Should I be taking spirit over crit with a Holy build? Say I have a helm that offers 72 spirit, and one that offers 52 crit; which would be the better choice?
Mistakes with your spec:
1) You took 2/2 IDS. Absolutely no point in doing so.
2) You took 4/5 MS instead of 3/5.
If you pull a point out of MS, and the 2 out of IDS, you get my spec, and pick up IHC. And lose ... 3% int. IDS does nothing. It does not stack with Flametongue, and if you're running in a group without Flametongue, you're doing 5-mans, where ... it doesn't matter. Respec.
Nid, I'm just curious as to your spec'ing reasons.
Are you running without a full Disc priest? We have one so I decided to spec the way I did (but will be changing it to this when I have time.)
I really have found no need for MA/Mental Strength, and with the excess druids we run with there are almost always innervates if I need. Though with [Spirit-World Glass] and some unique uses out of it, I'm finding regen to be less and less of a concern.
Should I be taking spirit over crit with a Holy build? Say I have a helm that offers 72 spirit, and one that offers 52 crit; which would be the better choice?
That's like comparing apples to oranges to kumquats. It just doesn't compute.
The common breakdowns for the first tier of itemization are as follows:
If you are looking at blue items, they typically tend to be Stam/Int/Spirit/Spellpower or Stam/Int/Spellpower/Crit. The former are the items you really want to be grabbing. You can't afford to completely dump regen at the start of an expansion.
Take a look at a couple of priest's gear and get a feel for the items. I'm almost completely ilvl 200+ (3 more items!), as is Wreath (also in Fusion), Bellix (Method-EU), and so on. Just click on some people's profiles and check them out on Armory.
TL;DR: don't ask silly questions. Use the quick response thread if you just want quick answers to sensible questions.
To Sinn: yes, no dedicated Disc priest. We have only one resto shaman, and for the content at the moment, CoH is incredibly powerful and our primary raid healing tool. We really can't afford to have one of us go full Disc aside from specific fights (like, say, Patchwerk, or Sapp+3).
Long-term, we're both dropping the 3/5 MS, and one of us will drop DS and MA as well to go GS. However, for now, having 23k mana is incredibly sexy for throughput on CoH spam. Nothing eats up your mana like spamming CoH; there's no OO5SR ticks, and the cost/second is obscene given that there's no Serendipity. If they extended Serendipity to CoH, that would solve all mana issues right there, but it'd be OP, and is unlikely to happen.
Also, we don't typically get innervates. We're running with 3 druids (1 feral, 1 resto, 1 resto/boomkin), and the feral one is the only one available and is sometimes difficult to get when, say, he's tanking Patchwerk. Not that Patchwerk is a mana-intensive fight now that we have gear, but it's an example.
Complete Aside: Divine Providence combined with 2-piece T7 is silly. 6 bounces, 7 second cooldown? That's so rare as to be unlikely. Only fights I can think of it actually happening are Malygos Vortex phase, and Sapphiron.25. Silly bonus to a moderately good talent.
Last edited by constantius : 11/26/08 at 6:34 PM.
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
That's like comparing apples to oranges to kumquats. It just doesn't compute.
I wasn't aware that they were not comparable in a situation where you have to choose 1 or the other, I have found lots of gear that offers similar stats and either spirit or crit. Spirit is a boost of regen and spell power (through Spiritual Guidance). Crit has gained even more use through Surge of Light (Which also contributes to mana conservation and some burst healing), and not to mention the large healing amounts crit heals provide. Large crit heals when the tank's health is spiking can also help proc Serendipity; which also contributes to mana efficiency.
All this factored in, I didn't think of it as straightforward as you make it sound.
They both have advantages. I was just not sure as to which was a higher priority stat when you have 2 similar items that are only differentiated by crit vs spirit.
Stam and Int come for free on every item we get.
