Usa Forum - Shadow priest: Twisted faith

Urbin

6/21/2011 2:12:00 PM

After having (almost) maxed my resto shaman gear as far as I can using
JP/HP/rep gear I have taken my playtime on him down a notch. Our resident
kitty respecced to bear tank last night so I might get to try healing a few
heroics in a guild setting instead of a pug (we didn't have an active tank)
so I'll still play him but no longer exclusively (which I did for the past
few weeks).

I brought up my engineer/mage from 71 to 75 so she can start working her way
towards 525, I've maxed out JC on my priest last night, I brought my warrior
up a level and I brought my warlock from 83 to 84 in Uldum over the last two
nights. Also, I finally created the 500 dense embersilk bandages on Urbin
for the achievment, so now the cloth can go to the tailor again.

My immediate goal is to bring the warlock to 85 (but won't gear her up for
dungeons) and then just focus on her two professions (enchanting 513
currently, 2 enchants and two rods away from 525; tailoring at 480ish).

Next I'd like to level up my worgen warrior (slowly) and in parallel start
working on bringing my priest towards 85.

My priest has always been shadow. I considered healing on her occasionally
but didn't dare enter the healing game at 80 when most groups were out for
their emblem runs, especially lacking any healing gear and experience.

However, since then I have levelled a resto shaman from 15 to 85 almost
exclusively as a healer, so I certainly have the healing experience and all
I lack is the gear. Considering that I need to replace the 80 gear with Cata
quest rewards in order to even get into the cata dungeons, getting healing
gear shouldn't be all that big of a problem.

I dual specced my shaman ele/resto for easy soloing and group healing. The
talent "elemental precision" that converts my healing gear's spirit to hit
was priceless for this.

I plan to dual spec the priest shadow/healing as well. She won't be played
much once she reaches 85 other than as a miner so having top notch gear
specialised for one role is not that important. I saw that the shadow tree
also offers a talent that converts spirit to hit (Twisted Faith) so I guess
I can get away with just one gear set for both shadow and healing.

My questions are:
- what are my stat priorities for a common shadow/healing gear set?
I assume prio 1 will be spi, closely followed by int and then haste?
Or should I give crit prioritiy over haste? Or even go mastery
instead?
- what are the advantages of each of the two healing specs? I haven't
done any research yet but as I understand it Disc healing relies more
on mitigating damage using PW:S while Holy is more about healing damage
that actually landed on a character. Is this correct or oversimplified?
- I've heard about smite healing (and it even be a viable soloing spec).
What would I need to consider if I want to try it out?
- I'm using grid + clique for my resto shaman, I guess that should work
well for the priest, too. Or is there a vital priest healing addon
that I need?

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions, as I'm undecided which healing
spec to choose.

Cheers
Urbin
--
Dun Morogh-EU (PvE) | Juran (65), Druid
Urbin (85), Hunter | Surana (75), Mage | Greeta (65), Rogue
Mymule (84), Warlock | Kordosch (75), Deathknight | Gera (26), Paladin
Sunh (80), Priest | Taalas (85), Shaman | Vargal (42), Warrior

2 Answers

John Gordon

6/21/2011 2:50:00 PM

In <slrnj019kj.4lk.urbin@stinky-local.trash.net> Urbin <urbin@invalid.invalid> writes:

> - what are my stat priorities for a common shadow/healing gear set?
> I assume prio 1 will be spi, closely followed by int and then haste?
> Or should I give crit prioritiy over haste? Or even go mastery
> instead?

Intellect is first priority. Spirit is next if you need more mana regen,
otherwise don't worry about it. Haste is very good for both specs. Crit
is good for Disc because of the Divine Aegis talent, but Holy doesn't
particularly want crit. Mastery is good for Holy but not so great for
Disc.

> - what are the advantages of each of the two healing specs? I haven't
> done any research yet but as I understand it Disc healing relies more
> on mitigating damage using PW:S while Holy is more about healing damage
> that actually landed on a character. Is this correct or oversimplified?

