I’ve had a few queries about my thoughts on T13, how I am gearing for progression, and more specifically on some of my stat weightings as viewed in armory; as such I thought I’d take a few minutes to go over my thoughts on set gear this tier. The most common question I’m asked about are spirit and mastery ratings – and more specifically my spirit and mastery. And, honestly, depending on when I’m asked and what gear I’m wearing my answer changes.
The Great Four Piece Debate
There is a lot of speculation about how valuable four piece T13 is for resto druids. Unfortunately, I don’t have a solid, analytical answer for that question. What I can tell you, however, is that I’ve been playing around some with the set bonus. To date, I’ve not been successful at finding how often timeslip procs in the logs – or how much of the casted spell is overheal. What I can tell you is that on the two heroic fights I used the bonus on this week I did marginally better than the prior week, and had slightly more rejuv healing. However, without definitively knowing how much of that is attributable to timeslip, I don’t know that I can say anything definitive regarding how much of an impact the bonus had.
What I can say definitively is that I still prefer the extra mana gain from 2 T12/2 T13 for progression attempts – with heroic Yor’shaj being the only exception to that rule. I find that the extra mana return far outweighs any value from “timeslip”. It gives me more leeway to learn how to heal the encounter and let’s me be a little more aggressive during learning attempts. I started our Heroic Ultraxion attempts with 4 T13, and quickly swapped back into my 2/2 set and found myself significantly more comfortable. That being said, once I am familiar with an encounter and the damage patterns in the encounter, I’ve had no issues swapping over to the 4 T13. However, I am still uncertain of the overall value outside of just increased stats on the gear.
What is up with your spirit and haste?
I’m glad you asked! My question to you would be “what was I wearing when you armoried me?!”. Because I’ve been toying with the 4 T13 bonus, but most of my gear is shared outside of the set items, and I want to be able to flip between the two seamlessly, I’m limited in what I can do with reforging on my sets. My 2/2 set sits at exactly 2005 haste, which means that I can’t tinker with any of those items when dealing with my 4 T13 set. This limits what I can do with reforging and means that my spirit in this set is a little high (2700) and I have roughly 80 more haste than I need. My mastery also takes a bit of a dip in the T 13 set.
Until I can decide what I’m going to do with the gear, I imagine that my 4 T13 set is going remain a little off stat wise. In time, I am sure that I will go straight T13 and be done with it. But for now, I’m not ready to give up the extra regen from the 2/2 set and want to continue having it as an option for progression.
As far as spirit is concerned, I can tell you that I’ve upped mine from T12 somewhat significantly. I ran roughly 1700 spirit by the end of T12, but found that was not sufficient for my healing style in the T13 content. As such, I’m currently running around 2400 spirit and feel comfortable. I’m not yet to the point of having a surplus of mana left at the end of encounters, but as gear increases, I imagine that I will get there – and when I do I will be reforging some it back off and likely back into mastery. As far as spirit is concerned overall, you just need to find a number that works well for you.
And that is what is up with my gear! Please keep that in mind if you are running an armory on me. I’d love to know if anyone has found a way to track timeslip in WoL. Additionally, I’d love to hear any experiences that you may have with the set bonus and what you think!
Falling Leaves and Wings 