By now, you’ve almost certainly heard about the change to itemization whereby the +Healing and +Spell Damage stats are being retired for the less specialized Spell Power stat. What, exactly does this mean, though, and what can you expect at the release of Patch 3.0?
Mailbag: Zul’Aman Healing Chests
Published on December 26, 2007 by Phaelia 
Items and Equipment, Mailbag 
21 Comments
Lilleknurhår of Thunderhorn (US) writes in with the following question:
My guild is doing Zul’aman, and my question is about two of the chest-drops which you get there. One is [Robes of Heavenly Purpose] and the other one is [Shimmer-pelt Vest]. As you know, one is leather and one is cloth. I went to ZA with my guild, and got the “Robes of Heavenly Purpose”, although some of my guildmates couldn’t see the point in a Druid wearing it since it’s cloth and say that the Shimmer-pelt Vest is better for a Druid. Currently I’m wearing my cloth chest, and I’m very happy about it. I dont think I would change to the leather chest even if it dropped … but am I the one who is wrong?
I’m glad that Lille wrote in with this question. I recently picked up the Shimmer-pelt vest myself and have been wondering how it compares to its cloth counterpart. I personally have no qualms about picking up a cloth item if has superior healing stats (although all things being equal, including aesthetics, I’d opt for the leather item). This, of course, does not apply to PvP where our ability to turn into a Bear can be so helpful. So let’s do a quick comparison of these two items.
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While the Shimmer-pelt Vest is pretty straightforward, the Robes have 3 sockets (2 blue, 1 yellow) to worry about. My preference for slotting these would be 2 x [Royal Nightseye] and 1 x [Dazzling Talasite] since, as you know, I value mana regeneration. If we assume that we’ve slotted the Robes in this way, here’s the breakdown of what you would gain and lose from opting to wear the cloth chest piece over the leather one:
| Gains | Losses |
| 6 MP5 | 15 Spirit |
| 8 Intellect (120 Mana) | 27 +Healing |
| 13 Sta (130 HP Night Elves, 136.5 Tauren) | |
| 189 Armor |
Obviously the leather chest piece wins out in overall survivability with higher Stamina and Armor. However, since switching to Bear Form is not generally the preferred method of dealing with threat in PvE, I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on the additional armor. Let’s consider the other stats. The leather chest piece affords you an additional 120 mana and 6 MP5 at the expense of 15 Spirit and 27 +Healing. With the recent changes to Intensity and assuming that you have Living Spirit and use Innervate as often as you can during boss fights (where mana is more likely to be an issue), Blizzard’s current item value for Spirit matches up fairly closely to its value for MP5. That is, 2.5 SPI = 1 MP5. That makes the 6 MP5 gained basically cancel out the 15 Spirit lost. That simplifies our comparison to the following:
| Gains | Losses |
| 8 Intellect (120 Mana) | 27 +Healing |
| 13 Sta (130 HP Night Elves, 136.5 Tauren) | |
| 189 Armor |
Now it comes down to your personal preference. If you’re trying to bolster your +Healing value and are happy with the size of your mana pool, I’d say go with the cloth chest. If you want to increase your longevity a bit, choose the leather. Either way, the two items are so close in value that I’d recommend deferring the cloth to Priests first since they don’t have the option to pick up the leather chest. (If the cloth were far and away better than the leather chest piece, I wouldn’t necessarily make this consideration.) Of course, the aesthetics of the cloth chest piece might be reason enough for you to opt for it over the leather chest, but still politeness seems to imply that you would wait for a run where no other cloth wearers need it before rolling. Both chests drop from the introductory bosses of ZA so you’re likely to see plenty of both.
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I am excited that BRK is back, though!
/cry I love you, ty for everything.
Basicly, those two, and the T5 chest are more or less on the same level. Havin T5 chest with BT gems, it would be a small upgrade, but not worth the loss of gems to me.
So my advice would basicly be, take whatever you can get your hands on first, as in my expierince, waiting for loot and passing other drops most often doesnt do you too good
An example for this “problem”,, maybe you wanna cover it in some blog(or i do it for you if you wanna post my stupid thoughts) is basicly the comparison between T5, T6 resto pants, akama pants, and the archimonde cloth pants
Bah! dazzling talasite!
