The way I view it is that Int gives more regen per point than spirit. Assuming some sort of high gear levels Const came up with: 1 Spirit = 0.31 MP/5

Over a 6 minute fight from 20k mana with Replinishement, 1 Shadow Fiend, 1 Mana Tide Totem and 1 Hymn of Hope I came up with: 1 Int = 0.38 MP/5 (pure regen)

But then Spirit gives spell power of course, 0.25 per point. So a 27 Spirit gem provides 8.37 MP/5 and 6.75 spell power. To get 8.37 MP/5 from Int one needs 22 Int. So we "save" 5/27 = 18.5% of the gem budget. That in turn can be used to get 5.93 spell power. And there we see that Int + spell power is superior.

Or do we? Oups.

Well, ehm, I either did something wrong or Spirit is in fact superior for your gem choice. But then 32 spell power and 27 Int are more of a balanced approach than 54 Spirit perhaps.

But wait a minute: 1 Int also gives 16.5 mana to spend over the course of the fight. In 6 minutes that makes it 0.23 MP/5 (assuming it is all used). And now we're back in business. Suddenly we only need 14 Int to generate the "regen" of 27 spirit and we can spend the remaining "budget" on 16.5 spell power, netting a free ~ 10 spell power.

This number goes down the more mana you have left over at the end of the fight (but then you should've just gone for pure spell power I guess) and the more time you spend out of the five second rule (but then maybe you didn't need seven healers after all).

Bottom Line: No Spirit gemming for me. Not now and certainly not in the near future. Terms and conditions apply.

It certainly seems that way to me, especially as my crit has climbed over 25% (29% and counting now). Lots of Clearcasting procs means I don't have mana issues. If I go a long time without procs, I really notice the hit to the mana pool. If they're screwing with the amount I get per proc, that's a direct nerf to my regen. I don't think Blizzard realizes just how little Divine Plea really is in the grand scheme of things.

Over the course of a night (4-healer, 17-man Naxx.25 last night), the holy paladin we ran with had 1.2 million mana returned from Illumination, 650k returned from Divine Plea, and 412k from Replenishment. The big giant gorilla in the room remains Illumination, and while I'm certainly not advocating nerfing it further, there's a middle ground.

Paladins should not be running 50%+ crit in the first tier of the expansion. The biggest culprit is the two ret talents they are able to pick up. Move these deep into the ret tree, and you solve a lot of the imbalance. Yes, it'll come back later in the expansion, but that's ok, because priests/druids/shamans will also be gaining regen as we go along, so we should stay roughly comparable.

It's like early TBC. The combination of T6-level shadow priest dps (VT), Spiritual Attunement (VE), and 100% Illumination with 50%+ crit meant infinite mana. Replenishment + 50%+ crit (@60%, no less) + Divine Plea is currently resulting in the same thing. I suspect the Divine Plea change will make a difference less than 20% of the time as it currently stands (especially since, as noted above, regen time = Divine Plea time anyway), and what they really need to be looking at is the insane amount of crit paladins are currently able to get from talents. Remove the 8% from the ret tree, and they may have to re-gem for crit somewhat, reducing their insane int-stacking mana pools, and balancing their regen against the other three healing classes.

I love the paladin class, and I'm not advocating nerfing them into the ground. However ... we all know they need tweaking, and in a downward direction. The combination of highest HpS, best regen, plate, a glyph that accounts for 25% of their overall healing, judgements, and blessings adds up to way too much compared to other healing classes. If priests sacrifice the AC (cloth), buffs (yay Fort ...), and HpS ... at least let us have the regen market cornered.

And that's why you're going to get whacked with the nerf bat. Your clearcasting procs are random, and you could potentially get a lucky chain of Clearcasts (plus Inner Focus). THEORETICALLY, by removing the benefits of clearcasting, they can have a more uniform model of mana regeneration. This has the benefit of making raid design easier - at the cost of variance between healers.

The last sentence means that they are theoretically trying to make content that's less spammy by making mana a bit more of a concern. My guess is that it means longer fights with less overall incoming dps.

