The reason why int is so valuable as a stat, is basically because of Replenishment, which grants you a huge regen bonus, and that bonus does not depend on spirit. Given the 3.1 nerf to regen, the amount of mana you gain before adding Replenishment, is 60% of what you would get before 3.1. However, this does not affect Replenishment, making it even better. As the above poster already said, you will not see spirit take over until late in Ulduar.

Done.

Bug Report Forum.

Some napkin math for BiS & set items, due to the fact that there are some non-set pieces that are significantly better then T8. Assuming the 4pc set bonus is mandatory, there is only one slot where you'd be allowed to use an offset item. Here are the best candidates from what I can see:

[Shoulderpads of Dormant Energies]
[Gloves of the Frozen Glade]

Using 19sp for red, 9sp/8spirit for blue, and 9sp 8int for yellow, here are the comparsions:

Using offset shoulders + t8 gloves:
145 stam
133 int
129 spirit
103 crit
232sp

Using offset gloves + t8 shoulders:
145 stam
141 int
125 spirit
48 haste
55 crit
226 sp

In my particular setup, I was 38 haste off being GCD capped w/ GoTEM with both shoulder/glove slots empty. So I'd use the offset gloves. If you dont need the haste however, use the shoulders.

Thought i'd share~

Not to continue the nourish/regrowth/GHT argument here, but regrowth benefits very little from crit rating. I'm gonna continue my no-crit policy, which will sadly be broken for 4t8.
For a true BiS list you need to wait for all the hard modes to be beaten, anyway.

Stop posting dumb and incorrect stuff. Spirit scales only with intellect so having 1400 or 1800 or 1000 spirit will have no effect on how much mana additional spirit gives. Intellect scales with spirit and negatively with itself.

Mana per 1 point:

Intellect

Spi\Int	1200	1300	1400
1600	65.619743430052	64.498473713937	63.499545832644
1700	67.40685239443	66.215503321058	65.154142447185
1800	69.193961358809	67.932532928179	66.808739061725

Spirit

Spi\Int	1200	1300	1400
1600	49.335734256551	51.350260280279	53.288683480377
1700	49.335734256551	51.350260280279	53.288683480377
1800	49.335734256551	51.350260280279	53.288683480377

Assumptions in the calculations; kings, living spirit, imp. motw, replenishment, one non-glyphed innervate, 8m fight.

Lets see some figures. Taking the 1300/1700 as an example, int is worth 0.69mp5, which spirit is worth 0.535. 1 point of spirit also gives 0.193 SP. Now, most druids will agree that 1 SP > 1 int.
So, converting to Int-equiv-points, 1 int is worth 1. Spirit is worth 0.535/0.69 + 0.193 or 0.97.
Question is how much you value SP compared to mana regen. By giving a bit of an extra weight to SP Spirit surpasses Int.
Regardless, I wouldn't call the SP gains stupid or negligable.

The only place the spirit vs intellect choice will matter is sockets. Getting spirit gear is obvious due to how the itemization formula works and getting haste/crit/hit/mp5 which is what you'd get if you didn't pick spirit gear is even worse. Lets say you have 10 sockets and you want some spellpower and regen from those sockets. You go with either 2x runed + 8x luminous or 10x purified.

2x runed + 8x luminous would give you 19*2+9*8=110 spellpower and 8*8*66.2155=4237.792 mana.
10x purified would give you 9*10+80*1.02*1.10*1.15*0.15=105.4836 spellpower and 8*10*51.3503=4108 mana.

Socket bonuses might drive the result some other way but that's why everyone rolled JC.

Your basic argument is flawed. You have assumed large differences (400-600) between the values for Spirit and Int, this will skew your results. Since the amount of spirit is based off the Sqrt(Int), obviously that number (int) also needs to be higher to get the most out of your mana regeneration. Since most gear has a fairly even spread of both stats, assuming that the numbers will be closer together will yield more realistic results. As you stated, most of our choices actual revolve around what gems we chose.