Crit vs. Haste
Spirit vs. Mp5
Those are the comparisons you make. If an item has crit on it, but no spirit, it's not a healer item, it's a dps caster item. If it has spirit *and* crit, then it's a healer item (or similarly, Mp5 and crit).
[e] If you doubt me, go read the 15 pages on the WOTLK Beta thread where we discuss how to model crit as regen. No-one stacks crit as a pure regen stat, because it's just so inefficient. It's awesome to get more regen out of crit, don't get me wrong, but it's not as strong as Int / Spirit.
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
Stam and Int come for free on every item we get.
Crit vs. Haste
Spirit vs. Mp5
Those are the comparisons you make. If an item has crit on it, but no spirit, it's not a healer item, it's a dps caster item. If it has spirit *and* crit, then it's a healer item (or similarly, Mp5 and crit).
[e] If you doubt me, go read the 15 pages on the WOTLK Beta thread where we discuss how to model crit as regen. No-one stacks crit as a pure regen stat, because it's just so inefficient. It's awesome to get more regen out of crit, don't get me wrong, but it's not as strong as Int / Spirit.
I disagree to some extent. Basically all epic cloth caster gear come with Sta+Int+Spell Power and one or two out of Spirit/Mp5/Crit/Hit/Haste. I think any combination without Hit on it, is a decent priest item.
Generally there are a lot of items with weird combinations. There are some cloth with crit and mp5 with no spirit on it ([Sympathetic Amice]) as well as items with haste and mp 5 but no spirit ([Mantle of the Extensive Mind]). I am finding it harder and harder to say what is caster gear and what is healer gear. Of course a holy priest has slightly more use of mp5 than a mage or shadow priest, but it a poor use of item budget for all of them so I don't think there should be any automatic priest prio on all mp5 items. Treat it as a sunk cost item budget wise and distribute it based on the other stats on it.
The main reason for keeping holy priests away from items with no spirit and mp5 is to leave enough gear to pure casters, I guess. More out of political reasons than anything else. But outside of +hit, I can use it all these days.
Mana regeneration has no worth in itself. As long as I can last a whole fight I would love to switch some spirit and mp5 for pure crit and spell power.
Hello i was wondering about the new nobles deck trinket since its not listed on the front page, Darkmoon Nobles Deck - Quest - World of Warcraft was wondering if this trinket would also be a nice one to get along with the spirit glass and the one from the obsidian sanctum
Nobles deck is very strong, esp. if you get 90 Int and keep Spirit higher than Int for your fights. It's just annoying to make, and until someone gets it into Wowhead, I don't want to link a non-specific item.
[e] Happy dance, I broke 11% haste again. 4% to go!! Also, holy crap the glow effects on Faith helm+shoulders are silly.
Last edited by constantius : 11/27/08 at 1:06 AM.
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
Was wondering on thoughts about the healer trinkets out there and what's optimal. Personally, from what I've seen, a lot of them seem very situational, only one that I'd consider using 100% of the time is [Spirit-World Glass]. [Living Ice Crystals] seems more optimal for a Disc Priest, although MT healing could be viable as Holy. Nonetheless, It just seems so blergh.
[Forethought Talisman] is pretty good, but I don't like the 45 sec ICD (obviously OP without it though), but having it only on one target just seems annoying. I'd rather it more for MT healing, but possibly would use it on raid healing. The proc would be good to slip into some IFSR with a good SoL or Clearcasting.
[Je'Tze's Bell] To spontaneous of a drop to really rely on obtaining, something that'd be worth considerable consideration though, Memento V2.
[Majestic Dragon Figurine] I like this one, would be good with a Hymn of Hope so the stack doesn't reset (which would be annoying). I'm not to sure how limiting it would be though - Probably worth a 2nd choice though.
