I think one of the generic rules of wow could be: Mitigation is always superior to Avoidance for tanks/healers if long term efficiency is not a concern. (for trash it shouldn't be, and with consumables it shouldn't be for most fights)

Dodge/Parry is a valuable way to deal with incidental damage (which is why it shows up on rogue gear) but it's not a reliable way to deal with predictable repetitive damage sources that will kill you. I'd agree with your decision to take toughness instead of dodge every time, even if it was a much larger difference than the .28% total damage taken over time difference. (I'd take 5% mitigation over 10% avoidance as a healer or main tank. It's that big a deal that you have predictable results from your survival skills. As an off tank? Avoidance becomes more valuable, because you generally have less healing available, and have to dice with god.). If you have the ability to avoid dicing, do so.

As an example to the doubters-- Consider the way 75% mitigation plays out vs a mob that hits for 20k, and how 75% Avoidance does. Both tanks have a standard 10k hp.

Mitigation
Hit 1 - 4k
Hit 2 - 4k -- Needs a heal or he dies.
Hit 3 - 4k
Hit 4 - 4k -- Needs a heal or he dies.
Hit 5 - 4k
Hit 6 - 4k -- Needs a heal or he dies.
Hit 7 - 4k etc...

Avoidance
Hit 1 - Parry!
Hit 2 - Parry!
Hit 3 - Dodge!
Hit 4 - DIES.

There's no healing there, there's no "skillful play", it's just russian roullette. Eventually the 25% non-avoid happens, and the tank is splattered. You can change the numbers around however you like, but the basic premise -- That mitigation is valuable on tanks/healers because it is predictable/guaranteed damage removed, doesn't change. Avoidance is an efficiency thing, not a survival thing. Most shamans don't care about how efficient they are at taking damage, they care about how likely the damage is to kill them =P

I don't think it's a coincidence that they feed us mainly mp5 gear and in this case a mp5 bonus. all examples in this thread asumes 50%+ insde the FSR to show that 3-piece transcendence is superior. I don't think I've been 50%+ inside FSR since bwl was released (maybe in a fight or two but in general? not even close) and would consider myself a really lousy/lazy healer if I were. If you set the FSR to something a bit more realistic faith outperform 3-set easily and by a decent amount and the argument disapears.

If the raidforce has healers spending more than 50% of their time outside FSR (wanding perhaps? or what?), then shouldn't it be considered to swap out some of the healers for DPS-people? While managing with FSR is definately an important aspect in playing a healer in WoW, it sounds rather odd to me to start casting a heal only every seven or so seconds to keep rest of the time looking silly. At those days of raiding I'de ask my RL if I can swap on my rogue and do something meaningfull instead ^^

My point here being, if you're outside FSR way more than 50%, then is discussing about manaregen and efficiency really needed at all? Sounds extremely unlike that you'll run out of mana no matter what gear you are in. Green of Whale stuff might work just fine too...

You keep multiple healers around for more than just flat, consistent heals. If monsters always did the exact same amount of damage every time the healing would sure be a lot easier.
Sorry, I'm just simplyfing for the sake of quick discussion. You're right of course.

Not so - Emps or C'thun are a great example. On these fights I spend a huge amount of time out of FSR - due to the spiky nature of the damage. Fights with constant, slow damage (Fankriss for ex.) I don't get to really use FSR to its maximum potential - so I spam HR2 for fights like that - where the damage is constant. For Emps - I queue up a big ass heal, and just keep cancelling it - prolonging my outside FSR time, but still maximizing my potential HP/S. On the same token - I wouldn't be able to use all that FSR time if I was one of the only healers in the raid, and my gear (which is heavy on spirit) would be fairly crap for casting regen. Not all fights are the same, and not all healers are the same. I wouldn't be able to use my FSR much if it wasn't for the other healers in my guild - quite a few maximize their M/5 and use alot of low rank heals - which only adds to my abilities to back them up with larger heals, and regenerating at an insane rate.


And I agree - it sucks we're tied to Trans - esp. since the Legs/Bracers/Boots are slight differences, but the gains are huge by sticking with those three pieces. Hopefully there is something we're not seeing with 8pc Faith - stacking would be nice - but really it should be something like allows you to regen 20% more mana while casting/not casting - essentially a mini blue dragon. This way it still scales (which the current bonus doesn't!) and it provides the same baisc idea. Why they went with a number is beyond me - I'd have thought that by now they would be trying to get away from set numbers and moving more towards scaling abilities.

To be honest, at first glance I was pretty disappointed with the set bonuses. They seemed a backwards step from the progression towards efficiency and greater healing. 2 procs and a threat reduction.

It is essentially the set I would have killed for 8 months ago, when spamming flash heal was de rigueur and greater heal wasn’t even on my ui.

Now I’ve never been keen on "sets", they generally promote a readily collectable attitude to gearing up, something that can be negative if not entered into with a rounded understanding.

Something I am however, very keen on is specialisation. Being as solid as one can be within a given role. Trans is ideal if that role is efficiency and greater heal spike control, 3/8 + non set, perfect for rank2 heal chains, but there’s a gap for that long forgotten role, that of the flashspammer. The hps powerhealers that we used to be.

