Most people's first reaction to that question is: "Priests, duh!", and I've been on PUG raids with other high-end players whose raid leaders would call out "Druid X Innervate Priest Y", but my old GM once told me that Shamans get the highest mana per spirit of any healing class (I'm guessing the same would hold true for Paladins). Ideally no one would ever need to be Innervated, but there come times where you need to start spamming FH, LHW, FoL, and in those situations Priests have their talent/set bonus allowing that lovely 30% of regular mana regen to continue whilst Pallies and Shamans are stuck relying on Totems/Blessings only.

So, my first reaction would be to let the Druids use it on themselves first if they want, but after that would it make more sense to Innervate a Shaman/Paladin? I've seen Mages Innervated on very AoE intensive fights before and it worked out pretty nicely, so that got me thinking about the other healers (Warlocks may continue to leech off my Renews). I'm fairly certain that Paladin/Shaman gear is much less devoted to Spirit, even moreso with Tier 3 gear, so I guess this question is mainly for early/pre-Naxx guilds. This is all based on the assumption that the 100% allowed mana regen doesn't stack with talents/gear in some way (Something else I've never really heard anything about).

The best target for your innervate is your best player in the best gear that needs the most mana, regardless of what class they play.

There's two things to consider when deciding who gets Innervates.

The first, which you covered, is 'who gets the most mana from it'? Debatable I suppose, my feeling is Priests and Druids are probably roughly on par if they both have 3/8 Tier 2.

The second thing to consider is, 'who gets the most value from that mana?'. This is a question of who uses the mana most efficiently, and it's when you have to start looking at gear builds & playstyles of individual people. All things being equal, I would say Paladins for Alliance, Priests for Horde.

Warlocks on DPS fights. :D

3/8 tier 2 no longer affects innervate.

In general, Priests get the most mana from it by a pretty big margin, due to having the best regen formula (which leads to them wearing more spirit gear, as well). Druids get about 20% less benefit from spirit, and paladins tend to avoid spirit, as they have 0% regen while casting (and don't really run out of mana anyways). DPS casters tend to have about half as much spirit as healers.

However, unless you're using a specific strategy that involves spending a lot of mana (PoH spam on Huhu, for example), you should never need to specify who to innervate. If someone is consistantly running out of mana, they're either doing something wrong or not using consumables -- and if it's the second, the last thing you want to do is encourage them by tossing innervates thier way. What class benefits the most from innervate is completly irrelevant, as unless you're doing MC in greens, having enough people running out of mana for it to matter should be the rare exception.

I steal 1-2 Innervates on our Thaddius kills. Not because Innervate is necessarily great for shaman, but because I can cast Chain Heal. Chain Heal is amazing on encounters like Thaddius and Gothik, so on those encounters the more mana I can take from a class without Chain Heal the better. Our effective healing meters look pretty funny on those fights. I get to be the 'ignite mage' of healing classes. Remember though, Ten Storms and Stormcaller are not healing upgrades if you have Earthfury!

Priests get spirit/4, all other healers get spirit/5. Priests gennnnerally have the most spirit on their gear too. As such, conventional wisdom is "best-geared priest" although of course it's generally not the best-geared priest running out of mana.

Any well geared druid or priest who needs it is a good target. Shamans and paladins rarely have that much spirit and they don't benefit from it as much etc etc when they do have it. Anyone trying to tell you that shamans/paladins get more out of innervate is trying to get you to help increase their personal standing on the healing meter :) Edit: Other than in exceptional circumstances like that mentioned by Sebudai above. Similarly I can see legit times for innervating mages too, but most of the time a mage will have all the mana they need and will pull aggro anyway if they nuke so much they run out of mana after gems and evocation.

I believe, although I'm not actually certain, that Paladins get the same formula as Priests for mana regen.

However, most Paladins aren't pushing spirit (I'd be lucky to get 150 raid buffed).

Essentially, pick a Priest that's <50% mana, otherwise a Druid, then Shaman/Paladin, otherwise go for Warlocks/Mages/Hunters. Spirit isn't a primary stat for Paladins/Shaman/Warlocks/Mages/Hunters, hence they get less benefit from Innervate.

Mathematically, priests will get the most benefit due to the more effective spirit regen formula (which is also supported by priest itemization). The way it works in my guild though is whoever whines first and loudest for one gets it: If the druids haven't already innervated themselves then they'll throw one out to that player.