Also, Spirit in general gets a higher multiplier. Kings and Living Spirit affect Spirit, while Int is only impacted by Kings. In The mana regeneration formula:

5 * (0.001 + sqrt(Int) * Spirit * 0.003345)

Now Lets add our buffs

5 * (0.001 + sqrt(Int * 1.1) * (Spirit * 1.1 * 1.15) * 0.003345)
or
5 * (0.001 + sqrt(1.1 * Int) * (1.265 *Spirit) * 0.003345)

For those of you who don't consider yourself great with mathematics lets look at how some numbers compare
1000 Int = sqrt(1.1 * 1000) = 33.16
1000 Spirit - (1000 * 1.265) = 1265

1500 Int = sqrt(1.1 * 1500) = 40.62
1500 Spirit = 1500 * 1.265 = 1897

Now obviously Spirit gives us more RAW numbers. However, since this is a mana regeneration formula, and spirit and intellect are related, a better indicator of actual performance would be to check which value gives us the greatest percentage increase.

Int (40.62/33.16) = 1.2249
Spirit (1897/1265) = 1.499

So as we can see, in terms of the mana regeneration formula, adding spirit to gear will lead to a higher return rate than adding a point of intellect. Now it just becomes a matter of time and gear until spirit becomes the better gear to stack.

Aside from the gains Int gives to the mana regen formula (Which we have just proven scales worse than Spirit), all of the other methods of gaining mana by Int result in static values. Replenishment, Mana Tide, and even the amount of mana 1 point of Int gives are all set values, which do not scale with anything. Simply, 1 point of int = X mp5. Since these values do not change, it becomes a numbers game of when, not if, spirit will finally overtake int as our top regen stat.

When Wrath came out, there was no argument from me that Int was the only regeneration statistic to stack. Currently I will also say that it is still the best regeneration statistic available to us. But, as guilds start clearing Ulduar, this line will become more and more fuzzy, to a point where they will be about even. My current projections have Int being worth .59 mp5, while spirit being worth .50, (assuming equal spirit and Int Values) although I have done this without a complete gearing list. Once you factor in that 1 point of spirit on gear = 1.265 spirit on you = .1875 Spell power...then the choice becomes one of personal preference. I at this point would chose spirit, but if someone felt that their mana regeneration was still lacking, the difference between the two wouldn’t be big enough for me to tell them that they were wrong.

Also, don't assume everyone changed to JC simply because you did. I'd suspect that Resto Druids with JC as a profession make up much less of the population that you suspect.

Do you want me to extend the table for all values 1000-2000 or something?

Intellect:

Spirit ->	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	1900	2000
Intellect
1000	56.60	58.56	60.52	62.47	64.43	66.39	68.35	70.31	72.26	74.22	76.18
1100	55.69	57.56	59.42	61.29	63.16	65.02	66.89	68.76	70.62	72.49	74.36
1200	54.90	56.68	58.47	60.26	62.05	63.83	65.62	67.41	69.19	70.98	72.77
1300	54.20	55.91	57.63	59.35	61.06	62.78	64.50	66.22	67.93	69.65	71.37
1400	53.57	55.23	56.88	58.54	60.19	61.84	63.50	65.15	66.81	68.46	70.12
1500	53.01	54.61	56.21	57.81	59.41	61.00	62.60	64.20	65.80	67.40	69.00
1600	52.50	54.05	55.60	57.15	58.69	60.24	61.79	63.34	64.89	66.43	67.98
1700	52.04	53.54	55.04	56.55	58.05	59.55	61.05	62.55	64.05	65.56	67.06
1800	51.62	53.08	54.54	56.00	57.46	58.92	60.37	61.83	63.29	64.75	66.21
1900	51.23	52.65	54.07	55.49	56.91	58.33	59.75	61.17	62.59	64.01	65.43
2000	50.87	52.25	53.64	55.02	56.41	57.79	59.18	60.56	61.95	63.33	64.71

Spirit:

