Well, personally I like being above 9.5k for Council just so I can usually take 2 ticks of something without being insta-gibbed. I don't think having much more than that would make a big difference one way or another, since you would need a lot more to reach the ability to survive 3 ticks of something without a heal. (Same goes for volcanos on Supremus.)

However, quickly PoM/Renew/Shielding yourself when getting auras and moving usually makes things easy, then spam Binding Heal once you get out of harm's way. I've never really had any problems with that fight as a Priest, although I did always swap into my Stamina set.

On Archimonde, I feel that a Priest can pretty easily outheal all the damage one would normally expect without any special measures. Doomfire honestly isn't very scary, and PoM/Renew followed by a couple GHs then a Renew refresh is more than enough to negate the damage. I can't see Spell Warding as being a make or break there. Even in the odd case where I've had Doomfire and a curse on me at the same time, I can pretty much outheal it by spamming Binding Heal on the MT or some other damaged person--so I don't feel like it's a very huge issue.

Something like Spell Warding (e.g. Imp Righteous Fury for Paladins) seems more applicable in the cases where you are a healing class that has to stop to heal themselves or rely on other healers. With mechanics like Renew, PoM, and Binding Heal this is really not the case for Priests.

The reason 10k is mandatory for Council is that envenom + flamestrike (which can happen simultaneously and is not avoidable) will do about 9k damage, give or take. That assumes your raid healer (or you) was on the ball and topped you off after the deadly poison ticks but before the envenom. So if you have less than 10k health (it's not an exact number, but somewhere about there) you are at risk of being insta-gibbed with absolutely nothing you can do about it.

(I guess technically you need a little less since you PW:S yourself when you see deadly poison appear, but that shield will probably be consumed by the deadly poison ticks as often as not, so you still need to be able to live through the envenom + first tick of AoE.)

I will ALWAYS swap in 2-3 pieces of PvP high stamina gear when we're learning an encounter, or in some situations my full PvP set (e.g. Twins). My goal as a healer is to make the raid and/or tank live long enough so that we can get an idea of the fight itself. Twins was one of those that actually required me to have very high stamina until we figured out the fight. However, in every situation, once we have a set strategy, I run "Best in Slot" 9 times out of 10. As the encounter requires, I will swap in specific pieces - if stamina is needed, my first piece is PvP bracers.

Every Sunwell situation Octaris mentioned can be offset by a health potion and/or health stone, and every class is provided with some survival skill. No matter what, quick healing and smart play can also save that person...always. My guild runs on the mentality that there is no death that can't be prevented by better play. Certain things like Spell Warding and higher amounts of stamina definitely aid in survivability (I'd be lying if I didn't agree with that point). However, the day I find I can't survive, and I can't trust my fellow healers to heal me when I am incapable of healing myself, is the day you'll find me with Spell Warding and high stamina (oh wait...that's what I wear for Arenas).

Personally, I do NOT believe in Spell Warding at this time in PVE as everything (through Twins) is fully healable without it. I don't believe in stamina stacking, but I believe in having a healthy amount and having pieces I CAN swap in if needed.

Anyway, I hope the first part at least offered some insight for some as to how to handle initial looks at encounters.

Hmmm hoping someone here can help me, been using these forums an awful lot and the wealth of information here is second to none.

Im a holy priest currently using [Robes of Heavenly Purpose] along with [Breeches of the Avatar]

I've been toying with the idea of replacing them with [Gown of Spiritual Wonder] and [Adorned Supernal Legwraps]

From looking at the stats etc imo the chestpieces are very similar and any stat increase is only marginal, however am i right in thinking the legs with the increased spirit is a much better choice than my current T5.

Any opinions would be great as i just can't decide if to trade badges in for these items or to trade them in for gems.

Thanks in advance.

I would say the legs are leaps and bounds better, unless you were currently using your T5 legs for the 2 peice bonus. And if you aren't, it might be something worth considering (especially if you can get T5 chest too).

Eitherway, if you're doing serious raiding badges will start to flow like candy in a few weeks.

Then how was your spec on Felmyst and Twins without Spell Warding? I mean, there is no point in saying that you don't need to take 10% less damage to survive, without saying where you want to spend the talent points.

Point is that on new encounters you can "always" fit in Spell Warding in some way and get away with it without losing healing throughput.

Just to give some examples, specs with Spell Warding:

Felmyst
IDS: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
CoH: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Twins
IDS: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
CoH: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Those builds are doing "the healing job" just as good as a build without Spell Warding. You might have a bit different playstyle than me (and then would like to spec different), but it's just to give some examples. I would never spec Spell Warding for farm content, but there is no reason not to when doing progress. Most of us respec 2-3 times a week anyway, just silly to do the hardest encounters without the best spec.

