Is it realistic to go Disc/Holy for DPS?

[Doobul 0]

Okay I know what everyone is thinking from the title(wtf this guy talking about?)But I've personally never seen it done, a Discipline DPS spec. I'm guessing I have never seen it done because it's probably just not good. From what I can tell is shadow is the only viable DPS spec for priests and some may even say that that's not even good enough.          I was thinking of a play style more oriented towards dealing as much damage as possible in dungeons/raids and throwing out off heals as they are needed.                                  Please let me know what you guys think!

[Athena 3]

A single shadowpriest is sometimes taken to raids by guilds, because they desire the +shadowdamage buff for warlocks (note: after the debuff slot increase). They do less damage than other classes, but at least bring something to the raid. Disc priests bring Power Infusion, but they will still expect you to be a full time healer.

[gotmilk0112 10]

It's just not good. Even with stacked buffs, Ret paladin for imp Crusader and such, you won't do much DPS and you'll OOM even faster than a Shadow priest.

 

In PvP, you could pair up with a Ret paladin and have him judge Crusader to buff your Smite against enemies, but in PvE, not really viable at all.

[Deathlace 2]

This is what I intend to do. :-)

To be fair, Smite scales well with spellpower and a good coefficient, but it lacks a 100% crit damage talent most DPS classes have. Also you will have the issue of going OOM in longer fights and no good way to keep up.

Edited December 29, 2016 by Deathlace

[gotmilk0112 10]

And it's not included on Curse of Elements / Shadow, so it doesn't get that +10% damage that other classes do.

[Aethelwulf 12]

It's possible to go Holy/Shadow and stack Shadow Weaving while using Smite instead of Mind Flay to do DPS. If you do that you will consume less debuff slots (which can be used for more DoTs) and inflict more damage while maintaining Shadow Weaving. It's probably the best way to play a DPS priest and one of the few builds that is viable for both raids and PvP. For PvP this would be a Shadow Priest who can drop out of Shadowform to heal and DPS vs spellcasters while maintaining the usual arsenal of Shadow Priest tricks. It would be something like a 0/17/34 build I guess? If all you care about is holy DPS then you could go 25 deep into holy for a bit more spell damage, but this is not a build that stacks spirit. Instead, it needs mana/5 and mana-recovering consumables (mana pots, Night Dragon's Breath, Demonic Runes) to sustain spellcasting. And if you go 25 holy for spelldmg from spirit, you would lose the +10% shadow damage on your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Blast (and Shadowguard, if playing a Troll). Even though you would be spamming a direct damage spell, crit is still not a very good stat for you since your crits only do 150% instead of 200%. You would mostly rely on +hit and +dmg for DPS.

However, Disc/Holy DPS is not an option. Really, the only reason you would be tolerated as a DPS is the raid benefiting from Shadow Weaving. Otherwise your DPS contribution to the raid would only be inferior to actual DPS classes. A maxed crusader judgement (3/3 imp SotC and libram of fervor for +199 holy dmg taken debuff) and Sanctity aura from a retri Paladin would certainly help, but raids tend not to like retribution paladins or judgement of the crusader unless they have a lot of DPS priests somehow, which is generally not happening.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Aethelwulf

[Haitharn 2]

Smite doesn't apply shadow weaving so your entire idea of a spec is pointless really :/

10 hours ago, Aethelwulf said:

It's possible to go Holy/Shadow and stack Shadow Weaving while using Smite instead of Mind Flay to do DPS. If you do that you will consume less debuff slots (which can be used for more DoTs) and inflict more damage while maintaining Shadow Weaving. It's probably the best way to play a DPS priest and one of the few builds that is viable for both raids and PvP. For PvP this would be a Shadow Priest who can drop out of Shadowform to heal and DPS vs spellcasters while maintaining the usual arsenal of Shadow Priest tricks. It would be something like a 0/17/34 build I guess? If all you care about is holy DPS then you could go 25 deep into holy for a bit more spell damage, but this is not a build that stacks spirit. Instead, it needs mana/5 and mana-recovering consumables (mana pots, Night Dragon's Breath, Demonic Runes) to sustain spellcasting. And if you go 25 holy for spelldmg from spirit, you would lose the +10% shadow damage on your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Blast (and Shadowguard, if playing a Troll). Even though you would be spamming a direct damage spell, crit is still not a very good stat for you since your crits only do 150% instead of 200%. You would mostly rely on +hit and +dmg for DPS.

