18 healing is only a downgrade in quality as long as 2mp5 retains it's value. I've noticed that between drums, pots, and tide, mana is not a major issue considering my style of play and role in raids (I'm almost never in a shadow priest group).

The excessive regen returned through consumables has made me turn so far as to begin replacing gems in gear with 18 healing, and even to seek out regen light pieces, simply because I believe the base obtainable regen is fine in the current format, especially with shaman's current scaling (when on the raid, I typically spam different ranks of chain heal on the raid, and when on tanks, use a typical healing wave spam, cancelling whenever the tank is at full). Some fights, I feel that my mana pool with consumables is so solid that instead of maintaining a mana shield, I throw up lightning shield instead (namely Hydross, where myself and a druid spot heal the raid through graves), and on Tidewalker (where I solely gather the murlocs for AOE), I use AOE totems to assist our locks/mages.

I was completely about regen going into the expansion, and starting kara, I had around 900 healing and 130mp5 unbuffed. I did fine, often topping charts(lol, healing charts), and I rarely had mana issues. I even leveled JC to 370 so I could craft Talasite Owl, which I was completely in love with (afterwards, I dropped JC, since the trinket doesn't require JC, to craft an alchemist's stone). Mana was such a non-issue, that I was often oom after paladins(pre efficiency nerf).

Now I run much more tightly, but even focusing on haste and +healing, the baseline regen on gear is enough to leave me with plenty of mana (although I admit there are some fights, such as Karathess, where I chain cooldowns at every opporitunity to maintain my pool). Even "forsaking" regen, I still sit at 140 unbuffed, but my nearly 1850 healing compliments my class (from every rank of chain heal, to healing stream, to earth shield) extremely well. I have recently stopped using my talasite owl (only wearing it on Leotheras, and may drop it on that fight soon), and haven't made use of my Alchemist's Stone in some time. I use the half cast meta gem and the scarab, for even though I don't like the unpredictability of their haste, it's power is relevant enough to beat anything else for shaman healing IMO.

I'm still chasing mp5 and now crack 300 raid buffed. I've made some sacrifices in the pursuit but as things stand right now I have no desire to go back to Earthshield even as good as it is. The thicker I can lay down the Chain Heals the better and it fits my style more to be a bit on the spammy side.

I'm secreting hoping to reach some sort of critical mass through focusing on mp5 so completely but as it stands now I don't have anywhere to go to until my guild makes better progress through the T5 zones.

I started to feel this way the more we cleared through SSC and TK. I really never ran into mana issues whatsoever as long as I was buffed (flask/food/oil) and spammed mana pots. However, now that I've hit BT, Nan'entus absolutely *starves* me for mana, and I expect Bloodboil will do the same. I would recommend holding off on re-gemming unless you plan to have a second set of gear with regen. It shocked me that with two mana tides, a shadow priest, flask/oil/food, spamming Fel Mana pots with an Alch Stone (because Super Mana just wasn't cutting it), and using the Shade of Aran trinket whenever it was up, I was still nearly OOM at the end of our kills. It made me look at the regen on my gear in a whole new light - now I can't wait to get the Karathress shaman trinket.

There seems to be an interesting trend here. Shaman are mostly saying they've stopped stacking mp5 because they don't need it. Priests are saying that you should pick whichever stat suits your play style more. Paladins and Druids seem to like a balance between the two. Perhaps this thread should be broken down to class discussions on the original topic given how much of a difference there seems to be.

Yeah, I've taken the route of just concentrating on int and +heal for my shaman's healing gear. We can hit some of the larger mana pools, and with Int stacking 30% to +heal, along with increasing how much a mana tide regens (yay for % based regen), it just works out so nicely.

I agree, i'm sure shaman and druid healers are more interested in what their class peers are doing in regards to this topic and so forth....

Regen is so very class and profession dependant that its next to impossible to say one way or the other what the "best" stat compilation is.

