Tier 10 -2pc+off pcs- vs. -4pc bonus-...

[Philosophist]

With the latest change/nerf to our 4pc bonus im curious as to whether its better to just stick with the 2 best pieces of t10 and use the higher stat off pieces or is the 4pc still better in the end. Im seeing ALOT of priests saying the same thing, "the nerf was stupid and unneeded", but since its here i want to have the best stats i can get to keep up with the shamans and druids.
A) Which 2 T10 pcs are the best to keep?
B) Is it worth it to get 4pc at all?
C) Discuss any thoughts on the subject.
D) Is there math to show the comparison on the two different setups. ( w/2pc, w/4pc, etc)
E) I hear conflicting views on Renew, i dont personally use it to often(Still beast meters) in favor of FH, plus im Disc so PWS +FH is what "feels" the best for me. Id like to hear everyone's thoughts on the renew/no renew question. Its seems like it takes ALOT of talent points and a glyph to make it close to what Rejuv is, Plus i get the hot off of FH from my 2pc. Just looking for INTELLIGENT discussion on the subject.

Trying to figure out what my BiS list will be, Maxdps doesn't seem to be very good at telling me what i want to know.
Thank you so much to those who have answered already and please try to be helpful and not mean.

(Edited to make sure it didn't come off as QQ. Was just quoting the general feeling of most priest posts i have read on the subject.)

[Dharmabhum]

First off, the change hasn't been implemented yet; its only on the PTR and might not even make it to live. Second, it could change its form before then so we have no idea if we'll have the current set bonus, the new PTR one, or another form of it. For this reason, I wouldn't spend any emblems unless you're sure about your direction.

I see no reason to keep 2T10 if you're not going for 4T10. 2-piece is not good IMHO and there's no way I'd trade crit/haste pieces for spirit/crit or spirit/haste and a bad 2-piece bonus personally.

If the current 4T10 stands, I'll still pick it up eventually as it looks interesting and could be useful in hard modes, but otherwise I'm sticking with my philosophy of going offset as I'm limited to 10 mans on a consistent basis and PUGs rarely down bosses that will give me good 264 loot over my current set up. If 4T10 changes, I'll probably just keep doing what I'm doing with offset, unless they change it to something different than what's on the PTR right now.

[harky]

Despite whatever you may be thinking, the 4pT10 bonus is actually a buff. You should start gearing towards it now so that when it is changed you'll have access to it. The Priests you see who think the new 4p is bad... are bad. Renew should be your top heal and the new bonus is a flat 5% buff to it.

[hunts0417]

I also agree that it is a buff not a nerf. Renew is always top 3 heals no matter what the fight if your using a renew filler (which IMO you should be), so you should in a way be gearing towards a renew build anyways the 5% bonus is just, well, a bonus. Going for OS pieces wont give you the 5% bonus to renew it will however boost it a small bit but not enough to make it worth while Since the best setup (again IMO) is 4p plus OS gloves ,which if you take the OS pieces that only gives you an improved chest which =/= 5% on your renew.

So if your lazy and didn't read all that... go 4 piece.

[Myzrael]

Indeed, it's a buff rather than nerf.

Old set bonus is really situational and pretty stupid (especially for holy).

Having 6secs after CoH to cast Flash Heal and reset it's remaining CD (which can either be ~1.5 secs or 1 gcd with surge proc), taking off ~3-4 secs of it's normal cd is pretty silly.

As disc it's a bit better as Penance has longer cd than CoH, but still very situational and random.

Even though it's pretty crap and random, I still went for 4p rather than offsets, as it's funny in a way (definitely funnier than xx more haste/crit instead of spirit).

New set bonus is pasive, and less fun, but definitely worth going for. I'd still recommend waiting for patch to go live before spending any badges.

[Philosophist]

Thanx for all the help guys....
<3

[Kalico]

The Priests you see who think the new 4p is bad... are bad.

I wouldn't go as far as to say bad, but mostly just different healing styles.

I for one, favor the change. I loved the idea of resetting Penance's cd, but after saving badges to try it, I found the proc quite unreliable. I had some encounters where I would have up to seven back to back (with a dash of FH! in between of course!) Penances, then up to twenty minutes without seeing another proc. Quite frankly, as a healer I can't rely on chance to save the tank (or anyone else for that matter) from death.

[harky]

I wouldn't go as far as to say bad, but mostly just different healing styles.

Find me a Holy Priest who doesn't Renew, or a Disc Priest who doesn't use PW:S and I will find you someone using a horribly bad play-style. Even Flash Heal builds for Holy use Renew quite a bit if they know what they're doing, so... Yeah, just bad.

[Ultima]

Well, yes different healing styles exist, but that doesn't mean they are good. A Paladin Flash of Light raid healing, a Druid only using cast heals, a Holy Priest who only tank heals with a Serendipity GHeal rotation.

I'm still keeping an eye on the new bonuses, I may gather 4 pieces for a Holy set and keep the rest for my Disc. I've spent a token on my Disc helm sadly (Shadow tier) so this will be a pain and a half...if I decide to do it.

[Kelesti]

I personally think the 2pc should be a guaranteed proc on your target if you use Binding Heal. But hey, that's just my own personal gripe.