I also crunched these two’s stats and found the same conclusion. Shimmer pelt if you need the extra mana regen still or the cloth robe for more healing. Personally i was not impressed AFTER crunching (12 mp5 and spirit made my knees weak before i hit my own personal regen cap) and looking at the S3 chest wich i am still working towards (9 Mp5 and gemming that with 18 heal gems, HAWT!). I’m starting to see a trend with blizzard’s itemisation for non tier druid chest pieces in instenses. Kara had no gem slots, the SSC chest off Tidewalker dosen’t have gem slots and ZA dosen’t ether. Thouge i do love how the ZA one has actual Mp5. the other two don’t have any, they just have spirit).
My other tree guildy in crime actually has that robe. Someone on vent (i think it was me) during a ZA run as we were clearing trash to Halaazi asked if he even wanted the druid healing chest piece and he said ‘not really’ and that he was fine with his robe. Personally i would be going for the robe myself if i wasen’t going for the S3 chest. It really is up to the individgual and if you have hit that ‘perfect’ mana regen spot yet. If you already have one or the other it really isen’t worth it to go after the second chest. I also agree with giving priests first dibs since it’s not a HUGE difference and it’s the only upgrade for them. Nice question Lilleknurhår =)
No gear can truly be analyzed in isolation, as it depends on the overall needs of the character (more HPS, more mp5 longevity, more durability etc.) Though the Robes have a major advantage: gem slots allow for more pounding of heal gems, and nothing is a bigger limiter to trees than total heal. The weakness of tree healing is our HPS and heal is the only way to boost it.
I agree with Zack, Dazzling Talasite is just on the other side of worthless. In yellow slots I usually use Luminous Noble Topaz ( 9 heal, 4 int). The chest can also be gemmed with 3 Teardrop Living Ruby for a nice 155 healing total, gem set bonus be damned. I’m a serial gem-set bonus matcher, but sometimes throwing it to the winds and stacking heal is the way to go.
(as a side note, matching gems gives you 4 mp5 and 4 int for 18 heal. This tradeoff is either worth it or not worth it depending on your character)
You certainly can’t go wrong with either chestpiece, Halazzi will serve you well for many moons while the Robe allows for more heal at the cost of stamina. But don’t mug a priest for it, the flexibility isn’t worth it.
@Talasite: Oops. I wrote this article two weeks ago before having the error of my gemming shown to me. (I have tried to keep a couple of articles held back so I could publish on the road.) I’ll look into what I would recommend instead. =) Thanks!
I use Luminous Noble Topaz(9 healing 4 int). Luminous Fire Opal (11healing 4 int) also drops in heroic shatterd halls.
the Talasite isen’t too bad if you need Mp5 desperatly (better than the 3 Mp5 gems ewwww), i have just allways felt that the extra 9 healing was way better. I honestly didn’t even know that gem existed and ive never even seen anyone use it or mention it to my knoledge. I guess people get their regen elsewhere /shrug. Back when i first started raiding with my druid when he was my little old alt i prolly would have used that talasite gem when i was in blues and was hard up for regen on the longer kara fights whenever i had a yellow slot.
While i was bored in shatt tonight i started looking at the cloth healing gloves on the heroic vendor and they apear to be better than my Bark-Gloves of Ancient Wisdom. I will have to look at the numbers tommorow again but it looks like i might have somthing else to buy at the heroic vendor other than my spell damage gear (even thouge i like the look of my bark gloves better, oh well). They have 2 more base healing plus a yellow and blue socket and 7 healing on the socket bonus. I lose like 10ish spirit but the sockets will make up for it.
I have the Robes of Heavenly Purpose and they have been in my bank for some time, passed on the Shimmerpelt for one of our resto shaman. Nothing seems to compare to the Primal Mooncloth Set and if they do, generally it doesn’t compensate for losing the extra 20 mana/5 I get from breaking the set bonus.
Beware the siren call of the Primal Mooncloth. While the amazing +heal and +mp5 are drop-dead sexy, eventually the lack of stats will catch up to you. Particularly lacking is stamina. You can get away with it in most of Karazhan, but once you poke your head in SSC the raid-wide damage (Hydross marks, Lurker adds multishotting, Morogrim earthquake/watery grave etc.) gets to be scary.
I concur with Bigtoy, having that nice mp5 and such is nice but that lack of any health will be the death of you. We have been desperatly trying to get our one holy priest out of that death trap of a set. We’ve actually started calling it “angel porn” when both our holy priests die to SSC trash now. http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g267/Natheria/WoWScrnShot_122007_193511.jpg >.< Also dosen’t help the one priest’s reputation when he died four times on Nightbane and wasted ALL our brezes.
My advise is grab the ZA belt (best druid belt in the game) and/or the shoulders and just get rid of that set.