[Soul of the Dead] Would pass to a Paladin beforehand (Maybe, an elemental shaman). But this trinket, I think, is extremely good considering how Spell Critical Rating is now good to be itemised with. Being on a 45 ICD, at best, can work out to be 100mp5 & 2% crit passive; although considering RNG & Bad Luck, I'd say more around 80mp5 (which is still, very good).
I got this 2 drops from our last naxx 25 man [Lost Jewel] and [Distorted Limbs] Personally I prefer this kind of itemization sta+intel+spirit+crit+SP because most of the time I'm tank healing so I need the regen and SP offered by spirit the mana pool, regen and crit offered by intelect and the crit rating...well its a must for tank healing looking at HC IHC and Inspiration. I'm full holy spec and we cleared 2 wings on our first run and I don't seem to have any problems with mana at the moment. I will have to see how today's run will turn up.
I have had my first streak of heroic runs finally. I did heroic HoS, nexus, UK and UP with a group geared mostly in heroic gear. I was in my lvl 70 t5+, ZA, BoJ epics. Nevertheless my gear did not stop us from completing the heroics + all the achievements without trouble.
I needed less mana breaks than the mage in our group, even without replenishment and a mana pool just shy of 13k +450/190 regen.
When we tried to do AN with achievements we failed. I simply could not keep the tank alive with a second watcher on him without chain casting GH, as soon as I tried removing the disease, moving or healing someone else I fell behind and he eventually died.
I also completed an eventful run of heroic old kindom, with a rather disorganised PuG after I got 3 blue upgrades from the previous runs. Mana was an issue, but the group made a lot of mistakes. Lightwell saved the day on the 2nd boss and the faceless boss.
My healing break down was completely unexpected
1) My top spell by far is gheal (I still have the 2t5 bonus)
2) PoH, CoH, PoM are second usually but 1st in some encounters (e.g. Heroic anomalus with achievement).
3) The rest is lightwell, renew and binding heal.
4) I cast little flash heal, I did not actively avoid it, I did not need to.
5) I found guardian spirit to be extremely useful, although I rarely needed it to actually save the tank, the fact that it buys me 8 seconds to do whatever I want is an absolute godsend. GS was certainly a strong factor in being able to successfully heal the encounters.
6) Overhealing with gheal in 5-mans is actually not so easy. Perhaps its because of my low spell power, but I failed to overheal on a substantial number of gheal casts.
Overall my experience was completely the opposite of what other people have reported.
a) Mana was definately an issue, but it was not that big a problem. I did run oom sometimes. I even had to pop a potion in a few occasions, when things went wrong, but overall it was a heck of a lot easier, than my first run of TBC heroics.
b) Guardian spirit is anything but situational, it has a very wide range of applications. A very versatile talent in capable hands.
c) Lightwell is also really good, but I must admit it is situational. It was game breakingly good on heroic old kingdom and HoS, but only modest in the other heroics and its completely pointless on trash (though it can prevent a wipe).
d) Test of faith is underpowered without question. The difference is barely visible and the proportion of sub50% heals was much lower than I expected. When you actually need ToF, the buff is too small to make a significant difference. This is not a talent can save people in an emergency. It should only be modelled as a throughput boost and nothing else. I simply can't see any way in which it can be modelled as a utility talent.
Was wondering on thoughts about the healer trinkets out there and what's optimal. Personally, from what I've seen, a lot of them seem very situational, only one that I'd consider using 100% of the time is [Spirit-World Glass]. [Living Ice Crystals] seems more optimal for a Disc Priest, although MT healing could be viable as Holy. Nonetheless, It just seems so blergh.
[Forethought Talisman] is pretty good, but I don't like the 45 sec ICD (obviously OP without it though), but having it only on one target just seems annoying. I'd rather it more for MT healing, but possibly would use it on raid healing. The proc would be good to slip into some IFSR with a good SoL or Clearcasting.
[Je'Tze's Bell] To spontaneous of a drop to really rely on obtaining, something that'd be worth considerable consideration though, Memento V2.
