Gear Choices Pt. II – Best in Slot T7 Content

After covering your first gearing steps towards Naxxramas I guess many of you have cleared the content, are close to doing so or have at least many new purples. This post is dedicated to the best of gear you can have at this point. Stat wise I looked for a good portion of longevity but clearly focusing on throughput. If you just started raiding you might want to look for more INT and MP5 but in actual 25 man raiding I find in hard to run out of mana and most of the time CH is still my primary healing tool. For 10 man raiding stat weights would focus much more on INT and MP5.

Stat weights used: INT=7, SP=7, MP5=10, Haste=4, Crit=3

Head:

Valorous Earthshatter Headpiece (Kel’Thuzad25)

Neck:

Life-Binder’s Locket (Malygos Key Quest) or Torque of the Red Dragonflight (10 Man Malygos Key Quest) or Chains of Adoration (easier to obtain, drops from several Naxx25 bosses) or Cosmic Lights (if you want to weed out some MP5, Sapphiron25)

Shoulder:

Valorous Earthshatter Spaulders (Loatheb25 or Emblem of Valor)

Back:

Pennant Cloak (Sartharion25 2D, no MP5) or Cloak of Kea Feathers (Emble of Valor, has haste) or Cloak of the Dying (Kel’thuzad10) or Cloak of Averted Crisis (several Naxx25 bosses)

Chest:

Tunic of the Artifact Guardian (Malygos25) or Valorous Earthshatter Tunic (4 Hosemen25, for 4T7)

Wrist

Cuffs of the Shadow Ascendant (Emblem of Valor but cloth, BoE) and Bindings of the Decrepit (Heigan25) are identical stat-wise

Hands

Winter Spectacle Gloves (Malygos25) or Valorous Earthshatter Handguards (Sartharion25 for 4T7) or

Waist

Girdle of the Gambit (Patchwerk25) or Sash of the Parlor (Anub’Rekhan25, cloth) or Bountiful Gauntlets (Sartharion25 1D)

Legs

Valorous Earthshatter Legguards (Thaddius25 or Emblem of Valor)

Feet

Atonement Greaves (Faerlina25) or Sabatons of Firmament (Sartharion10 2D)

Finger

Signet of Manifested Pain (Kel’Thuzad25) or Ring of Decaying Beauty (Sapphiron25) or Wyrmrest Band (Sartharion25) or Seized Beauty (several Naxx25 bosses)

Mainhand

Torch of Holy Fire (Kel’Thuzad25) or on par Wraith Strike (Maexxna25) and Hammer of the Astral Plane (Kel’Thuzad10)

Shield

Voice of Reason (Kel’Thuzad25) or Shield of Assimilation (Anub’Rekhan25)

Trinket

Illustration of the Dragon Soul (Sartharion25, nerf in 3.0.8 incoming) or Je’Tze’s Bell (BoE drop) or Soul of the Dead (Sapphiron25) or Mercurial Alchemist Stone (Alchemy. Chain potting is gone, but short fights make this trinket still strong)

Relic

Totem of the Bay (for Venture coins, if mana is not an issue) or Totem of Forest Growth (Emblem of Heroism, for mana conservation) or Deadly Gladiator’s Totem of the Third Wind (for LHW spamming, version without rating requirement hopefully soon to be added)

Consumables

Flask of the Frost Wyrm and Firecracker Salmon/Tender Shoveltusk Steak

Gems:

Red = Runed Scarlet Ruby Yellow = Luminous Monarch Topaz or Reckless Monarch Topaz if mana is not an issue Blue = Royal Twilight Opal. Meta is Insightful Earthsiege Diamond

Which T7 piece can be left out? Tunic of the Artifact Guardian offers +1 SP, +70 crit and +5 INT with -59 haste over  Valorous Earthshatter Tunic when both are filled with 19 SP. Winter Spectacle Gloves has +6 SP, +48 haste, +7MP5 and +3 INT for the cost of -45 crit. I’d personally leave out the T7.25 gloves but I have yet to see how a very haste heavy gear set feels and how much I profit from crit if I spam chainheal.

Haste vs. Crit: In my gear ratings I rated haste over crit. This mainly comes from my BC healing background and maybe I’ll adapt those ratings. Crit has nearly no downside as it is free additional healing. And I have heard very often the argument that a crit on the 3rd or 4th chainheal pumps a lot of healing in your chainheal while those jumps don’t profit so much from SP or haste. I have yet to see solid numbers on this argument. And I still think crit is rather a source of overheal than a solid healing stat, if not spamming LHW. Haste always helps your throughput as you can cast more heals in the same time at the cost of more mana you’ll use in the same time, a negative point that crit doesn’t share. If we spam chainheal I think haste is still great, the more you cast LHW and HW the better crit becomes as it consumes your water shield orbs. And I think LHW and HW profit a little bit less from haste as we get a good chunk of free haste from tidal waves. I’ll personally go for a somewhat balanced mix of haste and crit.