Holy or Disc priest while leveling?

Hey yall,

while the goal is to be a holy priest for pve in raids and stuff, while leveling was just wondering what the optimal healing spec for 5 mans is to progress quicker.

Thank you in advance

Holy is better.

holy is better while doing 5man dungeons and most 10man raids indeed, but for 25man raiding... well outside of a guild already doing ICC25 with heroics, holy is going to be much harder to find raids with than disc and it won't perform as well

Disci lack the healing output even on single target until he gets Penance, but it has a cd.
With stacked Serendipity holy can do same if not higher burst.

Bubbles strenght is depending on SP, so until 80 the amount absorbed is really close to what holy can do + there isn't much of a regular aoe that would have to be absorbed by the whole party that would also break the shields at same time -> not enough mana returned via Rapture talent.

AoE healing while lvling is either Holy Nova spam or hard casted Prayer of Healing.
After holy gets CoH it is slightly better AoE healer, but from my experience groups tend to be spread so only portion of the heal actually hits.
After disci gets Borrowed Time he can bubble -> Prayer of Healing with reduced cast time and do that for every party member and outheal holy, but it is very mana intensive.

Another thing is pre TBC items have a lot of spirit and intelect and lack spel power. Those stats are better uttilised by holy via Spiritual Guidence and Spirit of Redemption.


Regarding endgame, it depends on what other healers are in raid. If there is close to bis resto druid that is blanketting the raid vit hots and holy pala spam healing the tanks the is not much to do as holy that wouldn't be largerly overhealing.
In progression it can be viable with excelent management of Serendipity.

Disci on the other hand bring unique absorb mechanics that is always wanted.

I would always level as Shadow, until around lvl 60 (Outland) you can easily heal every dungeon even in Shadow Specc. Questing as holy/disc is a pain really ;D
But if you are sure you want to level with a healing specc I'd go for holy, since you can go into Devine Fury Talent to decrease your cast time of smite for easier leveling-

Thank you all so much

@Sardai - I do wish to level as a healer, As I play with my wife, and as we learn the game properly I love to play a support role in most games anyway plus que times fro dungeons pretty quick as a healer. (yes i know you can heal in shadow spec, but i rather just not have to deal with the bull**** in chat)

@TutellaF thank you my friend for such a detailed reply, this helped me alot when i logged in to see all the responces. i plan to have a Holy/disc tree as the healing specs really excite me, and I find healing to be relaxing even in other games i have raided in. But this Has sent me down the right path for the long road my friend, thank you so much!