Healing isn't like DPS where you just try to maximize numbers. The context of the fight matters the most. So what fights are you working on?

For example, on a fight like Vezax, haste is terrible. You would trade away your last 258 haste for another 258 crit if that option were available (which it's not). On Hodir, your GCD will be lower than 1 second from standing in light beams so haste is also meaningless. On Mimiron though, the fight generally has light healing with some instances of really harsh healing required during phase 2 and 4, so that fight will favor trading some crit for some haste. Yogg-Saron is really healing light and has long periods of down time, so it will benefit spirit and intellect the most. The extra mana will let you be mana inefficient as a margin of error should things start to go downhill. Everything is different.

Without knowing the fight, it's hard to advocate a particular stat trade. And the way healing priests are designed, pretty much all stats are similarly valuable to all other stats. It's not like being a shadow priest or mage where spell power is 5 times better than spirit. If you aren't trying to gear for a specific fight, just maximizing your total stat points will at least get you in ballpark range of optimal gearing. More often than not, 130 points of stat X will be better than 100 points of stat Y.

From that perspective, I agree with Constantius' comment on the weapons-- they really aren't that different so take whichever one you can. If you can get both and want to swap gear based on the demands of the particular fight, more power to you.

I'm a holy priest raiding 25man Naxx and 10man Ulduar with my guild. My armory link is here if interested:
Zenithan's Armory

I currently have [Majestic Dragon Figurine] and [Forethought Talisman] as trinkets. I just picked up a [Spark of Hope] from Ulduar. Now I don't frequently have mana issues yet (We're only really at Hodir and Freya) so I'm just wondering which trinkets I should use. I'm thinking to only switch in the [Spark of Hope] during a fight where I expect to need extra mana. I know folks don't like [Forethought Talisman] that much but I mostly just use it for the extra SP, it's proc seems to be barely useful at all.

Two of my more recent WWS reports are if interested:
10man Vault
10man Ulduar

Advice?

Replace [Majestic Dragon Figurine] with [Spark of Hope]. You lose a small amount of spellpower for a huge amount of regen. Definitely worth it.

Also try picking up [Eye of the Broodmother] that drops off of Razorscale 10 man. You'd easily want to replace that [Forethought Talisman] for [Eye of the Broodmother] due to the high amount of crit and also topping Talisman's spellpower.

I have a question about GCD haste cap. It was said by Blizzard that GCD will never be less than 1s. I understood it that way that even having a fast spell (like FH) with less than 1s cast time I cannot chain-spam it more often than once per second. But yesterday our guild shammies confused me than their LHW is at 0.8s and they spam it with no delays. I'm balancing my gear near disc's haste cap (which was calculated at 361 rating). So I casted PI on myself, threw PW:S, casted FH at about 0.8s and was able to follow with next FH immediately with no delay. So I'm really confused with this. What is wrong? The assumption of 1s GCD cap? My assumption that non-instant spells trigger GCD? Or something else?

The GCD can go below 1; however that is only possible via heroism.

What essentially happens in non-heroism cases, you actually cast your spell in .8 seconds, but your next spell didn't go through until exactly 1.0 seconds.

What you're really feeling is latency and human reaction time. It's very hard to "feel" the .2 seconds, especially if you have latency.

I've just started using RAWR on my (girlfiend's) priest and am struggling a bit with it's accuracy.
I know that for certain classes its extremely accurate while for others it's much less. What I'm finding now is that when I use the optimizer on my priest, in a holy-raid template with rather short fight (6 mins) and 100% replenishment +all raid buffs, it's suggesting intellect gemming.

Is the current way she's gemming (sp/haste) so horrible or is this a known issue with the current rawr? It's even putting pandora's plea above spark of hope.

What you are asking Rawr to do when you put in a Holy-Raid 6 minute fight, is modelling something that would look like Hodir/Thorim/Freya Hard Mode. Also you hardly get 100% Replenishment uptime, something closer to 80% is more realistic. I would also suggest changing how much time you spend in FSR (Options->Mana & Procs) from the default 93% to perhaps 85-90%. Easier fights often give more time to spend outside FSR drastically lowering the demands on Mana.

But I'm pretty sure that other Holy Priests will agree that Mana can be a problem in some fights.

Further on, if you got WWS/WMO stats of a fight, you can ask Rawr to model around it by selecting a Custom Role. This allows you to specify exactly what you did during the fight, leading to a much more accurate result. This is a bit more work but in the cases I've used it on myself, it matches exactly what I felt was right.

So you say that heroism is the valid way to get GCD under 1s? Then it's possible that PI I used is valid also. I will experiment more with raw haste stacking instead.

Flash Heal with glyph and talent is 521 mana actually, and I assumed 3/3 Improved Healing when calculating the mana cost of Greater Heal (I know I am in the minority here when it comes to taking Improved Healing). Also, the crit multiplier should be 1.95 instead of 1.5 due to Divine Aegis (and crit Greater Heals proc DA as well). I also used my raid buffed cast times and crit % which makes a difference. Also, I'm not sure what kind of sample size you used but if your average Flash Heal was about 4300, your average Greater Heal should be much higher than 8000, it should be up closer to 9000.

I stump for Greater Heal a lot on these forums because the public sentiment is so against it, but I do use plenty of Flash Heal too. I just think Flash Heal is rarely a good spell to choose when tank healing.

