I think you'll see like Cayla said in post 217, the 2000/200 model obviously ignores OOC regen, so if you value spirirt your mp/5 will suffer. And honestly despite the people here on these forums saying they have 190+ mp/5 unbuffed, I always thought the 200 mp5 benchmark a little silly unbuffed. Even if I resocketed all my gear with 4 mp/5, and used mp/5 enchants on bracers/chest I would just barely hit 200 mp/5,( and I'd drop under 2k healing) and I doubt very many players socket their gear in that fashion. Basically 200 mp/5 unbuffed essentially assumes PMC OR precludes 2000 healing at the t5 level( or involves other sacrifices with trinkets or stamina).

And to be perfectly frank spirit is already a viable stat, and in 2.3 it will be quite silly to neglect it in favor of large quantities of mp/5. At the t6 level there is generally 3 options for a given slot, haste, mp5, or spr( usally with a lesser amount of mp5), its up to the intelligent raider to pick which pieces have the highest ilvl and/or spend their item budget in the most beneficial way to maintain a balanced and effective amount of regeneration/healing. And since the way budgets usually work is the more of a single stat that is stacked on an item the less overall stats you get. For example. Greens with sta have like 45 sta, but a different green could have 30 sta and 20 agi. So at least in general the items with spirit, healing and mp5 can offer more overall benefit than an item of equal ilvl with just a heavy focus on 2 of the 3 stats. Obviously, Gear doesn't always work out that way for example: [Staff of Immaculate Recovery] loses to [Apostle of Argus] due to apostle's higher ilvl, and some wasted itemization value on sta on Immaculate, but in general unless there is a strong need to focus heavily on one, or if the benefit is out of whack with the itemization cost ( i.e. haste rating or Royal Nightseye's 2mp5, the items with balanced values for all 3 stats should provide more gain. Holy shit run on sentences.

In conclusion I don't find those benchmarks particularly useful, and focusing on what is basically less than 2/3 of what makes a priest an effective healer is not a sound basis for making gear choices.

Furthermore I can't view your armory atm , Vihermaalii( all EU armories don't load for me), but judging from your stats( I have you beat in every category and 100+ healing if I assume you're using spellsurge) you're probably not wearing very much t6 ilvl gear, so while your guild is clearing t6, you're really only a little past the "end of t5" benchmark in terms of the actual gear you have.

Obviously, using Spirit trickle-down is a way to get a certain chunk of the noted 190-200 mp5 (and healing, for that matter)--and, after all, when you mention PMC you're talking about additional Spirit -> Mp5, so people who get a significant Mp5 boost from PMC also have rather solid OO5SR regen.

If I'm using Draenic Wisdom as I typically do, my Spirit is in the ~580ish range raid-buffed, which I feel is more than enough on the Spirit side of things to provide significant regen while using Clearcast/Inner Focus regen tricks. This is especially true when in conjunction with the Earring of Soulful Meditation. (Which, incidentally, I feel removes a lot of the need for overkill stacking of base Spirit, as almost any time you can get OO5SR for any significant period of time you will have that trinket available to you.)

I'd say aiming for around 400 unbuffed Spirit is generally a resonable target towards the end of T5 content...and generally where most Priests fall anyhow. We are more or less forced into having a certain measure of spirit simply due to its usage on our set pieces--which are obviously the prime pieces of gear for almost every slot, other than the exceptions of possibly PMC in T5 level and the Archimonde legs in T6 level...both of which alternatives also have Spirit.

Between set pieces, possibly PMC, Light's Justice, Soul-Strider Boots, Teeth of Gruul, Bands of Indwelling/Bracers of Martyrdom, and Earring of Soulful Meditation...there is no shortage of very solid items that just come with Spirit tacked on. I generally don't mention it because it is already present on the "best" pieces in (arguably) sufficient quantities, which is why I do not prioritize making an effort to "stack" it.

I agree with your conclusions at the end of this post, but if you ask me, post 2.3 the choice between SoIR and AoA isn't that easy. Even with the lower item level and not optimally balanced stats on SoIR the differance between them is tiny in the end. 8 int, 9 mana/5s, 43 healing vs 9 sta 35 spi. Let's see the differance in mana over a 10 min fight with 30% OO5SR.

