/Rant: Forming the Hammer of Ancient Drama

- Look at that really big, bright star!
- It wouldn’t seem that bright if it weren’t for all the other, smaller stars in the sky.

One of the biggest assets of a great leader is being able to keep everyone focused on the big picture. Keep their eyes on the prize. In addition to that, a great leader also needs to be able to differentiate which small things are worth focusing on and then, relay that to the followers. Leading a guild is no different.

While trying to maintain the big picture, however, we have to remember that people will get sidetracked, people will focus on the little things (especially if it pertains to them specifically), and people will bump heads – especially with you. A very good example of all of these potential problems has been brought to light all at once with the Fragments of Val’anyr (seems like the case in my guild anyway).

First of all, you need to collect 30 fragments, which drop randomly off Ulduar bosses in heroic mode, excluding Yogg-Saron who supposedly has a 100% drop rate.  Then, you have to defeat Yogg with 1 Keeper up/absent/down/inactive. At the same time, you’ve probably got 6-7 healers jumping down your throat, each thinking s/he deserves it more than everyone else. It’s a legendary weapon; of course it’s not going to be easy.

The way our guild decided to do it was to give the first mace to the healer with the most accumulated lifetime DKP. We felt that this addressed 2 issues: attendance and flight risk (as Derevka eloquently put it). The third issue of “skill,” or as I like to see it, making sure the weapon goes to the person with the ability to use it to its fullest, is being dealt with as though it’s the same across the board. The politics that come with explaining that point and trying not to ruffle any feathers is not worth the effort.

Attendance

Accumulated DKP isn’t an accurate representation of someone’s attendance, as it fluctuates with people obtaining gear. Lifetime, however, allows you to see who has shown up the most, as they will have accumulated the most DKP. Who wants to give a legendary weapon to someone who shows up to one raid a week?

The person with most lifetime DKP also gives you confidence that s/he will continue to keep showing up to get all the fragments that drop instead of distributing it to the person next in line (although it’s probably bound to happen at some point).

Flight Risk

Most lifetime DKP earned doesn’t predict whether or not any specific person is going to stay with your guild well into the future but it sure makes you feel more confident the person will.

Here comes the rant:

The problems came crawling out of the woodwork when the first fragment dropped. I am the person first in line to get the weapon. Out came some misguided perceptions of favoritism -

1. I am the GM’s girlfriend, which is probably the biggest factor.
2. I am one of the guild’s founders.
3. I am an officer and one of the co-GMs.
4. I am the healing lead.

The healer who is 2nd in line thought it was going to be awarded to the person with the most current accumulated DKP. At the time the fragment dropped, I was still the healer in the lead. Ultimately, she felt the system was biased towards me. She’s been with us for almost a year.

The healer probably 3rd or 4th in line said to the GM, “If you just wanted to give it to her, just say so. Why are you beating around the bush to find some kind of round-about system to give it to her?” He’s been with us for only a few months.

I can understand the concerns about favoritism, with my position in the situation. I am a part of the decision-making body and being the GM’s girlfriend, people might assume I have infinite powers of persuasion to get the GM to sway in any direction I want. I love how everyone’s perception of the truth can be so conveniently tuned to what suits their agenda best.

I’ve been with this guild from Day 1 and I will be here until the end of the guild. I’ve had ample opportunities to transfer off to other servers to play with RL friends in further progressed guilds. I am dedicated to what I have been a part of building. I’ve never missed a raid unless work or some other real-life responsibility demanded my time. I am there when I say I will be there. Even if I didn’t feel like raiding, I was there.

My attendance is better than any of the other healers and most other raiders in general. I don’t pose any threat of a flight risk. On what grounds can someone justify that I shouldn’t be first to get the goddamn legendary that I am more than willing to give up if this is what I have to deal with if it weren’t for the fact that I already have a handful of fragments?!

I have vested far too much of my time and effort into this guild to be questioned by people who can’t focus on anything but who gets to be the first person to pick up the next shiny orange loot.

