Socket as holy in 3.2?

[Jejing]

I havent done pve since we did run through nax 25 (Before the spirit nerf) And been reading some about how to socket as holy, Everyone say the same, Stack with Int sockets. but with the uppcoming nerf on replenishment will that still be the way to go?

[Aureliana]

When i started ulduar i stacked intellect too, but since when i got http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45703 i changed half gems back to haste, since i had no mana problems in most encounter. I don't have that great equip btw, no hard modes. I won't change my gem in 3.2 (except getting epic ones, obiouvlsy), but i was thinking to get back some spirit.

[Izenhart]

Intellect, still.

[Menardi]

Intellect, still.

[Neichus]

As Aureliana said, Int if you need the mana. Otherwise it's mostly up to what your gear is lacking and what you think is your weakest point during healing.

[Jejing]

Allrighty, Guess i will end up with full conquest gear before i do anymore raids ^^

thanks guys

[Worshaka]

I still like a balance between spirit & int considering int gets a flat 5% increase in the holy tree and you get spellpower = 25% of your spirit. To me this makes stacking some spirit rather efficient compared to stacking Int which will give similar regen to spirit but no other benefit. If for some reason you have the spec that takes the Int talent in Disc i'd understand prioritising Int but I think that spec has some major flaws in that it can't get very powerful deep Holy talents.

Basically I gem Sp/Spirit in red sockets, Int/Spirit in yellow sockets and pure Spirit in blue sockets. Admittedly Holy is my offspec and I play shadow more often than not, so if there is some other reason why Int is better than Spirit (other than replenishment) please let me know... but as far as I can tell the Int Vs Spirit regen are extremely similar numbers and in encounters like Mimiron Spirit is far superior due to the down time between phases.

[Kelesti]

Prior to gearing up:
Blue slots: Spirit
Yellow slots: Crit
Red Slots: (with socket bonus) Spellpower/Spirit (without is just another Spirit gem).

With the gear:
Blue: Spirit
Yellow: Int or Haste (depending on playstyle)
Red: Spellpower/Spirit for socket bonus, Spirit without.

When you get the gear, you can start toning down raw crit rating for solid Intellect, which balances out your regen a bit more, or some haste for thoroughput. Unless you need a really good socket bonus, you don't really gem spellpower. While we can gain a lot of thoroughput from SP gemming, our biggest downfall is longevity. Sure you can 7-healer your way through Ulduar ignoring hard modes, but when you start to push yourself through them you need to be able to stand on your own, and for more than just 90 seconds.

We get "enough" spellpower through Improved Inner Fire and Spiritual Guidance, hell even a Flametongue/Totem of Wrath.

[Highlighter]

Yellow: Pure crit
Blue: Int / Spirit
Red: Spirit / Spell power or Spell power / intellect.
Haste isn't needed to be gemmed since we gain like 10% from gear and then you cast fast FH and BH = Serpendity. Crit is surely needed whichever the gear, crit = higher heals, instant FH, Holy Conc. I think a mix of all these stats i mentioned is the best, because i holy priest needs all, what every healer in WoW wants to achieve is infinite mana pool, fast and high heals.

[Worshaka]

Crit is a very poor HPS stat... it has some burst utility but generally speaking crit heals result in a large proportion of overhealing. Crit is only going to help you get higher HC uptime but with high end gear and raid buffs that HC uptime is going to be close to 100% anyways. Getting a few more % crit from gem slots isnt going to effect HC uptime by anything noticable.

There is also an EJ's thread that shows that 1 point in SoL is all that is required, so arguing that you gem for crit to get more SoL procs is pushing shit uphill. If 25% more chances of procs does little than 1 or 2% more crits does even less.

Again you balance your stats but I dont see a need to gem for crit.

[Sij]

Int FTWz0r brah

[Ultima]

For me;

Yellow; Int
Red; SP+Int
Blue; Int+Spirit

[nikkita]

I mainly use 19 spellpower gems, and have 1 spellpower + spirit gem for a +7 spellpower socket bonus

With the gear i have i don't lack int or spirit, and go for max spellpower. I don't have mana problems. Before i was geared i went for some Spellpower + Int gems in yellow's and Spirit + Spellpower in blues.