[kingmob]

The new 4pc bonus is a buff compared to the essentially unusable 4pc bonus currently available on live. However unless you're only a renew spammer the 2pc T9 bonus is something many smart priests are having a hard time walking away from.

[Jimmyw]

i dont think of the current 4pc bonus as any good and i dont think the new 5% to renew is good either...

ofc i use renew quite a bit if ppl just need to be topped off but tbh, most of the time our resto druids take care of that, my main heal is flash heal.. maybe im doing smthng wrong, but so far it has been working for me.. i renew a lot, but i still dont think the 4set is that good.... i am personally gonna skip it and focus on non set pieces... am i bad? maybe, but its working for me and im very comfortable with it..

atm im rolling with 2pc 10 and 2 pc t9.. <3 t9 2 set

-let the flaming begin

my 2 copper, take it for what it is..

[magicism]

Despite whatever you may be thinking, the 4pT10 bonus is actually a buff. You should start gearing towards it now so that when it is changed you'll have access to it. The Priests you see who think the new 4p is bad... are bad. Renew should be your top heal and the new bonus is a flat 5% buff to it.

That doesn't stop it being as appealing as sleeping with a wet dog and believe it or not, not everyone plays priest "druid-lite" because it is a boring as fuck play style.

/Jazz hands

[alostrael444]

A) T10 robe and pants will give you the most stat allocation if you're still using 2p T9.
B) I wouldn't start buying it until we know the change is final. Horde your frost emblems? Sure. But I wouldn't want to lose that many frost emblems until it's set in stone.
C) It's a solid bonus, but in some situations, the extra 20% on PoM will outshine it imo. Keep 2 pieces of T9 around regardless and swap them in as necessary.
D) I don't think anyone has extensively tested it, as it's only on the PTR. I'm sure a post will be made at some point with the math.
E) Disc shouldn't be using renew much, that part of the bonus is for Holy and vice versa, but I do think it's nice that both specs can get some benefit out of both parts of the bonus, unlike 4p T9.

Overall, I wish this was the 2p T10 bonus, because the current one is pretty meh, and stacking 2+2 would be beastly in terms of overall throughput increase for Holy.

[harky]

The new 4pc bonus is a buff compared to the essentially unusable 4pc bonus currently available on live. However unless you're only a renew spammer the 2pc T9 bonus is something many smart priests are having a hard time walking away from.

Not at all. Smart Priests are realizing that with 2pT9 PoM is only making up 15-20% of their healing, which means it's only a 2.5-3.3% gain and that gain is to a mostly uncontrollable part of their healing. That's also only on fights with damage auras. On fights without damage auras you'll find that PoM is 10% or less, meaning the bonus is giving about 1.6% gain and on an even less reliable portion of healing. The 5% bonus on Renew will normally be on 25-30% of your healing, up to 50% depending on the other healers in the raid and the fight. So around a 1.5% gain. So you're taking a stat loss in exchange for 1-1.5% extra healing all coming from a heal that can't be properly controlled. Is it worthwhile? No, not usually. If you have 258 gear and haven't gotten 264 T10 yet, then perhaps. If you have then it's certainly not a good trade.

That doesn't stop it being as appealing as sleeping with a wet dog and believe it or not, not everyone plays priest "druid-lite" because it is a boring as fuck play style.

Yeah, that's true. A lot of Priests still don't get that Renew is the proper way to go and find it 'boring'. Happens a lot with classes designed around HoTs or DoTs, there are no big flashy numbers, so kiddies get bored.

[Kelesti]

I dont' get where a Renew-style is "Druid-lite" but a playstyle oriented around spamming Flash Heal isn't "Raid-Healing-Paladin-lite"?

[harky]

It's because people don't realize the current Druid play-style is based on the raid healing style of Priests in Vanilla. :P

[fabian]

I dont' get where a Renew-style is "Druid-lite" but a playstyle oriented around spamming Flash Heal isn't "Raid-Healing-Paladin-lite"?

Well, if renew style is "Druid-lite", since it is inferior to the druid's play style, shouldn't a raid healing Paladin called a "FH Priest-lite" which would probably resemble a "Shaman-lite" more than anything, correct?

[harky]

No, because the whole idea is based on a fallacy anyway. Pretty sure the Paladin-Lite comment was a joke. :P

A Paladin raid healing with FoL is inferior to a Holy Priest using FH, but not because of those spells. They're inferior because they don't have PoH, CoH and PoM. FoL is a better heal than FH as a raid heal, but that's not the issue, the other heals that FH and Renew specs both use equally are what makes Holy Priests better raid healers than Paladins.

Either way, if Druids didn't exist nothing would change. We'd still be better off using Renew as filler. So... who cares.

[magicism]

It's because people don't realize the current Druid play-style is based on the raid healing style of Priests in Vanilla. :P

Fair enough
I retract my previous statement

It still stands that spamming Renew is FUCKING BORING
Also this whole "druid-lite", "paladin-lite" and "gimp-lite" is all balls. Anyone that uses those phrases will now immediatly get flamed by everyone that reads this post, agreed?
We are our own class and spec, we shouldn't be copying anyone =P