That's more or less correct, although Disc doesn't focus as much on PW:S
spamming as it did during Wrath because it costs a lot more than it used
to. From what I've read, Disc only wants to cast a PW:S every twelve
seconds to get the Rapture mana regen effect, and the rest of the time
it's Penance or Greater Heal.

The big change for Holy in Cata is Chakra, which is a buff you put on
yourself that increases either your single-target healing or your group
healing. Usually you'll be in the single-target Chakra mode, which
refreshes the duration of Renew on your target whenever you cast Heal,
Greater Heal, or Flash Heal, and also increases the crit chance of those
spells. When you know big group damage is coming (like the last boss in
Halls of Origination), you can switch to the group Chakra buff which
increases the healing from your group healing spells (PoH and CoH) and
lets you put a healing circle on the ground similar to Healing Rain.

> - I've heard about smite healing (and it even be a viable soloing spec).
> What would I need to consider if I want to try it out?

It adds something very different to the spec, so I would definitely try it
out. Personally I didn't like it and I went Holy on my priest for Cata,
but a lot of people enjoy it.

--
John Gordon A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs
gordon@panix.com B is for Basil, assaulted by bears
-- Edward Gorey, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"

Urbin

6/21/2011 5:45:00 PM

On Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:49:56 +0000 (UTC), John Gordon wrote:
> In <slrnj019kj.4lk.urbin@stinky-local.trash.net> Urbin <urbin@invalid.invalid> writes:
>
> > - what are my stat priorities for a common shadow/healing gear set?
> > I assume prio 1 will be spi, closely followed by int and then haste?
> > Or should I give crit prioritiy over haste? Or even go mastery
> > instead?
>
> Intellect is first priority. Spirit is next if you need more mana regen,
> otherwise don't worry about it. Haste is very good for both specs. Crit
> is good for Disc because of the Divine Aegis talent, but Holy doesn't
> particularly want crit. Mastery is good for Holy but not so great for
> Disc.

From my resto shaman experience spirit was my number one stat because I
constantly needed my mana refreshed :-) Also, spirit would come in handy as
hit for my shadow spec. But I'll keep in mind to head for int first.

> > - what are the advantages of each of the two healing specs? I haven't
> > done any research yet but as I understand it Disc healing relies more
> > on mitigating damage using PW:S while Holy is more about healing damage
> > that actually landed on a character. Is this correct or oversimplified?
>
> That's more or less correct, although Disc doesn't focus as much on PW:S
> spamming as it did during Wrath because it costs a lot more than it used
> to. From what I've read, Disc only wants to cast a PW:S every twelve
> seconds to get the Rapture mana regen effect, and the rest of the time
> it's Penance or Greater Heal.

Thanks, I've also seen your reply to EvanMac in the other thread and stored
a copy of it.

> The big change for Holy in Cata is Chakra, which is a buff you put on
> yourself that increases either your single-target healing or your group
> healing. Usually you'll be in the single-target Chakra mode, which
> refreshes the duration of Renew on your target whenever you cast Heal,
> Greater Heal, or Flash Heal, and also increases the crit chance of those
> spells. When you know big group damage is coming (like the last boss in
> Halls of Origination), you can switch to the group Chakra buff which
> increases the healing from your group healing spells (PoH and CoH) and
> lets you put a healing circle on the ground similar to Healing Rain.
>
> > - I've heard about smite healing (and it even be a viable soloing spec).
> > What would I need to consider if I want to try it out?
>
> It adds something very different to the spec, so I would definitely try it
> out. Personally I didn't like it and I went Holy on my priest for Cata,
> but a lot of people enjoy it.

It sounds like I'll try to get gear for Cata dungeons and while doing that
I'll try some specs and will probably respec a couple of times :-)

Chees
Urbin

--
Dun Morogh-EU (PvE) | Juran (65), Druid
Urbin (85), Hunter | Surana (75), Mage | Greeta (65), Rogue
Mymule (83), Warlock | Kordosch (75), Deathknight | Gera (26), Paladin
Sunh (80), Priest | Taalas (85), Shaman | Vargal (42), Warrior

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Shadow priest: Twisted faith

Urbin

John Gordon

Urbin

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