Priest builds

[K9]

Planning on getting back on the horse after a few months break.  I'll be raiding with a few friends on my Disc (probably) Priest or Holy Paladin.  Has much changed in terms of relative utility between the two specs with 3.3?

(I ask because I'd need to transfer the Priest, but it has better gear, cool guy 310% mount, and I kind of hate Holy Paladins.)

Priests still bring a lot of utility, the most overall of any healer; we have two of the best external tank/player saving cooldowns. Disc and holy priests are good additions to any raid. Holy paladins have scaled better than pretty much all the other healers and from being a bit meh in the early expansion they are now pretty untouchable when it comes to throughput and they are the best tank healers and with improved beacon and glyphs can raid heal well. The only real change is that Disc tank healing has dropped in strength relative to other healers, but the ability to pre-shield portions of the raid is a unique ability and one that proves very helpful on almost all fights.

[caladein]

Same shit, different patch, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Still going with the Priest though, because $25 is well worth it not to play a Holy Paladin.

[Dren]

Out of all my alts, my Disc Priest is my favorite for PvP.  The utility he brings to any fight has a bit of everything.  Some things like Hot's, direct heals, group heals, etc. are not the best over other classes but he has them all in some way.

I also prefer Disc for healing purely from utility, mana usage, etc.  Does it pump out the same max numbers as Holy?  No.  But the shields can make or break a boss run.  A Disc Priest can put shields on everyone without much effect on their mana pool, so I can be generous with it as a quick save.  Typically the shields just hold people up long enough for another healer to get the big heal on them.

Pain Suppression is great for PvE or PvP.  I especially love it in PvP.  I can just see that warrior's player cussing up a storm at me because I just won't die.  Between have renew, shield, grace, binding heal, pain suppression, and popping a scream on a group, I can be a real pain in the ass.

For tanks in PvE, it can prevent a wipe if you can time it right.

I can go on and on with this, but the fact is Disc Priest have a depth to them that most people overlook and do not appreciate.  It isn't easy to utilize all of them effeciently, but once you learn to do it.  They are quite powerful and *gasp* fun to play.  I like it so much, I did both specs in it.  PvE and PvP.

[Sjofn]

Still going with the Priest though, because $25 is well worth it not to play a Holy Paladin.

Preach it!


EDIT: And I  disc priests, either healing me or me doing the healing. I think I might like druids a teeny bit more to heal with, but that could be because my druid is 80 and my priest isn't. 

[kildorn]

Disc is my go to healing spec. It does pretty much anything passably, and heals tanks very well without sacrificing utility and spot heals. And that's even with me forgetting I have pain supp 90% of the time.

Holy is my offspec entirely for raid healing heavy fights. But Disc suits my rather messed up method of healing pretty well. I totally don't do well with "ignore the rest of the raid, THIS is your heal target" setups, so I like having penance as a tank heal, and shield/flash heal as dumbass dps stood in fires heals <3

[K9]

Holy is my offspec for when I want to win meters. Disc is what I play when I want to feel useful.

[Sheepherder]

I actually prefer Holy healers, because disc is such a pain in the ass for Spiritual Attunement / Rage in heroics, and I pretty much just tank heroics.

[kildorn]

I actually prefer Holy healers, because disc is such a pain in the ass for Spiritual Attunement / Rage in heroics, and I pretty much just tank heroics.

I thought rage through shield was fixed. Anywho, it never seems to slow thorgrim down when I shield him in a heroic, and it usually lasts for half a trash pack with his block/avoidance factored in.

The only thing I favor Holy for is 10 mans where the other healer is a paladin and you hit an AE healing fight of doom. Hodir as holy was so much easier than Disc for our raid setups.

[Zetor]

My priest is disc / shadow dual spec, and the only time I've noticed shields being a tank problem was when healing an overgeared pally tank in an instance where chain pulling is not really feasible and incoming damage is low (h-vh); in those cases just using pom and renew [yes, renew!] covers 90% of the trash damage anyway. Otherwise the shield breaks soon enough to let them get mana - and I really can't imagine doing the icc heroics without shield spamming the entire group at times. 

(yeah I use a pvp disc spec, but it heals 5-man stuff just fine, h-HOR included...)

[Sheepherder]

I thought rage through shield was fixed. Anywho, it never seems to slow thorgrim down when I shield him in a heroic, and it usually lasts for half a trash pack with his block/avoidance factored in.

I haven't used my warrior in a long time, but I felt really starved the last time on my Paladin.

[Ingmar]

I much much prefer to be healed by disc than holy when tanking the harder 5 man fights. The rest of the group might not feel the same, of course, but there are spots where it is hard for (non overgeared) holy to keep up with tank damage in the new ones.

[Fordel]

I thought rage through shield was fixed. Anywho, it never seems to slow thorgrim down when I shield him in a heroic, and it usually lasts for half a trash pack with his block/avoidance factored in.

I haven't used my warrior in a long time, but I felt really starved the last time on my Paladin.

It's only really an issue for Paladins at this point, they have mostly fixed the Rage/Bubble interactions. But yea, it's a real bottleneck at times.

[Merusk]

If they'd up the mana gain from BoSanc to where it was sometime before then end of BC then pallies wouldn't have an issue, either.   But that would 'overpower' pally tanks somehow... I continue to not understand how, exactly. 

[Gobbeldygook]

If they'd up the mana gain from BoSanc to where it was sometime before then end of BC then pallies wouldn't have an issue, either.   But that would 'overpower' pally tanks somehow... I continue to not understand how, exactly. 

Flippant answer: Paladins are fine, l2play.

More seriously, the amount of mana BOS returns has always been 2%.  Are you sure you're not confusing it with the changes to spiritual attunement?

[Merusk]

Nope, I can't say I'm not.  I do recall that soloing became a lot harder at some point due to mana issues.  Either because of BOSanc changes or other changes to the class.   I'm certain it wasn't the SA changes because it was a soloing issue when I realized it, not a grouping one. 

[Fordel]

They changed Judge of Wisdom at one point, it used to return % of Total mana, now its base. It was also nerfed a few percent points if I recall correctly.

[Dren]

I thought rage through shield was fixed. Anywho, it never seems to slow thorgrim down when I shield him in a heroic, and it usually lasts for half a trash pack with his block/avoidance factored in.

I haven't used my warrior in a long time, but I felt really starved the last time on my Paladin.

I use shield on everything in every instance/raid with my disc priest.  I've never seen this problem for my tanks that I heal (war, pal, bear, dk.)  My SP is to a point now that my shield blocks 3.5k+ now.  It is a cheap mana cast and highly effective.  It also makes my subsequent heals better.  It is a must have in many of the new instances.

[Dren]

They changed Judge of Wisdom at one point, it used to return % of Total mana, now its base. It was also nerfed a few percent points if I recall correctly.

That is true, but between Judge of Wisdom and Divine Plea and all the other mana contributors, I really never have mana problems.  If I do have troubles, it is because I'm sacrificing mana recovery for some other ability to increase dps or something.