Mana vs damage/healing is a balancing act. Mana regen improves with gear, while spending remains the same (if not cheaper with some relics) and of course damage/healing needs to scale ever upward.

Mana vs Damage is reasonably straight forward, as it is your mana pool vs the bosses health. You are effectively chain casting or using cast rotations regardless of the bosses HP.

Healing, not so.

If you were healing an elite with 5 million HP then it would be identical to the short damage example above (a little like Razuvious or the second AQ20 boss).
However under most normal situations you have to cover around 20k health from 5-6k hits and some spikes. Overheal is present, while I have yet to see people complain about over damage on a boss.

Most healing can be looked at in two ways. Efficiency and Effectiveness.

Efficiency: Casting heals that provide the most benefit for the lowest over all mana cost. This means you're getting some healing out but can stretch a mana pool. This is ideal in situations you're mana starved, typically a long fight or one with a mana drain, however it is also not optimal for your targets survival.
When healers are forced to conserve mana they'll usually be one of many on the same target. This is not very common anymore in these new encounters due to a combination of encounter design and smaller raid size.

Priests can downrank slightly Gheals, Druids Lifebloom and wait on the 5SR, pallies spam flash of light, shaman down rank healing way(?). Every class has a way to be more efficient.
What is important is that healing efficiently, you'll spam these regardless of tank HP.

Effectiveness: Now we come to healing effectively. What I mean by this is as a healer you'll cast the heal most suited for the situation regardless of mana cost (doesn't mean spamming the most costly heal but a full range of heals for the situation). This is important because with this new content, lots of raid wide damage and some crazy spikes a healer needs to be on the top of their game. Also one reason why 'dedicated' healers are assigned, in order for them to focus on the incoming damage and judge the best heals for the situation.
When healers need to heal effectively there will usually be less on the same target. Also there will usually be mana returns in place, such as Spriests/innervates/mana pots.
This is the most common healing 'method' in TBC and I'd imagine everywhere beyond.
Healing needs to match the encounter. Mana pools will follow.

Now I'm going to go into detail a little with druid healing, as... well... I'm a druid. :P

First thing to note, is that druids are insanely mana efficient, regardless of what you do.
20% cost reduction of spells in tree can be equated directly to 20% more mana. You'll get 20% more out of a mana pot, 20% more from each mana return tick out of a Spriest/innervate/MP5 etc. So right there they pull ahead a little.

Next thing you need to be aware of is that a tree druid maintaining lifebloom (as they all should since the fix) is locked into the global cooldown. They'll throw up their lifebloom every 6-7 seconds and need to do it again within the next 6-7 or risk it falling off.

So for a tree druid, mana consumption becomes very much tied to the global cooldown.

The final thing to consider, is that spirit for a tree is an extremely important stat. Not only for their own mana regen and innervate, but also the tree aura. So in stacking spirit for the heal aura, they'll gain a high mana regen without any effort at all. In this case it's not a matter of swapping MP5 for +heal if you don't go oom.

Of the casting options a tree has Lifebloom, Regrowth, Rejuv.

Lifebloom: Are the bread and butter of tree healing. They are insanely mana efficient and will need to be kept up on the main target the tree is healing. They're also the best choice for topping up most raid damage. These can be spammed forever without going oom. So if you're looking for something to cast, throw these around on people everywhere if you think they might take damage. It's hardly wastefull to do so.

Regrowth: Is the 'burst' heal for a druid (when swiftmend is not available). Terribly mana inefficient (though it is relative) and the only heal a tree will cast with a cast time. Keeping in mind the druid will need to refresh a lifebloom stack every 6-7 seconds, a regrowth has to be casted more strategically. If used on the raid, it'll usually be used on someone you suspect will take more damage very soon, and if they do, can be followed with a swiftmend or on a tank if you don't have another healer there to pick up any slack (or swiftmend is on cooldown). The nature of this is that it should not be used lightly, regardless of your mana pool.

