[Holy Priest] To T6 or not to T6?

Polemidas · 08/14/07, 6:51 AM

Simply put how many people are planning on scrapping T5 completely and gearing themselves in full T6? After looking at the stats, dropping the T6 legs in favor of T5 seems like a no-brainer but what about the rest? I assumed that most of us would keep the 2 piece T5 but not having it yet I'm curious as to what the rest of you think.

Also, if you're keeping 2 pieces of T5 which pieces would you ideally keep?

Personally, after taking a look at the values after gems and breaking down spirit to healing and mp5 I decided that keeping the T5 legs and gloves would be ideal, though legs and cowl would make sense too.

Dragooner · 08/14/07, 7:03 AM

Why take t6 legs when you can get the ones from archimonde.

I've been having this same problem as well, decided when to break up my t5 2 piece bonus. Its a very tough decision.

In the end I think I'm leaning towards the helm and the shoulders actually, for some reason.
*drool*

Polemidas · 08/14/07, 8:02 AM

Heh, that's why I asked this =) When doing my math I used a spreadsheet of just the tier sets and completely left Archimonde's pants out.

The way I see it those favoring mp5 will keep the gloves and the cowl as they're the least mp5 upgrade, while those favoring healing will keep the shoulders and the chest.

Why'd you choose shoulders and helm?

Dragooner · 08/14/07, 8:22 AM

Kind of really enjoying bloodboil's robes. I don't know, I should probably do more research and planning, pretty much as the only holy priest in my guild I have almost every healing drop up to mother shaz so far heh.

Don't listen to me, I have no idea what I'm doing. I started out going for spirit then switched to mp5, now back to spirit and mp5 in combination. I guess its good to have 2 sets depending on the fight. Its unfortunate the t5 2piece bonus is so godly.

I think my reasoning was that the gloves from RoS were awesome and I am already using bloodboil robes and archimondes pants. Therefore the only logical 2 pieces left to use are the helm and the shoulders. Pretty bad reasoning imho.

damn haha.

Gomba · 08/14/07, 8:32 AM

The only two pieces of T5 I ever got were helm and pants, I intend to use them past Illidan.

I believe it was Sunchips on this board that threw out the idea of stacking +healing with 2p T5 and down ranking like crazy. Ive been trying this for the last couple weeks and its works out very good. Its also always nice to improve circle of healing which is a very powerful spell in Black Temple so far.

Hiba · 08/14/07, 10:03 AM

We were unbelievable unlucky with priest/warrior/druid tier5 tokens and that limited options a lot, especially when we skipped both tk/ssc several times while pushing for Illidan. We also geared main tank as a priority, and usually had only 1 holy priest in tier5 content raids. This resulted that it was really difficult to even get 2xtier5 bonus, I actually still had tier3 shoulders/chest when we killed Illidan. Now I finally have 2xtier5 bonus from gloves and shoulders, and I plan to keep them for a long time. With the set bonus manaregen lost a lot of value in my eyes, though I focused on +healing upgrades already before getting it.

Downranking to greater heal rank 1/2 allows you to pretty much chaincast without losing any noticable amount of mana, and since most of the time tanks will have Amplify Magic, the amount healed is quite a lot. For example my greater heal rank 1 heals around ~3300 when amplified, with a cost of 213-313 mana depending on the set bonus proc. Add a tree druid buff and it get's a bit ridiculous. Of course downranking is situational and best used when multiple healers heal a single tank, but since no point staying full mana anyways, you have an option to increase HPS a lot easily. I also use gh rank 4 a lot, almost 5k heal after amplify has often the same effect than gh rank 7 would have had.

I would recommend planning the gearing a bit in advance, but priests currently on tier5 content should remember that most guilds reduce the amount of tier5 content after getting to bt/hyjal. So if you can, take 2-3 tier5 pieces for those slots that you plan to keep a long time, and then start focusing on getting tier6 level ones.

Kass · 08/14/07, 11:18 AM

Like Hiba, our guild didn't see very many Priest/Druid/Warrior token drops before we left SSC/TK. I ended the zones with Robe and Gloves and fully plan on upgrading either as soon as those options drop. It's nice to have the 2pc bonus to swap in when I'm planning on MT/OT healing (Mother Shahraz, Illidari Council), but I am normally COH spec (Respecced currently because our Divine Spirit Priest is on vacation) and very rarely find myself using a spell that benefits enough from the bonus proc to actually pass on upgrades or not use T6 on a regular basis.

