Which sockets to get?Follow

Im holy and 69. I decided to stay 69 till I have a majority of my armor and weapons so when I dinged I can be set up right. I have the honor for the s1 mace, I have two of three primal mooncloth pieces made, etc etc...anyway, my question is what sockets do you suggest for a healer?

Seeing how he's talking about PMC... I hope.. he's talking about raiding.



But exactly why would you stay on 69 to get your items before you ding 70? There's kinda no point of doing so instead of already wearing the stuff you got...

Edited, Dec 24th 2007 11:36pm by schweizi

I somewhat disagree with Isfreak. Dazzling Talasite is good for filling meta or socketing requirements for yellow slots; other than that, I recommend a slightly different purple gem. Purified Shadow Pearls. By my reckoning, the spirit is more favorable than the mana/5.

Isfreak is correct, Royal Nightseye is the way to go for PVE. The gem is overbudgeted: it should be +1.5 MP5, but since that's not possible, Bliz rounded up. This preempts any discussion over the value of spirit vs. MP5: the +3 spirit from a Purified Shadow Pearl can't compare to the overbudgeted +2 MP5, even with full spirit buffs, even with scaling, even if you're outside the 5 second rule much of the time.

Dazzling Talasite is also overbudgeted, but Int isn't very useful to priests. I'd only socket that to get an excellent socket bonus, and even then I'd be tempted to socket a Great Dawnstone (spellhit) instead to help my Shackles. Since you're talking about S1/S3 gear, I assume you're doing a great deal of PVP, in which case a Great Dawnstone or two will help you land your Mana Burns and Psychic Screams.

Incidentally, a set of spellhit gloves with the spellhit enchant and Great Dawnstones and/or built-in spellhit is very useful in Kara. Wear your healing gloves normally, and switch into your spellhit ones when you're in a fight that calls for Shackle.

Finally, you'll want plenty of resilience in your PVP set. Steady Talasites are terrific, as are Mystic Dawnstones. Since the PVP socket bonuses tend to be +resilience, you will want to socket to get them. You could put Royal Nightseye in your red sockets, Steady Talasite or Solid Stars of Elune in your blue sockets, and Steady Talasite, Great Dawnstones or Mystic Dawnstones in your yellow sockets.

Good luck!

There are many reasons for healing Priests to take Spirit over MP5, such as the talents Meditation, Improved Divine Spirit, and Spiritual Healing. Furthermore, good use of the Inner Focus talent combined with Holy Concentration procs and cancel-casting can put Priests outside the 5-second rule for long periods of time, allowing them to regenerate mana at the full Spirit-adjusted amount. Finally, Spirit scales with Blessing of Kings, the human racial and several items while MP5 doesn't scale at all.

The reason to choose the Royal Nightseye is simply that it's too good due to its overbudgeting, not because MP5 is inherently superior to Spirit.

It's fine for you to disagree, but you must realize that healing priests from top guilds do extremely well with heavy spirit builds. Even in fights where you are casting constantly, Inner Focus and Blessed Concentration let you cheat your way out of the 5-second rule, and trinkets such as the Earring of Soulful Meditation make those ticks incredibly powerful.

There's nothing wrong with an MP5 build--it works better with Circle of Healing spam on AOE bosses, for example--but priests who use cancel-casting Greater Heal to cover single-target damage spikes get more use from Spirit.

The FSR applies from the completion of a spell cast until the next spell is completed. If you cast a spell, then Cast/Cancel a Greater Heal the FSR won't reset... and you'll start getting the full Spirit mana regeneration. It won't start again until you _complete_ another spell.

Full-on Spirit works pretty well, actually. 2 Mp5 costs the same as 5 Spirit in terms of item budget. Spirit benefits from BoKings as well as granting bonus +DMG/HEAL with either Imp. DS or Spiritual Guidance (or both), but at the moment I'm just going to assume you have BoKings, 3/3 Meditation and Imp. DS.

