Just to catch everyone up to date, here’s two facts that many WoW players already know. Bear with me if it’s old news:

Ghostcrawler is the Blizzard face behind whether they buff you or nerf you; and Ghostcrawler plays a Holy / Discipline priest.

Alright, now that we’re up to speed… here’s something you might not have read before! Ghostcrawler recently replied to a priest thread on the forums about his playstyle when he’s Discing and Holy’ing. It’s a quick and helpful read that healing priests across the Interwebs can benefit from.

Disc: PoM on cooldown. PW:S as much as you can (esp. on the Arcane mage until 3.3.3). Use Penance often when you need burst. Resort to PoH if a lot of people need healing at once, especially in 10-player raids where you don’t have a lot of other healers to pick up the slack. Keep Pain Suppression and Divine Hymn for emergencies. Use Power Infusion on a mage or lock if you don’t need it.

Holy: PoM on cooldown. CoH on cooldown if there is any raid damage. Renew to handle the rest of the raid damage. Flash Heal if someone is still low after all of that. Save GS and Divine Hymn for emergencies or timed boss cooldowns. I tend to use Binding Heal a lot more than most priests because it makes me feel smart, especially when globals are in question.

What I like: Feeling smart when I mix the right tool with the right problem. Saving lives when someone thought they were dead. Sitting there at full mana halfway through a fight because I didn’t heal when I didn’t need to. Penance in general. Body and Soul. Borrowed Time. Serendipity.

What I don’t like: Using CoH so much. Dealing with Weakened Soul (esp. as Holy). Lightwell. Seeing priests die. (In all honesty I don’t die a lot, but I see Spirits of Redemption constantly. I guess as a sweeping generalization, priests have the stare-at-Grid syndrome worse than other healers.) Blowing 3 candles every wipe. Looking like a mage if I pick the wrong gear.

This is obviously meant for PvE; not PvP.

My Discipline playstyle mirrors what Ghostcrawler mentions here rather fluidly; nice parallel there. As far as Holy though, I tend to use Flash Heal over Renew for patching up a raid, just on the grounds that it gets me closer to my precious Serendipity. Renew is something I reserve for tanks. I’m not sure if that’s an inferior decision or a decision based on taste, but it’s fun nonetheless to make the comparison.

Also, he’s darn right about Binding Heal. Most priests forget they even have it, and it really makes me feel smart whenever I hit my 7 key.

The priest Q&A has a somewhat famous Ghostcrawler quote that has lurched through the smite priest community like a bad acid trip through a hamster. Here’s the full story.

The first smite-mentioned reaction on the Q&A comments comes from Reiha on Sen’jin:

I am sorely disappointed in the lack of attention to lolsmite.

Which quickly prompted said response from Meia:

That actually did make me another question not covered that I wouldn’t mind answered.

Is it intended for a healing priest to never do about 300 dps on anything, especially since as a healing class with two different trees for different roles, a lot of us are forced to use both dual specs for healing, and none that allow us to farm/quest with any kind of happiness doing so? A lot of quests remain unfinished on this priest because if I had to keep holy fire/smiting I’d have gouged out my eyes. How about some new holy nuke for once, huh?

And while you think that these comments on the third page of responses to the Q&A might’ve prompted a smiting-sort-of conversation, the holy/discipline hybrid spec is not mentioned again until the ninth page of comments. Fortunately, the next to respond, Orcganic of Coilfang, had quite a bit to offer:

The one question that I am sure others would find pointless but is a major interest for myself and a few others is the state of Holy damage. There are a few Smite Priests who would really like to see Blizzard look at the ability for Holy Priests to provide Burst DPS. Shadow Priests are known for their DoT Shadow spells. Some Priests would like to see Holy Burst damage as an alternative option. Why is Healing Focus not Holy Focus? Smite and Holy Fire are very susceptible to knockbacks. Could an interesting Holy damage rotation be added? There have been many suggestions, why were these not addressed?

But not even this was enough to draw attention! Instead, the ultimate results of why smite was not included in the Q&A came from a separate forum post done by a random alt. (Honestly, is it that embarrassing? :]) To which Ghostcrawler sadly replied:

We have no intention of majorly supporting a Smite-centric, Holy-damage-focused priest build.

Smite is there to give you something to hit at low level and give you some ability to do damage in a Holy or Disc build. But we don’t expect it to do competitive dps with a Shadow build. Shadow is your dps spec.

And Thyron couldn’t have replied better:

What a heart-crushing statement.

This isn’t the first time that smite has been branded as “not a real DPS spec” though, large-in-part because it would create a role where a single person could heal semi-efficiently and DPS without dropping forms (not that my shaman goes elemental with Glyph of Thunderstorm and tries to heal or anything >.>).

Priests that are looking for a confirmation that this a real spec won’t find that from Ghostcrawler and won’t find that here. The whole purpose of this blog is just to show how much the “Thall Shall Not DPS” limits can be pushed for the Discipline/Holy hybrid priest.

Ghostcrawler’s been known to root for the underdog specs as well, so I have no qualms with the way smite spec is currently perceived!