I do not have a calculation for Divine Aegis on absorbs. Also please consider that the glyph heal is 20% of your total absorbed amount, Divine Aegis is for 30% of the amount healed. (nonetheless it is an important part of your kit, just so that I can be sure, we are on the same page :)
I didn't mean crit is bad for a discipline priest, it is a very significant talent. I do think that still, if you change the legs, you are swapping out many other useful stats too. I did some item comparison, which you can see here, and which I will be using as one of the bases for my arguement.
I only included items from the T10 sets, as the other items can be the same for every gear. For the same reason I didn't include enchants, but I did include gems, as the number of the slots varies and plays an important role in maximizing your stats.
Let's see the 3 builds then:
1. swapping out the gloves as an off set item
2. swapping out the legs as an off set item for the t10 DPS legs
3. swapping out the legs as an off set item for the ICC 10hc VDW legs
If we take your statement as a base, to maximize crit with the given items, the T10 shadow legs would be the best.
Now with this these are the stat differences (comparing 1 and 2):
crit: +122
spirit: -122
haste: -114
sp: -13
hit: +106
As you see, you do gain a significant amount of crit, but at the cost of many other stats. Although it is nice to have extra crit, but not at this cost. You still need spirit for the longevity and haste is not a useless stat either for a disc. These outclass the gain of crit and hit (which you don't need as a healer) by far, thus the legs are not worth to be swapped out for anything.
Me myself like to rely on the certain gain of the flat stats, than the chance of critting more on my heals (let it be the glyph, or anything else).
You can swap around other pieces of gears freely, with which I might update the guide sometime in the future, but the legs are set in stone the best you can get from this expansion.
Although you are free to build your priest as you like, I will not include these legs into the bis list of the guide.
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Field Medic Moderator
That is the innate problem with BIS lists and healers/tanks. The stats you should be gearing for will change depending on the content you are doing. I know you know this. So unless this guide is aimed *specifically* at 25-man raid sizes, which I don't think that it should be because not everyone is raiding that content (you do you though, just make it clear please), I have to disagree with the claim that the legs are set in stone as BIS. This is one of the main reasons why I try not to provide BIS lists for Holy and try my best to encourage people to learn their stats instead and adapt their gear to the items they obtain, their playstyle and the content they are doing. I thought that was the case and goal of this guide as well. Was I wrong to trust that?
Edited: September 8, 2020
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Member
I am considering that and by my calculations +122 crit results in stronger shields compared to the +13 sp.
I think the problem with this comparison is you can't rly see the difference.
It's hard to see the real benefit of all of these stats.
You would have to calculate the benefit of the crit on absorbs, how much extra mana regen that spirit gives you, how much faster that haste is going to make your casts.
Having a strong opinion about that some stats outclass the other stats without knowing these is kind of odd to me.
Personally I value spirit and haste to 0 close to BiS level gear. At that gear you already have enough of it and you don't need more in my experience.
I'd take +1sp over +1000 haste and +1000 spirit any day.
But ofc it's personal preference. If you feel the need for more spirit and haste then i agree with your gear of choice.
You include the things you want in your guide. It's not my intention to change your BiS list, I just wanna have a conversation about it.
It's a different topic but i don't get it why healing from flat stats would be better than healing from critting. It averages out on the long run.
A quite similar topic is the hate against procs like the ICC ring and the tailoring cloak enchant. I don't get it.
You explain not including those on the BiS list with saying that you will be able to manage Rapture better without them.
That's a fair point but in my opinion it doesn't even come close to the sp you are losing out on.
The sp enchant from tailoring averages to a flat +73sp and the ICC ring proc averages to a flat +41sp.
Could you explain if there is any other reason you dont use those or managing Rapture worth this much to you?
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I did my fair bit of calculations, looking into SP and Crit. Also found a 2010 debate about SP vs Crit for disc priests, which is an interesting read and can be found here. I also used their approach to the calculations of Divine Aegis. The debate came out what we have suspected before that SP is worth more than Crit, when looking at the big picture.
