The overgearing makes the difference (in addition to 25 man players usually having far more experience with the encounter if they do 10 man in addition to 25 man). Be careful to give advice based on this to entry-level Ulduar.10 geared raiders - expect an average item level of somewhere between 213 and 219.

The differences in tanking and DPS gear do make a significant difference overall. Fights take longer due to lower dps, tanks take more damage due to lower mitigation, and the whole raid takes more damage due to the longer fight. Just 20s more at Thorim makes a real difference at the end.

Also, note that it makes a difference whether you already farm a boss or are working on your firstkill. Of course Hodir 10 man can be done by a single healer, even 10 man geared, but it requires everyone to prevent damage where possible. Does a group working on the firstkill do that? No. Especially not on hairy stuff such as Freya+3.

If the DPS on Freya+3 isn't geared and doesn't know the encounter very well, they won't finish each add wave before the next one spawns. As soon as DPS is able to reliably do that, healing becomes relatively easy. But that's not what you will find in a 10 man only group on the way to the first kill.

If you are talking about first kills of hard modes, our first kills of Hodir and Yogg Saron were with 1 healer. Thorim was a two healer deal but that was pre-nerf. Freya, Mimiron, and Algalon were three healer fights for the first kill. Every other hard mode was two healer.

Well, technically we did three healer XT, but that was on the pre-nerf version that had so much health he was unkillable in the 25 man raid. It was the version that took 9.5 minutes to kill and required an average of 4.5k DPS from everyone in your raid or something like that. Post nerf it was always two healers.

I agree that the T9 bonuses are underwhelming. I did think it was worth picking up the 2pc bonus simply for the fact that there arent that many gear options. But as to the T8 2pc bonus, I quite like it. I was thinking of dropping this only when I can replace with ilvl258 gear. I unfortunately don't have a lot of hardmode Uld25 gear, and I'm not convinced that normal ToC gear is enough of an upgrade to justify dropping the bonus. I am holy specced the vast majority of the time and the 10% extra crit is nice. I think hanging on to two pieces of T8 after I pick up ilvl258 gear in case I need it for a specific fight is definitely the way to go.

I am still trying to decide whether I like Flowing Robes of Ascent better than [Zabra's Robe of Triumph]. I would gem Flowing Robes of Ascent with a seer's eye of zul, a luminous ametrine, and a brilliant king's amber. It would have 20 more int, the same spirit, 9 less spellpower, and 84 haste in place of 94 crit. I guess I'll just see what pieces I can get first and consider what I need to balance my haste and crit properly.

Edit: I have to say, I'm hoping you're wrong about [Solace of the Defeated], Constantius. It seems like such a great trinket if the mp5 is an equip feature. If it drops tonight I intend to bid on it (and would win it). If you're right that might crush my soul. Thanks for putting together your list.

The vendor bought shoulder piece seems pretty solid, especially since we're likely to be swimming in Emblems of Triumph in a few months. It also has haste, like the tier 8.5 has, which is nice since only two pieces of tier 9 has haste. The Solace of the Defeated trinket sure looks over-itemized, but it's been almost 2 weeks since it started dropping, and it seems odd if they haven't gotten around to fix it yet, or at least made a post about it somewhere.

(Hope this makes sense as I'm a new user, and that this post goes through).
Someone asked what to gem for in 3.2 and I'm also interested since epic gems make regemming possible and replenishment nerf, mp5-buff could have changed order.

My conclusion is that for holy mana-regen the gem-order is above about 1500 raid-buffed intellect (assuming you have a paladin in raid so you can have kings):

intellect>spirit>mp5

below about 1500 intellect it is intellect>mp5>spirit (assuming you are only interested in mana-regen).

Details
Intellect still rules, and the question was between spirit and mp5, i.e. if 1.05*1.1*(1+0.5*HolyConcUpTime)*sqrt(intellect)*0.005575*5*0.6*0.5 is >0.5, and the crucial part is HolyConcUpTime.

The crucial part is holy-concentration up-time and to get some feeling I simulated a spell-cycle of COH (hitting 4 targets) followed by 3 flash heals every 6 seconds; no time out of 5 second rule.
I agree that it is not realistic and the high number of instant flash heals will underestimate holy concentration up-time.

