Haste Plateau or keep going [Holy Priest]?

[Lorkin]

Oh the ever going debate on Haste vs Mastery.

So I've been trying to keep a nice balance between Haste and Mastery and noticed something last night. In my 10 FL group, I was sitting around 14.5% haste from all buffs etc. My main goal was to hit the 12.5% haste plateau for the extra renew tick and for some decently fast casts. My question is, since I'm past the first plateau should I just keep my haste where it's at or reforge it into something else like mastery? I'm still gearing up and just started in FL's on this alt so gear will be shifting for a bit. Just wanted a good direction to aim for.

And with all the threads about no spirit gear in FL's, has that impacted any healing priests's mana recovery? With some upgrades I've gotten, I have appreciated the extra mana from Intellect, but I honestly haven't noticed much of a difference in mana regen. Replenishment goes a long way I guess but what's a good spirit or mana regen to stay around? There weren't anything in the guides about how much spirit or mana regen to maintain. This is for a holy priest.

This is my toon, any advice would be appreciated: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Lilu/advanced

[Themos]

For Holy, the only person you're reliably Renewing is your tank when in Serenity chakra and that constantly gets refreshed with direct heals making the haste breakpoint for the extra tick irrelevant. Renew under that circumstance scales linearly with haste without any breakpoint/plateau. Renew is very low on the totem poll of healing spells in a raid environment when not healing a tank, making the 12.5% point very low priority.

Don't bother with break points for Haste. If you like haste in general, go for it. But Mastery builds are equally viable, especially in 10 mans. It depends a lot on playstyle and raid healer makeup as well as what your primary role is (yes Holy can tank heal, even in the current albeit nerfed heroics). Some people like aiming for flat whole numbers, (like 10, 20, 30 %) haste, but there's nothing magical about reaching those values.


Regarding mana regen, pre-FL I was very phobic of mana issues going into that zone but it's not bad at all. And I have 3 slots with no spirit on them, including my staff. Aside from Baeloric, my mana is generally fine. And there it's only an issue b/c it is very very hard to take a 6 second window of hymn channel time with the fiend out on 10 man.

[Lorkin]

That makes a lot of sense, I always wondered what was so important about the extra renew tick when I generally only use it on the tank and it gets refreshed. I had thought the ticks came faster somehow so their constant HoT would tick more often, but that's not the case it seems.

I have also heard Mastery is king for 10 mans and Haste is better for 25 man raiding. Is this a fair assessment?

With all the nerfs to FL's I often didn't even have to use my shadowfiend for more mana. There was enough replenishment from the raid to go around as well, so I didn't feel mana deprived.

Has anyone ever stacked one thing to crazy levels and discovered a new frontier or anything like that? The last time I raided as a healer was during ICC on my holy paladin and it was a simple stack Int Int Int. Never had any mana issues and it was pretty simple to play. I was so obsessed with spirit gear gearing up for T11 that I probably should have gone with the higher Intellect gear in the meantime. And I was aiming for that magical 12.5% haste plateau that I thought I needed but it doesn't seem so now. I'll have to rethink my stat priority then.

[Deleted]

Remember that being at a breakpoint will give Renew its max duration. That means you won't have to refresh Renew as often and can cast more of other spells and if you cast it on any raid member, your Renew will heal for more due to that extra tick.

[zakaluka]

ch:sanc renew is still our strongest spot heal under pulsing aoe.

The 12.5 breakpoint isn't worthless, it just isn't something to gear around. Your strength as holy is the brute throughput you can pull out on-demand unlike a druid who has to wait for tranquility to spike or get really tricky with precasts. Your weakness is that mastery will almost always overheal for more than the rest of your spells.

Maximize your strength, keep stacking haste until the end of time. I know it doesn't help on the efficiency front, but mastery isn't very good.

[Deleted]

not this again...

