Pretty straight-forward question : is it considered better to get the heroic staff or 2 heroic weapons as a healer? In the second case, is there any optimal weapon combination ?
Pretty straight-forward question : is it considered better to get the heroic staff or 2 heroic weapons as a healer? In the second case, is there any optimal weapon combination ?
priests cannot dualwield. what you can do, however, is equip an offhand.
as for which is better, it honestly barely matters. you get the same stat budget with a 1H+OH as with a staff. depending on whether you need extra spirit or not (and how much), you could benefit from one setup more than another, but you can also get better stats with some weapons.
it used to be that you got more primary stats with a staff, and more secondary stats with 1H+OH, not sure if thats still the case now though...
You still get more int from the same level 1h+OH than you'd get from the staff. Remember to count in the +165 int enchant and extra sockets with bonuses. If they exist.
It's actually the other way around now. You can enchant your weapon with Jade Spirit, like you can your staff, and you can place an intellect enchant on your off-hand. That and the fact that current tier off-hands also have gem slots, it's much easier to achieve the stat priority you like. The difference is not large enough to make a noticeable impact on your healing though. Min/maxing, choose the weapon and off-hand, otherwise choose which ever is available to you with your stat priority. I, personally, prefer staves because I like their transmogs better.
the reason that dps are mostly not using 1h/oh combos are that it's harder to get two 541 drops, and the offhands are generally quite poorly itemized (hit w/ blue socket is pretty stupid when many people can't even forge down to 15% hit).
the difference is quite small - make the call based on what you have access to (check the dungeon journal and look at the loot tables of the bosses your guild/raid is killing) and whether it's thunderforged, but the caster offhands are pretty atrocious for healers too. extra spirit is largely not needed thanks to the LMG, and the offhand otherwise has haste.
Benediction is the only word that matters here.