Choosing to play Disc priest in PvP was either the biggest mistake or reward for me in Shadowlands because it really improved the way I play the game but at the cost of lots of frustration trying to make it work and get into a flow.
It’s not like other classes where the answer of what to do is clear. Disc priest is an abstract Picasso painting open to interpretation rather than an instruction manual, unless you’re doing PvE.
Because of trying to master Disc, I use more macros than I’ve ever used before, some required to play effectively like the barrier cast-on-click, which literally saves you 1 to 2 secs and also using a macro that either cleanses an ally or the enemy target automatically with one button, a simple but crucial thing that saves you a thought process and a button and if you’re playing Disc and not using those two then you’re playing in 1950.
I also never had to put so much effort into being good with a class because of so many good decisions you need to make and the things you need to be aware of, like positioning, needing to still do damage but avoid cc, when to use costly cd’s, when to heal/shield. I need ore addons to help accomplish these things well now than I ever did ever in the history of me playing WoW.
If you play poorly you’ll be out of mana in no time, do very little damage being too passive, getting yourself or teammates killed being too aggressive as you have no way of getting out of bad situations/decisions or ending up being CC chained and for the most part helpless as your cd’s are not strong or effective enough in desperate situations, PS anyone? lulz!
And for what? after struggling to gain rating for the past few weeks, watching my skill and gameplay and understanding of all things PvP sky rocket to levels I haven’t held before I am still yielding the same poor results, part of this is because of boosters and because I’m not a meta boy that goes with meta comps, which is extremely frustrating but still, with a Paladin I’d be way past where I am now. And I don’t personally feel much reward playing in a meta, like RMP or Jungle and I prefer 2’s, but I might actually have to go Holy Paladin since it goes with everything.
If I had went Paladin like I planned on continuing from BFA, not only is it the clear PvP meta healer by far it’s also 100 times easier to master as it’s straight-foward to understand and be effective with and yet just as effective in many cases than Disc that takes 5x the work and skill to accomplish the same results.
Disc in PvP is a multitask monster and in an arena is just extremely disappointing, the reward just isn’t there for that all the effort and skill. All the effort you need to put into a match is to stay average or on the good side of things in healing and damage so that you can compete with a Paladin, all while trying to stay alive through massive burst and pressure from the many things will easily kill you while trying to do things you need to actually do to win the game, like damage and cc, which is near impossible to do while you and your teammates HP pools are quickly dropping and you don’t have the mana efficiency to maintain all the things you need to do, you’re handicapped and put into a situation where you must do so many things right as fast as you can before the game can drag on for any reasonable time.
The only reward is that if you master or get good with Disc priest you are in my mind one of the most capable players in the game. You’re given all these disorganized ingredients and the odds are completely against you but you can still manage to squeak out a win, against a huge handicap.
I know MW and Resto are feeling the pain too, but Disc priest sort of teases you, because it’s like you could do really well but then it just sabotages you and forces you to play certain comps or gain an immense amount of skill before progressing in arena, so it’s like a tease, it’s like you can get to the championship game but you always lose in it badly, even when you did everything right and outclassed your opponents.
disc is awesome right now. Got rival in 2v2 at 208 ilv;) play with a good ww monk or affli - free rating.