All relevant combat ratings can be found in Whitetooth's Combat Rating thread. To answer your question more directly 176.71899 would equate to 1% dodge before DR is applied.

But would this be worth losing the 4pc for or should I keep the normal tier shoulders? The two questions sort of work together. I mean I figured the legs would be out of the question...my main question was about the shoulders.

+33 str from heroic version 101,97 ep
+191 crit 118,42 ep
+171 mastery 41 ep currently ( could be close to ~82 ep if mastery really outweights crit/haste as blog mentions)

total 261 ep now / 302 ep patched

vs

+149 crit 116,2 ep
+169 haste 131.2 ep

247.4 ep now , however as thread mentions - 'while the four piece is more along the lines of a ~2% boost.'

Good to know. This means I'll change how my cooldowns are used - saving PI for Divine Hymn (since I can't guarantee that lining that up with heroism will be optimal) and hitting Hymn of Hope during heroism (since, as long as the mana gained isn't wasted, it will aid longevity no matter when in the fight it is gained).

It will still be wise to have both cast under Borrowed Time.

I'm aware that Mastery is slightly better than haste for Frost currently. I was wondering though what should I be attempting to get via reforging when both hit and crit are capped. Am I supposed to have like a 60/40 (m/h) spread between both or what?

Here's what I have currently:

Haste 498 3.89 %
Mastery 958/13.34 (8.00+5.34)

I'm wondering if I should bring down my Mastery a bit to be a 60/40 or leave it the way it is. Also, I noticed that NWP doesn't show up within the Haste stat tooltip. Is this normal?

Also, I was considering picking up the Volcano card, but prior to dropping 22k on one, I am curious as to whether it will really be better than a Stump of Time/Ignacious Heart Combo.

Any suggestions?

Basically, my real world testing shows the same, that stacking haste and playing in UH is superior, atleast on single targets or 2 packs. I have never found the math that proves Mastery is *the* secondary stat for Frost, or that proves Frost Presence is better than Unholy. I'd love to see it, but so far I can't blindly accept it based on my own personal experience.

Has anyone figured out which trinkets are considered BiS for us?

Trinkets with Intellect

[Core of Ripeness] and [Fall of Mortality] - Pretty much equal at the 359 level.

[Darkmoon Card: Tsunami] - Very similar but definitely more expensive to come by.

[Tyrande's Favorite Doll] - Again, very similar but more unique.

[Fall of Mortality] - Heroic version obviously takes the lead of these choices.


Trinkets with Mastery

[Darkmoon Card: Volcano] - Would be good for an AA Priest.

[Mirror of Broken Images] - On use ability has limit PVE applications

[Soul Casket] - Easy to get but you have to click it.


Trinkets for Mana

[Mandala of Stirring Patterns] - Best one with straight up Spirit.

[Shard of Woe] - Not very good with WoW math so someone else will have to figure out how much spirit this is equal too. I do like that the on use ability is on a 1 minute CD compared to the usual 2 min.

[Jar of Ancient Remedies] - I would assume that, unless you use the ability, you would constantly have 5 stacks for a total of 515 Spirit. This might be the best trinket for regen. I am not sure how valuable the on use ability is because 6420 mana is like 1 Greater Heal and you lose the 515 Spirit for 30 seconds.

[Jar of Ancient Remedies] - Heroic version gives 580 Spirit and restores 7260, which is still not much.

[Vicious Gladiator's Medallion of Meditation] and [Vicious Gladiator's Emblem of Meditation] - PVP trinkets that cost Conquest points but would have their PVE uses.

My Thoughts

Like I said, I am not big into doing WoW math so I don't really know the numbers here, but just from looking at it, here is what I came up with.

If you want the most Spell Power and largest Mana pool, then you should go with [Fall of Mortality] and either [Core of Ripeness] or [Darkmoon Card: Tsunami] depending on how good you are with on Use trinkets and how deep your wallet is.

I am honestly not sure how the mastery trinkets compare to the Intellect trinkets as far as throughput goes so someone else will have to figure those out but from what I can tell, non-AA priests would want to get [Soul Casket] while AA priests would benefit more from [Darkmoon Card: Volcano].

For mana regen, without doing the math, it seems like the best ones would be [Jar of Ancient Remedies] without using the on use ability and [Shard of Woe].

My Choices

Until someone shows me that mastery is the better choice on these trinkets I will be avoiding those for now. Since my guild is only 8/12 on normal mode currently, the heroic trinkets are out of my reach. On these first 8 bosses, I honestly haven't had much of a mana problem. I imagine heroics will change that. So I think I will be aiming for [Fall of Mortality] and [Core of Ripeness] for now. On fights when I have mana problems, I will probably replace [Core of Ripeness] with [Jar of Ancient Remedies].


Please feel free to show me the error of my ways and do the actual math needed to make a BiS decision.

Yeah, I will probably use those same 2 trinkets for now until my guild starts killing Cho'gall and I get the Fall of Mortality. Although I did see a priest with [Darkmoon Card: Volcano] with mastery reforged to 128 haste. So I guess if you need a haste and mastery bonus it could work.

I took a quick poll of which trinkets some priests from the top guilds are using. It is a bit subjective considering trinket drop rates and the fact that with the few number of kills on Sinestra, not many people could have [Shard of Woe] yet. And they might have different trinkets for different fights.

Zhinn - Paragon: [Fall of Mortality] and [Core of Ripeness]

Xabok - Method: [Core of Ripeness] and [Jar of Ancient Remedies]

Fea - Ensidia: [Jar of Ancient Remedies] and [Tyrande's Favorite Doll]

Avaa - For the Horde: [Fall of Mortality] and [Core of Ripeness]

Buschii - For the Horde: [Fall of Mortality] and [Jar of Ancient Remedies]

Lawliepop - Blood Legion: [Core of Ripeness] and [Tyrande's Favorite Doll]


(Side Note: Regarding the Haste/Mastery discussion, looking at these 6 priests, Fea is disc so they don't count. Of the other 5, 4 of them reforged everything to Haste. Xabok did a balance of haste and mastery. Only one of them has 3/3 Darkness but all 5 of them have at least 1 point in Darkness.)

You need to also take into account patch 4.0.6; I think the popularity of Core of Ripeness will be diminished considerably when it no longer stacks with Mana Tide Totem.

Also, the Mandela will become a +Intellect proc, making it far more valuable to us since Intellect scales better than Mastery.

Is this bit still true? It's apparently been fixed for hunters now, but do we still suffer from this?

This now has a permanent space in every sig line I have for WoW. well said Stoic.