As Holy Priests, the main stats we are concerned with are +healing, mana per five, intellect, spirit, and stamina (yes, stamina is up there since we can’t heal if we’re dead). I’ve compiled a list here of the best possible pre-raiding gear you can acquire before venturing into Karazhan. I will also list your gem choices and possible enchants. The ideal professions for Priests would be enchanting and tailoring as we get some awesome BoP recipes for us to use only. This helps maximize our healing and means less dungeon instances we need to do. I know there may be better items to get out there, but this Burning Crusade priest healing gear list shows you the quickest and most cost effective way to gear up your Priest.
Updated 10/13/07: Hallowed Shoulders and Garments as well as Veteran’s Mooncloth Cuffs added. [Thanks Gnomik/Luni]
Updated 11/24/07: Typos fixed. I think.
Updated 07/17/08: Added Shadow Pearls and Star of Elunes for Spirit regen.
Head
Watcher’s Cowl (+79 Healing): It costs about 13 gold but is quite possible one of the best blue cloth healing pieces in the game. I’ve even seen resto druids use it (because they can’t find anything better?). You need to be Revered with Cenarion Expedition to purchase and equip it. Find it at the Quartermaster at the CE Camp in Zangarmarsh.
Whitemend Hood (+79 Healing, 11 Mana Per 5): If you’ve got some extra cash lying around, consider getting this made for you. Difficulty lies in finding a player with the recipe and who has a Nether for sale.
Neck
Necklace of Eternal Hope (+48 Healing, 8 Mana Per 5): This one will set you back about 25 heroic badges. If you don’t think you’re geared properly enough for heroics yet, then try the next one which is a little longer to get.
Natasha’s Guardian Cord (+55 Healing, 6 Mana Per 5): You can get this neckpiece from Blade’s Edge Mountains. It’s at the end of a ridiculously long chain quest which starts when you find a Mask on the Ground that you hear voices from. The 9th step in the quest will reward you with this decent neck.
Sethekk Oracle’s Focus (+35 Healing, 8 Mana Per 5): Go to Sethekk Halls, get the quest to kill Darkweaver Syth, kill Darkweaver Syth, turn in quest. Voila! Easy neck!
Shoulders
Primal Mooncloth Shoulders (+92 Healing, 7 Mana Per 5): This is a Tailoring Mooncloth recipe which is BoP. It requires:
But boy is it worth it. The pattern will cost you 6G.
Hallowed Pauldrons: With the amount of times you’ll be running Shadow Labs, odds are high this will drop for you. Grandmaster Vorpil will have this for you.
Back
White Remedy Cape: Easiest cape you can possibly get. It’s a tailoring BoE blue. The pattern itself is a world drop. If you put a tell in trade chat, hopefully you’ll be able to find someone who can create it on your server. It’s Level 69 so you can start shopping for it a little earlier. If you’re on Ner’Zhul, look up Mallet and I can craft it for you. Here’s the mats requirement:
Chest
Primal Mooncloth Robe (+121 Healing, 10 Mana Per 5): Best. Healing. Chest. Pre-raid. Ever. If you don’t have Mooncloth tailoring, drop whatever profession it is you have and use it. It’s just about on par with T4.
Hallowed Garments: Killing Murmer could yield this drop for you as well. Good alternative for you non-tailors.
Wrists
Bindings of the Timewalker (+64 Healing): Have a lot of time on your hands? Go run Black Morass a billion times. This sweet bracer comes at a not so sweet price of about 43G and lost hours better spent playing hockey or watching the Office.
Veteran’s Mooncloth Cuffs: The time required to grind out the Honor for this vs the Bindings of the Time Walker would work out in favour of these cuffs. One weekend in Alterac Valley should yield you enough honor points for this PvP item.
Gloves
Gloves of Penitence (+46 Healing): Chances are you might have this. All you had to do was kill Levixus the Soul Caller and it’s yours.
Prismatic Mittens of Mending (+55 Healing, 7 Mana Per 5): Consider upgrading to these once you get the Gloves. The first boss in Botanica, Commander Sarannis drops them.
Belt
Primal Mooncloth belt (+81 Healing, 8 Mana per 5): Finish out the set, get a set bonus where you gain mana back (5% of your mana regen to continue while casting). Like the shoulders, this pattern is also 6G. Mats are:
Legs
Whitement Pants (+62 Healing, 11 Mana Per 5): The difficulty here would be finding a tailor with the pattern who has a Nether available for use. Nether costs have dropped in price so it shouldn’t be as as before the patch when the only way to get them was killing the end boss in Heroics.
Feet
Jeweled Boots of Sanctification (+55 Healing, 6 Mana Per 5): Dropped by the big bad confused Ogre from Shattered Halls who doesn’t know which way he’s going.
Rings
Keeper’s Ring of Piety (+42 Healing, 7 Mana Per 5): This one’s easy to get. If you’ve been following your Karazhan attunements, then you will have this one by now. The Quest is given by Sa’at in the Caverns of time after you’ve completed Hero of the Brood.
Ring of Convalescence (+57 Healing, 4 Mana Per 5): Requires you to be Revered with Honor Hold (Or Thrallmar). Will cut into your gold pouch with a price of about 18G. Pick it up from the Quartermaster.
