Not happy with my stats - where to change?

[Bob002]

So I hit 80 on my priest. Ran some heroics, ran a couple naxx10s. An ulduar or 2, and eventually a naxx25 today. I was able to pull 3pc valorous, but I'm still extremely unhappy with my gear and stats.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...scale&n=Katiah

I realize that there are a couple things that I could upgrade, BUT that still won't put me where I feel comfortable (until Ulduar gear I'm sure).

I feel like my mana and SP aren't close to where they should be. I'm at just under 18k mana and 2100 SP. Coming from a paladin that has 27k, it's a hard thing to grasp.

My options seem to be: Gem all INT (I don't want to do this because I'm not happy with my SP either). Go SP/INT or INT/SPI in some gem slots.

What am I missing?

[Proletariat]

Gem Int til you have no mana issues, then gem SP.

And enchant your epix =O

[Bob002]

Gem Int til you have no mana issues, then gem SP.

And enchant your epix =O

I just got the unenchanted stuff this evening (well part of it). Had to do some looking to see what the boot and chest enchants I wanted. I also need to start working on my Sons of Ho'dir rep going.

[artrax]

dont gem for spirit. get spell power + spirit (purified) instead. and whats your mana regen with raid buffs?

[Bob002]

dont gem for spirit. get spell power + spirit (purified) instead. and whats your mana regen with raid buffs?

I don't remember, I don't think I looked at inside 5, just outside.

Purified gems are one of my options I was looking at, though I think I only have 1 pure SPI gem right now.

[artrax]

Purified gems are one of my options I was looking at, though I think I only have 1 pure SPI gem right now.

I see four. Chest, shoulders, belt, bracers.

and trying using spell power + int gems if you are not going oom constantly.

[Bob002]

I see four. Chest, shoulders, belt, bracers.

and trying using spell power + int gems if you are not going oom constantly.

Shoulders I don't have rep for. Chest and Boots I was looking up the mats and just hadn't done them. Swear I'd put a belt buckle in the belt, but if I hadn't I'll def. make sure I do later tonight.

[[-Spiritus-]]

The general rule is gem INT until you feel like your not liable to go OOM. Then start moving to INT/SP. Would be nice to see a WWS/WoL parse to see how your casting. Holy priests have a completely different style of healing than paladins... it may be your spell selection. If you decide to gem INT, pick up the Egg+the SP/chance on heal to HoT trinket from Naax (cant remember the name). That should up your Regen while keeping your SP pretty much the same where its at.

[Bob002]

]
The general rule is gem INT until you feel like your not liable to go OOM. Then start moving to INT/SP. Would be nice to see a WWS/WoL parse to see how your casting. Holy priests have a completely different style of healing than paladins... it may be your spell selection. If you decide to gem INT, pick up the Egg+the SP/chance on heal to HoT trinket from Naax (cant remember the name). That should up your Regen while keeping your SP pretty much the same where its at.

Forethought Talisman. It dropped and I lost it.

Here is a Naxx10 from a week or so ago (when I had quite a bit less gear).

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/wxq4TVyjKgtO4ZJK/

I didn't log tonight, but I should've.

I'm trying to keep to mostly ProM, Renews, CoH, PoH and Flash. Greater heals if it's really needed.

[TwistedPower]

Yes, you need to get Int gems first. Then as your gear gets up there you gem for the spellpower and spirit. There is no point in having the spellpower if you run out of mana.

[Bob002]

I think part of my issue is the fact that I'm coming from a paladin and they are two completely different playstyles. I don't stop casting with my paladin for the most part; there's no reason to. I don't really have to manage my CDs on the paladin like I do with the Priest (and of course I definitely don't have to watch my mana).

I was gemming SP because I wasn't happy with that, either. And I really wasn't happy with my regen. I've got a few gems I'm going to switch to INT. I know I didn't do too badly in Naxx tonight as far as running out of mana as I'm a tad more used to the playstyle now.

[Worshaka]

Personally I think SP is a poor stat to gem as Holy, to a large extent all your heals hit more than hard enough that extra sp results in upping your OH rate, not your effective heal rate. I'd argue that spell selection has fare more of an impact on a Holy Priest's throughput than their SP. The amount of SP you incidently get from Spirit, Talents, Gear etc is more than enough. However, for very select encounters you may want to up your SP for max throughput, i'm talking some Uld Hardmodes and Algalon but to me these are an exception to the rule.

