This seems to be a bit off at times but....Priest Healing

People still use this? It was 100% accurate when I last updated it a couple months ago. Most calculations are based off Nightshroud's spreadsheets. I'll retest it tonight and update any errors that I find.

I'm enjoying the inspiration procs, particularly in Gruul during large grows. Something I've been unable to find a lot of information about though is the base crit chance for different spells. Looking at a wws parse from a recent Gruul kill, I noticed that my Greater Heal was getting about 15% crits, while the odd Heal I cast was hitting around 25%. Does anyone have any solid numbers on this?

This is just a problem of sample size. Your spells don't have varying crit chances (unless specifically talented, like Paladins), but the fewer you cast the more probable it is that you'll see a crit chance that's unexpected.

I wouldn't say requirement, but I spec'ed over to PoH for learning Bloodboil and have found that I use it enough that I haven't gotten around to specing back.

/shrug

The reduced mana cost to Prayer of Mending seems meaningful as well, since Mending is a staple healing spell-- on most fights you want a copy floating around even if there isn't raidwide AoE damage.

Why do you have 5/5 in Holy Specialization, 2/2 in Searing Light, 0/3 in Inspiration?

Personally, I'm not a super huge fan of Crit or Inspiration (as a raid healer), but you seem to have chosen to spend points in areas that are not maximizing your healing output. Maybe I'm missing something, but why spec for crit if you're not speccing Inspiration? Why spec Searing Light at all?

I don't see Healing Prayers as worth it for two fights (Naj'entus and Gurtogg); however, I am specced for COH, so I use COH+Renew over POH.

EDIT:
Just to add, our Holy Priest that is not specced with COH, uses Renew heavily on Gurtogg. He uses POH to some degree, but the bulk of his healing comes from Renew.

So I raided heavily in Naxx and got 6/8 faith, and then prety much took TBC off until just recently, so I skipped a good bit of karazhan farming runs etc. So i still run with the Belt/Bracers/Gloves of Faith. Now looking at possible upgrades for these slots it seems like the benefit is somewhat small ( due to item budget on these pieces) and the 2pc faith bonus is pure money. So I'm wondering... just how much renew-ing would I need to do to make the 2pc faith bonus > upgrading to like Hydross's bracer etc.

First here are some of the items that I could reasonably upgrade to (bosses currently on farm+ vashj) and their advantages over faith. Later on I might compare to BT/hyjal tier loot depending on how favorable the match up is with lower tier loot.

Bracers -> [Wraps of Purification] Net gain 13 sta, 10 int, we'll say 4-5 mp/5 and 13 healing.

Belt -> [Cincture of Will] net gain : 6 sta 5 int 8 spr ( I personally would consider that about equal to 1.5mp/5) 11 Healing.

[Belt of the Long Road] -5 sta -5 int +16 spr and 4 mp/5 + 41 healing

Gloves -> [Gloves of the Avatar] gain 10 sta 6 int 7 spr 2mp5 and 37 healing

[Handwraps of the Incarnate] gain 12 sta 5 int -4 spr 6mp/5 and 17 healing.

So looking at this the 2 slots with the least combined upgrade potential ignoring cincture/incarnate is bracer+ gloves, but since my server doesn't have Belt of the Long Road afaik we'll compare Bracers/gloves and bracers/belt

First Bracers/Belt combined loss of stats from using Faith over Wraps/LongRoad : 8 sta 5 int -1 spirit 11mp/5 54 healing
And similar for Bracers/gloves: 23 sta 16 int -10 spr 9 mp/5 50 healing

If we Value spirit as roughly 6 per mp/5 for the sake of this argument ( probably less oFSR time if you cast a lot of renews) we can say the bracer/glove combo net gains 7.5 mp/5

So that more or less covers the penalty for using Faith now whats the benefit. I know that the bonus is 12% and I believe its the same 54 mana off max rank renew with/without Mental Agility.

Now is where I rely on more experienced theorycrafters to turn that int/mp5/healing into something I can compare to mana saved, as well giving some rough boundaries for how frequently I would need to be casting renews to see returns over upgrading.

Edit: using values closer to what blizzard uses for gems and such to convert the stat gains into mp 5 is far less favorable for two pc fatih, but still not unreasonable.

So heres the new numbers I used so 4 sta, 3 spr, 3int, 3 healing are all roughly equal to 1 mp5. the stats are closer to 2.5 per 1 mp5 but I rounded up here. this makes the bracer/gloves worth 35 mp5 and the bracer/belt worth 33 mp5. This means you'd need to maintain on average 2 renews to be having a net gain.

Still given how few renews would be required it seems a safe bet that using Belt/bracers of faith and upgrading to avatar gloves ( for 2/4 piece) is not a bad option, but I would like to tighten the numbers realistically so we can compare it accurately to BT/hyjal gear.

Again since this is really my first piece of theorycraft here any all/criticism/corrections are greatly appreciated.