Trinkets
Lower City Prayerbook (+70 Healing): Yeah the on use effect sucks. But just look at the passive ability! Besides, -22 mana isn’t that bad. Any mana saved is mana that can be used later. Think of endurance fights. Think of how often you you will use it and think of what that mana can be used for later. Requires a Revered Reputation with Lower City (Shadow Labs loves you).
Scarab of the Infinite Cycle (+70 Healing): Spell haste rating is cool. It makes your spells go faster. Too bad it requires running Black Morass a couple of times.
Weapons (Staff)
Epoch-Mender (+227 Healing, 10 Mana Per 5): For a staff, it’s not the greatest. It drops off of Temporus in the Black Morass. Personally, I would stick to a 1 Hand/Off hand combination until later on. But it’s still a decent staff. If you’re Scryer, opt for the Seer’s Cane instead.
Weapons (1 Hand))
The Essence Focuser (+227 Healing, 11 Mana Per 5): Scout your local auction house as it is a world drop. Unfortunately, no stats.
Gavel of Pure Light (+299 Healing, 8 Mana Per 5): Do lots of Mechanar runs to increase your rep. You need Exalted to be able to buy this from the Quartermaster. This will really make your wallet hurt with a near 192G cost. If you’re lucky, you might be able to get Hammer of the Penitent to drop off of the Mechano-Lord in Mech. Either way, you’ll get a good mace to use.
Weapons (Off Hand)
Netherwing Spiritualist’s Charm (+33 Healing, 6 Mana Per 5): Once you become neutral with Netherwing, you’ll get this as a reward. Head down to Shadowmoon Valley and look for an Elf wandering around killing Flayers just below the Netherdrakes.
Wands
Soul-Wand of the Aldor (+22 Healing): Hands down, the best wand you’ll get for a long time.
Enchants & Other Augments
Glyph of Renewal (+35 Healing, 7 Mana Per 5): This goes on your head. Requires Honor Hold/Thrallmar reputation of revered. Costs 100G.
Greater Inscription of Faith or Greater Inscription of the Oracle: Depends on which faction you chose (Aldor or Scryer). Aldor for the win!
Enchant Cloak – Subtlety: Wait for Patch 2.2 and Enchanters will be able to get this beauty. It’s updated for BC materials. It reduces the threat you cause by 2%. That means 2% more healing! Whee!
Enchant Chest – Restore Mana Prime (6 Mana Per 5): Easy to get. You’ll want this.
Enchant Bracer – Superior Healing (+30 Healing): Same thing. 4 Primal Life’s and 4 Greater Planar Essences and your bracer got a whole lot better.
Enchant Gloves – Major Healing (+35 Healing): Ouch. In addition to 6 Greater Planars and 6 Primal Lifes, now you need 6 Large Prismatic Shards. Put it on the best possible gloves you have knowing that you won’t be replacing it for a while.
Enchant Weapon – Spellsurge: This unique enchant has a 3% chance on cast to restore 100 mana (not 100% mana) to all party members over 10 seconds. This is most useful in a raid environment, but there is a lot of debate between this and +81 Healing. Hopefully one of my other fellow Priest bloggers will dwell on this topic (Ego? Kurt? Anyone? Eh, guess not. I’ll get around to it eventually).
Enchant Weapon – Major Healing (+81 Healing): Stick to this for now. It’s cheaper.
Enchant Boots – Vitality (4 Mana Per 5): Restores Health and Mana every 5 seconds. The enchant is a world drop.
Enchant Ring – Healing Power (+20 Healing): Remember when I told you to take up Tailoring and Enchanting? Here’s the other half of the reason why. Enchanters are able to enchant their own rings (Must be Soulbound).
Golden Spellthread (+66 Healing): Here’s a big hint: Put this on your Whitemend Pants. You’ll need 10 Primal Life’s and an Aldor Exalted Tailor with a Primal Nether. If you’re on Ner’Zuhl as Alliance, send Mallet a tell and I’ll do it for you.
Gems
Purified Shadow Pearl (+9 Healing, 4 Spirit): Spirit changes in recent patches have modified the Priest choice of gems rather extensively. The ideal blue slot gem now belongs to these Shadow Pearls. Bear in mind, they’re not something that can be mined or prospected easily so the cost of acquiring these might be higher than normal.
Sparkling Star of Elune (8+ Spirit): This is another option for you if you’d like to focus more exclusively on mana regen. But at an early level, having both +healing and mana regen should be worked on simultaneously.
Royal Nightseye (+9 Healing, 2 Mana Per 5): This is your best friend. Most of the time, you’ll want to get a yellow gem for the socket bonus. Personally I say it’s hogwash. Most of your red and blue’s should be Nightseyes. There’s not a lot of gear where the socket bonus is good enough to warrant not using a Nightseye.
Teardrop Living Ruby (+18 Healing): I don’t use this at all personally. I heavily favor Mana Per 5 over miniscule amounts of +healing. It’s only 9 more than the Nightseye. I do not foresee it making a huge impact.
Luminous Noble Topaz (+9 Healing): For the rare pieces that do have a kickass bonus when you slot in a yellow gem, use one of these babies.
