WotLK [PvE] When to Disc?

[Venenum]

Hello All!

My brother is currently on the last stretch of leveling a priest, so that he can heal some raids for my friends and I. He wants to play Disc priest, but after looking around, I can't find when it is viable. I've been told that Disc is not a spec for new 80's and you need to be geared before Disc is good. Well when is this point? If we quickly run him through heroics/ farm ToC5n for him, and he collects on Disc gear (SP, Intel, Haste, Crit) instead of the typical spirit/holy gear, will it be viable? I would expect in the first day of him hitting 80, between my guild's professions, and quick heroic runs, maybe even a nax run + OS, we can probably get him to 3.5-3.8k GS. If this gearscore is all Disc stat gear, would that be completely fine? Or is a Holy priest that gears up to 4.5k with holy stats and specs to Disc a better option?

Thanks for any opinions!
-- Ven

[shambls]

Hello All!

I've been told that Disc is not a spec for new 80's and you need to be geared before Disc is good.

Applicable to any spec tree/class. Where does such attitude come from. Best, donate bis gear insta lvl 80 hit : D

No idea how exped he is in terms of playing disc but it's easily doable to hit 80, leveling as disc, and going to heroics straight away as disc. People just tend to chose holy as there's a much wider range of pure healing spells. But that is gear dependant as well so ugh. It all boils down to what he would really want to do and stick to that. Focus on particular gear pieces and not gearscore, for the love of God.

Could you pm me his name?

[Nemmish]

People like to go holy on the lower gear, because it is a lot more forgiving on the early low stats and has more rough heals.

With discipline on the other hand you will run out of mana if you can't get proper Rapture soaks.

Both can work out in heroic dungeons, you just have to twist your gameplay around a little :)
Priests are fun on both healing spec, so I really hope he will like them.

I made a disc spec for when he hits lvl80:
http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#bVcbuIhVRhsffRtbezc
The 3 points from http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=33172can be switched out for http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=45244 or http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=27904 on the longer run, but feel free to play around with the points :)

[Firnblut]

From my experience holypriests are far more manaconsuming at low gear than disc-priests.
You can heal heroics with both of it as soon as you hit lvl 80 (assuming you got some decent gear from quests and nhc dungeons).
You only need higher gear if you want to go fast or your group doesnt know how to play (or just doesnt care how to play) - which will most likely happen, but it's not your fault.

I'd say that disc-priests are great for 5man and 25man where holy priests will be better for 10man.

Just dont let others tell you when to play or not play your spec/class, what items to take, and so on. Most of them dont have any idea about it and just talk a lot.