However, Disc/Holy DPS is not an option. Really, the only reason you would be tolerated as a DPS is the raid benefiting from Shadow Weaving. Otherwise your DPS contribution to the raid would only be inferior to actual DPS classes. A maxed crusader judgement (3/3 imp SotC and libram of fervor for +199 holy dmg taken debuff) and Sanctity aura from a retri Paladin would certainly help, but raids tend not to like retribution paladins or judgement of the crusader unless they have a lot of DPS priests somehow, which is generally not happening.

 

[Aethelwulf 12]

...

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Try to think about how this build works some more.

[Haitharn 2]

2 hours ago, Aethelwulf said:

...

...

Try to think about how this build works some more.

I did the first time I posted. You talk about keeping up shadow weaving, but not using mindflay so as to not take up a debuff slot. Are you intending to use 3 rank 1 swp, max rank swp, then mb and use the mb on cd to keep weaving up? On top of that spamming smite? It's just gimping your dps so much, gimping any chance you had at being a healer, and will cause you to drop the shadow debuff so much. But whatever man, gl with your flawed spec

[Carns 2]

On 12/30/2016 at 3:52 AM, Aethelwulf said:

It's possible to go Holy/Shadow and stack Shadow Weaving while using Smite instead of Mind Flay to do DPS. If you do that you will consume less debuff slots (which can be used for more DoTs) and inflict more damage while maintaining Shadow Weaving. It's probably the best way to play a DPS priest and one of the few builds that is viable for both raids and PvP. For PvP this would be a Shadow Priest who can drop out of Shadowform to heal and DPS vs spellcasters while maintaining the usual arsenal of Shadow Priest tricks. It would be something like a 0/17/34 build I guess? If all you care about is holy DPS then you could go 25 deep into holy for a bit more spell damage, but this is not a build that stacks spirit. Instead, it needs mana/5 and mana-recovering consumables (mana pots, Night Dragon's Breath, Demonic Runes) to sustain spellcasting. And if you go 25 holy for spelldmg from spirit, you would lose the +10% shadow damage on your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Blast (and Shadowguard, if playing a Troll). Even though you would be spamming a direct damage spell, crit is still not a very good stat for you since your crits only do 150% instead of 200%. You would mostly rely on +hit and +dmg for DPS.

DAFUQ

I mean, at first it feels like a troll, but then he comes back to defend it as if it is an obvious improvement...

Is anyone able to find a even single line of this crap that doesn't make the Jackie Chan face?

[Shayss 43]

Allow me.

[Aethelwulf 12]

Generally you would need two DPS priests this way to maintain a full 5-stack of shadow weaving. Depending on the encounter a Troll Priest might use Shadowguard to maintain more stacks of Shadow Weaving and do more damage but triggering Shadowguard requires the priest to get hit by the boss in some way.

Anyway OP wanted a holy raid spec and this is about as close as you get to raiding as holy.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Aethelwulf

[Alyndra 3]

Tell me more about how it is a good idea to bring not one but TWO "dps" priests to a raid.

[Aethelwulf 12]

The only real reason you would be doing this is because you have a laid-back and perhaps pvp-heavy guild, and this is one of those builds that could PvP and PvE with the same spec and most of the same gear. Also because apparently you really wanted to raid with holy damage.

Might also help if you had a retribution paladin for sanctity aura and judgement of the crusader, but then you're burning a debuff slot again and asking the question whether it's better for the raid to have the worst healer become the worst dps instead. At least a paladin can do most of his utility stuff and lay on hands regardless of whether or not he is healing or hitting.

Clearly you need to have a rather permissive guild to let you do all this.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Aethelwulf

[Ram 11]

If you have a holy paladin with a spec like this http://realmplayers.com/Talents.aspx#sVxuogRxZEf0zbbo he only loses holy shock and can be supportive for a possible disc/holy spec. Plesse note that this paladin spec is not perfect, since I have done it quickly. By the way there is also a similar holy/prot spec to get fair aoe tanking abilities and the two prot tree blessings. All that only for dropping your once in 30s spell holy shock.

With a priest spec like this (also made very quickly, so misstakes possible) http://realmplayers.com/Talents.aspx#bxg0sVVqobxtMzb, you can heal AND smite. Average DPS should be something like ((393,5+0,714*1,05*(spell damage + 140*1,15))*0,83+0,01*hitongear)*(1+0,5*(0,1+0,01*critongear+(intongear/59,5)/100))*1,1*1,1)/2 if you have the ret paladin with aura and imp crus strike in your group. Without any gear that would already make 270 dps. The talented pre AQ frostbolt does only 195 dps if you're naked in 31/0/20 spec with someone keeping winter chill and CoE up.