Although in our isolated situation, let's just look at the difference in the stats I have listed above, such as the 122 Crit rating and 13 SP. I took my own stats rounded up as calculation, which are around 4000 SP and 40% crit outside of ICC, self-buffed. This way, the final numbers came really close, as expected, and the calculation showed that the extra crit does come out on top in terms of pure absorbed amount. Note that for this you need at least 4000 SP (below this, the extra crit underperforms in total), and no more than 50% crit chance, as the more you get, the less this gain would be. Speaking about BiS gear, the SP shouldn't be an issue, although you can get really close to the crit treshold. I have SS-ed the calculations below:
Well then let's see the differences one by one:
- 122 crit gives you 2.6% extra rating (SP vs crit calc above)
- 122 spirit provides you with at least 60 mp5
- 106 haste is about 3.2% haste rating
I think we are on different opinions regarding this case. I would take a gear piece w/o haste or spirit for more crit anytime, but there is simply not an option for this on ICC, this is why I think the legs cannot be switched out for a better option and are BiS (if you want to keep up the t10 set bonus, without sacrificing too many other stats).
I would like to go back to the statement of not running OOM = more shields. Close to or at BiS gear, you have about 380-400 mp5, giving up on 60 is just not worth it.
And here comes in place the playstlye difference, as in my raiding experience I have never found myself only shieldspamming, while trying to maximize my healing output (aka keeping the raid alive), but if you only like to spam shields, or that is the most effective way for you, this swap out could be an upgrade to you compared to the list of "bis" gear items. (tbh I would like to look more into this though if there is any other gear piece, that could be swapped out with this mindset for a better performance in shieldbotting)
I do not wish to include this still into the guide, as I have written it with the mindset of doing more than shieldspams. As this was stated in the healing tips by EJ section.
I don't want to be mistaken, crits are nice, and the critted heals are awesome, but when I already have 40-45% crit chance from my current gear, I don't see why I would want to give up other stats for extra 2.6%.
I've been waiting for this one! (sorry not sorry for the tiktok meme ._.)
You have already mentioned one of the reasons, why I think "on proc" things are not good as a healer, they are simply not reliable. Also their uptime changes like a weather, or it used to be, when I played a lot on Warmane, so it was (and probably is) more reliable to go for the flat stats.
I have not been playing for a while now though, and if your calculations are right for the Warmane servers, I see no reason to not to try the cloak enchant.Edited: September 9, 2020
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Member
Thanks, it was an informative and entertaining article.
If we only look at the mp5 that we get from gear it makes it seem like if that +60mp5 was a 15% overall mp5 increase.
But taking only the gear into account results in overvaluing the +60mp5 by a lot.
If you consider mana gained from GBOW(+92mp5), Replenishment(+1% every 15s) and Rapture(at least +2.5% every 12s) as well, you are looking at about 1000mp5 during an encounter. And there are still other mana gaining abilities which are not included in this.
Now if we check how big of an improvement does +60mp5 mean for the mana regen, it is only 6%.
I just let you know this, so we're on the same page.
You might still feel like it doesn't worth to give up on that regardless.
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Member
Care to explain why you didn't even concider tailoring as a proffesion?
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Field Medic Moderator
Early on, Tailoring is a great profession for mana return cloak proc and for crafting stuff for yourself. This guide, I believe, is largely aimed at ICC gear levels, where that mana will be not very useful, or not at all useful if you know how to play well, as Discipline is not a very mana hungry spec in comparison to its Holy counterpart. The spell power proc, while powerful, it is also RNG. RNG is not a friendly mechanic to healers. That can proc when you're not needed to heal or cast shields. Imagine it proccing right after an infest goes out, or some such. Thus, healers will typically aim for static stats instead which will offer a similar benefit over time.
That's not to say that Tailoring is a bad profession, it is definitely a good one early on. If not the BEST, aside from maybe Alchemy at the very start of the expansion. This will be something to remember for when Frostmourne's 2nd cycle starts.
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Wind of Northrend
I don't know much about healers, but GUIDES should be just that, GUIDES, a text that will give you a general idea, I REPEAT, A GENERAL IDEA on how the spec works and which items and talents you want.
Not a magical book that will have every drip of information for every possible situation, scenario and content you are facing, that will just by reading it, without putting in the work, practice and effort in game, make you an AWESOME PLAYER!
It wont.
So, guide is simply, a foundation of a house if you will.
After that you build your own house with the brinks you buy yourself.
People tend to make a big fuss over 1 item, over 1 profession, over 1 talent, the truth of the matter is that, that last 1 choice is a personal preference and it wont affect your gameplay or performance if you know the big guns, major talents and the rotation/priority.