Conclusions and the Math
I’ve factored in my top choices in gear and included the best enchants, augments, and recommended gems. Here’s the final numbers:
Head: 135 Healing, 24 Mana Per 5 (Whitemend Hood, 3 x Royal Nightseye, Glyph of Renewal)
Neck: 48 Healing, 4 Mana Per 5 (Necklace of Eternal Hope)
Shoulders: 125 Healing, 11 Mana Per 5 (Primal Mooncloth Shoulders with the Aldor Greater Faith Inscription)
Back: 59 Healing, 7 Mana Per 5 (White Remedy Cape)
Chest: 139 Healing, 20 Mana Per 5 (Primal Mooncloth Robe, 2 x Royal Nightseye, Enchant Chest – Restore Mana Prime)
Bracer: 94 Healing (Bindings of the Timewalker, Enchant Bracer – Superior Healing)
Gloves: 90 Healing, 7 Mana Per 5 (Prismatic Mittens of Mending, Enchant Gloves – Major Healing)
Waist: 99 Healing, 12 Mana Per 5 (Primal Mooncloth Belt, 2 x Royal Nightseye)
Legs: 154 Healing, 17 Mana Per 5 (Whitemend Pants, 3 x Royal Nightseye, Golden Spellthread)
Feet: 55 Healing, 10 Mana Per 5 (Jeweled Boots of Sanctification, Enchant Boots – Vitality)
Ring: 77 Healing, 4 Mana Per 5 (Ring of Convalescence, Enchant Ring – Healing Power)
Ring: 62 Healing, 7 Mana Per 5 (Keeper’s Ring of Piety, Enchant Ring – Healing Power)
Trinket: 70 Healing (Lower City Prayberook)
Trinket: 70 Healing (Scarab of the Infinite Cycle)
Weapon 1H: 380 Healing (Gavel of Pure Light, Enchant Weapon – Major Healing)
Weapon OH: 33 Healing, 6 Mana Per 5 (Netherwing Spiritualist’s Charm)
GRAND TOTAL:
1690 Healing (Does not include the Whitemend Bonus. Factor that in, and you’ll get healing increased by up to 10% of your intellect. So you could easily be looking at over 1700 Healing)
129 Mana Per 5 (Note that this is just from the gear. I did not calculate spirit bonuses into it)
With those kinds of numbers, you can easily begin raiding Karazhan. I started doing it with ~1300 Healing.
And there you have it! Matticus’ recommended pre-raiding checklist for the Holy Priest. If I’m wrong somewhere, please leave a comment and I’ll fix it. Remember, there are better blues out there you can get, but I only listed those that offer the best value for the buck (and time).
Whew, that list took a lot of time. I started compiling this at 6:30 AM. It’s about 9:23 AM right now. Good thing it’s server downtime day.
Great guide Mallet 🙂 Most of this gear is also a great equip for Resto druids pre Kara. Keep up the good writing.
OMGooses! Exactly what I’ve been looking for, all in one place.
Now all I need to do is run the instances to get some of this stuff to drop! (Have my Primal Mooncloth Belt, though!)
Some others that I like are the Lightsworn Hammer(11 Int, 12 Sta, 6 MP5, and 227 Healing) for a MH Mace, can’t remember where I picked that one up but I’ve been carrying it for a while. Another good one is Cloak of Scintillating Auras (16 int, 12 Sta, 18 Spi and 42 Healing) again, can’t rememver where I got them, but like them both!
Your list almost exactly matches mine! Great minds think alike, eh?
Perfect – just what I need.
I wish there was the same out there for my warlock.
Did I miss something, or did you skip the Steamvaults staff?
Kama, whoops you’re absolutely right. The staff drops off the Gnomish boss in Steamvaults. I personally don’t place much emphasis on staves pre-kara. But that is an excellent healing weapon to get nonetheless.
A good guide to quickly gearing your priest, however I would like to mention a few item drops that have been overlooked in this guide. Though I agree with The Essence Focuser as being a good healing mace until you reach exalted with the Sha’tar, I support Galadria on their suggestion of Lightsworn Hammer. This easy to come by mace drops from Warchief Kargath in Shattered Halls and provides you with some bonus stats that The Essence Focuser lacks. About the recommended cloak, though it does provide a good amount of healing as well a decent mp5 rate, I would suggest getting Avian Cloak of Feathers from King Ikiss in Sethhek Halls. Though this cloak has 17 less bonus healing than the White Remedy Cape, it provides you with 18 intellect and 12 spirit and is much more easy to come by (plus it won’t burn your pocket trying to get mats). Besides the two items I have made mention to, I totally agree with this guide and gear listed here. Props to you Matticus!
The reason why I suggested items like the Essence Focuser and the White Remedy Cape is the two can be obtained much easier than the ones the two of you have suggested.
Warchief Kargath, in Shattered Halls, is a pain to get to. But if you’re willing to put in the time and the effort to get in, by all means it is a great mace. The cape is also an excellent alternative but Setthek Halls isn’t the most common instance you’ll see in LFG.
This guide was meant as a quick and easy way to gear your Priest without the hassles of excessive dungeon crawling in mind.
I tried to maintain a decent effort to reward ratio. I didn’t want to list items that had the potential to take 3 months to drop only for you to replace it within a week.
But again, excellent alternatives from the two of you :D.