Spirit->	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	1900	2000
Intellect
1000	45.04	45.04	45.04	45.04	45.04	45.04	45.04	45.04	45.04	45.04	45.04
1100	47.24	47.24	47.24	47.24	47.24	47.24	47.24	47.24	47.24	47.24	47.24
1200	49.34	49.34	49.34	49.34	49.34	49.34	49.34	49.34	49.34	49.34	49.34
1300	51.35	51.35	51.35	51.35	51.35	51.35	51.35	51.35	51.35	51.35	51.35
1400	53.29	53.29	53.29	53.29	53.29	53.29	53.29	53.29	53.29	53.29	53.29
1500	55.16	55.16	55.16	55.16	55.16	55.16	55.16	55.16	55.16	55.16	55.16
1600	56.97	56.97	56.97	56.97	56.97	56.97	56.97	56.97	56.97	56.97	56.97
1700	58.72	58.72	58.72	58.72	58.72	58.72	58.72	58.72	58.72	58.72	58.72
1800	60.42	60.42	60.42	60.42	60.42	60.42	60.42	60.42	60.42	60.42	60.42
1900	62.08	62.08	62.08	62.08	62.08	62.08	62.08	62.08	62.08	62.08	62.08
2000	63.69	63.69	63.69	63.69	63.69	63.69	63.69	63.69	63.69	63.69	63.69

I'm sure you can figure out what green color means. Same assumptions as last post. You'd need atleast 100+ more intellect then spirit (and that's at 1900 spirit) for one point in spirit to give more mana then intellect. As you yourself also noted spirit scales higher then intellect thanks to living spirit so getting gear that will give you more intellect then spirit is close to impossible.

Are you assuming a 100% uptime on Replenish? An better value for replenish is closer to 80%, and thats a conservative reduction. I've seen it much lower. I'd be interested to see how that changes your calculations.

Edit:
Please dont take my posts as combatitve. The table you provided is actually pretty useful. A 100% uptime for replenishment is simply to high. Even on a patchwerk type fight, with 4 characters providing it (Survival Hunter x2, Shadow Priest, Ret Paladin) replenishement is much closer to 80% than 100% in my own experiance. This number dips down even further as fights become more complicated.

I would like to see your formula's used if I could, but baring some minor tweaks, this is a very nice chart. I would also recommend converting total mp5 gained into mp5 per stat point, but thats just my personal preferance.

As an aside, using the values from the chart you’ve just provided for us (without taking into account the reduced values Int should receive due to a reduction in the replenishment calculations.)

At 1100 Int/1100 Spirit:
2x Runed, 8x Luminous
19 x 2 + 9 x 8 = 110 SP
8 x 8 = 64 x 57.56 = 3683 Mana

10x Luminous
9 x 10 = 90 Spell Power
8 x 10 x 57.56 = 4604 mana

10x Purified
9 x 10 + 8 x 10 x 1.02 x 1.1 x 1.15 x .15 = 105.58 SP
8 x 10 x 47.24 = 3779 Mana

At 1200 Int/1200 Spirit:
2x Runed, 8x Luminous
19 x 2 + 9 x 8 = 110 SP
8 x 8 = 64 x 58.47 = 3742 Mana

10x Luminous
9 x 10 = 90 Spell Power
8 x 10 x 58.47 = 4677 mana

10x Purified
9 x 10 + 8 x 10 x 1.02 x 1.1 x 1.15 x .15 = 105.58 SP
8 x 10 x 49.34 = 3947 Mana

At 1300 Int/1300 Spirit:
2x Runed, 8x Luminous
19 x 2 + 9 x 8 = 110 SP
8 x 8 = 64 x 59.35 = 3798 Mana

10x Luminous
9 x 10 = 90 Spell Power
8 x 10 x 59.35 = 4748 mana

10x Purified
9 x 10 + 8 x 10 x 1.02 x 1.1 x 1.15 x .15 = 105.58 SP
8 x 10 x 51.35 = 4108 Mana

At 1400 Int/1400 Spirit:
2x Runed, 8x Luminous
19 x 2 + 9 x 8 = 110 SP
8 x 8 = 64 x 60.19 = 3852 Mana

10x Luminous
9 x 10 = 90 Spell Power
8 x 10 x 60.19 = 4815 mana

10x Purified
9 x 10 + 8 x 10 x 1.02 x 1.1 x 1.15 x .15 = 105.58 SP
8 x 10 x 53.29 = 4263.2 Mana

Obviously from these values we can see that using ‘10x Purified’ is a better choice than ‘2x Runed, 8x Luminous’. Depending on your personal choice however, it would seem that ‘10x Luminous’ has the greatest overall benefit. I should remake these values when you rechart using a more correct multiplier for Replenishment. As, this would stand to change the values again.