Edit: One final note. I am not a tailor, and thus these pieces don't conflict with PMC or the like. In my gear raid buffed PMC's 5% mana regen set bonus could easily be 25-30+ mp5

Its important to note that I am not recommending renewing more and using 2 pc faith as a way to justify it rather, I say evaluate your current healing style for a given encounter(s) and if you cast renew more frequently than the thresholds listed about( or higher ones if it meant taking off bt/hyjal gear) then you should consider wearing 2 piece faith instead.

Hate how you can see people's talent builds because now everyone knows how terrible I am.

Seriously, I have to pay my repair bill somehow. It's relaxing to sit there for an hour or two and smite shit with my 875 holy damage. Maybe I'll respec to something reasonable when I get home.

EDIT: Nice gear Kassaria.

One more thoughts regarding spec, I'm often the only non-shadow priest in raid and am pretty much expected to have Imp Spirit.

In regard to the repair bills, that's one thing I love the Daily Quests for. These three below, are perfect for an herbalist healer-type and can net you 33g a day pretty easily and in very little time.

Netherdust Pollen
The Booterang
Fires Over Skettis

As for a good 23/38/00 spec, there are probably several out there that are more raid viable than what you're currently using. I have to respec for the next two weeks to Improved Divine Spirit, as our DS Priest is going on vacation. I'll be using this SPEC.

Like people have mentioned above, if your focus is PvE, your spec should reflect your typical healing assignment and the content you're facing, particularly to prepare you for your new progression encounters. When I'm COH and raid healing exclusively, I don't pick up Inspiration or Holy Specialization. When I'm DS spec, and spend some fights healing the tanks, I'll pick up both those talents.

That's a reasonable spec. Sometimes it's fun to mix it up a little though.

I've been doing Netherdust Pollen but I'll have to check out the others. Thanks.

To go a little off track -

In regards to switching from a Spellsurge weapon to a weapon with +81 healing between the 50 second cooldown; if you are paired with another player that has Spellsurge, is there anyway to seperate your spellsurge from the other player's so you know when yours had proc'd and when to switch the weapons? Also, I do not use Deadly Boss Mods, so is there a timer you have found that works to count down those 50 seconds (that you could start up in a macro)?

- and back to the stat topic

As far as stats, it depends a lot on your gear, who you usually heal in encounters, etc etc. Personally, usually spirit takes the back seat as I rarely get a chance to put it to full use (ie out of 5 second rule). Mp/5 will almost always be king I think, unless you have the 2 set bonus from tier 5 - then you will probably find +healing and stam moving higher up on the priority list.

I did a very rough estimate of the relative value of healing, spirit, and mana/5, and am using that for general gear comparison, not that I really think it means a whole lot. (If you're curious, it came out to something like 1 mana/5 = 3 spirit = 8 healing, although unless you have my exact talent build and use the exact spell cycle I was assuming it's probably a useless ratio.) I think there was some discussion of this earlier, but I can't be bothered to go find it (it's late, and I'm tired).

Just saying "mana/5 > healing > spirit" seems to beg the question "how much so?"...

If you use Bigwigs:

Macro 1:
/equip <spellsurge weapon>

Macro 2:
/equip <81 healing weapon>
/bw extras custombars local 50 Spellsurge

I've made a transition recently from being an "mp5 whore" to a "+heal/spirit whore."

With that said, if I had to prioritize my stats it would *probably* look something like:

+Healing > Spirit > Int > mp5 > everything else.

However, there are quite a few fights where you're better off if you can hit 9.5k-10k HP+ without gimping your other stats too badly. Keep that in mind when building your gear sets.

First of all, you can get +healing in gobs, and the scaling you're going to get from +Heal will outweigh the scaling you get from stacking mp5.

Secondly, the stuff high-end hits really, really hard. I've definitely hit 8.5k+ GH crits on Teron with 0 overheal several times. I just don't see it being viable to run around with 1500 +healing in a lot of the BT/Hyjal fights. Your tanks simply take too much damage and given a cap on how many healers you're going to have, you need to be able to heal through high burst damage.

Also, 2 piece T5 is pretty great. It encourages us to use GH a littler more liberally than we might otherwise...

Placing Spirit 2nd, behind +heal, is all about the burst regen. And it adds to +heal as well. But you get a CC proc, you time your +spirit trinkets with it, you chain it with IF, hell - maybe you get a 3rd CC proc after that - you've just been out of the FSR for maybe 15-20 seconds at something like 1k+ mp5 (when 'not casting'). I really think burst mana regen is the way to go for us.

You get the idea. Just my opinion on stats at the moment. Can talk more about any of this if necessary. And for reference my guild has cleared Hyjal, and we're getting pretty deep in BT (about to kill Reliquary).

