Intro
So, you understand how to play a DPriest and you’ve got your talent build sorted out. Now, how do you go about gearing?
What I’m not going to do here is meticulously analyse lots of pieces of gear and tell you what gear is best-in-slot for what at what stage, et cetera! I’m simply going to break down the important stats and then give you a step-by-step guide to gearing up.
Let’s start with what you need to be thinking about!
Spellpower: Spellpower is really, really important. Important with a capital I. Without enough spellpower, you won’t be able to heal the tank fast enough – and your shields won’t be top notch, either!
To be honest, you won’t normally have to worry about whether to get a piece of gear with either spellpower OR crit/haste/whatever, because almost all heroic/raid healer drops have spellpower on them. Just remember how important it is!
Intellect: Short and sweet – this is your main stat for longevity. Running out of mana in boss fights? Chances are you’re either lacking intellect, or an Insightful Earthsiege Diamond (more on that later).
Haste Rating: This is important up to a point. Haste speeds up the general cooldown (gcd, the 1.5 seconds between spells) but something useful that you may or may not know is there’s a haste “cap” on the gcd. At 1 second, the gcd can’t go any lower, and this means that beyond a certain point, we can’t roll shields on the raid any faster and so the haste becomes less effective! I’ll touch on this more later.
Crit Chance: Crit is useful for proccing Divine Aegis (DA). Think of DA as a flat increase on your healing-per-second (HPS), plus a little compensation for overhealing. That might sound a little confusing – to keep it simple, crit chance doesn’t affect DA’s chance to proc, which would be 100%, or make DA any more powerful. All DA does is make our crits more powerful by adding part of the heal as absorption. All crit chance does is make us more likely to crit.
It’s like Death Knights doing 200% damage with crits – we do 195% (150*1.3), with some benefit retained if we crit and overheal thanks to the extra healing being counted as absorption.
mp5/Spirit: Well, it’s not exactly a bad thing to have mp5 and spirit on gear. It’s nice to have a decent level of mp5/spirit on gear, but it’s not really essential – most of your regen will come from intellect. Still, don’t completely discount it. I’m hitting about 700 spirit at the moment self-buffed, and that’s with the +18 spirit enchant on my boots. This should be an afterthought though, really.
Stamina: Don’t forget stamina! There’s a lot of encounters that require large health pools to survive a given special ability, and a dead Priest is a useless Priest! Most heroic/raid gear will also have stamina on it though, so don’t worry too much.
The Step-by-Step Guide
Step 0.5: When you’re levelling and getting towards heroics, your first concern should be spellpower. Stack spellpower. I cannot emphasise that enough! The difference in throughput is what forms most of the barrier between normal instances and heroics. Everything else can wait.
Step 1: Hit 80 and wanting to start “optimising”? First thing you should do is make sure you’ve got enough of a mana pool to last through any encounter you’re going to be working on. 20k mana unbuffed has got me through 9 bosses in Ulduar 10 and, if I remember those halcyon days rightly, 16-17k unbuffed saw me through Naxx 10 comfortably.
Step 2: Next is to reach the haste “soft cap”. This all depends on what raid buffs you have, and for this, we will need the power of MATHS! I’ll be gentle and hold your hand through it, don’t worry. Maths is your friend, it’s really not just for WoW geeks. π
Let’s start with our 1.5 second gcd. We want to get this to 1 second, including Borrowed Time. Now haste stacks “multiplicatively”. This is quite difficult for me to explain in simple terms for this particular example, so what I’ll say instead is that it merely requires us to treat each raid buff/Discipline buff seperately.
So, Borrowed Time increases our haste by 25% after a shield cast. Let’s effectively “divide” that 1.5 second figure by 25%;
1.5 seconds / 1.25 = 1.2 seconds
Now let’s deal with the other buffs, which would be Enlightenment, (the Disc talent, 6%,) Moonkin Aura (3%) and the Wrath of Air totem (5%).
1.2 seconds / 1.06 = ~1.13 seconds
~1.13 seconds / 1.05 = ~1.08 seconds
~1.08 seconds / 1.03 = 1.0467 seconds
So 1.0467 = 4.67% haste required, fully raid-buffed, to hit that haste cap. That’s not a lot! Without Wrath of Air it would be roughly 10%, and without Moonkin Aura it would be roughly 8%. Without both, it’d be about 13% – but really, unless (like me) you know you’re going to be raiding without one of these two then just get 4.7% and stick with it. For example, I raid without Moonkin Aura currently and so I aim for 8%.
Step 3: Wow, step 2 was a beast. Step 3 is more simple, I promise. Spellpower will be on all your gear, but it’ll normally have another couple of attributes on it (eg. haste/spirit, crit/spirit, crit/mp5). All the rest of your gear should prioritise crit as this “other attribute”.