Very Nice topic!
I more like combat mana regen gear but i think maybe spirit better atm.
I want ask you: about how many mana regen (combat / without combat) and Healing up need for BT last 3 bosses and for Sunwell?

And if i readed good then: IF i want spirit priest than try get all spirit item with +10 spirit gems but if i want Mana regen priest with mana regen items then which the best gems for that gear?
Example:
[Leggings of Eternity]
3x [Royal Shadowsong Amethyst]
or mana regen items good too with [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire]?
And you think this gem good for Mana regen?[Dazzling Seaspray Emerald]

There were some good comments I wanted to address and a new question about 4 stats to ring enchant.

First that over 10% of the damage you take is physical, this is highly possible my number was just a guess, but I think its good to keep in mind every time you wipe there will be atleast 10k physical damage included in the combat log that doesn't count and this will substantially change your numbers.

Someone else said that they took 220k magical damage from a full hyjal run so spell warding would only prevent 20k damage, let me point out that hyjal trash is not like a typical boss and does very little magical damage. Also if you did say 1000k healing on these boss fights 5/5 holy conc would only give you about 20k healing.

So before 2.4 I used this to evaluate gear
1heal = 1
1stam = 2
1int = 1.8
1spi = 2.2
1mp5 = 6

Now I use
1heal = 1
1haste = 1
1stam = 2
1int = 2
1spi = 3
1mp5 = 5

I find this works really well but when I look at ring enchants I get a value of 20 for 20healing and 28 for 4 stats which makes me wonder, is my value system bad or is 4 stats really better. I get more than 5 healing for every pt of mana but I downgraded mp5 because my gear and regen is so good i have a really hard time going oom with pots which makes me hesitate to do 4 all stats because maybe i need to further reduce my value for regen or upgrade my value for haste.

Only physical damage in Sunwell so far is portal damage on Kal (the blast) and skeletons in p2 of Felmyst. Both can (easily) be avoided completly. It's a lot less than 10% physical damage taken, normally it's 0%

I disagree with your comment of "you can 'always' fit in Spell Warding in some way and get away with it without losing healing throughput".

In your Felmyst spec, you lose 3 points in Inspiration, 3 points in Empowered Healing, 2 points in Mental Agility, and 3 points in Holy Concentration. To me, those are much better spells than Spell Warding and Absolution. So you take a little extra damage and your Mass Dispel costs a little bit more mana. That's what killing the adds early does in the flight stage. You get a little extra time to regen OO5SR.

The only difference in your Felmyst and Twins spec is that you move 1 point from Absolution to Silent Resolve and 2 points from Absolution to Mental Agility. Maybe our roles are different, but I always make sure to have 3/3 in Inspiration. I never know when I'll have to step up and assist on a tank. In addition, 2 of your points in Holy Specialization are "wasted" in my opinion. I think that Holy Specialization was discussed in a previous Holy Priest thread and the conclusion seemed to be diminishing returns after 3/5.

Anyway, I run with my current spec (which you can see on my Armory) for every fight so far in Sunwell. I am thinking about respecing to pick up Healing Prayers, but I haven't decided yet where I will shift points yet. Nevertheless, I think it's silly to repsec 2-3 times a week when I feel I have the best spec for doing my job...which is a little bit of everything in every encounter.

It appears that you and I disagree on "best spec". To me, best spec is the spec that provides the most benefit to each of my healing spells or regen characteristics or what will help me cast better. Why do I need survival spells if I'm not dying?

I'm not knocking the benefits of Spell Warding. I just don't see a need for me to have it at this time.

I know this might be a dumb question, but...should I be matching my socket bonuses? Currently I'm just filling all of my sockets with [Purified Shadow Pearl], but now I'm wondering if I need to be filling those bonuses for extra stats.

The chest pieces are indeed roughly comparable, although you wouldn't think so when looking at the item levels. Still, [Gown of Spiritual Wonder] IS an upgrade, even if you use epic gems only.

Just to make things comparable, I assume +15 stam, +11 heal/5int, +11 heal/2mp5 gems. I know, it's really just to illustrate the difference:

You get:
+7 int
+7 wp
+8 heal
-2 mp5

The three sockets, however, give you more flexibility to socket either for max. stats, max heal, max manareg or even max stamina. All in all, I think the [Gown of Spiritual Wonder] is the weakest priest item among the new badge rewards, especially considering the item level.

Yes, in general.

There are some socket bonuses that aren't worth filling, *assuming* you've already completed the requirements for your metagem. It really depends on your focus.

For example, a lot of people would socket [Boots of the Divine Light] with two [Teardrop Crimson Spinel]. Why? Because a yellow/blue combo isn't really that strong for a pair of boots that are primarily worn for their healing and stamina bonus. And stacking 44 healing on top of 73 makes them exceptionally strong.

