Priest must still take dps and healing cloth in cataclysm unlike shaman/druid

[say10]

If you wish to dual spec between holy/disc and shadow in cataclysm you are going to have to take 2 sets of gear:

DPS cloth: Int, Sta, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (mage, warlock, Shadow priest)
Healing cloth: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Holy and Disc priest)

Whereas those shamans/druids who wish to go balance/resto or elemental/resto will only have to pick up one set for both specs

Spellpower leather: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Resto, Balance druid)
Spellpower mail: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Resto, Elemental shaman)

Does this seem like priests getting shafted once more to anyone else?

[Dominate]

Sadly I was thinking that... but then form the looks of it speccing disc/ holy now I have two sets of gear and will need one in cata

My main gripe is being told that spell power will come from intellect... for a warloc? How am I meant to keep the stereotype that locks are dumb people killing themselves for mana if we actually need intellect? No fair...

Just seems with priests it's either disc needing "dps" stats (crit/ haste) making them roll on "dps" gear without hit, or if you go one of disc or holy with shadow again its the same problem with different talent trees.

However, given that tree druids have been royally screwed over thusfar with the majority of crit/ spirit leather (might I add not overly useful to trees or owls - trees want spirit, owls want crit but not both) I'll believe this druid situation resolved when I see it, especially if keeping to your "proficient" set yeilds a bonus. Seen far too much haste/ spirit being cloth to really buy that druids won't be shafted, much like I predict shammies will get a lot of spirit on mail spell gear.

Of course there's reforging but that's turning a stat into a 50% budget of another. We'll see but wasn't overly impressed.

[tehmark]

I honestly don't care if I need 2 sets

I have 2 sets now

Whatever

[Zeuq]

I'm of two minds on this one. It's a necessary change to avoid having only one spec want a particular piece of gear, like the problem they have with Holy Paladins now (and will continue to have), so they have to find some way to merge the casting gear for mail and leather. OTOH, it inherently gives Druids and Shamans a bit of an advantage whereby they can likely maintain a DPS set and a healing set at roughly the same gear level, where a Priest cannot do so as easily as any Spirit would be a wasted stat and they'd need hit, and Paladins need an entirely different set. Obviously, a simple solution to give Priests the same utility would be to give Shadow the same Spirit talent that Shamans and Druids would get, but Paladins would still get the shaft. Then again, they'd mentioned briefly in times past of finding ways to let a Paladin benefit from some DPS stats like converting Strength and Expertise so caster plate wouldn't be wasted, but that's even more changes to get thrown in with everything else that's changing to give them the same benefit.

That all said, I don't really see why this is that bad of a thing because there's benefits to having multiple sets as well. If you can use the same stats but favor differently based on dps or healing, it may affect gemming and enchanting. If you run in a guild that gives off-spec gear free of dkp, Pally and Priest healers can still pick up DPS pieces for free, you can maintain a fairly decent dps set. The utility of the gear for off-spec will also heavily depend on how much Spirit healers need for regen and how Spirit converts to hit; if there's a large discrepancy between the two, Shamans and Druids could easily end up way over or way under the amount of regen or hit they need, which would obviously hurt their performance.

Besides, the last thing I'd want is to really enjoy healing, as I do, but because I could maintain a DPS set at the same gear level without trying, being consistently asked to play a spec I enjoy less because we're running too many healers. I imagine it would make DPSers that loathe healing but now inherently have a solid healing set could see it as a curse too. Either way, I don't think there's enough information out to be happy or upset about the changes, so I think we should just wait and see what happens.

[tatienne]

I don't really see the problem. my main is a shdowpriest, I have two sets right now, but I also have 6 other level 80s (and the rogue, huntard and warrior are left behind due to my break) and I know I'll have to keep two sets of everyhting that ain't mage or warlock (who'll probably be left at 80 for a little while, except pherhaps for mooncloth/moonshroud/nextmoonsomething "transmutes"). my shaman will still need both resto (main) and enhance (seriously, I have too many "mages"), my paladin will need both tank and heal gear (healgear for her isn't hard though), my druid will still ned both tank and boomkin gear and my dk will, if he ever turns 85, both need tank and dps sets.

and yes, I really do believe there will still be dps and tanking plate, just not such a large distinction as before and they've said they wanted to get rid of defense since it's hard for beginners to understand or... quite frankly, hard to know what's needed unless you read up on it on some fansite which in my eyes isn't very userfriendly.