The cloak of scintillating auras galadria was talking about (16 int, 12 stam, 18 spi, 42 healing) drops from first boss in Arc, as you do need to kill that one to get the key frag for kara, it’s quite easy to get…
I liked that post except that as a non tailor i felt a bit left out… I do believe some hallowed garment set are good blues (i personally have still the chest and pants). I started on kara with about +1300 healing (with the help of enchants) and did fine, i started heroics by the same time so then i was able to upgrade my gear… As i got +1500 healing on my gear now i’m trying to stack more stam and mp5 but i guess recommandations about that would be in a post for raiding priests…:P
Anyways thanks for the post, i’ll send the link to my follow holy priests getting ready for the kara fun…
You didn’t put an alternative on wrist, you could just get the pvp bracers for a while and stack an int gem on them, for the moment. (Veteran’s Mooncloth Cuffs),
Trinket, you could have the Violet Signet after you do a few Kara runs, my guild hasnt even killed Attumen but I got the rep for the Honored one.
Pants before you get Whitemend could be Pants of the Naaru with Silver Spellthread on, and chest ofc Hallowed before PM.
The SL grinding for trinkets aint that bad, you need your wand anyway.
Veteran’s Mooncloth is an alternative that I had considered. But it’s either grinding Honor or grinding Reputation. I’ll add the PvP bracers to the list as well.
In regards to trinkets, remember that this gear list looks at items that are possible to obtain before entering Karazhan. It’s not possible to get that signet until after several runs as you’ve said.
There’s been excellent suggestions regarding the Hallowed set. Personally, I’ve never liked it because of the fact that you need to endlessly grind the various dungeons in order to complete it (and because I think leveling Tailoring is far easier) but I will add the Hallowed sets.
Okay, thanks 🙂
Another thing you should consider adding is the boots from the quest ‘Fel Embers’, given by the little gnome in the alchemy tower in HH. Curate’s boots is the name, 53 healing, 25 int, 25 spirit and you only need to kill the 1st Shatt Halls boss. (My groups always wipe at second ^^)
And I still dont see whats wrong with Pants of the Naaru, endless grinding for Whitemend ftl, and with Silver Spellthread 😛
Also, you commented how there are no fair staffs at 70. Try Staff of Divine Infusion, its okay for a start.
What about the serpentcrest lifestaff?. Also what happened to the shoulders from cache of the legion. Vestias pauldrons of inner grace or whatever they are called. They easily match hallowed.
Also this could be updated for Jewelcrafting priests (such as myself) as there is now a +26 ( i think ) healing gem thats unique-equipped and soulbound but only costs a living ruby.
Wave goodbye to Keeper’s ring or piety and say hello to Witching Band!
Hallowed Handwraps maybe? 😛
You should add Hallowed Trousers as an alernative for those who cant be bothered grind mats for Whitemend Pants 😛
Good suggestions Gnomik, but is Witching Band the seasonal Hallow’s End ring from Headless Horseman? Wouldn’t be much of a recommendation if it could only be received during the two weeks out of the whole year.
Handwraps are from Kargath. I wouldn’t recommend them. Too much time and effort required.
Wouldn’t recommend Trousers either. Acquiring Primal Life’s and Waters are very easy to get.
Yeah, Witching band is a seasonal. Your write handwraps are a waste. But finding a tailor with recipe and nether on my server is :/
And anyway, Sethekk Halls is seasy ^^
Hey great read, I was looking for a debate about enchant to back and found this.
After reading this it seems your a priest that likes MP5. With 2.3 coming out and priest talent Meditation getting such a big boost what are you thoughts about spirit regeneration? Also the set bonus from the primal moon cloth set would put you at about 35% Regen while in the FSR. I think this is great and will put your Regen way up.
I drop my spell down as i get more +healing so that saves mana also so i get the +18 gems.
Good read and thank you for your time.
There is a lot of good info in here and i would recommend it to any priest trying to gear up for starting kara. But i couldn’t help not noticing my offhand in your list of offhands. Lamp of Peaceful Repose dropped for me in Alcratraz. Stats include 35 healing, 16 stam, 18 intel, and 6mp5. Better by far than the netherwing charm.
Oops…meant Arcatraz not Alcratraz lol.
It’s a good offhand when it drops. But it’s not good enough to merit sane losing runs into Arc repeatedly.
Have you given any thought to recommending Faol’s Signet of Cleansing as an offhand? 59 +heal and 7 mp5
I thought about it. But the time required to get the necessary reputation and the randomness of the heroic boss drops negated it from the list. Remember, all items here are meant to get you into Karazhan as QUICK as possible. The less dungeon running you have to do, the better.
The new S1 PVP items should be worth a shot, and some heroic badge rewards which are new
Lovely guide, helped me alot when i just hit level 70. Thank you so much.
thank u so much you have done all the work for me so now i just have to put in the time lol
i will u could change severs and join the guild im in but thanks any way
Moo: Glad to be of service. I think I may create another list for pure end game :D.
Abasrebirth: Haha, thanks for the offer. If I’m ever in the market for a new guild, I’ll make it known here.
I will apologize in advance for the long reply.
I started playing wow several months ago when some friends convinced me to try it out. I really had no idea what was going on, and took herbalism and alchemy for professions since it sounded cool. I’m a 66 priest now and my alchemy is at about 361. I will be hitting 70 sometime in the next month or two (hopefully) and really want to try and see some sort of end-game content before the expansion (although this will probably be more on the scale of heroics and Kara).
