I has a priestie dumb

[_dante_sparda_]

Okay, so. I have a tiny priestie who just hit 85 and has had only one spec since vanilla: Shadow. (Yes, I got kicked out of groups a lot just for not being a healer. Yes, it made for very lonely leveling.) Thanks to my love affairs with pallies, shammies and druids, I've acquired the habit of being an oshit healer when the occasion necessitated it

Comments

[roguebait]

Currently, my preference is both. For you though, I recommend Holy.

In general, I have found - and others may disagree with me - that a holy spec is less demanding on gear. When I had a disc priest with a lower gear level, I just seemed to struggle to keep tanks up. I was constantly ooming, so I switched to holy and things went ten times easier.

Holy is, in my opinion, also a little bit more forgiving to the 'new' healers. With the reduced cooldown on Divine Hymn, Guardian Spirit, and your holy words (Serenity can be a godsend. It's not expensive and increases your crit chance on the target), you're a little bit more prepared to 'rescue' miss-steps. Bubbles are nice and all, but I'll take a GS, W:Serenity, Gheal combo any day. And soemthing to remember: In addition to letting you 'cheat' death, GS also increases the amount of healing the target receives significantly

[hooves]

I agree with this.

All other healers are about healing damage that's already been dealt, so it's a lot easier to step in on a holy priest than a disc priest if you're used to the "heal damage already taken" style of healing.

I have seen some amazing Disc healers but if we're talking attempting to heal for the first time on a character's OS? Holy is probably the way to go.

[troll_huntress]

There's a pretty extensive thread on the bnet healing forums right now about haste vs. mastery vs. spirit vs. crit. Personally I prefer haste for discipline, since I concentrate more on casted heals and less on pw:s (although of course I use it a lot too).

[janplayswow]

i started my priest leveling through lfg as holy and kept going out of mana. it was really ridiculous. then i came across a disc priest who didn't have mana problems and was in awe. so i switched to disc to try it out and fell in love. disc priest spite spec (which is what i use) can be tricky because you have to remember to spite (and holy fire too i think?) in order to have stronger heals. but it's super fun - i like the challenge. and if you've done pally healing you're used to using judgement so remembering to attack is not too hard. i've got vuhdo set up to show me targets and run hostile spells.

i haven't tried holy at high levels so i don't know what it's like later on. may i suggest rolling lowbie healers, one with disc spec and one with holy spec and try a few dungeons and see?

[chilayse]

Low level atonement disc priest healing is so much fun. It is a lot more difficult at heroic levels, because of the amount of damage people take, but it's totally possible to do I hear.

[troll_huntress]

My BF was using his atonement disc offpsec for heroic morchok the other night and it was working great. =)

[chilayse]

I love my disc/shadow priest, but I rather recommend holy. The style of healing with holy is more direct than the prevention style of Disc. It's easier to pick up and learn. I only prefer disc because I leveled 10-85 with it,(Atonement disc is great for solo questing) and after 75 levels I'm more used to it.

Give holy a few days of trial and if you like it stick with that, and the same for disc? Try healing regular dungeons first. Then work your way up. If you're really insecure about your healing start with blackrock caverns or throne of tides regular. When you're comfortable try harder things.

[aphrodite33]

My Priest who is 83 is Shadow/Disc right now most likely I'll switch to Holy/Shadow so we will have a raid healer. If my guild ever decides to get off their butts and get going.

But in the meantime I am going to enjoy Shadow; at higher levels I don't have the mana issues at least I haven't encountered any. I did love to level as disc though over shadow.

If I ever level another Priest she will be disc/shadow hahah I just love that combination spec. =)

[rowanf]

I admit most of my priests are holy/shadow. I've tried disc but trying to smite things and keep my eyes on the healy bars at the same time works less well for me. If I am undergeared I have sometimes have problems but with decent gear for the level I never have mana problems and once you train people in your group about lightwells they can be awesome.