Splitting crit in a part unrelated to intellect I got that spirit beats mp5 at between 1588 intellect (15% base-crit, 25% total crit, 61% holy concentration uptime) and 1457 (25% base-crit, 34% total crit, 72% holy concentration).

At the cross-over point one could try to estimate weights for additional stats to be about (including kings and spirit of redemption and 15% base-crit, 1500 intellect, 1100 spririt):

0.7 to 0.6 for 1 intellect, 0.5 for 1 sprit, 0.5 for 0.5 mp5.

The contribution to intellect were (i.e. for 1 additional intellect):
0.165 replenishment
0.343 to 0.258 for base+fiend for 6 to 8 minute fight
0.1089 spirit-based
0.065 instant flash new procs
0.014 holy concentration new procs

The low benefit of holy concentration procs is due to flash heals blocking them (especially due to the coh) and that the up-time is already so high that a new crit often just resets the timer of holy concentration.

Looking at the ilvl258 T9 set vs. the ilvl226 T8 set, there is an overall 167 SP difference before socket bonuses are taken into account. For a full-time Disc Priest like myself, I have to weigh losing that 250 SP proc quite heavily (Disciplined Power averages 75-80% uptime for me in raids, so I value it at a minimum of 200 SP static). Because of this, I am planning on upgrading everything else before my 4pc. I'm using the Shadow 226 shoulders as my 5th piece for the crit currently, so I will probably replace that with 258 T9 since it also carries crit.

Also, I already purchased the new trinket, and pair it with my Pandora's Plea for double INT/SP goodness. 30k+ mana pool, 750+ mana Rapture returns and a PW:S that can now break 10k are all quite yummy

Hey, sorry for asking such a blatant question without further contribution, but I've been looking for a comparison between the various regen trinkets available atm(including all hard modes) and I can't seem to find any valid calculations for post 3.2

I've been following a general principle of picking highest ilvl items as often as possible(figuring overall stat increase will outweigh singular stat advantages), going for crit items over haste whenever possible(since a crit is always more healing faster than casting 2 hasted spells) and gemming for sp/int whilst trying to avoid spirit beyond what I'm forced into anyway. Now ToC off-set pieces all seem to be pure haste stacking, and since I raidheal primarily(both with holy and with a modified disc build), I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up having to go even harder for regen trinkets in ToC Hard Modes.

Currently running Solace of the Fallen and Spark of Hope and considering switching out Spark for Talisman of Resurgence or Meteorite Crystal.

Currently running as Holy(completely unbuffed): 2719sp, 25.16% Holy crit, 366 Haste, 1164 Int, 1127 Spirit.

Trinkets are often difficult when it comes to calculating their worth, but I am curious as well because I haven't seen them analyzed either. My calculations below are not 100% correct because they use some values from the first post of this thread which might be outdated by now, but should be close.

[Solace of the Fallen] - 150 Spell Power is straightforward. It is safe to assume you will be casting at least one spell every 10 seconds during fights (except possibly phase transitions in Northrend Beasts, for example) so we can approximate 100% uptime on the mana regen effect (also ignoring the first couple of seconds of the fight before the buff has stacked). Fully stacked, 8 stacks, is 8*16 = 128 mp5.

[Spark of Hope] - 100 Spirit is really 115.5 spirit after SoR and Kings, and the first post of this thread states that 1 spirit is approximately 0.313 mp5, so the spirit this trinket provides is approximately 115.5*0.313 = 36.2 mp5. If we assume an average of 3 casts every 5 seconds then the mana reduction effect is worth 3*42 = 126 mp5. The spirit is also worth 115.5*0.25 = 29 spell power to a holy priest

[Talisman of Resurgence] - I hate on use effects, mostly because I am terrible about remembering to use them, but if the SP effect is used as often as possible it is worth about 100 spell power (600 SP with 20sec/120sec uptime). The first post of this thread states the value of 1 intellect as 0.4645 mp5. The 128 intellect is really 128*1.1 = 141 intellect after Kings, so this trinket is worth approximately 141*0.4645 = 65.5 mp5. Also, at level 80 we get 1% crit from every 166.7 intellect, so this trinket is also worth 141/166.7 = 0.85% crit.

[Meteorite Crystal] - The static 111 intellect is really 111*1.1 = 122, which is worth 122*0.4645 = 56.7 mp5. The intellect is also worth 122/166.7 = 0.73% crit. I still hate on use effects, and this one is more difficult to calculate. I will asume the effect is used every time it comes off CD and a spell is cast every 1.5 seconds while the effect is up, including the instant you use the effect.

