Raiding consumables for Discipline and Holy priests
by Eliah Hecht 
Nov 21st 2008 at 9:00AM
I just hit 80 last night, and was the first in my guild to do so, so we won't be hitting Naxx for probably a couple weeks. Still, when I get there, I want to be prepared, so I did some quick spreadsheet math to figure out what consumables I should show up with as a deep holy priest. I'm basing the numbers off this very well-research post on A Dwarf Priest. Since I'm sure Disc will be rising in popularity with its newfound tank-healing viability, I did the math for Discipline values as well, but it didn't change the rankings in almost all cases. The best consumables are best for both Holy and Discipline.
I'll be giving the values in parentheses after each item, first Holy and then Disc; for the math behind these, see MK's post. Old-world (BC or classic) recipes will be italicized.
TL;DR version: Use Firecracker Salmon/Tender Shoveltusk Steak and Flask of the Frost Wyrm.
Food
There are lots and lots of new Northrend foods. Combined with the simplification of stats, that means there is essentially a food for every stat you could want. Of course, due to our stat priorities, some foods come out better than others. Here's how it breaks down for us.
- Firecracker Salmon/Tender Shoveltusk Steak (27.6/27.6)
- Golden Fish Sticks/Blackened Basilisk [thanks h8rain] (24.6/21.8)
- Cuttlesteak (21.6/16)
Sad to see a BC food on there, but then again, the Fish Sticks are pretty great. I'm happy that the best foods also give us Stamina, since I tend to die pretty often.
Another important note on the food front is that the buff from Fish Feast is equivalent to the best foods, and since it only takes four Northern Spices to potentially buff the whole party (depending on class composition), this may turn out to be more cost-effective than making individual foods. (Is foods a word?) However, it appears that the Fish Feast is not currently attainable in-game -- patched in with fishing dailies, maybe? [sorry, apambea]
Alchemical products
Elixirs
Guardian
This is the one area where Disc and Holy differ, so I'm giving separate lists for them. Holy:- Elixir of Draenic Wisdom (38.4)
- Elixir of Mighty Thoughts (33.3)
- Elixir of Spirit (27)
- Elixir of Mighty Thoughts (37.8)
- Elixir of Draenic Wisdom (37.2)
- Elixir of Mighty Mageblood (24)
Battle
Of note in this ranking is that Guru's Elixir will also boost your Stamina, which is not represented numerically, but could be valuable in some fights.
- Spellpower Elixir (34.8/34.8)
- Elixir of Healing Power (30.72/29.76)
- Guru's Elixir (25.6/24.8)
Flasks
I'm very pleased to report we have a new flask to enjoy. This makes me very happy since our best option in BC was Flask of Distilled Wisdom, an original WoW recipe. It also scores slightly higher than the best combination of elixirs, which is nice for progression raids. Elixiring will probably turn out to be cheaper if you don't die very often, and is a very close second numerically.
- Flask of the Frost Wyrm (75/75)
- Best elixirs: Elixir of Draenic Wisdom/Elixir of Mighty Thoughts + Spellpower Elixir (73.2/72.6)
- Flask of Distilled Wisdom (48.1/54.6)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
neadamthal Nov 21st 2008 9:31AM
for most people i think this comes a little early :P
what about a list of available crafted gear for disc/holy priests??? so we can start gathering mats before we hit 80.
Eliah Hecht Nov 21st 2008 10:00AM
I'll look into that, but there really doesn't seem to be very much of it aside from the two-piece tailoring sets. Most of our pre-raid gear is probably going to be from dungeons/quests.
Mindbasher Nov 21st 2008 1:18PM
Look for the lvl 80 pvp set....
h8rain Nov 21st 2008 9:44AM
If you are including Fish Sticks, then just use the Blackened Balsisk, which is easier to farm, and gives the same stats, FYI.
Eliah Hecht Nov 21st 2008 9:58AM
Edited, thanks.