/endrant

Is the 4-piece set bonus worth it for a disc priest? (heroic raid gear)

Last week, I did a comparison between T7 gear and non-tier gear in the corresponding slots to find the best mix of gear while also reaping the benefits of set bonuses for disc priests. It’s a pretty universal opinion that Greater Heal is not as important for a disc priest as it is a holy priest. And even for holy priests, it’s not as important as it once was in TBC. So why should we waste itemization on items that don’t necessarily benefit us? But you have to admit that the priest set is pretty. : )

Today, we’ll look at the T7.5 gear and non-tier gear that drops from heroic raids. Once again, we’re making a couple of assumptions here:

• You are actively and consistently raiding either 10- or 25-man raids.
• You are a discipline priest (duh!).
• You are prioritizing stats in the same order that I do:
  1. Spell power
  2. Intellect
  3. Critical Strike
  4. MP5
  5. Haste
  6. Spirit

There are quite a few more items per slot in heroic raids so this will be a doozy.

Head

Valorous Crown of Faith
+63 Stamina
+69 Intellect
+67 Spirit
1 meta socket, 1 red socket (socket bonus +8 spirit)
Equip: Improves haste rating by 50. (1.52%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 99.

Alternatives:

Cowl of Innocent Delight
+108 Stamina
+77 Intellect
+58 Spirit
Equip: Increases spell power by 118.
Equip: Restores 20 mana per 5 sec.
Drops from Loatheb (heroic).

Cowl of Vanity
+67 Stamina
+79 Intellect
+63 Spirit
1 meta socket, 1 red socket (socket bonus +8 haste rating)
Equip: Improves haste rating by 40. (1.22%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 99.
Drops from Grobbulus (heroic).

Gothik’s Cowl
+75 Stamina
+72 Intellect
1 meta socket, 1 yellow socket (socket bonus +8 critical strike rating)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 42. (0.91%)
Equip: Improves haste rating by 34. (1.04%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 99.
Drops from Gothik the Harvester (heroic).

Hood of Rationality
+96 Stamina
+63 Intellect
+81 Spirit
1 meta socket, 1 blue socket (socket bonus +2 mana per 5 sec)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 50. (1.09%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 120.
Drops from Malygos (heroic).

Best in slot here goes to 2 contenders: Gothik’s Cowl and Hood of Rationality. Depending on your needs, you might opt for the cowl if you prefer haste. If you want more spell power and MP5, then the hood is the winner. Regarding crit, the two pieces are actually tied if you socket the cowl to get the socket bonus, at which point, both pieces offer +50 critical strike rating.

Shoulders

Valorous Shoulderpads of Faith
+55 Stamina
+57 Intellect
+50 Spirit
1 blue socket (socket bonus +4 spirit)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 42. (0.91%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 78.

Alternatives:

Mantle of Dissemination
+79 Stamina
+59 Intellect
+52 Spirit
Equip: Improves critical strike by 60. (1.31%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 98.
Drops from Malygos (heroic).

Mantle of the Locusts
+57 Stamina
+39 Intellect
+67 Spirit
1 red socket (socket bonus +4 Intellect)
Equip: Improves haste rating by 39. (1.19%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 78.
Drops from Anub’Rekhan (heroic).

Sympathetic Amice
+75 Stamina
+57 Intellect
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 50. (1.09%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 88.
Equip: Restores 15 mana per 5 sec.
Drops from Grobbulus (heroic).

There is no clear winner here so this will depend on what you need more. For spell power and crit, then Mantle of Dissemination from heroic Malygos. For crit and MP5, then Sympathetic Amice from heroic Grobbulus. For a socket, then the Valorous Shoulderpads of Faith. Don’t you hate it when this happens? My personal choice? I went with the tier shoulders. I have a strong preference for sockets and it also comes with wings. ; ) Priest shoulders always have to have wings! Since the tier shoulders are also purchasable by emblems, it’s also the easiest to get without having to wait for weeks on end if you’re unlucky with drops. Shoulders for me here.

