The ultimate healing priest guide (Last update: 07-12-2009)Follow

Can those of you who want this stickied and haven't already done so, go show your support in this thread please, the more of you who post the quicker it'll get done :)

Edit:

I was going to leave the SP debate to you and Teacake Mozared, but after reading your last post on this I'm weighing in here too.

Specifically:



Is a rather bizarre statement to make. Personally I liked your change to:



Because as you've pointed out SP will be on gear anyway (which is why I can see where you were going with listing it last), however I agree with Teacake that SP's importance must be underlined so as not to confuse those who are attempting to educate themselves - which is what a guide should be doing. This isn't merely a "preference" this is an essential and important stat whereas haste is a preference.

To me the debate has moved away from the SP (+healing back then) > everything else situation that existed in BC to one, that now, means a careful choice of Spirit, Int and SP then your preference choice(s) of Crit, Haste or Mp5. That splits the stats into two distinct groups and any preference should only exist within those groups, hence why i said your earlier statement was bizarre. Your newer statement makes this clearer however to suggest that SP is on par with Haste - from the preference point of view - would be wrong in my frank, humble and honest opinion :)

I'm saying this not to get into the debate of how you or I or Teacake vary in our weighting of any one stat - as that will inevitably vary on playstyle - but to make it clear that the stats, or rather how you present those stats to the reader, should be balanced in such a way that any old layman can walk in here right now and see what's what.


Edited, Jan 19th 2009 3:11pm by cococj

I'm quite happy for you to write whatever you feel, ultimately this is your guide, anyone reading this will see the debate that's going on over it so I'm satisfied.

Just to clarify my point isn't whether you, or I or anyone else considers SP to be a key stat that must always be higher on any gear you consider for upgrade, but how we judge its potential weighting when choosing which gear should be picked - or rather where skill is always equal which stats should be given equal weights and which more. At what point does say losing 50SP become acceptable? That's what this debate is about; after all a bad priest will never be a good healer regardless of the amount of SP he has, on the other hand a good healer can get away with less and I applaud you for that :)

So the key question is when gearing, which stat gives you more oomph? How can we compare those stats when deciding? At what point is, for example gaining x% crit an acceptable time to lose y SP. Your point that SP is on our gear anyway is very valid and I nodded at reading your explanation, however when we choose gear we have to decide which of those stats will give us the best benefit as after all only in a couple of slots are we choosing some SP over none, usually when comparing gear it will be be a choice between X or Y SP and a difference in other stats to balance those differences in SP.

I'm not asking you to defend your choice, because we both agree that ultimately it's our own opinion. I'd like to ask you though, and this is a little tough because you're a Disc priest more than a Holy one, as neither of us would complain if we gained SP with the loss of nothing else, at what point does losing SP become important to you? Using your example of 1300 vs 1700, what would you be happy to lose to gain that 400 SP, because if you'd not be losing very much in the way of other stats that are key to you then you must admit that having that extra 400 SP can only be a benefit.

I'm leaving it here because we both agree on something very key; SP is on our gear anyway, most of us can tell at a glance what is a better piece for us based on our own playstyle, it's only when we start trying to get that 0.01% extra healing efficiency that this debate is all that important, and, frankly I think that's beyond the purpose of this guide.

You've put in a lot of work on this guide and thanks for taking the time to educate the masses /salute


Edited, Jan 20th 2009 12:22pm by cococj

That's true, but you generally make so much sense that you end up convincing me otherwise *grins*. That said, when I said "I'm sticking with" I didn't mean "I am not going to replace it" but rather "I do think this is the most correct way of stating it".



If you put it like that, I'd be willing to sacrifice some spirit and mp5 for spellpower. But like you pointed out, that's only because I'm disc. Were I holy, I'd probably sacrifice crit and any haste I might have. Or even intellect. Come to think of it, it really depends what my stats are. If I had ~1000 intellect, 600 spirit and 30% crit I wouldn't mind sacrificing some crit to up my spellpower. In the end all your stats go up together as you progress trough content and if I were to 'prioritize' spellpower a bit more I'd probably lose whatever I feel like I have an excess of. I hope that answers your question.

And once again, thanks for all the compliments =)

This will be formatted and cleaned up in the wiki more tomorrow but here you go: http://wow.allakhazam.com/wiki/The_Ultimate_Healing_Priest_Guide

Ok, wiki is formatted. However, feel free to move things around, change whatever you all need to etc. It's your wiki page so do with it what you will :)

I just wanted to point out that now that Inner Focus lasts half an hour, and gives you a 100+ SP buff, it's become a quite useful spell. I always keep it up on my priest!

Great guide Moz. It's given me some new ideas, rate ups incoming!

Cheers, glad to hear it helped you =)

As for the spelling mistake; there's probably more from where that came from, I discover some everytime I read it over again. At the moment I'm leaving it around though, I plan to do a big update once we get a patch; I'm going to ask fellow priests for their opinions and input on the changes and will update and reword things that become obsolete as of 3.1 (Such as the stuff referring to Penance and the "emphasis on spirit for holy priests").