Granted, if you’re just aiming for the bonuses, the Priest healing set just doesn’t look as hot. That being said though, I picked up the four set a week and some change ago with the determination to try to master it. In terms of stats, the tier 10 is better than the tier 9 (Intellect, stamina, and all that fun stuff).
But how do you pursue the bonuses?
(2) Set: Your Flash Heal has a 33% chance to cause the target to heal for 33% of the healed amount over 9 sec.
(4) Set: Your Circle of Healing and Penance spells have a 20% chance to cause your next Flash Heal cast within 6 sec to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance spells.
For one thing, you can’t rely on the Renew spec that Holy Priests are using. If you’re a Renew Priest, then I think you’re better off switching out to non-set pieces. The bonuses aren’t even worth it since Flash Heal isn’t the dominant heal for you.
Another eye needs to be kept on the cooldown timer in regards to the 4 piece. 1 in 5 of your Penances or Circle of Healings will trigger the reset.
I feel like I’m playing a Rogue healer. It’s a lot to take in. Some fights, it doesn’t go off when its needed and in other fights it’s a godsend.
At the same time, it’s also dependent on who needs healing. If the bonus triggers, and the cooldown resets and no one needs healing, not much can be done.
My cast sequence doesn’t change very often in either spec.
As Discipline
Power Word: Shield, Penance, and a lot of Flash Heals. If I get the Penance reset, great! I’m also doing my best to maximize the 2 piece Flash Heal HoT. If it’s already on one tank, I’ll drop it on another tank to try to get it going.
As Holy
Circle of Healing followed by (you guessed it) lots of Flash Heals. I find I don’t Renew as often because I’d rather use the GCD on more Flash Heals. I’ll keep a Renew on myself and the tanks going at the very least.
In order to best utilize the tier 10 Priest set pieces, your style of play is going to revolve around Flash Heal as the main healing spell. If it isn’t, then that’s going to be an issue. If that isn’t your cup of tea, then you’re better off passing on tier loot entirely and gunning for non-tier sets like I mentioned earlier.
Why?
1) It lets the Priest who does play that style gear up quicker and more efficiently. The sooner their bonus gets activated, the better your raid will be. Again, it’s all about loot maximization.
2) I’m not entirely sure of this (and I know someone out there will correct or confirm either way), I think that pound for pound, non-tier items have a slight edge on stats.
Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Robe – Sanguine Silk Robes
Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Gloves – San’layn Ritualist Gloves
Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Leggings – Lightweave Leggings
On second thought, maybe it’s just the extra gem socket.
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In other news, the Ruby Sanctum is going to be in the next minor content patch. Sounds like it’s going to be a small-ish instance, possibly ToC or Malygos sized. It looks like it will contain about four raid bosses in a “Defense” type encounter, akin to Hyjal.
Bet there’s going to be a Ruby mount! Possibly a title involved? The last boss is named Halion the Twlight Destroyer (I guess he hates vampires too). “Matticus, Destroyer of Twilight”? Too much to hope for.
As Holy you really shouldn’t be casting Flash Heal unless your target will otherwise die. A Flash Heal off of a Surge of Light proc is a great instant 6k heal to save somebody who would otherwise die. If they will survive more than 3 seconds though, a Renew is better as Renew’s HPET is better than Flash Heal anyway.
The 4-piece set bonus is a big let down for me as a renew spec Holy Priest. In the best case you have cut two GCDs (2.3ish seconds with reasonable haste) off of your 6s CoH cooldown. That just doesn’t feel that powerful.
They should have just given CoH an X% chance to not trip its own cooldown allowing limited spamming of CoH. That would make me drool over T10.
The 4 piece T10 bonus has worked wonders for me so far. I am not a renew priest and FH is in my rotation quite significantly when my CoH/PoM is on cooldown. I have had this proc nearly 6 times in a row in a BPC25 fight and was great during vortex where everyone was out of position and took massive amounts of damage. Powerauras work great to give you a visual (and audio cue) when you get the Flash Heal! buff and I rarely miss it if it needed.
I know there is a “luck of the draw” factor with the bonus and, managing the FH in the rotation for some might be difficult, but I think it adds an interesting twist rather than making CoH back to a spam like back in the day.
.-= Napps´s last blog ..The 1 Hour Lower Spire Challenge =-.
first of all thnx for this one
i love the set bonuses and its gonna up your HPS significantly if you use CoH in your rotation i dont have it in my rotation that much tbh and i would take the 2 set bonus and get the non set epix with that
greetings Rankthree
.-= Rankthree´s last blog ..Bosskills =-.
Instead of watching your buffs for the “Flash Heal!” buff… just create a power aura for it. Simple. I did a very similar post to this a few weeks back, for those needing a power aura import.
I think even if you will benefit from the T10 bonuses you are better off getting the emblem gear first. The choice I face, and I assume most priests face, is between the ilevel 264 emblem gear and the 251 T10, not the 264 T10. Getting the tokens to upgrade your 251 T10 to 264 T10 is going to take some time. After all these weeks since 3.3 went live I have yet to win a tier token, let alone 2 or 4 of them.
The other thing to consider is the T10 is very heavy on spirit and I think Disc Priests would rather have the extra haste and crit from the emblem gear.
Try this on for size:
“Matticus, Destroyer of Twilight Destroyers” 🙂
if you are spamming renew as a priest you need more trees, or you are lazy. basically i’m telling you that you are bad. we have much more powerful tools at our disposal, (although the set bonus sucks ass in general) its still better than just overwriting other hots. do what we are supposed to and use the correct spell at the right time.
thats coming from a priest.
@smeedsc: That’s not always the case. Not every guild has access to trees, as you say. Even though they may need them, they don’t have the luxury of them. I’ve witnessed first hand how supportive the Renew spec can be.
Since when did renew overwrite anything other than your own renew? It takes the same time to cast as Flash Heal and does a lot more healing especially when glyphed. As long as you’re not neglecting your CoH cooldown and keeping PoM active and the heal target isn’t going to die in the next 3 seconds then Renew is the better choice. Even if they are going to die in the next 3 seconds it’s 50/50 whether Flash will save them and possible that Glyph of Renew’s instant heal might still be the lifesaving choice.
thats coming from a “bad” priest
I was fond of using renew quite often. That was till I was told that my hps was way too low. I am now a basher of CoH and PoM with some PoH and/or FH or Renew thrown in for good measure. It has seemed to be more effective in both healing and hps meters.
So if I am saving my gold for the Primordial Saronite to craft my leggings, then I think I am probably on my way to a good set.
Thanks for the ideas.