Disc Priest Help please

[QuiSiLoR]

I recently re-rolled a priest as DPS, I want to get duel spec. Now the problem is my healing gear is kinda crappy if im honest. Id be aiming at HC's etc in order to get gear.

Long term id like to be able to be a back up healer for my raiding guild instead of just DPS. So with bad healing gear is Disc the way to go over holy ?
Only items I have with mana regen really are 2 Rings from Naxx, Mace from totc hc & neck from vezax.

Should I am to get a few more pieces first ? rest of my DPS gear is like UL10 stuff practically. Also any help on a good spec for bad gear or just a good spec

[Balthascar]

personnally i found that healing heroics is much easier as disc then holy, unfortunately i only tried that after i had been uld25 geared, and my shields absorbed aboutt 95% of trash damage, but i saw just start with H VH DTK nexus and UK and u'll be set and with running heroics u now get emblems of conquest u can get great gear upgrades real easy

[QuiSiLoR]

Indeed, im finishing up my DPS set first then gona work on the healing stuff. Is there a default noob disc spec or just take a standard one ?

[columhcille]

As a Disc priest I'd agree it's easier to heal five mans than as holy specced. It took me a couple weeks to get used to going from relying on out-heal-the-dmg-incoming to the thought of "hah! can't touch me now!" using mitigation.
If you want to see a raiding Disc spec, visit armoury page for my disc priest Eloaene [yes i have two priests- Columhcille and Eloaene bc they were rolled in original and in BC when dual specs didn't exist and it was necissary if you didn't want to go mad respeccing all the time, to roll two!] ; My disc priest's spec is minus a couple points yet, since she's only lvl 77; should add the extra talents to take Desperate Prayer, for sure, out of Holy tree.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...loaene&group=1

I have talked extensively with our guild healers -holy and disc- about both specs, and from all our gathered experiences find both to be exceedingly effective, just different in strategy and situational usefulness.

To start your gear sets, take some pieces with crit over haste for Disc. I think my main's guild's Disc priest has around 40% spell crit in raids and only 121 haste rating.. whereas Main's guild's main holy priest has around 18% spell crit, but 240 haste rating. The haste is very important for all the aoe heals that take major cast time, but the crits are important for many Disc abilities that require crit to proc and really really great to get lots of crits on disc heals because they're fantastic single target heals!

I wouldn't just take a "generic" spec for anything. You'd just nerf yourself. Every talent is there for a reason.. every talent should be taken with consideration for its overall purpose and how it will aid your resourcfulness in whatever kind of situation you're going to be in most. i.e... If you're going to be in Uld and taking a lot of raid damage, take the talents for reduced spell damage taken so you have more survivability [Spell Warding in holy tree].

As any kind of priest, the best tip I ever received from the raiding priests in the guild I raid with, is that if you're in a raid situation and YOU YOURSELF need heals, Heal your target with Binding heal to heal yourself. That way there is no down time in healing your target and it does a significant amount of healing to yourself, as well. Also, as either heal spec, never under estimate the power of Prayer of Mending. It should always be up!

As far as the initial poster's comment on Mp5, if you're either spec, use Int/Mp5 gems and SP/Int gems, straight SP gems. Most of your haste and crit can come on gear; only every now and then when I feel unballanced in stats do I gem for haste or crit as a healer.
And remember Int is currently the better stat for priests over Spirit, no matter what healing spec.

[FatherKhain]

I run a Disc priest as my main. (Khenna on Sisters of Elune- Alliance). A very helpful site I've found to help answer your questions and point you in the right direction is: www.discpriest.com
They have gear pages, gems, enchants etc. Good reference until you get to the point you're customizing stuff to fit your personal preferences. Good luck and save ur guildies!

[Valec]

Colum's tips are good. Very good. Listen to them. Depending on how you geared for Shadow (I'm not very well versed in Shadow- I've pretty much always ran Disc.) You might already have a good chunk of the crit you'll need. Depending on who you run with, your efficiency will go up or down... If you're running with an Arcane mage, or Boomkin druid, their crit buffs will put your Heals through the roof. The talents that really require crit are Inspiration and Divine Aegis, both of which are incredible for preventing damage. And remember, Soul Warding is there for a reason- shield early, and shield often.

