I am curious what the prevailing wisdom is with respect to heroic stats for casters/priests. At one point I swapped all my shaman's type 5 vender augs from hWis to hStam and was fairly underwhelmed at the difference in HP. Which heroic are people using for their casters/priests ? What is the impact to your survivability, mana pool, etc?
Go full Sta, augs armor and 5s. H-sta is about 15 HP, calculate the armor slots that give you the most HP.
Imo, Cleric - hstm, hwis if you wanna be magelo-cool Druid - hwis, no question. Shaman - prob still hstm with canni being so good. All gains are fairly small to whatever you choose, far as I can tell.
Can't remember exact numbers any more, but I was at least 10k HP more stacking sta across all items than mages that only stacked int. If modern itemization has a higher relational sta vs int than previous then the gains of one vs the other will be lower, but I've survived or purpled raid damage that has otherwise leveled my group members.
It all depends what what you do. If you raid, I suggest what I do on my druid and go heroic stamina. The reason is that with area effect damage so prevalent in raids, you need lots of hit points to survive. Having a full mana bar doesn't do much if you are dead...
I should clarify that the question is for raiding priest/casters. It would seem that the argument is that extra 10k-15k HP might be enough to keep you from dying. Most of the time when I get dead on my shaman its because mobs are lose and hitting for 100k+ that 10k-15k HP is rarely going to be the deciding factor. I checked a couple magelo profiles and for shaman/clerics its split about 50/50. Not really a good data point but ...
No it won't protect against quadding, yes it may protect against spiky AEs. But healer can't heal self if purple.
On my raiding cleric I watch the Stats page and try to maximize as many as possible. But there are easily recognized points of diminishing returns. For example, once you pass 2800 hWIS then the next stop is 3200. That's very difficult to achieve, so why waste pouring more effort into WIS? So after hWIS is 2800+ then I split between hAGI and hSTA to both increase Avoidance and HP. My overall goal is just to survive, because a dead cleric throws no heals. But I'll also use best-in-slot DEX and STR augs to help balance out stats if adding WIS, AGI, or STA won't exceed another point.
Humble former raider, current grouper position on heroics. First and foremost the difference between HSta and HWis/Int casters is small as far as survivability and staying useful longer. If you are a non-raider, HSta makes the most sense as all deaths are caused by lack of hitpoints and if you need mana, you can just stop and rest for a bit. If you are raiding ... high end, HWis/HInt cause generally your raid healing is going to be top notch so your major task is to be able to keep casting until the end of an event (especially if the expansion is mana drain heavy). Low end - HSta ... cause healing isn't as good and you need the extra cushion. In between ... some combination of the two. Lastly, when I raided, I used to also look at some of the shielding/stun resist/avoidance/ds mitigation break points and try to be over the next tier as much as possible. You need to factor in trophies and guild trophies (and anything else) to get an accurate raiding picture for yourself (personal tribute can be a great way to get to those breakpoints without having to mess with your equipment loadout).
But there hasn't been much of anything in recent years that mana drains enough to be a factor unless you're missing emotes or standing in the wrong place. I could literally spam remedies all day and not run out. I've just finished converting my cleric to 100% hSta.
I believe 3600 hSta is (barely) reachable with current gear for clerics (my cleric currently sits at 3431 with baseline ToL ore, some NoS pieces, best lineup of type 5 augs possible but type 7, Artisan's Prize and 18/19 augs not maxed out), and 4000 with power source and tribute is attainable (can get just about 400 from personal tribute plus 53 from a defender PS).
Map out the gear you will get in NoS with type 8 augs check if you can hit a threshold in int/wis with type 5 augs, fill in to hit that, and then sta for the rest. a lot of work but you asked =)
This is because they're mutually secondary stats for those augs. You aren't min/maxing by swapping between Savviness and Resilience.
i can't speak for casters. With Druid mana issues in general, i cannot imagine why they would choose anything other than +wis for as much regen and raw mana as possible. Shaman +sta more hitpoints=more mana=more everything. Or find a decent balance. Shaman have options. Cleric- there are generally two schools of thought on raiding clerics, that i have witnessed. Go for paladin-lite with +sta/+agi/+dex/+str for the tanking stats. Or go for all out heal power with +wis. A balance can also work fine. Personally, i feel if you have any set of the last expansions' best raid gear, you will be fine for current raid content, both in survivability and the doing your job through adversity. You will still get one shot by the raid boss, like everyone else who doesnt have tank discs. You will still die to multiple big AEs or failed emotes and mechanics. No matter which option you pick. You will still survive regular AEs, even big ones if you are playing smart. Do not neglect those augs/potions/tribute etc and you will be fine. i think the biggest difference between the two extreme options are like surviving one more hit from a trash mob, vs the mana drain effects affecting me 15% less. Neither case is make or break. i like the ability to cast the higher mana spells, or ignoring efficiency for an hour straight if i deem it necessary, so i tend to go with mana pool/mana regen stuff. If i am taking hits from a raid boss, it's definitely someone else's fault maybe everyone else's.
For an INT caster, I don't think it honestly matters. Going heroic INT gets you more spell/dot shielding, heroic STA gives a few more HP. With all the raid healing nowadays, less spell/dot shield mitigation or less HP is irrelevant. Pick either INT or STA and just play the game.
Different train of thought here. People are 50/50ish because raw mana/hps > hwis/int/sta. If you try to stack on one or the other you start having to use older augments which carry less raw hp/mp. I typically try to stick to the current expansion and one back and that is my cutoff. So on my Mage for example I grabbed as many Hint/HSta as I could and still had spots open. For those spots I picked up HAgi from current expansion because the raw MP/HP outweighed getting a handful of Heroic stats from an aug that was 15 levels lower.