Would I use T6 for the bonus? No... But I would use it over T5 for the stat upgrade. I really don't see myself using T5 2pc, unless I'm specifically healing the MT/OT.

Sunchips · 08/14/07, 1:03 PM

Originally Posted by Gomba

The only two pieces of T5 I ever got were helm and pants, I intend to use them past Illidan.

I believe it was Sunchips on this board that threw out the idea of stacking +healing with 2p T5 and down ranking like crazy. Ive been trying this for the last couple weeks and its works out very good. Its also always nice to improve circle of healing which is a very powerful spell in Black Temple so far.

Just to clarify, despite the massive +heal stacking, I don't rely on the downranked spells as much as one would think. When you get farther in BT/hyjal there tends to be a shift from mana intensive to HPS intensive. It becomes a serious issue of healing fast enough. This is more or less resolved simply by bringing an additional healer to a raid; the difference on Archimonde, for example, with 9 healers instead of 7 is incredibly noticable.

That said I'm staying with +heal stacking as it allows me to be able to put out massive HPS, while still having the option to draw back to efficient lower rank heals (I use gheal 1, 3, and 7 about equally).

As for the T5 vs. T6, T6 dominates overall in that it has a balance of all 5 stats on it. I would definitely go for 4 pieces, if not all 5, simply because its better rounded gear.

As for which pieces, I would say the gloves shoulders and chest are the best upgrades, the helm is a decent upgrade, and the legs seemed to me as a minor upgrade; you gain a few stats, 15 or so +healing and lose 4 or 5 mp5.

For people who have T5 helm+ legs, chest + legs, or helm+chest, you'll be sitting well through BT; the shoulders are also good as there are very little upgrades until t6 (Mother Shahraz), which is almost always well after Hyjal is already cleared.

Edit:

Would I use T6 for the bonus? No... But I would use it over T5 for the stat upgrade. I really don't see myself using T5 2pc, unless I'm specifically healing the MT/OT.

This is ultimately what I wanted to say about T5 vs T6.

One. · 08/15/07, 12:14 PM

As for which pieces, I would say the gloves shoulders and chest are the best upgrades, the helm is a decent upgrade, and the legs seemed to me as a minor upgrade; you gain a few stats, 15 or so +healing and lose 4 or 5 mp5.

I would agree, head and legs are the 2 pieces I am planning to keep or atleast to swap out of my gear last. I haven't really compared the overall stats of a full t6 with 3 t6 + 2 t5, but if I decide to keep my bonus those 2 parts will be the keepers. Actually it's quite convinient that these 2 parts can be used togheter with the full primal mooncloth set untill t6 becomes fully available.

Kitinan · 08/15/07, 7:21 PM

I'll probably keep two peices of t5 when and if I get it. The mana return for overheals is awsome for overhealing. IMHO

Raevyrn · 08/16/07, 11:25 AM

I have a spreadsheet with all of the healing 'upgrades' through the whole game. In terms of t5 vs t6, the least amount of stat point sacrificed to retain the two piece bonus is by using the t5 helm and shoulders or gloves. Here is the helm:

Item Name STA INT SPI Healing MP5
Cowl of the Avatar 40 32 31 103 12
Cowl of Absolution 36 32 33 126 12
Difference -4 0 2 23 0

Now, granted, the stats are assuming BT gems of the 5 int, 2mp5 and a 4 mp5 gem. Adjust as you see fit, but you can see that the difference is very small between the two.

The other slot is shoulders:

Item Name STA INT SPI Healing MP5
Mantle of the Avatar 26 26 20 106 14
Mantle of Absolution 30 30 19 93 22
Difference 4 4 -1 -13 8

This is with 4 mp5 gems and scryer exalted shoulder enchant.

The glove choices:

Item Name STA INT SPI Healing MP5
Gloves of the Avatar 26 27 29 77 6
Gloves of Unfailing Faith 25 33 0 84 18
Gloves of Absolution 39 31 27 86 10
Difference 1/-13 -6/-4 29/2 -7/-9 -12/-4

So depending on what your heal style is and your healing role in the raids, you can hopefully make the choices here. I myself will be keeping t5 helm and shoulders around for this purpose when I attain them as it seems to be the two pieces with the least amount of difference in terms of stats.