I've even managed to ninja a couple on the very unusual runs when I've been shadow specced and DPSing before the druids realised what was going on.

I get around 447 spi raid buffed. Innervates usually give me somewhere around 6k mana back. Since our gear is heavily loaded with spirit, we get relatively massive returns on Innervate, and substantially moreso than the other classes.

Druids and Mages are probably the best recipients. The only fights in Naxx where my mana needs aren't handled by my own regen are Patchwerk and Sapphiron, and for those I can just mana oil / mageblood / regen food. If everyone in the raid's doing their job Priests should never need innervates.

To figure out who is "best" by comparing who has the highest spirit regen rate seems fairly naive.

You could just as easily make the argument that although priest may get the most raw mana out of it, a oom paladin needs it more, since there's no way for him to regen mana while simultaneously healing (while priests can hr2 or whatever).

In otherwords, this is a pretty stupid question. It totally depends on fight, gear, and assignments. I could make a really good argument on why hunters benefits the most from inno on ebonroc.

Yes.

I Innervate Shamans on Patchwerk, Mages on Nef P1/Supression Room (and their ilk), one of our +healing Druids/Priests on other fights where I don't need it. I'll pretty much never cast it on a +MP5 healer, or a warlock. If warlocks need mana, I'll regrowth them and innervate myself (this may change at loatheb)

Mages need it the most while conjuring water

Warriors, obviously, and I'll tell you why. If a caster gets innervated, mobs die faster and tanks live longer, yadda yadda. However, the two times I've been innervated, the relentless verbal abuse has lifted the raid's spirits and allowed us to overcome immense challenges... actually no but it was funny.

Our Innervate policy has somehat changed through the instances. Back in BWL it was common to have all priests oom and the druids answering with "2 minutes cd still". This was partly due to bad drop luck for the priest class and partly to the priest having carried over their flash-heal-spam playstyle from Molten Core.
During our progression through AQ this somehwat changed as the priests caught up in itemization and changed their playstyle to downranking the slower healing spells.
Nowadays in Naxxramas, with (Alliance-) buffed 161 mp/5 and around 1k +heal our priests rarely ever need Innervates, and quite often the fire mages get it.
The only time I have seen Paladins receive Innervates was the MT-healing Paladins on Patchwerk.

Mages and Priests have the highest mana regen. However, priests and druids are heavy on spirit gear, so they would get most mana out of Inn.

Innervate Hunters. :quagmire:



















You think I'm kidding? DO IT! My blue bar is always empty. :(

Yourself or a mage.
Priests don't really seem to have more mana issues than druids after their revamp, even though they might get more mana out of it, pacing your heals with the knowledge that you can use that innervate on yourself helps a lot.
If the encounter requires heavy dps and the healers can manage without innervates, it goes to a mage.

I think our MT gets most innervates in the guild..

But as most have said, while mages and priest profit most of it, it is purely situational. It happens from time to time that some healer dies and I have to put up my heals a rank or 3, and sometimes even with full mana pot usage I dont make it.

In our guild druids just use it on themselves most of the time, unless someone in the healer channel shouts he needs an inner (our druids suck big time usually though, so most inners will be already used on themselves by then).

The regular mage inner on AoE or priest on PoH happends alot aswell ofc.

In my guild we tend to use innervates on druids. The main reason that we tend not to use them on priests is, as alliance, priests can wand for mana with a Judgement of wisdom up while most of the times druids would be cleaved to death if they ran up to melee. It makes more sense for us to regen those who have no way to regen beyond waiting on nat regen and 3-piece SR bonus.

I highly suggest you never innervate a paladin...ever. With only 50 spirit on Judgement and none on redempetion it would be useless to use it. The only set for paladins that have a decent spirit seems to be Lawbringer, with 92, but if your paladins are still wearing 8/8 lawbringer you most likely have bigger issues. As a recipient of an innervate on my paladin alt(5/8 lawbringer) I regen'ed a pathetic amount of mana when I could have just used a mana pot for the same amount.

Mages I have never thought of and I think it would be a good idea to suggest that to the druids in my guild. With Judgement of Wisdom it doesn't seem to be a major issue but I can see it being a major help in certain fights like Nef pt1.

that is still the best bet though for innervates :)