I don't see a reason to be over occupied with regen and regen from int if your a hardcore raider, simpley because as a priest your not supposed to spam mindlessly a flash heal/coh/poh rotation, so your not supposed to run oom. You are supposed to play in a team of healers, usually having 4-6 healers supporting you, and you supporting them (mainly your supporting them). If you play casually it really doesn't matter what you'll gem for, if you think its pretty to get a socket bonus - go for it. Most of our talents in the holy tree make you a stronger healer by having a high spellpower, all your healing effects would be increased - which will lead you to need to cast less for the same effect. Crit is very nice for keeping holy conc. uptime high, and has a nice regen value, though by chosing afew items with crit on should give you enough to skip geming towards it. In terms of HpS, and by meaning - not spam all out and sit on 50%-90% overhealing, but heal when its needed and have low overhealing, spellpower would be the best choice to my veiw, since it leads to better effects with less casting. If you feel like your runing low on your mana and most of your healing is effective and your gear isn't great you should consider geming more towards regen - this should combine both int and spirit.

From what i understood, blizzard was not expecting specific classes to stack int like there is no tomorrow. I see the replenishment change as a way to nerf all the classes that stacked int without any really good reason really (and saying it has a crit value, or a replenishment value really sounds weird coming from a priest, that doesn't even have a talent that increases his spellpower from int). This 'nerf' to replenishment, or fix i rather call it, should make you consider looking abit more on your overhealing, or maybe sometimes consider not to cast that heal when there is already a hot ticking on the target and most of your heal will be overhealing, it should make you consider to trust other healers to pre-cast their 'long' casting time spells other then instantly throwing your CoH when only 2-3 members are hurt. This is ofc refering to hard core raiding, 25m's hard modes, afew 10m hard modes. When it comes to more casual playing (for example a guild that does only normal modes in 25m or 10m in ulduar, or a guild that is mainly focusing on naxx) The geming should go acroding to what you lack the most, For regen gem towards spirit and int. Even with this change int wouldn't lose its regen value, it will just have a lower regen value in a way you should consider balancing both other then only int.

Don't forget, we have 2 very good mana regen tools on a 5/6 min CD, both could be used together or on different times, they can support your mana, if you care to use them. With this change you should also remember that there are other healers in the 10/25m raid you are in, and maybe you should not trust only yourself, but know that another healer is also pre-casting his heal, or the HoT is ticking on the target your going to have 50% overhealing with the next spell. The game has become very spamable, and i see this move as a good move towards the healers that veiw the game abit differently then healing meters and raw hps and spam. Healing is different then DpS. I don't think this change would be that noticable in normal modes.

[Zeuq]

With the upcoming nerf to Replenishment, the regen advantage on Intellect will be smaller than it is now. So while Intellect will still be the best pure regen stat, once you add in Spiritual Guidance, I see Spirit and Intellect as more or less equally useful. Further, regen just hasn't been a major issue for me, I keep several trinkets around that I can swap in based upon the encounter.

The other thing I want to keep in mind is the way the stat distribution will be changing. For instance, the current Red gem has 19 SP and a Purple/Orange gem has 9 SP, so you come out ahead in itemization if you take advantage of the pure red rounding up over using the other ones which round down. With the introduction of Epic gems, they'll be 23 SP and 12 SP respectively, so that trend will reverse and you can take advantage of rounding by socketting Purple and Orange gems instead. As such, I expect my gemming will look something like this:

Blue: 12 SP / 10 Spirit
Yellow: 12 SP / 10 Intellect; 12 SP / 10 Haste is possible if I determine I have zero mana issues.
Red: Whatever of the 3 options above I want most, probably 12 SP / 10 Spirit

As someone else pointed out upthread, I will not be socketting Crit at all. It is undependable as a throughput stat, so I primarily treat it primarily as a regen stat and, as such, Intellect provides more regen and scales better. I get more than enough Crit to have a reasonable uptime on Holy Concentration just from gear, and as someone else pointed out, it won't help much with SoL because you are reasonably likely to get an SoL proc following a PoH or CoH as is.

