Granted, I was not asked to switch, I simply felt that since we have already two good holy pallys, that me swtiching to holy would give us additional aoe healing strength. Our typical healing core usually consists of 1-2 holy priests, one disc (me yay!), two resto druids, shaman, and holy pally. However, that raid where I switchd specs, we had two holy palllys, one disc, only one holy priest, and two resto druids for aoe healing.

The druids were the first to mention that general healing seemed more strenuous, and I thought that was due to me being slightly new holy, as I’ve only been holy fulltime since BC, so I had to get used ti CoH and even PoH. We had a harder then usual time with Hodir. i mentioned that I was holy, and they asked that I switch back to disc (just to see if I can help elevate much of the healing). Part of the damage was people simply not getting out of the way from the ice blocks, which is something we have had trouple with, however me mass shielding again really helped with the added damage mitigation.

Disc AoE got a huge ramp-up with the latest patch, and I think the paradigm that disc is only good for single target healing, is now a thing of the past.

To the point of this post, my guild also spent some time on Kologarn after Ulduar went live and I was eventually asked to switch to Holy for raid healing while pallies were assigned to the tanks. Now, I do use outfitter to switch gear and I maintain somewhat separate sets for Disc and Holy, but many pieces, especially those from Naxx25, Sarth, and Maly25 that are (arguably – at least, pre-Ulduar) BiS for both Holy and Disc are not swapped out. But unlike the author of this topic, I did not notice any significant impairment when going from Disc to Holy for this fight. Of course, regen was certainly more of an issue, but I knew that would be the case and that adjustments would need to be made. Perhaps I haven’t played a Disc priest long enough to fully appreciate the differences in gear/gemming/enchants. It’s also a possibility that my use of certain pieces of gear/gems/enchants as a Disc priest are not optimal, but are better suited for a Holy priest. If anyone would like to comment on my armory or make suggestions, I would appreciate it, since I will most likely be playing a Disc priest in Ulduar (and perhaps beyond) and I would appreciate any words of wisdom this community may have to offer.

As always, I very much enjoy this site and the articles – please keep them coming, and I’ll keep reading.

Character: Quall
Realm: Jaedenar, US

God, are the stats you need for Disc and Holy that out of wack that you can’t properly sync them with the same gear? I though that was a given? I mean, I play shadow MS and go holy for guild raiding, i know that i have to come with 2 completely different gear sets, gem sets, enchantments for the most part. Sure i’d rather wear something that’s BiS for shadow over something of significantly lower power…

Really Disc and Holy are as similar as Balance and Resto in the druid trees…

Which reminds me. I want separate tier gear for disc and holy.

Fan service!

Priority shielding is pretty much healers then clothies…beyond that I watch for people who are dangerously low on health and drop a shield on them to give the other healers more time.

I’ve discovered with all the changes they’ve made to the Disc priest blizz has transformed them into a really nice support class and being speced it is like being a permenant “OH SHIT” button for the raid. Between the burst heals and shields we can buy those precious milliseconds needed for the big heals from the other healers to land.

Just for background we (vanquish) generally runs with 2 shaman, 1 pally, 2 druids, a holy and a disc priest for 25 man healers.

As far as dual specs goes I had originally planned to run with a disc/disc spec or a hybrid holy/disc for pvp untill I seen the changes they made to shadow for pvp. and I will say shadow PvP is quite enjoyable again. Even with crappy gear we can actually hold a bit of our own again.

Anyways

My armory if anyone cares to look: (Sorry, I’m usually my shadow PvP build outside of raids)
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Firetree&cn=Gongletta&gn=Vanquish

You beat me to the punch too for dropping holy off-spec and building a disc off-spec. Though I was thinking of just spamming shields on everyone and using talented renews and PoMs.

RE: Glyph of Fade – At the time, I didn’t have other attractive options. So instead of a “I need this” it was more of a “why the heck not?” kind of situation,

RE: Mana. It’s good. If all healers are alive, I have plenty in the tank at the end. Where it gets exciting is when one or two healers drop and I assist in picking up the slack. I’m trying to challenge myself and cast as many bubbles as I can to immediate party members (or melee players for example).

RE: Raid healers. Yup, there’s a few coordination related deaths among what you’ve mentioned. Those get identified and resolved fairly quickly.