Disc priest switching to raid healer Q's

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Post by OscarDivine

Considering your goals, I would say that your spec might be useful, but it could be improved. If you're raid healing, you won't be casting off as many instant cast spells (aside from SoL procs, but they don't cost mana) so having Mental Agility and even Mental Strength aren't that useful. You'll also find that while you're raid healing, using PWS (while EXTREMELY USEFUL as Disc) may lose some of it's merits as Holy.

Since you seem to be leaning toward a holy spec, I would recommend that you take up the Divine Providence and Test of Faith points because they really are fantastic for raid healing in ToC, and I can only imagine that they'll be very useful in upcoming IC.

I also agree with Westrock that the 51-point talents in both Disc and Holy are extremely useful, even for a raid healer. I tend to use my Guardian Spirit at least 2 or 3 times per raid fight (on every CD during a faction champs fight). Consider one of the holy builds in the Sticky threads. :-)

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Post by OscarDivine

Gearing for holy, you'll need to keep a few things in mind that differ from disco.

Regen is VERY important! you might heal like a rockstar for 1 minute, but then you're useless if you don't have the regen to back up your throughput! Make sure that you have and maintain pieces of gear in your repertoire that have large amounts of spirit on it. This may change later if you get some regen trinkets like these. Even still, don't neglect INTELLECT, it is our most powerful raiding mana regeneration stat through Replenishment, Shadowfiend, mana tide totems, and the like.
Holy concentration AND Surge of Light both proc off of CRITS, which means that you'll want to do a few things as often as possible: Cast PoM, Cast CoH. This being said, you also want the crit to back up your continued procs. Try to keep your head above 20% to start, eventually you'll want it even higher.
HASTE is going to be your best friend, but remember, you have to have the regen to back it up. You'll want to keep you Flash of Light cast times low so you can stack up your Serendipity, as well, so that your PoH cast under Serendipity are nice and quick. This is your bread and butter as a holy priest raid healing.
Spell power is very important, but often times can take a back seat early in your gearing in order to get your other stats in line properly. Given the level of gear that is now available to us shortly after we ding lvl 80, even this shouldn't be very lacking. This is obviously something you can't ignore, but if you have to choose between a little bit of Spell Power versus a LOT of haste, go for the haste.
MP5 isn't a bad stat to start with either, but remember that Spirit will benefit you more through your Holy Concentration procs.
You should start by gemming for SP and Intellect, to help with your regeneration. Remember that While spirit is important, INTELLECT is still the strongest raiding regeneration stat. Most socket bonuses aren't worth fighting with your gems over. For blue sockets, you can use "Purified" purple gems, which are SP/Spi. Eventually, you'll start gemming straight spell power ignoring almost all socket bonuses keeping just enough orange/purple gems around to maintain your meta, which should be an IED.

I believe i covered the basics of gearing and gemming for Holy for you, but if i've missed something, someone please fill in the gaps!

Disc priest switching to raid healer Q's

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