When you're dealing with an exponential scaling system, the multiplier really doesn't matter, given that the difference between an unbuffed healer in greens and a raid-buffed healer in high-end epics is gigantic. Definitely more than a multiplier can adjust for.

If they want to adjust the effects of mana potions, then they should adjust mana potions, not make crazy changes to Spirit in hopes of providing infinite mana (but only to some classes!). If this is their attempt to "fix" mana potions, then it's just absolutely the wrong approach, because even if they do adjust the cost or power of mp5, it's still going to be scaling linearly while Spirit-based casters are not.

This is just a poorly-thought-out change.

It is, it really is. Pretty much just a random buff to <classes that stack high intellect>... probably mostly for mages to compensate for the whole warlock-infinite-mana-lifetapping thing and sustained raid dps. It gives arcane mages, and other mages too I guess more of a reason to stack spirit in a raidy environment, which incidentally also gives better mana regen elsewhere too.

What it does not do is benefit classes that, by their design, don't get any I5SR regen from spirit, which means these classes will continue to not get Spirit on their optimal raid gear and their mana regen will continue to suck, both inside and outside of raids. Bliz will most likely make up to this with random buffs to mana regen in the style of Water Shield, AotV and the increase of the pally mana return on judgement talent from 50% of the judged seal to 80%.

These buffs don't really scale in any meaningful way tho, well AotV does but only linearly not at x^1.5, so basically Bliz LOLs at you and their answer will probably be: get more shadow priests. "We do not attempt to balance the game, we just give out random buffs as we feel like it."

(I was going to comment on the base_regen curve but it doesn't look so bad, here's a graphic:





it isn't the same as the ratings curve, the ratio between lvl 70 and lvl 60 is only 1.39, as opposed to 1.58 for ratings, but that's justified by the shift from int focus to dmg focus... so they only have a normal-sized lulziness from the mana efficiency scaling with constant mana scaling + constant healing efficiency scaling instead of an absurd like, 3-way problem from X^1.5 mana regen scaling and healing efficiency scaling.

Sorry if anyone already mentioned this)

This is far away from exponential (which would be C^Spi). It is polynomial, and even, less than quadratic.

But I do agree that they'll have problems to tune spirit-based healers and non-spirit based healers.

I think their gameplan for WotLK is to use the expansion pack to shift the non-spirit based classes to mechanics that either use more int/spirit based stats(notably warlocks and their multiple attempts at altering life tap during the 2.4 ptr phase), or other stats they have in common with other people with the same armor class(shaman-like regen abilities for hunters in Wrath?). Not sure what exactly they'll do with paladins/druids as they're the only ones in the AC who have mana bars, but should be interesting to watch.

Either way, it is all speculation until the Wrath beta servers either come online, or fall out from being under an NDA.

What we saw in 2.4 was more than likely simply a step in the process of preparing players/etc for Wrath. The change to spirit for Priests/Mages/Druids in particular just happened to be significant enough they decided to do it now rather than spring it on us in Wrath. Any other changes they have in mind for other mana users may be flagged for further testing/evaluation, and generally considered to have been a "minor enough change" to not warrant trying to expedite releasing them pre-WotLK.

Are the "major spirit changes" still being dangled out there? Maybe I imagined it, but I'd swear the designers mentioned something about having spirit grant different bonuses for each class and to make it strong enough to be desirable.

The reason I'd say the mana regen part of it got buffed now was because they're aware of the mana pot problem. It's the second time they've addressed this consumable issue.

I don't think this is the last we've seen of the spirit buffs, and I'd say we'll likely see Paladins, Warriors, Rogues, etc. get a pile of spirit on the new WotLK gear. I'm just speculating, but it might be the next expansion's Stamina in terms of the gear reset.

Right now, spirit seems to be a stat only useful for raiding, and only to very specific talent specs. Like arcane mages. Fire and frost mages have no use for spirit. This by itself created itemisation problems and lessons the desirability and practicality of spirit.

Blizzard will have to do more changes in WotLK to make spirit anywhere on par with the other stats right now. After all, in the outside world questing/grinding, or in non-raid instances, mana is never ever a problem. So spirit is irrelevant. Similarly in pvp, spirit is also not wanted.

Thus, with the exception of specific specs who also have to be raiders to boot, a primay stat for castors is essentially useless most of the time. They can reset and re-itemize. But in the end, to make spirit more desirable, they will have to make it apply to more than just merely mana regen.

Why? Maybe this is the opportunity we've been looking for to further define the difference between PvP and PvE gear. We know already that Resilience is all-but-useless in PvE (barring Feral tanking), why not continue to develop Spirit as a stat which is all-but-useless in PvP? If Warriors and Rogues suddenly needed Spirit on their gear (Weapons, I'm looking at you), and it was completely lacking on all PvP gear, we'd see a lot less of the current need to farm arenas for PvE upgrades, which I'm sure wouldn't be a problem for most people (again, barring RNG being a complete bitch to people).

I am a tree druid in a sunwell level guild and im just curious is there anyway you can simplify all the formulas etc for me to figure out my current Spirit->Mp5 ratio?

i currently have 537 int and 563 spirit completely unbuffed and am wondering how much mp5 i will receive from any extra spirit i recieve to make gear choices. (i currently have 716 regen and 290 mp5 unbuffed also)

P.S. i tried some ghetto quick calculations and got something like 1.29 spirit per mp5. i may be way off here, just a shot in the dark.
any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: Disregard this post. found what i needed elsewhere.

5*log(level)*Spirit*sqrt(Intellect)/(6.5*level)

If below level 20, use 20 instead.