Chest

Valorous Robe of Faith
+75 Stamina
+67 Intellect
+77 Spirit
1 red socket, 1 blue socket (socket bonus +6 spirit)
Equip: Increases spell power by 99.
Equip: Restores 20 mana per 5 sec.

Alternatives:

Blanketing Robes of Snow
+86 Stamina
+71 Intellect
+66 Spirit
1 blue socket (socket bonus +4 haste rating)
Equip: Increases spell power by 132.
Equip: Restores 13 mana per 5 sec.
Drops from Malygos (heroic).

Digested Silken Robes (ew!)
+75 Stamina
+69 Intellect
+63 Spirit
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 77. (1.68%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 118.
Drops from Maexxna (heroic).

Robes of Mutation
+75 Stamina
+77 Intellect
+71 Spirit
1 red socket, 1 yellow socket (socket bonus +6 spirit)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 42. (0.91%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 99.
Drops from Noth the Plaguebringer (heroic).

Sympathy
+75 Stamina
+77 Intellect
+58 Spirit
1 blue socket, 1 yellow socket (socket bonus +7 spell power)
Equip: Increases spell power by 99.
Equip: Restores 22 mana per 5 sec.
Drops from Sapphiron (heroic).

The Sanctum’s Flowing Vestments
+75 Stamina
+77 Intellect
+51 Spirit
1 red socket, 1 blue socket (socket bonus +6 haste rating)
Equip: Improves haste rating by 66. (2.01%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 99.
Drops from Sartharion (heroic).

Robes of Mutation are a solid choice if you’re not hurting for mana regen, otherwise spring for Sympathy. They both offer the same amount of baseline spell power boost, although Sympathy wins over both pieces in terms of pure spell power. Both pieces also stack more intellect than the tier chest, although I have to give credit where it’s due – the tier chest looks like a serious attempt at reconciling the differences between disc and holy by offering a ton of spirit and MP5 on one item! I would choose the RoM for the crit and the red socket over the blue one offered in Sympathy because Runed Scarlet Rubies are delicious! The sum of the flat +19 spell power boost from the gem plus the baseline +99 in RoM is greater than the sum of any any color-appropriate gem combo plus socket bonus in Sympathy.

Hands

Valorous Gloves of Faith
+54 Stamina
+55 Intellect
+41 Spirit
1 red socket (socket bonus +4 haste rating)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 41. (0.89)
Equip: Increases spell power by 78.

Alternatives:

Gloves of Token Respect
+57 Stamina
+57 Intellect
+53 Spirit
Equip: Improves haste rating by 43. (1.31%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 88.
Drops from Grand Widow Faerlina (heroic).

Wraps of the Persecuted
+57 Stamina
+57 Intellect
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 49. (1.07%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 88.
Equip: Restores 20 mana per 5 sec.
Drops from Thaddius (heroic).

Stats-wise, WotP takes the cake. It ties the GoTR for +int and +sp but the crit and mana regen that it offers trumps GoTR completely. When up against the tier gloves, the spell power deficit can be easily countered by a Runed Scarlet Ruby but it’s still lacking in intellect and crit. However, it does offer spirit where WotP don’t and for Meditation’s sake, we shouldn’t completely disregard spirit. A toss-up here – decision will come later when we evaluate all our options.

Legs

Valorous Leggings of Faith
+75 Stamina
+77 Intellect
+67 Spirit
1 red socket, 1 yellow socket (socket bonus +6 spirit)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 50. (1.09%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 99.

Alternatives:

Distorted Limbs (ew again!)
+75 Stamina
+77 Intellect
+72 Spirit
Equip: Improves haste rating by 58. (1.77%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 118.
Drops from Maexxna (heroic).

Leggings of Mortal Arrogance
+85 Stamina
+85 Intellect
+71 Spirit
1 red socket, 1 blue socket (socket bonus +6 critical strike rating)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 57. (1.24%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 115.
Drops from Kel’Thuzad (heroic).

