I use this for general calculating, and unless it is wrong, I see a sizeable difference at +1600 healing and 400 Spirit.

I haven't seen that one before--significantly different from my calculations indeed. Taking a look...

Update: It looks like there are a couple of errors, or at least assumptions that are significantly different from mine.

-> I set spirit to 0 because it's just getting cycled into the +healing number but the character sheet already shows it so if you just use your character sheet numbers for +healing and spirit you're going to get the wrong results. (actually, with 1600 healing and 400 spirit you get ~1750 total +healing and the ~2100 effective +healing with empowered healing).
-> With everything off, we start with slightly different numbers for the base amount of the heal. Both of us appear to be using the average of the listed spell numbers for the max ranks, but at lower ranks I have 956 ( (899 + 1013)/2) whereas the site has 982 -- a difference of almost .1 HPM in favor of downranking.
-> With all the talents off, I get the same % +heal numbers as the site does (taking into account reduction from casting time and the level limit).
-> With empowered healing on, I get somewhat different numbers. For the ranks that don't run into the level cap, the site displays 105.7 (3.0/3.5 + .2) whereas I believe the effect should be multiplicative (3.0/3.5 * 1.2 = 102.9) For rank 1 (with a level cap issue) the site gets 77.0 ( (3.0/3.5 + .2) * 51/70) instead of (3.0/3.5) * (51/70) * 1.2 = 74.9

With both of those changes factored in, I get exactly the same results on the site. Nevertheless, both of those increase the incentive to downrank by a decent margin (about 25% total).

Even if we take the site's values though, I still claim that the benefit from downranking is more the reduction in overhealing rather than the HPM difference. A 1 HPM difference between rank 1 and rank 7 is effectively 700 healing lost per rank 7 cast, but if all you did was cast rank 7 I suspect your average overheal would be a fair bit over 700. At the same time, the tank would be having larger swings in his health meaning more people would be letting spells land and leading to more almost completely wasted spells. It really does snowball ;-)

Have any of you used RegenFu or a similar mod to see how much time you are actually in/out of the FSR? As a noob healer (though not a raider, maybe that makes things quite different for me) I figured it could tell me something useful, but I'm not quite sure what to make of its results. I'm pretty sure it was giving me a larger number than 4 for "spirit needed to equal 1mp5" though.

I have lots more questions, but I think I'll hold off for now - not sure this is the right place to ask them anyway.

I don't believe that's correct, unless they changed what counts as a "spell cast" in the past few months. A while back I wrote a mod to compute the efficiency of spirit and m/5 versus intellect, so I had to test the free spell case, and it still locked you in FSR.

Of course, they've changed other things related to FSR before. For example, Channeled spells used to lock you in low mana regen only for 5 seconds from the initial cast, then revert you to full regen during the remainder of channeling. So you'd actually get a lot of mana back while Mind Controlling a monster. They've since changed it so you are always in the low regen state while channeling any spell.

I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong because to be honest i can't currently test it as i'm shadow and not willing to spend the 100g to respec and do so then respec back. In my experiences in the past though ( roughly a month ago ) it didn't put you in the FSR, and that seems to be the general consensus, even Nightshrouds' guide states that it does not trigger the FSR.

Maybe someone who is currently specced holy could test this out for us?

It seems to me that the HPM numbers are not the whole story given that you do not cast heals in packets of 1 or even 100, but rather in 2 or 3 set packet sizes(GH 1/3/7 most often). And Tanks generally do not take dmg in packets of 1 or 100 (generally speaking) but in set chunks that range from 2k to the more massive crushes recorded so far. If you can fill a set packet size for less, (i.e. if you can get a GH2 size packet out of a GH1) then you practically increase your efficiency. Adding 25 or even 75 healing is not going to enable this kind of increase.

This Healing block game is in my experience half of what a healer does, the other half being manage their mana. Landing a heal that most closely resembles the gap in a tank's life at the point it lands is something like trying to find the block that best fits the hole given. If you consistently throw a square GH7 block at a triangular 2k dmg hole you are gonna have massive efficiency problems and so on. Sometimes you cannot help but miss the mark however. For example if your tank takes a bad string of hits or maybe a crush, you will be throwing your highest heals (hopefully already being cast) and be hitting a 12k window with the best that you got.

The whole idea of +healing increasing your efficiency works in practice only when your heals better fit the gaps being made. If your tank takes 2k packets most of the time and your GH1 only hits for 1800 then adding +heal would let you cast less heals in the long run, or perhaps let you leave the renew off since you dont need the roll over healing to top off the tank. If your tank takes 2k packets and your GH1 hits for 2.1k then adding +healing isnt going to help you much unless you can buff Heal4 to hit for 2k. It seems to me that in this respect we are diff than a paladin for whom FoL can never be too big. For me GH6 works great in place of GH7 for almost all of its block/gap situations excpet for the "Oh Shit!" gap where you would want a 10k heal if you could. I would guess that in any encounter with multiple healers and expecially with hots in the mix this would be the case. So while it may not gain much at all in the way of HPM, practically it gains quite a bit given that I will be casting the same amount of GH7 size heals in a given fight and am able to cast them at a GH6 cost.

