Thinking Disc priest over REsto sham

I was thinking about moving from a resto shaman to a disc priest and would like some help


What macros have you set up for healing and what buttons have you hot keyed?

Would holy be better since there is so much AOE damage in the new instances?

Thanks

circle of healing is hax it's so easy, i'de go holy all the way

The theorycrafter in me thinks that a dual spec disc/holy priest is the ideal 5 man healer. Holy is insanely easy and powerful AoE heals, powerful tank heals, and decent mitigation. In heroics, i only ever pre cast PW:Shield, renew and PoM, and spam smite... For Fights that have aoe damage, use holy spec. For fights that have a lot of tank damage, go disc and take advantage of all the mitigation.

For Discipline, I have hotkeys for:

Repeater Region Heals.
- PW: Shield
- Renew
- Flash Heal
- Penance
- Pain Suppression

Assist Tank, Renew on friendly, or Renew on Target's Target.
Assist Tank, Penance on friendly, or Penance on Target's Target.

Holy Nova (mouse thumb button)
Prayer of Healing (mouse thumb button)

Fortitude on target.
Spirit on target.
Levitate on target.

Click DPS Key (one with priest DPSing, one without priest DPS).
Mass Dispel
Psychic Scream

Prayer of Mending (on active toon).
Power Infusion (on active toon).



*Edit*
If you already have a shaman on the team, a Priest is a much stronger healer.
If you don't have a shaman anywhere else on the team, a Resto shaman gets you a lot more besides heals.

I like disc healing better than holy. Unless you already have nice gear disc is less stressful. I like disc because I do less healing and more damage prevention. I can also DPS more effectively when not healing. Here are the macros I use. I hate posting macros I write because I get flamed to hades but it will give you some idea probably.

Code:

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#show Penance
/castsequence [target=coltimar,nochanneling] reset=combat Power Word: Shield,,,,,,Penance,,,,,,Flash Heal,,,,,,Renew, Power Word: Shield,,,,,,Flash Heal,,,,,Penance,,,,,Flash Heal,,,,,,Flash Heal,,,,,,

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for DPS

Code:

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#show Holy Fire
/click MultiBarBottomRightButton1
/click MultiBarBottomRightButton2
/click MultiBarBottomRightButton3
/click MultiBarBottomRightButton4
/click MultiBarBottomRightButton5
/use 13
/use 14

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Code:

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#show Penance
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=combat Penance,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/cast Inner Focus

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Code:

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#show Shadow Word: Pain
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=combat Shadow Word: Pain,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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Code:

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#show Devouring Plague
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=combat Devouring Plague,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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Code:

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#show Mind Blast
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=combat Mind Blast,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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Code:

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#show Smite
/cast [nochanneling] Smite

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Most of the DPS macro was cannibalized from stuff here. It works well enough for my needs. Basically I try to keep PW:Shield, Renew and Pain Suppression on the tank whenever they are up and I heal with Penance and Flash Heal (which isn't the best for mana). As I look at this again it would be more efficient if I took out at least one Flash Heal. My gear is sort of a limiting factor on this toon.

Disc is wonderful. Sometimes it feels like cheating ;) Holy Nova spam practically makes your team immortal for as long as you have mana. Even if you got decent health, it's worth it to just cast it sometimes for the chance of shields, which is disc's main strength. Here are my keybinds for easy access:

1 - tank macro for initial aggro
2 - tank and dps macros

Priest only:
3 - Flash heal tank
4 - Prayer of Healing (rarely used)
5 - Holy Nova
W - castsequence with PW: Shield and Prayer of Mending on tank

Numkey1 to Numkey4: heals specific partymembers except tank. I use hardcoded names here.

And that's all you need. I skipped Penance and instead grabbed Spiritual Healing from the Holy tree.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by daviddoran

The theorycrafter in me thinks that a dual spec disc/holy priest is the ideal 5 man healer. Holy is insanely easy and powerful AoE heals, powerful tank heals, and decent mitigation. In heroics, i only ever pre cast PW:Shield, renew and PoM, and spam smite... For Fights that have aoe damage, use holy spec. For fights that have a lot of tank damage, go disc and take advantage of all the mitigation.