So I’m in ZA on the boss that drops the pelt vest.. My RL and good druid buddy now. Says.. everyone has it sep! Now you can pick it up! The raid cheers.. and I say.. hold on just a minute.. I don’t want it. The raid and my resto buddy.. both yell back their whats and wtf’s.
I wear http://www.wowwiki.com/Masquerade_Gown
The chance on ability.. procs ALOT. In fact.. it procs when your making potions.. transforming.. pretty much anythign you do. Which nets ALOT of mana regen.
Since I know how to play my druid.. spirit is *thumbs down* horrible IMO. So I usually disregard spirit and look at the other stats.
The pelt vest has more healing.. and a bit more intellect. But less mana regen and the same stam. It has more armor.. but armor is pretty useless when your resto anyways.
So.. is the vest really that much of an upgrade? IMO I don’t think so.. the spirit and mp5 don’t equal the regen from my robe and stam and intel is pretty much equal.
Thoughts?
Thx.
Short answer: The vest is absolutely an upgrade though more for ‘functional’ reasons rather than just the stats
The reasons:
1) +heal is the key stat for trees. Without healing touch our throughput is limited by the amount of +heal. While +13 isn’t game breaking, it starts to add up from each slot. All else being equal, take the higher +heal.
2) You don’t need mana regen when mixing potions, changed forms, etc. The proc rate is ~4% according to wowhead. So let’s crunch numbers.
3) The Vest has +13 healing, +30 spirit, and +11 mp5 versus a chance to proc 145 spirit. Assuming 30 casts (pretty close to chain-casting) you’ll average 1.4 procs per minute. Ignoring overlapping procs that averages out to about 21 seconds per minute with the boost. 21/60 =~ 1/3, or the 145 spirit proc averages out to 50 spirit all the time. Given Phae’s 11 mp5 ~= 2.5 spirit, so it’s 57.5 ‘functional spirit’ on the Vest versus 50 on the gown. That’s closer than I expected to be honest.
4) The gown will do better if you can guarantee hitting yourself with an innervate when it procs. I personally dislike betting on this because you could be running low and not get the proc, or you fire innervate early when you do have a proc and end up wasting some of it. Also I already have so much spirit that a Bangle/Innervate already refills my manabar from scratch so counting on another 145 would be overkill.
5) But worst of all the gown probably won’t give you spirit if you’re sitting there resting, or if there’s a quiet lull in a fight (phase 4->5 in Kael, add spawn on Lurker etc.) 30 spirit is going to be a lot better than 0% chance of 145.
In summary, the gown isn’t a bad piece at all (and better than I thought), but it really is best for priests that can take advantage of the random proc with Inner Focus to maximize the 5 second rule.
@Zackoria: Grab the ZA belt? I think you meant the heroic badge one? It’s marginally better Girdle of Zaetar (2 heal difference if memory serves). IMO, not worth the badges unless you’re a long way from downing VR (in which case Mooncloth would be fine), or have a lot of competition (would be unusual…since resto druids & shammies in my experience are the least common, and they’re the only 2 who should roll on it).
@Sephran: Spirit isn’t horrible as of 2.3. You should check out Phaelia’s prior posts regarding it (in terms of itemization, the utility gained from spirit is almost bang on equal to mp5 for what it costs; if you can get outside the 5sr periodically then spirit is better).
@the topic at hand: The mana regen you need depends largely on your style of healing. If you spam LB (which in my experience is far and away the most effective resto druid healing style), then you will likely find midway through SSC/TK progression that mana regen is no longer an issue. As of 2.3 I regemmed every socket I had (except my T4 pants – 1 blue socket with a 4heal bonus) to 18 heal gems. I have yet to run out of mana on a single fight when chain chugging pots, with the exception of going oom due to the hunter’s viper sting on FLK (and 2.3 was like what…2 months ago?). In theory, I can maintain 2LB stacks and rejuv on 2 tank targets for about 14 minutes, or indefinitely if I swap in mana regen trinkets (Bangle plus alchemist’s stone). Given that, I would very much prefer the cloth option of the 2 pieces listed above, since I can socket it for straight heal ( 155 heal = *drool*).
If you are well into SSC/TK progression and still find yourself having mana troubles then I would suggest you review your healing style because it probably is less than ideal for efficiency. I would suggest that LB should represent 70% plus of your casts (I usually sit around 82-92% depending on the night). At that point in progression, your gear should be strong enough that the scaling advantages of LB simply make it blow other heals out of the water (i.e. at low heal LB is comparable to other heals, at high heal it improves much more quickly so as you progress it becomes a more dominant piece of your healing capabilities).
