Page 1 of 2
1
2
LastLast
  1. #1

    Intellect or Spirit?

    Should I be going more for mana regen or the amount of healing i do with a spell (intel increases spell heal). Im so confused now, should i be stacking spirit or intellect?

  2. #2
    Intellect is stronger, per point.

    But if you are out of mana, it doesn't matter how strong your spells are.

    Fortunately, int is a primary stat and spirit is a secondary, so they don't often clash. Get as much int as you can get, and go for spirit as your most important secondary stat, until you feel that your regen is good enough.
    Quote Originally Posted by xxAkirhaxx View Post
    Blizzard is a conglomerate that through lower sub numbers has raised revenue. They're not stupid, they're just not catering to you.
    Yes yes, I know, the sky just bonked you on the head, casuals are taking over the government, and some baddie just got a raid drop... I think you'll live.

    http://darisdroppings.wordpress.com

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by flaggel View Post
    Should I be going more for mana regen or the amount of healing i do with a spell (intel increases spell heal). Im so confused now, should i be stacking spirit or intellect?
    Spirit.

    Spirit increases your regen while int increases your spell power. As this is a new expansion and tier many people, even the top geared players are currently having mana problems. I hear talk of people running 7-10k spirit and still going OOM. At this point spirit is more important than int. However, as the previous poster stated, int is a primary and spirit is a secondary so you can do both without much trouble. On enchants and gems though I'd go for spirit but keep in mind it is useful to try and hit every socket (or so I read) because of the strength of the bonus.

  4. #4
    There's no clear cut answer to this. If you're having trouble with mana, my suggestion would be to analyze your spell usage first. For example, there might be a tendency to blanket the raid with RJs after big raidwide damage like Total Annihilation on Elegon, but all you may really need there is WG and Nourishes. If you feel you are healing efficiently enough and still having mana problems, you can look at adding more Spirit.

    That being said, around 8k should be a rough ballpark figure. Some fights may require more, some may require a lot less (like Gara'jal due to the way the fight works). Try to carry a variety of flasks, food and gems so you can switch up in between pulls.
    Ashr

  5. #5
    Why More Spirit is not the Answer to your Healing Problems

    By Hamlet of E.J

    Personally I do not pretent to know much about healing but it was an insightful read and worth posting/discussing.


  6. #6
    Over 9000! Myrrar's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    Rapture
    Posts
    9,479
    Quote Originally Posted by Juvencus View Post
    Why More Spirit is not the Answer to your Healing Problems

    By Hamlet of E.J

    Personally I do not pretent to know much about healing but it was an insightful read and worth posting/discussing.
    I agree with Hamlet 100%, and am glad he made a post about it. Top druids are not 'stacking spi and still having mana problems'. Top druids are running 7-8k spirit and are pushed on fights you will be pushed on no matter what your spirit is, fine on the rest.

    Gems, match socket bonuses. Favor Int over all, spi over other secondaries until you are comfortable with mana.
    Enchants, food, buffs, blah blah, int over spirit.
    Trinkets are their own beast and aren't spi vs int, there is a discussion about trinkets in this thread.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    I kind of agree with Hamlet and kind of don't. What he's assuming probably is 25man, because in no real world can you think like that in an environment where a heal is not just "x number on the meter".

    The way I think of spirit is not how a lot do, I don't think of it as regen. I kind of think about it the same way Hamlet does. Spirit is a "throughput" resource just as intellect, haste and such. I think saying something like "get spirit until you're comfortable with mana" is sometimes accurate but definetely a bit silly; there's always a way to spend mana.

    The problem I have with intellect, though, is that however good it might be compared to spirit, you can't commit to it without losing your entire ability to heal over a longer fight. The longer the fight the better the spirit compared to intellect, basically. If you can get away with just keeping LB stacks up and using SM and WG on cooldown, maybe intellect is the better choice for you. It just doesn't happen in a 10man environment. I can see how it would probably work in 25mans, but then again I don't do 25man.