[Majestic Dragon Figurine] I like this one, would be good with a Hymn of Hope so the stack doesn't reset (which would be annoying). I'm not to sure how limiting it would be though - Probably worth a 2nd choice though.
[Soul of the Dead] Would pass to a Paladin beforehand (Maybe, an elemental shaman). But this trinket, I think, is extremely good considering how Spell Critical Rating is now good to be itemised with. Being on a 45 ICD, at best, can work out to be 100mp5 & 2% crit passive; although considering RNG & Bad Luck, I'd say more around 80mp5 (which is still, very good).
Thoughts?
Yeah there are some good trinkets but which overall would you say gives holy priest longest survivability? [Soul of the Dead] [Majestic Dragon Figurine]
I like the way these look but i dont know if the proc from Soul is really worth it... and i rarely ever stop casting for longer then 10 seconds on any fight.
Lately, I've been wondering how well holy priests scale with better gear, compared with disc priests, especially considering mana issues.
The thing is serendipity doesn't scale well with gear (except for the fact that it's easier to overheal with more spellpower), while rapture scales linearly with maximum mana. So it seems to me that discipline priests are more likely to get to a point where mana doesn't matter anymore.
Of course, it depends on the ability to produce effective healing (so that rapture returns mana), and that's where haste comes into play. Haste can increase the probability to produce effective healing, as well as increasing hps. Haste wouldn't hurt mana too much since most mana regen would be based on rapture procs.
All those things brought me to wonder : what if a disc priest takes int and haste as primary stats ? (instead of int/crit). That would greatly increase regen as well as hps with just two stats.
I read this whole thread (and the preliminary discussions) and was surprised that nobody (or maybe I don't remember) talked about int/haste for disc priest. Maybe with equally good gear, a holy priest wouldn't have mana problems either, and could even spam CoH like in TBC, thus surpassing the hps of a disc priest. But it's unlikely considering what Blizzard said about priests spamming CoH, so they would probably end up nerfing that spell.
At first sight, it's common sense to say that disc priest scale well with crit and int, and are excellent tank healers. But what about a disc priest with int and haste, healing raid ? (for plenty of "garanted" effective healing via rapture). A lot of people here have more WOTLK raiding experience than me, so maybe you already thought about that, or even tried it ? What do you think ?
Yeah there are some good trinkets but which overall would you say gives holy priest longest survivability? [Soul of the Dead] [Majestic Dragon Figurine]
I like the way these look but i dont know if the proc from Soul is really worth it... and i rarely ever stop casting for longer then 10 seconds on any fight.
Both of these look interesting.. I'd say that the first ([Soul of the Dead]) depends on the proc rate (25%??!?) and cooldown, and the second ([Majestic Dragon Figurine]) on you're style of healing.. if you are more of a tank healer, the second trinkets bonus for 'fast and wide' healing is not going to help you as much. It also seems a little counter productive.. I.e. You have to cast to gain the spirit bonus, but by casting you get inside the 5SR, where spirit is only affecting 30% for your regen... if you have spiritual guidance as well, ~100 spirit is a not bad amount of temporary spellpower improvement... Overall for the second trinket I would say, isn't there something better out there? Just not that impressed with it at first glance.
For me, I still have my [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] card because it scales, and still have some mana issues, so I still use it. I also equipped the JC craftable [Figurine - Sapphire Owl], as I'm just starting naxx 10, and heroics.. I'll be looking for replacements for both using badges, naxx 10 drops as soon as possible.
Has any site made one similar for trinkets? I used wowhead, but the list of level 80 trinkets seems small... I dont think I set the filter correctly, as there are really only ~6-7 out there... Trinkets - Items - World of Warcraft
The [Talisman of Troll Divinity] is interesting, because it's kind of like a guardian spirit... heading into an enrage, throw this on the tank, stack it a little, finish with a hot, and sit back....
