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Gemming for Discipline
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Post by
Binya
Hi all, been lurking around here for awhile (as the IT staff at my job hasn't blocked Wowhead yet!), and I wanted to pick your brains a bit.
I'm dual-spec'd as Shadow/Discipline with Shadow being my "main" spec. However, with the loss of a lot of healers in my guild, I've been called on to heal far more than DPS these days, so I'm taking some time now to tweak my Discipline gear to help improve my performance.
I've been gemming for pure SP (for red), SP/Haste (for yellow), and SP/Spirit (for blue). However, I was browsing around various sites on the 'net, and I read that Disc should be gemming Intellect or SP/Int for yellow. I've been debating doing this, however, I'm not really sure how much haste is valued over/alongside Int/Crit for Disc. :X
I recently swapped some gear around between my Shadow and Disc specs, and am now sitting at 2103 SP, 26% (Holy, base is 21%) crit, and 400 Haste unbuffed. My mana pool is 20k before buffs as well.
You can find my armory here (and yes, I'm in Disc shtuff):
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ner%27zhul&n=Binya
Suggestions? Am I okay as is? I'm fairly confident in my abilities as a Discipline Priest (and my guild loves me to pieces for it), I just want to try to fine tune things as much as can with the minute little details to improve my performance further. :) Thanks in advance~
Post by
Aldones
Your right in wanting a balance of stats and not just going for the simple answer of what is better. For the most part, your stats are fairly on par with each other, however, I think you should swap your
Recklass Monarch Topazes
out and gem
Potent Monarch Topazes
in their place (or even going as far to put
Brilliant Autumn's Glows
in).
I'd do this because your longevity (mana pool) is a little low for 25 Ulduar, but your throughput (ability to keep the tank alive) is fine, you also have about 75-100 more haste than you need, which inevitably makes you oom faster.
Also, it would be optimal to switch out your belt gem, but I'm assuming it's being used for a meta as shadow; it would also be optimal to switch embroideries on your cloak. Get that chest piece enchanted and just by looking at your other enchants, you'd probably want to go w/ +30 sp on your bracers (granted, you probably have every plans on upgrading them asap).
As it is, Aldones would like your gear...
Edit: spelling
Post by
Paolo
/concur
Less haste, more crit, that's the basic message. Do not gem spirit, but your 19sp gems are excellent. Personally I never gem for int (only SP), but there are good arguments on both sides of that one.
Oh, and grats on the upgrade! Disc > shadow > holy
/snicker
@Aldones: get going bro!
Post by
Aldones
Less haste, more crit, that's the basic message.
I agree that it would be nice if he were to bring that up to 30% crit, but I think bringing that mana pool up would be more beneficial. I'm personally using 2
Brilliant Autumn's Glows
atm, but that's only temporary until I can find a suitable replacement for
Titansteel Guardian
...I can't ever seem to win a roll for something better.
Post by
Binya
Thanks guys! I went ahead and swapped my 9SP/9Haste gems for Brilliant Autumn's Glows, as well as swap out my t8.5 Shadow pants back to my 7.5 Healing pants (the difference of +6 SP/+70 Haste vs. -6 SP/+50 Crit) and put the 16 Int gem in them as well (not that I need the socket bonus, but meh).
Just by doing this, I'm now at 2060 SP, 27.5% (22.5% base) crit, 314 Haste, and 21k mana unbuffed.
As for going OOM, I've never really had too much of an issue except on Razorscale in 10-man- that fight always seems to go on for WAY too long (and I make the most of my Shadowfiend, HoH, and a mana pot when I can, and in that order).
As for the blue in my belt- you were right Aldones, that's there to trigger my Chaotic Skyflare Diamond for my Shadow set, since the belt pulls double duty for me. :3 Likewise, I'm not going to spend the money to add the 30 SP chant on those stupid bracers, as I've been itching to replace them for the longest time. :X
Thanks again guys! We have Ulduar-10 tentatively scheduled tonight, so hopefully these minor tweaks will help to improve my performance a bit!
Post by
Haxxer
For your information, HoH increases your mana percent, and shadowfiend gives 5% of your total mana.
You have 21k unbuffed, that would be about 25k raidbuffed.
25 * 1.2 = 30
30 * 0.05 = 1500 mana per shadowfiend hit
Imagine the mana gain with bloodlust/heroism.
(Please correct me if I did any miscalculations)
Post by
Kataly
I personally Gem for Raw SP or SP/crit. Dragon's Eyes cover my blue gem requirements for my Meta's for now, otherwise i'll be going Sp/Spir for those.
