Priest Looking for Pre-Raid Gear Advice

Good Evening,

I would like to state that I am returning to game after over a year out, so I may not be hip with some of the new lingo and acronyms.

I am a 74 Holy Priest, looking to get geared up for raids when Cata hits. I am looking to find which 5-man dungeons I should be running to find gear, or which marks I should be trying to save up. It seems to me that most of the gear in the 74ish dungeons don't drop much caster gear. I have been stacking +INT since that is now spellpower.

I see a ton of tanking, or Priest Disco damage, but nothing for holy/healing. If you know of a post I missed, I would appreciate a nudge in the right direction =)

I apologize if this is a little redundant or vague, I'm just a little lost on gear. Thanks for any advice recieved!

Steve (Selorius, 74 Holy/Shadow Priest, US Agamaggen)

You'll be raiding in Cataclysm in Cataclysm gear. From the 85 heroics. ATM, Holy needs spirit and int. I think the on the rest, the numbers aren't in yet. Cataclysm drops in 2 weeks. While there is some info on drops from the new dungeons, there is not enough. It's just gonna take a little bit...like 3 weeks.

Since, thankfully, Blizzard has created a divide between Healer and DPS gear, basically if it is cloth, has Spirit, and is an upgrade with you, you can't really go too wrong.

Haste, however, is another super sexy awesome Holy priest stat. Haste, is by far, the most fun throughput boost if you can get that magical haste number -

No darkness, no raid buff: 410, 1230, 1640
No darkness, 5% haste buff: 235, 1015, 1406
1% darkness, 5% haste buff: 200,973, 1359
2% darkness, 5% haste buff: 166, 931, 1314
3% darkness, 5% haste buff: 132, 890, 1269

The numbers in the middle grant you a 6th tick of Renew, dramatically boosting the power of what you have Renew on if it runs its full duration. Haste also increases your cast speed, making it a fun stat just because you can do things faster (I hate casting my Heal as Disc because I start to fall asleep mid cast).

Since things are still changing, I wouldn't dwell too much on the gearing since numbers are getting tweaked.

Intellect is crucial, but will be on all of your gear.

Spirit is going to be very important especially as a fresh 85, I would aim for +Spirit pieces wherever possible. Spirit will be your primary source of combat regen.

Haste and Mastery are both good throughput increases. I suspect that aiming for a Haste plateau (like Undome mentioned) will be important for gearing - if you're over a certain plateau you would reforge or seek out Mastery, if almost to one seek out Haste.

Crit is lacking, you only need enough to keep a good Inspiration uptime when tank healing - and if you're in your Heal chakra, you will get a nice chunk of crit innately. So you will be reforging it away.

When you get gem sockets, gem primarily Intellect. Meet good bonuses with Haste, Mastery, or Spirit depending on the color and what you need. (I would use cheap green-quality gems while leveling, no need to waste a ton of cash on something easily replaceable)

But this is largely educated guessing, as we don't know the exact stat values and how they will relate to level 85 content.

Intellect and stamina are set in stone, so what's left?

crit
haste
hit
spirit
mastery

Hit has it only uses for shadow spec and you - like any healing/dps hybrid class - have a spirit = hit rating talent (Twisted Faith) so leave it to those pure casters.

I'd pick up any other piece of gear that's an ilvl upgrade, you can reforge eg crit or mastery if you need additional regen instead of throughput and vice versa.