Anything good for Shadow will generally be good for Discipline. Holy benefits from pretty much anything and everything. All professions give roughly the same spellpower, give or take 1-2 points or so. The primary difference is Tailoring gives the spellpower in a "burst" (via proc).

Now, there are some other side-perks. For instance, both Jewelcrafting and Alchemy offer trinkets (which are by no means end-game trinkets; however they're decent trinkets for NEW characters).

Additionally, Jewelcrafting allows a person to do the Jewelcrafting daily which can be converted to Dragon's Eyes; this tends to sell for decent gold (average 125g / daily on my server, YMWV).

Alchemy on the other hand enables you to save money because of double-duration on Flasks (and Elixirs). Alchemy also grants access to Alchemist-only potions which function as Rejuvenation pots but also have random other bonuses (usually gives +haste, sometimes +speed if your health is low).

Now beyond those perks (and there are others for each profession) there are some intangibles. Besides the primary spellpower given by all professions, some professions give the advantage of flexibility. For example, a Jewelcrafter, Blacksmith and Alchemist can easily swap from spellpower to stacking Intellect (or Spirit, or Stamina if you really wanted too).

Personally, I couldn't be happier with Jewelcrafting and Alchemy; though if I spent more time as shadow I would consider Engineering or Tailoring in place of either Jewelcrafting or Alchemy.

All professions give roughly the same spellpower bonus, with a few quirks;

- Tailoring: Spellpower cloak enchant is overbudget on average, but it's a proc rather than a constant effect. Can also choose a regen enchant instead, and regen procs are fine for healers.

- Jewelcrafting or Blacksmithing: Very flexible by allowing you to socket either Int or Spellpower (or other stats if you particularly need them)

- Engineering: Weird

- All gathering professions: Pretty useless for healers.

If you're willing to sink the gold, Jewelcrafting + Blacksmithing is almost always the best answer because it allows you the greatest flexibility in your bonus selection. The only exceptions I can think of is tailoring for DPS casters (the +spellpower proc is great for DPS) or leatherworking for tanks (the +resistance enchants can be very powerful for particular fights)

Pretty sure they nerfed Tailoring. It's not longer 45s on the internal cooldown but a full 60s on it.

Alchemy also provides flexibility to getting Intellect (either via [Flask of Distilled Wisdom] flasks or via using [Guru's Elixir] + [Elixir of Mighty Thoughts], though I personally prefer [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom]. Additionally, Alchemy is the only one besides Leatherworking which can provide substantial resistance (in theory, Blacksmithing can provide a low level amount).

Engineers also get a minor bonus to their Mana Potions, using Injectors they get 25% more mana. I believe this is worth something like 17.5 mp5 for a 5 minute flight. (But keep in mind this is a one time bonus).

I'll have to disagree that engineering as a profession is "weird". I personally like it, and use it to my advantage, and play style.
-24 crit to boots, plus speed boost
-27 spell power to cloak
-on use, 1 min CD, 340 haste to gloves for 10 seconds
-As well as the above poster mentioned, 25% increased use to each mana pot injector

Granted, these are not extra sockets, but I find these to be fairly useful as a disc priest. As well as the little perks like Jeeves that always help when stuck down in the TOGC pit.

Actually now that I think about it, how does Alchemy work with elixirs and low-level flasks like Distilled Wisdom? Is there an actual formulae for calculating the +bonus, or is it a fixed amount for each item?

According to wowhead commentary, the bonus varies from 25% or so to 50% or so depending on what it is. A few examples:


Flask of Supreme Power = +93 sp = 43% better
Flask of Distilled Wisdom = +85 int = 31% better
Flask of Mighty Restoration = +38 mana5 = 52% better

And it only affects elixirs and flasks you can make, to prevent people from rerolling Alchemy and not skilling it up.



Personally, I have thought of going engineering for the glove haste enchant more than anything. On a 1 min CD it would be fantastically useful as a holy priest. And the rest of the profession is just silly fun. I've had it back in vanilla, briefly, and loved my bag of toys >..>

The bonus isn't a percentage better, it's done by stat points. Also, I think your numbers are outdated. The pre-3.2 bonus was 20 stat points better.

Also, that 93 spellpower seems absurdly wrong, Alchemy would be the best caster profession hands down if it was 93 spellpower. Alchemy bonus should be ~47 spellpower (it's the amount in the Flask of the North). (To compare, Jewelcrafting grants 48 spellpower). Alchemy bonus for non-spellpower stats is a bit more complicated, but comparable.

Those numbers from WoWhead are for the Pre-BC flasks.

The actual numbers are as follows for commonly used flasks and elixirs:
Flask of the Frost Wyrm provides +47 spellpower to an alchemist
Flask of Distilled Wisdom Provides +20 intellect to an alchemist
Flask of Pure mojo provides +20 MP5 to an alchemist
Elixir of Mighty Thoughts + Guru's Elixir provides 28 intellect and 20 spirit to an alchemist

Engineering is a very viable profession simply because nitro boots are lifesaving. On any fight with movement phases, they end up being significantly better, from personal experience, than Tuskarr's (or spirit if you're still using it). You can't measure on a sim program how many saved lives and prevented wipes unparalleled mobility for a healer can be. If you pull aggro, you can just run away. If someone's dying 50 yards away, you can get there with a second to spare over another profession. Yes your throughput may be slightly less (though hyperspeed accelerators are amazing for burst phases) but healing has always placed more of an emphasis on ability over stats.