My question: Should I really consider dropping herbalism and skilling up tailoring 1-375 (I do not want to drop alchemy)? At this point I’m pretty sure that even IF I get enough gold to buy a flying mount at 70 it will take all/most of my gold. Therefore I’m skeptical about trying to level up tailoring from scratch.
Do you think the benefits of the set/profession are great enough to offset the time/gold spent trying to level tailoring from scratch? Or are there comparable chest pieces that will do just fine for say “low-end raiding”?
Thanks for the great guide! I’ve been searching for a long time for some advice on what gear to pursue when I hit 70.
First: Don’t ever apologize for a long reply. I’m here to help =).
Herbalism and Alchemy are fine professions in their own right.
By skipping out on tailoring, it just reduces your chances and options to get gear. You can still get some other pieces like your Dungeon sets. Murmer drops a decent one from SLabs. But it might take forever for you to acquire it.
Alchemy/Herbalism, I think, can be dropped with relative easy. It’s not like they had a whole lot of time investment involved.
If gold is going to be a problem for you, get to 70 first and then purchase a mount. Otherwise, I would switch to tailoring at your first opportunity and create the PMC set. I guarantee you that you will not replace your PMC chest until T5 or until you kill the bear boss in ZA.
Maybe one of my readers can help offer you another perspective or another set of eyes on this. I’m not sure of what other chest pieces to get that will serve to get you into raiding.
And I’m glad you enjoyed the list =). I’ll have to update this list at some point.
What about the Avian Cloak of Feathers from Ikiss in Sethekk Halls?
You lose 17 +heal (i think) and 2 mp/5 but what you gain in +int and +spi is worth the trade-off.
Bangle of Endless Blessings from last boss in Bot rocks a Holy priest’s raiding world.
In response to the person asking about alchemy / herbing I started raiding back in 05 as a Hunter but my guild decided that healing and free pots were more important to the guild so i rolled a human priest with A and H .to make the best of it I went for elixir mastery and got the alchemist stone +15 to all stats and 40% more mana from a pot I do alright. Plus if transmute primal earth to primal life you can save a bundle on mats , since it seems all crafts and enchants that give + healing use primal life.
great site BTW
Dude.. thank you for this guide. You might wanna add somewhere the whitemend hood and pants and the entire primal mooncloth set all bunched up together, adding up mats, time to make, number of primals etc. I would do this myself… but I’m just freaking lazy… I know it’s 8 mooncloth for the belt, 8 for the shoulders, and I belive 14 for the robes, so that’s… 30… divided by 2 (Primal mooncloth spec in tailoring) is 15, Times 4 for the days to make the mooncloth, Equals 60 days making mooncloth, 15 primal lifes and 15 primal waters, for the primal mooncloth set alone.
For the whitemend set. It’s another 20 primal mooncloth, meaning another 10 primal life and water and 40 days making cloth. then you need 5 primal might each, and one nether. All these will probably cost you 100g each for the mights, giving us a grand total of eitehr about 1k good for the whitemend set… and 40 days making cloth.
OR!, you could just buy the cloth… but they go for about 40g each… so that’s 800g.. giving us a grand-er total of 1800g for both of these peices. I recomend goin shadow and farmin the crap outta those dailys and the bog giants.
All together, if you make it yourself, it’s 100 days making all this cloth, 25 primal life, 25 primal water, 10 primal might and 2 nethers.
To get all this sooner, I recomend buying your cloth and/or having a friend use his cooldown to produce cloth faster, getting to know a good alchy for the mights, and being prepard to spend alot… alot.. of G… or farming you ass off for primals. I recomend going shadow for a while, meaning, for now, all this gear is useless (yea, it’s a rip). If you get luckey and come down with some sort of sickness that allows you to get on the comp but not go to school/work (most of us call it hookey) Maybe… Maybe.. you could farm all those primals in one day.. but I doubt it. I say get a shammy/mage/rogue/other DPS to help you with this.. always easier with 2.
So to sum it all up.
(Prices based on my server, echo isles.)
10 primal mana (20g each)
10 primal earth (5g each)
10 primal fire (20g each)
10 primal air (25g each)
25 primal life (10g each)
35 primal water (20g each)
450 netherweave cloth (22.5 stacks, average 3.5g a stack, you’ll be paying 65-90g)
and 50 arcane dust (20g a stack)
Adding all this up, (saying you’ll pay 75g for all that netherweave) it’s gonna come to ~1725g for all this gear, considering you buy it all from trade or the auction house, however, think of how much you can save by farming it yourself.
Oops, add about 16 more primal life to that
Hey Matticus,
Thanks heaps for that guide. It is exactly what I’m looking for.
Holy Priest FTW!!!!!
Luv ya work
To me it adds up to +159 stamina. Isn’t that ridiculously low and you will end up with about 5k health? I think you should sacrifice some +heal for +int.
