SwagVault MMO Blog

The Egotistical Priest

January 8, 2009 – 5:11 am
Posted by: Barberini

So, here we are, half a week into my twiddling around with the Disc spec.

I like it.

A lot.

A LOT.

To the tune of my temporary respec being permanent and our guild farming me Disc gear to replace my holy gear.

To anyone looking for more information on Disc, the comments on my previous post about Respeccing Discipline are incredibly insightful – I recommend going through and taking a look at them.

So what’s the difference?

Disc is about mitigation, Holy is about repair.

Disc is about burst HPS (Heals Per Second), Holy is about Sustained HPS.

Disc has two extra buffs, Holy has extra heals.

Disc is king of single-target healing, Holy is king of AOE healing (from a priest perspective).

Those are generalities. You’ll hear them a lot, because they’re true.

Gear

For disc, I am replacing almost every single piece of gear that I had. And I had one heck of a shiny, delicious, epic-laden holy set, let me tell ya.

But for my holy set, I concentrated on my sustained HPS . I LOVED spirit-heavy gear, and would plan out how I would dance with the FSR (Five Second Rule) to make my mana bar last even longer.

For Disc, I’m concentrating on BURST HPS – how fast and how hard can I hit the tank with a heal. That means that I am gobbling up Spellpower, Haste, and Crit like they were candy, and spirit and MP5 are taking a backseat.

This is counter to everything I’ve taught myself in BC about stats and gear, but it’s not even close to being the biggest mindset change that comes along with the spec.

I’ll post my gear list…later. When I have it in front of me. It’s not the prettiest gear list, since I hate adding links and doing javascript formatting popups and whatnot in my blog posts, but it might help a few people get an idea of where to start looking if you make the swap. My priorities were on gear that I could get immediately – badge upgrades, tailored items, and rep rewards.

Gems and Purchased Enchants

The few items that I did manage to keep from my old set are getting regemmed – my old favorite gem was a green spirit/int gem. My new favorite gem is the red pure spellpower gem.

My old meta gem is history – my new meta gem won’t be accessible to me for three more days of JC dailies – it will be the Revitalizing Skyflare Diamond, with the 3% healing crit and the MP5.

My old helm enchant is also history – my new helm enchant comes from Violet Hold and has spellcrit on it.

My old shoulder enchant is also gone, replaced with Greater Inscription of the Storm – spellpower and crit.

I used a tool called RAWR to help me work out gear values and plan out my upgrades. (I also used my long-suffering and very RAWR-knowledgeable husband, but he’s been sufficiently bribed for his efforts, I assure you)

Stats

This was partially covered in the Gear section, but I’ll reiterate for clarity.

In holy, I went for spirit first, int second, and spellpower third.

In disc, I go for spellpower first, crit (and int, since it translates into crit and scales the return from Replenishment), haste…then farther down MP5, and only THEN do I care about spirit.

It’s not that spirit’s useless, it’s just that it’s so much LESS useful for disc than it was for holy.

Which makes the fact that a holy priest can only access the Improved Divine Spirit buff by giving up keystone Holy talents for it even MORE irritating but that’s a rant for a whole nother post.

Assignments

A holy priest is MUCH more versatile in healing than a Disc priest is. This is attributed a great deal to Circle of Healing, which has an incoming 6 sec cooldown nerf, but it’s not the only reason. Because Disc priests focus on burst healing and prevention rather than sustainability, we are ideal to heal the tank – a person that you know is taking a LOT of EXPECTED damage.

Note those capitalized words? Reverse them and you’ll find what a disc priest is not so good at. When you are trying to heal someone who is taking UNEXPECTED or NOT A LOT of damage. That, my friends, is what we call raid healing – splash and aoe damage, often on random targets.

If we don’t know where the damage is going to happen, we can’t preemptively bubble, which immediately cuts our effectiveness in half. If we have to heal multiple targets, our only options are :

1) Bubble everyone. Instant cast (except the GCD)…but doesn’t HEAL them, it simply prevents a set amount of incoming damage. If they’re not still taking damage, the bubble is a waste (well, arguably, given the buffs we get and they get from the bubble, perhaps calling it a waste is a bit harsh – but it is not a HEAL capable of fixing the damage that’s been done to them).

2) HoT everyone. Instant cast (except the GCD) and has a delay before the heal part takes effect.

3) Flash Heal everyone. Takes a lot of time, even hasted.

4) Prayer of Healing. Takes a lot of time, even hasted, and only hits people near us and people in our group.

None of those is even CLOSE to as effective or intelligent as having a shaman chain heal or a holy priest CoH or a druid do…that…thing…with the leaves and the aoe healing whidgewhatsis.

Now, don’t get discouraged. I have very successfully healed five mans and some raid damage. But AOE healing is no longer as strong as it was. You’ve got to be vigilant and know your new ohcrap buttons very well, and what situations in which to use them.

Don’t think that Disc priest can’t heal anyone but a tank – that’s just not true. But any raid leader assigning a disc priest to raid healing better have a very very very VERY good reason for doing so, and if it happens often enough, that priest should almost certainly go respec holy, if only for their own sanity.

Summary

My initial thoughts on this spec are that it is more than ‘viable’ – it’s strong. It’s very strong.

It does take a mental shift of gears to get used to. The panic buttons are in all new places. The spells you use in situations have changed.

To do it right, you have to change as a healer. You have to change your gear, your enchants, your outlook, and your reaction.

It’s more than just changing a spec.

But it is TOTALLY worth it.