holy priest, Intel, or spirit

[KidGosu]

ok... i have a holy pally, and a resto shammy... i stack MOSTLY intel gems on them... i almost NEVER run out of mana with my pally.. and my shammy, needs a bit of help from a potion here or there, but nothing to bad...

Right now i just got my Priest up and up... and ive started stacking Spirit.... but..im not getting mana back as fast as i think i should.... Did i make the wrong decision... am i supposed to be stacking Intel instead?.... Or Seer Gems.... is there something im missing.. or am i supposed to run low on mana all the time as a priest? I try to get in 5-10 secs before a heal.. but sometimes it just doesnt work out that way.

SO should i be stacking int?
Spirit?
Or am i missing something?

[Deleted]

The question should be "Int or spellpower" in my opinion,
with spirit regen nerf, the efficiency of stacking spirit is way lower, making spirit a second-line stat, rather than a priority in any way.

Stacking int is done with the purpose of abusing abilities that restore a % of your mana (Hymn of Hope, fiend, *replenishment*, mana tide etc), though as long as your priest is semi-decent geared - you shouldn't be having any mana problems up until ulduar25 hard modes / totc hard.

So the question is if you're going to be raiding hard modes or is it just a casual alt to have fun raiding here and there, or your guild isn't capable of raiding decent, and you just do normal modes every week.

So the answer is:
1. Hard modes: stack up INT
2. Easy modes/alt: stack up spellpower
3. crit/spirit as secondary stats

eDit:
P.S. You might wonder why aren't you regening fast with spirit - After it was nerfed in efficiency (Patch 3.1, I believe), there was a talent added, making your spirit-based regen doubled for a short duration after crit heals, which means that if you want high spirit regen - you need to stack up crit along with spirit or else it'll be total crap (when you stack intellect it's easier, as int increases your crit chance aswell).

[KidGosu]

Thats sad/boring that intel is the best way to go..... i thought it would be different to from healer to healer...

Alright thank you for the help, and i dont remember reading anything about a spirit nerf... when did this happen?

[[-Spiritus-]]

Post above generally got it.

Gem INT till you don't have mana problems... then phase into SP.

All the SPI you need will come from gear.

Holy Concentration, on the other hand, is mis-leading as it only procs off FH, GH, BH, and Emp Renew. None of which are usually in your top 3 healing done (Usually reserved for PoH, CoH, and ProM). As a regen mechanic, its more of a bonus than something you should count on because you need to cast specific spells that you may not wish to cast when you need the mana. Its uptime is very fickle. INT, on the other hand, is always there for you... and you'll know exactly what you'll get.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Thats sad/boring that intel is the best way to go..... i thought it would be different to from healer to healer...

Alright thank you for the help, and i dont remember reading anything about a spirit nerf... when did this happen?

3.1 killed OSFSR dancing.

[Worshaka]

Int is technically the best regen stat... however spirit isn't that far behind int and in my personal opnion I don't think Int is far enough ahead of spirit for you to favour Int. Spirit still provides SP and it is clearly the best regen stat for encounters with downtime, such as Mimiron.

I have also seen some information which concludes that spirit scales better than Int and spirit looks like it will be the superior regen stat with Icecrown level gear. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but from what I read at the time it made a compelling argument.

Having said that I don't think you can afford to ignore Int... I try to be balanced with my gemming but favour spirit with blue sockets. Yellow sockets are Int/Spirit and currently I use SP/Spirit for red but i'm thinking of changing that to Sp/Int.

[DarkSpectrum]

Get a calculator out and do the math Depending on gear/enchants/gems you have or could use...
MP5 = 5 * (0.001 + sqrt(Int) * Spirit * Base_Regen) * 0.60

Base regen at 80 is 0.005575

having this formula and substituting the various numbers of int/spirit you could possibly add to gear will help you more than biased decisions.

[Konoka]

Spellpower > all, after t8 raid tier

Pawn value for both healing spec:

( Pawn: v1: "Discipline32": Stamina=0.2, Intellect=1.1483, Spirit=0.4138, RedSocket=46, CritRating=1.1851, MetaSocket=104.1137, HasteRating=1.0713, BlueSocket=28.1381, YellowSocket=35.4827, SpellPower=2, Mp5=1)

( Pawn: v1: "Holy32": Stamina=0.2, Intellect=0.8403, Spirit=1.0278, RedSocket=46, CritRating=0.8959, MetaSocket=97.6467, HasteRating=1.1337, BlueSocket=34.2779, YellowSocket=32.4032, SpellPower=2, Mp5=1)

so:
red socket: sp
yellow: sp/int or sp/haste
blue: sp/spi

[Selerious]

I prefer spirit over other stats myself. Never have mana issues and I am not a very conservative caster. All 10m Hard modes down, so I think I'm doing ok. It's good to have a decent mana pool. But Spirit adds to Spell power as well as mana regen. With the Holy talents, spirit ends up being a better stat over all in my opinion.