I'm a bit odd in that I'll almost always socket for the bonus, since I don't tend to emphasize +heal as much. Given that I don't care to stack +heal, and would rather aim for a well-rounded regen/healing combination, along with reasonable stats, there isn't as much pressure to stack red gems. And that's basically the call you have to make.

Do you want to stack red gems and ignore socket bonus(es), in order to stack +heal? Or would you rather get some regen, and aim for a more 'balanced' setup, using things like, as you said, [Purified Shadow Pearl] or [Sparkling Star of Elune] or [Royal Nightseye].

Rule of thumb you can use is to look at what the bonus is, and what gems you're putting in. Add it all up, and compare it (including bonus) to whatever you can get by ignoring the bonus and stacking whatever you want in there (usually Teardrops).

Almost always, it comes down to <large chunk of +heal> vs <medium +heal and some regen>.

A couple of examples in recent gear where I am probably going to rethink my gemming:

[Boots of Absolution] w/ [Luminous Pyrestone]. Does this make sense? Basically, I'm trading 7 +heal for 5 intellect. At my levels of Intellect and Spirit, that extra 5 intellect is worth around 4 Mp5 I5SR. Is that trade worth it? To my mind, absolutely. To some, not at all.

[Adorned Supernal Legwraps] w/ [Royal Tanzanite] and [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire]. The socket bonus is absolute crap (+4 stam), so why did I bother socketing for it? Mostly because the gem vendor isn't up on my realm, and I didn't necessarily want to ask the guild bank for spinels right now.

The ideal combination for these legs is probably a pair of [Teardrop Crimson Spinel], since the socket bonus sucks, I've completed my metagem already, and they're so strong regen-wise (42 base spirit) that they don't really need more regen. With a pair of teardrops, they definitely beat out [Leggings of Eternity], which lets me pass the Kalecgos legs to our shadow priests for the first couple of drops without feeling like I'm losing out. It's BiS for both of us, but it's a *huge* upgrade for the shadow priests, and only a marginal one for me.

One thought regarding the discussion about Spell Warding: when rating the utility of Spell Warding, it think it makes a difference who else besides the priests gets the spell damage.

If the whole group the priest is in gets the damage, you will use a group heal anyway, so there's no utility, except if you can really throw out one more stamina item. If one of your assigned targets gets the damage at the same time, there's binding heal.

As an example for an encounter that I am sufficiently familiar with: on Malacrass, although it looks a lot like a "Spell Warding encounter", the talent is pretty much useless (as is shadow resistence) as long as not at least 3/5 in the group have it. Just because you will fire that PoH or CoH anway.

Nidaba,

Do you not feel that gemming [Quick Lionseye] in your yellow sockets is as good as [Luminous Pyrestone]?

I personally gemmed my [Robes of Heavenly Purpose] slightly differently, using 2 [Imperial Tanzanite] and 1 [Luminous Fire Opal], which ends up with a statistical difference of:

15 Stamina
8 Intellect
-3 Spirit
+1 Healing

(Assuming people take the obvious choice of gemming the [Gown of Spiritual Wonder] with a [Teardrop Crimson Spinel])

Overall with socket bonusses, it just depends about the tradeoffs. Going by Jayde's sheet for instance, the gap between [Teardrop Crimson Spinel] and [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire] is quite small, and the majority of sockets is either blue or red it seems. With socket bonusses being Spirit and Healing frequently, I'd consider those easy decisions. I guess it gets harder when yellow sockets are involved (since those gems are less optimal) as well as other socket bonuses, as I don't find Stamina and Mp5 bonuses really worth it these days. On the other hand, assuming the use of a helm with meta, you will need to use two yellow/orange/green gems somewhere anyways.

I personally did go for the socket bonus of the [Boots of the Divine Light], but that's mostly due to the goal I got them for. With one of our priests having [Archbishop's Slippers] and the other two of us using [Slippers of Dutiful Mending], both of which are better for general use when Stamina isn't a major factor. After giving another drop of them to an undergeared druid who didn't have anything spectacular in his slot, I ended up taking them as stamina boots, to gem and enchant for use on fights where I need that bit of a boost to my Stamina. Tossed in the gem I still had in my bank from ZA (15 Sta), after which the yellow socket was left with a 7 healing socket bonus. At that point a [item]Luminous Noble Topaz[item] makes a lot of sense obviously, given that I'd consider an effective 16 Healing/4 int better than any single other gem. Just need to get a Fortitude enchant on them, and I'd say I got some nice 74 Stamina boots for the high stamina fights, which still retain nice healing stats. In other words, I'd say overall it really also depends what your aim is, and which tradeoff you are making.