    Having a lot of intellect assumes you can 100% of the time be efficient with the heal, you can never ever have overhealing or suddenly you're in a lot of trouble. I'd say it's not an issue with playing; it definetely is hard to keep that kind of a thing up but suddenly you're where you can't pre-hot, you can't cast a rejuv on someone who you aren't sure will take the full use out of it; it limits you significantly.

    In a patchwerk damage-coming-all-the-time fight where nobody can actually die I agree with hamlet. In a real world, nope.
    Not yet sure whether to actually take use of the socket bonuses. I'm kind of leaning towards yes, we'll have to see.

    And that's why I don't use intellect right now. It limits me too much in terms of what I want to do.
    Last edited by mmoc68a4e4b5e2; 2012-10-09 at 04:56 AM.

  8. #8
    Legendary! Fenixdown's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Houston, TX
    Posts
    6,901
    Quote Originally Posted by Juvencus View Post
    Why More Spirit is not the Answer to your Healing Problems

    By Hamlet of E.J

    Personally I do not pretent to know much about healing but it was an insightful read and worth posting/discussing.
    I don't tend to trust much coming from the healer side of EJ (I tend to do my own throughput analysis, anyway), but this article is spot on. I'm seeing most of my healers go into "Spirit all the way" mode, and I'm also seeing their actual healing throughput suffer a bit for it.

    I'm sitting currently at about 6,200+ spirit (before Darkglow procs) and I feel fine in even the most damage-intensive situations in heroics right now. Now, while heroics in MoP are certainly not comparison points for raid encounters, that's a significant indication that I'm ready for organized and controlled damage environments. Most intense damage situations in heroics comes from the way of LFD, and that comes due mostly to people either a. not knowing fight mechanics or b. not bothering with fight mechanics.

    In a much more controlled environment, spirit becomes less necessary. As people can avoid raid damage, your necessity to heal them decreases, and this your necessity for regeneration priorities also decreases. If you have bad raiders, then you'll have bad mana problems. That's how it worked in vanilla, in BC, in Wrath, in Cataclysm, and that's how it will work in this expansion and the next. Spirit on gear is obviously perfectly fine. The extra miles that some people are going to is a bit over the top. I'm seeing my healers going +320 spirit gems in blue sockets, where I'm still using Purified. In the longrun, that's an additional 320 intellect I have over them in these early stages, if not more. That's as opposed to the extra, tops, 1k in combat regen they have over me. However, once Darkglow procs, my regen balances out to theirs and I'm still putting out bigger numbers.
    Fenixdown (retail) : level 60 priest. 2005-2015, 2022-???? (returned!)
    Fenixdown (classic) : level 70 priest. 2019 - present

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Turvakapsu View Post
    I kind of agree with Hamlet and kind of don't. What he's assuming probably is 25man, because in no real world can you think like that in an environment where a heal is not just "x number on the meter".

    The way I think of spirit is not how a lot do, I don't think of it as regen. I kind of think about it the same way Hamlet does. Spirit is a "throughput" resource just as intellect, haste and such. I think saying something like "get spirit until you're comfortable with mana" is sometimes accurate but definetely a bit silly; there's always a way to spend mana.

    The problem I have with intellect, though, is that however good it might be compared to spirit, you can't commit to it without losing your entire ability to heal over a longer fight. The longer the fight the better the spirit compared to intellect, basically. If you can get away with just keeping LB stacks up and using SM and WG on cooldown, maybe intellect is the better choice for you. It just doesn't happen in a 10man environment. I can see how it would probably work in 25mans, but then again I don't do 25man.

    Having a lot of intellect assumes you can 100% of the time be efficient with the heal, you can never ever have overhealing or suddenly you're in a lot of trouble. I'd say it's not an issue with playing; it definetely is hard to keep that kind of a thing up but suddenly you're where you can't pre-hot, you can't cast a rejuv on someone who you aren't sure will take the full use out of it; it limits you significantly.