1% haste allows you to have 1% more throughput for 1% more mana usage. 1% mastery is also 1% throughput, but at no additional mana usage. however, mana is not as much an issue anymore as it was at the start of the expansion. so really, go with what you prefer.

also, 12.5% haste plateau is a total myth. haste after 12.5% is still as valuable as before. even renew still scales with haste after 12.5%. it's just what you prefer, really.

[Vook]

1% haste allows you to have 1% more throughput for 1% more mana usage. 1% mastery is also 1% throughput, but at no additional mana usage.

But you also have to take into account incoming damage speed. 5% mastery isn't going to save someone who's about to die.

But yes, it's pretty much whichever you prefer at 378ilvl and higher. Once more mana is becoming a joke like in wotlk.

As for this "plateau", it depends on how much you use Renew. If you don't use it a whole lot, then don't gear for it, simple as that.

[Themos]

That makes a lot of sense, I always wondered what was so important about the extra renew tick when I generally only use it on the tank and it gets refreshed. I had thought the ticks came faster somehow so their constant HoT would tick more often, but that's not the case it seems.

End WotLK, Renew spamming was a viable build for Holy priests. So the Renew breakpoint in that context is relevant. But it's not viable now b/c of the cost of Renew. Factor in the tendency for it having a substantial overheal, and it's pretty much back burnered 'for now'. Next tier, we'll see.

I have also heard Mastery is king for 10 mans and Haste is better for 25 man raiding. Is this a fair assessment?

25 man has more PoH spamming opportunities, and heal sniping matters to a degree, so Haste has more worth for sure.
On 10 man, your other two healers and joint playstyle matter a lot in the decision. And preference plays a role as well.

I personally, on 10 mans, consider Mastery >> Haste. My EoL overheal is minimal compared to my other heals. YMMV!

With all the nerfs to FL's I often didn't even have to use my shadowfiend for more mana. There was enough replenishment from the raid to go around as well, so I didn't feel mana deprived.

10 or 25 man? Normals or Heroics? And how many healers. You could potentially drop a healer if healing is this easy, depending on your set up..

Has anyone ever stacked one thing to crazy levels and discovered a new frontier or anything like that? The last time I raided as a healer was during ICC on my holy paladin and it was a simple stack Int Int Int. Never had any mana issues and it was pretty simple to play. I was so obsessed with spirit gear gearing up for T11 that I probably should have gone with the higher Intellect gear in the meantime. And I was aiming for that magical 12.5% haste plateau that I thought I needed but it doesn't seem so now. I'll have to rethink my stat priority then.

Spirit is too important to ignore as holy, Int stacking is more of of a Disc thing. FLs only has one option with Spirit in every slot (and some no slots). So this tier hasn't seen anything too crazy. Holy has a fairly substantial spread of decent stats, depending, even crit isn't *that* bad since the crit multiplier change. Usually the socket bonuses tip the scale on what to gem/enchant for. You pretty much are reforging into Haste or Mastery depending, and out of Crit.

But it's not a clear and dry thing to do, situational issues may push for favoring one secondary over an other. Especially on heroics, where the little choices have an amplified effect. In general, it's very unlike DPS where there's a clear cut answer with a spreadsheet. Your own WoL and my own may vary a lot, so what stats we consider important differs.

[Lorkin]

10 or 25 man? Normals or Heroics? And how many healers. You could potentially drop a healer if healing is this easy, depending on your set up..

10 man Normal, it was an alt run and we were 3 healing. The group normally 2 heals the place so that maybe why. Even still, I'm glad I wasn't too strapped for mana. I have no plans or ambitions to do ANY heroics with this toon.

Spirit is too important to ignore as holy, Int stacking is more of of a Disc thing. FLs only has one option with Spirit in every slot (and some no slots). So this tier hasn't seen anything too crazy. Holy has a fairly substantial spread of decent stats, depending, even crit isn't *that* bad since the crit multiplier change. Usually the socket bonuses tip the scale on what to gem/enchant for. You pretty much are reforging into Haste or Mastery depending, and out of Crit.