Wow, the pants from KT just blow everything else out of the water! Considering KT is only 1 of 2 bosses in the game that drop ilvl 226 gear (the other being Malygos), the outcome of this battle was most likely decided before we even had to take a look at the stats. Distorted Limbs isn’t even a contender. As far as how well the tier legs compare to LoMA? They both offer the same number of sockets but LoMA overshadows the tier legs in all the baseline stats (even a whopping +71 spirit), the crit boost, and spell power! Even accounting for gems, there’s no competition. This is some serious disc priest love right here.

Analysis

Our best-in-slot tier pieces:

Valorous Shoulderpads of Faith

Just one that was an obvious choice for best-in-slot. Since we had a tie for gloves, we’ll go ahead and finish off the 2-pc bonus with Valorous Gloves of Faith, since all the other slots had non-tier winners.

Conclusion

It seems like there are more non-set pieces to go around in heroic raids than there are in normal difficulty! Which is to be expected, really. Moar people = moar gear right? So for 25-man raids, the best-in-slot-while-completing-2-pc-set-bonus gear list is – drumroll please -

Hood of Rationality or Gothik’s Cowl (remember HoR is from Malygos so it’s technically “better”)
Valorous Shoulderpads of Faith
Robes of Mutation
Valorous Gloves of Faith
Leggings of Mortal Arrogance

Sorry the post is later than usual today – this one was a bit more research than the corresponding list for 10-man gear!

I also know that after I’ve followed my own list that I will indubitably pick up the entire T7.5 tier set just to complete the look. Don’t hate. You know you will too. The prestige of having a completed tier set hasn’t faded in the least bit since vanilla WoW. People will still want the entire set. They just won’t complete it as quickly.

Happy hump day, everyone! See you all on Friday!

Friday Wrap-Up: Catalyst’s new DKP system, Sarth +3d, and … OMG SUPERBOWL SUNDAY!

TGIF!!! The baby murlocs are extremely happy you will be able to spend the weekend with them. : )

I’m working on the follow-up to Wednesday’s post, which will compare T7.5 (or the heroic tier set) with the non-tier items in the corresponding slots to decide which pieces you can bypass and which you need, since the 4-piece set bonus is lackluster for disc priests. I get the feeling that no matter what comes out of this comparison, I will stack all 5 pieces because I find the set very pretty. I might choose the helm over all the alternatives just because it’s a halo versus the typical Northrend cowl (ew). I’m a girl. No one said you had to listen to me.

Catalyst is into its second week with our new DKP system. It’s a zero-sum bidding system. Every item has a starting cost and each person can bid up from there. It’s been working pretty well, I think, considering we have integrated it with WebDKP.com and the add-on is a god-send (albeit kind of stupid). We instated a policy that people with positive DKP will win an item when competing with someone who has negative DKP, even if the person with negative DKP bid more. I think that incorporates a little bit of flavor from Suicide Kings here. The idea is that someone with positive DKP most likely has gotten less loot than the person with negative DKP and/or has raided more than the person wtih negative DKP so would, once again, most likely, be more deserving of the item. We are a relatively small guild, with about 30 active raiders so our roster is fairly constant and everyone gets a chance to raid. Conflicts about new raiders going negative after picking up very few pieces versus veteran raids accumulating a lot of DKP hopefully won’t come up (ever) because our raiding roster isn’t going to vary.

We’re going to try Sartharion +3 drakes tomorrow. Wish us luck! To be honest, I’m a little nervous. I’ve been very adamant about at least trying it. I’m doing most of the research for it and hopefully, everyone will do their part and really try to learn the fight as much as they can before we actually do it. Some people feel that it’s a little too early, considering we only completed Sarth +1d last week but there’s no harm in trying, I say.

Still haven’t gotten Malygos 25 down yet, albeit we’ve only spent 1 night attempting him. We’ll get him eventually but probably not this week since it’s SUPERBOWL SUNDAY and we’re just not going to schedule a raid.