The [Spark of Life] seems to have a 10% proc (at least by wowhead).. 1 in 10 spells (once every 90-120 secs? you get 176 MP5 for 15 secs... not too shabby...
Last edited by Nomad_Wanderer : 11/27/08 at 3:21 PM.
Lately, I've been wondering how well holy priests scale with better gear, compared with disc priests,
[...]
The thing is serendipity doesn't scale well with gear (except for the fact that it's easier to overheal with more spellpower),
[...]
All those things brought me to wonder : what if a disc priest takes int and haste as primary stats ? (instead of int/crit). That would greatly increase regen as well as hps with just two stats.
The scaling of Serendipity only looks bad because you're comparing it to Rapture, which scales extremely well. In addition to spellpower it arguably scales with crit, if we assume someone is healing in such a way that their crit heals will reliably trigger Serendipity while their regular heals mostly don't. Of course, this just highlights a kind of either/or choice that Serendipity forces you into
- either aim for a some overheal on a regular heal (get Serendipity on all or most casts, but almost all crits are wasted)
- or aim to only overheal on crit (Serendipity proc frequency about the same as your crit percentage)
In that sense you could say that Serendipity scales with either spellpower or crit but not really both.
As for the musing on disc priests improving their regen with int and haste, can you fill in the blanks on how haste helps? Int is obviously a great stat for regen, but haste is almost a pure throughput stat and in my opinion really means that you need to bolster your regen (from other sources) the more you take haste instead of spellpower. Spellpower improves efficiency and throughput at the same time; haste only the throughput. For someone who casts clumps of spells and tries to get OO5SR regen (which these days would seem to be a Holy, not a Disc strategy), haste helps a small amount by compressing the clumps - but it's not enough to make it help regen much compared to other stats like spirit.
As for the musing on disc priests improving their regen with int and haste, can you fill in the blanks on how haste helps? Int is obviously a great stat for regen, but haste is almost a pure throughput stat and in my opinion really means that you need to bolster your regen (from other sources) the more you take haste instead of spellpower. Spellpower improves efficiency and throughput at the same time; haste only the throughput. For someone who casts clumps of spells and tries to get OO5SR regen (which these days would seem to be a Holy, not a Disc strategy), haste helps a small amount by compressing the clumps - but it's not enough to make it help regen much compared to other stats like spirit.
I could be way off, and misunderstood the strategy of maxing int/haste as disc priest, but I think it is about haste increasing HPS, and therefore increasing rapture use, which = regen... Rapture is great, but I don't see rapture as technically regen... I see stacking haste = more opportunites to be refunded mana, but that's different than regen imo.
I think the question the person is asking is if rapture+haste competes with 30%Spirit+MP5...Personally, without any real numerical evidence, I'm going to lean towards the spirit/mp5 side on that one...
Last edited by Nomad_Wanderer : 11/27/08 at 4:50 PM.
In terms of using [Majestic Dragon Figurine] I'm using it with [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] partially because I've not had another drop, but for now I think the synergy between the two is quite strong. Essentially, best case scenario is that it's a + 180 spirit trinket and the Darkmoon proc is very helpful with the +180 spirit.
Also, we don't typically get innervates. We're running with 3 druids (1 feral, 1 resto, 1 resto/boomkin), and the feral one is the only one available and is sometimes difficult to get when, say, he's tanking Patchwerk. Not that Patchwerk is a mana-intensive fight now that we have gear, but it's an example.
Not even with the [Glyph of Innervate]? I always thought that was put in the game so priests could ask for innervates without feeling selfish...
Has any site made one similar for trinkets? I used wowhead, but the list of level 80 trinkets seems small... I dont think I set the filter correctly, as there are really only ~6-7 out there... Trinkets - Items - World of Warcraft
The [Talisman of Troll Divinity] is interesting, because it's kind of like a guardian spirit... heading into an enrage, throw this on the tank, stack it a little, finish with a hot, and sit back....