[[-Spiritus-]]

I agree that you can stack SPI and do well. However, I just hate the RNG factor in SPI regen nowadays. Just a personal thing, before 3.1 I could manage my OSFSR time for little mini innervates... now its just w/e the stars align, or during transitions.

What I don't get is the SPI>INT argument because of SA. If INT>SPI for regen, then you can drop INT for INT/SP or SP gems sooner. A +19SPI gem will give you ?4.5-5?ish SP with SA. Dropping 1 INT gem for SP will net you +19 SP, worth the SP of 4 +19SPI gems.

The biggest argument for SPI is transitional regen... without question its superior.

I just think its all a matter of whatcha like:

INT:
(1) Best Regen.
(2) Steady Regen.
(3) Move to SP gems sooner.
(4) Higher Crit.

SPI:
(1) Close 2nd Regen.
(2) More synergy with HC.
(3) Built in SP coefficient.
(4) Better Transitional Regen.

[KidGosu]

Good stuff, valid arguments... exactly what i wanted....

Ive made the decision to go all sprit/intel gems... but i still have 3 dragon gems ... should i use int or spirit? (i currently have 3 spirit ones) should i bother switching them to Int?

And i dont ever see myself using sp gems for healing.... it would seem to me... (tell me if im wrong) that its more important to make sure you CAN cast a spell.. rather than the spells being powerfull themselves.... it just never seems to be a problem......

I can see myself using Haste Gems for my shaman.. or Crit Gems for my Pally.. but never sp....(maybe its the noob in me?)

Anyway ignore my rabbling..

Int or Spirit Dragon Gems?

[[-Spiritus-]]

Good stuff, valid arguments... exactly what i wanted....

Ive made the decision to go all sprit/intel gems... but i still have 3 dragon gems ... should i use int or spirit? (i currently have 3 spirit ones) should i bother switching them to Int?

And i dont ever see myself using sp gems for healing.... it would seem to me... (tell me if im wrong) that its more important to make sure you CAN cast a spell.. rather than the spells being powerfull themselves.... it just never seems to be a problem......

I can see myself using Haste Gems for my shaman.. or Crit Gems for my Pally.. but never sp....(maybe its the noob in me?)

Anyway ignore my rabbling..

Int or Spirit Dragon Gems?

Int Dragon Gems. But, again, I like INT.

You will eventually get to a point where you gear will provide all the regen you'll ever need. At that point, it is more important to gem throughput.

[KidGosu]

Ok, so INT it is

[Worshaka]

IMO SP gems are wasted gems, you can never reach a level of regen when you can sustain constant spamming. Once you reach an level where you think u can't go oom, try chain casting more and you'll go oom. You might Overheal more but chain casting will up your HPS a lot more than SP gems any day.

The benefit with spirit is it provides SP with your regen stat, it's far more effecient than Int. You also don't require massive amounts of SP, once you get too much you are just increasing your overhealing. For me the amount of SP that comes with spirit is just right.

[[-Spiritus-]]

IMO SP gems are wasted gems, you can never reach a level of regen when you can sustain constant spamming. Once you reach an level where you think u can't go oom, try chain casting more and you'll go oom. You might Overheal more but chain casting will up your HPS a lot more than SP gems any day.

The benefit with spirit is it provides SP with your regen stat, it's far more effecient than Int. You also don't require massive amounts of SP, once you get too much you are just increasing your overhealing. For me the amount of SP that comes with spirit is just right.

Yeah... I've never been satisfied with my regen... I burn through some mana... though I never need innervates. But I got the SP/stacking Mp5 trinket today out of ToC. Its the sexy. We'll see if that changes anything.

Who knows... I may try one day to switch to SPI yet again and see what happens. I've just never been dissatisfied with my throughput.... and INT has better raw regen. Besides, I switch from Holy to Disco a lot, and INT is far superior in that spec than SPI.

Again, its a preference.

[Worshaka]

That's the best argument for Int, the fact you have a Disc spec you use... that makes Int superior for sure. In my case my main spec is Shadow and I OS as Holy.

[KidGosu]

everybody is just confusing me.....

im NOT going to go disc... i dont like it...
so i should stick with spirit then?

ugh to you all.. im going to stick with my original plan of Seer Gems

[Dentoid]

i used to gem some kind of retarded gems, like haste, crit, sp, spirit and int all over my gear

then i tried to swap out everything for pure intellect gems and i found myself having much more mana to play with

i later tried to replace all gems with SP and noticed at once that i had lot less mana to use and had to ask for innervates all the time

now i use spirit/int gems in almost every slot on my gear and i still find it hard to keep my mana up, prehaps i have to go full intelect but hey, i still have a tier of loot to upgrade to :>

[Whatah]

INTELLECT is the king regen stat for Priests.
Can copy+paste some maths if youd like, but Intellect gives over twice as much mp5 per point than Spirit does.

[Izenhart]

If you don't ninja DPS items from casters, all the spirit you'll ever need is from gear, gemming spirit is so 2008 nowadays.

Go int.