Sure you will lose 1-3% of overall damage or healing, you might gain 1% in specific situations, but generally it wont matter, that last % wont kill or save anyone.
Focus more on that, the core of a class and what makes it good overall.
This is a general truth, doesn't matter which class or spec you play.
If you think that last item, last talent choice, or different profession will be better for your personal needs, go for it.
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I don't know that I agree with that: there's also value in going in depth about class mechanics, raid encounters tips, stats weigths etc.
I don't understand why an in-depth guide would be somehow magical. As long as u remain objective and make reasonable arguments back up by evidence (empirical or not), there's nothing wrong with your guide.
On that note, I don't think I've ever met a single person who believes that you can master a class without "putting in the work, practice and effort in game", by simply reading a guide. Could you please point out such people to me?
Is conversation and debate considered "a big fuss" to you? Because from what I can tell this thread has been very civil, with people arguing why their specs are better or worse than others'. The truth of the matter is, a lot of people will agree on 90% of the guide from the start since it's a 10 year-old expansion with finite content that people have played over and over again, exploring pretty much everything there is to find. The only things that are likely up for discussion are very minor stuff (the best BiS legs for instance). But that does not mean arguing the point is a matter of strict personal preference. If by changing my BiS list I gain 0.5% healing overall, then it's not a personal preference at all : it's an objectively better performance and it will definitely affect your gameplay.
I don't know that you can just state that. stronger heals can absolutely come in clutch. Otherwise why use flasks, why use potions etc
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I have explained the tailoring question above, first is more reliable shields, second is, when the guide was made, the enchant itself was super unreliable. If it works as intended, I see no reason not to use it, I might even update in the guide.
I do agree that on this thread a debate or discussion is always welcomed and has been, when it is in connection with the guide. The tailoring bit was already addressed though, and can be easily read up on.
Also the purpose of the guide is to set down the foundations, and set people off in the right direction (eg. to avoid ppl speccing into reflecting shields, or just running around in 2sets and the list goes on).
When it comes down to the gameplay, many things are situational and from one fight to the other or even from one teamcomp to the other the actual item set could change around for better healing outcomes.
For example: if you run a teamcomp with 4 druids, and you get innervates every now and then, you can easily ignore the mana-regen bits of the gear and go for other gear pieces and the list goes on.
There are ofc some obvious picks, as in use SP flasks, or mana potions, but when it comes down to nit-picking, your own playstyle will make the difference in most cases which you have to figure out yourself.
Discipline is not that difficult to master, it is literally shieldspamming with some twists to it. If you have the basics right, you are good to go and learn the rest on your own to match your own gameplay. Because you have to figure stuff out on your own to be a good healer, not just blindly follow someone's opinion.
Edit: After some time spent on searching, calculating and further discussing, I have altered the professions and added Tailoring *yaay* Although with some useful tips, as it has to be considered, but with some caution:
After discussing this matter with some experienced players (Gnimo, Zylas, Iqui), I have decided to include Tailoring into the list of professions with the following to be considered:
- in end-game territory you should always consider picking up engineering for the sole reason of nitro boosts being an irreplaceable movement-increasing ability. Grabbing this as one of your professions, the best outcome in raw SP amount is picking up JC as your second profession. (you can do the math, but in the end you will lose 1.25 sp with engi+tailoring compared to engi+JC)
- when at or close to BiS gear outside of 0% LK encounters (for which you can rely on Iqui's guide), flat SP is still better than on-proc ones, because of *drums* shield and rapture management! In 30% environment there is still a chance that this huge chunk of SP (295 when active) can cause your shields not to break, resulting you with a mana-loss and a sad face. (you have to recast the shields for the next round of damage, and non-absorbed shield goes to waste self explanatory)
Know your own limits and PWS amounts!
Edited: September 24, 2020
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Field Medic Moderator
I hope that one day this gets fixed so people stop trying to play around it.
I don't agree with the first sentence. In a 25-man environment, you can get away with it. In an ez-mode 10-man environment where you overgear the content (which you WILL regardless of content if you're BIS), you can get away with it. But just because absorbs are high HPS due to how they function, and the fact that you can get away with it, doesn't mean it's correct, or that it's advice that should be listed where a gearing-up-player would look for help. The only place I see it truly being applicable is when there is constant raid damage, or specifically for Lich King because a Disc is commonly used to cheese Infest. This guidance will cause players to try and play like a BIS Disc in those situations when they shouldn't. A Disc should (in most situations) use Flash and even Prayer of Healing a decent amount. Not to mention the obvious PRayer of Mending and Penance, as those should be a given.
