There's no hardcoded diminishing returns, sure, but it's true that +healing interest hugely decreases past ~1k-1k2 in my opinion. When your gh rk1 / heal rk2 reaches 2k, you can't derank more and I think that in most situations, you never need to cast bigger heals than 2k or it is mass overhealing. Obviously, that's not always true. A gh rk2 @ 3k would be very good for patchwerk, or a 500 per tick renew, but for your main task which is often spam heal a tank, more than 1k2 healing is wasted.

My current dream set is 3 t2 (bindings, leggings, boots), 4 t3 (gloves, shoulders, robe, ring), cthun belt and ouro hat.

This is one of those occasions where I had hoped my doom and gloom theorycrafting predictions hadn't come true.

The only real compensation comes in though that Faith has 14/5 more mana regen and 30 more spirit then trans which makes up for it a little bit but not nearly enough to lose the spirit bonus. Trans pants are so ungodly awesome I weep for any priest that still has to attend MC clears. 8(

8/8 Wrath is individually the best available for a while. There was somewhere around 4 months between Nef being killed and AQ coming out where there just wasn't anything better, and guilds which hadn't killed Nef when AQ came out probably didn't (or don't) advance through AQ very quickly. Most sets are sub-optimal even at the earliest possible time to loot them (Unless you skip Onyxia or something).

Yeah. Until Blizzard broke it in 1.12

I'm suprised I haven't seen more comments on this...it's so easy to notice.

Ever since 1.12 a priest with less +healing (or fewer Holy talents) with 8/8 Trans cannot cast a Greater Heal on someone that has been 8/8 GH'd by a priest with more +healing (or more appropriate Holy talents).

Not only does the HoT part not get overwritten but the main direct heal fails too.

This *breaks* 8/8 Trans when you have more than 1 Priest in the guild using it.

Doesn't it say "Increases your mana regeneration by 24" and not 24 mp5? Doens't that imply spirit regen?

Not sure how true that is. A priest in my guild has said that it breaks like you say, but I dont have that problem when I take off some +heal to be lower than his. The cast bar turns red and says "inturupted" or whatever, but the heal still goes off (minus the HoT).
edit: might be a mod im using like fastcast...hmm


but yeah, i probably wont be breaking 8/8 until im forced to in expansion

Other classes get to keep maxing their +damage whatever stuff, let us keep maxing our +healing to flex our own epeens :(

Seriously though, other than like trash mobs or something, ~1k is where I'm going to stop (I think). As for that neck, it has zero stamina on it which makes baby Jesus sad.

Druids should still be wearing Stormrage Helm, Gloves, and Bracers (or shoulders). Depending on how much you like the 6 piece bonus, you may end up wearing only 4 pieces of Dreamwalker for maximum regen/healing. Only our Chest and Boots strike me as "I need to wear this" And even then, just barely. A druid could wear non-set cloth from BWL/AQ and 3 pieces of Stormrage, and be about as well off as wearing 4/9 Dreamwalker. I am once again amazed at how poorly Blizzard understands druids, and healing classes in general with the massive Int on our gear (a fairly worthless stat, that point for point becomes worse than Spirit in any fight 3 minutes or longer, and fights shorter than 3 min your mana doesn't matter to begin with)

I think the neck off Maexxna is amazing for Priests, and still pretty good for Shaman and Druids. Better than Pendant of the Fallen Dragon for everyone. People tend to DE it because, comparing it to C'thuns, it falls short, even for Priests, and druids/shaman will benefit more from Angelistas Charm, or Amulet of the Shifting Sands (maybe even Wavefront Necklace or Jin'do's Evil Eye)

I don't agree that you should ever stop going for +healing gear. You certainly shouldn't neglect your regen, but (especially from a HoT, or instant heal standpoint) more +healing is always good. Even on a long fight like Twin Emperors, I will never go OOM with my +900 healing 33 MP5 and under 300 Spirit, even without Mana Spring/Tide (yes, I have to drink potions and innervate myself ... but i'm a druid alchemist, that's what I *do*)

No.

Also, I'm glad someone else has discovered the theoretical possibility of upranking besides me. Granted, no one has that kind of regen gear, but at some point, for example, Heal 3 has higher sustained HPS than Heal 2, if that's what you're after. Add this to the normal tradeoff of constant, small, mana-efficient heals versus sporadic, large heals versus sporadic, small, fast Flash Heals.

I'm pretty much stuck in the same situation. I've had to bag items like the bracelets of royal redemption just to keep the 3 set bonus, which currently is totally unreplacable whichever way you try to swing it. I've tried the maths on going for the mother of all MP/5 sets, but it's simply not worth it especially with the large amounts of spirit on tier3.

I'm hoping that blizzard fix this for the expansion by adding as talents "Meditation Allows 10/20/30% of your mana regen to continue whilst casting", at the same time not allowing it to stack with x3 tranc, I think that would solve the situation.