    In a patchwerk damage-coming-all-the-time fight where nobody can actually die I agree with hamlet. In a real world, nope.
    Not yet sure whether to actually take use of the socket bonuses. I'm kind of leaning towards yes, we'll have to see.

    And that's why I don't use intellect right now. It limits me too much in terms of what I want to do.
    This is unfortunately incorrect and Hamlet's post is exactly correct. The problem right now is that people are casting too many spells they don't need to and running out of mana. I'm at 7000 spirit and am healing fights like Elegon where I have a side to myself just fine. (55k hps, 10 man) Overhealing is something that really doesn't happen right now. If someone is near 100% you just don't heal them. Heal as often as possible, but not when there is a potential for waste. If I can make it to an enrage burn phase with enough mana to complete the encounter, my group is more likely to succeed than yours because my heals are more powerful assuming equal skill.

    Spirit is not a throughput resource. If you are at any point in a fight at 100% mana, you have wasted budget (Spirit Kings, Elegon, Spiritbinder, Will of the Emperor for instance).

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Fenixdown View Post
    I'm seeing my healers going +320 spirit gems in blue sockets, where I'm still using Purified. In the longrun, that's an additional 320 intellect I have over them in these early stages, if not more. That's as opposed to the extra, tops, 1k in combat regen they have over me. However, once Darkglow procs, my regen balances out to theirs and I'm still putting out bigger numbers.
    What about when their Darkglow procs?

    You're saying because they have no professions and you have some you're going to even out in regen with them? Assuming they have professions aswell you'll fall behind significantly in regen by having that extra 320 intellect. That's a very odd analogy you have.

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-09 at 08:59 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Maxvla View Post
    This is unfortunately incorrect and Hamlet's post is exactly correct. The problem right now is that people are casting too many spells they don't need to and running out of mana. I'm at 7000 spirit and am healing fights like Elegon where I have a side to myself just fine. (55k hps, 10 man) Overhealing is something that really doesn't happen right now. If someone is near 100% you just don't heal them. Heal as often as possible, but not when there is a potential for waste. If I can make it to an enrage burn phase with enough mana to complete the encounter, my group is more likely to succeed than yours because my heals are more powerful assuming equal skill.

    Spirit is not a throughput resource. If you are at any point in a fight at 100% mana, you have wasted budget (Spirit Kings, Elegon, Spiritbinder, Will of the Emperor for instance).
    I probably wasn't clear enough with what I said. If you end the fight with any more than 0% mana, it's wasted. Spirit is only a useful throughput resource when you can use all of your mana well and still end the fight with 0% mana, as in most likely almost all the bosses on the heroic mode. If I happen to run across a fight on heroic in which I cannot utilize all the mana efficiently I will quite obviously regem to intellect for that fight.

    So, basically spirit is in my opinion a superior throughput resource to intellect if:

    - You are 10man
    - You are not overhealing (significantly, little overhealing happens always)
    - You are ending the fight with as close to no mana as possible
    - You can use Innervate on cooldown without wasting it
    - You can use a sleeping potion without wasting it
    - etc. etc.

    Sorry for not being clear enough with the first post.

    Now, what I find odd is you saying if you can make it to the enrage burn phase in Elegon with enough mana to go through it you're more likely to succeed. You, at that point, need to use your spirit properly. There are right ways to use the spirit and wrong ways to use the spirit.

    A quite obvious example:
    If I sacrifice throughput for regen I am clearly not capable of pushing out the numbers you are in a burn phase of a fight such as Elegon. That's clear. But what if I take the strong side of spirit and use it instead of trying to compete on a place where I am clearly behind? In this case, it is mana. What if I had a lot more mana when that burn phase started and was able to use rejuvs on all of the persons in the raid?

    Suddenly we see a situation where I can keep up with your throughput by utilizing the strong side of the build (spirit) instead of trying to compensate for the lack of intellect.