I'm also very familiar with Malacrass I've done it over 20 times the last 5 with only 2 healers and i would say its definitely a fight that leans slightly in the favor of spell warding. It's true the damage is generally foreseeable but if the rain of fire is over you, the curse on u, the disease in aoe range, if the boss used some class ability on you before shadowbolts and your still healing through it, if during the shadobolt a cc breaks and you have to survive 1 or 2 melee hits from a mob, if you just don't want to have to heal yourself as much, or if the usual case where the priest has less hp than most people in the group it makes your survival easier and a fight like that is very dependant on an aoe priest not dying. I have a lot of epic sr gear which I don't use on the fight, maybe I would use it if I found myself dying more than others or if mana wasn't a big issue, I'll agree with you switching healing gear for sr isn't great for the fight, i would rather spec for warding and use regular gear than spec without it and use sr gear.

I'm still not sold on stacking haste in my gem slots. It limits my options when it's gemmed for.

I'm all in favour of having every possible haste item sitting in my bags, gemmed, enchanted and ready to be used. But gemming for it in my *only* boots means that I'm stuck with haste all the time. And I'm IDS for raids about 50% of the time these days, so haste isn't a huge advantage. +heal is a much better way to scale my HPS with Greater Heal than haste.

If I was pure 100% full-time CoH, I might think of it differently. And if you are, then by all means, stack haste. I'm just not sold on it yet.

[side note: I'm still using a staff. If I ever get my hands on [Crystal Spire of Karabor] or [Archon's Gavel] along with [Scepter of Purification] (only seen one in the last 5 months, and it went to a druid) I will have a lot more flexibility for stacking haste. For now, my +heal is too fragile to avoid socketing for it, at least in part. Once I break 2600 raid-buffed, I'll consider some haste.]

Have you considered using [Gavel of Naaru Blessings]? That mace plus the [Scepter of Purification] is, IMO, better than the [Apostle of Argus]. Like you, I am still waiting for our last Shaman to get the Illidan mace.

I have both the [Apostle of Argus] and the [Staff of Immaculate Recovery] and I feel that the badge mace is still best for me until I can get the Illidan mace. The [Staff of Immaculate Recovery] is a great regen weapon though. It just lacks in its overall healing power for me. I can't find any benefit to using the [Apostle of Argus] since 2.4.

When I say Spell Warding is mandatory, I'm not talking about Malacrass. I'm talking about Sunwell and the array of bosses therein that can output enough magic damage to kill you in the span of three or four seconds.

I've considered buying the [Gavel of Naaru Blessings], but like I said, I don't *have* [Scepter of Purification]. It hasn't dropped, and even if it did, I need to pass the next one to our resto druid who just picked up [Archon's Gavel], since he's currently using the crappy [Touch of Inspiration] from RoS.

So yes ... if I had the OH, I'd buy the mace, and replace [Apostle of Argus]. The primary reason I still use Apostle is that it is higher +heal than [Staff of Immaculate Recovery], and +heal is my lowest stat atm. I still rate Apostle higher than Immaculate just for that reason.

As well, just to confirm the stats in my own mind:

[Apostle of Argus]

vs

[Gavel of Naaru Blessings]+[Scepter of Purification]

Stam: +4
Int: -14
Spirit: +25
Heal: +65
Mp5: -3 Mp5 OO5SR, -16 Mp5 I5SR

(the Mp5 stat is done computing overall regen statistics assuming my current gear with Apostle, then doing the changes to int, spirit, Mp5)

If I assumed [Gavel of Naaru Blessings]+[Voodoo Shaker], the net difference would be:
Stam: -2
Int: -11
Spirit: +25
Heal: +45
Mp5: -3 Mp5 OO5SR, -16 Mp5 I5SR

Basically the same situation, except that there's a little more int on the [Voodoo Shaker] and -20 +heal. The 20 +heal is the difference that I consider: I'm not willing to 'only' gain 45 +heal if I'm losing 16 Mp5 I5SR.

The points stand irrespective of the encounter, which was, at least in my post, just an example for illustration.

All things considered, spellwarding has two possible uses:

1) save healer mana
2) may allow you to trade in stamina items for healing stat optimized items or change consumables

"Must have" in the terms of "can't survive the encounter without" obviously does not apply to Spell Warding. If that were the case, other low-hp classes would not be able to survive. So it remains a question of balancing stats and talents.

As for 1), my point was: this is only true if you don't group heal anway. So when rating the value of Spell Warding, one would have to be careful with applying the 10% benefit to all kinds of AoE damage.

As for 2), the question is: how many HP can I (with the gear available to me) take away due to having spell warding and still survive safely? Are the healing stats I gain worth the loss in talent points? Is this true during the entire raid evening or am I kidding myself?


As for me personally, I am currently testing Spell Warding again for ZA bear runs. There, my rationale regarding 2) is that I don't need Inspiration due to having a feral MT and can only make good use of holy concentration during boss fights. So, even a rather small +50 heal gain from replacing the 1 or 2 stamina items I carry there may be worth it.