What GC doesn't seem to realize is that those changes do alter the relative values of spirit vs. int for holy priests.

Right now, assuming 1200 int and 1200 spirit, at a conservative 90% I5SR we have:

1 spirit = 1,1105 OO5SR mp5 and 0,3331 mp5 I5SR, averaging to 0,4109 mp5.
1 intellect = 0,7705 mp5 (numbers taken from the OP and adjusted to the assumed intellect and spirit)

After the proposed changes we'll have:

1 spirit = 0,66627 OO5SR mp5 and 0,3331 mp5 I5SR, averaging to 0,3665 mp5.
1 intellect = 0,7518 mp5 (same numbers, only changes the regen obtained via the regen formula)

This means spirit just lost around a 11% of its regen value for a holy priest, while intellect only lost a 2%.

If we add the effect of stat modifiers (BoK, SoR) and compare what can we get for 1 item level point, adding mp5 to the comparison, we get:

Pre-nerf:

1 item level point (spi) = 1 raw spirit = 1,155 modified spirit = 0,47459 mp5 and 0,28875 spellpower
1 item level point (int) = 1 raw intellect = 1,1 modified intellect = 0,84755 mp5 and 0,0066% crit.
1 item level point (mp5) = 0,4 mp5 (in gems only 0,375)

Post-nerf:

1 item level point (spi) = 1 raw spirit = 1,155 modified spirit = 0,42331 mp5 and 0,28875 spellpower
1 item level point (int) = 1 raw intellect = 1,1 modified intellect = 0,82698 mp5 and 0,0066% crit.
1 item level point (mp5) = 0,4 mp5 (in gems only 0,375)

Point per point, intellect has gone from giving 1,79 times the regen spirit returns, to 1,95 times.

In my opinion, to compensate for this change, Spiritual Guidance should be buffed, so spirit doesn't lose value for holy priests and our scaling is not hurt.

Edit, clearcast nerf: let's assume the clearcast nerf goes live and we get our I5SR% time pushed up to 98%.

In that scenario diferential regen per spirit point would average 0,3398 mp5. Thus 1 item level point (spi) = 0,3924 mp5 beside the spellpower benefit.

Conclusion seems to be mp5 would be just slightly superior to spirit, but only if we don't take into account the spellpower from Spiritual Guidance. Besides, the difference would be so thin, that any further gain in intellect would make spirit regen again superior to mp5.

Anyway, gemming mp5 would still be nonsense, as intellect would remain a far superior regen stat than both mp5 and int, and besides, the rounding down of mp5 that happens with gems takes the effective return from item level point of mp5 down to 0,375, that is, less than spirit at any reasonable scenario.

You're forgetting the clearcast nerf, which is actually more important (because it'll push FSR% much closer to 100%, barring phase changes or anything like that in Ulduar content): if you throw that in, you start to question whether spirit is actually better point-for-point than mp5. (The partial-spirit gems gain a bit due to rounding, so we're probably sticking with spirit there, if you really need a blue socket for something.)

The changes to spirit and Meditation are actually the least of our concerns. The higher FSR% from the clearcast changes and especially the apparent change to Serendipity are larger concerns.

You're probably right, Incoherence, but as the clearcast nerf hasn't been confirmed yet, I purposely decided to leave it out of the equation. If it finally happens, our I5R% time will be painfully near to 100%, and thus the regen we get out of 1 point of spirit will sink even further.

Even without the clearcast nerf, it's regen value is quite close to that of mp5, so it wouldn't take too much for the clearcast nerf to make mp5 superior to spirit. However, spirit will continue to bring the added benefit of spellpower.

Post-3.1, given the changes we have now, and given that they're pushing us toward 100% FSR, the regen from one point of spirit (1.165 raid buffed spirit) at 1200 raid buffed intellect is (adding the 0.6 term for the coefficient nerf and the 0.5 for the new Meditation):
5 * 0.005575 * 0.6 * sqrt(1200) * 0.5 * 1.165 = 0.337 mp5, which is way less than the equivalent mp5 value, or even the equivalent partial-mp5 gem.

