How do I gear for both Disc and Holy?

[Aggathon]

So I leveled my priest and have been gearing her out over the last couple of weeks. Armory link here: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...om&cn=Vallarie

Now, I've been healing as disc mostly (and RARELY go shadow, I have an 80 warlock and figure if I wanted to play a DPS class with shadow DoTs I'd just play my warlock) and so I am going to switch my shadow spec to holy so that I can switch between holy and disc depending on the fight/how I feel that day =P.

The problem is that disc and holy gearing are very very different. SP really isn't that great of a throughput stat for holy and disc goes pretty much for straight SP. It's my understanding that holy pretty much stacks haste.

Now I have some older gear that I've upgraded that I can regem for haste, but I guess my question more specifically is what pieces can I get that I can use to switch out rather than re-gem every time I want to spec flop and now acceptable is it to have some pieces of gear that still have sp in them.

For example: my cloak and my dagger. Both are 264 and kind of hard to obtain (I'd like to spend my frost emblems on T10, for example, but then what do I gem my T10 with if I want to do both specs?!) so I can't really re-gem them per spec, that's just far too expensive and I'm not THAT intense about min/maxing.

Is there a better/good way to gear for both? Am I just pretty much hosed and my holy set will be forever gimped?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

[Eressëa]

This is what I do: http://plusheal.com/viewtopic.php?f=...mental+agility

Basically it focuses more on renew as a filler rather than flash heal, and it grabs more mana regen for instant-casts (renew, pom, coh). You will also get a lot of SoL procs if you have a decent crit rating, which you should since your primary spec is discipline. I haven't had much of a problem doing this, though I play disc more than holy. My flash heals are 1.3 secs as holy instead of 1.2, so not a huge difference. Remember to work in Serendipity for your PoH's and you'll be fine.

I enjoy playing holy, but I have found that mostly the only time I "need" to switch to it are when there is another disc priest in a 10man (or more than 2 in a 25man), or for Dreamwalker and I actually get to heal her for a change. That's about it

[Aggathon]

What are some good holy trinkets? There don't seem to be many good haste based healing trinkets out there.

[Eressëa]

Take a gander at this list http://bobturkey.wordpress.com/2009/...nkets-for-3-3/ though I'm not sure you'll find many trinkets with haste. They mostly are set for spellpower or mana efficiency (int, mp5, etc)

You might also consider moving this thread to the healing section, it might get more of a response there

If you're really set on getting more haste, I think theMag'hari Chieftain's Staff has a bit on it and should be easy to get.

[Insahnity]

There's only one difference in my mind between holy and disc -> Spirit.

There's two approaches.

Typically healers actively chase socket bonuses. Take a page out of tanking and ignore socket bonuses, gem straight Spell power, much as we gem stamina. It's the only stat you need as a disc, and it's not bad for holy.

The other approach is to just socket spirit even as disc. You will note there's a mandatory disc talent that increases spirit. it's not OPTIMAL, but it's not terribad like avoidance for tanks. EJ has quantified the MP5 value of spirit for disc priests.

If mana is not an issue, gear all Spell power, otherwise dont' be afraid to keep a little spirit to ease mana problems. When I say a little spirit, I mean spi/SP gems where the socket bonus is worth it, +5 or better (you need at least one for meta, anyways).

Never gear mp5 unless it's an ilvl upgrade. it's for shamans and paladins, soon to be phased out.

Regarding yellow sockets (haste and crit). EJ has a guideline somewhere for 10% haste, mainly due to penance and Borrowed Time procs, but it still has some value in your flash heals and lowering your GCD. On the other hand, holy literally dies without haste, there's not real limit to how much haste to grab. The end result is to chase haste as much as you can, even past 10%.
Aliena said it correctly with respect to crit, it's a sub-optimal stat, but not a bad one. Crit = regen for holy, which is huge given how much we can burn through it. Disc also needs crit to proc aegis and inspirtation.
If i had to choose crit vs haste all other things considered being equal, I'd go with haste for throughput.

When talking about about other enchants, always choose arcanums/shoulders with crit instead of mp5 on both specs. And most everything else, I can't recall an enchant where one is different than the other.

Gear falls under 3 categories, I have noted
spirit/haste
Spirit/crit
haste/crit

1) Take the highest ilvl first, it usually has more Spell power.
2) Then chase Haste/Crit
3) Then Haste/Spirit
4) Then Crit/Spirit

When you are decked out in 264/277, start swapping equivalent haste/spi for crit/spi.

[Aggathon]

On the other hand, holy literally dies without haste, there's no real limit to how much haste to grab. The end result is to chase haste as much as you can, even past 10%.

See this is the problem, I feel like I should chase haste a LOT more than as disc. Right now I'm gemming almost soley for SP with the exception of 1 +7sp socket bonus (where I have sp/int) and the sockets to hit the bonus for my meta. Now I have 2 sp/int gems that I could change to sp/haste without much sacrifice and it would still be really solid for both specs.

Right now I'm not chasing haste at all, but how much value should I give it, my current offhand is actually a DPS offhand, but it's 251 and was better than the shriveled heart I had, but has zero haste, so would shriveled heart be better for holy even with the lower SP?