Gems and Enchants
First up, gems! Your metagem in your helm, as soon as you get one with a meta slot, should be an Insightful Earthsiege Diamond. This will solve your mana problems, basically. It’s got a chance on spellcast to restore 600 mana – 2% chance doesn’t sound like a lot, and it does have a 15 second internal cooldown, but this thing adds ~75 mp5 at the last count. That’s a lot.
Now, other gems. You’ll need one yellow and one blue gem to fulfil the requirements for the metagem – try and co-ordinate those with a spellpower, crit or intellect socket bonus. All the rest of your gems should really be +19 spellpower, and to hell with the socket bonuses. Yes, I have all the socket bonuses on my gear. It’s an annoying little habit of mine, I can’t bring myself to optimise my gear that much. Maybe one day. π
As for enchants, they should all be spellpower related, unless there are no SP enchants for that piece of gear! Here’s the list! And don’t feel pressured to spend hundreds of gold on a very slight upgrade. I sure as hell don’t, I’m a cheapskate.
Helm: Kirin Tor revered arcanum (30 SP, 20 crit)
Shoulders: Sons of Hodir exalted enchant (24 SP, 15 crit). If, like me, you can’t be arsed to farm it, you can get 23 SP/15 resilience from the WG vendor.
Cloak: +15 haste
Chest: +8/+10 all stats (8 mp5 is also an option)
Bracers: +30 spellpower. Why I don’t have this on my current bracers, I don’t know – probably extortionate auction house prices. +16 intellect is also possible if you don’t want to pay a fortune! π
Gloves: +28 spellpower
Legs: +50 spellpower (or the +30 variants) with +30 stamina. If you’re really struggling for mana, go for the spirit one.
Boots: There’s three options here – +18 spirit is taken by a lot of Priests, but if you’re not having many mana problems then Icewalker (+12 hit/+12 crit) is a good option. Also, Tuskarr’s Vitality, (+stamina/movespeed,) whilst often overlooked, can be great for those fights where you’re moving around lots – so that would be the whole of Ulduar!
These things do cost you money, but they really are worth it and can add up to 200 spellpower if you’ve got a fair few sockets to fill.
So… there we have it! Sorry, that turned out a lot longer than I intended. Oh well. Spells and glyphs up in the next part! As normal, if you’ve got any questions, just ask.
It is not that long… gone through in a while…
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Drak'thul&n=Priestacka
what do you think of this? i can have more spell power, i have (or had?) some items, which add more spellpower, but i exchanged it for more mana and Mp5… i could have about 200 more spell power, but i think its better this way…
is really Spellpower the No.1? okay, another thing i didn’t know. thanks.
broken link. even copy and paste doesn’t work for me π¦
so, anyway, Armory -> search -> Priestacka -> the only char (72 nowadays)
AND i want to ask you what is better for me?
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37938
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35859
42stam 45spi 50SP vs 53int 35SP 22crit
Well mana is almost completely unnecessary for a levelling Priest. With all your cooldowns, you’ll last the length of any instance boss fight easily. You might have to stop and drink every now and then inbetween trash pulls but at least people won’t be dying during fights.
Also, if you’re soloing stuff and using your spells properly (don’t DoT mobs, that’s guaranteed to suck your mana away really quickly) then you shouldn’t have too many mana problems there as well.
So for those two pieces of gear, just follow the advice! I’d say the only exception to the advice is those crappy Northrend/Outland “+94 spellpower ONLY” pieces of gear. I just don’t like them. π
π i dont use dots… only against elite mobs (group Q)
well… i have been running oom at boss fights before… now… i’ve got a feeling i’m doing it right… Trash: full mana all the time… Boss Fights: i usually end fight with 1/2 mana… nobody is dying… most of the time…
and i have no mana problems now… i dont even need to drink π
ad advice: ok… but… i think i’ll keep +16MP5 instead of 55SP trinket π
PS. if someone in my group dies, its because of his “art of standing in fire” π
I’ve got to disagree with your comment on the boot enchant. I use Icewalker. The hit is ignored of course but I quie like the 12 crit. I’d prefer that to 18 spirit. And i’ve never had any mana issues.
Heya Sid, funny you should say that! I actually switched to Icewalker on my boots yesterday, and I fully agree – if you’ve got a lack of mana problems, the +12 crit is definitely the way to go. I’ll update this page soon.
My mana unbuffed is 21253 and I am almost fully gemmed with +int. I have a few +sp gems, and a required blue for meta. Int is 1178
Sp unbuffed is 1966
Crit is 16.56
Haste is 320
mana regen is 417
Most of my enchants are either for sp or int
I obviously don’t have any mana troubles, but I’m fairly certain my stats are out of whack. I’m concerned about regemming for sp and losing mana. My question I guess is: With more spellpower would my heals be more effective, which would reduce the amount of heals I’m casting? I’m assuming if that’s the case the loss of mana wouldn’t be an issue, because I theoretically I would be using less.