Still looking for a feral and/or balance druid if anyone is looking for a new home!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Is the 4-piece T7 bonus worth it for a disc priest? (normal raid gear)

I’ve been raiding normal and heroic for a little while now. Just like everyone else, I’m faced with the question of itemization. We all understand the basic tenets of loot priority for our class and will try to gear accordingly. However, what do you do when your class has not one, but two, healing specs and each spec has completely different itemization priorities?

Well, sure, there’s plenty of cloth to go around but what do you do about tier gear? The healing priest’s 2-piece set bonus is worth it, no matter which way you try to slice it. Both holy and disc priests find infinite uses for Prayer of Mending and an extra jump only makes it better.

The 4-piece set bonus? Not so much. The bonus reduces the mana cost of Greater Heal by 5%. There is only 1 set of healing priest tier gear. Yet, there are 2 healing specs. Not variations but 2 completely separate and different healing specs. What is a disc priest to do?!

I almost never use Greater Heal. In fact, the only fight I ever actually use it is Patchwerk. The long cast time and throughput actually fits the timing and amount  of incoming damage to your tank, if you time the first one correctly. I mean, I will probably pick up all the pieces of tier regardless because I like having a set but I’m probably going to keep some hidden away in the bank or swap pieces in and out per fight (I currently have 2 sets – 1 for throughput and 1 for mana regen) until I have the entire set. I’m just going to wear 2 pieces to get the PoM bonus otherwise.

But how will we decide which pieces of tier to wear and which pieces to replace with non-set stuff? Let’s take a look at stat prioritization.

If anyone takes a look at the healer and/or priest forums, one of the most common complaints right now is that disc priests have terrible throughput. What that means is our heals just aren’t that big. If there is one thing I miss about holy, it’s the huge heals. I was holy for a weekend since the xpac and let me just say, a 21k Greater Heal crit is nothing to laugh at. It is somewhat disenfranchising when my largest Greater Heal crit as disc was 14k.

In order to alleviate the problem, I gear/gem/enchant for spell power first. Intellect comes next, followed by crit, MP5, then haste. I don’t look at spirit when choosing my gear – most cloth items without hit come stacked with spirit anyway. Haste is last because we already have talents giving us 5% haste and you really don’t need a lot to cap your Penance, Flash Heal, and GCD at the 1-second mark (especially with Borrowed Time).

For this post, let’s compare the Heroes’ Regalia of Faith to the other cloth items available to us from normal Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum, and Eye of Eternity. I will take a look at Valorous vs. heroic drops in another post.

This comparison assumes that you are actively raiding and will not include any drops from heroic dungeons (5-mans).

Helm

Heroes’ Crown of Faith
+54 Stamina
+60 Intellect
+64 Spirit
1 meta socket, 1 red socket (socket bonus +8 spirit)
Equip: Increases haste rating by 43. (1.31%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 85.
T7 helm token drops from Kel’Thuzad.

Alternatives:

Cowl of Sheet Lightning
+67 Stamina
+68 Intellect
1 meta socket, 1 yellow socket (socket bonus +9 spell power)
Equip: Improves haste rating by 48. (1.46%)
Equip: Improves spell power by 85.
Equip: Restores 15 mana per 5 sec.
Drops from Thaddius.

Cowl of Winged Fear
+88 Stamina
+60 Intellect
+45 Spirit
1 meta socket, 1 yellow socket (socket bonus +8 critical strike rating)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 36. (0.78%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 87.
Drops from Sapphiron.

I actually had both of these at one point and I was going back and forth for which item I wanted. Would I take one of the non-set helms instead of the T7? We’ll have to look at all the other slots before we make this decision. We’re going to have to make sure we’re getting the most out of the 2 pieces of T7 before we stack on non-set items. The two pieces I pick will be the ones that actually stand out as the best items for their slots. If the tier set doesn’t win out in any slots? Then, we’ll have to pick the 2 pieces with the most stats within the entire tier set.

Shoulders

Heroes’ Shoulderpads of Faith
+49 Stamina
+51 Intellect
+44 Spirit
1 blue socket (socket bonus +4 spirit)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 36. (0.78%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 68.

