Lately I’ve been a 5-man heroic junky.
A few months ago I pugged regular Halls of Lightning and wound up becoming in-game friends with the group. Almost every night since then we’ve done a heroic or two together. I’ve almost obtained the 250 Emblems of Heroism achievement. It’s such a relief to not have to worry about PUGing groups, and it’s especially nice that one of our steady party members is a mage which means a constant INT buff and free water.
Along the way I respec’ed to a PvE discipline build to change things up.
Some pros and cons to discipline over holy are:
Pros:
- As of 3.0.8, an almost infinite mana pool, especially when playing along side a character that provides the Replentishment buff. I have to force myself to use shadowfiend, and I’m collecting more mana potions from random drops than I’m using. Mana efficiency is probably the biggest difference to holy. It’ll be interesting to see how/if this changes with the mana regen nerf coming with patch 3.1.
- Bubbles are fun and relaxing. With a well geared tank, I can throw up a Renew, Prayer of Mending, and Shield and sit back and relax for 10 seconds before having to Penance.
- PvP is easier.
- Questing is easier since it’s better on mana.
Cons:
- Group heals are a little less powerful. I use the Glyph of Holy Nova but it’s not CoH.
- No Guardian Spirit. People tend to talk this talent down but when there are times that I mis-clicked or simply messed up and couldn’t get back to the tank on time. Pain Suppression is fine but not nearly as effective to me.
- Having to roll against caster dps for crit/int items more often than with holy.
For all of you leveling priests out there, I highly recommend disc for leveling as you’ll be able to quest easier than holy, and will also have the ability to heal instances without a struggle. I leveled 70-80 as disc and would suggest it to anybody.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m leveling as disc and discovering the joy of instances. I’m pretty scared about the spirit nerf for 3.1.
Yeah, I understand. Blizzard said they’re nerfing out of combat (spirit) mana regen because raiders are able to chain together enough clear casting procs through talents and trinkets to go out of the five second rule and regain massive amounts of mana back.
Unfortunately there isn’t really a way to nerf 5-second rule mana regen on raid boss encounters and not nerf it for leveling…unless they somehow created a mechanic that keeps out of COMBAT regen the way it is now…and still nerf out of five second (but IN combat) regen.
Great post. New to your blog, but you got great writing style. You had some very interesting points that I liked. Looking forward to more of your thoughts.