Time		Mp5 Buff	Mana Gained Before Next Spell Cast
0		75	22.5
1.5		150	45
3		225	67.5
4.5		300	90
6		375	112.5
7.5		450	135
9		525	157.5
10.5		600	180
12		675	202.5
13.5		750	225
15		825	247.5
16.5		900	270
18		975	292.5
19.5		1050	105

In the above table, "Time" means seconds after using the trinket, "Mp5 Buff" is the value that the buff has stacked to, and "Mana Gained Before Next Spell Cast" is the mana you gain from the stacked buff between the time that spell is cast to the time the next spell is cast 1.5 seconds later. Summing up that third column gives 2152.5 mana gained in total during the 20 seconds. This can be used every 120 seconds, so it's worth 2152.5*5/120 = 89.7 mp5. Actually, the real value will be lower than this, because for a spell to finish casting the instant this trinket is used that spell must be an instant cast, and unless every spell over the next 20 seconds is also an instant cast there will be a delay somewhere of longer than 1.5 seconds.

*Although I wonder if using Divine Hymn would cause 12 stacks of the mp5 buff to occur? Assuming 25% haste, Divine Hymn should take 6.4 seconds to fully channel. Having 12 stacks at the 6.4 second mark would increase the mp5 value of this effect to somewhere in the neighborhood of 153 mp5, plus the 56.7 mp5 from the intellect. Although you could only use the trinket with Divine Hymn once per fight.*

[Show of Faith] - 241 mp5 for 15 seconds is a total of 241*3 = 723 mana per proc. Assuming a 45 seconds ICD, that works out to a maximum of 723/45*5 = 80.3 Mp5. A more realistic average proc rate would be once every 60 seconds, in which case the proc is worth 723/60*5 = 60.3 mp5.

[Sif's Remembrance] - Just like Show of Faith, 195*3 = 585, 585/60*5 = 48.8 mp5.

[Pandora's Plea] - The intellect is really 108*1.1 = 119 intellect after Kings, and that is worth 119*0.4645 = 55.3 mp5 using the value at the beginning of this thread. The SP buff lasts 10 seconds and has an ICD of 45 seconds. Assuming an average proc of once every 60 seconds it would have an uptime of 1/6, so 751/6 = 125 SP.

So in conclusion:

Item	Mp5	Other Value
[Solace of the Fallen]	128	150 SP
[Spark of Hope]	162.2	29 SP
[Talisman of Resurgence]	65.5	100 SP and 0.85% crit, Use effects suck
[Meteorite Crystal]	146.4 (Top-end estimate)	0.73% crit, Use effects suck
[Show of Faith]	60.3	140 SP
[Sif's Remembrance]	48.8	110 SP
[Pandora's Plea]	55.3	125 SP (random procs suck)

@Squeakster

Not sure where you got those mp5 values for Intellect and Spirit. The first post states this:

Overall Regen Gains: Holy
Spirit: 0.362 Mp5 per point
Intellect: 0.792 Mp5 per point
(1 raw point; gearing, buff, etc; then scaled by other buffs and talents)

Overall Regen Gains: Disc
Spirit: 0.365 Mp5 per point
Intellect: 0.817 Mp5 per point

These values are possibly pre-Replenishment nerf though(which shouldn't affect Intellect much).

Ok thanks, that seems to indicate talisman isn't really worth the bother, although I've got a feeling Meteorite might be worth picking up for my personal playstyle on some fights(if it ever drops).

Bobturkey actually also had a listing, although I tend to think his statweights on gear is horribly wrong, the regen trinkets seem to indicate the same as Squeaksters numbers in that Spark of hope will remain the 2nd regen trinket. Was afraid of this, some of my own mental math had allready set it above Pandora's Plea, but I really was hoping to get rid of this god awful abomination. Just so annoyingly overpowered.

Aren't you overestimating the benfit of the Meteorite for holy?

The tool-tip says spells not casting mana will not trigger it; and I would guess that it includes instant cast flash heals - which would bring the on use down perhaps from 71.5 to perhaps 60 mp5 or so.

And I tried to look at Bob's number and couldn't see any obvious problem (whereas the ones from the start of this thread are dated).