40 Mp5:
480 Mana/Minute

100 Spirit -> 110 Spirit (BoKings):
11 +DMG
Under FSR:
247.5 Mana/Minute
Outside FSR:
825 Mana/Minute

75% Under FSR:
391.86 Mana/Minute
50% Under FSR:
536.25 Mana/Minute

Depending upon your healing strategy, you can be outside FSR either a large amount of the time (Greater Heal, cancel-cast Greater Heal, Greater Heal) or not at all (tab-Renew or Flash Heals). A lot of the "top" Priests do make quite a bit of use out of Spirit but it comes down to personal preference and your healing style more than anything else.

Here is a quote from wowwiki about how mana per 5 and regeneration works

After a character expends mana in casting a spell, the effective amount of mana gained per tick from spirit-based regeneration becomes a ratio of the normal listed above, for a period of 5 seconds. During this period mana regeneration is said to be interrupted. This is commonly referred to as the five second rule.



Note that spells which don't cost mana will not start the 5 second timer and will let you continue regenerating mana. Nature's Swiftness costs no mana, and thus will not invoke the five second rule. Spells cast with the Clearcasting state will also not start the 5 second timer.

Full link here:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Mana_Regen#Five_Second_Rule

I think this means that if you don't finish casting a spell, you don't enter the 5 second rule (bolded part). This should also mean that if you get a free spell (from holy concentration or inner focus) it will also make it so that you do not enter the 5 second rule (other bolded part).

Lets say you get a holy concentration proc. You start the 5 second count after the heal goes off (i e you spend the mana). You cancel casting because tank doesn't need the health, and finially cast the spell after a total of 5 seconds. This puts you out of the 5 second rule. Then you wisely pop inner focus, and 5 seconds later (after cancel casting) finish casting another spell. Again, with cancel casting, you have another 5 seconds and finially cast another spell that costs mana. Between the time of your first mana cost spell, 15 seconds have gone by. You were out of the MP5 rule on 10 of those seconds because of holy concentration and inner focus. Congrats, you conserved mana.

I am a spirit build priest myself. I socketed Purified SPs in all the blue and red sockets of my gear. The overall build works quite well, and gives the Bangle of Endless Blessings a degree of power all out of proportion to its quality (blue drop in Botanica). Hence my recommendations.

You only get inside the five second rule by spending mana on a spell. This is what makes Spirit Priests so powerful.

A Spirit Priest is casting Greater Heal 1 over and over and over. After some time, his talent Holy Concentration procs, so his next Greater Heal will be free. Woot! He starts cancel-casting max rank Greater Heal. He can probably start casting it a few times before he has to complete it. But the spell is free, so the Spirit Priest is still outside the five second rule.

Now the priest hits Inner Focus and starts cancel-casting max rank Greater Heal again (or max Prayer of Healing, or whatever). Again, he can probably cancel out of it a few times before he has to finish it. Again, the spell is free, so the Spirit Priest is STILL outside the five second rule.

The preist resumes cancel-casting Greater Heal 1. He will be outside the five second rule, regenerating mana at about three times his while-casting rate, until the spell goes off.

Now if the Spirit Priest swaps his weapons to a +spirit set and uses the Earring of Soulful Meditation shortly after Holy Concentration procs, he or she is going to regain an *enormous* amount of mana during this process.

Add to this the mana regeneration benefits they get from high spirit plus Meditation, the benefits from Spiritual Guidance and Improved Divine Spirit, and the scaling of Spirit with Spirit of Redemption, Blessing of Kings, and the Human Racial among other effects, and a priest spirit build can provide incredible healing.

Jbronco, I strongly suggest you read the Elitist Jerks' Holy Priest Raiding Compendium. It will teach you things you don't know that you don't know about your class: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17086-priest_holy_raiding_compendium/

Those of you who wanted a link to a Spirit Priest in the Armory--note that this one relies on a guildie for IDS: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Lightbringer&n=Calya