I recently spent the time to earn the 210 Triumph badges to buy myself a second set of T9. It really didn't take all that long, since I'm cueing as a healer anyhow. But now that I've got a good set of shadow gear, what gems do I put in it? Aside from a little bit of spirit, the holy T9 is almost identical to the shadow T9. The set bonuses are different, of course, but the stats on each piece are very much the same. The equip bonuses though, offer more hit rating, as well as crit and spell damage. So I began wondering if I should gem for +crit or +spell dmg.
After doing a bit of research, I found that the answer was a resounding "+spell dmg"! Make sure you're hit capped first though. Crit rating only increases dmg by 150%. So raising crit strike chance by 1% only increases total damage by 0.5%. However, increasing spell damage by 1% increases total damage by 1%. Even when you take into account the damage coefficients and the fact that the spell's base damage isn't increased by +spell dmg, you're better off with spell dmg.
The break even point is at about 35% crit strike chance. That's pretty hefty for a shadow priest. To even get that high, you'd have to sacrifice quite a bit in other areas that would most likely make the return worthless.
7 years ago