@Kalaghan:
The Life-Step belt was removed from the vendor and put in to the first chest from the ZA timed run just after 2.3 was released. Compared to the Girdle of Zaetar the Life-Step Belt only has +2 more healing, but it has 6mp5 and it has a red and blue socket instead of two blue sockets. There’s no upgrade for the Life-Step belt that I’m aware of – it’s a clear upgrade from the Girdle of Zaetar (I replaced mine) and the ones that drop in Hyjal and BT have useless haste itemization. AFAIK it is the best leather healing belt in the game for tree druids.
As for mana regen no longer being an issue after mid-T5: I disagree. It is only a reduced factor if you chain-chug mana pots or you have a shadow priest in your group (or both). I run with enough gear in my bag to equip a +2000 healing / +190 mp5, +1850 healing / +220 mp5, +1700 healing / 200 shadow resist and a +1800 healing / high stamina set. I’d advise against just stacking +heal at the expense of every other stat, or if you do make sure that you have enough gear in your bag to adapt for the fights and group setups that don’t just call for +healing at the expense of everything else.
thx for the responses. I welcome you all to test the gown though. See for yourself how much it procs. Since I am gennerally a raid healer, i spam lifebloom almost all the time. Like I said.. i almost never see the proc leave my buff bar. I never thought of the effect it has over time though..
Thx for the input.
@Treibh
I do keep a few pieces for an alternate set to sub in if I ever need it, I just haven’t found a use for it yet. Thanks for the thoughts though, I’m trying to think what % of the time I’ve spent with an spriest now. lol
Edit: Out of curiosity Treibh, do you know what your spell breakdown % is? Maybe I’m a lil more LB focused or something?
Me any my guild Just start ZA today and we made it to bear boss great time under 20mins and droped him first try but non of us new how the times loot worked and who to talk to…. so a hunter got his shoulders but we didnt know where the chest was? can u explain it for me, after that we made it eagle downed him and called the run for the night thought was a great first try
@Hellrazer: Grats on your Bear boss kill! Sorry to hear about your trouble with the loot distribution, but the good news he should be fairly easy for your guild to put on farm. It won’t be long before you have your tunic. =)
It would be interesting to see a revisit to this post; if the mana regen changes of Int+Spi in 2.4 would change this decision or keep it the same? (If it is even worth revisiting)
I personally prefer how the Robes of Heavenly Purpose look, so would take them over the Shimmer-Pelt Vest any day. But I am just curious.
Thanks again Phae!
Well I already had the S3 chest with teardrop and 1 epic healing gems and was quite happy with it so far.
Last week I got my hands first on the one from Morogrim and yesterday the one from ZA.
The thing is that all 3 leather chests are nice and almost equivalent. However using one or the other can make a difference in different fights and different raid compositions.
For example, if u find urself on the tank group, you will probably be of more help stacking spirit for your aura. If you are on the spellcaster group, you most likely want to stack +healing. For fights with much random damage you would be better stacking some more HP.
So I ended up enchanting the Shimmer pelt vest with spirit and exchanging it with S3 (enchanted with mp5) according to fight.
As for the robes I really do not like using cloth…
This post definitely needs to be revisited. I think that in 2.4 the cloth robes will be much, much preferred over the leather chest. I’m already looking at how much MP5 I can scrap in favor of increased Spirit and +Healing. It’s kind of annoying to have to do so, but actually kind of fun at the same time since my guild is slow to progress and make new items available to me.
I have my own little druid as well, almost 70, who I have snagged some guildies for to pull through ZA for some proper gear. (All those months of feeding them mana has to be repayed some way
)
Either way, I also would prefer the robe, because if you socket it with a Royal Luminous Pyrestone(+6 spellpower, +5 Intellect) and 2x Purified Shadowsong Amethyst (+6 spellpower, +5 spirit)I’d benefit from +23 spellpower, +10 spirit and +5 intellect.
Spirit -> (45 of the robe +10 of the gems)*1.15 = +/- 63
Spellpower -> (54 of the robe +23 of the gems)= 77
Intellect -> (23 of the robe +5 of the gems)= 28
So, that, and the asthetics, is reason enough to call dibs on the robes. ^_^
Greetz!
Natarumahs last blog post..bandaids and blood transfusions: Patch 3.0.3
@Natarumah: A good way to look at it.
Obviously if the gems are superior one way or the other and the socket bonus is something you’re after, it’s a great way to help you make the decision!