Penance Priest

Since we have agreed that (by and large) tier gear is for chumps (or early adopters, you poor things) (or 10-man tank healers, ok?), that leaves many of us with emblems to burn on other upgrades. What do you want to spend them on? Which cloak? What about the trinket?

Well, as we all know, there are different needs for different occasions, so as beautiful as that black dress might be, you’re definitely not going to wear it out to dinner with my folks. In other words, there is no single absolute recommendation for anything (except in the negative). Everything always depends on everything else – the gear you’ve already got, the gear you have access to, your role in raids, etc. I know my caveats get boring, but they bear repeated repeating.

Nevertheless, I’ve decided to at least comment on the current emblem purchases, since emblems do you no good in your pocket. I’ve also listed some of the other (non-emblem) options that you will be considering. See the full 3.3 gear list for details. A case could be made that this is not in fact a real post, but just a rehash/reorganization of that list. To that I say poo.

Lastly, I’ll include my own gearup plan, which is finally becoming focused.

Cloak

Drape of the Violet Tower, Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky (50 emblems)

Violet is nicely itemized for disc. If you don’t have a 264 cloak, and don’t expect to get one, this is a great solution. But if you have an offspec that you share gear with, Volde will definitely be better for you, since both holy and shadow prefer spirit to mp5. Cloaks were the first emblem purchase for many priests.

Competes with VDW25, Saurfang25.

Belt

Circle of Ossus (60 emblems)

Haste gear is too easy to come by this expansion. If you already have a 245 belt, I wouldn’t bother with this. Even if you have the nice haste/crit 232 from HoR5, I’d still pass on this badge belt. It’s nice for holy priests, and not so exciting for disc.

Competes with Putricide10, Marrowgar10, Festergut25, Marrowgar25.

Chest

Ermine Coronation Robes, Meteor Chaser's Raiment, Crimson Acolyte Raiments (95 emblems)

Ok, here is where things get interesting. Chest! You’ve got three badge options, each costs 95 emblems. Ermine has crit/spirit, MCR has crit/haste, and T10 (shadow!) also has crit/haste. Only buy the shadow robe if you’ll be upgrading it with tokens; the 264 version is nearly identical in stats to MCR, and if you’ll be upgrading it to the 277 version, woweezowee. (That’s my current plan.) If you’re a strict shield-spammer, Ermine is probably a good bet; spirit is crap, but it’s better than the haste on MCR once you hit the cap. (The haste cap for shield spam is 147, which you get practially by walking through the door.) MCR (and the shadow tier robe) is perfect for tank healers. Tough choice.

Competes with Sindragosa10, Blood Princes10, Blood Princes25.

Gloves

Gloves of Ambivalence, Gloves of False Gestures (60 emblems)

Same issue here. You have a great set of crit/spirit gloves and a great set of crit/haste gloves. Both are delicious; depends mainly on your raid role (tank or bubblespam).

Competes with T10, Rotface10, Blood Princes25.

Helm

Crimson Acolyte Hood, Crimson Acolyte Cowl (95 emblems)

Two tier pieces. Crit/spirit (healing tier) and crit/haste (shadow tier). Same dilemma, largely determined by your raid role and offspec.

Competes with BQL10, Saurfang10, Gunship25.

Shoulder

Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads, Crimson Acolyte Mantle (60 emblems)

Crit/spirit vs. crit/haste. Sound familiar?

Competes with Festergut10, Trash drop.

Legs

Crimson Acolyte Leggings (95 emblems)

Meh.

Competes with Festergut10, VDW10.

Trinket

Purified Lunar Dust (60 emblems)

PLD just got a spell power boost, which brings the trinket up to par for its function. If you don’t have Solace and at least one other solid trinket, you should definitely consider this as a very respectable purchase.

Competes with Solace, Marrowgar10, Gunship25. (The BQL25 trinket is better for PvP than PvE IMO.)

Crafted gear

Lightweave Leggings, Leggings of Woven Death, Sandals of Consecration ($$$$)

Don’t spend your emblems on these just yet. If you have the gold to burn, get them ASAP. But emblems are just too useful a commodity, and in too short supply, to spend on these expensive items. Your benefit-per-emblem is low.

The Paolo Plan

For what it’s worth. As you can see, I don’t really have urgent plans to spend my frost emblems. After I buy my last piece of shadow tier gear I can think about upgrading gloves or maybe cloak.

Head & shoulders: Aiming for two-piece T9.258. I have the 245s, and we should start killing Anub on heroic this week. I doubt many other raiders will be as committed to T9 as I am, so I have a decent shot at getting the 258 tokens. If I couldn’t upgrade to 258, I wouldn’t plan to keep T9.245 gear. (No frost emblems needed.)

Legs, boots: crafted. I already have both of these, and have openly admitted my insanity for purchasing the hit boots in my last post. I still think it was the right move. So sue me. (No frost emblems needed.)

