I’m looking at both healers to use as my main for numerous reasons (listed below) but I just can’t make up my mind between the two. I have played Holy Pala before in wrath up until ICC (only normal) but I didn’t knew half of the nuances of the spec until years later when it was already unrecognizable from it’s TBC/Wrath iteration.
Why I’m looking at Disc Priest:
I have mained holy priest throughout Classic and TBC so I know the class well
very high utility in raids in wrath with shielding
different playstyle compare to just spamming flash
nice offspec role in Shadow, which is supposedlyalso improved a lot in Wrath
Why I’m worried about Disc Priest:
weird/clunky playstyle with mainly shielding targets (?), not feeling fluid.
high skill ceiling presumably - according to guides
you only need one per 25m raidgroup
Why I’m interested in Holy pala:
class and spec feels familiar - Hpala is still my main in SL (though I quit months ago)
A beast of a healer in Wrath
low skillcap presumably, lower so than disc priest
ret as offspec, which is also a nice dps spec in wrath
Why I’m worried about Holy pala:
boring-ish playstyle with only using 3 spells to heal (flash/hl and shock)
Ret needing a seperate gearset while shadow can use pieces from disc (I think, someone correct me if I’m wrong there)
Someone with experience in either or both healers that wants to share their input would be most welcome!
I’m personally playing disc priest.
Holy paladins just look so boring to play in general.
But if you want an easy healer, holy paladin is the way to go.
Hmm sorry but I find it weird what you’re saying. Holy is not fat heals at all since I barely use GH aside on fights like Brutalus. We’re thé aoe healers with renew and CoH, and this remains the same in wrath. All other healers are just better than holy priests in Wotlk, hence why they don’t get taken to raids often (in an ideal comp).
As for disc, I was under the impression PW:S is the main spell, with a bit of spothealing, mainly Penance and flash heals, with the occasional renew. GH is just too slow to use for a disc priest I believe.
The main difference is pre-emptive healing and reactive healing. This difference alone makes discipline much easier to pull off than hpally.
Discipline in 25mans is solely about PWS and Power Infusion to make a Fire Mage go Zug Zug. No Flashes, no penances (or very rarely). Discipline priest’s shielding can never end up as overheal so even if you don’t pick your targets absoltely right, it is never a waste. It is more mechanically challenging than hpally, tho.
Holy paladin is exactly the opposite. Tank is healed automatically via Beacon of Light, but your main healing targets are people who suffer sudden hp drops. The very same healing method use Shamans with their Chain Heals. If two or more healers decide to heal the same target (which is often the case, both of you logically pick the target with the least current HP), only one will actually pull it off and other heals are a waste in form of overhealing. That’s why you shouldn’t stack hpallys and/or resto shamans in general, unless you assign one of them to tank healing exclusively (which is another form of waste). In short, Hpally is much harder to be played effectively due to healing competition from resto shamans or in the worse scenario another hpally. If you don’t feel comfortable with reactive healing, you might find yourself somewhat lacking as Hpally.
A short summary
Disc - pre-emptive shielding
Resto druid, Holy Priest - pre-emptive healing
Hpally, Resto Shammy - reactive healing
The two have had very different roles. And, throughout the expansion, specifics changed a lot.
Maybe fixed Wrath but shielding tends to prevent reflects and rage generation. I don’t remember tanking with Ret Aura anymore (just the 9-6-9-6-9 rotation) so maybe only affects warriors and bears, if even.
Paladin’s Beacon of Light used to have various versions over time, the casual “just copy all heals” wasn’t always there. We were running two paladins, healing the two tanks, providing a combination of Flash and Holy Light. Only non-overheal Holy would copy. And it was slow and expensive.
However. I changed to Holy + Protection sometime late ToC and I really enjoyed Prot for dungeon runs, both in RDF and soloing BC stuff, heroics included iirc. In contrast to our disc priest who would regularly splat in BC normals earlier, during Ulduar (helping me with the quests and farms on my then-74ish ret pally).
Since creatures during WLK had 10-12k health, and by ICC 12k dps was achievable, also comparable dps as tank (3-4k?), I simply don’t see any point of being ret (in comparison to MoP where 350k vs 50k was a big deal on Timeless).
Ultimately, I’d level both and then experiment.
If you end up in a 25m guild, you might end up with 2 pallies, 2 priests (one spec each), and 2-3 resto (one class each again).
tl,dr: Tank spamming or raid healing? Working around beacon or shields?
why does disc give you this feeling?