FlameFlash Nov 27th 2008 2:18PM
Actually, most of the old spell foods in BC have the same spellpower buff now to fish sticks.
Crunchy Serpent
Poached Bluefish
Also got changed to equal fish sticks.
Of course, if healers stockpiled (I know I did) the fishsticks that will be a good bet.
Bernard Nov 21st 2008 10:00AM
What about crit food? And do the potions stack with other buffs? I wasn't sure how this would work with the new buff system.
Eliah Hecht Nov 21st 2008 9:58AM
Elixirs and food do stack. You've basically got three consumable slots to worry about now: food, battle elixir, and guardian elixir (or of course you can flask to cover both the battle and guardian slots).
As far as the crit food goes, it just doesn't work out to be as good for us as spellpower food -- the crit foods only score a 4/3.2 in MK's system (which I believe to be pretty accurate), as opposed to 27.6 for the spellpower food. Essentially, this boils down to a point of spellpower being better for us than a point of crit.
Apambea Nov 21st 2008 9:59AM
OK, I have been looking for the fish feast recipie everywhere ever since i saw it listed on wowhead and i cant find it. Its not one of the recipies you can buy with Dalaran cooking awards. You wouldnt tell us to get a recipie that dosent exist yet in game would you? Someone please help meh, where it is or how to get it, i've exhausted all the usual informantion hubs (thottbot, wowhead, mmo-champ,wowinsider, and wow-wikki).
Eliah Hecht Nov 21st 2008 9:59AM
Sorry to disappoint, but as best as I can ascertain this recipe is not attainable right now. Edited the post to include that info. Hope it gets patched in soon!
Knyle Nov 21st 2008 9:59AM
Must be a slow wow news day
Eranthe Nov 21st 2008 10:03AM
Running naxx-10 and obsidian sanctum with a 3-healer setup (1 resto druid, 2 holy priest) in a mix of 80 blues and t6/sunwell gear, we've found that spellpower is not the limiting factor in early raiding, regen is. I highly recommend gearing/gemming for high regen and using food like Pickled Fangtooth (12 mp5/40 stam) and the Flask of Pure Mojo. On spammy fights like Patchwerk, Grobbulus (the last 20%), Sapphiron, and understudy healing on Razuvious, you'll simply go oom with the length of fights. The DPS of raiders will wearing a mix of 70 and 80 gear is too low to overpower the fights and get them done fast.
Eranthe Nov 21st 2008 10:05AM
Oops, I meant "still wearing". :)
steve Nov 21st 2008 1:32PM
Re: mana regen
I had the same question about spell power vs. mana regen. My priest is spec'ed for discipline and is currently at 73. Now that you can only pop one mana potion per encounter, and there is no more down-ranking of spells, I've found that I am using blackened sporefish and brilliant mana oil (still have a level 70 purple mace to use the oil on) to buff my mana regen for the Northrend instances I've been running (Utgarde, Nexus, and A-N so far). This has been with mostly PUGs, so it may be a different story when my guild comes back together at 80 to start raiding Naxx, but right now, my concern is more going OOM than the size of my heals.
Mindreaver Nov 21st 2008 10:04AM
Why don't you have any of the haste food in there?
Currently I am leveling as a disp healer ( not 80 yet :( ). I was CoH throughout BC, and I love where disp is going as far as raid healing.
But I have to disagree that we want the same things that Holy wants.
I doubt I'll be using any of the food you mentioned, strictly because stacking +spellpower to high heaven, or int, doesn't give me the greatest returns. (I already get +20% int anyway, and more mana then I know what to do with, why would more int food do me any good?)
To be sure spellpower is great, and larger heals are better then small ones. But I am relying on the size of the heal less and less then I did when I was full holy, for a few reasons:
1) I don't get crazy +healing modifying talents, so +10 spellpower is +10 spellpower. It isn't like I am getting +40% to GH and another +10% bonus on top of that. and another +15% to CoH.