Argh
Help me, save me.
“Boots: +18 spirit. Yeah, thereβs nothing better.”
Try Tuskarrs Vitality instead (sta + minor speed increase).
The speedincrease is king in raids (less time spent running away from fires, and you can get to that low-on-health-tank faster) and stamina is always a good thing.
@Lostem: Aah! Sorry Lostem. I was convinced I had replied to your comment already, but apparently not. My apologies. I probably had it all written out and then shut down my PC or something. π
I can tell that your gems and enchants are mostly INT because your crit and spellpower are a little lacking. Take it from me – I’ve got about 100 spellpower more and about 800 less mana, and I don’t have mana problems on any boss fight! Also, try boosting that crit by swapping out some haste. You’re well over the soft cap for haste, and you should really be looking for about ~25% holy crit for starting Ulduar.
If that still doesn’t convince you, look at it this way: you’re not having mana problems. That means that so long as you still don’t have mana problems, you can swap out as much INT as is required. 20k mana unbuffed and clever cooldown/potion usage is enough to get anyone through Ulduar 25.
@Kristine: Thanks for reminding me to update the article (that’s two people now!) and I’ll make sure to add TV to the boots bit. Although I feel it’s primarily for PvP, I know where you’re coming from. The difficulty is that the advantage of movespeed is impossible to quantify because there’s no easy numbers for it. On fights where you’re moving a lot (like the whole of Ulduar) it’ll be pretty useful, so it’s definitely worth mentioning.
It was anotherwise very good article, with clear and easy-to-follow steps on how to gear – so keep it updated π
As for the value of TV: Its not measurable in percentages, but I still think its the best raider enchant there is. Content beeing designed more and more around mobility, and in such having a speed increase isnt just a PvP toy.
That the other boot enchants are fairly wank, supports it even more. If there was a 40sp to boots then we might have a discussion, but TV vs spirit seems like a clear winner to me.
Hey Roble,
I’ve been struggling lately with finding the right numbers,
the 4 set bonus of the sanctification gear is awesome but implementing it in my gear left me kinda wondering.
The trouble i have right now is finding a decent balance between sp, crit and haste.
I used to be all out crit (28% self) with 86 haste.
with the sanctification gear it’s turned on me and i have 431 haste, now according to some people the haste cap is 13% which is 429.
So i’m pretty decently there. But i got the feeling i’m missing my 28% crit (penance almost always proccing aegis) plus i lose “some” spellpower about 100 because of the haste trink.
Whats your advice?
How can I find the balance between spellpower, haste and crit.
Skivey
Zenedar
Heya Skivey!
I took a look at your armoury after reading your questions, and here’s my initial reactions to both;
1. Whoever told you the soft haste cap is 13% is a little muddled. I think (off the top of my head) that 13% is NOT including raid buffs, so Moonkin Aura and Wrath of Air totem will bring that down to 4.7%. So you can swap out quite a bit of that haste.
2. With the changes to Emblems of Conquest in 3.2, these things are easily farmable – so no excuses not to switch the neck/valor ring for the crit equivalents! Frozen Tear of Elune and Renewal of Life can easily replace the haste ring/neck that you’ve got. From them on, it’s just a matter of steadily swapping out haste for crit. The set pieces should give you enough to reach 4.7%.
3. And yeah, swap out that trinket, it doesn’t do anything for your gear that set pieces and good healing/thinking won’t cover. π
So like the guide says, always keep putting on more spellpower. That’ll come on gear naturally, but I like to gem for it as well (+23 SP) unless the socket bonus is +SP or it’s for my metagem. Make sure you’ve got 4.7% haste and then just stack as much crit as you can. My own gear’s a little lacking in this respect at the moment, but that’s more because of a lack of appropriate drops than my personal choice. π
Hello Robie
I appreciate you posting to help people like myself learn how to build our characters.
I won’t even pretend to understand the math or the mechanics behind WoW stats. I have gained most of my knowledge and achievements by emulating those around me whom I view to be successful.
That being said, Iβd like to learn the basic math equations to find my proper ctit and haste percentages for any given time, patch, or expansion. Will you help me with this please?
From what I gathered from your post, a good crit cap is roughly 25% and haste at roughly 10% with limited raid buffs. That information was for Ulduar content. What about the current ICC content? Has this changed the percentages in any way?
On another note, I am new to the world of Disc Priest healing. What is the weaving technique I have heard mentioned and is there some sort of rotation I should be using? I usually perform raid healing which is very simple, but I would be horrified if I were asked to tank heal.
Respectfully Yours
Leshah of U.S. Vekβnilash