[Zeuq]

Don't forget, we have 2 very good mana regen tools on a 5/6 min CD, both could be used together or on different times, they can support your mana, if you care to use them. With this change you should also remember that there are other healers in the 10/25m raid you are in, and maybe you should not trust only yourself, but know that another healer is also pre-casting his heal, or the HoT is ticking on the target your going to have 50% overhealing with the next spell. The game has become very spamable, and i see this move as a good move towards the healers that veiw the game abit differently then healing meters and raw hps and spam. Healing is different then DpS. I don't think this change would be that noticable in normal modes.

While I do agree with much of what you say, in that I think too many people concern themselves too much with regen, I think you may be going too much in the other direction. Holy Priests are a Healing class that benefits very well from lots of stats. Where, currently, a lot of HoT rolling Druids will ignore Crit altogether, Paladins stack Intellect forever, etc., Priests want a nice distribution of stats because we benefit well from all of them. So, that's why I generally gem in a more or less balanced fashion that gives me some throughput and some regen.

Specifically in regard to what I quoted though, the part that you're missing is that the Priest regen cooldowns are dependent upon percentage of maximum mana, so Intellect will improve the effectiveness of those abilities. This is why Intellect does well as a regen stat. By itself, it's very lackluster, giving a little bit on your initial mana pool and some to Spirit regen, but when you count in Kings, Replenishment, Shadowfiend, Hymn of Hope, and the Crit, it all adds up. So yes, Intellect is the king of regen, but that is only because it's expected that one is using those cooldowns. Obviously, if you don't use those cooldowns, the effectiveness of Intellect as a regen stat decreases some.

[nikkita]

While I do agree with much of what you say, in that I think too many people concern themselves too much with regen, I think you may be going too much in the other direction. Holy Priests are a Healing class that benefits very well from lots of stats. Where, currently, a lot of HoT rolling Druids will ignore Crit altogether, Paladins stack Intellect forever, etc., Priests want a nice distribution of stats because we benefit well from all of them. So, that's why I generally gem in a more or less balanced fashion that gives me some throughput and some regen.

Specifically in regard to what I quoted though, the part that you're missing is that the Priest regen cooldowns are dependent upon percentage of maximum mana, so Intellect will improve the effectiveness of those abilities. This is why Intellect does well as a regen stat. By itself, it's very lackluster, giving a little bit on your initial mana pool and some to Spirit regen, but when you count in Kings, Replenishment, Shadowfiend, Hymn of Hope, and the Crit, it all adds up. So yes, Intellect is the king of regen, but that is only because it's expected that one is using those cooldowns. Obviously, if you don't use those cooldowns, the effectiveness of Intellect as a regen stat decreases some.

i Stand on a 25k mana pool raid buffed and its more then enough to have shadowfiend and HoH effective enough. I have yet to be in a encounter i had mana problems in, and yet still found the greatest benifit from spellpower. Int is idd atm the best regen stat ( which is why blizz is trying to nerf it here and there as i mentioned: seems like they aren't happy with some classes giving int this much attention) yet i see many priests runing around with a 30k mana pool all int gemed, without even using shadow fiend or HoH once. The point was not to 'max out shadowfiend and HoH effect', but to remind you, you can use it and increase your thoughput without feeling the lack of int gems in your gear. Their effect without int gems, in a full ulduar gear is more then enough. Ofc i'm refering to the gear i have, which contains mainly 232/239 items. When your gear isn't amazing you should, as i mention fetch around what you lack. Yet i still see a big importance of adding here and there the spellpower to them geming, simpley cause it will allow you to reach the same effect with less mana spent.