132 + 120 x 9 - 120 ((0.3 x 40.425 x 0.625) + (0.7 x 40.425 x 0.625 x 0.3)) = -546

The healing comes down to -30 when you factor in DG/Imp. spirit. So, 9 sta, 546 mana vs 30 healing. Fairly close, if you're human I'd even give SoIR a slight edge. All of these calculations I've made asumes 30% OO5SR time, I'd recomend everyone to get a mod that calculates how much time they spend in/out of it. If your time out of it is signifigantly lower and your normal asignment won't allow you to change that, the value of spirit drops, though not as dramatically post 2.3.

I don't really get the point about this ratio story.

At this time I am more than midway of Black Temple with a couple of Mother Shahraz kills, but still wearing T5 stuff (except Archimonde's offhand). I know have 1867 +heal and 451/209 mana regen unbuffed. Following your discussion it seems that my choice is quite unproductive and does not match the stats I should have at the end of T5 content (still referring to T5 because I am still passing and passing on generic healing stuff and T6 in order to upgrade understuffed paladins ...).

At this time I did not faced any problem in any T6 encounter, perhaps the 2000/200 is a good benchmark but for me a 100 +heal gap between my stuff and this benchmark seems to be significant.

So what are the arguments for this benchmark ?
It could help me to understand if I should modifiy some gems/enchant in order to match it.

Thanks fellow priests.

Désespoir, Cho'Gall-FR

Really, it's just a ballpark. You always have to custom tailor stats to your own healing style and what works for you.

Although, realistically, comparing mid-BT loot to T5 loot may as well be the same thing... as other than the bracers from Winterchill, there are not any really significant Priest upgrades in BT prior to Archimonde or Shahraz+. (After which you start getting some of the more prime pieces, T6, Leggings of Eternity, Illidan weapon/trinket, etc.)

I wouldn't worry about it too heavily. Despite efforts, Priest stats really can't be quantified so clearly as one could do with DPS stats or something along those lines. Most of the people who said the 200 Mp5/2000 Healing ballparks (myself included) really weren't implying or even stating that it was a strict regimen or ratio--more that if you are dramatically different, you may want to evaluate your gear choices or get some upgrades. (e.g. if you were in the 1.6k healing range, or 140 Mp5 range...it could indicate some potential gear issues.)

I'm not sure why any Holy priest would want to have on-use +healing trinkets. Those are more useful for, say, Resto druids and shaman, for their Lifebloom and Earth Shields, respectively. If you personally use such a trinket, mind sharing why? (other than the fact that you don't have anything else available to you)

Remember more +heal is also more efficiency, on top of the situational usefulness and increased hp/s.

I have my gear socketed with 11/2 mostly,occasionally with 11/4 and 2 22 healing gems,and my innate mp5 regeneration varies between 175 and 185. With ~2.27k unbuffed healing. And looking on your gear, i did not really got why you put 15 stamina gem into your Bracers of Martyrdom,plus somehow you managed to to maintain frankly low healing and quite low FSR mp5.

I don't know if you're implying his stats are low for his gear level or low compared to yours. You're wearing four pieces of Absolution and have a couple Illidan drops, he's wearing four pieces of Avatar. His +heal seems quite standard for a priest not fully decked out in T6, and 155mp5 is only a bit lower than your stated mp5 of 175-185 (plus he is using a Bangle, which gives regen that isn't reflected on the character sheet). So I'm really not sure what you're getting at here.

Honestly... basically all your +healing over me can be accounted for from memento (albeit you logged out in a SR cloak). And the reason I socketed sta into T5 chest and Rage Bracers was because at the time my overall staminia was quite low, and I felt a bit of a buffer would not be amiss for learning Hyjal. After all I don't know how your healers were but our first couple rage kills had people die to icebolt cause healers weren't fast enough ( especially since my PoM or/PW:S is usually the first spell to arrive and if I'm icebolted I'm basically up shits creek), and for Najentus even with like Pvp neck my stamina wasn't @ 10k which is a good number for surviving the bubble break even if you get hit with a needle just before. And honestly Stamina overall is a good counter to sloppy execution

Additionally I was comparing them to [Wristbands of Divine Influence] and rather wanting bracers with more throughput/regen I thought ( at the time) a sta gem would make Rage Bracers superior in every way. And now weeks later when I have Kael's neck, Boots of Divine Light, and Apostle, and overall have more stamina than I really need the guild still doesn't have many spare Crimson Spinels, or E. Sapphires nor the recipe for 11 healing/2 mp/5 ( next week hopefully), so I don't feel a pressing need to take a second BT gem for a piece of gear. Probably the same reason you didn't replace your crimson spinel to get 15 healing/2 mp5, Vs 22 healing.