[mutantboy]

So at the moment i play a balance druid with a feral offspec that is set up for 5 man tanking OR dps. While I raid as balance I do run heroics as healer/tank/dps. That's 4 sets. My priest has 3 - disc/holy/shadow. My mage has a full hit set (fire - that i pretty much never use now) and a reduced hit set - so call it 1.5 sets

If there is a possibility that I can reduce these all down by just one or 2 I'd be happy

[Danner]

Reforging: Change the hit on a gear item for 80% equivalent of spirit. Or vice versa.

[Zeuq]

Reforging: Change the hit on a gear item for 80% equivalent of spirit. Or vice versa.

As I understand, the reforging probably won't allow that. It is designed to allow you to trade stats that won't cross over roles, so you might be able to trade haste and crit, but because spirit is a healer stat and hit is a dps stat, you won't be able to reforge between the two. You might be able to trade for neutral stats though, like maybe Hit->Crit, as they did mention, but they seemed kind of nebulous about that, so I don't think they've made a final decision on that yet. If they did allow that, they might as well combine Hit/Spirit for all clothies too because that's essentially what would happen.

[Sarlac]

OR...

The other way you can look at it is Elem sham are forced into taking spirit, even though spirit is to be a healing stat, so they effectively get screwed out of point allocation and are gimped compared to other casters.

^See wut i did thar?

Just wait until the system is finalized. Most classes will have to use two gear sets with dual spec anyway - just plan on that. (tank / dps) (tank / heal) (pve / pvp) if (dps / heal) is 50-50, then it's still not the end of the world.

[fabian]

OR...

The other way you can look at it is Elem sham are forced into taking spirit, even though spirit is to be a healing stat, so they effectively get screwed out of point allocation and are gimped compared to other casters.

^See wut i did thar?

Just wait until the system is finalized. Most classes will have to use two gear sets with dual spec anyway - just plan on that. (tank / dps) (tank / heal) (pve / pvp) if (dps / heal) is 50-50, then it's still not the end of the world.

Just wondering, did you read the part where Ele Shamans/Balance Druids get Spi -> Hit conversion? If anything, they are at an advantage to being hit capped. Since the caps will dynamically change as your progress, they do not need to be a dps to get hit capped for their other set, allowing them to take more Int, Crit and Haste pieces.

[Kaesebrezen]

Just wait until the system is finalized. Most classes will have to use two gear sets with dual spec anyway - just plan on that. (tank / dps) (tank / heal) (pve / pvp) if (dps / heal) is 50-50, then it's still not the end of the world.

PvP/PvE is completely different gear. We're talking about PvE Heal/DPS.
Tank/Heal and Tank/DPS is in an other league. How many tanks do you need? How often do you need more tanks instead of heal or dps?
Then how often do you need more dps instead of heal? How often do you need more heal instead of dps.

It's by far a lot easier for Shamans, druids to switch between those role with nearly the same gear.
It's easier for Paladins too, and thats why:
Healing Paladin gear is ranged exclusive from their plate down to cloth, so for a retribution do dualspec heal he has a very, very high amount of gear to choose from.
For a Healing Paladin to retribution-gear, he can get the badge gear a lot faster, since his healing gear is so easily acquired, and not needed by any other spec out there.

For Priests its completely different:
Shadows are competing with mages and Warlocks, so it's out of question for Discipline and Holy to get dual spec gear for DPS.
For Shadows to get healing gear, they're competing with holy, disc priests, leather and mail wearers, and holy paladins.

It's a lot harder to gear up your dual heal/dps spec as a priest, even when compared to paladins.

[fishface]

Dk: tank, dps.
Druid: feral, balance/resto.
Warrior: tank, dps.
Shaman: enh, resto/ele.
Paladin: prot, holy, ret.

Hey look at that, your not the only class that's going to have to collect multiple sets to fulfil separate roles (that's assuming that each pure dps spec (and warr/dk dps specs) favours the same stats in Cata).

Edit: also, quit whining balance druids and ele shamans have been thwarted by gear itemization since release.

@Kaesebrezen, your whining about something that already exists, shadow priests are in competition with other dps clothies already. Also the mastery bonus is going to reduce the amount of plate/leather/mail wearers rolling on your precious cloth.

[Miatela]

Alternatively, it means reduced gear competition for healing priests in relation to restoration druids and shaman.

[beforememory]

you meany priests stealing all my gear rawr
btw, don't you have 2 sets of gear as is?

