Patch 5.4 patch notes
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The latest patch 5.4 newsRaid Rx: Is that DPS gear or healing gear?
by Matt Low 
Aug 5th 2010 at 6:00PM
Thanks to Dawn and Allison for filling in for me while I was away at Laguna Seca. Dawn did an excellent job discussing pointers about paladin-less healing. Maybe the next time I join a raid that doesn't have a holy paladin, it won't take hours to get off the ground. Then Allison comes along discussing what is considered good and bad when applying to guilds. What's scary is that some of those seem familiar. It's as if she looked at one of my guild applications years ago.
Got an email this week from a reader. We'll call him G. I'm sure it's a question that many raid leaders or loot masters had to struggle with over the years.
[...] When cloth item A drops, our caster DPS and healers always /roll on it; the caster DPS doesn't seem to mind if it's MP5 or spirit. Let's take an example of the Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner. Our warlock says spirit is good for him and he /rolls; our priest says it's healer gear [because] of the spirit [as] regeneration for him; and our mage of course wants this also.
The healer complains the caster DPS gets to roll not only on items like this but also on cloth stuff with +hit, effectually rolling on everything cloth in ICC. I can kinda see what he means. My question is what's an easy way to differentiate "healer" gear from caster "DPS" gear, or is it all rolled into one big pot now?
Thanks for any help you can give me, I am not the guild leader but I am the full time loot master, the guild leader has given it to me to decide, as he's never played any caster at all.
Well, G, I don't have a lot of DPS toons myself, but I'll do my best to explain it. The loot system I use is loot council for my raiding guild, and this is a situation we deal with in an ongoing basis as loot drops from bosses.
- Paladin loot is self-explanatory.
- MP5 is generally a healing stat.
- Crit and haste are beneficial for both roles.
- attendance
- performance
- gear needs
- level of content
- seniority in guild or raid group
- spec
If you're deciding gear on the fly, then use the following purely as a rule of thumb.
- Hit If it has hit rating, it's generally used for DPS players. They need that hit rating to hit mobs. Contrary to whatever you may hear in trade chat, you don't need hit gear to heal people. If a healer says to you he needs the hit in order to heal, get yourself a new healer right now.
- Spirit Usually, the healers will want to claim priority on it first. But I believe mages and warlocks have abilities that convert spirit into a desirable stat, such as Molten Armor and Fel Armor.
- MP5 If you see this on gear, option it to your healers first. I can see situations where extremely undergeared DPS would want it since it could possibly be an upgrade no matter what.
- Crit It's universal for both roles. It's not necessarily wrong for a healer to take a crack at it. It's an item that will benefit either.
- Haste Like crit, haste is also beneficial. Having more haste means you can do stuff way faster, the more haste rating you have. Who doesn't want to do things faster? DPS players want haste so they can fire off more spells. Healers want more haste so they unload heals more quickly.
Gear for paladins
This is fairly straightforward. Protection- and retribution-specced paladins want nothing to do with spell power. Holy paladins can't seem to get enough of it. Your gear will have varying amounts of MP5, haste and crit depending on the level of content you're doing. Since you don't have any competition, feel free to go nuts.
For stuff like trinkets and weapons, if mana isn't a problem for you, then you'll typically want to lean toward something with haste and crit over MP5. A perfect example would be Belt of the Lonely Noble.
Don't let me catch you going after spirit weapons (until Cataclysm, at least).
Gear for shaman
Unlike paladins, there are two shaman specs that both utilize spellpower. Elemental and restoration shamans want spellpower, but the wishes of the preferred secondary specs are going to vary. Follow the same outline as above. At higher levels when mana isn't an issue, it's not uncommon for a resto shaman to want mail gear with haste and crit rating. If you're the loot master, keep in mind that both will benefit from an item like a Split Shape Belt. There's no hit rating on it, so it doesn't scream "DPS," but there is a ton of haste and crit.
An item like the Mail of Crimson Coins is going to garner more interest from a resto shaman than anyone else.
Gear for druids
While spirit isn't entirely useless for balance druids, you may wish to pass it off to a resto druid first in case they need extra regeneration. While I admit I'm not as well versed with healing druids as I should be, from what I understand, they value haste more than crit. Get that global cooldown all the way down, right?
Gear for priests
Last but not least, this is the trickiest, as there is an abundance of cloth-wearing classes. There always seems to be some type of feud going on, especially when it comes to gear drops. Follow the same rules as outlined above.
