Gearing a disc priest (help)

[fujima]

Hey,

i have recently decided to renew my account and continue playing my disc priest.

However, i have never previously played a healing class (i have a raiding mage and a hunter) so the whole healing thing is kind of foreign to me as well as stat priorities and so on. the mage and hunter are quite straight forward on the gearing/stat priority front, but with disc priest i'm kind of confused.

I have leveled my disc entirely through dungeons (so that i would know how to heal effectively and not be a total noob when i got to 80) i reached the current gear level in 8days since i dinged 80 and healing heroics when they are massively outgeared by the tanks is a real walk in the park.

the thing that confuses me the most is what gear to go for? I know that SP is king for disc, but what about haste/crit and spirit/mp5?
as you can see i do not have a single mp5 item on me, and i was gearing myself solely with the intent of using crit and haste gear which means that the gear won't have any spirit on it either. I was looking up raiding discs and i noticed that they only use around 500haste (which is what i have now)

so to sum it all up, is there a general rule of thumb for gearing? how much haste/crit/spirit/mp5 should i aim for? how to efectively mix and match those stats and so on?

also, what is the bis for disc pre icc 10/25 as i won't be raiding for a month or so, but i would like to have a decent set for starting icc? which 4peaces of t9 should i get? is abyssal rune any good instead of the alchemy one i have now?

thank you for your efforts

Link to armory: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...m&cn=Nefertite

p.s. i know i don't have the best gems, and missing some enchants, i will enchant and replace crap gems once i get gear that won't easily replaced and once i have enough mats and money for the more expensive ones still any tips on wrong gems or enchants are appreciated

[Martsus]

It all depends on how much mana-problems you currently have. If you have those problems, gem sp/int and pure int. As far as I know, if you're lower geared(aka lower Int), mp5 > spirit all the time. You won't find much cloth-gear around with mp5 instead of spirit.

As soon as you're mana-problems become less and less of a problem, go for +sp purely, since it increases the effectiveness of PW:S, your main-spell.

Also, the crit vs haste discussion is quite irrelevant, as both stats aren't too great. Haste will usually outperform crit tho at entry-gear levels. Later on you'll be under the Borrowed Time effect 24/7 if you're doing it right after which crit will take over again.

[niteline]

stack int+SP and be smart with shielding, in 5 mans you have no problems at all. in 10 mans, just use SF+hymn when ur around 35-40% mana and got some time
Haste wise 500 is more then fine, nice and smooth GCD. Crit is nice to have but you get more then enough on gear, Spirit same as crit.
SP is king and you should gem for it with INT. Rapture probs give % of mana back. 30k int does the trick more then fine for me

[lifesavers]

stack int+SP and be smart with shielding, in 5 mans you have no problems at all. in 10 mans, just use SF+hymn when ur around 35-40% mana and got some time
Haste wise 500 is more then fine, nice and smooth GCD. Crit is nice to have but you get more then enough on gear, Spirit same as crit.
SP is king and you should gem for it with INT. Rapture probs give % of mana back. 30k int does the trick more then fine for me

That's alot of mana :P. But yeah, SP is by far the best stat, and 30k mana is usually enough.

[fujima]

thank you for the reply's guys
i use Talisman of Resurgence so mana is not a problem as i am at 23k mana unbuffed. i use endless mana pot every fight (with alch stone that gives me ~4k mana back every fight), so for the time being mana is not an issue at all.

i stated that SP is the best stat and that i am aware of it, what i was asking was what to go for once you have the same ilvl gear peace, but one has haste, crit and sp and the other one has haste or crit as well as spirit and sp. this is what i am confused about.

since i have around 546 haste should i just avoid any more haste and go for crit+spirit instead or even better something with mp5?

[lifesavers]

Yeah you're fine on haste, crit/spirit would probably be better. Disc's soft haste cap is around 400 ( where flash will be 1 sec with BT ) but more certainly helps as you won't really have BT all the time.

[zenkai]

Just stack SP and focus on crit gear, if you're going OOM either you're healing wrong or your group/raid is screwing up. Playing a good healer is more than playing whack a mole healing and picking the right gear, it's about knowing when to use your CDs, when to fade, how to help out tanks. When I play my tank alts it drives me crazy just how dumb most healers are.

For instance, if I am tanking HoR and a range unit is beating down the healer, instead of the healer simply moving out of LOS to pull the mob range for me to keep threat they will sit there and heal themselves through it (Causing less focus healing one me) or they will pre-hot me on Pulls.

