Spiritual Guidance: Raid and pre-raid gear in patch 4.2 for holy and discipline priests

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests and babysits Fox Van Allen on weekends while his warlock parents go to the cinema. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

"Oh, no! There's no spirit cloth in Firelands! What do we do?!"

Calm down.

I don't know why, but there has been some serious fear-mongering in the priest community this past week regarding the lack of spirit cloth gear in the Firelands. All over the internet, priests are screaming for their lives, running in circles, drinking Kool-Aid from the Twilight Council, and sending me really weird emails. (Apparently, they even sent Fox some emails too. Go figure.) Though I have no idea how this all started, I'm going to lay this out so it's easy to understand: You do not need to freak out about the lack of spirit cloth gear in the Firelands.

If you'll give me your undivided attention for the next few paragraphs, I'll not only explain why, I'll walk you through all the pretty gear you can get from the Firelands, daily quests, and then some.

"Don't panic!" -- the spirit edition

So first of all, there is plenty of spirit gear available for priests in patch 4.2.

• Valor badge vendors sell a 378 wand, necklace, ring, and bracers with spirit. Of these items, the wand can be upgraded to 391 heroic gear with Crystallized Firestone.

• The Avengers of Hyjal offer two pieces of spirit reputation gear, a cloak and a ring. There is also a spirit trinket.

• There are three spirit weapons that drop inside Firelands: a mace, off-hand, and staff.

• Tailors can craft two 378 spirit items, a pair of boots and a pair of gloves.

• On top of everything, there is still spirit on all five of your tier pieces. Three of those pieces can be purchased with just valor points.

That means for 378 gear, the only item slot you can't fill with a spirit item is your belt. Things will be a little bit more interesting for players doing heroics, since not all the valor and rep gear can be upgraded to 391, but keep in mind that you'll probably only be wearing a handful of 391 pieces when you kill Ragnaros on heroic if you maintan steady progression through Firelands hard modes. You'll likely be farming content before you can worry about wearing full 391, and if you're not, the content will have been severely nerfed by the time you're decked out in a bunch of non-spirit gear.

I'd like to remind you that it's not like your existing raid gear is insufficient for the new content; you don't have to strip down naked before you walk into a new raid. You will have a lot of spirit from your current gear, only losing it over time as you swap out upgrades. Plus, weren't we just talking about how mana became quite manageable in the last tier once we were moderately geared? Blizzard limiting the amount of spirit on heroic gear is probably to keep us in the "mana as a commodity" mindset.

Now that I've said all that, yes, we are in a terrible situation based on the way Blizzard has decided to itemize gear this tier. Even though we can and will manage for all the reasons I've stated, we have a lot of hardship ahead of us. It will take us longer to gear up when we can only acquire our most optimal gear through valor points; this could even cause some trouble for guilds when deciding how to distribute loot to the benefit of the whole raid. Later, when we are finally in our best-in-slot gear, we will have less spirit than other healers, which could negatively impact us in early progression next tier. I am not entirely sure where the developers are going with this itemization, but keep the faith, my priesties. I'm expecting some sort of development on this soon.

As a reminder, should you find yourself strained for mana, remember that you can still reforge, gem, and enchant your gear for more mana return. Drop a haste socket bonus for two spirit gems, or reforge the haste off that non-spirit item. It is actually completely acceptable to sacrifice throughput stats for mana regen, particularly since you're doing zero throughput when you're OOM. Crazy, I know.

Raid gear in patch 4.2

With that out of the way, let's look at the raid gear priests have available to them this patch.

Helm

ilvl 378

• Cowl of Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, purchased with Helm of the Fiery Conqueror (dropped by Ragnaros in Firelands)

• Flickering Cowl Firelands, Lord Rhyolith (for priests, either the Undertow or Wavecrest version of this helm)

ilvl 391

• Cowl of Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, purchased with Cowl of Cleansing Flame and Helm of the Fiery Conqueror (presumably dropped by heroic difficulty Ragnaros)

• Flickering Cowl Firelands, Lord Rhyolith (heroic)

Neck

ilvl 378

• Heartstone of Rhyolith Firelands, Lord Rhyolith

• Firemind Pendant Valor Quartermaster, 1,250 valor points

• Flowform Choker (no spirit) Firelands, Majordomo Staghelm

ilvl 391

• Heartstone of Rhyolith Firelands, Lord Rhyolith (heroic)

• Flowform Choker (no spirit) Firelands, Majordomo Staghelm (heroic)

Shoulders

ilvl 378

• Mantle of Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, purchased with Mantle of the Fiery Conqueror (dropped by Majordomo Staghelm in Firelands)

• Mantle of Closed Doors Firelands, Baleroc

ilvl 391

• Mantle of Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, purchased with Shoulders of the Fiery Conqueror (presumably dropped by heroic difficulty Majordomo Staghelm)

• Mantle of Closed Doors Firelands, Baleroc (heroic)