But that's where your second sentence comes into play, and I agree with it. I'm just not sure that the noobs are being started out on the right foot here, but opinions...
That's why it's good to have these conversations. Especially here in these guides, for the benefit of those who read them. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that get upset over these kinds of conversations, but I've always felt that the Priest community is pretty good at having these more causal conversations, and I'm glad that we can have them.
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I do agree that nice conversations and tought exchanges are always nice to see in this thread and were always welcomed.
I do not wish to set off anyone on a bad start when they learn the game, although I do think that as it is stated in the guide, for a disc PWS is the top priority spell. Meaning it should be used the most. This doesn't mean of course that this is the only thing you will ever cast as a discipline (well if you are not braindead at least :D). Hence I said "with some twist to it", but I guess I didn't word myself properly.
I do also think that if one finds themselves using other spells more often than shields, then maybe holy is a spec for them to try. Just because it performs much better in raw heals, and it is a waste of talent points if the player likes to see big green healing numbers. This is the exact reason why PI on disc should not be a first-call when the raid needs raw heals. (even in duo-healing the other healer should be able to pump out more heals than a disc)
Discipline is really unique with the possibility to prevent incoming damage. When any raid member takes damage and doesn't have weakened soul debuff on them PWS should be the first call of any discipline priest. (unless they can again *prevent* the incoming damage with pre-healing)
PWS is instant, and discs don't have any other instant healing spell to replace it with. Of course afterwards they can heal them up, as they should since they are healers for a reason. But keep in ming that other healing classes are much more well-equipped for the latter, and when there is more predictable damage incoming, and all the other healers are on their feet, the disc should stick to PWS in order to keep the raid alive.
I think the guide itself is a really good start for the beginners, as it has both the spell-priority and the raid healing tips (by EJ) in it. In the comment section I rather noticed more specific questions, and when it comes down to a difference of 1.25 spell power, I like to reply with the BiS priest POV.
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Wind of Northrend
I like it how you are comparing 13 sp and 2.6% difference to a FLASK and/or a POTION. Speaks a lot... :)
You should make a sim for every fight, encounter and mechanic in the game and make a "bis" list for every single one of them, and explain every single decision you made to get to those lists, seems like a good idea to me.
Try making a guide covering all that, I would LOVE to see it.
Oh, btw, every fight in WOTLK is made to be done by people in suboptimal, aka non bis gear.
20k dps > 2min fight > 2400k dmg done > 1% more is 24k damage (1.2sec less, big change)
10k hps > 2min fight > 1200k healing done > 1% less at any point in time wont save a person because people die to things that are far greater than 13 - 295 sp increase.
Oh, also, RNG is a thing.
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Member
I thought I was comparing 2 minor things. But evidently me saying 2 things are minor must mean I think they have the exact same importance, these things can't exist on a spectrum at all. You were telling us we shouldn't care about minor things, and I pointed out that if you wanted to follow this principle, you woulnd't care about flasks either because, despite what you're implying now, they are absolutely a minor component of your setup.
I am fine with you insulting me. While I try not to do that myself, I'd much rather listen to someone's arguments as to why I'm wrong, regardless of the agressive form they come with. Still, if you're gonna insult someone, at least be right. Weak arguments followed by condescension don't serve your point whatsoever.
Oh yes, because I disagree with the idea that guides should just be general principles and that there is value in going in depth, that must mean I want a 395 pages-long guide that covers every single dungeon and raid encounter. There can't be any nuance to my arguments can there. These things can't exist in a spectrum.
I think it's much more important to be accurate and detailed about the few points you're covering, rather than talking broadly about a million points or making sure your guide is only a 1000 words long.
For the record, if someone made an extensive guide going over a specific fight in ICC and it was 5 pages long, I'd be game to read it. As long as you have something to say and that you prove what you say, I honnestly don't see the issue.
Maybe I will someday, that's honnestly irrelevant. Me criticizing your approach to guide-writing does not mean I need to make my own guide on top of that.
Think of all the times you pointed out to your friend that a football player did something dumb. Would you have accepted as a counter-argument "well why don't you become a football player yourself?"
You don't need to do the same thing as someone to hold judgement upon their work.