Last Edit:

I had a ton of free time on my hands (and a pad of paper) so I worked out some more values. Assuming an 8 minute fight, 80% replenishment uptime, and 1 non glyphed innervate, Blessing of Kings, Living Spirit, Improved Mark of the Wild, and no time spend outside the 5sr. 1 Point of Int provides .17375 mp5 due to mana gained, and .1668 mp5 due to replenishment. At 1000/1000, spirit is much worse than int (.532117 mp5 compared to .341215, a differance of .091381 mp5 and a 20.7% differance). We expected this. At 1300/1300 Int is still better, (.55898 vs. .50251) but the difference is cut in half to .05644, or an 11.2% increase. I plotted the changes for all 'reasonable' levels of gear (all the way up to 1600, and i might argue that this is still to high) and arrived at .58285 vs .55748, with int still providing .0253 more mp5, a 4.5% increase. I have to tip my hat to you and say that you are correct in this matter. I looked at far to few data points, and my estimate was wrong. For all foreseeable gear level that could possibly come out in Wrath (barring any major changes on Blizzard part) int will be a better (albiet slightly in some cases) mana regen stat. A better overall stat? Thats open for debate still.

I'd be happy to answer. Yes, we have been throwing out some insane number recently. This is likely unwarranted, but it was an attempt to see exactly when/where Spirit would overtake int.

Blizzard has stated they've designed current content around raiding with replenishment, and with a proper raid setup, it can have a very high uptime. Replenishment however only gives a portion of the total benefit of Int (Roughly 1/3rd), with the other 2/3rds coming from the increased mana pool and the Mana regen formula itself (which are passive). Even without Replenishment, Spirit is only slightly better than Int @ 1000 spirit/Int, Replenishment makes Int roughly 20% better than spirit in terms of regen at 1k. Depending on your healing setup, there are other ways to regen that are based only on Int as well. A shamans mana tide is based purely off Int, as well as a druids Revitalize (although the latter can be largely neglected). Most would agree that the sheer difference between the amount of regen that Int can provide @ the 1000/1000 gear range out weighs the amount of Spell Power gained through Spirit. Now, this argument becomes more convoluted with higher gear levels as A) The difference in mana gained shrinks as Spirit starts to catch up to Int, and B) Mana regen becomes less of an issue, as we have more of it.

Since Spirit and Int have a direct relationship to each other, a point in either spirit or Int make both more valuable. The formula blizzard uses to calculate mana regen:

Non Casting Spirit/Int based mana Regen = 5 * (0.001 + Sqrt(Int) * Spirit * 0.003345)

I won't get bogged down in a super technical discussion about this, just some basic math. Sqrt (int) stands for 'The square root of Spirit'. The only two variables (things that can change in this equation) involved are Int and Spirit. Lets trim all the constants out and boil this problem down to its basics:

Mana Regen = Sqrt(Int) * Spirit

Lets assume I have 9 spirit and 9 Int

Mana Regen = Sqrt(9) * 9 (Square root of 9 is 3)
Mana Regen = 3 * 9 = 27

Lets see what happens when we add 7 to each stat separately (increasing each value to 16)

Mana Regen = Sqrt(16) * 9 = 4 * 9 = 36 (Adding 7 to Int, leaving Spirit alone)
Mana Regen = Sqrt(9) * 16 = 3 * 16 = 48 (Adding 7 to Spirit, leaving Int alone)

As you can see, both have value, and increase how much mana you will get from your Mana regen formula. Spirit will give more value, but it is also based off the amount of Int You have. If you had 1000 Spirit and 1 Int, your regen would be 1000. If you had 4 int and 997 Spirit (same total amount of stats), you'd have 1994 total mana regen. Its generally accepted that bringing them up together is a better way to go. The actual formula gives different values obviously, but the basic princible still applies. Int's variety of benefits gives it a head start against spirit, and that head start is sizeable.