All in all, I don't have any problem with my current gear, sure my regen is less in spammy fights like Bloodboil and RoS, but thats why I have [Alchemist's Stone] and Mana potions. I value Mp5 lowly for exactly the reason thats its the easiest stat by far to raise from sources outside of gear. in 2.3 a Resto shaman in your group is goign to be worth like 120 mp/5 between Mana tide and mana Spring ( assuming I'm not terrible at math), a SP is worth around 300 mp/5, stone+ super mana pots is 140 mp5, and Fel mana pots are about 180 mp/5. pretty much any one of these situations boosts my regen by more than all my gear together. Granted I only "rely" on potions but if there was a fight where my regen simply wasn't cutting it changing group make ups would have a far larger impact than me regeming all my gear or something. Additionally Healing is a lot harder to raise on the outside. Sure... ToL aura, but besides that and amp magic there's almost nothing, and my Gear is definitely more potent than either of those.

I can see you're not using this..

Atm its overpowered (hence the nerf); It procs off ever spell, including inner focus, berserking, fade, shadow guard, instant casts like renew, PoM, CoH and go on.

Only usefull for MT healing? Half casting time on PoH is amazing, in loads of BT fights its a lote more powerfull than any other meta gem is. Half casting time on PoH is amazing, same goes for a big heal in 1,25 seconds no matter what job you're assigned to. On a tank or just a low rank GH ona random raidmember or a super fast FH to top someone's hp fast.

They are low for the gear he has,but main question i was asking is why he have both stats of mp5 and healing low,as even back then when i was progressing in T5 instances,collecting T5-quality gear,i was close to 2k,while NOT aiming to have high healing. And in case of using this maximum +healing strategy and abandoning mp5 as stats,i would have had aprox. 2.2k healing with low regeneration, which can be explained by choosing the way you progress gear-wise,but in that case - well,something doesnt look logical.

The difference in healing is indeed as much as MoT gives except that with your gem-choice strategy you should have had more healing,while i did not aim on that.

All arguments you provided are valid for the moment when you have Restoration Shaman or Shadow Priest in your group. Which,at least in my case,i never have. Also,if you value mp5 lower then healing,you could choose any +Healing trinket as they give almost as much boost to it as only weapons can give,while there are no actually good regeneration trinkets. Besides in conditions you provided,you should not care about the mana potions at all.

That part i did not really understood.

Everything is so damn situational, it's not even funny.

A lot of things are dependent on raid makeup. Personally, I keep high spirit/mp5 items in my bank still... for a dark day, but I favour +heal first, spirit second, stamina third, mp5 fourth... and somewhere between agility and strength I might look at intellect.

I change gear towards the instance/fight/raid.

Honestly, I'm not sure why you're criticizing my gear/gem choices, but if you're going to do so here why don't you provide some evidence? Show me some gear/gem/enchant options I could use to dramatically improve my mp/5 since I'm like 30-50 below where you seem to think I "should" be. Right now I'm inclined to think you simply "misremember" what your stats in tier 5 gear were like. you say "close to 2k", well I'm close to 2100. hell you say I'm using a maximum healing strategy which isn't even the case I'm only using 2 crimson spinel, and my Archimonde legs have 3 sockets none of which provide + healing ( granted I don't have access to 11/2 gems yet). In any event I'm not saying my gear/gem/enchants are perfect atm, but they are certainly functional and a lot better than some.


Which healing trinkets give a boost anywhere near the amount of boost from a weapon? maybe you should take a look at the second post in this thread. the best + healing trinket in the game if clicked every cooldown gives less than 130 healing, but I don't need nor like my + healing in bursts. On the other hand the alchemist stone is literally worth at least 50% more mp/5 than any other trinket. To be honest I don't think I should have to make an argument for the alchemist stone, but consider the following: If I wanted to use the Stone but still raise my healing by roughly the amount of martyr. I could replace my 4 gems that don't give + healing, and maybe 1-2 more with Crimson Spinel, and bam I essentially I have the same benefit(ignoring socket bonuses). On the other hand if I were to replace 6 gems with 4 mp/5 I'd still be 16 mp/5 shy of the alchemist stone. hell, I'd still be shy of what the earing could, but its a lot harder to get the best case regen out of it, but on the other hand the difference in healing is a lot less too.