After all i don't see healing as spam all you want since the moment we engage till it dies, but it should be heal the correct preson at the correct time. If you do the first part (meaning spaming and saying i r rockz on recount) stack int, you'll probably run oom without it, If you play the second style and heal when needed, you really don't need a high amount of int just the correct heal on the correct time and a nice amount of spellpower and using your CD's properly, you'll still be high on recount, and even catch up on effective meters (and people would also probably prefer you in raid), but won't feel the lack of int. This ofc considering you have proper gear, and not random blues/greens and afew nax 10m epics).

[Zeuq]

i Stand on a 25k mana pool raid buffed and its more then enough to have shadowfiend and HoH effective enough. I have yet to be in a encounter i had mana problems in, and yet still found the greatest benifit from spellpower. Int is idd atm the best regen stat ( which is why blizz is trying to nerf it here and there as i mentioned: seems like they aren't happy with some classes giving int this much attention) yet i see many priests runing around with a 30k mana pool all int gemed, without even using shadow fiend or HoH once. The point was not to 'max out shadowfiend and HoH effect', but to remind you, you can use it and increase your thoughput without feeling the lack of int gems in your gear. Their effect without int gems, in a full ulduar gear is more then enough. Ofc i'm refering to the gear i have, which contains mainly 232/239 items. When your gear isn't amazing you should, as i mention fetch around what you lack. Yet i still see a big importance of adding here and there the spellpower to them geming, simpley cause it will allow you to reach the same effect with less mana spent.

Fair enough. Although, obviously if you can hit 25k as Holy without any Intellect socketted, your gear must be pretty much all BiS and, obviously, you won't need to be socketting for Int. But also, if you're speaking from an almost all BiS perspective, chances are you won't really have throughput issues either, because you'd probably be running around with ~3.5k SP too and adding a little more SP also won't be very noticeable either. So, yes, I do agree that 30k Mana is silly overboard from a regen perspective, but I also think gemming for SP when you're at a similar position in throughput is equally silly; that's why I advocate a balanced approach to gemming. That is, I think after reach my goals for what I think I need to perform my job effectively, everything after that is creating margin so I can help cover for mistakes or lag or whatever else and that margin needs to be in as multi-dimensional as possible.

After all i don't see healing as spam all you want since the moment we engage till it dies, but it should be heal the correct preson at the correct time. If you do the first part (meaning spaming and saying i r rockz on recount) stack int, you'll probably run oom without it, If you play the second style and heal when needed, you really don't need a high amount of int just the correct heal on the correct time and a nice amount of spellpower and using your CD's properly, you'll still be high on recount, and even catch up on effective meters (and people would also probably prefer you in raid), but won't feel the lack of int. This ofc considering you have proper gear, and not random blues/greens and afew nax 10m epics).

I agree here. This is more along the lines of how I play, but I just don't think it's that simple. Sure, it'd be awesome to be able to just be ready for the massive burst damage, heal it up pretty much instantly, but it almost never works that way. People make mistakes, lag happens, RNG happens, and that's where, even if you favor that methodology, having a little bit of extra regen helps out because it means that I have a little bit of extra mana to help out when people fall behind or theirs some unexpected burst damage. Hell, it gives me some flexibility for when I screw up and don't pick the most efficient spell for the circumstance.

[Kelesti]

I agree here. This is more along the lines of how I play, but I just don't think it's that simple. Sure, it'd be awesome to be able to just be ready for the massive burst damage, heal it up pretty much instantly, but it almost never works that way. People make mistakes, lag happens, RNG happens, and that's where, even if you favor that methodology, having a little bit of extra regen helps out because it means that I have a little bit of extra mana to help out when people fall behind or theirs some unexpected burst damage. Hell, it gives me some flexibility for when I screw up and don't pick the most efficient spell for the circumstance.

This.

Holy can really shine when that extra -whatever- happens, we're designed to deal with it. I wish I'd have fraps'd my paladin counterpart dying in 30 seconds, leaving me to handle KT solo (10 man) with no more than 2 peices of gear 200+, and screaming at my computer to give me one more Surge of Light, one more Holy Concentration "omg look Arcane Torrent's back up! Yaaaay"... etc. etc. By the end of it, only 3 people and myself were left standing and I was -still- oom...