But yeah it's pretty crap for me atm especially being in a guild that is so focused towards naxx completion; still waiting for the Rejuv gem or hold out for the 4H trinket and a couple of rings and I'm done until the exp :(

problem is, what do you do if you have deviate growth cap, wasphide gauntlets and the veklinash belt. i just had to replace the belt with my old stormrage belt again (though i always kind of valued them equally) just not to lose the 3 set bonus, which for me resulted in about 12 mana per tick. now i am at a point where every new piece of dreamwalker would basically be a downgrade overall because of losing the 3 piece SR bonus. and for me personally i dont need extra +healing. i have enough and only way i feel that my gear will improve is through regen.

8 piece Faith bonus sucking makes me a Saaaaaad Panda :(

*glues trans robes / bracers / legs to his character*

I'd honest to god wish they'd just get rid of meditation, add a 30% mana regen talent somewhere in the middle-upper end of the holy tree, change the 3 piece transcendence bonus to just be a flat 15m/5 bonus or something and be done with it. It's more ridiculous then the lifegiving gem problem tanks are facing, only our wicked awesomely scaling item happens to take 3 slots instead of a trinket slot. 8(

I can see priests still busting out their 8 piece trans sets for encounters in TBC where an extra regen is handy. Especially with the absurd amount of +heal you can get on non-set item slots.

Running some numbers through my spreadsheet, wearing 4/9 Dreamwalker, 3/8 SR, and Wild Growth Spaulders, I am capable of chain casting Rank 4 HT for over 15 minutes with drinking Suprior Mana Potions (8 potions), Innervating myself (3 innervates used), and constant Mana Spring. Regen is only important if you're casting multiple Regrowth/Rejuv/Swiftmend, and you can usually compensate with Consumables (or being alliance). The effects of +healing can't be duplicated unless you start upranking. 3/8 SR just has such an immense effect that no configuration I've tried has matched it for total healing potential unless I added in Runes, Major Pots, Mana Tide, Mana Spring, and Innervate, all being used at the most optimal time for max regen.

I'm still looking and hoping for a gearset that doesn't involve T2. One way or another, it certainly won't involve 8/9 Dreamwalker, and most likely not even 6/9.

Tier 3 Healer Sets: Because you Really want to knock your MT's Flask off.

The heal goes off on 8/8 still when you're trying to overwrite a higher + healing priest, you just dont get the HoT. I see it go off in SCT and my combat log.

Anyway, I agree the benefit of 15% spirit regen 5sec after casting is just too ridiculous to pass up. Especially with the insanity that is the Trans pants. I imagine they'll be doing an item repass with the Burning Crusade - in the meantime, I'm sad that cloth T3 sets are fairly meh overall.

What if they made +healing work the same way the new relics do? Where at max rank you get the full bonus, at increasingly lower ranks you get increasingly lower benefits? i.e., FH7 gets the full +heal bonus applied to it (subsequently modified by it's casting time), FH6 gets say, 88% of your +heal bonus applied to it, FH5 gets 75%, etc.

That would certainly raise the "+healing effectiveness" roof.

Currently sub-level 20 spells don't get the full healing bonus. Maybe @70 level 30 spells and above would get the full bonus.

However, I disagree that less the than highest rank gets less bonus, that would be silly.

It'd mostly just make +healing not very good. I don't think I've ever wished that my GH5 (or even GH1) was bigger. Making FH7 bigger is kinda nice for spamming heals on the raid, but not very useful for MT healing.

Maybe if tanks are running around with 20k HP at level 70 without lifegiving gem/last stand.

Or they might increase player HP levels dramatically and make the later spells more valued. I suspect this is what we will actually see, doubling player HP (and presumably mob hits) and effectively nerfing healing but at the same time making the later spells worth a lot more. The transition should be very painful.

I'm not poisitive, but I'm pretty sure our druids final goal is 4/9 Dreamwalker, 3 Stormrage (NOT the HElm though.) and Deviate Growth Cap. 5/6 of our primary druids have a Deviate Growth Cap and swear by it being better than Stormrage and even Tier 3 on a 1v1 level. This may depend on whether or not you have the chance to get Lethon on a regular basis on your server. Here we primarily had free reign on all green dragons for 5 months. Only recently have we been negliecting them to get further in Naxx or work on C'thun.

I was just talking about a 3/8 SR, 6/9 DW setup. The way things are looking on my spreadsheet, not a single piece of Dreamawlker is worth wearing if you don't care about wearing cloth. Guardian Saint, Preceptors, Pure Thought .. Blizzard did a terrible job on our T3 gear, both on the stats and the set bonus's. I am very dissapointed that I'll be wearing items 10+ iLevels lower, that have points alocated to +resist over T3.

The problem with most of those solutions is then the alternative to spam-casting/canceling low rank heals is Gheal rotations, and who wants that?

I still hold that the better idea would be a semi-revamping of the priest class and all healers abilities expand based on this. Priests should really be re-focus'd on preventing damage (blind - increases a mobs miss rate by 30% or something, shadow word: fade - phases your target, gives your target a 15% chance to take 75% reduced damage, power word: apathy - increases the hate barrier required for a mob to switch targets.etc...etc...) and then you move prayer of healing to paladins, dump the heal spells. Maybe keep flash leaving it pretty unefficient. Beef up the PW:S line to be our primary heal.

Edit: Dear lord my use of the apostrophe should be considered a crime.