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the hard work has finally paid off and you
have made it to Naxxramas. No more 5man instances! It's all 10man
and/or 25man
raids from here on out. At least that's what we would like to achieve.
It can
be very tempting to grab the first piece of epic loot that drops from
the
bosses, but you must remember that as a priest you have 4 main stats
that you
must keep an eye out for when picking your epic gear, aside from
Stamina,
Intellect and Spell Power.
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increases Spell Power up to 25% of your
total spirit if you have 5/5 in Spirital Guidance as a Holy priest. It
also
increases spell power up to 10% of your total spirit if you have 3/3 in
Twisted
Faith as a Shadow Priest. This also increases your health and mana
regeneration.
stat is very important for raiding; it reduces
the casting time of spells and reduces the Global Cooldown
Strike Rating
your chances to crit with spells and
Damage Over Time spells. This also applies to healing spells.
Per 5
the changes to the mana regeneration, Mp5
is just as important as spirit.
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style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">With
the basic idea of stats out of the way, how
you pick which items are the best for your specific spec of priest is
different. Each of the stats must be balanced differently depending on
if you
are a discipline, holy or shadow priest. As you move on from instances
to 10man
raiding to 25man raiding, your stats should be balanced the same but at
a
higher rating.
Holy Priest Gear Balancing
style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Spirit
is the number one stat that is most important.
It increases your spell power and increases your mana regeneration. My
favorite
trinket is Spirit World Glass from 10man Naxxramas +84 Spirit and
increases
spirit by 336 upon use, this helps out a great deal on long fights,
such as
Patchwerk where you have to constantly cast. That could put a huge dent
in your
mana. Haste rating and Critical Strike rating should be balanced with
each
other. Having a good amount of haste rating is helpful because a
priest's
Greater Healing takes a good deal of time to cast. Because so many boss
fights
need you to do a lot of moving around, having good haste rating will
allow you
to get in as many heals as you can before you need to move to a safe
spot. You
don't necessarily have to keep the haste and crit balanced, but it is
generally
a good idea. The more crit, the more of your talents that benefit from
you
getting a crit off will take effect. Mana Per 5 has now become more
useful with
the kill on how "Over Powered" mana regeneration once was, so having
some Mana Per 5 in the mix of your gear is not a bad idea. The best
Mana Per 5
gear to get are the ones that come with haste rating. Most gear that
comes with
Critical Strike will come with a good deal of spirit, but not all of
them will.
Always pick gear that comes with higher Spell Power than the current
equipment
that you have on, but for a Holy Priest that is not entirely true. You
can get
two items that are the same, one with Sta, Int, Crit, SP and Mp5,
compared with
an item with Sta, Int, Spi, Crit, SP and no Mp5, the item with spirit
will give
you more spell power than the item with no spirit.
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Wizard
(Back)
+46 Stamina
+42 Intellect
+49 Spirit
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 42.
Equip: Increases spell power by 74.
(Weapon-mace)
+36 Stamina
+49 Intellect
Equip: Improves haste rating by 48.
Equip: Increase spell power by 520.
Equip: Restores 15 mana per 5 sec.
(Off-hand)
+41 Intellect
+32 Spirit
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 43.
Equip: Increases spell pwer by 65.
Plaguebringer(25)
(Trinket)
power by 111
Equip: Your dorect healing spells have a chance to place a heal over
time on your target, healing 3572 over 12 sec.
Unclean, Gothik the Harvester, Maexxna, Grobbulus(25)
(Ring)
+38 Intellect
+37 Spirit
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 42.
Equip: Increases spell power by 65.
Instructor Razuvious, Grand Widow Faerlina, Anub'Rekhan, Patchwerk(25)
(Neck)
+43 Intellect
Equip: Improvews haste rating by 32.
Equip: Increases spell pwer by 66.
Equip: Restores 16 mana per 5 sec.
Instructor Razuvious, Grand Widow Faerlina, Anub'Rekhan, Patchwerk(25)
Shadow Priest Gear Balancing
style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
number one stat that you must keep capped is
Hit Rating. Since shadow priests are a DPS class, this is very
important for
your spells to be able to hit a mob without being resisted. Crit rating
is
another very important stat since your damage over time spells have a
chance to
crit once in a while. Having a good amount of crit rating is very nice
when you
have several crits go off in a row. Of course, it's not too helpful
when the
Main Tank hasn't gained enough aggro, but that is also what Fade is
there for.
While keeping your hit rating capped, you must keep a good amount of
spirit,
since spirit increases your spell power like a Holy Priest, but without
as much
of a bonus, an item with spirit and less spellpower than the item that
you have
still applies. Haste is as important to this Priest spec for a Holy
priest or
Discipline priest, as it will reduce global cooldown, so you can get
your DoTs
planted on the boss or trash mobs as fast as you can so you can start
dpsing
with Mind Flay, Shadow Word: Death and Mind Blast. Mana Per 5 can still
be
important, but pick items with this stat that come with Haste Rating on
them,
or if it's possible get ones with spirit. Do not over do how much haste
rating
that you have, keep it around the same percentile as your Critical
Strike
Rating. It is okay if it goes below if you find an upgrade to that slot
with a
lot more spell power and base stats that you need (sta, int, etc).
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(Off-hand)
+38 Intellect
Equip: Improves hit rating by 32
Equip: Improves haste rating by 41.
Equip: Increases spell power by 65.
(Trinket)
rating by 71.
Equip: Your spells have a chance to increase your spell power by 765
for 10 sec.
