constantius

The numbers I have listed in the original post wrt benchmarks are just that: benchmarks. If you're stacking 200 +heal more than the benchmark, of course your regen isn't going to be as high.

Compare Malefice and myself:
The World of Warcraft Armory
The World of Warcraft Armory

I have:
2248 +heal
312 / 763 Mp5

She has:
2444 +heal
262 / 608 Mp5

Additionally, I scale quite a bit more with raid buffs, gaining more regen and a bit more +heal with IDS, GotW, and BoK. But at the end of the day, she has over 150 +heal more than I do, and I have over 50 Mp5 I5SR more than she does. It's basically our gearing choices.

The biggest thing is obviously the weapon and the [Memento of Tyrande] (I don't have one). The two extra pieces of T6 do also factor in for her.

Basically, I like regen, a lot. She likes +heal a little more. Are either of us wrong? If I said the benchmark for T6-farming was 2200 +heal and 400 Mp5 raid-buffed, we'd both break it. She'd break the +heal benchmark by over 300, and I'd break the Mp5 benchmark by over 65.

Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. - R.A. Heinlein

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

Xindan

Thanks for the information. My guild is currently working on Gurtogg, so I spend a lot of time chain-casting GH, moreso than most fights. I guess my tradeoff thinking is that the ability to shorten the GCD and GH cast time to get more heals off may be more useful on the Fel Rage tank, rather than pumping up the power of each individual GH. I've seen that GH2 seems to be the MT heal of choice for a lot of priests, but I find myself using GH4 on the tanks and full GH7 on the Fel Rager.

I guess it just comes down to personal style; pre-2.4 I never bothered with haste, but with the added bonus of reducing the GCD, it becomes a lot more viable to me. The new regen model means that I can focus more on reducing the chance a target will die while a heal is casting instead of worrying whether I'll go oom in the process. I'll have to study this more, but thanks for the insight.

 

Veldefice

Hi,

Love the thread. Has lots of useful information about... everything Even before 2.4 came out... I've always wanted to stack spirit and I might just end up regemming all my gear with spirit.

Here's my current character sheet:

Armory link

My guild has killed Archimonde many... many... many times (for many months) and we've only seen the [Leggings of Eternity] drop once. I passed them to the other priest (since I just got the [Memento of Tyrande]) and I've been wearing my T5 pants for well over a year now. My guild no longer does Hyjal on a consistent basis as we're currently working on Sunwell.

(And apparently my guild has some really bad drop rates on certain items... notice how I'm using the ZA belt ([Cord of Braided Troll Hair]) as we've never seen the cloth belt drop off council).

So my question is... would it be worth it to get the T6 pants (even though they aren't really an upgrade) just to have another T6 piece to work with other pieces of gear as they drop? Or, should I hold out until the [Pantaloons of Calming Strife] or [Leggings of Eternity] (assuming they ever drop if we go) drop? In my opinion, T5 > T6... but maybe I'm wrong.

Also, [Apostle of Argus] or [Crystal Spire of Karabor] + [Scepter of Purification]? I have both at my disposal and I've always used mace + offhand (unless I really needed the stam) for every fight. I love regen, but I think the healing from the mace and offhand is great too. Just wondering what your thoughts on that is.

 

constantius

Don't pickup T6. They suck. Get the new badge pants: [Adorned Supernal Legwraps]. They're essentially equivalent to [Leggings of Eternity] - very slight variation (less Mp5 I5SR, more outside).

Crystal Spire+Scepter, every time. If I had them, I'd use them. Unfortunately, Archimonde is a punk (last offhand I saw went to a new trial druid, who actually had a mace to match ... I'm still waiting). You absolutely need [Scepter of Purification] because there is NO real replacement. If you want to use [Book of Highborne Hymns], it's a similar item, although the haste to me isn't worth the loss of healing and regen. I may pick one up if I still haven't seen Scepter before we get that to drop from Eredar Twins.

Mainhand+OH is a functionally better setup, simply because you gain so much in +heal, right up until Golden Staff is an option (Kil'Jaedan or Muuru). I'd love to be able to drop Apostle one of these days -- I'll probably buy the new badge mace just to have an mainhand in my bags that *doesn't* come from Karazhan, and replace it with [Archon's Gavel] once we get enough of them that I can justify asking for one instead of a paladin getting it.

Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. - R.A. Heinlein

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein

 

Veldefice

Yeah, I figured the T6 pants sucked, which is why I haven't picked them up. Maybe I'll just hold out until the pants drop off Kalec.

My thoughts exactly. I've always went mainhand+OH and our other priest (IDS) got the first Apostle. He recently switched to MH+OH and he picked up the Scepter too. The only other comparable OH is the [Touch of Inspiration]. I used that for the longest time before 2.4 came out and even now it's still pretty good.

I'm a little hesistant about the book from Eredar Twins (though we still need to down Felmyst first). It's good, but I agree with your opinion about the spell haste not being worth the regen and healing.

Mm... something to think about.