Rejuv: There are two things important about this spell. One is that it lasts longer than a lifebloom and can stack along side it. For high damage (usually the MT) this will be running alongside the bloom . Most importantly however it opens up the possibility for Swiftmend.
This is the spell that can be used more liberally with mana constraints out the window. However even with this, a lifebloom can be more effective as it heals faster, while also giving a portion of the heals threat to someone else.

Bottom line for a tree healing, if you are casting something every global cooldown you are healing as much as you possibly can. A lot of trees do not actually need to pot very often so long as they innervate themselves. There are not many ways to cast inefficient spells for greater healing output. As a trees gear improves, their spirit will rise (for the aura) and so will their mana regen. The mana consumption however will not change.

Which brings me to the inevitable point. Innervate can be casted upon other players. So "if a tree was to pot gaining 'effectively' 20% more mana, could they not cast innervate on someone else?"
Short answer, yes, with heavy restrictions.
Rant answer:
It's spirit based, pure and simple. There are only a few classes that will benefit from it. Of those non-priests/druids that do not stack spirit, it's worth about as much mana as a single pot. On an 6 min cooldown. While on the druid / priest it can be worth as much as 3 pots.

This means that in theory you could squeeze a little more mana out by having the druid chain pot (assuming that covers their mana spending) and having them innervate a class that may not have as much spirit but is also chugging mana pots every cooldown.

The drawback of this however is that if a healer suddenly needs to heal less efficiently for whatever reason (another healer dies, tank takes more damage etc etc) or if a healer receives a SS / Brez in combat then you'll have this spell ready to restore them.

The other use (and imo the better use) of this spell, most notably in these 10 min fights, is that it has an 6 min cooldown. If not saved for an 'oh shit' moment, it can be used twice in one fight. This means that you can heal harder on the pulls than you would normally, and for druids means you can burn a little more mana getting hots up and stacked faster. It's especially important when your healers can, and usually will be struggling with mana around the final 1-2 mins of the encounter. Having innervate pop up then is lifesaving and worth its weight.

Regarding Innervate, there is also the issue of Shadow Priests, who while will not have close to as much spirit as a healing Druid or Priest, will be able to knock out not only more damage for themselves but share out that mana gained to their party.

However being able to count on my own Innervate (Ferals can IV the others) allows me to push my healing alot further knowing that I have a second mana pool waiting for me.

I also aim to keep enough Spirit to allow Innervate to enable me to gain somewhere between 80-120% of my mana pool when used (while healing as normal), I believe if it regenerated more than that I would feel wasteful on using it anytime except when I am almost OOM and most likely waste a potential CD on it due to 'saving' it till then.


Although this is slightly off-topic as its more of a Druid issue, I would like to note against your idea of Regrowth, as I personally use it with success quite liberally, it depends on your playstyle and your task in the raid.

Rank 8 costs 484 to 457 mana per cast (Idol + ToL),
1700 instant + (360*7 = 2500~) HoT = 4200 healing done.
Add in 800 on the instant from a crit heal = 5000 healing done.
Add in another 700~ Healing done if you have 2x T5.

Thats potentially 5700 healing for 457 mana which equates down to something like 12HPM assuming its all effective healing (best case scenario).
Not to mention you have alot more chance of being able to use swiftmend (21-27sec) on people to increase the healing on them (2200) should they require, it is not that bad anymore as it used to be.

For Tank healing Lifebloom stacking is undoubtably supreme in terms of mana and HPS, for raid healing however I will stand by Regrowth being up there with Lifebloom, if not even above it in quite a few cases.

As to Spirit being a favored stat to increase the aura and mana regeneration, 10 (or 9 with the the 15% extra Spirit talent) Spirit grants you 1MP5 roughly for us.
Using the Rage bracers you have a comparison of 28 Spi vs 8 MP5, where 28 Spirit should give you around 3 MP5 (mine gives me 2... odd), so does the rest of that Spirit (25% of which is around 7 per party member) make up for the 5 MP5 difference?