Not only is is class and profession dependant (i'm not an alch and do not chain chug pots with an alchemest stone), but also raid make-up dependant. Does YOUR raid bring Shadowpriests, How many Shaman's to throw down manatide, how many druids to innervate, how many with spellsurge enchants, and so on.......all you have to do to determine what stats are most important to you 1) do you go OOM? if not leave regen stats alone and get +heal 2) do you occasionally go OOM only on certain fights? if so then either up your overall regen or get a couple of extra regen oriented pieces of gear to swap for those fights 3) Do you go OOM quite often and are you having to chain-burn your CDs to keep up? then you definitely need more regen and should focus on getting that stat up.

Its all going to be an individual decision based on the factors in your raiding world. For me, I'm find at 200 regen in combat, its a good round number for me and since I'm in a casual raiding guild (just starting the Eye) that is still a long ways from BT I'm going to stick at that number until the encounters dictate otherwise.

I swap trinkets/rings/neck extensively, and for alot of fights lately I've been at 11.7k health/13.5k mana raid buffed (no flask) and find myself wanting more due to XXXX reason (enviro damage, AOE, adds, etc.). With this gear on I'm still at a decent 1750ish healing sans elixir, with a nudge over 140mp5 and 25% holy crit.

I tend to stack int and +heal lately, and mp5 has fallen to the wayside (as opposed to maybe 3 months ago when I was concerned exclusively about MP5 - I had over 200 raid buffed.), as regen is rarely an issue now with super mana chugging. I spam FOL, and throw in a random R4 HL just to get LG up, for those situations where I need to burst max HL's in rapid succession. This is where int comes into play by giving me a larger starting pool to play with.

Yes, I felt that this might be an issue, and I have definitely held onto a more balanced set of gear to compensate for such fights, with plenty of regen, plus owl/alch stone.

Stacking intellect, unless it's doing several other things passively, seems pretty bad. Once you have begun to spend mana (like, say, after the fight starts) your maximum mana pool is not an issue. The longer the fight, the less of an issue it is. Your regeneration rate is much more significant, and that becomes more true over long periods of time. Take a relatively fast 5 minute fight:

1 intellect = 15 mana
1 mp5 = 60 mana

As time continues beyond that, the mp5 continues to gain value, while the intellect has virtually none. The fact that it adds crit chance is it's only redeeming quality (barring talents that are affected by intellect. Shamans are another story entirely).

As far as I can tell, in terms of itemization, 4 intellect = 1.5 mp5. The only way the mana gained from intellect is strictly better than mp5 is if the fight lasts < 200s.

200s @ 1.5 mp5 = 60 mana

You'd be better off stacking crit chance (which, for a paladin, is mana regen and +healing on some level) or pure mp5, or pure +healing for that matter. Once you have a mana pool big enough for trash fights, you don't need more.

I think you're misunderstanding him.

Paladins receive +healing for 35% of their total intellect, much like our own spiritual guidance. By stacking int he gains +healing also.

This is also where paladin efficiency comes in. Their spells are so much cheaper that the size of the mana pool really does make a difference because they may never hit 0.

A priest has spirit regen and can utilize "burst regen" via innervates, shadowfiends, +spirit trinkets and such. Whereas a paladin's mana pool will move very slowly down and up, barring any pots or, conversely, bad chains of holy light spam.

It's not as simple as "Mp5 is > intellect" for paladins...or any healing class for that matter.

The +healing from intellect is a compelling reason to stack it, conceded. As for how cheap their spells are, this doesn't affect the "mana pool vs regen" debate. Regen is more significant as long as it is always taking place, i.e. their mana is below full, over time. Now, how their class is able to produce that mana regen is unique to the class obviously. Paladins might be better off stacking +crit than mp5 itself. Or, since their healing is so cheap, they might not need to worry about it period. But as long as you're speaking strictly about "availability of mana", mana regen will outweigh high starting mana pool as time goes on. It's easy enough to see that if you graph "mana provided" vs. time. Mana provided from mana regen starts at 0, but has a positive linear curve. Mana pool itself has an initial value, but has no rate of change. So at whatever time the mana regen crosses the mana pool, mana regen has become more valuable, and will continue to become increasingly more valuable.