Sure somebody can say "regen's not needed, you never go oom" but when somebody goes down do you call it a wipe? Or does that make you want to push harder because now you have to step it up? I dunno, but stuff like that is why I rolled a Priest.

[nikkita]

This.

Holy can really shine when that extra -whatever- happens, we're designed to deal with it. I wish I'd have fraps'd my paladin counterpart dying in 30 seconds, leaving me to handle KT solo (10 man) with no more than 2 peices of gear 200+, and screaming at my computer to give me one more Surge of Light, one more Holy Concentration "omg look Arcane Torrent's back up! Yaaaay"... etc. etc. By the end of it, only 3 people and myself were left standing and I was -still- oom...

Sure somebody can say "regen's not needed, you never go oom" but when somebody goes down do you call it a wipe? Or does that make you want to push harder because now you have to step it up? I dunno, but stuff like that is why I rolled a Priest.

I have mentioned that i was refering to ulduar 25m hard modes several time, i don't see how a naxx example really fits this. I don't know what about you, but i haven't had a problem solo healing most 10m's in ulduar in naxx 25m gear, including some 10m hard modes such as thorim (you can say its not a solo heal since the ehnac shaman stayed in the pit and threw chain heals, but phase 2 was healed only by myself). I have solo healed a full nax 10m run with a lightwell assisting without people dying (infact had a troll mage geting undying that run), with nax 25m gear before ulduar came. If you have mana problems in 10m when the 2nd healer dies you either lack gear (which has a much major part in going oom compared to geming), or spam too much (high overhealing), or use incorrect spells for different situations.


Coming in greens/blues to naxx and being amazed that you run oom when the 2nd healer dies is something that is obvious to happen. Being undergeared and trying to solo heal something that was ment for 2 healers won't really allow you to cut it. Usually in 10m's when my second healer dies from stupidity we don't wipe. Only this week we went algalon 10m with 3 healers, Me (a priest), a paladin and a resto druid. Right after the second big bang the resto druid droped dead. was it a wipe? no. this was our 3rd algalon 10m kill, and i don't know if you know but algalon is pretty much the only encounter you really need 3 healers, that all are geared properly. Did i have int gems on my gear? nope. I did use a int trinket instead of my usual set of trinket, since this might be the only encounter that i actually feel the mana hurting me.

I find it abit weird that because i chose to gem differently then the normal "i haz tuns int i r no run oom i can spamz more" you automaticaly decide that, i call wipes cause my second healer dies in a 10m. I have repeated this afew times: I am refering to items level 232-239 which is my current gear, i am refering to hard modes in Ulduar 25m's raiding and not to casual (10m nax etc) raiding. I am refering to 25m hard modes, and algalon 25m. I am not refering to nax 10m, to ulduar 10m (since most hard modes there are a joke, and if i'll go naxx 10/25m with my current gear i could gem for agility and still have no mana or healing issues). I also mentioned that when your undergeared you will probably feel the lack of int. much more then what i would feel, since i've already managed to get most of BiS items. I also stated very clearly that this geming will work the best for hard core raiding guilds. When you raid in a casual guild, and do casual stuff, and still need gear from naxx 10m, you should gem acording to color cause its pretty (as i mentioned on my first post).

I am aware of many holy priests dissagreeing on this matter, but i have noticed that many holy priests that talked to me ingame, or on other priests forms, tried out losing some int gems for spellpower and spellpower + int gems (and saying this i am refering to priests that are geared, and doing ulduar 25m, and 25m HM's) and everyone who bothered trying it had the same reply: that its just the same but a direct increase of the amount you healed and stayed with the spellpower gems, and i think if you are at this level, of hard modes in 25m ulduar you should test it out (now is the time before epic gems come out and all gems have a low cost on AH). I have some extra "int items" that i saved for myself, gemed with int, int trinkets etc, so whenever we go and have a new hard mode and after afew wipes i find out i lack mana, i swap them around. Generally so far only on general hm i swaped 2 parts of my gear to int items, and on algalon i use a int trinket.