This confirms many of my own thoughts. While my progress and experience cannot compare to your own. I first noticed this when the gear I was picking up simply had spirit and less mp5, or a liberal amount of spirit and little mp5 compared to the gear I used before. I have been running the "regenFU" mod for some time and have always watched it fairly closely. I switched my primary heal from a rank1gheal to a rank3, stacked some spirit and lowered my fsr time considerably while at the same time reducing overheal.

I believe that 5 man instances and 5 man heroics that are first attempted require a lot of spam healing. This method remains entrenched in the priest mindset when raiding. So much so, that I see many people stacking over 200mp5 unbuffed. I'm not sure if this isn't a product of watching paladins heal and attempting to mimic them but it seems a logical reason.

I try to keep a balance, but i'm shooting for 2k+heal 150mp5 500 spirit, 7.5k unbuffed hp and a 10k mana pool. Large goals for myself to be sure but it has always helped me when I can see and end goal and actualize it.

Another reason to stack +heal is that it makes each point of regenerated mana more valuable. In other words, if you can improve your average heal:mana ratio from 5:1 to 6:1, each point of m/5 and spirit now buys 20% more healing. But no amount of +mana will increase the heal:mana ratio except by letting you downrank less, and those benefits are simply not as great.

Or consider the hypothetical extreme case: Suppose you can either get 1,000,000 +heal or 200,000 m/5 (roughly equal in item budget). With healing, you could chain cast a low rank heal, never run out of mana, and heal at least 20,000 health per second if not more. To say nothing of renew ticks. Having obscene mana regen means you can cast your max rank heal forever, but you're still not healing more than 2k damage per second.

This happens because more +heal makes mana regen more valuable but the reverse is not true. Same concept as casters stacking +damage over +mana, really.

Mana regen does make +Heal more valuable, in that it can be applied over a longer period of time. Consider in your hypothetical situation, a hybrid, with only 500,000 +healing, and 100,000 m/5. This healer could heal with a MAX RANK heal forever, putting out more than double that of your 1,000,000 +heal healer.

True, but you only need enough mana regen to last for the duration of the fight, and potions are excellent at doing that. There is no limit to the amount of +heal that benefits you.

I don't buy this at all. Your tank's total health, and the DPS of the mob beating on him, both influence this.

Also some boss fights necessarily require lots of casting over very long periods of time (Nightbane comes to mind). Mp5 grows in value as time goes on.

Although with 2/5 Tier 5, I think the value of +heal increases even more, when the difference between under-healing vs slight overheal, can convert into a 100 mana refund.

I would think that spirit regen would be best for a fight like nightbane. He takes to the air which gives you a good amount of time outside the fsr. I always try to use IF just before the phase, to maximize my time outside the fsr.

I'm sure however that there are some fights were chain casting can not be prevented. I believe most priests have several kits? I have a few separate kits myself, regen max plus heal and a stamina kit. I wear a balanced kit if the situation does not ask for any specific needs such as the nightbane fight seems to favor stat items that carry stam as well as spirit.

As to which trinket to replace first; the bangle, no question. If there were no internal cooldown on the bangle it would be the superior trinket as, chain-casting, one might keep the uptime close to 100% on the 10% proc. However, for all I've read, it has a 45s internal cooldown which combined with the proc chance gives you about one proc per minute. One proc per minute at 15% for 15 seconds is the equivalent of 3.75% extra in-combat regen on average, plus the on-use spirit effect.

The darkmoon card, on the other hand, has no internal cooldown. Let's say in a boss encounter you're casting on average once every 3 seconds. You spam some renews, do greater heals, spend some time moving. The likelihood of a proc overwriting itself is low and I'm fuzzy on the math to model that, but assuming that doesn't happen your average uptime would be .02 (chance to proc) / 3 (seconds per cast) * 15 (seconds per proc) = 10% uptime. How much benefit this provides is determined by your other regen abilities, as it can't raise your in-combat spirit regen above 100%. This is 8.5% regen with just meditation, or 8% with meditation and the 3-piece primal mooncloth bonus.

What I like best about the darkmoon card is that it scales best in the situations where a normally spirit-heavy build would suffer. If I'm on Gruul and spamming renew for the whole fight, keeping me from ever exiting the five second rule and using the spirit to my best advantage, the uptime could double and offer me 16% extra spirit regen while casting (20% uptime times .8 for someone with meditation and primal mooncloth). Now I'll never sit somewhere and spam instant casts a whole fight, but the darkmoon card will almost always be better than the bangle of endless blessings and works well with a spirit-heavy build.

Now whether you want to take the earring of soulful meditation over, say, eye of gruul which you could use to cast a downranked spell and stay outside the 5 second rule a bit longer is a different question. The trouble is it's so difficult to model. The plus is you get that huge spirit bonus, and if you're ever innervated that alone could win the soulful earring's case. The downside being you lose the eye's ability to chain with clearcasting or inner focus to put you outside the FSR more often and better use the spirit you already have.