I had an interesting in game conversation with a guildmate the other evening while waiting for Wintergrasp to pop. It was a conversation I’ve had before but haven’t had for a very long time. The old, “So what spec are you anyway?” conversation.

Turns out this guildie was leveling a priest and wondering if there was an alternative to shadow as a dps spec while convinced that holy was the only spec she could consider as a raiding/healing spec.

I honestly don’t have an answer to her actual question. I don’t have a dps spec that I like nor do I have a gear set for pve dps. Using what I have at the moment, I pump out a paltry 1.2k dps which I know from watching my recount numbers is nothing.

But here’s where I lead the conversation: I bristle at the persistent perception that holy is the only viable raid healing spec. Not that I’m geared well enough to really know, but from what little experience I have, discipline is a perfectly viable raid “healing” spec. I put healing in quotations because much of the discipline priest’s healing utility actually comes in the form of damage mitigation. Bottom line though is, I keep people alive.

Discipline as an alternative to holy for inclusion in a raid? That I don’t know either. But I would think a discipline priest to be a nice addition to a holy priest in a two healer 10 man raid at the very least. I do know from first hand experience that I do just fine in healing 5 man heroics so that isn’t an issue of debate for me.

Further, discipline is a fun spec to solo with which holy never was for me. Holy put me in the perpetual position of looking for a partner if only to quest with even.

Now that I’m getting into pvp more, I’m seeing discipline as a perfectly viable and fun spec for that too. In fact, I may just give up on using my alternative spec for dps and see if I can fine tune a discipline based spec just for pvp purposes. That would make some sense since I’ve started to amass an armor set specifically for pvp.

Coming full circle, I’m frustrated that so many misconceptions about the discipline priest remain in World of Warcraft. I’m annoyed to find it still lingering in my own guild but am not surprised by that since we’re holy priests are very well represented in Ex Cinis Cineris.

I fully intend to keep soldiering on as a discipline priest. I like it. It makes the game fun for me and that’s what its all about.