I don't see any way as wrong, and i don't think i made anyone feel bad about picking int gems, If i did i am sorry. i definetly didn't question anyones healing ranks and abilities acording to their geming choises (although i think kelesti did point that i wipe without any good reason, which i think has nothing to do with how i gem my gear, and i have no idea how he/she decided this since i don't think any healer that played with me would say a thing like this about me since i will call a wipe only when everyone is dead. It does make everyone giggle when i go "okey wipe it" when all are already corpse runing). There are many ways to play a holy priest, i devide them into 2 Major ones (and both are valid to raiding):
The first is what i call "i has tuns int i r spam heals" which i think clears pretty much the idea. This would be a priest that would have a prefect spellrotation for the highest HpS he can get. This priest will have to use int gems, and will start spaming since the begining till the end of the encounter. He will usually be number 1 on recount and would probably skip on most encounters using HoH since its a 8 secs of loss to his HpS.
The second main heal style is "heal correct person at correct time with correct spell" in this case having a high int wouldn't change much since your not spaming and have plenty of time to regen properly even without a gigantic mana pool (or with int gems you'll just finish a encounter almost full mana or won't need to use mana CD's at all), so you can feel safe mana wise to aim for more throughput gems such as spellpower/spirit/haste/crit (spirit cause you can get spellpower out of it especially if the socket bonus is +7 spell power or more and the gem is spellpower + spirit).
Ofc you can heal in a combination of both priest style number 1 and 2, in that case i would recomend you to shuffle around your geming towards all stats. In any way the way i gem my gear is simpley a option.

I dissagree with the statement that int is the only gem you should put in your gear. but using int gems is something that i do as well - for those encounters i need it. Geming fills a minor role on the gear, and fills in small gaps where you, acording to your gear and healing style need for different encounters.

(sorry about spelling mistakes really late here, good night).

[Danner]

Holy can really shine when that extra -whatever- happens, we're designed to deal with it. I wish I'd have fraps'd my paladin counterpart dying in 30 seconds, leaving me to handle KT solo (10 man) with no more than 2 peices of gear 200+, and screaming at my computer to give me one more Surge of Light, one more Holy Concentration "omg look Arcane Torrent's back up! Yaaaay"... etc. etc. By the end of it, only 3 people and myself were left standing and I was -still- oom...

I had this one happen to me as well, but with a less fortunate outcome. We were doing a Naxx10 pug with lots of overgeared people, so two healers was deemed to be plenty. Nevermind the fact that healer #2 was a severely undergeared paladin, that naxx pug was a faceroll. Until we hit Kel'Thuzad.

We were a bit melee heavy, so the first thing after the fase transition was that our healing paladin got killed by a shadow fissure, and no viable offhealer was available. The raidleader didn't really notice, and I kept on healing everything so it was kinda okay; after all our DPS was good. But I was seriously concerned about ice tombs and had to safeguard it with a lightwell - never got it to save me from an icetomb until that try, but eventually I switched to just keeping PW:Shield on myself. Things didn't start to get troublesome until phase 3, when the adds started spawning and at the very same instant four meleers died to a single shadow fissure. The sound of the /facepalm was heard to booty bay.

So... phase 3 with an empty manabar, two dps'ers alive, an increasing number of debuffs on the adds that resulted in them starting to oneshot first the offtank and finally the MT - we had to do cooldown rotations to keep them alive, and the constant danger of being hit by a ice tomb. That's the power of a priest, I don't think any other healer class could've persevered at that situation. Maybe a druid pre-3.1...

We wiped quite a few minutes later at 3%, when the lightwell ran out of charges (tank needed the HPS to stay alive, I could not afford the GHeals needed). It still felt like a victory. It was the most fun I've had as a healer since the illidari council with 3 healers alive and a raid full of nitwits unable to move out of aoe. "Come on, arcane torrent! Only 4 seconds left until the shadowfiend is up again! I can squeeze in 1 GCD of Hymn of hope here! Taxing as hell, but awesome fun.