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Spiritual Guidance: Priest gear preparation for heroic dungeons and raids

Dawn Moore
Updated ·13 min read
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Spiritual Guidance Priest gear preparation for heroic dungeons and raids

WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore is a discipline priest by reputation, but still enjoys melting faces as shadow and bugging her raid to click the Lightwell as holy.

When you get your priest to level 90, gearing up your character will probably be one of the many things on your mind. Your first inclination may be to run heroic dungeons, but what if your item level isn't high enough to use the dungeon finder? Maybe you're looking beyond that, and wondering what you'll need to queue for the raid finder when it becomes available in the next two weeks.

Or, if you're like me, you're probably scouring Pandaria, trying to find all the best possible items outside of raids, so that your raid leader likes you when you start running normal mode raids in the near future.

Well, whether you're a shadow priest or a holy priest, this is the guide for you.



Queuing for heroic dungeons: ilvl 440 ilvl 435

To run heroic dungeons your character will need an average item level of 440. Unless you planned ahead, you likely won't have that right when you hit level 90. Questing through the entirety of Dread Wastes will get you a few ilvl 450 pieces but not quite enough to bump you up to 440. So what do you do?This article was written prior to the hotfixes that reduced the ilvl queue requirement to 435. You will have less difficulty reaching an ilvl of 435 when you first hit 90, however if you do, the methods of acquiring gear below are still valid.

Brewfest trinkets

The easiest way is time sensitive. This year's Brewfest runs until Oct. 13 and the usual fight against Coren Direbrew has been updated to grant ilvl 470 trinkets. Snatch up two of these trinkets and they'll likely boost your item level up to 440 or higher to 435, depending on what you already have equipped. You only need to be level 89 to queue for the fight against Coren Direbrew, so as soon as you hit that level I recommend opening your dungeon finder and queuing. Each run takes about 5 minutes, and you have a chance to win a trinket at the end of each run.

The DPS trinket for shadow priests is Mithril Wristwatch, while the healing trinket for holy and discipline priests is Thousand-Year Pickled Egg. Even if you only play as one spec normally, I recommend getting both just to boost your item level. If you're really impatient, you can even grab one of the two stamina trinkets: Bubbliest Brightbrew Charm or Bitterest Balebrew Charm. The tank you're running with might hate you for it, but I've honestly seen players grabbing up all sorts of trinkets they can't even use. When the runs take as little time as they do, and can be run over and over for gear, I guess it's not that big of a deal to most people.

Contender's PvP gear

Spiritual Guidance Priest gear preparation for heroic dungeons and raids

If two Brewfest trinkets don't get your item level up to 440 435, or if you miss the event entirely, your next best option is the Contender's PvP gear crafted by tailors. You'll find loads of this gear listed on the auction house, though the price will vary from cheap to absurdly overpriced. Depending on your server economy, you may be better off finding a tailor with the patterns, and bringing them all the cloth you picked up while you were leveling. (As a note, one Bolt of Windwool Cloth is made up of five pieces of Windwool Cloth.) Even with a gracious tip, you'll still save a lot of gold by supplying your own mats.


If you're a tailor yourself, you can purchase these patterns from two tailoring supply vendors in Vale of Eternal Blossoms: Esha the Loommaiden in Shrine of Two Moons or Raishen the Needle in Shrine of Seven Stars. Each pattern costs one Spirit of Harmony, but unless you plan on selling the Contender's gear yourself, I wouldn't personally recommending spending Spirit of Harmony on these patterns. Instead, save your Spirit of Harmony to make Imperial Silk and find another tailor to craft the Contender's gear for you.

Normal mode dungeons

Mogu'shan Palace is the only normal mode dungeon which drops ilvl 450 gear. If you don't have the gold or cloth to buy Contender's gear, you have the option of running Mogu'shan Palace for the following items.


You can also get an ilvl 450 weapon from completing The Arena of Annihilation. This scenario is the current expansion's equivalent of The Ring of Blood. The rewards you can choose between as a priest are Jol'Grum's Frozen Mace and Liuyang's Lovely Longstaff.

Dread Wastes quests

I mentioned earlier that you'd get a few ilvl 450 items from questing in Dread Wastes. If you did not complete Dread Wastes, either because you leveled through dungeons or by completing each prior zone before moving on, you may want to go collect the following items if you don't want to spend resources on Contender's gear.


Justice point gear

You may purchase the following items with justice points from the justice quartermaster, Commander Lo Ping in Townlong Steppes. Previous reputation requirements have been removed.

Spiritual Guidance Priest gear preparation for heroic dungeons and raids


Starting raids and queuing for raid finder: ilvl 463

When you start raiding, be it in normal modes with your guild or through the raid finder with a pug, you'll be aiming for an average item level of 463. If you're with your guild, obviously you can be a little under that, but you must have that ilvl to queue for the raid finder. Below you'll find all the heroic dungeon drops you'll want to track down to get ready for raiding.

Head


Neck


Shoulders


Back


Chest

Wrists


Hands

Waist


Legs


Feet


Spiritual Guidance Priest gear preparation for heroic dungeons and raids

Fingers

Trinket


Main-hand weapon


Off-hand frill


Staff


Above and beyond: ilvl 476 and above

If you plan on raiding seriously in tier 14, there are more upgrade options available to you after heroics. Most of these items come from tailoring or are faction rewards at revered reputation. Let's start with the tailoring items first.


The patterns for these items can be purchased with gold from the Golden Lotus quartermaster at honored reputation. They are BoE, so you may be able to find them on the auction house, but they will be very expensive since they require Imperial Silk. If you're a tailor, this is the first reason to save Spirit of Harmony (the other will be for ilvl 496 tailoring patterns that we'll talk about in a future article).

Revered faction reputation rewards

In order to purchase valor point gear, you will need to reach revered reputation with the faction that a piece of gear is associated with. This means you'll need to grind valor points and rep to purchase the items below.

It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!