[Bigslick]

what i was asking was what to go for once you have the same ilvl gear peace, but one has haste, crit and sp and the other one has haste or crit as well as spirit and sp. this is what i am confused about.

since i have around 546 haste should i just avoid any more haste and go for crit+spirit instead or even better something with mp5?

It all boils down to the relative benefit you receive from the 'other' stat you're considering. If you have no mana issues, MP5 and Spirit do absolutely nothing whatsoever for you. Haste will always contribute to better throughput until you reach a level where every cast you use is at the 1 second GCD cap (an unachievable level). So if you're not having mana issues, pick up more haste - but be aware that more haste = a bigger funnel through which to pour your mana.

[Surea]

looking at your armory I still find your crit to be somewhat lowish and your haste is pretty good, so I'd go for more crit gear right now, but gem SP if you don't have mana issues. crit is so important for the divine aegis procs, while haste is less of a benefit since we have borrowed time to give us a lot of that and you'll be shielding a lot. Having around 400 haste is fine, having more crit is really fine, haveing a good amount of spellpower is awesome.

If you look at priorities I believe this is the best:

1 Spellpower
2 Intellect until no more mana issues

3 Crit
4 Haste (around 400)


Also: Don't look at spirit on gear, it's not important for us and most of the time, the caster cloth items are a lot better for us. Our mana regen is our mana pool, not MP5 or spirit

[Nisala]

Keep in mind that more crit means more divine aegis which fits perfectly into your role as a pre-emptive healer capable of stopping damage before it's even happened (well, sort of). As the others said, your main output is PW:S and that means that haste is a relatively limited stat to go for simply because it won't benefit the majority of your output, but it will still help your PoH's so don't feel you can't go for more than the haste cap.

The fact is that shields can't crit and you hit the haste cap easily; so just go with what you get. Spellpower is the only real priority and you'll get that regardless, so you can feel liberated knowing that you can't really go wrong gear wise.

Ideally, I would go for crit+haste gear or crit+spirit gear - but you need to make that decision based on your mana issues. No mana problems? Crit+haste is your best bet. And remember intellect is a better regen stat than spirit, but that does not mean that spirit does not have value.

[Sarcasm]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...line-%28PVE%29

Just leaving this here.

[fujima]

ok, so i have geared up quite a bit over the last couple of days

could you point out any of my wrong doings as of now? (don't mind the cheap bc gems, working on them now)

i was running icc 25 the other day, i was doing around 6k hps (healing + absorbs) and had ~3% overhealing whilst some druid had ~60% overhealing, is that considered good or bad (i mean the hps for my gear level)?

i am not used to healing so i was healing everything, tanks, ot and all of the other players. Nobody gave any healing assignments, so i am kinda confused what are we actualy meant to do? just heal everybody who is not at max health? i was mostly throwing out shields on tanks + POM and FH,GH and penance if needed on the tank that was tanking. i was throwing shields on dps that were taking damage and then FH or Gh depending on how little health they had (if other healers didn't heal them up fast. is that the way it should be done?

Armory link: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...m&cn=Nefertite

also, should i be using Renew? if so when?

how do you use your pain suppression? i always find that i am trying to save it for some situation, but end up never actually using it.

when lots of the dps take damage at the same time, is it a bad idea to shield all of them and let other healers top them up? o should i just top them up without shielding?

[Nisala]

You're doing well with gear, your haste is perhaps a bit high in comparison to crit, but then as I said earlier, neither stats are overly important. Your spell power is good for your gear level and you're gemming correctly. Try and work on getting a main hand and offhand, as that offers maximum spell power.

Healing wise, your best bet, for 10 mans, is to get up shields on everyone and then support the raid healing with penance on very low targets/tank, flash heals and Prayer of healing... and always keep PoM on cooldown.

For 25 mans, PoM on cooldown, shield spam with a priority on low health members... penance if it's looking like it'll get messy.

[Surea]

Get more crit, you're haste is high enough, so get rid of that haste/SP gem.
Imo Renew is a waste of mana for disc, but I read several other opinions, so the choice is yours
I use Pain suppression when big damage is coming on the tank (make sure he has a good amount of aggro though!), or when another dps was very eager and took aggro of something.

The best that you can do is try and predict incomming damage and shield before the damage is happening. Otherwise you can shield on and then use a fast PoH. And flash heal/ penance them back up.