Alternatives:

Mantle of the Extensive Mind
+52 Stamina
+53 Intellect
Equip: Improves haste rating by 44. (1.38%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 77.
Equip: Restores 18 mana per 5 sec.
Drops from Instructor Razuvious.

Miasma Mantle
+57 Stamina
+48 Intellect
+43 Spirit
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 45. (0.98%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 77.
Drops from Grobbulus.

Chest

Heroes’ Robe of Faith
+67 Stamina
+60 Intellect
+68 Spirit
1 red socket, 1 blue socket (socket bonus +6 spirit)
Equip: Increases spell power by 85.
Equip: Restores 17 mana per 5 sec.

Alternatives:

Robes of Hoarse Breaths
+66 Stamina
+73 Intellect
Equip: Improves haste rating by 72.
Equip: Improves spell power by 104.
Equip: Restores 26 mana per 5 sec.
Drops from Noth the Plaguebringer.

Hands

Heroes’ Gloves of Faith
+45 Stamina
+48 Intellect
+49 Spirit
1 red socket (socket bonus +4 haste rating)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 35. (0.76%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 68.

Alternatives:

Handgrips of Turmoil
+57 Stamina
+48 Intellect
1 yellow socket (socket bonus +2 mana per 5 sec.)
Equip: Improves haste rating by 44. (1.34%)
Equip: Improves spell power by 68.
Equip: Restores 14 mana per 5 sec.
Drops from Grobbulus.

Legs

Heroes’ Leggings of Faith
+67 Stamina
+68 Intellect
+60 Spirit
1 red socket, 1 yellow socket (socket bonus +6 spirit)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 43. (0.94%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 88.

Alternatives:

Leggings of Sapphiron
+57 Stamina
+60 Intellect
+72 Spirit
Equip: Improves haste rating by 72. (1.25%)
Equip: Increases spell power by 88.
Drops from (duh) Sapphiron.

Leggings of the Instructor
+67 Stamina
+64 Intellect
+52 Spirit
1 red socket, 1 blue socket (socket bonus +6 critical strike rating)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 52. (1.13%)
Equip: Improves spell power by 87.
Drops from Instructor Razuvious (wow Blizzard’s running out of ideas for names here).

By and large, the chest and gloves are the easiest pieces to obtain since you can trade emblems for them. But are they the pieces most worth keeping?

Comparisons

Helm

For a disc priest, the CoWF from Sapph wins out, according to my proposed stat prioritization. True that it has a yellow socket instead of a red so that you can’t slot in a Runed Scarlet Ruby but toss a Luminous Monarch Topaz in there and you’ve got a winner. It offers a more crit and more spell power. If you’re worried about losing mana regen, throw in a Dazzling Forest Emerald instead.

Shoulders

Here, the tier shoulders are the best choice. Even if not for the stats (it offers crit!), then definitely for the socket. It’s the only item among its slot to offer a socket. Gem recommendation? Royal Twilight Opal, Dazzling Forest Emerald, or Sundered Forest Emerald and probably in that order.

Chest

On pure stats alone, RoHB is the superior choice by a large margin. However, the issue comes down to sockets! The socket bonus is slightly helpful, at best, so you can customize the gems here to your liking. The other good thing about sockets? Versatility. Once you’ve stacked enough of 1 stat, you can easily balance other stats by swapping out some gems. RoHB doesn’t give you that luxury. Tier chest is the way to go. Here’s our 2nd piece!

Hands

Tier gloves win here, hands down. If you’re low on mana regen, then go with the non-tier gloves. The 14 MP5 (bonus for additional 2 MP5) makes this  a good pair of gloves just to have around for long fights. The tier gloves definitely pull ahead in terms of throughput. Well, what do you know? We have 3 pieces of tier gear now!

Legs

This is close but I would have to pick LotI. It has 0.19% more crit on it than the tier legs, offers the same number of sockets and a socket bonus that is much more useful than +6 spirit. There are lots of gem hybrids out there so finding gems to fit the different colors isn’t a problem.