I wasn't saying Shaman don't need mp5. I was simply stating that the soft cap most shaman aim for in terms of mp5 is a couple hundred lower than other classes, so perhaps this discussion should be more class-based. Please read the thread before you take what I said out of context =P

As a priest, I concur whole-heartedly with your sentiment. I hit ~ 1550 +heal soon after TBC came out, courtesy of amazing tailoring pieces for priests, and figured "ok, I'm done". My heals were hitting for enough, my renew was ticking for what I considered acceptable, and I had 220 Mp5 II5SR.

But we all like new toys, and new purplez! So I started picking up more pieces. I set myself a goal to never lose II5SR regen if I could help it (we run low on healers; time OO5SR is fairly rare during most fights), but to try to increase every other stat I could.

Weapon upgrade. Wand upgrade. Ring upgrade. Cloak upgrade. Neck upgrade.

Before I realized it, I hit 1850 +heal, and my regen hadn't moved an inch. I'd actually *gained* about 50 Mp5 OO5SR.

My point? Never say you would "prefer to stay around x +heal". +heal is a ridiculously bad scaling factor for healers, and it should never (imo) be stacked to the exclusion of all else. However, it comes for "free" on almost all of our gear, and once you're in full T5 / T6 / BT gear / etc, you *will* break 2k +heal. It's just going to happen. And that's assuming you deliberately socket for regen, and use regen enchants on bracers/chest.

I'm actually looking forward to it. I can keep stacking regen, and "for free" pick up +2k +heal. Which should allow me to increase my HPS by a significant amount, and, since tanks basically only die to burst dmg now, that would be really nice to have.

Honestly go for more +healing, you can down rank your spells saving you more mana therefor the need for heavy +regen isn't there. If your raid is taking a lot of damage you then have a lot of +healing to deal with the damage being done to you and your raid - just my 2 cents.

Ive read the thread, I just do not agree with there being a cap for mp5. I don't think there is enough mp5 gear in the game to satisfy me. Basically until I can spam heal and not run out of mana, I need more mp5.

Just back-of-the-envelope, I put the number at around 475 Mp5 raid buffed (II5SR). That's about the point that chaining pot cooldowns, with a shadow priest, it's functionally impossible for a priest to go OOM, unless you do something stupid like chain cast Holy Nova or buff mid-combat. :p

At that rate, check out a couple of our spell choices:

- CoH (Rank 5) [450 mana] - GCD
- PoH (Rank 6) [1255 mana] - 3 second cast
- GH (Rank 7) [825 mana] - 2.5 second cast (talented)
- FH (Rank 7) [470 mana] - 1.5 second cast

Note that these mana costs are untalented: depending on a priest's spec, they will be cheaper.

Obviously the highest cost spell per unit time (in mana spent) is Prayer of Healing. Assuming 0.2 seconds of lag, you could functionally chain-cast this spell on a 3.2 second timer.

That's 23,531 mana per minute.

Regen:
- 5700 from Mp5
- 2400 from Shadow Priest (~ 200 Mp5)
- 2250 from a single pot cooldown
- 12000 base mana pool

[top] 22,350

In other words, with 475 Mp5 (II5SR), a priest could chain-cast PoH for effective healing of 3,900 HPS (figure 2500 hit on PoH) for one full minute before going OOM.

This is, of course, absolute bollocks, and no-one would ever do this.

But take the basic idea, and move to a reasonable situation: say you're one of two healers healing the Tidalvas tank on the FLK fight. You can't afford to /stopcast many of your spells, unless your timing is *superb*, because of Windfury. How long could you chain-cast a direct heal on a target?

GH:7 - 825 mana per cast, cast is 2.5 seconds, assuming /stopcast so no actual latency. Assume you don't interrupt any. How long can you go?