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I agree with this. My priest is dual specced to holy/disc. I use disc most of the time. Disc for trash and some bosses. Other bosses require more AoE type heals. You can interweave dps between heals on your priest in most cases. Some bosses require your priest to heal 100% of the time. Having a dual specced holy/disc gives you the best of both worlds. I am not impressed with shaman healing. While it is true that shamans bring a lot of utility in the form of totems they are still a hybrid class. A pure healer is the way to go. I have toyed with priest, shaman, and druids for healing for 5 mans and I have found that the priest works the best for me.

I don't even bother with holy anymore in pve. I really don't see much of an advantage to circle of healing since the few nerfs its gotten, it just isn't that good anymore. I'm disc all the way. However I've got to say if you are considering a circle of healing spec... check out

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#bVcbuhh0oZsEzcb0qi0hxzA

it seems bizarre at first but Ive run this build for a long time in pvp and the amount of spot healing and aoe in that build are just incredible.

Circle of Healing spam keeps surge of light up pretty much at all times giving you instant flash heals, not to mention inspiration for 10% reduced physical damage.

The big selling point though is keeping Soul Warding. Zero cooldown power word: shield is just OP.

You can basically just spam your instants with this build and it makes group damage disappear :)

Views on leveling to 80.

Holy:
Mana intensive. You have more AoE healing but it will drain your mana very quickly. When I needed to AoE heal a lot my priest would go OOM and I would lose the fight anyway. I had to really manage mana very carefully and drink after all but the most trivial encounters. Maybe my priest was just not geared properly for Holy.

Disc:
What a difference. No mana issues at all. I think my priest went OOM only during Insanity and even then it didn't matter as the priest got enough mana back to cast some spells that generated even more mana. Most fights the priest end up with almost full mana. Holy Nova spam is great and I think my priest with current gear will be able to sustain healing for much much longer than Holy. The entire Disc tree is just reduction of mana cost and extra mana procs, it is insane.

If you have any mana problems at all spec Disc and you will never look back.

I never had any mana problems as holy, unless im also doing a lot of DPS. I stack spirit gear as that gives me both mana regen, and spellpower. I haven't had mana problems in a long time. And if you do thats what the pet is for.

You will have mana problems with holy if your gear is suspect.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Coltimar

I like disc healing better than holy. Unless you already have nice gear disc is less stressful. I like disc because I do less healing and more damage prevention. I can also DPS more effectively when not healing. Here are the macros I use. I hate posting macros I write because I get flamed to hades but it will give you some idea probably.

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Your macros suck!!!11!!!! But seriously, people that flame your macros can go DIAF and I wouldn't pay much attention to them. Unless they provide an idea on how to improve on the macros they are just wasting everyone's time and basically trolling.

I am using a similar rotation PWS, Penance, Flash Heals (no Renew) and I also have a Prayer of Mending in there but I am thinking of dropping the Prayer of Mending.

My group heal macro does an Inner Focus and then Prayer of Healing followed by Holy Nova spam. So far my priest has no mana problems at all and no issues healing the tank and the entire group when required. I only just made 80 and just killed my first heroic boss with no gems and very little in the way of enchants just to give perspective on my point of view. I'll see how the more difficult encounters in heroics go.

I am glad this thread came up. Although, the thread is Disc Priest vs. Resto Shaman (sorry!!) I was just looking over my class specs to see if I should adjust anything and was wondering if I should go disc instead of holy on my priest.

I don't really have any mana issues or healing problems, but want to be as optimal as I can. I use Flash Heal and GHeal on my tank and typically Holy Nova and Flash Heal on my slaves. It seems that disc is considered the better tank healer though, and I assume the Holy Nova works just as well. Guess I will actually have to dual spec one of my toons.

Ok so far so good with the dis priest. One thing i hate when you cast penance you character turns to your tank, then when you move to run out of stuff your priest goes a different way then the rest. how are you guys getting around that?

Mana never an issue

Instant shield is awesome

Trying to figure out a macro to cast inner focus if off cool down right before a Prayer of healing but when it is on cool down it by passes it and just cast POH.

As far as movement goes, we have directional movement, which depends on facing.
Or follow.

The easiest will be to spread your toons out.
And then have a key for everyone to follow a specific toon.

You could go with a follow keymap if you want.
It sends the arrow key to the "lead" toon, who isn't your tank.
And it sends /follow "Lead Toon Name", to your other slaves.
Could do the same with a warcraft macro and creative keybinding, if you wanted.




Would this work, or hang on the Inner Focus?

/cast Inner Focus
/cast Prayer of Healing