Great job with this guide! It is amazing! I just looked over the enchants and such and thank you so much for leaving a great list of them!
a few things I would like to add, they are on my shopping list anyhow =)
goldenvine wraps (wrist) (quest reward from lost in action, underbog and slave pens )
56 armor
19 stam
13 int
13 spirit
29 healing
10 damage
Bloody surgeons mitts – drop – blood furnace
76 armor
20 int
10 stam
12 spirit
31 +healing
11 +damage
1 red socket (royal nightseye 9 +healing, 3 +damage, 2 Mp5)
1 blue socket (royal nightseye 9 +healing, 3 +damage, 2 Mp5)
socket bonus +3 spirit
Band of sorrow (ring)(boe world drop)
18 int
20 spirit
29 healing
10 damage
I know that the bloody surgeons mitts are not as high up the food chain as some of the others but they come from an easy instance and properly gemmed can stand up beside anything you can find before kara/badge loot.
Hey Matt! Feral druid turning to full-resto druid here. Read what you had to say regarding dropping Herbalism for Tailoring. I have been really hesitant, as (i’ll admit) I’m kinda addicted to picking herbs. Plus have some amazing mobility to be a gatherer. But admittedly, the PMC set is simply too good to pass up. Just popping by to say THANKS! i’ve decidedly decided to switch to tailoring… once i get my 5k gold for the fantastic epic flight form of course 🙂
Hey Matt,
Not sure that these comments even get looked at anymore but wanted to ask your opinion on something. I notice in your list you say that you’d always take two blue gems over the yellow since the socket bonuses aren’t usually that great. What are your thoughts on gemming with patch 2.4 coming out? I am getting the primal mooncloth set where the robe and belt each have a blue and yellow socket…I’m wondering if having the +3 intellect socket bonus from each would be worth more after 2.4 or if I should still stick with two blue gems?
Thanks!
Great Guide. I would add, that with the new patch it is possible to get Arena Season 1 mace Gladiators’s Salvation for 25200 Honor + 20 Eye of Storm marks. It has +375 healing on top of +28 Stamina and +18 Intellect. Very pricey honor-wise, but you don’t have to run instance after instance hoping something drops
got a 66 preist right now, will be 70 pretty soon. i leveled tailoring on my mage and the cost is horrible. i went with herb/alch. planning on doing Potion master for the mana pots pretty much (still considering elixir). with the mixture of some Season 1/vindicator items, and instance drops, it shouldnt be too hard to get in to kara without tailoring. this depends on your guild also. i might end up speccing shadow and going in to kara as DPS and take any healing gear that drops. if your guild is just starting kara, or having a rough time with some of the fights, it may require more of you.
the season one weapon is a very good pre-kara mace. it lacks mp5, but that can easily be made-up else where.
Max’s march 6th comment has a good point. My calculation comes close to the same ~150 stamina from the gear.
My gear is very close to what this guide recommends, including gems and enchants. And while my heals and mana regen are just fantastic, I find myself getting one shotted all too often if I ever pull aggro. I know, don’t pull aggro. But sometimes, depending on the group, it just can’t be helped.
So for those situations where you don’t have a pally in the raid, or just find yourself in situations where you’re pulling aggro from heals, swap in some Hallowed or PvP gear as those items usually have a good deal of stamina. You could also change up some enchants and gemming (e.g., +12 stamina to boots).
Great guide though. Following this guide helped me go from +1000 to +1600 healing in no time.
Hi, I don’t won’t to leave a comment I would just like to know if as a holy priest I will need 2 sets of gear. PvP and PvE. I really do not mean to sound dumb but I get conflicting answers. Whe a friend gave me this address I thought all my prayers were answered. Can you please divide or tell me if I require 2 sets or some changes to the armor you have listed. This is my main and only toon. I have never played online computer games before so I am your real NOOB. Please can you advise me please.
Your site is fabulous and I already have some of the armor as I have been making/buying lvl 70 armor & weapons since I was lvl 65.
Thanks and I hope I am not to much of a pain for you.
Sami
Samsi-Korgath
@Sami.. well for a holy priest you gona get smashed quickly if they notice you are the healer right off the bat and i mean quickly if you have no resilience. so bet bet to get the verterans stuff and the season 1 stuff since you can farmt hat all in bg’s so you can work up to the seasons 3 and 4 when it comes out.
Hi again Matt, I am still unsure what you meant. Like I said, I really am a NOOB. I have solo’d most of the way till now (level 69. I just need to know if I do need 2 sets of armor and weapons. If so can you please email me what you would recommend.
This is what I have already, keeping in mind I am looking at 2 sets and I am making, buying or doing bg’s for them.
Armor
1st Set: Raid: Gladiators gloves and hood
2nd Set: Primal Mooncloth belt and shoulders
I also have a pair of Soulcloth gloves.
Other armor: Imbued Netherweave Tunic and robe.
The only weapon so far is a mace- The Essence Focuser(which you recommended). Because you have so much listed I don’t know how to break it down into 2 sets.
Again sorry to be such a pain.Thanks for at least answering my email.
Sami
Sami: It all depends on what you want to do. The stuff I listed above here isn’t the greatest for any kind of PvP work. It’s meant to gear you up in the FASTEST possible way you can start raiding or doing more PvE content. You don’t necessarily need two sets. The categories where I have 2 or more items listed, it means they’re interchangeable. You don’t need to get all of them. If you get 1, you can move on to the next item.
Hope that helps!
Matticus,
Great list and blog for holy’s, i’ve had you bookmarked for months now and am building my priest to spec for kara. Besides the whitemend pants (that take a while, or the hallowed trousers which require a lot of dungeon time) do you have a reccomendation for quest pants? Im stuck on lifegiver britches right now with silver spellthread…they do ok…but im looking for a quick upgrade? Great blog, thanks for the info!