I'm personally not a fan of gemming for pure Int either... I understand that Int is technically a better regen stat than spirit but it's not by an amount that is significant and Int is not buffed in any way in the Holy talent tree. Spirit on the other hand is increased by 5% and provides SP. Spirit also becomes much better than Intellect when you can escape the FSR for prolonged periods, think Mimiron. To me, spirit is a fare better min/max stat because it provides both regen and throughput rather than just one or the other. Having said that I don't think you should ignore Int, I tend to use the int/spirit gems when I can and I do prefer items to have a lot of base Int on them. Again encounters like Vezax heavily favour int but again this is an exception to the rule.

Early on mana an be a bit of a handful to manage but any decent raid will have some druids to prop you up with innervates and to a large extent they go wasted anyways. 1 or 2 innervates is more than enough to see you through even most hardmode encounters (in my experience) even with modest gear. Again I don't think it's a liability to the raid because in my experience those innnervates are barely used anyways... i've yet to see an encounter where dps is tuned to the point a feral druid couldn't shift out and give you one so again I don't see an issue with your regen being propped up with innervates. Perhaps if you are doing 10man content without one you need to prioritise or maximise regen to the nth degree if you have constant problems but my holy offset gear has been up to the task, even including 10man Algalon.

[-Ethos-]

I'm personally not a fan of gemming for pure Int either... I understand that Int is technically a better regen stat than spirit but it's not by an amount that is significant and Int is not buffed in any way in the Holy talent tree. Spirit on the other hand is increased by 5% and provides SP. Spirit also becomes much better than Intellect when you can escape the FSR for prolonged periods, think Mimiron. To me, spirit is a fare better min/max stat because it provides both regen and throughput rather than just one or the other. Having said that I don't think you should ignore Int, I tend to use the int/spirit gems when I can and I do prefer items to have a lot of base Int on them. Again encounters like Vezax heavily favour int but again this is an exception to the rule.

Early on mana an be a bit of a handful to manage but any decent raid will have some druids to prop you up with innervates and to a large extent they go wasted anyways. 1 or 2 innervates is more than enough to see you through even most hardmode encounters (in my experience) even with modest gear. Again I don't think it's a liability to the raid because in my experience those innnervates are barely used anyways... i've yet to see an encounter where dps is tuned to the point a feral druid couldn't shift out and give you one so again I don't see an issue with your regen being propped up with innervates. Perhaps if you are doing 10man content without one you need to prioritise or maximise regen to the nth degree if you have constant problems but my holy offset gear has been up to the task, even including 10man Algalon.

Keep in mind however that Intellect also ups the mana return from HoH and Shadowfriend, so taking advantage of Intellect gemming to up the mana return means less dependancy on skipping the FSR and innervates. It's a much lazier way to work your regen, but its effective.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Keep in mind however that Intellect also ups the mana return from HoH and Shadowfriend, so taking advantage of Intellect gemming to up the mana return means less dependancy on skipping the FSR and innervates. It's a much lazier way to work your regen, but its effective.

...as well as replenishment and MTT.

[Bob002]

Personally I think SP is a poor stat to gem as Holy, to a large extent all your heals hit more than hard enough that extra sp results in upping your OH rate, not your effective heal rate. I'd argue that spell selection has fare more of an impact on a Holy Priest's throughput than their SP. The amount of SP you incidently get from Spirit, Talents, Gear etc is more than enough. However, for very select encounters you may want to up your SP for max throughput, i'm talking some Uld Hardmodes and Algalon but to me these are an exception to the rule.

I'm personally not a fan of gemming for pure Int either... I understand that Int is technically a better regen stat than spirit but it's not by an amount that is significant and Int is not buffed in any way in the Holy talent tree. Spirit on the other hand is increased by 5% and provides SP. Spirit also becomes much better than Intellect when you can escape the FSR for prolonged periods, think Mimiron. To me, spirit is a fare better min/max stat because it provides both regen and throughput rather than just one or the other. Having said that I don't think you should ignore Int, I tend to use the int/spirit gems when I can and I do prefer items to have a lot of base Int on them. Again encounters like Vezax heavily favour int but again this is an exception to the rule.