Thanks

 

Mideci

Veldefice, have you considered the Belt of the Long Road? I'd argue that since 2.4 it's become somewhat ridiculously good.

As for the staff, since 2.4 I'd argue it's become a fairly bad priest item. I mean it's hardly terrible in that it still has a ton of +heal and strong I5SR regen. But it's regen O5SR is not good and rescued only a bit because the int buffs your other spirit.

Clearly, you can't make drops happen that don't and thus Light's Justice/Voodoo Shaker are still used by many and/or the Solarian staff. Just consider that druids are rarely O5SR and might therefore value the Apostle, while priests likely should no longer.

 

Veldefice

I do have a [Belt of the Long Road] and in 2.3, the [Cord of Braided Troll Hair]was a superior item (in my opinion). In 2.4 I do think the BotLR is better, but my guild has access to T6 belts, I'm just waiting to get one Thanks for reminding me though... I'll switch to it for tonight's raid.

Yes, drops happen... when they want. Our guild has gotten about 5-6 Tempest of Chaos, 0 Cataclysm's Edge, 5 Midnight Chestguards and blah blah blah. We've only gotten 1 Skull and 1 Zhar'doom off Illidan (also after months of farming). I just wanted to see what options I had if drops (Pantaloons off Kalec) don't cooperate with me...

 

Jayde

I'd probably take [Voodoo Shaker] over [Touch of Inspiration] in 2.4, really.

I generally agree with Constantius about gear, though. We've had some back and forth on a number of issues, but that doesn't really change that our chosen gear is more or less identical.

As a general rule, though, if you can break 2.1-2.2k healing and 350-400 Mp5 in raids, you're more than suited for the majority of T6 content. You can scale up a bit more as you go along and it will help, but that baseline should be generally ok.

I'm not a big fan of my staff either, but no Lightfathom Scepters and no Scepters of Purification mean it's the best option. Was using Hammer of Attonement + Voodoo Shaker before, but generally prefer the staff. (Even though the Hammer+Shaker is not really a bad combo.) May get the badge mace if I accumulate enough spare badges after grabbing the Legs/Boots.

 

Veldefice

Mmm... then I guess I'm glad I picked up the offhand when I did :p

In raids, I'm generally at about 360 mp5 and 2.5-2.6k healing. Just trying to see what options I have to boost my mp5 just so I have more mana to work with (though, mana doesn't seem to be a problem in Sunwell... yet).

 

Plea

Not even that, really. I must also say that those benchmark numbers are a bit higher than necessary, when we first killed Kael'thas I had barely over 1500 unbuffed healing and 600ish spirit worth regen with little static mp5, in 2.3 values. That gear carried me till Archimonde and after taking some loot I can barely break 2k healing right now. I did have some funky gear, but it was enough to solo heal a doomguard/infernal tank nevertheless; it didn't feel like the raid was carrying me at all.

One thing I must add for those who might doubt about their gear, I believe the start of t6 content is generally easier to heal than the start of t5 content, even with identical stats. Naj'entus is intensive, and that's all. If you are able to heal Hydross, you are almost certainly able to heal all Hyjal, BT up to Gurtogg, maybe Gurtogg too.

 

Havoc12

Sometimes you have to use fast heals. That is why you have them. The question is do you really need to spam them? The question is what does FH give you. Perhaps you can substitute a more efficient sequence to do the same job.


You are forgetting that WWS does not show shields and pom. 85% CoH can easily be 50% CoH when you factor in shields and pom. Also can you explain why is flash heal needed? I have taken a good look at a lot of the BT trash btw. Most damage affects more than 3 ppl per group and when it does not its actually quite a lot of damage and very easy to anticipate if you keep one mob focused and one mob selected at all times. Why would you use flash heal instead of CoH/PoM on 3 ppl taking simultaneous damage? What is the ratonale for it? Can you describe the situation that requires flash heal but is not adequately healed with CoH.

In most situations where flash heal is used CoH/pom and shields can be combined to produce superior results. "Padding" the meters is a strange notion to me. There are two very important factors. 1) Is your healing helping or hindering others. 2) Are your assigned targets dying. If your healing helps others and your assigned targets are not dying, then the healing meters are a very accurate reflection of your performance.

 

Havoc12

Healing hydross is not particularly intensive. Its one of the easiest fights to heal in fact, due to the nature of the damage taken.

 

Finkum

This is not universally true - as always it depends on your healing assignment(s), your strategy for the fight, and how position- and threat-conscious your DPS are. For example, if you banish/fear 2 of the adds and have the other two single-tanked then this is going to be a lot easier to heal than if you use a warlock or paladin to pick up all four adds (our strategy of choice), especially given that an eager DPSer with no resistances will often pull aggro on one of them. Even if you use the banish/fear strat, if people forget to spread out and half the raid gets Ice Tombed at 3 or 4 marks, the healing can get quite frantic.

Personally I find Hydross one the most draining fights in SSC, although Morogrim has his moments, especially if we don't have a prot pally available.

I will agree that MT healing is very undemanding for this fight, however.