I do use my cooldowns sometimes on long fights (Mimiron, Iron Council, etc.) , but I never ever have to call for innervates. :3
Post by
368348
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
299743
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
368348
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
299743
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Binya
I don't gem for regen- as I said, the only reason that blue gem exists is because I use the belt for both Shadow and Disc, and I need 2 Blue gems to trigger my Meta in Shadow. As for the boot enchant, I also use those boots in my Shadow build, so the hit+crit is more beneficial at the moment (and as I stated in my original post, my main spec is Shadow- Disc is my off-spec and I"m just looking to make some minor changes to improve my performance as I'm getting called on to heal more than DPS these days).
wowhead is the worst place to ask for gear advice. elitistjerks.com or plusheal.com or even the official wow priest forums has much more knowledgeable people.
As I said in my OP, the only reason I posted here is because I was at work, and this is currently the only WoW forum I browse that IS NOT blocked at work. Plusheal, EJ, shadowpriest.com, worldofmatticus, and a bunch of other random ones- all blocked by IT here at work. I don't typically browse online too much at home, as I'm usually spending my free time on WoW. As I've stated, I'm fairly comfortable with my performance, I'm just looking for suggestions for more minor tweaks.
My guild isn't running Ulduar this week, as too many people are out of town, so I won't get to see if these minor changes I've made have improved anything noticeable at this point. Gems are an easy enough variable to play with, so I'm not too worried about tweaking them further if I need to.
Post by
91278
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
299743
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Paolo
wowhead is the worst place to ask for gear advice.Lol, how ironic! Anyway, I do partly agree with this, but I still found it funny. Caveat emptor in all situations; wowhead requires no license in order to post. And the official priest forums? Please.
First, the good.
Get rid of the spirit and int gems, change them to spellpower. The benefits from a pure spellpower gem is far greater than the benefits from a pure int, crit or haste gem. There is no need to gem for regen at all at your gear level. ... Never gem for crit, int, mp5, get it from gear. There's plenty. ... Never gem for haste or spirit unless you need a socket bonus. Socket bonuses with at least 5 spell power is ok to gem for. Forget about spirit, haste and crit bonuses, most of them have things like 6 crit rating which is nothing- Losing 10 or more spellpower to gem for 6 crit rating is stupid.With one minor correction: only reason to gem spirit is to activate a meta.
Change the icewalker enchant to stam+run speedYes, generally preferred as the least bad among bads. Icewalker is not terrible though; it's not a mistake.
Up your haste, it's too low, despite what people here say. Do it at the expense of crit if you have to, 30% crit when raid buffed is what's optimal. More crit isn't always bad, but don't take it at the cost of other stats.
Haste > crit for disc at every single gear level
, but is heavier on the mana, and the more crit you have, the less benefit you get from each additional point of it.
at Ulduar level: spellpower > haste > crit > int > spirit > mp5
The thread on EJ is a fascinating read, and should be bookmarked for sure. However, (a) not all posters there are equal, and (b) the haste vs. crit debate is not as settled as you would have us believe. The discussion there is worth reading, and does not boil down to "Haste > crit for disc at every single gear level." Unfortunately, it's a long discussion (13 pages now) without a punch line. If I missed the moment of consensus (and I certainly might have), could you point me to the right spot within that thread?
For disc, haste is soft-capped by Borrowed Time, which is up a very large percentage of the time. In standard 25-man raid buffs/totems, the soft cap is 6% haste from gear. More is not completely wasted (e.g., PoH and GH will still benefit from more haste), but the benefits diminish radically, as the GCD hits its hard cap of 1 second. And any time BT is NOT up, haste has no realistic cap.
As for crit, yes there are diminishing returns, but 30% is far less of a cap than 6% is for haste. DA stacks; more crit is nearly always useful. Not necessarily more useful than SP, which is generally acknowledged to be the better throughput stat, but I'm only countering your haste vs crit point.
Post by
91278
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
368348
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
368348
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Paolo
To be fair, shield spamming is actually pretty mana intensive.
Rapture
has a 12-second cooldown, which means only a small percentage of your spammed shields will return mana to you; most of them will be full price (660 or so, I believe). It's still a viable (even obvious) way to deal with AoE healing in Ulduar. But one has to be far more mana-conscious when raid healing than tank-healing as discipline. Throw in a few prayers of healing and
whoops
where did my mana go!
If you have replenishment, the blow is softened, of course. I've done 10-mans without replenishment, and I can tell you that shield-spam is not without its price! It's the only time I've had to ask for Innervate since starting Ulduar.
Post by
Aldones
Hmm...it appears my post commenting on eris's got deleted...which is annoying, I went into great detail about how mp5 is better than spirit via the very guides he posted. Funny how w/e GM deleted it didn't delete eris's own post...
As far as the whole haste vs crit situation, I did some theorycrafting earlier (posted the math on another thread) and came up with 20% haste (as disc) being the soft cap for a 100% uptime, fully buffed, 1 second FH. In short, fully buffed you would have:
20% (haste rating)
6% (talents)
5% (shammy totem)
3% (ret aura)
3% (moonkin aura)
1.5 * .80 * .94 * .95 * .97 * .97 = 1.008
BT shouldn't be used for a FH in any case, and if you stick it on Penance, the cast time will be the same as FH.
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