Let's use the item that was mentioned in the original question. A belt like the Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner will benefit a mage, a warlock or a priest. It does have spirit on it, and normally that would go straight to a healer. But don't forget that those DPS classes have talents which convert spirit into an offensive friendly stat.
Hope that helps with the gear resolution!
Want some more advice for working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered with all there is to know! Need raid or guild healing advice? Email me at matticus@wow.com and you could see a future post addressing your question. Looking for less healer-centric raiding advice? Take a look at our raiding column, Ready Check. Filed under: Druid, Mage, Priest, Shaman, Raiding, Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
Iirdan Aug 5th 2010 8:25PM
Yes, Spirit is an excellent stat for Warlocks. Which makes this differentiation that much harder.
Jimson Aug 5th 2010 10:42PM
The difference between 10 stats and 15 spirit is pretty slim, on the order of like 1-2 spellpower. 15 spirit CAN be cheaper, although it uses BC mats, so it depends on your server.
Clarence Rubin Aug 5th 2010 11:26PM
I'm a demo lock. Healers should want *me* to have spirit.
Fel Armor + Demonic Aegis (talent) = 39% spirit -> spellpower.
Glyph of Life Tap = 20% spirit -> spellpower.
Assuming I'll have Blessing of Kings during a raid, every 100 spirit (just to take a nice round number) on my gear translates to 64.9 spellpower. (That is, 100 spi on gear = 110 spi buffed = 64.9 sp.) Which then gives everyone in the raid 6.49 spellpower. Even rogues. And we all want our rogues to have spellpower, right?
Seriously though, 100 spirit for me is like 6.5 sp * 6 healers = 39 spellpower distributed across the healing team, even setting aside the raid DPS boost. If your demo lock is rolling on spirit gear, let him roll.
Xaklo Aug 6th 2010 5:56AM
@Brouck, unless you're a demo lock. In which case the +10 stats is MUCH more beneficial. With Demonic Knowlege talent, a lock's pet's Stam and int give the lock a bit of SP. Since the pet's stam/int scale with it's master's, increasing stam/int/spirit by 10 is MUCH more sexy than just +15 spirit.
Aloix Aug 5th 2010 6:17PM
With so much poorly itemized healing plate, is Paladin (healing) loot really 'self-explanatory'?
Granted personally I'd pass mail to a shaman first, but, just sayin'.
feniks9174 Aug 5th 2010 8:44PM
In that only one spec of one class can use Spellpower plate, yes. If a piece of plate with Intellect/SP/Mp5 drops, it's a no-brainer when it comes to who should be allowed to roll on it.
Whether or not the itemization is -desirable- for a Holy Pally is another discussion.
Snuzzle Aug 6th 2010 4:34AM
This. I'm not sure if the author has actually ever played a healing paladin when he said this:
"Protection- and retribution-specced paladins want nothing to do with spell power. Holy paladins can't seem to get enough of it."
Holy paladins can't seem to get AWAY from it. It's not that I don't like spellpower, I certainly do. But when you're healing tanks for half of their health with a single spell, or at least a good third of it, you start to value spellpower less and less. That's why healadins gem for int and not spellpower... we're already throwing nukes for heals, we don't need to give ourselves more overheal.
Not that this is necessarily the point of the article. The point was how to tell if it's healing gear, and looking for spellpower on plate is certainly the way, though the wording gave me pause. Don't be surprised if a holy pally poo-poos a piece of plate that gives him more spellpower, if he loses int or haste/mp5 to get it. It's simply a no-brainer.
Redielin Aug 5th 2010 6:19PM
This is one of the drawbacks of wearing cloth, unfortunately.
We only have cloth to deal with, so it is difficult for us to stack certain stats other than through gemming, and it we have massive amounts of competition. The conversion of Spirit into a DPS stat for several classes just made it worse. Currently, you'll see even resto Shammies running around in cloth/spirit gear so they can stack haste. We're stuck with the crappy itemization of 264 cloth which is half crit half the time.
Part of the advantage of wearing plate is that you can wear everything else, too.
Part of the problem here too is that there's way too much hit on caster gear by the time you're at 264 gear. So hit on gear is basically a trash stat that you aren't going to want to roll on, even as DPS. Everyone, healers and DPS, want haste, and no one wants hit. Not a big surprise that healers and DPS casters are rolling on the same gear.