    That being said, we cannot just think about ourselves. Another scenario where spirit really does shine, is longevity (derp!). If my raid has, say, me healing as a resto druid, a paladin healer and a priest healer, what if I could use my strong side as a restoration druid to help out the other healers.

    Let's take Elegon for an example. We all know the strong point of a restoration druid, right? It's efficient healing over time. The druid, compared to the other classes has a pretty low capability of burst healing aside from Tranquility, but it is very efficient at healing in the mid-range of healing requirements. What if I could utilize that in say Elegon and save the other healers mana in the first phases so they could go to town in the last phase?

    It all comes down to planning and synergy between your healers. You're not healing alone, keep that in mind.


    You do have some really good key points though, I highly doubt I'll use spirit for all the encounters but I can certainly say Elegon is one I'll be using it for.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Turvakapsu View Post
    I kind of agree with Hamlet and kind of don't. What he's assuming probably is 25man, because in no real world can you think like that in an environment where a heal is not just "x number on the meter".

    The way I think of spirit is not how a lot do, I don't think of it as regen. I kind of think about it the same way Hamlet does. Spirit is a "throughput" resource just as intellect, haste and such. I think saying something like "get spirit until you're comfortable with mana" is sometimes accurate but definetely a bit silly; there's always a way to spend mana.

    The problem I have with intellect, though, is that however good it might be compared to spirit, you can't commit to it without losing your entire ability to heal over a longer fight. The longer the fight the better the spirit compared to intellect, basically. If you can get away with just keeping LB stacks up and using SM and WG on cooldown, maybe intellect is the better choice for you. It just doesn't happen in a 10man environment. I can see how it would probably work in 25mans, but then again I don't do 25man.

    Having a lot of intellect assumes you can 100% of the time be efficient with the heal, you can never ever have overhealing or suddenly you're in a lot of trouble. I'd say it's not an issue with playing; it definetely is hard to keep that kind of a thing up but suddenly you're where you can't pre-hot, you can't cast a rejuv on someone who you aren't sure will take the full use out of it; it limits you significantly.

    In a patchwerk damage-coming-all-the-time fight where nobody can actually die I agree with hamlet. In a real world, nope.
    Not yet sure whether to actually take use of the socket bonuses. I'm kind of leaning towards yes, we'll have to see.

    And that's why I don't use intellect right now. It limits me too much in terms of what I want to do.
    While I see your point, especially in a 10 man where you may not have tides and hymns to help your regen, I also don't think stacking lots of Spirit is always the best solution. Being able to use a Focus pot (especially with alchemy trinket) or just not casting at all for a small lull window (Both are possible on Elegon for example) can make a noticeable difference in your mana without having to stack Spirit endlessly.

    I also don't prepare for fights with the mindset of my raiders being bad and taking extra damage. In fact, I expect them to be good. If your raid is consistently getting hit by damage they should not be taking, the problem is not with your mana pool. Yes, mistakes do happen and the raid can take huge amounts of spike damage occasionally but if this is something that happens all the time, you're probably not going to kill the boss, no matter how much regen your healers have.

    In many cases, a simple "don't do that" is better than trying to heal it up later It is possible, and IMO should be the prerogative of all healers, to identify damage patterns quickly every time you experience a new phase. You keep that information in mind, plan your raid cooldowns around it to get an idea of how much damage YOUR raid group will be taking, and then balance your stat requirements around it.
    Ashr

  12. #12
    I don't get what you are saying about using more spells during the burn phase. When I say enough mana to complete the encounter I mean everyone lives from my (and my partner's) heals regardless of what those may be. The fact that mine are larger at all improves my chances over yours. My 10 man raid for Elegon has almost entirely melee so we had to group up in the center and eat the stacks til the boss died. I'm sure I expended more mana in my circumstance than you did in yours. We only had a tank drop his stacks once, but after the fight we decided that we should have left him in dpsing while the other tank finished the tanking. I entered the burn phase with about 80% mana and innervate ready to cast.