Even in a more theoretical PoV it takes 6-7[Teardrop Crimson Spinel]to get 130 healing, but it takes 9-10 gems to get 40 mp/5. This says to me... Hmmm in this trinekt slot it is better if I take mp/5 and socket for healing... unless several other conditions are met, like socket bonuses with + healing, generous rounding on 9/2 gems, or simply still going oom. Also bear in mind 40 mp/5 is something of the baseline for alchemist stone there's nothing stopping me from using a fel mana potion partway through an encounter and skewing the mp/5 difference up even further.

Gearing specifically for intellect is, as you noted, dumb. But don't completely overlook it.

10 intellect is worth 1.4 Mp5 over a 10 minute fight. This can be a factor when comparing items like [Jade Ring of the Everliving] vs [Phoenix-Ring of Rebirth]. This is, of course, assuming you don't have Mental Strength, which just makes Intellect worth even more.

It's not useless. It's just not something we have to really care about. Most of us are running 12k+ raid-buffed mana pool at this point, which is large enough that we don't care to add more, and could even drop a bit if it meant more regen or more +heal.

To Vurrin: I think the odd thing about your gearing and gemming choices is just that you've hit a middle ground, which most of us are unused to seeing.

There's really two schools of thought in end-game priest gearing: push Mp5 for II5SR regen, secondary concern is +heal *or* push spirit for OO5SR regen, getting a secondary benefit of high +heal, since spirit scales with Spiritual Guidance and Imp DS.

At the moment, fully raid buffed, you'd be hitting ~580-600 spirit. Your +heal would be around 2200 or so (assuming no WoA), and your Mp5 might be at 280 or so (depends on consumables used), and assumes BoW.

Comparatively, a Mp5-geared priest should be breaking 350 Mp5, with around 2000 +heal (that's my current setup), and a spirit-based priest should be breaking 700 raid-buffed spirit, with around 2300 +heal.

Just don't see many people trying to ride the line in the middle anymore, since the play styles of the two are so very different.

Basically the rough consensus is: replace all your 10 spirit gems with 11 Healing, 2 Mp5 or [Royal Nightseye], and you'll have a fairly powerful Mp5-based gear setup. You have the best weapon and wand in the game for that setup, as well as the best pants. T5 is competitive in most of the slots, you have the best neck in the game, and the second best cloak. Might as well ride it for what it's worth, rather than trying to stack spirit for negligible gains.

Replacing the gems in your chest, bracers, and legs, and switching your [Coral Band of the Revived] for something like [Naaru Lightwarden's Band] would also go a reasonable way toward pushing your Mp5 higher. Spirit really isn't that useful to you until 2.3, unless you're willing to sacrifice Mp5 and really push it to high levels (700+). It's really difficult to do that without getting key slots: weapon, wand, bracers, and rings are usually the ones. You also have no spirit on your neck or cloak, which is another ~ 50 raid-buffed you're missing.

Typical spirit-priest slots:
Neck: [Teeth of Gruul]
Cloak: [Sunshower Light Cloak]
Wrist: [Bracers of Martyrdom] (with +10 spirit gem)
Belt: [Belt of the Long Road] (with +10 spirit gem in the blue)
Ring1: [Coral Band of the Revived]
Weapon: [Ethereum Life-Staff] *or* [Scepter of Purification]+[Light's Justice]
Wand: [Naaru-Blessed Life Rod]

Adding the items above you don't currently wear to the ones you do would easily push you over 750. But you have expensive (dkp-wise) options in the neck and weapon slots at the moment which are hard to justify replacing (or perhaps impossible, depending on your ability to access Gruul). Since you took that neck/weapon, along with the pants from Archimonde, you clearly like Mp5 ... just go all out into Mp5 for now. The hybrid build is more useful in 2.3 when spirit becomes much more competitive 1:1 with Mp5.

At least ... this is my opinion. Grain of salt and all that. I'm currently banking spirit items for a time when I have enough of them to break 700 raid-buffed, then I'm going to experiment. I'm not human, so it's a lot harder to push through that cap - I'm riding 625 or so right now -- desperately need a new weapon and a new cloak to really make it work.

Because it looks like you're trying to get everything at the same time,using 9h/2,22h and 10 spirit gems in one set of gear,while you have MP5 staff and MP5 wand.
About the evidence, i am not calling you to change your items,and what is more - i was not saying anything about getting more mp5 for you. What i am saying,is that,i think you should define with how are you progressing in your gear. And for optimum compilation of gems,i would suggest you to go fully on 22h/18h,since as you say,you do not have problems with regeneration.

