Post by Yetiking
Hey guys -
I've just started leveling a priest for the first time (level 31 currently), and I've decided to go with a holy/disc smite build with a lot of survivability.
I really like the Inner Fire glyph and improvement talent, since my main is an Enh shaman and I really like the feel of a "melee caster." Between talents that improve PW:S and Inner fire, I feel pretty unkillable and it's fun.
I have 2 questions: Does the improved armor from Inner Fire affect how much damage PW:S takes? I know It only takes x damage before it dies, but is armor factored into the effective damage that the shield takes?
Second: I'm one of those dorks that likes getting new gear at AH every few levels (I swear I only buy bargains) and I'm wondering about stat importance between INT, SPI, and straight SP. For example, I ran with
Dwarven Magestaff of Healing (+12 SP) for a few levels, then got
Torch of Holy Flame from a quest. I've been running around with no main hand and it for about a level, to see if the +5 spirit is worth the -7 SP...I'm sure it's not a big deal either way, but I'm looking for opinions. Also, I know I should be carrying a main-hander. I just haven't found a worthwhile mace or dagger yet.
Anyway, thanks for your input. I'm really enjoying smiting, healing groups, and never dying!
Post by cloudp
1: Yes, it affects. Inner Fire (and your armor of course) reduces the damage received first; than, the resulting number is subtracted from the value of Damage Absorbed on your shield. To show a simple example:
You have a Power Word: Shield that blocks 200 damage.
You are recieving an incoming hit of 200. Armor reduces it by 5%; with inner fire, the reduction is instead 15%.
The hit you recieve, after factoring armor+inner fire, is 160.
Power Word: Shield is left up with 40 points remaining.
2: Innitially, spellpower is nice, but your main leveling stats are "pure" stats - Intellect, Spirit, Stamina. 7 Spellpower versus 5 Spirit is more a matter of preference. Do you prefer to kill faster? Spellpower. Do you run out of mana a lot? Spirit.
Oh, and if you begun by the Holy tree, by those levels you're reaching Spiritual Guidance. 25% of your Spirit is converted to spellpower. No, the change is not that important with so little spirit, but as you pick gear, begin to factor this.
You didn't mention your faction. Quest rewards for those levels are abundant and provide easy choices. If you like to instance,
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=2816 in RFK is easy and yumee, and available to both factions.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=12247 is available from vendors at a limited stock, but is very nice, be sure to check it.
Bottom line - Welcome to the priesty ways. May the Light embrace you.
Post by Yetiking
Thanks for the reply. That's what I figured re: the armor on PW:S.
I actually started with disc (and spirit tap) to get the extra armor and stamina and mana regen and am now going to work down holy to get spiritual guidance and surge of light, then finish up in disc picking up the talents to get me extra damage on smite and extra spirit to take advantage of spiritual guidance. I'm looking at ending up with something like
this with a future dual healing-focused spec. I assume this would be a decent leveling/soloing/dailies/small group healing build?