I'm honnestly not sure what you're getting at. The whole point of this discussion, or so I thought, was that you didn't care about minor stuff and I did. Now your counter to that is "IT'S MINOR". Yeah....I understood that. I never said that you would gain 1 million heals by swapping your BiS legs.
You went so far as to argue that a 1% dmg increase is simply a personal preference. But what I argue is that if you gain 1% dmg, then it's absolutely an objective improvement of your gameplay.
Indeed 2400k < 2424k : that's a fact, not a simple subjective preference.
While the same goes for healing too, I suppose it's very unlikely that someone will die because you lack 1 spell power. You argue it's impossible, which I think is fair as a position. I'm not as categoric as you on this, but I don't mind giving you that.
Err....yes? I never said otherwise.
But all the changes we talk about can apply over more than one fight. In fact, if we did a 100 fights with 2 different setups (one has 13 more sp and 2.6% more crit), I think RNG would be irrelevant : the 2 average skadas we would get would be different.
Again don't twist my words: i'm not saying the difference would be phenomenal. 13 sp is a very minor increase, so we would see a minor improvement.
But an objective improvement nonetheless.
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Wind of Northrend
I never said you should not care about minor THINGS, just the last item change.
I implied that a guide should have a general bis list.
If you think that item A might be better for your personal needs you can go for it and not make a big fuss about it arguing how your option is far better than the other that is in the guide itself.
Change in 1 (or 2) item when talking about bis list is not even a 1% increase/decrease in anything, so I am actually using that as an example also, its far less...
Item A will be "1%" increase in situation A, while item B will be "1%" increase in situation B, which was the point of my argument that even if you think that "1%" is better, it wont be somewhere else. On top of it all, when talking about CRITICAL STRIKE increase/decrease, it for SURE wont be there every time, while Spell Power will.
And NO, it is not an "objective improvement", you think it will be, but you never know with crit since it is always in a margin of error of +/- 3 to 5% in every fight.
This is why for example as a Fire mage when talking about BIS gear, your best bet would be to get a bit more extra spell power and haste over crit if possible.
Most of the fights are too short and there are a lot of big RNG factors in them for you to ever notice the difference between 13 sp and 2.6 crit, even if you raided every week for a year.
On top of that all, there are different scenarios and needs when it comes to dealing, healing and tanking damage in 12 different fights, so its a bit too much saying that item A will be a "1%" increase in EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
This is why I build my characters based on personal choices when taking in to consideration Lich King 25m hc fight alone, rest of the fights are done without min-maxing of that last "1%" with ease.
Same goes for professions, someone prefers a big boost from Tailoring, someone wants mobility boost from Engineering, someone wants passive stats from Blacksmithing, those are all things that will work in the end, and wont affect the kill success rate at all.
You also dont know so many other things like raid comp, overall gear of the players in the raid, player skill, encounter difficulty, etc, for you to state that profession A or item A is better than B.
It is, again, just like the last item choice, a matter of personal choice based on personal values.
You comparing 13 sp and 2.6 crit to a flask (125 sp) and a potion (500 haste and/or 200crit and sp) just speaks a lot, as I said, not as an insult, but as a confirmation that you are here just to argue and nothing else.
You say I should not twist your words, while twisting, assuming I said and/or implying so many things I never did just to argue.
My first reply to you had every point you said answered but as I was re-reading what I wrote I noticed how useless it is for me to even reply to someone like you, just so you dont get this the wrong way (as an insult, its NOT) again, "someone who is here just to argue for the sake of it".
I know there are some points of my reply that are not PERFECTLY explained and can be taken the wrong way, but I feel ******ed enough for having to explain all this in the first place, I will just write them down and make a picture just so I can post it after you reply one more time as another confirmation that you are here only to argue with me for the sake of it.
My last reply would be this:
"This guide, since I had to read it now, has every information there is for you to get the general idea what talents, items and spells you want to get and use in order to do the job Disc priest is supposed to do.
Any change in the BIS list, professions, talents, or anything else is a matter of personal choice, based on the players current standing when it comes to raid difficulty, composition, and many other not known to the person who is making a guide, and will affect specific encounters and should not be in a guide that takes the most optimal build when talking about general "end game" approach.
Any change in the item, talent or profession, wont ever be noticeable, no matter how many raids you do (unless you intentionally try to make it worse)."
You can continue arguing to infinity and beyond with yourself, I really could not care less.
Best of luck. :)
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