Disc. Priest - How much spirit?

[Reheals 2]

I've read the guide on Icy Veins, and I've checked out ask Mr. Robot. The general consensus there is that spirit > *.

 

In my guild, our priest class officer disagrees completely. His recommendation is that after 9k or so spirit, you should reforge EVERYTHING except for mastery to crit and gem for crit as well. 

 

I'm having a really hard time on Garrosh (normal). I'm not running out of mana, but in the phases where everyone is spread out for the empowered whirlwinds, I'm having a really difficult time putting out enough heals. 

 

So who's right? Should I follow Icy Veins and Mr. Robot or should I crit all the things? 

 

Here's my current gear setup: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/shattered-hand/Reheals/advanced

[Hybrys 199]

For ANY healer, the general rule is Spirit until comfortable > all.  More spirit past the point at which you need it is going to be wasted stats.

 

If you can game your Rapture procs well and aren't spending frivolous mana, I don't think a disc needs much more than 9k spirit.  Some even run 6-7k.  Some also run over 12k, because it allows them to basically spam PoHs.  It's all about your playstyle and your role in a raid.

[Brutalpriest 60]

In general spirit after 9000 isn't neccesary with blackfuse's trinket.  This assumes you are spending low-pressure time doing atonement healing, and you aren't doing anything silly that consumes tons of mana.  I agree with spirit until comfortable, but only to a point =/ If you have 13000+ spirit because you need it, you're playing inefficiently.

 

If you're going OOM too fast, you might be using too many expensive heals, or maybe you're spamming PW:Shield.  Also, don't use SW:Pain, if you are (it's too expensive to maintain during long fights.) 

 

Please post a link to armory (advanced) and some logs and we'll try to help you out.

[Reheals 2]

Does anyone have a set of custom weights for Mr. Robot that reflects this? I tried putting in my own but whenever I prioritize crit it ends up telling me to replace every single gem with the yellow crit gem, which is silly.

[Reheals 2]

Another thing I'd like to note - it's not a mana issue, I'm not running out. I'm running into thruput problems. 

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/shattered-hand/Reheals/advanced

[Gwenymph 414]

Going to piggy back on Hybrys just to offer you a second opinion.

 

Spirit should be where you feel comfortable finishing a fight w/o being OOM.  If you are not tracking your LMG(didn't check to see if had it) and Rapture than you are definitely cheating yourself.  The more efficient you become at maximizing your spells during Lucidity and Rapture uptime the less Spirit you will need to get through the fight.  Since your guild is currently working on Normal Garry then I suggest just sticking with this general rule of thumb and not shoot for a bottom barrell Spirit number.  Make the tracking changes and slowly start to drop your Spirit.  Having someone limit your Spirit to 9k when working on Garrosh as a recommendation is fine, but if it handicaps you and your guilds progress there are other areas I'm sure you could focus on and hopefully as a byproduct start making your way there at your leisure.

 

Good luck with Garrosh!

[Gwenymph 414]

In general spirit after 9000 isn't neccesary with blackfuse's trinket.  This assumes you are spending low-pressure time doing atonement healing, and you aren't doing anything silly that consumes tons of mana.  I agree with spirit until comfortable, but only to a point =/ If you have 13000+ spirit because you need it, you're playing inefficiently.

 

If you're going OOM too fast, you might be using too many expensive heals, or maybe you're spamming PW:Shield.  Also, don't use SW:Pain, if you are (it's too expensive to maintain during long fights.) 

 

Please post a link to armory (advanced) and some logs and we'll try to help you out.

I definitely agree with Brutal that if you are having issues above the 13k range you are doing it wrong.  Sorry for the double post, you recieved 4 replies in 5min. lol

Edited May 17, 2014 by Gwenymph

[Brutalpriest 60]

Armory looks good.  Work on getting the ilvl 600 cape asap, it's a massive upgrade (dps cloak IMO.)  Also, save a token for blackfuse weekly and hope for his trinket.  Try to LFR+Flex blackfuse weekly to replace that thok's, it's so so bad for disc.

 

I only have two optimization concerns.  (Minor) weapon gem.  (medium, b/c garrosh) get roots.  the empowered whirlwind adds  can be rooted, so if one pops up under you immediately root it, range it, and start pummeling with atonement and maybe shadow words. 

[Reheals 2]

@Brutalpriest- Awesome suggestions - Thanks!

 

Here's what Ask Mr. Robot says when I change spirit to a 9500 soft cap (which is how much spirit I have and am comfortable with)

 

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/ae073dfe-a742-48d0-921f-30d384fb068a

[Gwenymph 414]

If you're class officer is giving you a hard time over the ~500 Spirit there are much better ways he can be using his time to help get Garry down.   10m or 25m?

[Reheals 2]

He's not giving me a hard time. it's just his rule of thumb. He's not the problem, the problem is I'm sucking at Garry :-D

[Reheals 2]

I guess my main question is this:

 

Would I have more throughput if I followed Mr. Robot's recommendations for Gems, Enchants, and Reforges? 