Hmm, can't get it to retain my spacing...hopefully that is readable enough.

Psilux · 08/16/07, 12:42 PM

I picked up the T5 helm and T5 shoulders also for this purpose. They are by far, the lone pieces that are big enough upgrades from T4 gear / kharazan stuff that warrant taking, as well as high enough stat-wise to carry me through BT and Hyjal.

At the very least, the leggings of eternity seem to be a bigger upgrade for me, and would be my "offset" piece over the T6 leggings. The leggings of eternity with 16mp5, 3 blue gem sockets (with a +9 healing set bonus), and more +healing than T6 far outweigh the T6 pants in sheer itemization. If you were bummed because of the lack of spirit in the leggings of eternity, you could socket 3 +10 spirit gems, have +30 spirit, and make the leggings of eternity completely blow the T6 pants out of the water for sheer regeneration purposes. Eitherway, the archimonde pants are where it's at.

The t6 pants for priests have a yellow gem socket. Meh.

Dragooner · 08/16/07, 12:46 PM

The thing about the pants from archimonde is their item level, completely destroys t6 pants in most ways no matter how you socket them and even more so tier 5. So you have choices of 3 +10 spirit or 3 +4mp/5 gems or some combination. 28 mp/5 on pants is hot.

I'm glad someone mathmatically proved my gut feeling on the shoulder and helm.

Thanks Raevyrn.

Raevyrn · 08/16/07, 2:22 PM

This may be a sidetrack but I feel it goes along with the equipment discussion.

I'm curious to find out exactly how priests are trying to gear themselves or as I call it, what 'equipment spec' they want to go for, why they choose that spec, and what their healing style and role is.

I myself have always gone with a very heavy mana regeneration spec since my healing style is that of a stop gap raid healer. I stablize the target via a shield and a renew, quick flash heal, or a pom. Then I move on to the next target. Because I use such inefficient heals and a lot of pw: shields, being able to regenerate quite a bit is vital to healing as I do. Fully raid buffed I get up to 313 mp5 while casting and about 1675-1700 healing. By end game (if I get everything I want) I expect to increase this to about 369 mp5 with about 2100 to healing with slight differences if I decide to use the two t5 pieces I mentioned earlier.

The thing is, I've armoried a lot of the holy priests in the higher end guilds (Just going through top ranks on wowjutsu) and what I noticed that almost every priest has an extremely high spirit and healing, but rather low mp5. Are people using a much different healing rotation that allows a better use of the five second rule to take advantage of that high spirit?

With the way we have our healing setup, we only go with seven healers (Two to three holy paladins, one to two restoration druids, one or two restoration shamans, and myself as the lone holy priest), and we very rarely go with more due to our raid preferring having the additional dps. Are other raids running with more healers usually (barring specific fights)? If so, perhaps I need to make some adjustments to raid composition and go through what kind of gear and gems I should be trying to attain.

I may move this to the holy priest theorycrafting thread.

Ramalama · 08/16/07, 2:34 PM

One good way to answer whether you should keep 2-piece T5 indefinitely is to play normally for a few weeks with WWS or a similar mod running, then go back and look through your combat logs to see how much mana you get returned from Efficiency while using your normal style of healing. Of course it will vary from fight to fight, but you can still get an idea of, on average, how much mp5 it is equivalent to given your play style and typical raid roles.

I did this for myself and a few other priests I know and found that 2-piece T5 can vary from 10-50 mp5 equivalent depending on the player and encounter. If you fall on the low end of that consistently, it will be worth upgrading to T6 equivalent, while if you fall toward the middle or high end you should probably stick with 2-piece T5 from a min/max perspective.

The other half of the argument is that 2-piece T5 allows you to completely change your play style to that of a Paladin, basically MT spamming or playing whack-a-mole and still remaining efficient. So you're well served to keep two pieces in your inventory for situations where that's appropriate, even if you decide to upgrade your "default" healing set to T6 equivalent.

Edit: I'll also add, somewhat OT, that I'm starting to lean toward Sunchips' camp in favoring +healing and, to a lesser degree, stamina. I don't mean choosing significantly lower ilvl gear to heavily stack those stats, just gemming and choosing between Tier and equivalent off-Tier pieces accordingly. Given how much of our mana regen comes from things like consumables, shadow fiend and innervate, it's my opinion that our natural mana regen from gear is a weak thing to focus on.