Is there such thing as too much crit for Disc?

[light_shadow]

I've read that too much crit is a bad thing for a disc priest.
The term "diminshing returns" has been dropped alot in forums.

Is this true?

Can someone please clarify and explain how so?

[harky]

That depends on your role, really. For pure PW:S spam crit basically sucks right from the start. For tank healing it's a bit different and there really isn't any realistic cap. It's not worth gemming, but in my Disc setup and raid buffed I crit 46% with Flash Heal/Penance. There are diminishing returns though to an extent.

Try to think of a crit as a 'double hit'. If you get 100 hits and 20% of those are 'double hits' (crits) then you'll hit 80 times and double hit 20 times, resulting in 120 total hits. A 1% increase in crit would bump that to 121, a .83% increase. Now if you're at 40% crit you're hitting 60 times and double hitting 40 times. That means you're now up to 140 hits. A 1% increase will still only grant 1 more double hit, which drops the normal hits by 1 and adds a double hit for a net increase of 1 hit. 141 from 140 is only a .71% increase, down from .83%. Because each point of crit removes a normal hit, you're only adding the extra portion. This is what makes crit diminish and ultimately be a smaller increase in damage/healing than one might expect. It's actually complicated more because your heals only crit for 150%, not 200%. So each point in crit is really only .5 extra hits.

The other issue is Divine Aegis, which has a cap of 10k absorbed per bubble. When combined with high crit rates and tank avoidance it means you can very quickly surpass that cap. A 16k Penance would result in a 4.8k buble, followed by say a 2.5k from FH and you're at 7.3k, then another puts you to 9.8k. If your target is not hit then your third Flash Heal will over-cap on DA if it crits, wasting part of the heal.

[Kelesti]

I've read that too much crit is a bad thing for a disc priest.
The term "diminshing returns" has been dropped alot in forums.

Is this true?

Can someone please clarify and explain how so?

People look at Crit as having an awesome ability to aid in effective Health-per-Second. Not only do you get the super awesome 1.5x normal heal value : but you do get Divine Aegis, which is made of awesome - especially since it now counts overheal.

After 30% though, you start to get what a lot of people call "Diminishing Returns" (I use this term myself). While it's not the Diminishing Returns you see on Crowd Control, or the direct drop in rating-per-value that Avoidance has, it is similar to the latter. Say you have 40% crit, and your next upgrade has enough bonus crit to give you a whole 1% more than you already have. Yay. So that's 41%.

Realistically, are you crit'ing more frequently? Not alot. Do you base your heals to be more effective with or without the crit? Usually without, so more crit doesn't really affect you there. And while it does boost the uptime of Divine Aegis, crit does not directly increase the value of it. Multiple crits may infact add into the total, but one boss swing is still going to take it out. So the point is, you get less "value" out of crit, specifically noticed after about 25-27% unbuffed Holy Crit (Really hitting it after 30% unbuffed).

Options to increase your effective HPS are to get more haste (which has sweet spots and is a little clunky due to the awesome nature that is Borrowed Time), or focus completely on more Spell Power, which directly increases the value of EACH of your spells, including Power Word: Shield, which neither crit nor haste truly affect.

Edit: or what Harky said. Again. :

[mrmagoo]

While most everything harky and kelesti have said is true and good info I think the specific numbers can vary largely based off of what your goal is. DO you raid 10 man or 25 man are you well balanced in your raid (ie have all the key buffs) in 25 man most raids do in 10 man you often go without a few very nice buffs (i generally dont have a boomkin of ele sham in my 10 man raid no extra 5% crit). A few other things that were mentioned but I will recall is that your best spell pws does not gain anything from crit. That fact makes sp much more valuable then crit especially when you are well geared.

One thing that was not mentioned though and is definatly worth talking about is divine inspiration (which EVERY priest should have). This ability is also based off of crit heals and while resto shamans have a similar talent you may not always have a resto shaman in your raid. That ability is important enough that it should always be kept up on the tank in heavy damage situations. With that said I still agree with the previous posters in that once you get to around 30-35% crit (easy to do assuming you have 8% crit from talents) then its best to get more sp. With the gear the way it is now I really am not sure what to do when ICC comes out since mana is almost never an issue as disc there is no reason to get alot of spirit and int is on all the gear already. Its easy to get over 30k mana without gemming for it, as it stands I will probably just gem sp, sp, and more sp no matter what the socket bonus is, kind of makes me sad that no other stat helps you more once you are in t9 or bettter.

[[-Spiritus-]]

/sign on the other responses. Its a matter of role.

Does your guild have you shield spamming the raid or focusing primarily on the tanks?

For shield spam, all you need is enough haste to drop your GCD to 1sec with BT. When your not spamming shields, your spot healing with Penance, FH, and PI:PoH. In this case, haste>crit because you want your non BT spells to hit as fast as possible. DA is less of a concern because you will be casting PW:S far more than any other spell.

Now, for tank duty, you value haste even more because you'll spend less time with BT up. In this case you are looking to squeeze x5 FH (i believe x6 is possible with extreme amounts of haste) in a Penance CD for your maximum HPS rotation. Once that is reached, crit till the cows come home for more DA procs. (NOTE: I'm not recommending you should do a PW:S->Penance->FHx5->Penance rotation 100% of the time, its just good to have that for when max single target HPS is necessary)

In either case, SP is the most coveted stat because of a lack of a SP coefficient from other stats.

[light_shadow]

To answer a few of your questions, I mainly raid 10 mans and the few 25 mans.

I mainly shield the tanks and any dps in trouble, that's how I roll in raid environments.

I'm sitting on 31% crit unbuffed, so max crit should be 35% with raid buffs?

[harky]

One thing that was not mentioned though and is definatly worth talking about is divine inspiration (which EVERY priest should have).

I didn't mentioned this because when tank healing you're almost guaranteed 100% uptime with just talents and raid buffs.

To the OP: 31% crit, or 31% crit with Holy? That's either 31, or 36% crit off the bat as well as 4% more for FH/Penance on targets with Weakened Soul. 5% from a Moonkin, a few more from Mage's Int buff. So you're already at anywhere from 39-44% crit.

[light_shadow]

That's 31% Holy Crit.

Easily in raids I can hit 38-39% holy crit

[G l o w y r m]

Everything has already been said on this topic pretty much, good replies guys.

On a practical note, I try to sit at 30% unbuffed, no lower. The rest is haste.