Get your Spirit on: Holy priest gear in 3.3
Spirit is a make-or-break stat for Holy, whether you are healing or smiting. While both Intellect and Spirit determine your mana regen, and Intellect even supports the Crit needed for Surge of Light, I will be focusing strictly on Spirit in this 3.3 gearing guide. My personal agenda with this guide is getting my Spirit above my Intellect so that DMC:G procs for an additional Spirit buff.
All of this gear linked here is obtainable in 10-mans or in the new ICC dungeons. There are 25-man equivalents if you’re in a larger guild.
Head: Thaumaturge’s Crackling Cowl drops from Saurfang in ICC-10. The Spirit and Haste on this helm is ideal for Holy heals, though it does conflict with your four-piece bonus.
Neck: I hate this slot. You’re either stuck with the Evoker’s Charm, or you need to swindle yourself into a 25-ICC for Bone Sentinel’s Amulet. Since this guide isn’t for 25-mans, you get to keep your i226. 
Trienish said that the PvP one will be available without a minimum rating in a couple weeks though, so you could also hold your breath for that (or try Iron Council hardmode in Ulduar-10.)
Shoulders: Bloodstained Surgeon’s Shoulderguards. Festergut in ICC-10 is holding your Spirit and Critical Strike shoulders.
Chest: I am saving my 95 painstaking emblems of frost for the Crimson Acolyte Robe tier piece for this gear slot. If that doesn’t sound like a great idea to you though, consider Mord’rethar Robes or the crafted Royal Moonshroud Robe. If you’re on Kalecgos, you can even gather the mats, whisper me and mention my blog and I’ll craft the robe for you for free. 
Wrist: Bracers of Dark Blessings. Lady Deathwhisper in ICC-10 has these beautiful Critical Strike and Spirit wrists.
Weapon: Everyone is after the hilt these days, right? Unfortunately, the mace doesn’t give you Spirit, but who can say no?
Off-hand: The best Spirit offhand is still the Antique Cornerstone Grimoire from Onyxia 10. There is, however, another offhand without Spirit, the Shriveled Heart, if you’re looking something to compliment your hilt.
Trinkets: I mentioned the Darkmoon Card earlier, but what about the other slot? If you’re after Spirit, you’re after mana regeneration, so I would suggest the Ephemeral Snowflake I wrote about in a previous post.
Rings: Stick with the triumph emblem ring and a ring from Onyxia’s head for these two slots. They’re both wonderful Spirit rings.
Boots: Prelate’s Snowshoes from heroic Pit of Saron took me weeks to get, but they’re well worth the runs. The Spirit on these boots go nicely with a Spirit enchant.
Belt: The Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner from Marrowgar in ICC-10 comes with ample amounts of Haste and Spirit. The Haste and Critical Strike items sprinkled across Spirit compliment each other nicely in a spec that benefits from the “Haste saves lives” theory and the Critical Strike for Surge of Light.
Gloves: For 60 emblems of frost, you can pick yourself up a beautiful set of Crimson Acolyte Gloves, Spirit gloves that will push you towards your amazing 2-piece and even more amazing 4-piece set bonus. This also applies to all the other tier categories for the aforementioned items, at 95 or 60 emblems of frost a piece. Don’t have the emblems? Consider these Suspiciously Soft Gloves instead.
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By asdvnkmxz, May 9, 2010 @ 1:24 pm
Who the fuck cares about 232s? these are not best in slot there shitty pieces that are too bad for alts.
By Kourtnie McKenzie, May 10, 2010 @ 10:36 am
There is a note at the beginning of the post mentioning that these are the kinds of things people that are in small guilds or have to PUG would try to get in order to build a Spirit set. It’s even in a different color. You’ll notice you’re the first to comment because 99% of my readers can catch that note and understand the material they’re reading and the audience it’s meant for.
This blog’s gear guides are not designed for people fortunate enough to be in awesome, large guilds, nor people that are willing to endure playing with elitist fucktards that spend 20 hours of their life every week raiding so they can call things shitty or too bad for their alts that they spend 6 of those 20 hours gearing. Although I might be misinterpreting and you’re a great player that is just PMSing on some priest’s blog.
By Rekked, May 11, 2010 @ 1:57 pm
He either didn’t read the explicit intent of your article or he willfully overlooked it in order show his (alleged) gear epeen off.
Thanks for the post it was very informative. Could you tell me if there is some sort of weighting system of attributes for Holy gear the way there is for shadow priests? (In case what I mean isn’t clear, the generally followed SP one relates hit, SP, haste, crit, spirit and int to SP.) I want to know so I can do quick comparisons of gear items. Also do you know if there is an addon that will do this for holy gear? (Again there are a couple for shadow priests, but I know of none for holy)
By Kourtnie McKenzie, June 2, 2010 @ 1:23 pm
I apologize for the delayed reply, Rekked.
If there is an add-on for Holy for weighting, I’m not aware of it. Here’s a weight skill from another Wordpress blogger, but it looks like he designed it for 3.1. I don’t theorycraft heavily (my boyfriend and shadow priest friend are actually responsible for the few theorycraft posts on this blog), but instead I use a general priority for gear of: Spellpower, Crit, Int. Once my Crit is at 40%, I stop investing in it and switch completely to Int.
For Holy, Spirit is also crucial and you want to continue feeding into it until you have a healthy regen to get you through a longer fight; my sweet spot is 1k+ Spirit, but I think this is honestly variable depending on the player’s skill / casting speed. I’ve known many Holy priests that have under 1k Spirit and seem to do dandy for mana regen, but they also don’t use Grid + macros + gaming pad and are slightly slower in how they’re going through their mana. (This isn’t saying you should always be casting, but Wrath generally has this burst concept where mana reservation is a joke.)
I know this probably doesn’t answer your question, but hopefully it helps a little!