[Taen]

My paladin has three different kinds of plate, two of which are shared with warriors and death knights. You don't get to whine about two kinds of cloth.

[Zeuq]

Just wondering, did you read the part where Ele Shamans/Balance Druids get Spi -> Hit conversion? If anything, they are at an advantage to being hit capped. Since the caps will dynamically change as your progress, they do not need to be a dps to get hit capped for their other set, allowing them to take more Int, Crit and Haste pieces.

I'm not following the logic here, Spirit will probably translate pretty close, if not exactly, at 1:1 with Hit, and they also mentioned in the blue that they'd want them to want roughly the same amount of Spirit as other classes would want of Hit. Thus, I imagine if, say, a Warlock needs 500 Hit in T11, then a Moonkin probably needs roughly 500 Spirit/Hit (they can still benefit from Hit on necks, cloaks, rings, etc.), and if that Warlock needs 100 more Hit for T12, then the Moonkin ought to need 100 more Spirit/Hit as well. Similarly, I'd expect that the Spirit requirements for healers will go up, just not in such a precise way, such that Healers will continue to want more regen as they progress through the raids. So, other than that they probably don't scale at the same rate, I don't see how it's really an advantage that would allow them to get more non-Spirit pieces, especially considering that there won't be any meaningful distinction between Druid/Shaman Caster/Healer gear.



@ Kaesebrezen

Did you miss the part where wearing other than your optimal armor type will mean you're giving up free mastery? I suspect that there may be cases where a piece of cloth spirit gear might be useful to a paladin, but since they want more stats to be more balanced, chances are it won't be worth giving up that mastery, so there probably won't be much competition for that gear.


@ Miatela

On the contrary, that Haste/Spirit neck that now Warlocks, Mages, Priests, and Druids may want will be wanted by Paladins, Shamans, Druids, and Priests...So it looks like roughly the same amount of competition to me, or possibly more since Spirit is subpar for a lot of DPS classes now, but it will be highly desired by all those healers and the DPSers.

[Nightvaj]

My paladin has three different kinds of plate, two of which are shared with warriors and death knights. You don't get to whine about two kinds of cloth.

One kind of which you're the only class that can use. Damn. You have to share with two classes? That sucks. I have to share my cloth with Priests, Mages, Boomkin, Ele Shaman, and even Holy Paladins. Get the fuck off my cloth gear plox, as it's the only kind of armor I can use.

[fabian]

I'm not following the logic here, Spirit will probably translate pretty close, if not exactly, at 1:1 with Hit, and they also mentioned in the blue that they'd want them to want roughly the same amount of Spirit as other classes would want of Hit. Thus, I imagine if, say, a Warlock needs 500 Hit in T11, then a Moonkin probably needs roughly 500 Spirit/Hit (they can still benefit from Hit on necks, cloaks, rings, etc.), and if that Warlock needs 100 more Hit for T12, then the Moonkin ought to need 100 more Spirit/Hit as well. Similarly, I'd expect that the Spirit requirements for healers will go up, just not in such a precise way, such that Healers will continue to want more regen as they progress through the raids. So, other than that they probably don't scale at the same rate, I don't see how it's really an advantage that would allow them to get more non-Spirit pieces, especially considering that there won't be any meaningful distinction between Druid/Shaman Caster/Healer gear.

I'm saying, since their healer/dps gear are, for the most part, the same, that being able to get hit capped would be easier to do. So a shaman/druid could heal to get hit capped for their tier.

The part about getting more Int, Crit and Haste gear was an assumption on the Spi -> Hit conversion. Nothing is known, but if they feel that Shamans/Druids need more DPS in later tiers, they could easily just up the conversion rate so that they have more room free for better dps stats as a band-aid while they try to find a more permanent fix for it.

[rkma]

Does this seem like priests getting shafted once more to anyone else?

Sort of... but you have to remember that there's always been MORE cloth items than any other item class in the game. With the changes to Druids/Shaman, it may become even more extreme, since they won't need to itemize for two caster specs.

[Kezool]

You..........

Wait.

You're getting SHAFTED because you have to have TWO sets of gear if you wanna play two seperate roles?

I'd agree to this crybaby shafted idea if it was for holy and disc, but for healing versus damage? Come the fuck on. What about the poor warriors paladins DK's druids shamans that have been gathering multiple sets of gear for years?

You're not getting shafted, if anything you're getting balanced.