Conclusion

So after going through some broad analysis, we have pinpointed 3 pieces of tier gear that are worth wearing over the non-set pieces available to us:

Heroes’ Shoulderpads of Faith
Heroes’ Robe of Faith
Heroes’ Gloves of Faith

Well, if you’re going to wear 3, why not just wear 4 right? That depends on what you’re willing to give up. If you’re going to stack 4 pieces, go for Heroes’ Leggings of Faith. And at that point, might as well wear the full set to look pretty. ;)

I’ve never been much for min/maxing. A healer simply can’t do that. You can’t stack spell power at the expense of mana regen or vice versa. The key to gearing your disc priest well is to figure out what you need more. The above suggestions don’t take into account what you have in your other slots. Maybe you do need more mana regen. Or maybe you do need more crit. Maybe you need more of both. (In that case, stack more intellect!)

I know I didn’t seem to take intellect into consideration much in the above comparisons but that’s not exactly true. Items of equal item level tend to give equal or close to equal base stat gains so the whole intellect debate here fades somewhat into the background. However, intellect versus spirit? Intellect.

Valorous/T7.5 and heroic raid comparisons coming up next time!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being… Discipline

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! Going to skip the mod feature for this week in light of more important things (don’t you love the holiday disruption?). I failed to make note of this in the Friday post but…

DING! I hit 80 on Thursday! Woot!

And immediately after, I headed to Ironforge from Dalaran to respec and buy training. The time for healing raids was nigh. It was time to say farewell to my short getaway and come back to the “real” world. But lo and behold, I had a couple of things to look forward to.

I’ve always been the MT healer so this time around, I decided to take a look at the discipline PvE spec and modified it to fit my needs for the moment. The one I’m using is here. Yes, I know the Imp Divine Spirit buff will be useless in raids when it gets overwritten but I’m running heroics right now, trying to gear for mana regen/spell power/crit so I need all the help I can get while I’m doing so (the first few heroics were not pretty).

The first day, it took a little getting used to. I’m afraid I was a little too comfortable with the mechanics of being holy that it took a while to realize that discipline was an entirely different animal. Penance isn’t that hard to adapt to – it’s the mindset that causes a problem. Holy healing is extremely reactive.

“Hey, this little square box on my UI is showing -4k health. I should land a Greater Heal on this little box.”

Discipline is still reactive but to a lesser degree. From the way the talents are shaped, you can see that Blizz intended for reactive healing to be a last resort, in a way. The tree is all about damage mitigation (not so much prevention as you’re not really going to prevent damage from being dealt to the target – semantics, really). Let’s break it down now.

Divine Aegis – Welcome to the hamster-in-a-ball effect. Is your mean bully classmate going to kick your hamster halfway across the classroom? No problem! With this brand new, indestructible hamster ball, your hamster will be safe and any damage taken will be reduced by 30% of the amount healed when your heal crits! Available now for the low price of 40 talent points if you call withinin the next 49 levels!

Ok, so what this means is when your heals crit (Greater Heal, Flash Heal, Prayer of Mending, Prayer of Healing, Penance – the whole shebang of heals capable of critting), it will make this perfectly spherical bubble around your target that will absorb damage equal to 30% of your crit heal.

In level 80 dungeon blues, this is what you can expect the bubble to absorb:

1. On a Greater Heal crit (I’m seeing 11k crit heals at 80), we’re talking about 2.8-3.3k.
2. Flash Heal & Prayer of Healing will get you 1.5-1.75k.
3. Prayer of Mending will get you 1.2-1.5k.
4. Penance will get you 1.2-1.3k PER volley.

Now Penance is basically 3 small heals in under 2 seconds (it says 2s but Disc priests will also spec into Enlightenment and Borrowed Time). When you’re using Penance off every cooldown, you’re pretty much going to be bubbling and hasting up the butt. More crits, more bubbles, more damage absorbed, more hamster deaths prevented!