Another point- you can pretty much safely ignore MP5 as Disc. When your shield is eaten up, you get mana back, and given the low cost of most Disc tools (Flash, shield, Penance), you'll only ever run dry if you're having to do an excessive amount of healing (Bad tank, stupid dps, etc.) And in 9/10ths of those situations, Shadowfiend will fill you right back up and the fight will be over before you're oom again. And if you are running with a DPS that gives replenishment, you can pretty much ignore your mana altogether. In Ulduar hard modes, or even TotC 10 (where I am in progression right now), I can't remember a single time that I came close to going oom.

Another point: as one of your best mana efficiency heals, fight the temptation to "save" penance for emergency situations, unless you know there is about to be a large chunk of damage incoming in which you'll need it. That was one of the biggest pitfalls I found while learning Disc- I saved Penance constantly, and ended up eating more mana than I could have otherwise.

And since you're coming from a DPS role to a healing one, another small bit of advice that some people would argue, but I firmly believe in: As a healer, it is NOT your job to keep everyone topped off. It's your job to keep them Alive. Keeping someone at 100% health is awesome, but as long as they don't face plant, it's also not required. Disc can be summed up in a short sentence: We're time buyers. We buy the time for the Holy Paladin, Holy Priest or Resto Shaman's heals to go off. We keep the target alive long enough for that Holy Light, Greater Heal or Chain Heal to go off.

[columhcille]

Originally Posted by Valec

Another point: as one of your best mana efficiency heals, fight the temptation to "save" penance for emergency situations, unless you know there is about to be a large chunk of damage incoming in which you'll need it. That was one of the biggest pitfalls I found while learning Disc- I saved Penance constantly, and ended up eating more mana than I could have otherwise.

And since you're coming from a DPS role to a healing one, another small bit of advice that some people would argue, but I firmly believe in: As a healer, it is NOT your job to keep everyone topped off. It's your job to keep them Alive. Keeping someone at 100% health is awesome, but as long as they don't face plant, it's also not required. Disc can be summed up in a short sentence: We're time buyers. We buy the time for the Holy Paladin, Holy Priest or Resto Shaman's heals to go off. We keep the target alive long enough for that Holy Light, Greater Heal or Chain Heal to go off.

Kewl. I like this. I need to remember this more about Penance and use it more. Mmm. I am still getting used to raid healing on my Disc preist to some extent. It's just so completely different than my Shaman or healing as Holy spec. I mostly run ten mans on my disc priest and that's managable, but in 25 mans, the few instances i have done on her on 25 man, it's felt very chaotic on my disc preist. So many bubbles to put out and so many hots to put up [bc there's no CD, just GCD to wait on] and it makes me feel a bit mental. lol. Like I said, still gittin' in the groove of Disc in large groups like that.

I like that you brought up that we're "time buyers" as Disc. Same with resto droods. You really really notice a difference when a drood or disc preist isn't around, because you don't have that bought time to spam your heals when that little bit of damage absorbtion makes a huuuuge difference!! I can remember fights in Black Temple we couldn't down if we didn't have a Disc priest or a Resto Drood because of just that!

I was reading recently on Elitist Jerks forums just to see if there were things I needed to learn more about as Disc...
It was interesting to find out that the haste cap for a Disc preist is around 300 or so. .. even more reason not to stack haste.
Well, after that about 300 haste with Disc specs, your GCD no longer improves/diminishes on your disc spells you use most.[because of certain talents in disc tree]. so the haste goes toward your longer cast spells like Greater Heals or Prayer of Healing etc, which are more of a Holy Priest ability. so if you have more haste than somwhere around 300 as a disc preist , then you need to reroll Holy :P

I didn't read through them all , because they were a bit redundant and opinionated at some point, but on EJ forums for Disc priests also, there became a discussion about disc priest viability as single-target heals vs raid heals. or .. mitigators we might say... and I agree.. we could do either.. tank or raid.
Does anyone else have experiences on this they'd like to share? Especially for 25 mans? I'd be interested in hearing more from more people on this.