I guess my current trinkets are okay, I'm trying to run ToC and ICC25 every week for a shot at the Abacus and/or sollace and already have the frost badge trinket.

I just feel like if I have my really good pieces of gear (my cloak and dagger for example) gemmed for SP over Haste or vice versa that I'm just gimping myself and that my gear selections change because I'm not stacking haste. Right now I only have 517 haste which is not near enough for holy imo. I'd like to at least double that number and that's hard without a complete regem that would screw over my disc spec.

I feel the difference is much more about haste than spirit.

[Insahnity]

If you want to know how to value haste?

Haste is to healers like stamina is to tanks. There's no such thing as enough. Sorta. You should have a new sig, Aggathon the healing haste czar.

There is a haste cap, but its damn near impossible to hit as a healer (disc can with borrowed time or 3 stacks of serendipity). But really, after you use that 3 stack, you aren't gonna try and refresh 3 stacks again before casting a nuke spell, you are gonna heal your gonads off with your gear haste. It's the #2 stat for healers, except for shamans where it is #1, and #3 for disc (Behind crit). If you are disc and you have over 10% haste, it's not optimal yes, but the difference will be quite small.

The only time you don't chase haste is for higher ilevel gear which always has more int and spell power. The loss of haste is always offset by those + any other stat you may gain (in most cases, crit). But if you have 2 pieces, one with haste and same ilevel with anything else, pick haste (unless you can keep multiple gear sets). For gemming, only shamans would gem Quick Kings Amber, otherwise its always SP, SP/haste, or Sp/SPI if you need the blue.

Int is a mana regen stat. If you truly believe mana is not an issue, stop gemming int. Your ICC gear provides enough for regen purposes, much as tanks get enough avoidance from gear.

[Aggathon]

For the record as disc already I am WAY over 10% haste. I'm at 15.77% right now.

[Insahnity]

Yep, I was running a little shy of 15% unbuffed before I got tired of disc/shadow recently and went holy/shadow. No problems. Seeing as I never tank heal anymore as disc, it's always either a Bubble/Prayer of Healing/Bubble/PoH rotation, or Buble/Bubble/Bubble/Oh crap POH POH POH POH POH, at which point being over 10% haste is gonna help out. Also, if your Holy paladins are munched and you need to tank heal, Gheal is gonna become your raid's only hope during a damage spike, and haste helps there when Flash heals aren't enough. However, those should hopefully be extremely rare situations, which leads to people speccing out of Divine Fury (0.5 seconds shaved from Gheal). Aliena's disc guide advises you not to spec into gheal as disc, and if you are not pugging, I agree.

It all boils down to waiting until you have enough gear to have 2 sets, a disc set and a holy set. Until such time, keep picking haste wherever possible. Even as disc, haste has uses past the 10% mark. I'd say it becomes as sub-optimal as crit behind spell power for disc past 10%.

[Aggathon]

I actually tried weaving in gheal as disc when tank healing and my flash heals are just plain better. I can get 2 flash heals off before I get 1 gheal and it heals for as much if not more and is less granular. If I need a big heal I penance and go back to flash heals while weaving in PoM and shields, never really had a problem with it.

[Insahnity]

I actually tried weaving in gheal as disc when tank healing and my flash heals are just plain better. I can get 2 flash heals off before I get 1 gheal and it heals for as much if not more and is less granular. If I need a big heal I penance and go back to flash heals while weaving in PoM and shields, never really had a problem with it.

Here's the math behind that statement
Gheal is 2.5 second cast, untalented. FHeal is 1.5 seconds. If you factor haste in, it will affect both the Fheal and Gheal equally. 2 x FHeals is 3 seconds, Gheal is 2.5 seconds. This is probably what you ended up doing. The advantage to Fheals this was is you have 2 chances are proccing inspiration.

Gheal talented is a 2 second cast, 2x Fheals is still 3 seconds. Now Gheal looks more viable, especially since the next sequence (2xgheals vs 3 x FHeals) starts to pull ahead timewise. The advantage to this is a Gheal Crit will overall heal for more (unless you are have a really high crit rate and several of your Fheals crit), and you will put up a really big Aegis (again, if you have a high crit, the rolling Aegis will sorta balance this out).

Factor in 2PCT10, there is never a reason to be using Gheal, as your Fheal will always heal for more with the HoT effect.

But at the end of the day, I truly wonder if your tank can survive on a chain-casts Fheals. This is why Holy Light Specced paladins are needed, they can quicky drop nuke heals, whereas priests have a rough time.

[Solemn]

It's very very easy to gem for both Holy and Discipline at the same time. Your problem is you are in a Tank frame of mind where Gems = Useful. Gemming for healers actually adds very little in the overall scheme of things. Not GEMS, as in all combined, but more in the difference in stats you get from using X gem over Y gem.

My point is it really doesn't matter. I am in the same boat as you, although I definitely prefer Disc over Holy for almost all situations (Only time I really go Holy is for Dreamwalker).

Here is my priests armory link if your interested in what I do.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Echo+Isles&cn=Wishes