(200+475)*t/5 + 12000 + t/5/60*2500

825*t/2.5

Solving for t gives 64 seconds.

Inserting talents into the situation, and assuming 6% chance of a Clearcast proc, and add an Insightful Earthstorm Diamond, it pushes the time up to approximately 100 seconds.

And that's assuming not ONE cancelled spell. And that's absolute worst cast scenario, almost never ever ever will you see something like this in a raid situation. And if you can deal with it ... you can deal with absolutely anything.

What do most of us run? Realistically ... 300 Mp5, raid buffed, II5SR. BoW, Mana Spring, scaling factors to our spirit (for priests/druids), mana oil, blackened sporefish, flask of resto ... you get over 110 Mp5 II5SR just for showing up to the raid.

Personally, as I start to get some gear from SSC, I'm hoping to get my self-buffed regen up to around 250 Mp5 II5SR. Then I'll have flexibility to switch stuff around based on fights for high spirit (fights where I know I can take a quick break) or max Mp5 (spam-cast fights) or even stranger things like high stam/high int (Doomwalker / Kazzak / etc).

Edit: I didn't factor in the T5 bonus at all. With that equivalence, the total sustainability length increases exponentially, especially as each uncancelled "overheal" or top-up is cheaper.

I originally valued mp5 and +heal about equally, giving mp5 a slight nod. More and more I'm finding I value +healing higher, however. This may be exclusive to shaman, but I don't really think that you can stack "too much" +heal. Our two best spells, Earth Shield and Chain Heal, make better and more efficient use of +heal than any other spells in the game. Additionally, Earth Shield almost never overheals, and the second and third jump of Chain Heal do very little overhealing, negating a commonly cited downside to stacking +heal ("it just adds more overheal").

For other classes there may be a level of +heal where you feel you have enough and start to play with other stats, but personally I look to get as much +heal as possible and make up lost mp5 with chain potting/alch stone. I'm also very often in a shadow priest group so I experience fewer mana issues than many others might. For fights that really stretch my mana thin or where I'm not with a shadow priest, I have some alternate gear that is more regen heavy, but I only swap to it when it's an absolute must.

Very true. It isn't only direct heals that benefit. As a priest, the more +heal I have, the better my PW:Shield and PoM are, and the faster my Renew will bring someone to full health.

I've always been a fan of +heal and have never really felt like I could have "too much" of it. It increases throughput and efficiency and works equally well for casting and cancelling max ranks, or for downranked heal spam. However I am considering focusing a bit more on regen from now on because at a certain gear level +heal comes naturally anyway, and higher regen gives the flexibility to use "emergency" spells more often (Flash Heal, Shield, etc.).

Regardless of your class, one thing remains constant: consumable itemization is heavily tilted in favor of FSR mana regeneration.

A flask, food buff, mana oil, and chugging pots will increase your mp5 by 147. That is a massive amount of mana regeneration. Even more if you are an alchemist. Now consider how much stamina you can stack with consumables. Less than 1000hp? +Healing is less than 100 with fish and elixir?

A lack in mana regen on your gear can easily be compensated for with consumable use. I don't think you can say the same thing with stamina or +healing.

As a human priest my racial bonuses, talents, and raid buffs multiply or are synergistic with every single stat except mp5. It is the stat I value least aside from intellect.

Aadric, that's a pretty ignorant way to look at it. Only under the assumption that you're always fully buffed and that those buffs allow you to never go oom would that logic work.

He's right though. You can make up for a lack of mp5 via consumables, buffs, and group comp better than any other stat.

Oh absolutely you can make up for a lack of mp5. More than any other stat you can stack mp5 with consumables. I'm just saying that that's a really flawed way to look at it. Even with the massive mp5 you get from consumables you can still go oom rather quickly. It'd be like saying +healing greens are the way to go since you don't want any amount of mp5 on your gear at all. 147 mp5 isn't going to keep you very long even with stacked +healing. It is an interesting way to look at it but I don't feel it's a very realistic one.