which would you suggest for my setup? I was thinking moonshroud but I haven’t been able to find a crafter yet on my server with either pattern so far.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Mannoroth&n=Doctavice

Thanks for the post, it was really helpful.

A small note tho: if you compare in combat regen with a spirit stacker, the spirit stacker will definitely loose. The ‘in combat regen’ number is the most pessimistic estimate of spirit regen as it fails to incorporate the OFSR time, little tho it may be, and holy concentration. In net effect, the difference shouldn’t be as big. Not at Ulduar end gear level. When I find my regen ‘while casting’ to be on par with an MP5 stacker, I know my actual regen during the fight will be far higher than his. But it is difficult to put hard numbers on that.

I have around 1100 int and 825 spirit
I have > or = in combat regen than a priest that has 1100 int and 1200 spirit. (as well as = or more SP)

they stack spirit, i build spirit naturally with various pieces but choose to stack mp5. Hence my in combat regen (the most important regen) is higher.

I just find the differences interesting…since i refuse to do trigonometry to figure it out!

FOR THE ALLIANCE

I’m not saying you should gem for spirit, nor that it is ‘the’ best stat out there. Heck, we’d be lost if we did!
But the view posted in the article and comments kind of state that “spirit is lost” or “nerfed and not so strong”. I feel those statements are inaccurate and I aim to counter that by changing the perspective a bit. My point is not to say spirit is imba, but to change the ‘nuance’ in the statement to “spirit is still good, but…”. At least for holy priests, as I consider it a lost stat for Disc priests.

The numbers on spirit are brighter than you make it sound. If you feel OFSR time is little, let’s get the numbers for 95% FSR then. When I spam a lot of heals, I get up to 40%-45% HC uptime, although I propose 35% for this theorycraft as a mediocre score:
INT- MP5- SPI
1200 0.41 2.42
1300 0.43 2.33
1400 0.45 2.24
1500 0.46 2.17
INT stands for your raidbuffed INT. MP5 for how much MP5 you get from 1 point of spirit, and SPI on how much spirit you need to get 1 MP5. That’s better than your 3.3. No offense meant tho, just trying to give more numbers. If you feel like going into more detail about these, I’m all ears!

But based on this, if there would be an item with 30 spirit and another with 10 mp5, I would go for the spirit item. It would give me more regen and SP. When I theorycraft regen stats, I generally tend to take gentler conditions (90% FSR, etc) which make spirit on par with mp5. BobTurkey did a theorycraft on this subject as well:
http://bobturkey.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/priest-theorycrafting-for-3-2/
Unlike me, he completely favors throughput over regen. Yet his lootlist favors spirit items over MP5 items just like mine. Why? His high value for spellpower makes spirit a favorable regen stat over mp5.

Does that make spirit supreme? Not at all. But:
– it rivals the regen of MP5 (occasionally leveling it, occasionally weaker)
– it adds SP
I think that makes more sense or could, at the very least, be considered a viable gearing choice to favor spirit over MP5.

However, we’ve broken away from the original article: Matt’s choice is not between spirit and MP5 but between spirit and haste. As I (not so elaborately) mentioned in my previous comment’s last paragraph, this is not a real ‘choice’ in which someone can advise you. Both haste and spirit are good stats for holy priests. Both add a completely different kind of utility to the healer. What would be the criteria on which you will base your choice?
Will it be that, in some patch, spirit got nerfed? I do not feel that criteria is a good one. What if spirit was boosted with 10%, would it make a difference? I doubt it. As I’ve shown above, it is not weak as regen stat but it isn’t the most relevant criteria. What should your criteria be then?

Well… I think Matt mentioned a few good points, but I think his first was quite invalid (as I now elaborately defended hehe). IMO a more fundamental question would be to quote Dok’s words:
“Do you ever run out of mana?”

A good amount of Spirit is still needed for a Holy Priest, but the 1:1 ratio of Spi/Int is nonsense nowadays.

3.3 Spirit = 1MP5
an item that has 30 spirit vs. an item with 10 MP5…I would prefer the MP5 item for the in combat regen. Don’t know about you but there is not much oofsr fights in 25 man Hard mode Ulduar.

Stacking Spirit for the sake of the SP bonus seems silly, the amount of SP you would get could easily be met by 1 +23 SP gem. The amount of in combat regen could be met by 1 item that has +25 MP5 on it.

There are Holy talents that benefit from your spirit, but they are procs and not worthy of focusing all your gear choices around spirit alone. Spirit is nice to have, but is no where near the “supreme” stat.

Build up your MP5, crit and haste and let the spirit come as it may on various pieces.

If you want to look ahead at colisseum hardmodes it might change your mind, but dropping some regen on 2 of your slots is probably worth it.

Personally id still go for tierset, but i admit that its mostly because theyre just made to look cool on a troll.

And that’s assuming:
– a high spam scenario
– a low HC uptime
which are 2 conflicting facts: a high spam scenario generally leads to higher HC uptimes. It isn’t uncommon to score above 30% HC uptime, which can boost Spirit’s regen value up to 90% of MP5 in non hardmode Ulduar gear.

I can safely bet my life it will come quite close to MP5 in proper ToC gear. Secondly, in ToC I noticed my FSR time to go down. With 85% FSR and high HC uptime overall, at about 1500 intellect raidbuffed you’ll find spirit to match mp5 in regen alone. Add the SP bonus from spirit and you’re golden. What is ’sad’ about this, is that it requires decent gear and a spirit beneficial scenario lik what I’ve seen from ToC so far to make 2 regen stats equal in value. Except that spirit costs 12 talent points and adds SP. I think it is safe to assume that both MP5 and spirit are valid end-game gear choices.

Disc priests are another story. Spirit is still worth as much for them as it was in 3.1, but without the boost from HC it cannot keep up with the boost on MP5. This effectively makes 1 mp5 preferable over 2 spirit for any realistic gear levels, but 1mp5 doesn’t beat 3 spirit for high end raiders. Intellect still reigns supreme through different gear levels though.

As for the gear discussed above, it’s hard to promote one over the other. The choice is regen vs throughput. Most end content raiders will prefer the throughput, I suppose.

I run about 2800-2900 SP fully raid buffed, 29% CRIT (with 5% crit buff), and have about 11% Haste (I also stack MP5, since Spirit is for Pre-BC)

I am currently looking to maintain in buffs at least 25% crit while getting Haste to over 15%…..With the right amount of Crit and SP…15%+ HASTE will dramatically boost one’s Healing done imo.

Im goin Merlin’s Robe for Holy…Spirit is for nubs lost in BC days