 

Here's what Mr. Robot Says:

 

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/ae073dfe-a742-48d0-921f-30d384fb068a

[Gwenymph 414]

No, you would not be better off by making mrrobots suggested changes. Tbh, to get the most help from the forums link your combat logs from your garry attempts. It will allow each person to check in and give their advice on what changes can be made to make your attempts more fruitful.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Gwenymph

[Hybrys 199]

Well, really, the question I have is this:

 

Is the Int AMR is recommending to gem worthwhile, or should it be Int/Crit reds, Crit yellows, like most people seem to recommend?

[Espiee 161]

I don't see the need to use AMR as disc at all. You have no caps to reach and there's little controversy regarding stats.

 

Generally you want

 

crit>mastery>spirit>haste. Intellect is valuable as it increases your spell power but both mastery and crit are worth more on a point-by-point basis.

 

This means you gem Potent Vermilion onyx for red sockets, Misty wild jade for blue and Smooth for yellowor colorless sockets. The only exception is if the socket bonus is not worth it. Eg on your rings, using a Misty to get the 60 spirit socket bonus(for a total of 240 spirit and 160 cirt) is not worth it compared to a smooth that would give you 320 crit, similarly with haste bonuses.

 

This is no different for reforging. If you get a spirit/mastery item, reforge spirit into crit, if you get a spirit/crit item, reforge spirit to mastery, haste/crit reforge haste to mastery. The only items you shouldn't reforge are mastery/crit.

 

But what about spirit? You have to realise that discipline priests have a lot of mana regeneration completely independent of spirit. Spirit is only worthwhile if you can't go through a fight without going oom otherwise. And I'd argue that is hardly the case. To illustrate this, let's take Hamlet's excellent article how much mana you have available to you in raid encounter[2] and rework his model to disc priest. Doing that you end up with the following mana regens.

 

Base Mana: 300k

Base regen: 432k

spirit@6k: 244k

DSoD: 95.5k

Metagem@2 PWS per cast: 265k

PW:Solace: 108k

SF: 144k

HoH: 27.6k

MTT@12k: 87000

Potion: 30k

Rapture(5 ppm): 412k

 

Total: 2158k

 

It's worth noting at this level of spirit, only 11% of total mana is coming from spirit regen.

 

If we consider Penance, HF, PoH under SS, and our L90 on cooldown our mandatory rotation, used on cooldown, with just 6k spirit we'd have 611k left to do whatever we wanted. If you're using it exclusively for filler you could cast either 45 PoH's during these 6 minutes or 75 smites, respectively 7.5 and 12.6  casts per minute.

 

Upping spirit by 4k to 10k spirit, would give an additional 162k mana, and an additional 20 smites or 12 PoHs.

 

Those 4k extra spirit changed spirit from being 11% of your total mana to 18%, or from 2158k to 2320k.

 

Consider then that 4k secondary stats are equal to 6.67% crit or 9.4% mastery or a mix inbetween the two, that would increase the healing of all your spells by a substantial amount and for the loss of which you would be able to cast 20 smites, 12 PWS or PoH's.

In this situation the 4k extra spirit would be a net loss of theoretical healing(you can plot it into HealCalc to test it out).

 

You might be inclined to say this is all theoretical and right you are. This assumes there is no lag, no movement and you're casting 100% of the time and there is always a need to heal and use cooldowns right when they are ready, things like SS aren't always so. You might also need to use PoH more extensively if you're progressing without overgearing the content increasing the use of your mana, but you might also want to hold back on your L90 talents for a specific mechanics eg OL on siegecrafter, Halo on Nazgrim and Sha. The mana return of the gem is also conservative. If you get off your L90 talent during the proc or effectively use BH, the return will be bigger.

 

So what's the point of all this? In a practical world you'd likely be using a greater variety of spells to suit the encounter and having some spirit is an attractive buffer to give you exactly that wiggle room. But know that it comes at a great cost to your overall throughput and it's a marginal gain.
 

My advise would be not to stack spirit. If you're not already keen om abusing the metagem proc, using your mana regen cooldowns properly and/or using inefficient spells when there is no need for them, I'd focus more on these issues than increasing your spirit. It'll help you in the long run and can arguably do more for your mana than increasing your mana. If you're having mana issues at 12k spirit, read Derevka's guide on disc priests, note especially the sections regarding efficient spells[2]. Then reforge out something like 2k spirit and slowly work your way down reforging out more and more spirit as you get used to having a little bit less mana available to you.

