is dual spec healing hurting more than helping?

[Pyke]

I love healing as a priest. Disc and Holy. I am spec'd for both and switch rather regularly. My question is if I am gimping myself badly because I use mostly the same set of equipment for both. i.e. I have 1200+ spirit on my disc suit.

The only thing I swap itemwise is an int trinket for holy to a crit trinket for disc.

As you can see my gems are a mix of useful stats for both specs.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ker&cn=Menderr

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[Illunis]

im not gonna pretend to be a priest expert, but i believe you want as little spirit as possible for disc, and also you should never socket for spirit, even hybrids as far as i know, you should go for sp, int, crit, and haste for disc, for holy spirit should only come on gear, socketing shouldnt change from disc

could be wrong but thats just what ive read before

[Zeuq]

Yes, you do hurt yourself with dual speccing to some degree at higher gear levels. In general, Holy likes Haste/Spirit gear the most, and Disciplie likes Haste/Crit gear. Also, Holy will need to gem for mana at higher gear levels that Disc, and even when not gearing for mana, Holy will still go for socket bonuses more often than not and will ultimately favor Haste. Meanwhile, Disc gears heavy Int only early, then ultimately aims for pretty much nothing but pure SP. So in ICC gear, gear that's ideal for Holy will have more Spirit and Haste and less SP than Disc could achieve at the same level, while gear that's ideal for Disc would have more Crit and less Spirit and Haste than Holy would want. If you try to gear for both, you end up not really being ideal for either because the best scaling stat for each spec is different.

However, that's not to say dual spec is bad, I'd just say focus on one spec as your main, because either spec will do roughly the same on most encounters, and just consider regemming some old gear or picking up a few other pieces to help fill in gaps in the other spec. Personally, I even gave up on a Disc off-spec in favor of a Disc PVP spec because the fights where Disc is strictly superior (eg, Lich King) barely lose anything meaningful between a PVE and a PVP spec, and I'd still only need to do that if the Disc Priest didn't show up.

[invader]

yea tis a bit of a pain if u got holy and disc specs, as ideally you could do with 2 sets of healer gear but then again if u got 2 specs anyway ie dps/healer or tank/dps etc chances are your gonna try to get 2 sets of gear..
im disc and holy and currently gettin the frost tier set for holy and the normal frost gear (gloves,belt,chest etc) and some icc gear (when i can lol) for disc and holy and gem for what suits each spec..
3 specs would be nice to have lol

[llDemonll]

2 specs is plenty. dual spec doesnt hurt, your gear may hurt, but dual spec doesnt hurt.

[Highangel]

I play mostly as holy... but swap to disc sometimes.

I think if you gem like this you don't have to worry too much about which spec you got:

Yellow: SP/Haste or SP/Int
Blue: SP/Spirit
Red: SP

Gemming for crit is not very useful.

I think an issue could be that you are a little low on SP when disc and maybe using your mana fast when holy
I usually put in some Int gems just to be on the green side, maybe swap out some trinkets when respeccing.

I don't have many issues when swapping, allthough my disc spec might be a little gimped...

[Soranis]

Try and get 2 set of gear. Now you are gemmed for a little of both while you could optimize 1 which is better for you personally. I would say go full out fisc or holy the spec you prefer the most. Cause 1 Good set is better than 2 half sets.

[soxyboi]

I heal disc in my shadow gear ;D just swap out bits of hit gear when i can get better stats, works great

spirit is just as good a replen stat in disc, it just doesnt give any other bonuses whereas holy it grants extra sp

[kronpas]

You need 2 different sets of gear to be truly min/max-ing as disc and holy favors different stats, at least until Cataclysm. And although its irrelevant, I find it that dual healing isnt as much fun as shadow/heal, or pvp/pve heal. Dual pve healing might limit your experience playing outside raids.

[Samurai]

I run with a disc spec and a holy spec, lots of the gear can be used for both (like the Tier gear), and having 2 completely different sets is hard unless you are lucky with drops. Spirit is still better then Hit for example though if it comes down to spirit/crit or hit/crit.

The biggest change in my gear is the weapons, i use frozen bone dagger + crit OH (still waiting for the crit/haste from Blood Princes) for Disc and the Haste staff from Sauro10 for Holy.