Please note Innervate is a 6 min CD not 8.

Not entirely, no. Assuming of course constant casting. However as your gear increases, for a tree there are two things that must scale infinitely. +healing, as damage and health scales, and +healing on the aura. In gearing for the aura you're gearing for mana regen also.

The way I see it, as gear increases (and mana costs do not) classes will find a plateau where they have enough mana regen to last a fight in even some worst case situations (this includes all outside sources of mana, and of course not being wastefull with mana just because they have it). At this point more MP5 etc would be wasted, and should be itemised for more +healing.
Spirit for druids IS +healing in a sense, and is itemized in the same way. Without limitation. This means we see trees with more regeneration than they need, and therefore don't actually need to use quite as many outside resources for their mana.


Whoops, haha. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll correct that.

Abs - My contention is that our healers operate in 'efficiency mode' too often (and presumably other healers have this problem also). We still have many main tank deaths while healers have plenty of mana. Often this is because one healer is incapacitated - graved, tombed etc - and the other healers are stuck in their 'efficiency is better' train of thought.

Anyway, this is better suited to guild forums, but I'd be suprised if we were the only guild suffering tank deaths in SSC while healers have mana

The majority of healers still downrank most of their spells, and as gear improves (namely mana regeneration and mana pool) it allows them to potentially uprank those spells to improve healing even more.

Simply going from R8 -> R9 Regrowth on one Teron kill I noticed a significant change in my mana endurance from generally being pretty relaxed to being near-starved.

If you do not wish to uprank your abilities at all and are content on the ones you use, then finding a point where you will not go oom while using those spells means you can ignore any forms of extra mana regeneration or pool and focus on pure healing.

Just remember that while int is never going to match other stats per point of itemization no matter what class or spec you have, many cases will force you to choose between int and other stats in different amounts that won't be that straight-forward. For example 8 int has the same itemization cost as 9 spell damage, but what if you had to choose between 20 int and 9 spell damage on some items with different item level (or different amount of stats used for stamina or some useless stat)?
My point is you need to figure out how good every stat is for your spec by how much it increases your ability to do what you need to do, and then use that to compare between items. Realizing what's the best stat to get per itemization cost only helps you that much when choosing what to use - generally only applies to most gems and gives you a general guidline rather than actually let you know which items are actually better (for example, comparing T5 shoulders to illidari shoulderpads for an arcane or fire mage).

Abscond, how do you rotate your mana regen options? Do you:

Fel Mana pot at 8K out of 11-12K mana
innervate at 2K
Super mana pot at 6K
Super mana pot immediately when timer is up
Super mana pot immediately when timer is up
innervate when timer is up if needs be
repeat?

I hate having my pot timer up and not using it but I really don't get as much use out of innervate as I'd like to; I tend to like having my cooldowns up and ready to use for emergency. I have an alc stone and this is what I do during boss fights; I don't know if it is very efficient or not.

You have 590 Spi unbuffed which is around the same amount as I do with Bangle activated and raid buffed, what aren't you getting out of it...?

I just happen to think that there has to be a 'most efficient' rotation of mana regen abilities (i.e. pots and innervate); I was wondering how other people cycle through them. I.E. Using innervate first then cycling through pot timer, or using pot timer then innervating, or something else I haven't thought of.

edit: Or even using Blue Dragon card instead of Alc Stone. I still run out of mana/end up waiting on timers usually at around 12 minutes.

Pretty sure if you're chain-potting alchemist stone is going to be way more mana than blue dragon (chaining SMPs alchemist stone becomes 40mp5... average up time for blue dragon is going to vary depending on your number of spellcasts per minute, etc., but I think it will fall short of this). Personally I use my non-consumable mana regen options (for me: shadowfiend) first because I'm cheap and hope it will save me a potion. There is probably an optimal rotation but you probably need to know exactly how long the fight will be to determine it.

Ah, but 1 spirit also equals 0.1 spell damage. Did I neglect to mention that? (Imp DS, of course)