Of course, we run up against the age-old debate of bubbling tanks (especially Rage users) and how you should never do it, plain and simple. It causes problems with threat generation and maintaining aggro. Well, that’s why the devs boosted threat generation in 3.0! They saw this coming and it was all in an effort to balance the game!

In a 25-man raid, the bubbles are not going to be a problem. Tanks are eating up so much damage that your bubble won’t even absorb 100% of the damage from one swing on bosses, maybe even trash. In 10-man raids, you might see a noticeable effect but not enough to be a problem. The smaller raids are easier and geared towards those who are relatively early in the end-game. Normal and heroic dungeons might be a different story but so far, I haven’t experienced a problem.

I have a pocket tank and we usually run things sitting next to each other. I’ve asked him if PW:S still gives him problems with rage generation in the middle of a fight. He said yes so I didn’t PW:S him unless things got hairy (Die, Ichoron, DIE!). And you know what? He didn’t notice a difference otherwise.

Now before we go thinking this is all peachy, I will say that I only have ~8% crit so I don’t crit nearly as much as I plan to be with better gear once we start raiding so I would take all of this with a grain of salt.

Grace – This has the potential to reduce damage taken by up to 3% and increase healing done by the priest by up to 6%.

Now, after you’re done considering the potential of all these new talents, you’re going to have to remember to turn to your old friend, Inspiration, which is a nice complement to our new mantra of damage mitigation.

I also have the gear list available in an Excel spreadsheet format. If you want the file, drop me a comment or send me an email and I’ll send it to you. And if you don’t trust the file, just open it up in Google docs so it never opens on your computer. Here’s what it looks like:

The only thing I haven’t had time to do is translate how much spell power and MP5 you get from the amount of spirit on the item. I also included additional info, such as the types of gem sockets and trinket equip/use effects.

What I found useful was that I would filter by the item slot, then prioritize them (label “1″ for the item that I would want to wear into a raid, “2″ for the next best item, and so on and so forth) within that category. When I was finished doing these for each slot, I would then filter the “Priority” column to show only the 1’s. I would then be able to see the entire set of healing gear I would would want from all the normal and heroic dungeons. I’ve only included gear from level 80 normal dungeons and have not included those in the upper 70s bracket.

That’s it for today. Happy hunting!

Spell power – as good as it is bad.

After Echoes of Doom, a bunch of different stats were consolidated into simpler, easier to understand categories. Overall, I’m pretty happy with what they did, albeit loot distribution becomes a little confusing…

I totally support the hit and crit ratings being combined so they apply to both melee and caster classes. I never really understood why the stats were so granular in the first place. Gear remains easy to discern between the two types of classes also – hit rating + attack power? Obviously not for you, boomkins!

It gets confusing within the sub-categories. I’m not too concerned with attack power; I’ll let the physical DPS classes fight it out amongst themselves. Catalyst hosted and PUG-ed a BT raid yesterday (3 bosses down! Yay!) and when spell power gear dropped, it was obvious there were some people who felt spell power meant ALL casters were open to the loot.

Not true.

There are some pieces where it’s easy to tell that they were healing items before the patch – Wraps of Purification, as an example. So we got an item with spell power and hit rating. One of the resto shamans wanted to roll for it but we prioritized it to DPS classes. Our reasoning? Healers don’t need +hit as +hit is only useful for offensive abilities. It was obvious he didn’t agree with that argument but he had to let it go since the majority of the raid agreed.

Another instance? Any gear with MP5 probably goes to a healer. Probably? I think definitely. MP5 has traditionally been found on healing gear so I see no reason why that would change now. I don’t disagree that a poor mage who finds the Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted off of Prince an upgrade should try to roll for it but he shouldn’t get it over a healer who also needs it.

And my personal experience with it? I’ve still had to keep all 3 sets of my gear (PvP, PvE healing, PvE DPS) because they’ve all got different stats on them from gems, enchants, etc. so I can’t use them interchangeably (hit rating vs. MP5, for one). GG Blizzard – this spell power stat didn’t help cutting down on multiple sets of gear at all.