Jorgens
With the recent 2.4 changes to spirit I’m wondering if you think throwing Royal nightseye gems on everything is still good practice? Also the whitemend hood doesn’t appear to link.
To Jorgens,
I am running right now with Pants of the Naaru:
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=30256
It is a reward from a relatively easy quest and comes with good stats (+27 Stamina, +22 Intelligence, +25 Spirit and +77 Healing, 0 Sockets) Even if you are gemming Lifegivers with rare gems (like Purified Shadow Pearls) or higher, this is probably an upgrade.
To Jorgens,
You get “Pants of the Naaru” as reward from
“Special Delivery to Shattrath City”. This quest is received upon completion of the questline starting with “Warp-Raider Nesaad” in Netherstorm. Thottbot.com the quests if you have more questions
I’m in the process of re rolling priest. God bored with my hunter after raiding with it for quite some time. My priest is atm lvl 45 but I’ll soon be 70:)
When it comes to boots I see you haven’t mentioned Boots of the long road. Crafted BoP boots from a BoE pattern just picked up the pattern at Ah a few days ago for 175g. Which is quite cheap since your skilling Ench (Buy lvl 65+ greenies for under 5g and blues for under 21g de and sell the mats on ah, I’ve stopped farming after I skilled up ench). But anyways thanks for a great guide:)
Props Matticus! I found your blog to be totally what I was looking for. I have a 30 shadow priest and am so looking forward to end-game raiding. Thanks for putting in the time and effort in writing this guide. I for one really appreciate it.
About Enchant on chest.
Get 15 spirit instead of 6 mp5.
Spirit stacks with kings, and Priests has the best benefits of spirit, in the game.
To UglyNurse,
Thanks a lot for the reccomendation. Shortly after I posted i got picked up for a PUG and got the Pontifex Kilt. “The Pants of the Naaru” was definitely a good and very easy pant to get! Thanks for the reply.
Unbelievable saved me tons of time on research. Thanks for the great advise as I have most of these items before level 65 in my bank waiting to hit the big bad lvl 70. Just 2 more levels and I will be wearing most of the gear listed.
Thanks Again
Thx a lot for writing this guide. It helps out a lot for a new 70 Holy Priest such as myself.
Hey , great guide btw im planning on rolling my new priest and getting all this gear within a week or two , me and my friend are planning on changing servers and rolling new chars hes an experienced tank and will be making a druid tank this time and hes using a simalier guide like this , we have a friend on the server with literally too much gold so
money isnt a problem here but i was just wundering from a stamina point of view wont you easily get 1-2 shotted not only in kara but in heroics also? as i noticed above it adds up to 5 k hp wich seems very minimal to me what are you views?
Thanks again
________________________________________________
R.I.P Heath Ledger
I like the S1 healing mace a lot my self. It has the most healing on it until the Light’s Justice from prince. It is also very easy to get.
One thing i think everyone is forgetting is that this is a pre-kara/pre-raiding guide. No matter what in Heroics or starting in Kara you are going to start getting better gear or badges for better gear. The LACK of stam to me has always been fight dependent. (i.e. Shade or even last boss in Shethekk Halls) My way around this was to get PVP bracers and boots which made up alot for the stam and keep me alive for the next arcane missle. Not big on pvp so i just went with the veteran’s pieces did not want to grind for S1 gear. But if you do thats all that much more stam. Then if you are still having problems maybe you should put a few more talent points into PW:Fort. All together for the purpose of this blog Thank You it was very helpful getting me geared for beginning raid content. Also any surious healers check out Matt’s Macro Blog also very helpful.
I don’t know if anyone has already touched on this but the use effect of the prayerbook is really good. It equals a 16mp5 effect and can be used every minute…so every trash pull…multiple times on bosses and teamed with the scarab trinket means that you always have that cooldown available since it’s not shared with anything else.
First off, just want to say that this is bar-none the best guide of its kind that I’ve seen anywhere. I just wanted to point out that the ring, Cosmic Lifeband, that drops from the 2nd boss in Mechanar is on par, if not better, than the rings that are currently listed in the guide. It seems more easily obtained as well. Just thought I’d throw that out there as another option for a good pre-raid ring.
hey! this was great..just dinged my priest lvl 70, and this guide realy healps out..ive read this post 10 times now, and with a bit of advice from some friendly priest-dudes on my server, i know whats comming for me.
thx alot!
Hey, I dont understand the Off-Hand thing…I talked to the guy that was by the Killing Frayers….I did the quest, but I didn’t get Neutral or something….:S
Matt, thank you for the guide! It has been a tremendous help in getting my priest geared up for Kara. I’m almost ready, I just need a few more days to do dailies and get gold for more gear.
But next, I need to formulate my gearing strategy for Kara drops vs badge gear. Should I just get whatever I can out of Kara while saving badges for the 150 badge healing mace? Or should I buy the cheapest badge gear that gives me upgrades. Keep in mind my goal is to be able to effectively contribute to our fledgling second ZA group. I’m not even sure what bunus healing I should be up to for ZA.
If you’ve already written about gearing strategy for the Kara ready priests (as opposed to just turned 70 like this guide) could you please direct me to it? If none exists, perhaps that would make a good article to write?
