Disc/Holy dual spec: Stat weighting?

[ContentsMayVary]

I currently have a dual Disc/Holy spec. Either spec is fine for heroics (I always use my Disc spec for them, since I much prefer Disc).

However for raiding I've always been asked to go Holy, but I'm hoping that will change soon (especially after the patch) and I'll be raiding as Disc sometimes. I will almost certainly still have to go Holy sometimes though.

Anyway, I therefore want to try to have two viable specs, and the question arises: What are my best stat choices if I want to play either spec?

I'm pretty sure that I start with INT > SPIRIT. But then what?

Disc values Crit quite highly, but Holy not at all. Normally, Disc doesn't care about Haste, but Holy does. However, Haste can also be good for Disc if you go for it instead of Crit (I think?).

So what I think I should do is:

Int > Spirit (until mana not a problem) > Haste > Mastery > Crit

This saddens me, because I'm effectively optimising for Holy at the expense of Disc, but I think if I ignore haste I'll be really crap at raid healing as Holy.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Is there anyone else out there who raids as both Holy AND Disc? What do you go for?

[Deleted]

For Holy:
Int > Spirit (until mana not a problem) > Haste (until you reach 12.5% raid buffed) > Mastery > Crit

The Haste at 12.5% will give you an extra tick on Renew.

I think 7.5% Haste (not buffed) would be enough.
Mastery on Holy is great, don't underestimate it.

[ContentsMayVary]

Ok, but the issue here is I have to share this itemization between both my specs (in terms of gemming and reforging), so is it a good compromise?
...Or the least-bad compromise at any rate.

[Deleted]

Well, I got this from another source, regarding Disc stats:

1. Get as much Intellect as you can through higher item level gear and gemming.
2. Make sure every item has Spirit as a secondary stat.
3. Keep a balance to your other secondary stats. None of them are great, but they synergistically increase each other's values.

So if you follow the steps for Holy I mentioned earlier I think you should be fine.
There doesn't seem to be many differences in the stat weights between Holy and Disc, except that you might want to concentrate slightly more on Mastery for Disc instead of Haste.

[ContentsMayVary]

Thanks.

What I was worried about was that the Disc guide in this very forum
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...e-Priest-Guide
has Crit as an important stat, so I'm worried about gimping my favoured Disc spec so that I can raid as Holy.

[Deleted]

Then I would suggest doing like any Shadow/Holy priest does... keep 2 gear sets.
In which your Disc set would include more Crit. That's the only way really to have good gear that's good for both specs.

Was reading the post you linked, and saw that they value Crit for Raid Tank Healing but not for Raid Healing.
So that is another thing to take into account, as that also changes the stats weights.
In fact to quote from the guide you linked:
"CRIT is still a horrible stat for a disc raid healer."

[Callypso]

Then I would suggest doing like any Shadow/Holy priest does... keep 2 gear sets.
In which your Disc set would include more Crit. That's the only way really to have good gear that's good for both specs.

If you end up raidhealing most of the time, int > spirit > mastery => haste > crit should get you a long way for both specs.

If you end up tankhealing a lot as disc, do as said above: Keep a 2nd (crit based) set.

In WotLK, especially during the earlier parts of the content I used a dual disc/holy spec as well, keeping 2 gear sets. However I have the " luxury " of being our guilds raidleader (= 100% activity and raid spots) so ample opportunity to obtain loot for two sets. Depending on how high the loot competition in your guild is, this might or might not be viable for you. If you won't easily be able to get 2 sets of gear going, focus on the set you'll use the most and accept the other spec/gear combo might be sub-optimal.

[Kelesti]

For Holy:
Int > Spirit (until mana not a problem) > Haste (until you reach 12.5% raid buffed) > Mastery > Crit

The Haste at 12.5% will give you an extra tick on Renew.

I think 7.5% Haste (not buffed) would be enough.
Mastery on Holy is great, don't underestimate it.

Except you don't raid heal with Renew so that number is meaningless.

Haste is better than Mastery. Having a heal land sooner is more important than an extra 120 healing over 6 seconds. Haste is good. EJ is bad.

Let's try this again - For Holy:
Int > Spirit (to "cap" if you will) > Haste all the time > Mastery > Crit

[ContentsMayVary]

Right, so it's basically what I was going to do. I just hope it doesn't impact my Disc healing too much. (I really don't know if it will; it looks to me like the Disc Crit vs Haste debate is still ongoing with no clear winner. I'd be glad to be corrected on that point though!)

[PlatedPriest]

Right, so it's basically what I was going to do. I just hope it doesn't impact my Disc healing too much. (I really don't know if it will; it looks to me like the Disc Crit vs Haste debate is still ongoing with no clear winner. I'd be glad to be corrected on that point though!)

honestly gem and chant for the spec you in the most...
yea you may have to switch for some raid fights but you should still be able to manage!

[Siri]

Except you don't raid heal with Renew so that number is meaningless.

Haste is better than Mastery. Having a heal land sooner is more important than an extra 120 healing over 6 seconds. Haste is good. EJ is bad.

Let's try this again - For Holy:
Int > Spirit (to "cap" if you will) > Haste all the time > Mastery > Crit

You could also say that haste is meaningless if you didn't need that haste to save the player.
There's not really any right way to go about it, it's more of a personal preference rather because both stats have their pros and cons.
They both increase your hps, but:

Haste is good because it can potentially save lives where other stats wouldn't.
On the other hand haste increases your throughput at the cost of mana consumption.

Mastery is good because it increases your throughput without costing you mana (granted, not a big concern at the moment)
On the other hand, with low haste you run the risk of not getting heals cast in time.

Personally I run very low haste for holy because I didn't find cast times to be much of a concern in this tier and I don't feel like it hinders my healing capabilities. I can easily see the other side of this coin though and I can see why people feel more comfortable with getting the casts off faster and getting people out of a danger zone.
In addition I almost always get stuck in the group without mana tide so throughput that doesn't cost me mana appeals more to me than others.

[Devotions]

Let's try this again - For Holy:
Int > Spirit (to "cap" if you will) > Haste all the time > Mastery > Crit

Pretty much every srsbzns progression holy priest (Jhazrun, Zhinn - Paragon, Phlaryu iirc - Method, Rabz - vodka, Tluby - Premonition) agrees with Kelesti and harky (who is also a proponent of haste, in both Disc and Holy it seems). For Holy just go for haste in all cases.

For Disc, the argument only exists if you're talking about tank healing. For Raid healing haste is once again without question THE stat you want.

But I agree with above posters who say to keep two sets of gear, if your priorities shift at all. It certainly isn't hard to do once you're raiding, because otherwise those pieces would just become shards.

[Evrx]

Pretty much every srsbzns progression holy priest (Jhazrun, Zhinn - Paragon, Phlaryu iirc - Method, Rabz - vodka, Tluby - Premonition) agrees with Kelesti and harky (who is also a proponent of haste, in both Disc and Holy it seems).

Be careful when you are armory stalking priests from top end guilds, they will often reforge/gem/enchant their gear to optimize for a specific encounter or raid composition. For example, Jhazrun currently has 5.22% haste and 17.00 mastery in his healing gear, but had a ton more haste than mastery just last week in his healing gear.

Basically, don't follow the herd too much. Their raid teams are not your raid teams and their playstyle is not your playstyle. You should adjust your haste and mastery, both of which are good, to your playstyle and your healing team.

If you feel fine on mana, exchange mastery for haste to increase your HPS. If you feel mana constrained all the time, consider exchanging haste for more mastery to increase your HPM.

[Deleted]

Except you don't raid heal with Renew so that number is meaningless.

Haste is better than Mastery. Having a heal land sooner is more important than an extra 120 healing over 6 seconds. Haste is good. EJ is bad.

Let's try this again - For Holy:
Int > Spirit (to "cap" if you will) > Haste all the time > Mastery > Crit

This is only half the story. The emergency haste is only good if people are about to die, if they're not the 120 healing will be better.

In the end I think you have to make your own conclusion in terms of wether that 3-4% you can boost a stat with, is gonna go into mastery or haste.

I'm finding 12,5% haste raid buffed to be enough in 10m situations at least.

[Kelesti]

Basically, don't follow the herd too much.

I agree, and thank you for pointing out the particular example (I remember Kungen used to log out in Parry gear for example)

If you feel fine on mana, exchange mastery for haste to increase your HPS. If you feel mana constrained all the time, consider exchanging haste for more mastery to increase your HPM.

Though to that extent, if you feel constrained by mana, consider a little more Spirit, increasing your MPS to go hand in hand with more HPS as needed?

And the fact that Haste is still brought up as "higher mana consumption" (not your comment, but hard to multiquote from my phone at work), it really is quite sad that the picture's been brought up so many times.

Giving a car a second gear let's you go faster when needed, but you don't have to be in that second gear 100% of the time. If having 22% raidbuffed haste means that you're using every global, even when it's not needed, well that mana consumption isn't haste's fault; it's yours.

[ContentsMayVary]

Unfortunately I'm just starting the raiding, so I don't have the luxury of having two sets of gear.

[PlatedPriest]

Unfortunately I'm just starting the raiding, so I don't have the luxury of having two sets of gear.

who does right now really?....

[ruzhy6]

Except you don't raid heal with Renew so that number is meaningless.

Correct me if I am wrong..

I remember reading that once you gain an extra tick on renew through haste it gets to be very close to heal in terms of HPM. I do not remember however if those numbers were suppose to be what is live, or for 4.0.6.

[Azelric]

Well, I got this from another source, regarding Disc stats:

1. Get as much Intellect as you can through higher item level gear and gemming.
2. Make sure every item has Spirit as a secondary stat.
3. Keep a balance to your other secondary stats. None of them are great, but they synergistically increase each other's values.

So if you follow the steps for Holy I mentioned earlier I think you should be fine.
There doesn't seem to be many differences in the stat weights between Holy and Disc, except that you might want to concentrate slightly more on Mastery for Disc instead of Haste.

This is not the case (it's from EJ). There are posts on this forum and following this post showing that Mastery Crit > Mastery Hate for disc priest tank healing, but Mastery Haste > Mastery Crit for raid healing.

Mastery and X should be kept ~even depending on what you're doing with disc. Saddly this means that there is no way to really get gear that fits both.

--
Derp, diddnt see that pretty much everyone above me posted the exact same correction. ^_^ Must read more, post less!

[Kelesti]

Correct me if I am wrong..

I remember reading that once you gain an extra tick on renew through haste it gets to be very close to heal in terms of HPM. I do not remember however if those numbers were suppose to be what is live, or for 4.0.6.

Health per Mana? Yes. And Renew heals more than Heal does! But let's take a step back, and look at damage patterns here.

Where does one get the luxury of having someone low enough health to take advantage of a full duration Renew, that has the time for a full duration Renew?

Not to mention that despite HPM being similar, Renew still has higher MPS, but significantly lower HPS.

HPM isn't everything, and Renew in the current environment isn't worth it unless it's already rolling on the tank.

4.0.6 makes it cheaper, but I still think we'll be waiting until Firelands raid encounters to bring mechanics we could use it for.