 

Regarding AMR, if you really insist on using it, I'd suggest the following weight when you're working on your spirit, once you settle, put spirit at the post-cap weight:

 

Intellect: 1

 

Spell Power 0.81

 

Spirit(cap) 0.8

 

crit: 0.7

 

Mastery 0.51

 

spirit(after cap): 0.45

 

Haste 0.3

 

[1] http://iam.yellingontheinternet.com/2014/02/11/healing-theory-part-6-the-mana-economy/

[2] http://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1837

Edited May 17, 2014 by steve

[Kuroxoro 0]

In Normal used 9k spirit and was happy, but now in heroic mode and new teammates had to go up to 11k to be happy (and I am not always happy  )

[Musketeer 2]

having your raid wide mana cooldowns managed could help you a lot in this case. my co-healer is a resto shaman, my hymn + his mana tide let me play on 7k spirit and him on 9k. also keep in mind that u can get most use of other raid member cds like shadow priest's hymn or boomkin's innervate. 

Edited May 20, 2014 by Musketeer

[Jenaye 9]

I try to keep my spirit at/around 9500, and everything else gets forged into crit.  But spell selection and cooldown usage plays alot into how long I last on fights; I might use hymn on maybe 4 of the fights, and that's only when shit hits the fan and someone dies that isn't supposed to.

[Codeine 0]

I run with 6k spirit and it's not a problem in Heroic AT ALL. We 2 heal most fights along side a MW Monk so I don't exactly get Innervates/Mana Tide Totems either.

 

6k Spirit, 1.1k Haste (yuck, hoping for 0), 16k Crit and 15.5k Mastery. That's using HC/WF Amp Trinket and Normal Blackfuse Trinket.

 

Just make sure to track Rapture, you want to get as many free PW:S out as possible. It's even better if you can use a PW:S or 2 during your free casting through your Legendary Meta Gem, that way you'll not only get free casts, but if Rapture is available, you're gaining mana.

 

Tone down on the spam. I used to run with 12k and could even OOM myself still. Yet now that I run at 6k, I find my mana to be a breeze.

 

Use your mana talents on CD whether that is Mindbender or Solace. When you use Hymn, try to pair it up with your Shadowfiend/Mindbender for extra mana. Preferably you'll want to use Mindbender as in some situations you can't always be casting Solace exactly on CD.

 

Get rid of as much haste as possible. More Haste = More spam = Less Mana.

 

There are even high-end Disc Priests out there who have 2-5k Spirit and it works for them. The more throughput stats the have the stronger your absorbs meaning you don't always need to be casting.

 

Set your spirit at around 10k then balance Crit/Mastery. Then slowly drop your spirit each raid, maybe by 500 or so, You'll start learning how to control your mana better and eventually you can drop to ridiculously low amounts of Spirit and feel comfortable.

[Brutalpriest 60]

Codeine 6k spirit 1.1k haste? I'm calling BS =)  Armory link plz.

[Espiee 161]

There are plenty of disc priests that run with 5-6k spirit with the least amount of haste available. This means you have no haste from items other than your cloak. On your cloak you gain 642 haste(assuming you reforge 40% of the haste to crit or spirit depending on the cloak). With a heroic 4/4 amp trinket, that means you end up with 701 haste(642*1.0917).  Accounting for the 5% haste buff, this means the least amount of haste you can wind up with is 6.73%.

 

Adding 400 haste, or 0.94% haste, it reduces your GCD further by a total of 0.012

seconds[1], or your PoH cast time by an entirety of 0.02 seconds[2]! That's hardly going to make any sort of significant dent into your mana economy.

 

[1]: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1.5%2F1.0673-1.5%2F%281%2B0.0673%2B400%2F425*0.01%29%29

[2]: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2.5%2F1.0673-2.5%2F%281%2B0.0673%2B400%2F425*0.01%29%29

Edited May 24, 2014 by steve

[Brutalpriest 60]

It wasn't the choice to go that low I was surprised about, as much as the luck to get such well-optimized gear. 

[Gwenymph 414]

The next thing I would love to see would have to be logs. Showing how much benefit of having more of the other stats.  I know it can be done and like most of you have seen the kills of top endgame priests w/ similar levels.  But down here where the rest of us live, I want to see comparisons of us upper middle-class raider folk at the 5-6k level and my 10k+.

[Espiee 161]

Gwen, if you're interested in how your stats influence your healing, HealCalc[1] is a splendid tool to explore this.

 

[1]: http://www.healadinne.com/HealCalc/healcalc.html

 

@Brutal

 

If you've been raiding for most of this tier, you've had quite some time to acquire the right items. Only considering 8/14H and normal gear, there's no item with haste that you necessarily need to have other than your cloak. A 569 Malkorok Ring is still better itemized than a 582 IJ ring and similarly with the normal spoils neck over the sha neck. The only time you should pick those up would be if it's hcwf.

Edited May 24, 2014 by steve

[Gwenymph 414]

Ya, I'm familiar, not a fan but that aside it doesn't help for what I'm looking for.  It's like a Big Bang reference, Theoretical vs Applied.  I want to see those 5k Spirit Priest log and match up some of my parses to it.  Love to see how much more they are taking advantage of their stats and how it translated into their DA, AA, Atone, etc. usage/output/avg

Edited May 24, 2014 by Gwenymph