You don't use the Jar for spirit stacking with Mana Tide. You take the Jar because it offers a personal gain of more than 500 mp5. The bonus to mana tide is just a nice feature of the trinket. That being said, the Jar hasn't seemed that necessary on any encounter yet. I hope heroic modes offer a challenge.

The Heartsong vs Power Torrent debate is like comparing apples to oranges. You don't enchant power torrent for the extra boost to your mana pool (and thus extra boost from replenishment regen), you enchant power torrent for the boost in spell power it offers. Just like the Jar, Heartsong is completely unnecessary on normal modes.

Correct me if my math is wrong, but it seems that 2pT12 will provide a boost of 608.7 mp5 assuming 8xtick riptides.

Assumed Values

Ideal conditions.
1% of base mana = 234.3
5 min. fight.

So, first of all we need to know the average amount of procs we can expect from 1 riptide.

Assuming 8 ticks for RT.

0,4 * 8 ~ 3,2 proc.

Then, the amount of mana per 1 second we get.

mp1 = 3.2 * (Base mana) / 21 =~ 35.7 mp1

Now, knowing that 1 8xtick riptide grants us 35.7 mp1 mana on average we can start simulation.

0-6 sec. of battle = 1x riptide
6-12 sec. of battle = 2x riptide
12- 18 sec. of battle = 3x riptide
18 - 21 sec. of battle = 4x riptide (ideal conditions)
21-24 sec. of battle = 3x riptide
24-27 sec. of battle = 4x riptide
and so on...

As you can see, the only problem in counting mana returns is the first 18s of a fight. Now, let's do the maths

0-6 s. of battle = mp1 * 6 seconds = 214.2 mana.
6-12 s. of battle = mp1 * 6 seconds * 2 riptides = 428.4 mana
12-18 s. of battle = mp1 * 6 seconds * 3 riptides = 642.6 mana

After 18s of battle, mana restored on average equals to 1285.2.

Now for the cycle after 18s. As shown above, every 3s (or half of the time) we will have 4 riptides up. (ideal conditions) So, mp1 of the rest of the fight will be

35.7 * ((3+4) / 2 (amount of riptides)) = 35.7 * 3.5 = 125 mp1

Now, assuming 5 min fight we get

1285.2 mana + (125 mp1 * (300 s - 18s)) = 1285.2 mana + 125 mp1 * 282s = 1285.2 mana + 35250 mana = 36535.2 mana

Now, final mp5 calculation

mp5 = 36535.2 / 60 = 608.7 mp5.

This also shows, that haste also benefits our mana regeneration (more riptide ticks, higher chance of proc. not to mention faster heales for frequent resurgence proc.).

In conclusion, during 5 min fight, under ideal conditions, our 2pT12 restores on average 36535.2 mana.

That's an awful lot of unnecessary math when you consider the fact that we can just get riptide hots rolling before combat actually begins.

Proof me wrong but actually you don't get any mana regen until you reach the haste breakpoint at 10+ Riptide ticks. The Riptide is just getting cheaper.

To trigger the T12 bonus you need to cast Riptide which costs 2343 mana (10% base mana).
That means in your calculation for casting Riptide every 6 seconds you'll have a negative managain of 1952,5 mp/5. Therefor talking about an effictive mana gain is misleading as Riptide is just getting cheaper until you reach 5491 haste rating. Under this cap it doesn't matter if you keep rolling just one or four Riptides.

Depending on your raid and assignment, you both have valid arguments. If you cast riptide on CD already, maybe you're used to keeping up the T11 4pc, then this won't be any different and you will view this as a mana gain. If, however, you're Healing Rain/Chain spamming for raid damage and not casting riptide all too much, you may lose out on both mana and throughput to go out of your way.

Personally half the time I'm in a 10 reg healing the tanks and I'm always rolling 2 or more riptides and can't wait for the 2pc. I'm about 2100 haste and have I think the 9th tick easy per riptide and am planning on rolling 3 at once to see how that affects my mana pool.

We should probably look at the set bonuses like this:

At 6k int, 4PC T11 will regen 419.7 mana per RT cast.
(540*6000^1/2*0.0016725*6)
Making the effective cost of casting the RT to be 1782.


T12 is a little tricker.
At 916 haste, you get 8 total ticks, so let's assume they're not being overwritten for ease of math.

At a 40% chance to proc, per RT you'll regen 804 mana on average.
(.4*8 * .01*25200)
Making the effective cost 1396 mana.

At 2005 haste, redoing the above math for 9 ticks per RT cast: 907 per RT cast
Effective cost to cast is 1295.

If you're routinely clipping the last tick or two by rolling RTs on tanks, i.e. only getting 6 ticks, your effective mana cost is 1597.

Effective costs of RT per cast:
T11 4PC: 1782 mana
T12 2PC @ 916 haste: 1396 mana
T12 2PC @ 2005 haste: 1295 mana

One question, i was doing baleroc 10 man second time today and same this time, i having trouble with the stacks from healing the fragment, i think its because of Ancestral Awakening, anyone else noticing this? It kinda consumes the stack by healing the tank and gives the empowered healing with like 5-9 stacks thats pretty annoying.

Anyone else experience this? Might be good to have a second resto spec with out that talent for that boss

Well I'm not casting riptide on on tank while healing the Torment, hmm. I also noticed i was getting stacks from AA while healing the tank during the Torment.

Anyone else experience same problem? Perhaps I'm just doing something wrong:o

I can confirm Kamileon's experience. In one particular try I got to 120 stacks in a little over 4 minutes with just RT/HW and an occasional GHW on the dps that tanked the Torment. I never had my stacks drop from AA procs in that time.

Our druid reported the same mechanic, only spells with a direct component will trigger Living Flame. Recasting Earth Shield should be fine, although I didn't pay attention to that. Chain Healing over the tank will most likely trigger Living Flame.

But AA is a direct healing, could have been chain healing but i dont think i ever casted it on that fight. But well i guess I'm wrong. Gonna figure out what I'm doing wrong next time.

@Kamileon - For the sake of completeness, you should include the value of resurgence in your "Effective Cost of Riptide" table or clarify that this is only taking into account the tier bonus in the summary. My math is showing that at my raid buffed crit rate (24.4%) Resurgence will return 336 mana / RT cast on average.

Interestingly, when you look at the combined "background" regen rate in raid (personal mp5, procs, replenishment, time averaged cooldowns, etc) it looks like Riptide will be completely mana neutral to slightly mana positive, on average, over the GCD it takes to cast it.