Want spirit cloth gear from Firelands? Bad news ...
If you're a priest, you might have noticed that patch 4.2's Firelands has very, very few pieces of cloth gear with spirit on them. You may have thought this was a bug or perhaps an oversight, since it means that it'll take you considerably longer to gear up in this tier due to having to use valor points for non-set pieces, buy BoEs, or wait for Hyjal rewards instead of getting lucky with random drops.
Well, Blizzard heard your cries and has responded! It's not good news, though.
Having said that, the mindset that only cloth with spirit is priest healer gear (and cloth with no spirit is never priest healer gear) is a mindset to be resisted. If that is allowed to set in, then all the fun of looking at a potential new piece of gear and deciding for yourself whether it is an upgrade for you is removed entirely.
Along those lines, something to keep in mind is that there is more to improving the healing you do in cloth than simply stacking spirit. As you increase spell power, haste, and crit, and your tank increases health, armor and avoidance, boss damage negates less of your mana in the first place.
So, no, there isn't any cloth gear hiding. No bugs. No oversights. It was a calculated decision to force priests to reexamine their gearing strategies. Blizzard is right in that a gearing strategy of "stack this one stat forever" is pretty dangerous (hello, armor penetration), of course, but having only select items with spirit on them actually reduces your gearing options, since you can't switch a tier piece out for another non-tier item that doesn't exist.
Wait, I have an idea! Just let priests wear spell plate. That solves everyone's problems.
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new tier 12 armor!