Getting all nostalgic here for a simple time when tanks took so much damage, mashing that 1.4 second heal was all we could do to keep them alive, but on reflection I have to confess that I’m happy to see a set that engenders a stylistic change to healing, as opposed to attempting to replace what is a superb and solid system within trans.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. 3p Trans does nothing for you if you're not casting, so the more you're in FSR the better it gets. To quote some numbers off the chart I posted on page 1, assuming Epiphany is up 100% of the time and you are never at full mana, if you have 350 spirit and are in FSR over ~64% of the time, 3p Trans is better. The more spirit you have, the lower that breakpoint gets. Since Epiphany isn't a 100% proc by any means, and probably never will be, that breakpoint is probably a lot lower, since the less you cast the less often 8p Faith will proc. So taking Asmo's numbers, at 50% FSR 8p Faith will be up maybe 15% of the time, which means that for any reasonable value of FSR at all, 3p Trans will be better.

Sorry to dig this thread back up, but as point of reference with 8-piece Trans, Augur Staff, and every HP enchant possible I'm at 5207 HP raid buffed without Blood Pact. 5667 with it. So I guess alliance ezmode.

That's strictly true, yes. But, by making spirit more useful inside the 5SR, it encourages you to build your mana regeneration around spirit rather than around MP5-- it's simply a better deal in terms of itemization cost.

And by encouraging you to stack spirit instead of MP5, it actually makes your optimal regeneration involve lots of time outside the 5SR. It actually ends up encouraging good 5SR management rather than making it obselete.

This is true. But I'm mostly concerned here with how much contribution you get from it, relative to 8p Faith. For a given set of gear, if you're in FSR 50% of the time 3p Trans is doing half as much as it would do if you were in FSR 100% of the time.

i would go more with http://ctprofiles.net/1724850 vs Gurg's http://ctprofiles.net/1683644 for a few reasons.

first being an alliance priest i can count on a few things, namely BoW and BoK. These assist in my favored playstyle.

specifics: trading 212 +heal for 75 mp5. much has been made of the Trans 3/8 and Faith 8/8. imo, 75 mp5 will be > than both. once you cross ~125 mp5 Heal 1 becomes free (assuming standard alliance raid buffs & no consumables.) and heal 2 nearly free. free in that you regen faster than you expend when chain casting. with my current gear (134 mp5 & 752 +heal) i can work this mechanic into fights to great success. combine this with ~1100 +heal from the hypothetical gear selection and you generate a free casting 1000+ hp heal. this will allow you a great deal of freedom of play relieving most concerns for endurance at a small sacrifice to "throughput" of your heals.

Faith: imo, the 12% reduction to Renew is the highlight of this set. it provides a lot of efficiency for minimal requirments, giving you additional freedom in spec by lessening the impact of Mental Agility should you choose not to take it or providing even more benefit. 4/8 Faith is nice in theory, esp that it generates less "waste" as Trans 8/8. however, i have a two issues with it. first, crit is not exactly plentiful nor easy to build for w/o pigeon holing yourself with gear. seeing more +crit/holy crit on Faith would have made this more attractive. second, I do not use GHeals much with my healing style. I tend to cast more smaller heals in anticipation of damage, rather than waiting and spending time outside the FSR, and moving up and down the Heal ranks to match both expected damage increases ( mob abilities ) or damage information viewed with Nurfed Combat Log. the additonal HP and MP the faith set brings is very nice and probably more desireable to a horde preist, but with BoK & Desperate Prayer I feel the sting of few HP's a lot less.

Spirit: i know much emphasis is placed on the increased spirit of the faith set. being alliance imo mitigates that to a degree. in my desired gear selection i will have 207 spirit vs 333 of gurg's. this is at first a significant delta but BoK reduces this gap nicely. "nicely" in that the net difference of the utilization of the FSR and Spiritual Guidance is not sufficient enough to give me concern.

+heal/mp5: imo, you only need so much mp5 to gain the performance needed for most fights. i am fine staying around 135 due to the aforementioned heal 1/2 mechanic i use. the increased ilvl of items is allowing me to select gear to stay at this "standard" while also quickly expanding the amount of +heal i have. this makes down ranking easier and more favorable, mana conservation even easier, and my burst ability higher. to me it is a very synergistic system. when ilvls expand sufficiently enough for me to utlize Heal 3/4 the way i currently do Heal 1/2 i will reshift priorities a bit perhaps.

wrapup: the faith set isnt horrible but i do not think the set bonuses or stat selection make it desireable over a smart choice of non set gear. 3 piece Trans frustrates me and i dislike how it becomes the cornerstone to spirit builds. this was fine when Trans was the apex of gear, but the game moves on. faith has some solid pieces (robe, sandals, shoulders) and a solid easy to get 2/8 bonus. if i was horde i would probably make some changes to my desired gear and style. however, being alliance covers up the weaknesses of my gear choices; namely low mana and hp totals.