healing as they are more powerful for single target heal. With the shield on most of the time, I can still apply renew ,PoM, BH, FH to party member for 5man heroic. The only times I ever use PoH is "oh ****" times where too much of aoe damage to party (exmaple: trying to get achivement by not killing adds when face Zuramat the Obliterator in Heroic Violet Hold) then i will power infused myself and spam PoH to bring up the party health.

I am still loving disc spec as healing as of now because there are less disc spec healer from my server. ( I may be wrong ) Been holy from lvl 1-70, shadow 70-80, so is time for disc spec yeah! :) something away from topic but just wanted to share.

Conversation with a Pug leader who is looking for 3 healers for 1oman Naxx.

Pug leader : [General Channel-Dalaran]LF 3 healers for 10man Naxx
me : Disc spec healer here
Pug leader : er... are you a healer ? can you heal ?
me : ya i am healer, disc spec is good especially on Tank or OffTank.
(silence for a few minute)
me : So do you still need me ?
Pug leader : We don't need your to heal tank, we need you to heal group only. sorry can't
take you.
me : ok np.
Pug Leader : [General Channel-Dalaran] LF 3 healers for 10man Naxx.

I was like wtf but then ROFL and share the story around. So i need to spread the the news that disc priest is actually healers lol.

(all the above mentioned is just my finding from playing and reading, so I maybe right or wrong of miss out some point, so just take it as some noob trying to write in a forum) :)

Honor points are given regardless of the amount of damage or healing you're doing. You're getting honor points when your team is completing objectives, like flag captures, killing an NPC, and those things. You're also getting points for actually winning the match. On top of that there is honor kills, which require you to be in the proximity of somebody killing an enemy player.

If you have a difference in honor gains based on your spec, it's probably because you're closer to the action or you manage to stay alive longer. Or of course you're so used to holy healing that you can keep your people alive longer than you would with "this odd and strange Disc tree", resulting in more kills before your little group dies.



Edited, Feb 6th 2009 9:25pm by Kanngarnix