Early on mana an be a bit of a handful to manage but any decent raid will have some druids to prop you up with innervates and to a large extent they go wasted anyways. 1 or 2 innervates is more than enough to see you through even most hardmode encounters (in my experience) even with modest gear. Again I don't think it's a liability to the raid because in my experience those innnervates are barely used anyways... i've yet to see an encounter where dps is tuned to the point a feral druid couldn't shift out and give you one so again I don't see an issue with your regen being propped up with innervates. Perhaps if you are doing 10man content without one you need to prioritise or maximise regen to the nth degree if you have constant problems but my holy offset gear has been up to the task, even including 10man Algalon.

Well, also realize that I had just gotten 3 pieces of Val 25naxx gear as well. The biggest thing is that it feels like my direct heals (Flash, Greater) don't really hit for that much. Because of this I was gemming SP to get my SP up there. Right now I'm breaking just over 2k (maybe 2.1k) with Inner Fire.

[Worshaka]

I take it you're doing naxx25, Uld10 maybe some early uld25 content... while your gear is what you'd call modest it shouldn't hinder your ability to contribute. Personally I think you're better off with more spirit which will have the effect of increasing your mana pool as well as throughput instead of SP.

SP is only really an effecient stat for Gheal and renew... I like renew but there is still conjecture about it's usefulness and Gheal is rarely used. The coeffecients for all your other spells make SP very meh, its great to have but I don't think it's worth customising for. If you look at a typical OH report of a holy priest you will see that FH and GH do most of the overhealing which leads me to the conclusion that SP in a lot of circumstances ends up in wasted healing. Where I do think SP is useful is your myriad of small heals, CoH, PoH, PoM and Renew and with the exception of renew the coefficents are poor and only massive gains in SP are going to be noticed.

In any case, my philosophy is to stick with spirit stacking without ignoring Int... Int stacking isn't wrong, i just don't feel it's true min/maxing.

[Bob002]

I think right now I'm over (or close to) 1k spirit. I think a lot of it has to do with the healing style of holy; it's really not a single target healing tree. My biggest disparities came from that aspect of it.

[Worshaka]

In my experience, Holy can single target heal fine from a throughput pov... it just stretches the mana pool to the point where it's not that effective... however if you have very good gear, a geared tank and a druid or 2 to innervate you it can be done with little fuss.

[Selerious]

I would stack spirit over Intel or Sp, Only gems Sp if you have a red socket. other than that pure Spirit or Intel/Spirit gems. Spirit not only raises our mana regen rate, but does add a decent amount of spell power.

I have since BC stacked for spirit. Currently I have no Mp5 items. Raid buffed I sit around 2950-3100+ spell power. With around 650-700 mp5 while casting. I hardly ever use GH, prefering to spam Flash/CoH/PoM with some Impowered Renews and PoH's in there.

I rarely except on Hard modes have any mana issues. And on Hard modes I expect it, it's what makes them more interesting.

[[-Spiritus-]]

I would stack spirit over Intel or Sp, Only gems Sp if you have a red socket. other than that pure Spirit or Intel/Spirit gems. Spirit not only raises our mana regen rate, but does add a decent amount of spell power.

I have since BC stacked for spirit. Currently I have no Mp5 items. Raid buffed I sit around 2950-3100+ spell power. With around 650-700 mp5 while casting. I hardly ever use GH, prefering to spam Flash/CoH/PoM with some Impowered Renews and PoH's in there.

I rarely except on Hard modes have any mana issues. And on Hard modes I expect it, it's what makes them more interesting.

I have nearly identical stats to you, Selerious, by stacking INT. The difference is, I am using throughput trinkets, while your prolly [just guessing] using regen based trinkets (IE Spark/Plea). However, by stacking INT, I get the added bonus of an extended mana pool(ie-more regen from %mana mechanics) + extra %crit.

I'm not saying you *shouldn't* stack SPI, it is certainty viable to do. What I will say is INT is the best regen stat, currently. I can reach +3k SP by stacking INT gems, while using a staff. If I were to drop my INT for SPI, I might gain SP, but I'd have to play more conservatively, or cast more FH/Renews to bump up the time on HC.

For me, I like INT because its the devil I know. I know exactly how its going to react. There is no RNG. I know I'm gonna get X Mp5 from INT, X% from Replenishment, X% from SF+HoH, X% from MTT. With SPI, I'm a slave to catching OFSR time or proccing HC. This was fun back in BC, but there is alot more healing that needs to happen nowadays, exp in Hardmodes.

Furthermore, I switch between Holy/Disc. Its much more beneficial to stack INT in Disco than SPI (though its best to stack SP, assuming your regen is ok).