There was a great post last month on Plus Heal wondering what the minimum requirements for getting into tier 12 are. That’s not an easy question to answer because you can’t pin a magic number. I entered tier 12 with many heroic item pieces from tier 11 with an average item level of around 370. But that’s not indicative of what the lowest stats are. The poorly geared or skilled the healer, the more powerful the rest of the raid needs to be to offset it. Tanks have to have amazing survivability. DPS players need to make devastating impacts and be incredibly nimble in taking only unavoidable damage.
It’s a good thing I have multiple Priests.
Going into Firelands with an item level of around 358, I was able to secure attempts and kills on Shannox, Beth’tilac and Lord Rhyolith. So if you’re worried that your gear isn’t good enough, here’s a rough idea of where you should be at:
- Item level: 359
- Stamina: 5200 (or around 118000 health)
- Intellect: 5100 (or around 105000 mana)
- Spirit: 2600 (or around 3200 mana regenerated every 5 seconds while in combat)
Mind you, those are the approximate stats for my alt Holy Priest. These aren’t precise but generally if you can ballpark those figures, you’ll be fine. Those figures don’t include things like stats gained from buffs, feasts or flasks. You can factor those into consideration as well.
What about my skill score?
That’s a harder question to gauge. If you were able to make it through all of tier 11 unscathed, there’s nothing new here that’s overly challenging. A lot of these encounters just take repetition and exposure to get down. Alysrazor is a multi-phase encounter and you just need to keep healing it and watching for all the little gimmicks that are going on before everything “clicks”. There is a ton of fire all over the place. Plan ahead on where to stand before you start casting your spells.
The ability to respond and dodge stuff is an excellent skill to have (Shannox traps, Magma Flows on Lord Rhyolith, just about everything on Ragnaros). I like to play League of Legends to keep my reaction time as quick as possible.
Alternatively, if you have a few minutes to spare, check out some of the different reflex games over at Mission Red.
I don’t generally play holy, but that seems fair. Although, it’s generally an issue with regen at lower gear levels, and not throughput.
I’d say if you can get through beth, you should be okay for the rest of tier 12 normal modes (my alt still has blue shoulders and is 6/7N).
Essentially yes. Beth’tilac is the gear check encounter of the raid group.
My 2c: I had less spirit going into Firelands than that on my disco priest, and as I upgrade it’s not really getting any higher. I’m also our team’s top healer at the moment, and I get given most of the hard jobs.
Yes, it’s possible to heal with less spirit. Up to the player and the raid to figure out what the equilibrium is.
Of course you’ll have less spirit on a disc priest though, Rapture makes up so much of our regen it’s nowhere near as important.
What i dont understand is that I’m at 4600 intellect but everything else is roughly equal to your alt. Is the armory showing it wrong or am I missing something vital?
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/aszune/Telimar/advanced
I use the Intellect enchant for bracers and sometimes I’ll bust socket bonuses by going straight for Brilliant Red gems only.
I went in with around 360 ilvl, and had no issues healing 7/7. HM Shannox was also easy healing wise. I am up to 370 now (so where Matt started) and seem to be able to make the healing checks on HM Beth and Bale which we are working on now. I do 10m, so what sucks more than gear is cutting healers to stack for HMs.
Anyway, I had no problems as low as 358 but I think it might be hard at 353. Still, with T11 so nerfed its fun to do a 2 hr clear of all 12 bosses there, which really helps gearing up.
What do recommend as first Valor items to purchase for a minimum geared priest (359 item level)?
Whoops, didn’t see your question. I went for the Tier 12 chest first. Always a good staple to get and you can always dice roll the gloves/legs out of Baradin Hold. Last I checked though, the regeneration from the tier 12 2 piece is better for Discipline. However, the 4 piece tier 11 is better for Holy. I don’t think that’s changed. If you have an alt, sink valor points into bracers and shove them onto the Priest. After that, it’s a matter of buying out tier 12 gloves/legs, then onto your ring (just 1, because you can rep grind the other). Probably a Wand after that. There’s a 365 neck from the daily vendor and you can use that temporarily until you have enough surplus valor for the valor neck if you haven’t gotten a better one elsewhere.
My 10 man raid healing team are all about 360-363…do you think fights can be two-healed? Or are they already 2 healed?
It’s a little too early for fights to be two healed, I think.