In Cataclysm, it should get better. Assuming that Shammies, Paladins and Druids will stop sniping our cloth because wearing leather/mail/plate will be intrinsically better for them, our competition (for armor at least) should go down. Spirit will only help (hybrid, not Mages and Warlocks) caster DPS with their hit, so it should be even less attractive than it is now. Reforging, however, means that those side grades will be less side-y for DPS. 5 specs is a pretty reasonable amount of competition, which is about where we stand if we're only rolling against Mages, Warlocks and other Priests.
On a happier note from the healer perspective: since mana doesn't matter, nothing is stopping you from rolling on those pieces of cloth that have haste/crit and no Spirit on them. You'll do just fine even if you don't have spirit on every single piece of gear.
Brett Porter Aug 5th 2010 6:39PM
All characters will also get a passive armour specialization buff, which will help ensure that each class wears the correct armour, as doing differently will have potential for great loss in stats!
theRaptor Aug 6th 2010 2:52AM
Also all the DPS spirit -> spellpower talents/glyphs will be gone.
Shadow priests get spirit -> hit and that is it.
Spirit is the new Mp5. Healer only.
kmfolino Aug 5th 2010 6:18PM
Another thing we consider partially are socket colors. Loosely speaking...red = DPS, blue = heals, yellow = either. It's not a rule, but just a guideline to consider. As a mage, Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner has a yellow & blue socket...I would be more inclined to pass this off to a healer that something with similar stats and a red/yellow set-up. Just my thoughts.
psloan Aug 5th 2010 6:25PM
From a druid perspective, red sockets trump all for the SP on both the Balance and Resto specs. Blue will be filled with a purple gem and yellow will be filled with an orange gem.
freyal Aug 5th 2010 6:38PM
From a disc priest perspective at upper levels many many disc priests gem straight spell power in every slot. The same way many pallys gem all intellect in every slot. So that really isn't the best way to tell.
sara Aug 5th 2010 6:39PM
I don't understand where your argument is coming from... Why would red and yellow sockets be better for dps than healers? My resto shaman gems with only cardinal rubies (for spell power) and King's Amber (for haste). I have as little use for blue sockets as any other spec.
kmfolino Aug 5th 2010 6:57PM
Just saying from a DPS perspective (mage, in my case), I'd be more willing to pass up on a piece of gear that had a blue socket on it. Doesn't mean I always *would* pass up on one...just more willing.
Healr Aug 5th 2010 7:08PM
This is evidence of why loot council and other arbitrary "we thing it should go to..." distribution systems are utter crap.
Go DKP already and your raids will benefit.
People are terribly ignorant of other classes than their own. Sadly often also their own, but generally people, even prestigeous ones who write raid RX columns for wow.com, don't know enolugh about other classes to make these decisions. Let ypour raiders decide what they need - and the way to do so is DKP:
Matt things druids take spirit for the regen. This is wrong. Druids normally don't need to gear for regen since Naxx. However, like holy priests and warlocks they have talents that convert spirit to spellpower. Since druids don't n eed regen, stacking SP is all that matters, even through indirect means such as through spirit-converted-to-SP.
kmfolino - that rule of thumb you have - just drop it. It is terrible. Many healers stack spellpower even more aggressively than casters. That may change in Cataclysm, but we're not there yet. Likewise, "yellow - either" is wrong as stacking intellect (yellow) is the preferred stat for many holy palas and resto shamans (or haste for resto shaman).
Pyromelter Aug 5th 2010 7:36PM
Blue sockets benefit tanks.
Almost everyone else wants to see red. The exception would be paladins, enhancement shaman, and resto shaman, who want to see yellow.
Anyone who would pass on a gear upgrade because of the color of a socket needs to have their head checked.
straw Aug 5th 2010 6:20PM
"If a healer says to you he needs the hit in order to heal, get yourself a new healer right now." Ooooor you could not be a jerk and just explain it to them.
Brett Porter Aug 5th 2010 6:40PM
To me it sounds as though he's referring to raid healers (this being a raid healer column and all) and not someone that is new to healing, leveling or doing mainly 5 man's.
Now, if it were someone that was new in guild and they asked the question, by all means he, and most others, myself included, would explain why Hit is no good for any healer. But if you have an ICC-raiding healer asking this question... yea I'd find a new one soon too.
straw Aug 5th 2010 6:51PM
I'm all for giving ppl the benefit of the doubt. Maye they'd been grossly misinformed.