    Of all fights I don't see how you could need to stack spirit on Elegon. There are times where I don't have to cast a spell for 10+ seconds and am still doing my job. I heal with a resto shaman. I stabilize the raid, he does most of the burst aoe and tank healing. We didn't 3 heal any fights.
    Last edited by Maxvla; 2012-10-09 at 06:53 AM.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Ashrr View Post
    While I see your point, especially in a 10 man where you may not have tides and hymns to help your regen, I also don't think stacking lots of Spirit is always the best solution. Being able to use a Focus pot (especially with alchemy trinket) or just not casting at all for a small lull window (Both are possible on Elegon for example) can make a noticeable difference in your mana without having to stack Spirit endlessly.

    I also don't prepare for fights with the mindset of my raiders being bad and taking extra damage. In fact, I expect them to be good. If your raid is consistently getting hit by damage they should not be taking, the problem is not with your mana pool. Yes, mistakes do happen and the raid can take huge amounts of spike damage occasionally but if this is something that happens all the time, you're probably not going to kill the boss, no matter how much regen your healers have.

    In many cases, a simple "don't do that" is better than trying to heal it up later It is possible, and IMO should be the prerogative of all healers, to identify damage patterns quickly every time you experience a new phase. You keep that information in mind, plan your raid cooldowns around it to get an idea of how much damage YOUR raid group will be taking, and then balance your stat requirements around it.
    You said... exactly what I did/meant? How, exactly does spirit mean I expect my raid to take unnecessary damage? That's absurd, of course I expect my raid to not fail with mechanics and I gear appropriately. That's why I said I will probably go for more int on other bosses than other ones.

    Quote Originally Posted by Maxvla View Post
    I don't get what you are saying about using more spells during the burn phase. When I say enough mana to complete the encounter I mean everyone lives from my (and my partner's) heals regardless of what those may be. The fact that mine are larger at all improves my chances over yours. My 10 man raid for Elegon has almost entirely melee so we had to group up in the center and eat the stacks til the boss died. I'm sure I expended more mana in my circumstance than you did in yours. We only had a tank drop his stacks once, but after the fight we decided that we should have left him in dpsing while the other tank finished the tanking. I entered the burn phase with about 80% mana and innervate ready to cast.

    Of all fights I don't see how you could need to stack spirit on Elegon. There are times where I don't have to cast a spell for 10+ seconds and am still doing my job. I heal with a resto shaman. I stabilize the raid, he does most of the burst aoe and tank healing. We didn't 3 heal any fights.
    I am not talking about normal modes, because they don't matter. In fact I didn't even do the normal modes, I was busy leveling another character to 90 while my guild cleared the instance on wednesday/thursday. Quite obviously you can do whatever you like in the normal modes. If you want you can play with one hand while typing a txt-message to your girlfriend or whatever.

    Also, getting intellect because a raid is all melee isn't something I need to do, because my guild's roster is flexible. If we don't need melee, we won't take melee.
    It's about adjusting to your raid comp, your other healers and obviously how the fight is.

    Can you link your armory/link your stats? I'd like to see what kind of a balance you're getting with stuff.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Turvakapsu View Post
    You said... exactly what I did/meant? How, exactly does spirit mean I expect my raid to take unnecessary damage? That's absurd, of course I expect my raid to not fail with mechanics and I gear appropriately. That's why I said I will probably go for more int on other bosses than other ones.
    Ah that was an extension of what Fenixdown said about controlled environments where you don't need as much Spirit. And your last line about intellect limiting you made me think you were just gonna stack Spirit endlessly (I know some healers who are doing it.), especially since you said you needed it on Elegon where you have enough downtime to regen via other means like Focus pots and not casting.
    Ashr

  15. #15
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Ashrr View Post
    Ah that was an extension of what Fenixdown said about controlled environments where you don't need as much Spirit. And your last line about intellect limiting you made me think you were just gonna stack Spirit endlessly (I know some healers who are doing it.), especially since you said you needed it on Elegon where you have enough downtime to regen via other means like Focus pots and not casting.
    I'll stack spirit as long as it is useful to me. When I find it is no longer useful (the points I said earlier) I'll step away from it a little and keep it where I want it to be.

