Holy gearing BFA expansion

So last expansion I found that a little haste was good, around 11-14% (>37% mastery and all the crit/vers possible) but this expansion I am not sure any haste is good. Mastery feels very powerful, adding crit boosts echo of light and helps with healing and mana. Vers feels good but haste feels weaker.

I tried stacking haste for mythic+ for better dps but this did not increase dps much. I appear stuck at +5k dps approx. With the crit/haste gear healing became harder as mastery fell and mana issues meant more stops. Getting haste/mastery gear apprears a better choice, than crit/haste.

With mastery (~1000) I could push +5 or +6 mythic+ dungeons and not have issues. In fact they don’t feel harder to heal than normal mythic (sometimes this is not true, some randoms are different). Many players have higher haste for mythic+ but I feel that haste is a wasted stat this time around at least for raids. So I have stopped stacking it completely. I just feel that mastery is the stat I want. Mastery = echo of light. So anything that fuels echo of light is the way to go.

For Raiding I think mastery is the best secondary stat, crit and vers second (depends on the other stats which is higher) and haste last.

The azerite gear is harder for me to judge. I have a default like of anything that gives back mana (call it a prejudice). Sacred Flame and Ephemeral Recovery (includes Tides). Also I like the ones that boost stats like crit or vers.

Lady Waycrest’s Music box (ilvl 355) feels great but I don’t notice a difference if I use Gilded Loa Figurine 330 ilvl with gem (mastery). By warcraft logs I should get Conch of Dark Whispers at level 355 asap.

So my stats are,
Intel = 5568
Crit = 19% 978
Haste = 3% 228
Mastery = 28% 1053
Versatility = 5% 388

Going on here I have great healing using details, I was about 95th on one boss Warcraft Logs - Combat Analysis for Warcraft

I have tired swapping crit for versatility and it seems to work sometimes. Note I don’t have a great deal of logs to work with atm because it takes time for me to create them. Just going off recount/details.

So priority for stats for me is, intel, mastery, crit or vers (depends) then last haste. I used to stack crit/mastery in legion to some extent. In many of the top logs, binding heal and echo of light (not always so, there are logs that differ) are the main sources of healing. Warcraft Logs - Combat Analysis for Warcraft

Many players in the logs do have haste. A lot of it. Or even lower mastery. This is a contradiction, in that these still have good hps outputs. I am not valuing haste but clearly it works for others. I think its about just echo of light and how much you can feed it. Even so players just spam binding heal and keep haste high with low mastery. Echo of light is then not the most highest source of healing (renew and binding heal in this example). Echo of light seems to be the way to go to conserve mana.

Its not so easy to state mastery = crit either some top logs the player has low mastery (Crit: 838 Haste: 788 Mastery: 403 Versatility: 634 Warcraft Logs - Combat Analysis for Warcraft). Its clearly how the player plays and the mixture of stats to some extent, going by the warcraft logs. I think there are a few paths to take but I am pretty sure mastery is a good one (call it personal preference). This is where I would point to AMR graph of stats. The optimal stat graph, when you do gear check. Its seems that this time round stats agree with this AMR graph to an degree, most top logs are all different stats. The pattern is hard to see.

I think Tides and Conch of Dark Whispers are the best easy trinkets to get. Warcraft Logs - Combat Analysis for Warcraft

So if you think I can try something different or that I am wrong, plz post.

Everyone knows that my preference is to use simulation to try to determine what stats might be best. (I also main a holy priest too, so I get the added bonus of trying out all the results in-game very regularly.)

I have found that Mastery is really a strong stat - so strong that I’d venture to say it is over-budget and deserving of a nerf - but don’t tell blizzard! So, any strategy you use with a lot of mastery is probably going to be solid.

Haste for healers is very subjective and situational. If you are in a situation where you won’t run out of mana, it can be great. If you are in a situation where your mana pool is limiting you… haste is not really going to do much from a throughput standpoint compared to other stats. So - it’s often a judgement call. My preference is to gear for the hardest situations where my mana pool is limiting, so I tend to keep the haste low.

I also think Versatility is a great stat for healers, since the damage reduction is essentially free healing - and staying alive as a healer is obviously the most important. Healers staying alive can smooth over the mistakes of other players in the group.

High parses on WCL from healers are going to be all over the place as far as stats and healing styles. It depends on your group even more than how you gear to a large degree. I don’t really worry about that - I just worry about everyone staying alive. If you see a log on WCL and someone kept everyone alive… then I’d say it’s probably a valid gearing strategy.

Thank you that answers my question.