I agree that engineering is a good profession for an extra "Oh %#*@&" button. However, the nitro boots and arguably the Glyph of Dispersion, while awesome, merely make more wiggle room for bad play. If you are consistently having to use a save/ability/CD in order to get out of sticky situations, there might be a bigger problem at hand than needing to switch professions.

The discussion, if I'm not mistaken, is about the best professions for healing, not shadow, and pulling aggro is a much more real challenge for healers than shadow. I've got math in the shadow theorycraft thread showing Engy as the BiS profession for shadow throughput regardless, with on-demand burst and an extra oh shit button (and jeeves ).

EDIT: And sometimes you just get bad luck twice in a row. The argument that having more emergency buttons promotes bad play is a misnomer, as why would anyone willingly handicap themselves into not having a "get out of jail free card" when one is available? If it causes certain players to suck more, then that's on them, not the availability of the cooldown in question.

Pulling healing threat from the MT target is, obviously, a non-issue. Pulling healing threat from Nerubian Burrowers or Onyxia Whelps or other adds that rapidly spawn mid-fight (or targets with odd threat mechanics such as faction champs) happens, and it's happened within my guild on several occasions. Ulduar had many more "oh shit I need to get in range quickly or that mage dies" moments than ToC does, and from what I've seen, Icecrown has lots of movement more similar to Ulduar. The passive bonus provided by Tuskar's is likely better than nitro boots - assuming you are constantly moving the whole fight. It's more likely that you have punctuated periods of movement of significant length -- think changing portals on Twin Valkyrs, running from the melee pain train on Champs, Anub burrow phases, running back to Icehowl after a charge.

Nitro boots are only part of the tinker enchant though. It provides 24 crit in addition to speed boost, which is better than Icewalker.

Of those situations you mention, c4tuna, only on Onyxia have I consistently had adds aggro on me and actually hit me. My tanks are great at picking up adds quickly. I also know instantly when I have aggro. It's easy enough to find the add running towards me and hit Fade if needed. I've never been in a situation in WotLK where I had aggro and wished I had a sprint buff to run away.

There are fight mechanics that make having a sprint buff incredibly useful in ToC, though -- every one you mentioned. The only fight I can think of where the permanent 8% is a definitive win is on Twin Valkyrs. Since I cast only instant spells I run around and collect balls to prevent them hitting melee. Having an extra 8% run speed for the entire fight is really useful. That said, as a holy priest, I've spec'd in to Body and Soul for exactly those fights you mention. I've found having a quick (targetable!) sprint buff to be invaluable.

Does anybody know whether double Reign of the Unliving still work with patch 3.3? I couldn't find any information about it but I read about Solace and Death's Verdict not stacking anymore. Regarding this, however, I couldn't find anything in the patchnotes or in a blue posting.

The ToC25 trinkets stacking with their heroic versions is not being removed. However, all Icecrown rings/trinkets/1h weps(to the best of my knowledge) are unique in that regards.

Is spark of hope or meteorite crystal better for a holy (rarely disc) priest with no regen problems, but no access to higher output trinkets?

I would say spark of hope as the spirit directly converts to spellpower thanks to spiritual guidance, but neither are fantastic for throughput.

Is VE still going to be reliable to keep a single group alive on 25 ToGC Anub? Is there a particular rotation that will be needed to keep the healing output from VE regular enough that there's no risk of group members (including healers, who can't benefit from JoL) dieing if VE is the primary source of healing?

Pre 3.3, my guild has relied on VE to keep two groups alive, but I'm not quite sure I understand the change that was made to VE and how that will affect the encounter. (I'm not a shadow priest btw, so please forgive my lack of understanding of this change.)

The only thing that changed in VE with regards to its healing throughput / value is that it no longer works with AOE damage. So if your shadow is doing single target spells (ie. multidotting Anub' and the burrowers) then it works as it did before (actually slightly better as your shadow's DPS should be higher now). If he uses his Mind Sear AOE then this won't generate any healing anymore.

So if he already did multi-dot, there's no change. If he didn't then he either needs to change or you probably need to find another healing source if healing proves to be insufficient (I assume here that even when Mind Searing he will have some dots running which may or may not generate sufficient healing for the group. I can't answer that for you)

I was wondering what I could do to boost my dps. I have the quartz addon so I watch to time my MB with MF correctly, I keep my dots up making sure not to apply them too early or too late. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong to have my dps so low. My gear is decent, I have 25 toc and some heroic 10 man. My raid leader does not stack our raid very well. He puts mostly melee buffing people in the raid, we have no ele shami and no boomkins. Is there something I can do to help myself that I am not doing? Any suggestions would be great.

Comp - get a DK to go Unholy for imp Ebon Plague, and a Ret Pally and you should be fine on buffs.

Make sure you get Quartz LatencyMF2 : WoWInterface Downloads : Priest for proper MF clipping.

Make sure your spell priorities are correct and you have a good opener.

Shameless plug: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Shadow Raiding: the Primer