As for the Spi MP5 debate, I think the days of stacking are long gone for a number of reasons, but most importantly becuase as far as we can tell Blizzard does not want any class to turn into a 1 or 2 stat class. The changes to 3 pc Trans, Hunter formulas, Socket bonuses, and general itemization cost of stat stacking(to name a few) all point towards a desire for balanced stats from a design stand point. Take the Meditation, Spirit of Redemption(5% bonus), Spiritual Guidance and Imp. DS talents. This is Blizzard's way of trying to reward priests who choose well rounded gear. Without these talents there would be almost no reason to have any spirit on our gear unless in an encounter with significant periods of OFSR regen. Similarly, Paladins get a much higher return on Int than Priests if specced(both the bonus to +Healing and the increased spell crit). Chaincasting mode generally benefits more from MP5, but with clearcasting procs, Bangle and Inner Focus, Spi is still worth balancing with MP5.

The armor hates me (see for yourself) so the Profile will have to suffice.

edit : stupid spelling mistake.

I just logged in and tested this. Took off all my mp/5 gear to get to the point where the result would be very obvious.

-> Ran myself low on mana, stopped casting until I was out of the 5sr.
-> Cast Inner focus, was still outside the 5sr
-> Cast rank 7 gheal on myself, was still outside the 5sr
-> Messed around until I procced a clearcast, waited for myself to get outside the 5sr and the cast max rank gheal on myself. Was still outside the 5sr.
-> Got out my eye of gruul, got below 20% for the proc, waited to get outside the 5sr and cast low rank gheal on myself. Still outside the 5sr.

It really does work =) Spells with zero mana cost don't trigger the 5sr whether they be from clearcasting, inner focus, or mana cost reduction. The pally proc works differently because it gives them mana back, but for priests it's significant.

Thank you for taking the time to verify that for me Lightshadow i was starting to worry that something had been changed without me knowing it! <3

I guess the final result of beeing able to express one of them in terms of the other would be mainly as an aid in to choosing between one item with high mp5 (aswell as spirit and healing) or one with high spirit (aswell as mp5 and healing) or one with an equal distribution and also at what cut off point "the most efficient" stat equals out with the "less efficient" stat due to how ilevel is calculated.

edit: lightshadow, what about if you where chain casting and then used inner focus, did that instantly take you out of fsr or not, that one used to be the winner before kindof.

Lightshadow, thanks for doing the test. I wonder when they changed that, but it's great that we know how it works now. Free spells don't count as casts for FSR. Note that this includes Surge of Light.

The best guess is that the server tracks the timestamp of the last spell cast, and it's less than 5 seconds since that time, you regenerate at the low rate. The following things will update the last spell cast timestamp:

- Using any ability that costs mana
- Continuing to channel a spell

Perhaps the "free spells don't trigger FSR" is fallout from them changing crafting abilities to not proc "chance on spell cast" items. Crafting abilities are all "spells" but they have no mana cost. They could have just changed the "did a spell cast?" code to require a mana payment to change this, which inadvertently affected mana regeneration.

Good to see some posts.

I concur with the previous posters who confirmed that Clearcast + IF = ~ 8-10 seconds of OO5SR with 2-3 GH:7s landing (for free). It's one of the few situations that makes me happy about the state of the priest class.

It wouldn't be so much of an issue if the encounters we were experiencing were anything but a whack-a-mole fest. Here's what I see a lot of encounters being:

- the tank & spank with extra dmg coming from environment: big hits on the tank (huge hits, sometimes), with a team of healers keeping the tank alive and 1-2 healers topping up the raid
- the multi-tank situation (i.e. Maulgar, or 5-add Maggie), where each healer has an assigned task
- the crap-shoot: lots of damage being taken by everyone, no real "tank" (i.e. Aran)

Paladins outheal us on Aran. Paladins have better "nuke" heals for the tank & spank. Paladins have better quick-fast-top-up heals.

The issue is ... how do we use our uniqueness (PoH, PoM, and Renew) to make ourselves useful, when realistically (at least until 2.1 nerfs their regen) paladins are better at all other roles of the priest class. If I chain-cast GH:7 (with 204 Mp5 self-buffed) and any of the paladins in my guild chain-cast HL:11 (with 150 Mp5 self-buffed, and 20-25% crit), they will do more healing, faster, and for longer ...

But on a fight like Gruul or Magtheridon, how do we *shine*? What can we do that they can't? PoM is a nice gimmick, but it's not exactly a tank-healing spell. It's cool for initial snap aggro, and possibly to help build some aggro (like Misdirect), but it's not a tank-healing spell. Too little healing for use of the GCD.

Ideas?