Critical hitsFollow

When casting heals that crit, do they generate that much extra aggro, similar to a damage crit? If so, it seems to me that I'd want to avoid crits and keep my bonuses on my stats, bonus healing, and +m/s. Does this make sense or am I missing something?

Lemme try to clarify that.

Khalane is saying that criticals do not add extra aggro because it is a critical. Crits only add the extra aggro from the additional healing points.

Let's say your Heal spell healed for 1000 points, causing 500 'aggro points'.
Now you use Heal again, and it's a normal heal for another 1000 points, causing 500 aggro points. You Heal a third time. Still no crit. It's another 1000 points, another 500 aggro points.

Therefore, 3 non-crit heals have done 3000 healing for 1500 'aggro points'.

Now, you heal and it crits for 1500 healing. This causes 750 aggro. There is no spike for being a crit, it's just increased 250 because you've healed for 500 more. You critically heal again for another 1500 and get another 750 aggro points.

Therefore, 2 crit heals have done 3000 healing STILL for 1500 aggro points.

No difference there.

The thing that probably made it confusing was that Khalane was also trying to say, overhealing does not cause aggro for the points that did not heal.

Very true. +crit isn't a stat you are going to go out of your way to attain. Most holy priests in my guild only have around 8% chance to crit, so if they have the talent in the holy tree that would bump it up to around 13% chance to crit (this is at level 70).

A crit which procs inspiration at a critical time is always nice though so having at least a little crit on your gear is good, just don't make it your focus or anything. Work on your +heal, mp5, etc and any crit that comes along on the gear, think of it as a nice bonus.

I respectfully have to disagree on this, ChahDresh. My main is a Hybrid Warlock (with crappy gear, I've been leveling the priest for Kara), and I can tell you that not until I specc'ed for Ruin did crits mean a thing for me. For a heavily-Afflic-specced 'lock, crits mean close to nothing. Sure, crit SBs are nice, but the majority of the damage is DoT-driven.

I hear about SPs being about their DoTs, relying on their DoTs heavily, etc, and I've never fully bought into it. Sure, we have two DoTs, but the cycle I use is VT to pull, SW:P, MF, MF, VE (assuming I start the pull at full or near full health), MF, MB, SW:D. Rinse, repeat. Very little survives that cycle.

To my reckoning, there are 2 DoTs, 1 Nuke, and 1 Burst. [Even if I take the blowback from a failed SW:D, if it has critted (which is the worst case scenario envisioned in your argument), I guarantee I have enough HP remaining in the tank to simply wand, MF, or even beat it to death with my staff.] So, there are 3 spell classes that get no benefit from +crit, and 2 that benefit immensely from it.

There's good reason Blizz gave us a talent (Shadow Power)that increases our crit chance with MB and SW:D. Right now, I'm close to 30% crit chance (on those). With solid gear, I can be up around 35-40% for those two spells. Also, keep in mind that in long Boss fights, the damage from a SW:D blowback is completely worth the return in HP/MP from 2 big crits for the rest of the party.

Otherwise, I agree with you completely. Crit heals are quite often overheals.

Well, sure, you *could* get 40% crit on Blast/Death. But it's a complete waste. It takes SIX crit rating to give the same returns as just ONE +dmg in sustained damage. Crit is never, never, never something you stack as a shadow priest if you're doing anything but solo'ing and casual 5-mans. Get the talent, ignore it beyond that.

And the thing you missed about affliclock crits is that it feeds into ISB. That in itself makes crit an important stat for afflic locks, even if it's only 12% before Detestation (which is where most afflic locks I know hover around).


Erm... benefit greatly: mages, destro locks, doomkin, elemental shammies, holy pallies. Benefit somewhat: spriest and afflic locks. Benefit little: Non-pally healers.

Try harder... :D My record was just over 3.9k with trinket popped, regular is more around 3.3k

I respectfully request you look over that cycle again. Two DoTs, two nukes... and three casts of Mind Flay. Mind Flay is the staple shadowpriest damage spell, and it cannot crit. Thus, in your stated cycle, you cast two spells that can crit and FIVE that cannot.

The "shadowpriests rely on their DoTs" thing you frown upon is a way of thinking that categorizes Mind Flay as a DoT. It's channeled unlike other DoTs, but it's similar inasmuch as it requires the full three seconds to do its damage and is incapable of critting. Mind Flay, SW: Pain, and VE are cast far more frequently than SW: Death and Mind Blast, and none of those can crit. Any spell crit in your gear is wasted on 80% of your ********

Furthermore, the secondary point I was trying to get at is this: Every other nuking class has a talent (or multiple talents!) to make their crits do more than increase the spell's damage to 150%. Mages have talents to increase their crits' damage or to give them a mana refund (or both, depending on build). Ditto for elemental shaman. Balance druids' talents increase their crits' damage and reduce the cast time of their next nuke. Warlocks' talented criticals increase the damage of all shadow attacks for a duration and can do 200% damage. Even Retribution Paladins (!) get a damage bonus from their crits via Vengeance, to say nothing of Holy Paladins' Illumination.

Priests, in contrast, get... Inspiration and Surge of Light. And Inspiration only works on heals, while Surge of Light is buried high in the Holy Tree (thus unavailable for shadowpriests).

That is why I said what I did. Other classes can reap huge benefits by gearing for crit. Shadowpriests would do far better increasing their raw +damage and ignoring crit given the choice.

Edited, Oct 11th 2007 3:20pm by ChahDresh

You'll get higher crits by just speccing Shadow Power and ignoring crit from there on out. You get absolutely tiny returns on crit - going from 25% crit to 26% is such an abysmal amount compared to going from, say, +40dmg to +60, and the +dmg effects a lot more than just Blast/Death.