Gothik the Harvester, Maexxna, Grobbulus(25)
(Neck)
+43 Intellect
+38 Spirit
Equip: Improves hit rating by 28.
Equip: Increases spell power by 65.
Instructor Razuvious, Grand Widow Faerlina, Anub'Rekhan, Patchwerk(25)
(Waist)
+55 Stamina
+57 Intellect
+55 Spirit
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 43
Equip: Increases spell power by 88.
Nerubians
(Wand)
+27 Stamina
+22 Intellect
Equip: Improves hit rating by 18
Equip: Improves haste rating by 22.
Equip: Increases spell pwer by 37.
(Head)
+67 Stamina
+79 Intellect
+63 Spirit
(Meta Socket)
(Red Socket)
Socket Bonus: +8 Haste rating
Equip: Improves haste rating by 40.
Equip: Increases spell power by 99.
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Discipline Priest Gear Balancing
style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">How
you want to balance your stats can be
different depending on which way you prefer to use your priest - PvE or
PvP.
Discipline priests are still great for PvP, having high intellect and
spirit
and lots of protective spells. Since this guide is about stats for
raiding,
that is what I'm going to be focusing on, as they are great Main Tank
healers,
while Holy Priests and all their AoE healing spells are better for raid
healing. The stats you want to focus on the most are Haste Rating and
Critical
Strike Rating, along with Mana Per 5. Haste is very important, because
your
main spell Penance has a 'wonderful' Cooldown (though there is a Glyph
to
reduce it), you want to throw in as many flash heals while you wait for
Penance
to be ready again. Critical Strike rating is the next most important
thing
since you want to make sure that your Flash Heal and Penance crits as
often as
possible, which causes your ability to create a bubble around the
target every
time that you crit, or to increase their armor, depending on the way
that you
spec your Discipline Priest to heal. As a Discipline Priest you have
more mana
than the other specs of priest. Your spells also take a shorter amount
of time
to cast, so having more Mana Per 5 over spirit is the best course to
go. Spirit
can still be useful to the Discipline priest to increase mana regen,
but
because of a 5 second rule that takes effect when you cast a spell and
after
you cast a spell, mana per 5 will give you more benefit than having
lots and
lots of Spirit.
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(Neck)
+41 Intellect
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 43.
Equip: increases spell power by 66.
Equip: Restores 13 mana per 5 sec.
(Waist)
+57 Stamina
+58 Intellect
+37 Spirit
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +5 Spell Power
Equip: Increases spell power by 78.
Equip: Restores 18 mana per 5 sec.
(Ring)
+40 Intellect
Equip: Improves haste rating by 35.
Equip: Increases spell pwer by 66.
Equip: Restore 16 mana per 5 sec.
(Trinket)
strike rating by 95.
Equip: Your spell critical strikes have a chance to restore 900 mana.
(Back)
+48 Stamina
+41 Intellect
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 38.
Equip: Increases spell power by 66.
Equip: Restores 15 mana per 5 sec.
Gothik the Harvester, Maexxna, Grobbulus(25)
(Feet)
+57 Stamina
+57 Intellect
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 49.
Equip: Increases spell power by 88.
Equip: Restores 20 mana per 5 sec.
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In Conclusion
As
you may notice I did not include any set pieces in any of the example
loots from Naxxramas 25 man, as Tier 7 and Tier 7.5 gear is always
better because of the set bonuses. You only need 4/5 of either of the
set pieces for bonuses.
As you first enter a raid, go for the items that are
upgrades
to your blue items that you currently are wearing and then work on
balancing
your stats, replacing gear to keep them balanced.
Sometimes it is best to learn what you would need more of while you are
healing
or DPSing during a raid. Are you running out of mana too fast? Used
your
shadowfiend and mana pot and got an intervate and still run out of mana
before
the
boss is dead? If that happens, blame the DPS for not killing the boss
fast
enough. Haha, no, just kidding. Even if that could be a problem,
managing your
mana is just as important. Start to work on gaining either more spirit
or more
mana per 5 items from bosses. Having a few items from 10man or even a
Tier
piece that is meant for a Shadow Priest or Holy Priest can be a good
slot item
to keep the stats more balanced with each other. Also if you get a new
item,
don't be too quick to disenchant or sell your old item, even though
25man gear
is usually better than 10man gear. Keep them around in case it keeps
your stats
more balanced. As I said earlier, I still use a 10man Naxx trinket even
though
I am raiding 25man Naxx. Sometimes even having Heroic trinkets can be
better,
or just as good as what drops from 10man Naxx. For instance, the gloves
that
drop from Heroic Nexus are good to keep if you want to have more crit
rating
over the +4 haste rating that comes with the Tier 7 gloves from
Sartharion. The
only reason that I picked the Tier 7 gloves over the gloves from The
Nexus is
because of the set bonus.
Always
compare and see what
needs to
be more balanced. Research where your gear comes from and what you want
to
improve. Do you want to up your spirit so that you have more spell
power and
more mana regen? Or do you need more Haste rating because your spells
are
taking too long to cast? Keep these things in mind. Also keep in mind
that you
will also have to fight DPS classes for haste rating gear as
it is
just as
important for them as healing specs. Ulduar has also shown that having
more
haste rating as a healing class has become more important. Many of the
boss
fights requires you to move around more than the bosses in Naxxramas. A
lot of
the Tier 8 set pieces come with more haste rating than critical strike
rating,
so as you gear up in Ulduar, keep your critical strike rating balanced
with
your haste rating from your set pieces through bracers, boots, neck,
rings,
etc.
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