Sacrificing Mastery for Spirit

[Deleted]

Hello fellow druids. I've been reading alot around the fourms, and I can't get a clear view on "the best way" to gem your character. I see alot of druids going for a high amount of spirit, so that's what i've done.
I play in a fairly casual guild (12/12 normal) and I feel like I have no mana problems at all, on any boss.

My question is, is it really worth sacrificing that much mastery for spirit gems, i.e. gemming 320 spirit gems in blue sockets, instead of 160 mastery and 160 spirit ones?

How have you guys gemmed / reforged, what break hastepoint are you going for, and can / should I do anything different?

Would love some feedback on what your thought process is, cheers!


My druid: eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/ragnaros/Z%C3%B3fa/advanced

[Well]

Generally, spirit isn't the answer. Mastery, Haste Breakpoints and crit are (and ofc int).

[Mikael123]

It is my experience that my healing is better/higher when I gem for spirit, except for a few bosses where I can't spend all my mana (For example as healer in Ji-kun nest group).

I aim for 3043 haste and then reforge and gem for spirit while keeping socket bonuses. I am at around 12.5k spirit at the moment.

[Druover]

zofa, this is off topic, and I apologize for that, but when looking at your character, I would be curious to see your thoughts on the trinkets you are using as opposed to the SPA one with the static int and mana, or the horridon with static int and spirit. I guess I always assumed int/mana would be the best options, but i'm curious of your thoughts!!

As to your question, I'm not an expert, but my understanding has always been this when it comes to spi/mastery: being able to cast less efficient spells with more spirit actually sims fairly closely to the extra healing gained from int/mastery. Its not as much extra healing, but its not as far as many would think. During progression, there will be many learning times, where you might have to cast a regrowth without an ooc proc, etc... So since regen and throughput simulate fairly close to each other, many of the progression healers would rather have a few more "oh crap" spells to be able to cast, than have slightly higher healing on all their hots. That has always been my understanding of why top druids are gemming pure spirit, but again, i'm not an expert so take that at face value.

[Aleks0410]

I can't remember the numbers/math but as far as I'm aware the amount of "extra rejuvs" over a certain amount of time you'd get for 1000 more spirit was extremely low. Having more "oh shit" heals to throw out sounds nice, especially for progression, but you need to research how many extra "oh shit" heals you actually get from gemming spirit. Personally I'm gemming mastery and trying to be more careful when I throw out expensive heals. However, after MoP my guild went casual so atm I haven't even cleared normals so I don't know how it works out for heroics in this expansion. Question still stands though, heroic or not: How many extra spells do you actually get from stacking spirit?

[Kosirog]

For reforging its all about meeting the amount of spirit that works for you. For normal modes I would say you could do with substantially less (especially since you are not having trouble with mana).

Reforge into mastery which is a base increase to your healing (assuming good harmony uptime). The big debate on the forum right now is if 2 Mastery is better than int. I don't have an answer for that currently, but as of now I am specced into mastery/spirit. I have around 11k spirit and I feel comfortable for 10m heroics.

[Thelxi]

With the meta gem this tier spirit is a giant waste.

[Kosirog]

With the meta gem this tier spirit is a giant waste.

That is not true at all. Even if you are tracking the buff and can get 3 globals off you still need spirit for the mass majority of the time it isn't up. It does save a good chunk of mana if used properly but that statement is misleading and incorrect. Although, with good mana management one could use substantially less spirit.

[Deleted]

zofa, this is off topic, and I apologize for that, but when looking at your character, I would be curious to see your thoughts on the trinkets you are using as opposed to the SPA one with the static int and mana, or the horridon with static int and spirit. I guess I always assumed int/mana would be the best options, but i'm curious of your thoughts!!

I use these trinkets because the one from Horridon has not yet dropped for me, I would love to replace the Stolen relic with the Horridon one.