Do you recommend getting the higher ilvl pieces from the place and reforging INTO Spirit? I was considering grabbing whatever no one needed and going to town on reforging say Crit to Spirit. All the stats with Mastery and Haste I've generally just left alone at this point. I guess my main question is how much Mana Regen is good enough to aim for for 10 man normal modes? Spirit doesn't help as much when I'm sitting at 40% to 70% mana the entire fight. If I reforge, at least I can get more out of it.

I'm gonna make a switch to haste to see if I like it more. As my hunter and Ret, it was ALL Agi/Str and THEN Mastery basically (MM hunter favoring crit first). Haste always fell to the wayside on my other toons so I'm use to that mantra. Will have to break that habit.

[Mazi]

Don't forget that the 12.5% haste also adds an additional tick to DH and Hymn of Hope - even if you aren't often using Renew you really should have at least 12.5% haste.

Haste is going to be more throughput and HPS than Mastery by a long shot, but Mastery provides the HPM and sustainability that Haste does not. Reforging Crit & Mastery to Haste will give you plenty of Haste for throughput and still keep around Mastery for an additional boost.

[Themos]

Don't forget that the 12.5% haste also adds an additional tick to DH and Hymn of Hope - even if you aren't often using Renew you really should have at least 12.5% haste.

Divine Hymn tends to be ~2% of my healing across multiple boss encounters on heroic, gearing around it seems rather silly. And that's on a 10 man, I'd imagine with Sanctuary cheese on 25 man, it's even worse. The extra tick of DH only boosts that by a further 25%, so from 2% to 2.5%... Seriously?

Hymn of Hope does give you more mana, but you're also losing more mana from the haste.

12.5% is nonsense.

Haste is going to be more throughput and HPS than Mastery by a long shot, but Mastery provides the HPM and sustainability that Haste does not. Reforging Crit & Mastery to Haste will give you plenty of Haste for throughput and still keep around Mastery for an additional boost.

On 25 man, haste > mastery. But this is most certainly not a universal truth on 10 man mostly due to the lessened use of PoH.
YMMV in the latter, it really does vary. Regardless, if you favor Haste or not, the 12.5% is mostly irrelevant.

On a whole though, this argument is mostly irrelevant at FL level gear. In raid buffs, staying below 12.5% haste is nearly impossible even reforging for Mastery in every slot. :/

[Mazi]

12.5% is not nonsense, it's just not a requirement. I was merely pointing out that it provides more than just the well-known tick to Renew, stop being so touchy over nothing.

And I really should just add "anytime I say anything I'm talking about 25 mans unless stated otherwise" to my sig.. edit: and done.

[Themos]

Do you recommend getting the higher ilvl pieces from the place and reforging INTO Spirit? I was considering grabbing whatever no one needed and going to town on reforging say Crit to Spirit. All the stats with Mastery and Haste I've generally just left alone at this point. I guess my main question is how much Mana Regen is good enough to aim for for 10 man normal modes? Spirit doesn't help as much when I'm sitting at 40% to 70% mana the entire fight. If I reforge, at least I can get more out of it.

There's no magic number for Holy. It very much depends on your healers config and the encounter length.
YMMV, honestly. Go for it so long as you aren't having mana regen issues. Since you aren't doing heroics on that toon, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I'm gonna make a switch to haste to see if I like it more. As my hunter and Ret, it was ALL Agi/Str and THEN Mastery basically (MM hunter favoring crit first). Haste always fell to the wayside on my other toons so I'm use to that mantra. Will have to break that habit.

Go for it, first hand experience and preference trumps broad strokes.



@Mazi, I'll just go ahead and point out your statement above:

Don't forget that the 12.5% haste also adds an additional tick to DH and Hymn of Hope - even if you aren't often using Renew you really should have at least 12.5% haste.

Which implies you value that DH tick. It's not worth it at all. 25 man or not. The 12.5% recommendation is bad advice.
Whether you value Haste over Master or vice versa, perpetuating that specific breakpoint having substantial worth is false. :/

[[-Spiritus-]]

Thread Closed.

If you've read the rules page, you'd know that continued argument over this isn't kosher:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post11050034