[Earring of Soulful Meditation] - 66 direct +healing,+75/105 healing on use.
[Essence of the Martyr] - 81 direct healing, +298 healing on use.
[Lower City Prayerbook] - 70 direct healing.

I agree. with Constantius when I was comparing my t5 stats to my "final" stats I was a bit forlorn about how much spirit I lost, but nice as spirit is I've been tracking my OFSR time the past few weeks, and at least currently spirit is only competitive as a gem on bloodboil ( since I'm certain to get an innervate) even in 2.3 I don't think I could justify extra spirit on more fights. I just haven't rushed to replace the gems because my guild has progressed rather rapidly through Hyjal/Bt and so no JCs are revered, and paying for gems off the AH is for the birds > >

As for [Naaru Lightwarden's Band] my guild doesn't do Mag, and I've been waiting for the Paladins/shamans to get [Blessed Band of Karabor] before I took one especially since we've had no [Ring of Calming Waves] drop, Doesn't help that being trash drops we had 3 Bands in the first week, and 1 since.

Your comment on cloaks made me take a second look. I was aiming for [Shroud of Forgiveness] but now that I look again at the options [Shroud of the Final Stand] really is a far superior option for regen

Really I guess it falls back to the old rule of thumb, that spirit is nice to have but not something to shoot for. I still think that my regen is about where I like it, so I might still take "throughput" drops like Forgiveness over last stand, but it remains to be seen, in a world where we can't have everything I also need to consider what my guildmates need.

As for your spirit set which you edited in while I was replying. you're thinking of [Naaru-Blessed Life Rod] as the wand, and I actually do have teeth of gruul as well as Kael neck, but despite my earnest wish to have a really good spirit, I really don't play in that style on "new" content, and, like you, not being human i don't really get rewarded for trying either.

Vurrin, how are you tracking your OFSR time? I haven't been able find a good mod to do this.

RegenFu. Simple, easy, works. Just install FuBar and RegenFu, and go to town.

In reply to Vurrin: in the case you described, I'd say just screw the spirit, and stack healing and Mp5. You have the gear to support it, so just dump those 10 spirit gems, and start using [Royal Nightseye] again. Those pants you have are absolutely sick with 3 of those in them, and the bracers remain competitive. T5 itself isn't terrible if you socket for Mp5, although it still doesn't come close to Primal Mooncloth.

Factoring in your [Alchemist's Stone], your regen is basically the same as mine (I forgot to factor in that 40 Mp5 from chain-potting), and I'm finding that I *just* have enough mana to get through boss fights now. I'm fine on easy things like Supremus, and straining on Naj'entus, but that's normal. Anyway, I'm babbling. :p

I've been running various numbers over the last couple days and putting together a spreadsheet based on my formulas in my other thread in addition to new data.

Will be posting it shortly, however want to debug some stuff first...

However, general result seems to be that the pure +Spirit gems still don't stack up very well, even with all the changes to Spirit incoming. The only time they seem to be competitive are if you have PMC+Human bonuses, and even then it is questionable. Once PMC gets dropped (or if you aren't Human) the Spirit gems just can't keep up with 11 healing/2mp5, 9 healing/2mp5, or 18/22 +Healing gems.

Due to downranking and efficiency issues, my results seem to show the pure +Healing gems as the best all-around value, with the 11 healing/2mp5 gem a bit below +18 healing in value. 11 healing/2mp5 gems are still very solid, though, especially for use in certain socket bonuses.

Even though Spirit's value is increasing, it is not going to fundamentally change the way you look at most pieces of Priest gear. If anything, it's a nice little bonus to set pieces or already nice items with Spirit on them. "Stacking" Spirit is still not something I would recommend.

As an aside..."[Coral Band of the Revived] for something like [Naaru Lightwarden's Band]"? I honestly wouldn't even consider that. Coral Band of the Revived is probably the best Priest ring in the game right now, and even moreso after the patch. Considering 30% OO5SR time (which is rather average) you're swapping ~30 +healing for 1.6 mp5 even before the patch. That's not even remotely resonable of a tradeoff. After the patch, the ring is 85 healing/6 mp5, not even considering the 19.4 OO5SR regen, compared to 55 healing/8 mp5.

Given this example, Spirit can be a very useful stat. It's really a mistake to look at a gearset as either "Spirit gear" or "Mp5 gear." You have to consider every item on a case-by-case basis, and consider what it contributes to your gearset statistically speaking.