Hello! I am a shadow priest new to Elitist Jerks. I was main spec Holy for a very long time and then Disc for a while, but our guild now is good on healers and we have no shadow priests so I figure I'd try my hand at main spec DPS.

I am pretty close to getting the T8.5 helm, which means I'll be losing a lot of hit. I am worried sometimes about my gear choices - I really love crit, but I am scared of losing the ability to Mind Flay twice between Mind Blast cooldowns. What is the haste point where you can cast two in between?

Is this valid? Is haste like hit in that its stat "weight" is significantly higher until you get to 299 haste and then it drops? (like how hit is hugely important until cap, and then useless). I dont think I have this 299 magic number because I have been grabbing crit over haste at a slightly above 1:1 ratio.

Just to note, if you have a shaman who is dropping Wrath of Air, you are already picking up 5% spell haste.

(also Improved Moonkin Aura/Swift Retribution grants 3% spell haste)

No, the original question was "how much haste rating do I need to cast exactly 2 mind flays before my mind blast is off cooldown?", and that number is 299. This isn't cited as a magic threshold number you want to hit for some reason. I remember the haste to spell power charts in sunwell showed a generally linear increase in the value of haste, though there were some peaks where haste provided better returns than others. Don't worry about the ratio of crit to haste. And both stats are still inferior to spell power for increasing damage.

What do you guys think of this spec?
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Cheaper shields no cd, more intelect en cheaper casts but still have the AoE healing of a holy priest.

Why would you skip Spirit of Redemption? And why get Blessed Resilience over Test of Faith? And why skip Divine Fury, but still take Improved Healing?

I think with a spec like that, something like this would work better.

I started out 3.1 with a 28/43 holy spec, to maximize regen, but I found that I simply had more mana than I needed with that spec, and my throughput was lacking. Plus, it really sucked having neither Pain Suppression nor Guardian Spirit, so I decided I'm not a big fan of hybrid specs, even though they do work. I much prefer 5x/1x and 1x/5x specs.

Your output seems fine given that you're taking upwards of 7 minutes to kill Hodir. No-one can sustain healing that long without going oom. If you could get your kill down nearer to the "reasonable" margin (4 minutes), you should be able to get through the fight without going oom.

Your gear is normal for 10-man stuff, and your gemming/gear choices seem fine for your current level of progression. Obviously get 2-piece whenever you can for the crit bonus to PoH.

One thing I noticed about your log is that you're underusing Flash Heal; you barely got Serendipity procs at all. You might find using Flash Heal a bit more will result in higher Holy Concentration up-time, while also speeding up your next PoH. Your HC up-time was less than 20% ... that's fairly horrible. Without good HC uptime, your mana is going to suck.

Also, looking at the mana return column: no mana potions used, no shadowfiend used, no Hymn of Hope ticks, no Mana Tide. If you're not going to use the tools available, you *will* go OOM.

Might not have been the best log however I can see what your saying about flash heals.

here is the log from last night: Wow Web Stats

This might just be a problem of "I have to use the loot that drops", but a few of your pieces have m/5 on them and are much worse than equivalent ilvl pieces as a result. In particular, your wand and neck are both sub-par. You also have the spell power / mp5 helm enchant rather than spell power / crit, so swapping that out could be noticeable. Egg of the Mortal Essence is also not ideal as a healing trinket, though it's certainly serviceable. The problem is that you can't control the haste proc, so sometimes you get 505 haste rating when you don't need it, or when you only need 100 haste rating. Other times you need that much but it isn't up. The trinket would be a lot better with a static 80 haste rating on it or whatever. I highly recommend Insightful Earthsiege diamond over Ember Skyflare if you have mana problems. The mana regen proc will beat 2% intellect by a wide margin with your gear.

Last, if Hodir is the fight you're working on and healing is the problem, I'd recommend shifting your spec around that fight. Looking at the log, you aren't casting Greater Heal at all, so you can easily move the 3 points from Improved Healing elsewhere, probably to Holy Reach and Inner Focus. And since Empowered Healing doesn't affect 86% of your healing output, I think you'll see better returns on those points from stuff like Test of Faith or even Blessed Resilience. There's also the option of cutting Divine Fury for Spell Warding.

Of course, you'll have to weigh those decisions with how much you cast Greater Heal in other fights in the zone.

All,

Quick question for those with hard mode experience: what raid-buffed health pool should priests shoot for going in? I imagine it's the same for holy and shadow, but feel free to differentiate in your response if that's not the case. Thanks!

I cant speak for specifics but I imagine the grizzled vets of the hard modes will tell you that you want your health pool as large as possible while not sacrificing too much in the way of healing/damage dealing capabilities. Whats that mean? It means that you need to understand the specifics of the damage in the encounter being thrown at you, while also understanding the specifics on the healing/damage you need to provide. For instance, a fight that has a tremendous dps requirement would likely require you to wear more 'glass cannon' gear and less stamina rich gear. A fight that doesnt require such a tight dps/healing output will allow you to wear more stamina.

Know the fight, and you will be able to make an educated adjustment to your gear to maximize your output while being safe from the dangers of the specific encounter.

To be honest, I haven't seen a fight yet where switching a few items to high stam would appreciably help me. I run 26.2k HP with Commanding / Fort / etc., using regen flask and food (on 25-man). With this, I'm not noticing any issues on any hard-mode we've tried so far. Freya was touch-and-go at times, but when we switched to having a Disc priest in the raid (-3% dmg, and awesome PWS absorption), all issues went away.