In all fights or phases of a boss where no big healing is required, only 4 priests can add up to 1k raid dps in healing gear, maybe double fully buffed in damage gear.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Ram

[thiella 1]

In fact pre-raid BiS shadow priests aren't that bad in raids as DPS. They have serious problem with mana but their dps is very good if they know how to play. At raids a good spriest easy is one of top 10 best dps. Usually you need only 1 spriest for the buffs and you will prefer a good geared mage mostly for his aoe spells but a good spriest can shine as dps. But he have to waste a lot of time and money to farm Demonic Runes and mats for mana pots. Also the priest gear at some raids has only +heal so the items he can roll are less...

[Carns 2]

On 1/3/2017 at 5:31 PM, Shayss said:

 

On 1/12/2017 at 4:53 AM, Aethelwulf said:

Generally you would need two DPS priests this way to maintain a full 5-stack of shadow weaving. Depending on the encounter a Troll Priest might use Shadowguard to maintain more stacks of Shadow Weaving and do more damage but triggering Shadowguard requires the priest to get hit by the boss in some way.

 

Everything this man says is pure gold.

[cryofsorrow 5]

Killerdoki has a brother I guess.

On-topic: Holy DPS (read: Smite spam, Holy Fire sucks D') is fun in a way you're like a machine gun but impossible to be compared with a pure DPS or even a Shadow Priest since it'll require a lot of IF's to do even remotely good DPS. Like, being Alliance for Sanctity aura and wasted debuff slot on boss for more holy damage. Not bringing any utility that's not offered by other Priest specs is devaluating even more such spec. But if your guild is okay with funny specs, I guess you can make one and bring it to a raid for that awesome 300 DPS tops.

Edited January 16, 2017 by cryofsorrow

[Theloras 108]

1 hour ago, cryofsorrow said:

Killerdoki has a brother I guess.

On-topic: Holy DPS (read: Smite spam, Holy Fire sucks D') is fun in a way you're like a machine gun but impossible to be compared with a pure DPS or even a Shadow Priest since it'll require a lot of IF's to do even remotely good DPS. Like, being Alliance for Sanctity aura and wasted debuff slot on boss for more holy damage. Not bringing any utility that's not offered by other Priest specs is devaluating even more such spec. But if your guild is okay with funny specs, I guess you can make one and bring it to a raid for that awesome 300 DPS tops.

***cough*** Judgement of the Crusader stacking ***cough***

[Midoriko 2]

Naxx mobs are Undead.

Holy does 2x dmg to Undead.

Paladins +10% Holy DMG Aura + Pally Holy DMG Debuff.

Is it efficient? Maybe not so much, is a priest some of the best time you'll have in WoW? Yes.

[Aethelwulf 12]

On 15-1-2017 at 8:40 PM, Carns said:

Everything this man says is pure gold.

What part of "this is not a spec for serious raids" eluded your notice, genius?

On 16-1-2017 at 1:27 AM, cryofsorrow said:

Killerdoki has a brother I guess.

...

Unless you are referring to Theloras here, my only response to this is contemptuous laughter.

Quote

On-topic: Holy DPS (read: Smite spam, Holy Fire sucks D') is fun in a way you're like a machine gun but impossible to be compared with a pure DPS or even a Shadow Priest since it'll require a lot of IF's to do even remotely good DPS. Like, being Alliance for Sanctity aura and wasted debuff slot on boss for more holy damage. Not bringing any utility that's not offered by other Priest specs is devaluating even more such spec. But if your guild is okay with funny specs, I guess you can make one and bring it to a raid for that awesome 300 DPS tops.

Did you just seriously assert that shadow does better DPS than holy? Don't get distracted by all the fancy multipliers, their damage output is trash. Holy DPS beats shadow in DPS, except neither of them are good DPS to begin with. Mind Flay has a 45% coefficient distributed across 3 seconds. 15% * 1.10 (Darkness) * 1.15 (Shadowform) * 1.15 (Shadow Weaving) * 1.1 (Curse of Shadow) * 1.2 (Improved Shadow Bolt) = 28.80% of spell damage per second, and cannot crit. By contrast a talented Holy Smite does 39.28% per second just from the 2.5sec coefficient in a 2sec cast and +10% damage that holy priests talent. A Paladin with Libram of Fervor and Judgement of Light can add around another 200 holy spelldmg to the raid though.

Shadow Priests are well known to have serious issues with spell damage scaling. The only reason why they are allowed into raids is because they upscale the rest of the raid's shadow DPS. A number of raids will skip the Shadow Priest though and have a healing priest talent for Shadow Weaving instead.