The [Spark of Life] seems to have a 10% proc (at least by wowhead).. 1 in 10 spells (once every 90-120 secs? you get 176 MP5 for 15 secs... not too shabby...
The list you have is all the trinkets. There are lots of them, at least compared to TBC, where we had basically 5 choices, 2 of which were raid drops.
I've *'d the ones I consider good. You can obviously argue for anything on the list, but the typical 1 regen + 1 throughput model has held true for ~ 4 years, so there's no reason to really think that changing it now is going to make sense. My personal goal is [Spirit-World Glass] + [Je'Tze's Bell] (if I get lucky, like Wreath) or [Forethought Talisman].
I like [Spirit-World Glass] more than [Majestic Dragon Figurine] simply because activated spirit regen is so powerful. The no-stacking requirement is also very sexy for fights where I may not be continuously casting every 10 seconds. Of course, those fights are rare, but ... /shrug
Originally Posted by Isin
Not even with the [Glyph of Innervate]? I always thought that was put in the game so priests could ask for innervates without feeling selfish...
As far as this goes, Boomkins don't use that Glyph, Ferals certainly don't, and our Resto hasn't been. I'll check up on him and see why he hasn't been using it, since it seems pretty good. At least, for me.
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
Wow.. I had not seen that trinket from dragonblight quest reward.. The [Spirit-World Glass] + [Futuresight Rune] is an interesting combination when popped together..
if you know you have 10 seconds... +~520 spirit and a fiend, is almost like a poor man's innervate...
It's more of a fun idea, than one that's practical tho.. one of the other trinkets const posted is much better.
It's really too bad that the trinket I'd love to have is a world drop. To hear about rogues/wars/dps vendoring / de'ing something like that just makes your cringe.
Wow.. I had not seen that trinket from dragonblight quest reward.. The [Spirit-World Glass] + [Futuresight Rune] is an interesting combination when popped together..
if you know you have 10 seconds... +~520 spirit and a fiend, is almost like a poor man's innervate...
It's more of a fun idea, than one that's practical tho.. one of the other trinkets const posted is much better.
It's really too bad that the trinket I'd love to have is a world drop. To hear about rogues/wars/dps vendoring / de'ing something like that just makes your cringe.
Even better, toss off Shadowfiend, pop both trinkets, then channel Hymn of Hope. Guaranteed to be a full mana bar by the end, or your money back.
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
but I think it is about haste increasing HPS, and therefore increasing rapture use, which = regen
This is just faulty reasoning. Yes, if you think of rapture refunds as regen, haste will let you get more of them in some span of time. But the right way to think about this is that Rapture gives you back some fraction of a spell's cost (which will never be more than 100% and is more likely to be something like 40% even at very good gear levels). Supposing haste allows you to cast 12 GHeals instead of 10 in a particular timeframe and you get back 40% on each one... yes, you just got refunded more mana (80% of the cost of one cast), but it doesn't make up for the fact that you just spent even more. Haste accelerates the process of turning mana into heals, period. It's not a regen stat and if anything you need extra regen to allow for the added burn rate.
This is just faulty reasoning. Yes, if you think of rapture refunds as regen, haste will let you get more of them in some span of time. But the right way to think about this is that Rapture gives you back some fraction of a spell's cost (which will never be more than 100% and is more likely to be something like 40% even at very good gear levels). Supposing haste allows you to cast 12 GHeals instead of 10 in a particular timeframe and you get back 40% on each one... yes, you just got refunded more mana (80% of the cost of one cast), but it doesn't make up for the fact that you just spent even more. Haste accelerates the process of turning mana into heals, period. It's not a regen stat and if anything you need extra regen to allow for the added burn rate.
11/26/08, 6:27 PM
Not that Patchwerk is a mana-intensive fight now that we have gear, but it's an example. 
To hear about rogues/wars/dps vendoring / de'ing something like that just makes your cringe.
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