- 3.3 on the doorstep, 'tis the season to get informed.
Whether you're a champion healer or just struggling to keep up in your family guild, you can only take what you read so far. The proof is in the pudding, so let's get down to it.
Topic Problem:
"Holy or disc, which is the better raid healing spec?"
Standard Response:
"Disc is NOT an optimal choice for raid healing. It is however the only choice for raid mitigation so switching specs isn't optimal. Weaving PW:S onto raid members, well timed PoH, and PoM are more than enough to allow Disc to fill a niche in any raid. All this can be done while healing the MT if necessary."- The doctor, Discipline Healing Compendium v3.1"First, you are primarily a tank healer."- Sinddir, WotLK Healing Compendium v3.3: Arthas' downfall!
The Doctor's opinion sounds reasonable, but the answer is ambiguous. If disc on raid not optimal, then why not go holy?
A common (little contested) assumption from the days of old is to put disc on tank and holy on raid, if given the choice. But how do we test the efficacy of either move?
My response (Go Disc):
I will argue that, generally, disc is choice for healing the raid.
Evidence:
The best test for our basic claims are the healing meters. Numbers matter -- as Codi, over at "Moar HPS!," rightly points out (link). Solid provisos and points.
However, we need more reliable numbers than recount. While meters reveal guild trends, they don't reveal general trends quite so well. Even if your in-guild comparison priest is also a top ranked priest on the scoreboards (see: lifebind on twins), because the sample size is so small your guild's trends can easily miss the general trends.
So on what basis can we reasonably defend our claims?
Enter scoreboards:
Looking at the numbers relative to assignments, we see Disc holding competitively against Holy Priests for every 25 man ToGC fight, save for Anub and Twins where they more or less balance each other out.
While holy may seem to have greater representation on the whole, keep in mind that in most guilds holy has greater raid-healing representation than disc does; so it stands to reason holy has more representation on the scoreboards -- more attempts increase the odds of getting record numbers. This only means that the disc priests we do see up there ought to be taken as representative of disc's potential standing more than their actual standing. The exceptions prove the rule, in this case. Disc is a strong scoreboard contender, given it's underrepresentation in the playing field.
Tip: If you're wondering about the assignments in more depth, look at each log individually -- check spell rotations and the Healing Target Analysis and make an educated guess. Or, where Adorno is ranked, you can just ask me in a comment bellow.
Taking stock:
Our WMO data reasonably indicates that disc priests are generally able to raid heal as much as their holy counterparts. Importantly then, this means d