On 16-1-2017 at 2:41 AM, Theloras said:

***cough*** Judgement of the Crusader stacking ***cough***

I'm fairly certain that judgement rank stacking was actually stealth nerfed partway through vanilla. That patch note Killerduki likes to reference from Burning Crusade only mentions debuff icons. It does not say the debuffs themselves stacked.

If you could stack all ranks of judgement, then with 16 debuff slots you could conceivably fill a whole raid with nothing but Priests and Paladins since 6 ranks of judgement of the crusader with librams of fervor and improved Seal of the Crusader would give your whole raid +722 holy damage (and another +10% holy damage from sanctity aura) and you can add 3 ranks of judgement of wisdom for mana recovery. Paladins might even tank bosses with that giant holy threat multiplier of theirs and the added mana recovery, although their mitigation would still leave something to be desired compared to warrior tanks.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Aethelwulf

[cryofsorrow 5]

I will take the bait, Killerdoki #2, and I will reply since realms are down.

"Did you just seriously assert that shadow does better DPS than holy? Don't get distracted by all the fancy multipliers, their damage output is trash."
Yes, Shadow Priests do have bigger DPS than Holy/Smite priests.
You don't use only Mind Flay as Shadow, SW:P is ticking way harder than Corruption for example and you use Mind Blast on short fights. People who don't like it up on the boss are either protecting other debuffs (certain fights) or don't know the damage output of SW:P.

"A number of raids will skip the Shadow Priest though and have a healing priest talent for Shadow Weaving instead."
Please give raidlog of a raid with such Priest. I've already tried healing+stacking SW on boss and it didn't work well because even with 10% spell hit from talents I got a lot of resists which resulted in me being busy stacking debuff and not being able to heal. Don't get me wrong, I haven't made any calculations on such hybrid spec and my opinion is based on what I experienced in the two raids I tried this. But I still feel like it's not worth half-assing either the Healing or DPS role just so you can "remove" that shadowy guy in your raid.

I have no input about Holy DPS and Undeads as Midoriko mentioned, so may be then Holy Priest DPS would be viable. Who knows. :D

Again, IF your guild is fine with bringing funny/hybrid specs, all of this doesn't matter. You can bring wanding priests for all I care.

Take care now.

PS: Don't insult Theloras, he actually has a lot more brains than Killerdoki.

[Ram 11]

What a bull shit, cryofsorrow. With a smite priest in dps gear, supported by a paladin, you can easily get 700dps whith only one judgement active. Show me one shadow priest that reaches this number in an ordinary fight (= no 30s lucifron kill or such).

In aq gear you can get a stable 500-600 dps in gear with almost no hit and decent healing stats.

So before you claim something, use the equation given above and fill in some realistic stats to see how good it actually is.

[cryofsorrow 5]

Them 700 DPS Holy DPS Priests, wew. I'm gonna need more beer for this.

Oh, yeah, I will fill another .txt file and let it get butchered by Killerdoki's, sure.

Ta-ta!

Edited January 17, 2017 by cryofsorrow

[Aethelwulf 12]

Ah, I see I'm dealing with an idiot here.

Allow me to disabuse you of a few notions, cryofsorrow. First of all, a Shadow Priest's Shadow Word: Pain may do more damage than a Warlock's Corruption (courtesy of the +15% damage that Shadowform provides and the heavier emphasis on spell damage over crit for shadow priests), but that is actually a marginal contribution to raid DPS because your Shadow Word: Pain is now displacing a Corruption debuff that would also have done DPS. Your damage meter might look a lot better for it, but mainly because someone else's damage meter now looks worse. And let's not forget that your Mind Flay and possibly Vampiric Embrace are also consuming precious debuff slots that could have gone to other players' DoTs instead. All of this is costing raid DPS for you to do your thing.

Second of all, Holy Priests can also use Mind Blast. The better scaling the Holy Priest gets from Smite spam easily outperforms the Mind Flay a SP is stuck doing the rest of the time. Plus a Holy Priest potentially has better crit (although Priests only crit for 1.5x damage).

Simply put, your idea that a Shadow Priest does more DPS than Holy is a joke. The primary raid DPS contribution of a Shadow Priest has always been the Shadow Weaving debuff. That one debuff typically contributes more DPS to the raid than all the other things the Shadow Priest does put together.

PS: The reason I mentioned Theloras is simply because the two are known to be of one mind on many odd subjects and prone to appear together in threads to back one another up. I'm not sure how that eluded your notice, but there you have it.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Aethelwulf