The breakpoint against the same item value of mp5 appears to be 1686 raid buffed intellect (unless my math is screwy again), which is... uh, pretty far away.

Oh, and I haven't seen this in this thread, but the numbers are confirmed as a 40% reduction to the spirit coefficient and Meditation at 50%:
World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> I don't get the regen nerfs...

Tried to create a new thread but failed...The source is not English so I translte them into English:

As you all know, 3.1 is still under working. so this list is only what blz currently get. Any thoughts?

btw: please forgive my english.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Priests

- Abolish Disease now cure disease every 3 sec, last time is reduced to 12 sec
- Devouring Plague: has a new icon
- Divine Spirit now is now available at level 31
- Holy Nova mana cost is reduced about 20%
- Divine Hymm: This spell has been removed
- Improved Holy concentration: removed
- Prayer of Healing now heals your target's party members, not limited to your current team members.
- Shadowfiend: Life increased, also inherits 30% of the priest's spell power, it's mana leach ability is increased from 4% to 5%. Besides that, the priest receives mana as soon as shadowfiend attacks, whether or not this attack deals damage. Shadowfield's movement speed has been adjusted to nearly the same as player's movement speed. The pet toolbar is also adjusted.

- Talents
- Discipline
- Divine Aegis: now stackable, max absorbs damage (Target level)*125
- Grace lasts 15 sec, only affect one target.
- Improved Power Word: Fortitude: besides current effect, also increases caster stamina 2%/4%
- New talent: Sould Warding: Reduces Power Word:Shield cooldown by 4 seconds, also reduces mana cost by 30%
- Penance: damage is increased by 30%. Now can be casted on priest itself.
- Power Infusion: new spell effect and sound effect.
- Reflective Shield: This talent has been removed
- Unbreakable Will: Now reduces the duration of Stun, Fear, and Silence effects done to you by 6/12/18/24/30% from 3/6/9/12/15%

- Holy
- Circle of Healing: The amount of healing increased about 40%
- Holy Concentration has been redesigned. If your flash heal, Greater heal, binding heal crits, you will gain a mana generation increase 15/32/50% effect, lasts 8 sec
- New talent: Empowered Renew: Your Renew gets extra 5/10/15% healing effect efficiency, also heals the target 5/10/15% of the whole healing done immediately
- Serendipity has been redesigned. After your binding heal or flash heal, your next Greater heal or prayer of healing will reduce cast time by 6/12/20%, stack for at most 3 stacks, last 20 sec
- Test of Faith: Now doesn't increase spell critical effect any more. Instead it will increase healing by 4/8/12% from 2/4/6% on friendly targets at or below 50% health

- Shadow
- Blackout: Removed
- Darkness: moved to tier 1
- Dispersion: Also remove snare and all movement impairing effects. When you are shadow enery you are immune these snare and movement impairing effects
- New talent: Improved Devouring Plague: increase Devouring Plague dot damage by 5/10/15, also inflict 5/10/15% of the whole damage done immediately
- Shadowform: remove the percentage damage bonus, instead allow these DoT critable.
- Silence: Range increased to 30 yard
- Vampiric Embrace: lasting time is increased from 1 min to 5 min. 1 mins on player in PvP. Cooldown removed.



<grammar refined>

The ratio is 8 spirit = 3 mp5 on WotLK rare gems, but 1 mp5 = 2.5 spirit on item value. Always has been, still is. The gems just tend to be a little off because they round them, thus why you get situations where 2 partial gems of a given stat are a point better or a point worse than a single full gem of that stat.

So max absorb damage is 100 on a level 80??

You might have something wrong there, what is the source of these notes?

What happened to Power Word: Barrier? A little suspicious of these notes, but overall they look believeable. A little disappointed to see Divine Hymn simply removed and no changes at all to Hymn of Hope...

Of course, PW:B could simply not be implemented yet in the build these notes came from.