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SiteSpirit on Arena Gear — Absurd!
I was perusing WoWInsider yesterday afternoon when I stumbled across a gem of a question on an article about the new Season 4 items. The owner asked,
Not that I care per se, but why is it the Priest PVP gear has no spirit on it whatsoever when many of their talants are greatly incresed by spirit?
Being the opinionated priestaphiliac that I am, I answered that person’s question and then went along my merry way, only to return hours later to add further information. However, this morning as I sat down at my desk to work, I thought to myself, Ah, self! Wouldn’t this be a wonderful topic to blog about?
Yes, self. Yes it is.
Those Darned Priests Love Their Spirit
Let’s consider for a moment what we know of priests and Spirit. Spirit has always been a rather integral stat for healing priests, given the benefits that it provides. For example, the fifth tier talent Spiritual Guidance allows priests to gain an up to 25% of their Spirit increase to Bonus Healing and Bonus Damage. That can be rather significant, especially given a priest who is capable of reaching 700 Spirit unbuffed such as miss Csilla. Furthermore, if we examine the Discipline tree, we can find Improved Divine Spirit in the fifth tier as well, which can further increase the benefit priests gain from Spirit by up to 10%. In the case of my perky priestess, that’s over 260 Bonus Healing with just a single buff.
There is one more benefit to Spirit that we haven’t discussed and its impact has grown immensely since patch 2.4. As you may recall, 2.4 switched mana regen from a fairly straight-forward equation into a wretched beast of an equation that uses your character’s Intellect and Spirit to determine her mana regen while out of combat. It relies heavily on Spirit, which is coincidently beneficial for those classes most likely to find Spirit on their gear. Not only that, but priests have a lovely third tier talent in the Discipline tree called Meditaton that allows them to take back up to 30% of their mana regeneration while casting. This has turned priests into mana powerhouses capable of rivaling paladins in their longevity.
So, given those benefits, why is the Arena gear lacking in Spirit?
We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Spirit on Arena Gear!
There are two reasons that I can come up with that explain for this disparity:
- Spirit doesn’t benefit priests as much in Arena as it does outside of the Arena.
- The addition of Spirit would reduce or remove those stats that are better itemized for Arena.
You see, the vast majority of the priests you encounter in the Arena are going to be of two varieties: your staple Discipline priest for her synergy and survivability and the Shadow priest for her damage and regeneration. Holy priests are by far the under-represented spec in Arenas, due to the fact that while they may be healing powerhouses they lack the talents that would turn them into anything other than a pincushion. A Holy priest in an Arena match isn’t a pretty sight for long.
I know; I’ve been that pincushion more times than I care to recall.
If you recall what we discussed above, Holy priests seem to be the ones that benefit most from Spirit. With Spiritual Guidance, they’re able to increase their Bonus Healing and Bonus Damage with 25% of their Spirit. And while this is wonderful, Holy priests are the proverbial healing equivalent of the “glass cannon” stereotype on the battlefield. They’re targeted early in matches and, due to the fact that they lack the survivability inherent in the Discipline tree, they have the unsightly habit of dropping rather quickly.
But what about Discipline priests with their Improved Divine Spirit? While they may benefit from Spirit as well, it’s actually on a much smaller scale. We’re looking at 10% as opposed to the Holy priest’s 25%. Furthermore, Improved Divine Spirit is not a passive ability; it’s a buff, which presents problems in and of itself. You see, beneficial magical effects don’t last too long in the battlefield. With the multitude of priests, shamans, mages, and warlock pets running amok, buffs tend to be dispelled, purged, spell stolen, or devoured. In fact, most Arena builds only go as far as to acquire Divine Spirit — and not place any points in Improved Divine Spirit — because it serves as a “fluff buff” that may be removed in place of more important ones, such as Power Word: Shield, Prayer of Mending, Renew, Power Infusion, and Pain Suppression.
Mana regeneration isn’t as much of an issue in Arena as it is during raiding. While you may find yourself in a boss encounter with an enrage timer of twelve minutes, I’ve found that most Arena matches are over within a quarter of that time. I have encountered notable exceptions, mind you, but those typically are very unusual matches. Furthermore, though mana draining may be a very viable strategy while fighting in the Arena, patch 2.4 also allowed Resilience to reduce the amount of mana drained or burned by mana draining effects — which has the result of nearly trivializing mana draining effects if you manage to stack enough Resilience.
So while Spirit may be wildly beneficial to the occasional Holy priest you come across on the battlefield, masochists that they are, it does almost nothing for the Discipline priest, who probably didn’t opt to train for Improved Divine Spirit due to the likelihood that the buff is somehow removed during the course of the fight. All of this leaves us hoping that we don’t see Spirit on the gear, because it would lower or even remove those stats that are actually more important in the Arena: Stamina, Resilience, and Intellect. Both Stamina and Resilience help increase survivability, while Intellect allows for a larger mana pool and increases the likelihood of getting a timely crit on a heal.
But What About the Battlegrounds?
I should point out, however, that the stats I consider integral for Arena are not necessarily the ones that I would consider as important for the Battlegrounds. For example, I often choose to heal in a mix of PvP and PvE gear in order to have that wonderful Spirit. I tend to announce early in matches that I am a healer and I will heal if given the chance, so I usually find myself surrounded by a bevvy of damage dealing thugs who each have a vested interested in keeping me alive. Even when I start exhibiting unhealthy, near-suicidal tendencies by joining the fray, I usually have two or three people at my side. As a result, I’d find myself running out of mana during fights in pure PvP gear well before I die and would welcome the regenerative qualities of my Spirit stat.
Oh, and remember that two-piece bonus you get from wearing that old pre-raiding Hallowed Raiment set? It reduces the likelihood of having the Binding Heal spell interrupted due to damage by 30%. Coupled with two points in Healing Focus, a priest wearing two pieces of her Dungeon 3a set can find herself spamming Binding Heal on an ally for quite some time without any interruption due to damage taken. I tend to switch in two pieces when on the Battlegrounds and finding myself hounded by rogues, Enhancement shamans, and damage-dealing warriors; that thing is an absolute godsend.