Back

ilvl 378

• Flowing Flamewrath Cape Requires friendly reputation with Avengers of Hyjal, 225g

• Wings of Flame (no spirit) Firelands, Alysrazor

ilvl 391

• Wings of Flame (no spirit) Firelands, Alysrazor (heroic)

Chest

ilvl 378

• Robes of the Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, 2,200 valor points

• Robes of Smoldering Devastation (no spirit) Firelands, Beth'tilac

ilvl 391

• Vestment of the Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, purchased with Robes of the Cleansing Flame and Chest of the Fiery Conqueror

• Robes of Smoldering Devastation (no spirit) Firelands, Beth'tilac (heroic)

Wrists

ilvl 378

• Firesoul Wristguards Valor Quartermaster, 1,250 valor points

• Wristwraps of Arrogant Doom (no spirit) Firelands, Majordomo Staghelm

ilvl 391

• Wristwraps of Arrogant Doom (no spirit) Firelands, Majordomo Staghelm (heroic)

Hands

ilvl 378

• Gloves of the Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, 1,650 valor points

• Fingers of Incineration (no spirit) Firelands, Ragnaros

• Grips of Altered Reality Crafted BOE from tailoring

ilvl 391

• Gloves of the Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, purchased with Gloves of the Cleansing Flame and Gauntlets of the Fiery Conqueror

• Fingers of Incineration (no spirit) Firelands, Ragnaros (heroic)

Waist

ilvl 378

• Majordomo's Chain of Office (no spirit) Firelands, Ragnaros

• Embereye Belt Requires honored reputation with Avengers of Hyjal, 270g

ilvl 391

• Majordomo's Chain of Office (no spirit) Firelands, Ragnaros (heroic)

Legs

ilvl 378

• Legwraps of the Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, 2,200 valor points

• Leggings of Billowing Fire (no spirit) Firelands, Alysrazor

ilvl 391

• Legwraps of the Cleansing Flame Valor Quartermaster, purchased with Legwraps of the Cleansing Flame and Leggings of the Fiery Conqueror

• Leggings of Billowing Fire (no spirit) Firelands, Alysrazor (heroic)

Fingers

ilvl 378

• Crystal Prison Band (no spirit) Firelands, Shannox

• Soothing Brimstone Circle Valor Quartermaster, 1,250 valor points

ilvl 391

• Crystal Prison Band (no spirit) Firelands, Shannox (heroic)

• Quicksilver Signet of the Avengers Requires exalted reputation with Avengers of Hyjal, 450g

Trinket

ilvl 378

• Fiery Quintessence Requires revered reputation with Avengers of Hyjal, 360g

• Rune of Zeth Requires revered reputation with Avengers of Hyjal, 360g

• Eye of Blazing Power Firelands, Alysrazor

• Jaws of Defeat Firelands, Majordomo Staghelm

ilvl 391

• Eye of Blazing Power Firelands, Alysrazor (heroic)

• Jaws of Defeat Firelands, Majordomo Staghelm (heroic)

Feet

ilvl 378

• Coalwalker Sandals (no spirit) Firelands, Shannox

• Endless Dream Walkers Crafted BOE from tailoring

ilvl 391

• Coalwalker Sandals (no spirit) Firelands, Shannox (heroic)

Main hand

ilvl 378

• Ko'gun, Hammer of the Firelord Firelands, Ragnoros

• Chelley's Sterilized Scalpel Firelands, random BOE trash drop

ilvl 391

• Ko'gun, Hammer of the Firelord Firelands, Ragnoros (heroic)

• Chelley's Sterilized Scalpel Crystallized Firestone Collector, purchased with Chelley's Sterilized Scalpel and Crystallized Firestone

Off hand

ilvl 378

• Goblet of Anger Firelands, Shannox

ilvl 391

• Goblet of Anger Firelands, Shannox (heroic)

Staff

ilvl 378

• Smoldering Censer of Purity Firelands, Shannox

• Sho'ravon, Greatstaff of Annihilation (no spirit) Firelands, Ragnoros

• Funeral Pyre (no spirit) Firelands, Beth'tilac

ilvl 391

• Smoldering Censer of Purity Firelands, Shannox (heroic)

• Sho'ravon, Greatstaff of Annihilation (no spirit) Firelands, Ragnoros

• Funeral Pyre (no spirit) Firelands, Beth'tilac (heroic)

Wand

ilvl 378

• Scorchvine Wand Valor Quartermaster, 700 valor points

• Stinger of the Flaming Scorpion (no spirit) Firelands, Majordomo Staghelm

ilvl 391

• Scorchvine Wand Crystallized Firestone Collector, purchased with Scorchvine Wand and Crystallized Firestone

• Stinger of the Flaming Scorpion (no spirit) Firelands, Majordomo Staghelm

I've prepared a loot list on the next page for fresh level 85 priests looking to get raid-ready for the Firelands.

4.2 Pre-raid gear guide >>