Thanks again for this article and all the others on you site!
Tankettes last blog post..Messy Weekend Raids
Thank you so much for the help and advice i started gearing my green haired priest at 67 so i was a bit late and didnt want to make my gear. So thanks alot of r all the advice 🙂
I just dinged 70 on my holy priest, (first 70 ever) and I’m totally confused about gear. All guides mention tailored / found gear, but all I hear in game is to grind PvP gear as quickly as possible. I’m not all that interested in PvP, mainly raiding. So should I grind out the first set of PvP gear (merciless gladiator’s set is all i know) or just grind gold to buy the stuff for the gear you mention?
I’m totally new to all this and everyone but holy priests have been giving me advice… please help 🙂
Without this list, I’d be totally clueless.
Thanks a bunch for this.
Thanks to you, I’ve been constantly in the Black Morass and the Shadow labs.
Great list,
Great advice!
~Nathrassa.
Nathrassa: Your welcome! Glad you enjoy!
Lilyofwar: If you can, try to do a combination of both. The bracers are extremely easy to get. Since you’re primarily interested in raiding however, your best bet is to go for PMC or Swiftheal sets or whatever craftables you can get first. Don’t aim for gear specifically. Rather, set a bench mark for yourself and aim for that.
Example: Aim for 1000 healing with whatever combination you can get so can start working your way through Karazhan.
Great guide it helped me out a lot when i was gearing for kara,but there are a few items i would like to reccomend:
Belt:Vindicator’s or Veteran’s Moocloth Belt-Excellent for all you non-tailor priests out there.
Legs:Pants of the Naruu-A good leg for Kara and you get it for almost nothing.
Ring:Vindicator’s Band of Salvation-An excellent ring,this will last a good time.
Wand-Rejuvinating Scepter- +33 healing +2mp5..I know people tend to “OMG GREEN NOOB” but this really is a great wand.Just make sure to not throw it away.
GL&HF in Karazhan for all the pre-kara priests out there and a big THX to Matticus.
Awesome list, very useful for us guys just hitting 70. I actually off-healed in Kara last night with my puny +786 healing. Of course I was only there for Attumen and Moroes. This guide will definately help me to get prepared for the rest of Kara.
Thanks
Just kind of an observance, im a spirit priest with the talent to convert spirit to healing. spirit also increases your mana regen. the ratio is 1.08 healing and 1.02 regen PER point of spirit. so on the chest enchant you say to put in 6Mp5 and while thats all fine and good, that made my healing 1263 and MR 443, with + 15 spirit enchant i now have 1269 heal and 453 mana regen.
so you see spirit is a much needed and incredibly more useful enchant than just regen. it increased my heal and regen, instead of just regen.
Hi, I’m pretty new to this game, even though I’m level 63, all I have done was level. Now, when you mean pre-raid, why? I don’t know if thats a good question, but why does it have to be pre-raid? If you area already level 70, why can’t you just do the raid? Is there any way you can let me know the best gear possible for a holy priest? So I can start working towards them. Also, if theres a way you can link the best talents for a holy priest, I’ve been shadow for the past 63 levels and plan on respec’ing when I get to 70, but I do want to start working on getting the best gear. Also, what is end-game? I see that all the time, can someone explain to me what that is, I’m assuming the end of the game lol, but there’s got to be more. Thank you!
Anamchara: Yeah, I’ll add the spirit enchant to the list at some point. It’s a matter of finding time.
John: I’ll answer yours in a day or so. It’s not a question that can be adequately answered in a comments section.
I’m not sure if you’re still updating this page, but if so I think it would be useful to add some of the normal Magister’s Terrace gear pieces to the mix, since they have some solid healing pieces:
-Cloak of Swift Mending
-Bracers of Divine Infusion
-Battle-mace of the High Priestess
-Kharmaa’s Ring of Fate
-Cord of Reconstruction
Also SSO rep items:
-K’iru’s Presage
-Shattered Sun Pendant of Restoration
And, if you feel like putting these expensive badge items as well, there’s the SSO badge vendor (although admittedly this is probably unnecessary for somebody who just wants to be Kara geared):
-Slippers of Dutiful Mending
-Adorned Supernal Legwraps
-Gown of Spiritual Wonder
-Aveena’s Touch
-Gavel of Naruu Blessings
This is a wonderful list! Thanks so much, very useful.
My only question, for those of us (me) with our first 70, who didn’t get the whole scryor/aldor idea and chose scryor because our husband did (lol), what about a wand?
Are there any options for me other than the aldor one? I have Conjurer’s wand of healing, no stats, but +30 healing.
Another great healing item is Kamaei’s Cerulean Skirt with a Golden Spellthread on it. I know it doesn’t have any sockets, but the healing altogether is up at 184. There’s plenty of stamine, intellect, and spirit on the skirt by itself, so it makes up for not having a couple gem slots. The skirt is a world drop and cost about 1500g on the Blade’s Edge server. But i got a deal on the spellthread at a small price of 270g. Worth trying to find the skirt if you have some extra cash lying around. =D
Another good thing now is to grab the green items from questing in Wrath!!! =D
any chance update this for wotlk?
Great Post!
really going to help any one thats trying to gear his holy priest.
Thanks for sharing with us. If anyone required industrial then come to Ashoka Group, and get all type of quality gears at competitive rates.