Chest: Shadow tier, used for both shadow and discipline. With the amount that I’m playing shadow, this makes perfect sense, as the chest will be upgraded to 277 at some point. I could also have made a case for using the shadow shoulders for healing, but the T9 head & shoulders look like keepers for me. (Frost emblems already spent – no more needed.)

Gloves: False Gestures for 60 emblems. Not in a huge rush, as Lifeless Touch are still quite strong. After I complete my shadow 4-piece set (OMG!) these will be my next purchase.

Bracers: Bejeweled are not in urgent need of upgrading. Rotface25 drops nice bracers, but not really worth spending capital on at this point.

Cloak: My Ony25 cloak is still excellent. (See a pattern? All those 245 crit/haste pieces are winners!) Upgrading is a low priority; my last emblem purchase will be Volde if I haven’t gotten one of the other 264 cloaks.

Belt:  I have Heroic Cinch. I’ll upgrade to one of the boss-drop crit/haste belts, but nothing else.

Trinkets: Solace (I have already). If I don’t get Solace (heroic) or Abacus, I’ll eventually buy Lunar Dust. But no rush for me on this.

Facebook

The times, they are a-changing.

I actually think the times are conspiring. But you can’t mess with Bob Dylan, so “a-changing” it is. Here, friends and neighbors, is what’s up.

• I’m now in a guild with real holy pallies. Like, two of them. They take care of tanks. Really well. I rarely bother even shielding the tanks anymore. If I have time I will, but it’s starting to feel like a waste.
• We run with two priests: one is disc/holy, the other (me) is disc/shadow. When we’re both disc, I’m generally on raid, he’s pretending to assist the pallies.
• Ergo: I am spending 95% of my healing time on the raid.
• The boss tells me I’ll be doing shadow a lot more, so gear up, sonny.

Raid healing

While we’re here, allow me to teach you how to raid heal as discipline. Ready?

1. PoM, shield, shield, shield, shield, shield, shield, shield, shield.
2. See step 1.
3. OMG PENANCE! OMG DIVINE HYMN! OMG PRAYER OF HEALING!

I’ve been late to the progression party. Most of the last year I’ve been overgeared for the content I was in, as my previous guild moved very very slowly. I had been hearing about how discipline was falling behind on tank healing, but it wasn’t my experience. Well, now that I’m playing content at-level, and with a tag-team of power-pallies, it’s a brick wall to the face. In progression 25-man content, discipline is not a tank healer. Discipline is a raid healer. Or, as we like to say, with a smirk knowing what a lie this is, a “hybrid” healer. We are “hybrid” only if you have no more than one pally in your raid. Let’s face it though: tank healing is a long-lost dream. I miss it.

To those of you to whom this is obvious, or old news, I apologize.

Oh, one more thing, in case my raid-healing tutorial did not make it obvious. Raid healing as discipline is as boring as watching paint dry, and as challenging as tic tac toe.

I’m not having fun.

Tier gear

You did get my memo about tier 10, yes? It’s rotten, bad to the core, and should be removed from the game post-haste. If you have it already, enjoy it, but if you don’t, you should find somewhere else to spend your badges, especially if you’re a 25-man raider. (BobTurkey has some good suggestions.) If you’re a 10-man priest, the tier gear is a shade less evil.

And LOL if you think the throughput boost from the healing tier bonuses will do anything to improve our standing as tank healers.

Three pieces of T10 shadow are top-notch gear for discipline. Many of us are planning to buy shadow gear instead of healing gear for this tier. Sad. Weird. Confusing. But for those of us who are part-time shadow, it’s a mixed blessing. The shadow tier bonuses are pro.

The tipping point

I have plenty of gold, so I decided to craft the new items early. I got the pants made a few weeks ago, and made up my mind to get the boots crafted as well. They’re not perfect. Festergut’s boots are awesome, of course, but I thought I’d help myself and help my guild by moving quickly, freeing up those boots for someone else when they drop. If I replace my crafted boots later in the expansion, it’s fine; I won’t lament the lost gold.

Here’s the kicker. The healing boots are really nothing special for discipline. Too much wasted itemization on spirit. Everyone needs mana, but that’s just too much for my taste.

So I did something crazy. I made Deathfrost Boots instead.

“But wait,” you say. “Stop right there! How is the hit rating any less wasted than the spirit on the healy boots?”

Well, obviously, the hit is wasted.

For discipline.

Let’s review

I’m not enjoying discipline healing. I’ll be playing shadow half time. I’m buying a ton of shadow gear.

I’m a mediocre shadow priest. Not bad, mind you, just not great. There’s a lot of room for improvement in lots of areas. Since it has always been a neglected offspec, I never really bothered getting too serious about it. But apparently that’s going to change. I’m pretty excited about it; I love learning, I love going from good to great, and that’s what I’m planning to do.

Is discipline healing dead? No. Is it dying? It just might be.

QQ.

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