nailbat.us

The problem
With the new model of spirit -> hit for hybrid dps casters (boomkin, shammies, shadow priests especially), and spirit being a critical mana regen stat for healers as well, there is a matter of conflict over spirit gear being contested, especially when it comes to rings and other items that don't care about your armor type.

The hypothesis
Mail: all caster mail will have spirit on it, which is equivalent to hit. This is shared between resto and elemental shamans and will be treated as Main Spec rolls for both.

Leather: all caster leather will have spirit on it, which is equivalent to hit. This is shared between resto and balance druids and will be treated as Main Spec rolls for both.

Cloth: Cloth will be split between gear with spirit and gear without spirit. Gear without spirit will be priority to DPS casters. Gear with spirit will be priority to priests, since all specs of priest use spirit.

Necks, cloaks, rings, trinkets, weapons, offhands: There will be a large number of caster rings/trinkets/backs/necks without spirit. These will all be treated as DPS priority. There will also be a large number of rings/trinkets/backs/necks with spirit. These will be treated as healer priority.

The evidence
Armor: This is a comprehensive list of all heroic and raid gear that has int but no spirit.
http://www.wowhead.com/items?filter=qu= ... rv=0:0:0:0

You will see that there is a large amount of cloth available with no spirit but plenty of int. So warlocks and mages, you will not be competing with the priests for spirit gear. By my count, there are 3 pieces of dropped mail without spirit on them, and only 5 pieces of dropped leather without spirit. Spirit leather/mail is priority for both styles of caster druid and caster shaman.

Shared items (weapons, jewelry, backs):
36 items in those slots with int and 0 spirit.
http://www.wowhead.com/items?filter=qu= ... rv=0:0:0:0

27 items in these slots with int and spirit.
http://www.wowhead.com/items?filter=qu= ... rv=0:0:0:0

This shows me that there is plenty of non-spirit caster gear that should go to dps casters first, and the spirit should go to the healers first, followed by the dps who can use spirit (elemental, balance, shadow).

The counter-argument
That's you! Tell me your counter-argument.

To examine just one example here, lets look at the current epic cloaks from the point of view of an elemental shammy:

There is the one without spirit:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=67131
170 INT, (+30 from gem)
107 haste, (+20 from gem)
127 mastery

with spirit:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=59516
190 int
127 spirit
127 haste

Basically the trade-off is spirit for mastery.

The current stat priority is (If hit total below 1640) spirit >>>> int > haste > mastery > crit

Currently with spirit mail gear in every slot I have been able to get it I have a total hit number of 1240 which means I still have 400 points to make up. Without the option to roll on all slots spirit gear it is basically going to be impossible to reach the hit cap until the healers finish getting epic'ed up.

I personally don't have any issue with healers rolling on the non-spirit gear. I think it was Blizzards to have all casters rolling on most everything, that's why they got rid of most of the hit/mp5 stuff.

Even though this doesn't really affect my main character, I'm still of the belief of:

Spirit - healer priority
Hit - dps priority
No spirit no hit - nobody's priority

This is based on my assumption that hit gear still exists in Cataclysm and it is purely a dps stat, as it does nothing for healing, as well as the assumption that there is still a comparable amount of hit gear in the system as spirit gear. (I did not do the wowhead search to filter out a list like Dom did.)

My argument is that whatever talent that allows you to convert spirit into hit, or if Blizzard wants to, parry into spirit, should not matter. I just think that it is a bonus for a hybrid classes in the sense when you are dual-speccing dps and healer, you don't necessary need to carry spirit gear and hit gear on you at all times. I think if healers aren't given a priority to spirit gear like they've always been, then every caster is going to roll on spirit gear, and it just seems unfair for healers cuz that is their key stat, and they cannot get mana regen stats from anything else, whereas dps casters still have their hit gear that clearly have no business for healers to roll on.

I also believe that reforging has no business in this discussion as well, but I just thought to state that.

**EDIT: Just want to stress that, if hit gear really doesn't exist for, say, mail armor anymore, then what I said two paragraphs above don't really apply for mail gear.

Wynne:

Blizzard took away the talent that gave us a good chunk of our hit% and replaced it with the new spirit->hit talent. That basically says that we are supposed to go out and get +spirit gear if we want to do any sort of DPS. Its not just about being a nice thing for the hybrids, its the key element to our new dps stats. The few pieces of hit gear that exist are in the numbers of 40-60 points, when we need to reach a number of 1640 combined spirit/hit.

Also there are exactly 3 epics with int and hit. One is a world drop ring. The others are a wand and an offhand. Neither of which a shaman can use. Spirit is really our ONLY source of hit anymore.

I'll never complain about loot, ever. But there for sure needs to be a fairness issue addressed. I'm okay with either of these 2 things.

1) Allow healers to roll on non spirit items, since reforging helps address that. (Can probably exclude raw +hit stuff)
2) Prioritize healers for spirit gear if they are excluded from non spirit gear.

I just want to avoid a situation like last night where I am not permitted to roll on the non spirit weapon, but would still have to compete with dps on spirit weapons as well. That's unfair to allow some classes to double dip and not others.

So the main proposals are:

1) Caster gear available to all eligible casters, regardless of stats
2) Spirit jewelry (weapons count as jewelry) goes to healers first, DPS second. No-spirit jewelry goes to DPS first, healers second.

I'd like more casters to weigh in, please!

Actually now that I re-read Dom's original post on an actual computer and not on the phone, what he wrote in the first post makes a lot of sense.
And the main proposals are also very clear. Dom is awesome.

Proposal one is the one that seems the best to me. Proposal two means hybrid casters won't be able to reach good dps numbers until the healers are done gearing.

Everybody rolling on everything unless it has a useless stat for them reserves only 2 of the current epic raid items away from any group. Those being the wand and offhand that have hit.

Does spirit do anything for mages and warlocks? We could at least do that split - I didn't see any spirit -> hit conversions for locks or magi.

I'll toss my hat in the mix in that I'll update what spirit means for mages... Nothing. Mages used to get 3-6% hit with talents. Now we get 0% and we dont get the benefit of spirit = hit. I need some time to consume the proposals to weigh in properly but I can't conceive of myself ever rolling on a spirit item that isn't a tier upgrade that wasn't going to rot.