2) My real power is in getting more Divine Aegis' to pop. 30% extra damage mitigation is nothing to sneeze at. Not to mention that they cost nothing extra, mana-wise, in fact they give me more mana back because of rapture. So with more crits in mind...
3) I get an extra +5% spell haste. So while you guys get greater returns on spellpower, I get it on haste. Stacking this stat lets me cast penance faster (key to stacking grace and DA), more flashes, more everything.
4) MOAR Crit Rating! Honestly, if I could sit around 33% and know that penance will crit, pop DA, and give me more rapture... it becomes practically a free cast.
So more haste > spirit, or spellpower, imo. And it is certainly better for disp then fishsticks are.
IF I was still CoH'ing like a crazy mofo, I might agree, stacking spellpower is the key.
and I probably wouldn't use the spirit food, unless they de-nerfed Divine spirit to give me a percentage of my total spirit again, like it used to. Otherwise, I feel like crit rating or haste, would give me just as much mp5 thanks to DA and rapture.
Eliah Hecht Nov 21st 2008 10:09AM
I don't have haste food up there because I only have the top 3 options for each slot/spec. And I do have separate stat values for Disc, although they're not *that* different than Holy. It's true that this is theorycraft-heavy, and YMMV; obviously, use whatever seems to work best for you.
Mindreaver Nov 21st 2008 10:19AM
I guess I should have read how this was based on an article that in turn was all guesswork from before WotLK was even released.
Not to mention that MK says in the comments that he thinks that he drastically underestimated crit rating... and thinks it should be at least 3x higher.
But whatever, it was an interested read, and certainly woke me up this morning.
Eliah Hecht Nov 21st 2008 10:27AM
It's true that this math isn't as solid as it was around the end of BC, but it's the best I have to go on, and I really like math. If and when someone comes out with better numbers I'll update the post.
On a related note, I really doubt crit food is going to be the way to go for either spec. Sure, crits are much more important than they used to be, but:
- Reliable healing is better than spiky healing
- We're still not going to get as much out of crit as (say) a mage or a rogue, which is who I assume the crit food is balanced for
However, time will tell. I'm excited to see how this all plays out. Glad I could wake you up at least :)
Mindreaver Nov 21st 2008 10:45AM
Well, I agree that consistent healing is better then spiky, but that really isn't why I am stacking crit. I don't want to see big green numbers, I just want to see DA proc, and by extension, see rapture give me more mana back from casting spells I'd cast anyway.
I am just saying that the crits (triggering DA) are nice bonus' to smooth out the spikes that disp gets from relying on PW:S and penance... both have cooldowns. Don't worry, you'll have the same issue when they put a 6 second cooldown on CoH :)
In the best case crit, rapture gives me 360 mana (14k mana pool). Even if I get half of that, 180 mana every 4th spellcast is crazy.
Even holy is going to rely on crits for mana regen. Holy concentration is built on crits, and unless I am seriously wrong, it will be the talent you use to become efficient. You can't rely too much on meditation without gimping yourself in other ways.
Eliah Hecht Nov 21st 2008 10:49AM
Man, if they put in that CoH CD I'm going to be seriously tempted to say "!#@$ it" and make my Feral druid my new main. I'm tired of Holy getting the crap beat out of it on a regular basis.
I can't address Disc too much as I've never really played it. As far as Crit being a primary regen stat for Holy, I still think Spi is going to have a huge role, as well as Int becoming vastly more important than it used to be. But Meditation regen is not to be scoffed at, as well as trinkets that rely on spirit like Blue Dragon (which I still equip, thank you very much :).
Holy Concentration is a very difficult talent to model (at least for a novice theorycrafter like myself). It does provide some interesting synergy between crit and spirit though -- HC procs give you a chance to get out of the 5SR, which is when your Spi really kicks into high gear. So the more crit you have, the more your spirit does for you. But you have to stack at least some spirit for that to even be a factor.