    The 1 big point I have though, is not really that I should step away from spirit "when you feel you have enough spirit" but instead "when you can no longer use spirit".

    Also, I do expect myself to use quite a lot of spirit on heroic Elegon. It's kind of hard to say since the normal modes aren't particularly difficult, but looking at the damage the normal mode put out and adding the heroic multiplier in, I feel the end result is a shit load.

    It's all speculation though, and I only said what I expect to happen (a bit spikey though, I guess my point came across misunderstood, no wonder since english isn't my primary language, heh). Time will tell.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Turvakapsu View Post
    I'll stack spirit as long as it is useful to me. When I find it is no longer useful (the points I said earlier) I'll step away from it a little and keep it where I want it to be.

    The 1 big point I have though, is not really that I should step away from spirit "when you feel you have enough spirit" but instead "when you can no longer use spirit".

    Also, I do expect myself to use quite a lot of spirit on heroic Elegon. It's kind of hard to say since the normal modes aren't particularly difficult, but looking at the damage the normal mode put out and adding the heroic multiplier in, I feel the end result is a shit load.

    It's all speculation though, and I only said what I expect to happen (a bit spikey though, I guess my point came across misunderstood, no wonder since english isn't my primary language, heh). Time will tell.
    Normal modes aren't particularly difficult but they aren't completely faceroll either since we're mostly in blues at the moment. You still need mana management and planning or you will run oom, especially if you 2 heal.

    As for heroic Elegon, I did the fight on the beta (I know tuning may be different on live) and while the boss abilities obviously hit for more, the damage pattern was still a bit similar. I could stop casting for a few seconds after healing people up from spark damage or in between phase transitions
    Ashr

  17. #17
    Spirit at the moment (ilvl362 7.9k SPI). In my opinion; once you start getting your 2pc / 4pc bonuses and your secondary stats go up from tier drops and your comfortable about the mechanics of the fight and for the most part, your co-raiders, then you can start looking at throughput. I feel for a while though that I'll be going for as much spirit as possible, my guild is learning the fights as our first raid week and we also have a fair amount of melee in our 10 man raid. We have only downed the first boss so far, we had a lot of AoE to heal with from blue ice patches and purple voids.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Ashrr View Post
    Normal modes aren't particularly difficult but they aren't completely faceroll either since we're mostly in blues at the moment. You still need mana management and planning or you will run oom, especially if you 2 heal.

    As for heroic Elegon, I did the fight on the beta (I know tuning may be different on live) and while the boss abilities obviously hit for more, the damage pattern was still a bit similar. I could stop casting for a few seconds after healing people up from spark damage or in between phase transitions
    From what our healers told the normal modes were really easy.

    And as for heroic Elegon, the fact that you can stop casting for a while etc. doesn't mean spirit is bad, you just need to take full use out of it.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Turvakapsu View Post
    From what our healers told the normal modes were really easy.

    And as for heroic Elegon, the fact that you can stop casting for a while etc. doesn't mean spirit is bad, you just need to take full use out of it.
    Or I could use a focus pot with the alchemist trinket and regain a similar amount of mana while having all my heals doing more because I went for Intellect and Mastery.
    Ashr

  20. #20
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Ashrr View Post
    Or I could use a focus pot with the alchemist trinket and regain a similar amount of mana while having all my heals doing more because I went for Intellect and Mastery.
    That doesn't mean I couldn't do the same and with the spirit I have end up having more mana than you. That's kind of the point of spirit, to gain mana and then use that extra mana instead of having your heals heal more.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •