Gearset for Holy and Shadow

[Lorkin]

I'm finally getting around to healing on my priest and have finally geared her enough to run the non FL raids. So I'm still working on gear, but I started to pickup some offspec pieces. My question is, how vastly different should my gear be if I'm called to offspec dps as shadow? The majority of the time I heal, but with all the recent nerfs etc sometimes the 3rd healer should go dps just to make the fight quicker. I've pulled decent numbers (nothing like my MM hunter or Ret paladin), but enough to be considered an extra dps. All this while wearing my healing gear with heavy spirit.

For Holy (from the sticky) the stats looks like this:
Intellect -> Spirit -> Haste = Mastery -> Critical Strike

For Shadow (also from the sticky) the stats look like this:
Intellect -> Haste -> Spirit/Hit/Mastery -> Critical Strike

Would I be a mess using my holy gear for shadow? Is it worth it to pickup the T11 set for shadow even though it's my OS? Is there that much of a difference?

As I said, shadow is just my os for quests/dailies or when they need to sub out a healer. If I wanted to mainly dps, I'd bring my other 2 toons.

Thanks for any responses.

[Priesthoodz]

Would I be a mess using my holy gear for shadow?

I don't know much about shadow, however:

My first impression is that using Holy gear would be fine except that you'd probably be over hit cap with all the spirit, which could have been reforged to something a bit more useful.

I was reading through the Shadow guide and remember it saying that Shadow gear can/will overlap with Healing gear so using it is fine

Is it worth it to pickup the T11 set for shadow even though it's my OS? Is there that much of a difference?

I would say get it anyway even though its OS. It's not hard to obtain and the bonus is...well...a bonus.

[Dyra]

If you use the exact same gear you'll be heavily over the hitcap, which will affect the max output you can do. But since I assume this is for making farm bosses go down quicker rather than for progress and not hitting the enrage timer then it's not really a problem.

If you have the spare JP then yes you may as well pick up at least 2P of the T11 Shadow set. 5% extra to Mind Flay and Mind Sear is better than 5% to Heal after all .

[shells]

As stated you will be over the spell hit cap. You will be missing out on the shadow set bonuses though. Also, you will need some dps trinkets.

[Lorkin]

Ah, completely forgot about Twisted Faith. I was kinda worried I'd have to pickup some hit items along the way but that solves that.

I think for what I'm aiming for my holy set should do the job. Thanks all.

[Sakamae]

I'm the opposite, my MS is shadow and OS is holy. A good number of my holy pieces are from my shadow set. It looks like you are going with a haste priority for Holy which melds really well for a shadow OS and vice versa. As others have said, you will most likely be above the 17% hit cap with all of your spirit gear. Pick up a couple pieces of gear without spirit to swap in as you come across them. As you progress into FL it will be even easier, since there are no cloth raid drops with spirit on them. Getting an OS helm that you can put the proper meta gem in, as well as a couple DPS trinkets will give you a big boost to your damage output. Aside from those, the JP tier is good to grab, since it's so easy to get.

[Lorkin]

Just a quick update. I've been collecting mostly holy healing gear for my priest from FLs, am around the 370 ilvl range now. I was asked to swith to shadow dps last night on our alt alt BoT run. I managed to come in 2nd place on the meters, not bad for a full set of "holy" gear. I managed ~ 35k on Halfus with 2 drakes down so I was pretty shocked. Never imagined holy gear going this far.

[TenDance]

Halfus has always been one of those fights where DoT-classes did very well. Your DPS look like you played there the "conventional" way, without multidotting.
If you did so, your DPS had been okay. Not over-, but on the otherhand not underhwelming, too.
If you multiDoTted... it seems you might need some more practice.

[Deleted]

If you don't need to spend VPs anymore (and don't rely on the money from the bracers), I'd really recommend buying a couple of pieces of Shadow t12 gear. The overall stat priorities are fine if you go for Haste in your Holy specc, the only problem is the excess Spirit. Having a couple of extra pieces to swap into, to free up some of that excess Spirit in favour of more Mastery will definitely help. However, downgrading to T11 pieces probably isn't worth it.

[Lorkin]

Unfortunately I'm still using those (precious) VP points for upgrades for my main holy set. It dawned on me that I can essentially gear up all from VP points and that I didn't really need to rely on drops that much as a holy priest. I'd still need the tokens to complete the 4P T12 set, but at least I can grab VP purchases if stuff fails to drop.

I didn't think downgrading from T12 any pieces to T11 for the set bonus for shadow was worth it. Especially as an off spec investment. I think I'm comfortable just using whatever T12 equiv I have in the meantime. I have gotten items without spirit on them, so I'll sub in those items when I do switch to shadow. How much of a dps boost is the 2PT12 or 4PT12 for shadow anyways?

[Sikizim]

Unfortunately I'm still using those (precious) VP points for upgrades for my main holy set. It dawned on me that I can essentially gear up all from VP points and that I didn't really need to rely on drops that much as a holy priest. I'd still need the tokens to complete the 4P T12 set, but at least I can grab VP purchases if stuff fails to drop.

I didn't think downgrading from T12 any pieces to T11 for the set bonus for shadow was worth it. Especially as an off spec investment. I think I'm comfortable just using whatever T12 equiv I have in the meantime. I have gotten items without spirit on them, so I'll sub in those items when I do switch to shadow. How much of a dps boost is the 2PT12 or 4PT12 for shadow anyways?

It's big. What i have done (Shadow MS) is make sure my main spec, that i use for raids, is what my gear is focused on.

I Make sure im hit capped and i only reforge/regem my holy only items. I have a few items that are holy only (Wand, Trinket, Tier pieces, Staff etc.) and i try and make sure those items have spirit as well. And everything in between is just my shadow stuff.

What i end up with is alot of haste for a healer (~18%) decent amount of spirit (2600) and a pretty similar Gear score and as such SP. Going the other way around is much harder because of excessive spirit and if you have geared towards mastery or crit AT ALL your dps will be pretty terrible in shadow.

[Taurenburger]

You could use half of your holy set and then have a few specific shadow pieces without spirit, to get you to the hitcap instead of over it. As you reforge out of crit on both specs, you're fine to keep half of your set.