 

JaneLame

Are those stats buffed or unbuffed?




(I'm half way through SSC and I've only +1820 healing unbuffed - about 2,000 fully buffed, as I preferred gemming my sockets with +9 healing +4 spirit gems rather than +18 healing gems. Tons of spirit, not so much healing bonus. Should I be concerned?)

 

JonnyBPriest

Again - Buffed.

 

JaneLame

I take it this question appears here often - someone might wanna add this info to the original post, so people won't have to go through 4 pages of comments to find the answer. Thanks you!

 

Jayde

Personally, I would argue that Vashj is generally the most healing-intensive fight in SSC, followed by Karathress then either Hydross or Morogrim. (Leo is not really a healing fight, Lurker is pretty relaxed as long as people don't die in a spout.) Al'ar is probably generally more healing sensitive than most fights, although Void Reaver and Solarian are a joke. Kael isn't really a healing fight either, and can be done with 6-7 healers quite easily.

So, in T5 content, I'd probably overall rank as Vashj > Al'ar > Karathress > Morogrim > Hydross > Everything else.

If you can heal Vashj you can most certain heal the majority of T6 content, however Azgalor and Naj'entus will be your first major benchmarks. (Azgalor being very dependant on your tank's gear and Naj'entus being a pure HPS issue for your healers.)

Naj'entus is as close to a "gear check" for healers as it gets, though. You have very strict HPS requirements to avoid people dying, need to react quickly to random damage spikes, and have to maintain high throughput without losing too many people--while also dealing with the fact that healers themselves may be disabed from spines.

However, Winterchill (spam Flash heal on aggro flickers), Anetheron (spread out and support each other), and Kaz'rogal (use mana pots, Shadowfiend, and earring a lot) aren't going to be strict gear checks for healers really.

I would generally argue, though, that if you can kill Vashj smoothly with 7-8 healers and no deaths, your healing team should probably be able to handle Naj'entus and pretty much all content in T6 save perhaps Bloodboil and Azgalor, which will be the second wave of major challenges for healing throughput.

Edit: I will note, however, that with 2.4 the gear threshold is -much- lower than it was for Priests pre-2.4. The reason for this is quite simple, a ton of free regen. In fact, between the 2.4 changes and the Meditation changes, it is almost ridiculously lower of a gear threshold for Priests/Druids in terms of T6 content now as opposed to then. I remember it was not long ago that having 290 Mp5 buffed was pretty high and required a fair bit of work...nowadays I have 20-30 more Mp5 than that completely unbuffed. This alone will make the threshold for Naj'entus and such much lower than it used to be, as the additional regen makes the fight significantly easier.

 

Finkum

I probably should have qualified that I was talking about the first 5 bosses of SSC only, as we have yet to get past phase 2 of Vashj.

I actually find Karathress very straightforward to heal, but again that's due to how healing assignments are laid out. I basically just spam CoH/ProM on the Caribdis tank, 2 interrupters, and myself, and then do the same on the melee group once Caribdis is down. It is undoubtedly mana-intensive, but much less "scary" than Hydross healing. The MT healer has a much tougher job, especially once you have to move around the totems (we normally assign a druid for this as they can heal more effectively on the run).

I guess the point to take away is that the difficulty of a given fight depends at least as much on your healing assignment(s) and strategy as your gear level.

 

Sarjin

The perception of 'good' regen has indeed changed quite a bit over the past year; I remember in the times of starting Karazhan that 150 mp5 seemed to be a pretty high amount compared to most other priests around for instance, whereas right now, 'crappy' probably wouldn't even fit the description. Going back to 2.3 T5 content (gotten everything down but Kael, atm working on getting that out of the way while having done 4/5 MH rather fast), I must say I never considered Vashj even that healing intensive. Phase 2 was never much of a mana issue to the point I could happily help dps tainted elementals without noticing an impact on my mana pool; phase 3 however was obviously pretty intense with the running around and being on the lookout for sudden bursts. Lurker and Hydross never put any sort of strain on my mana pool (we used 2 tanks without resistance gear and AoEd all 4 adds down at once), whereas Morogrim and Karathress had their moments. Karathress being all about maintaining HPS for the initial part of the fight until especially the Shaman dies, while healing load after is pretty limited. Morogrim always felt to be more the endurance benchmark to me, as the healing strain is fairly continuous, and the fight tends to last a fair while. Al'ar indeed is somehow also fairly draining on the mana pool in the relative chaos in phase 2. Overall however, I have never really noticed a fight which really felt like a healer benchmark; in comparison Zul'Aman felt a lot more demanding to me.

I'm a little curious about the healing intensity in BT, which sounds more 'fun' to me, as MH is fairly boring for the most part. Kaz'rogal's manadrain with modern day regen seems to be a lot less of a bother than he might have been before. In my case, wearing minimal SR (Medallion and buff), he never managed to kill me even on the couple of wiping attempts we had before killing him, when I didn't even bother keeping my manapool high, before he despawned due to wiping out the NPCs...

 

Belteshazzar