[Resto Shaman]: How much spirit is enough?

[Mammoth]

I'm trying to help a friend with his resto shaman in 25 man raiding. I've been following the sticky's advice, mainly the priority system:

Int > Spirit (until you have 'enough') > First Haste Softcap (916 for non-Goblins) > Crit >= Mastery > More Spirit > More Haste

My friend has a Spi trinket so his pushing 2.8k Spi at the moment, and I feel he could probably be more effective by pushing points from Spi to Crit/Mastery instead. But I know its a personal thing, so how much Spi do you find enough for raiding?


(Also: None of the shaman in the guild stop at the 916 soft cap for haste, and don't reforge it down. Is this wise? It seems to me that they require more Spi because they're burning mana on Haste rather than Crit/Mastery.)

[Hypernetic]

At this point in time, whatever you are getting from gear is generally "enough" there is no reason to go out of your way to gem/enchant/reforge for spirit.

Haste isn't bad either, some people prefer it over mastery.

[Deleted]

Its all about personal preferense and how well he is able to handle his mana.
Im raiding 10man only and am 8/13 heroic, im staying at 2.2k spirit but swaping between Jar and other depending on encounter.

And with the current changes and the upcoming, Mastery => Haste -> Crit will be the way to go if im not mistaken.

[Dethyx]

what he should "try" to do is have spirit be a base stat on each piece of gear, and use intellect trinks (with spirit procs/use if possible). I use Fall of mortality and DMC: Tsunami, have about 2250 spirit and i don't usually get that close to ooming (guild is starting 25m HMs), and i still pull all my weight. Just make to sure to squeeze lightning bolts in there.... a lot. For instance, on heroic halfus i generate about 300k mana from LB alone. Its really a helpful thing. Also, as for my stats, i go for mastery. i dont see a reason to get ~1800 haste because the extra output though mastery is greater then averaging 3 extra casts per fight. As for crit, i just take as much off as possible.

[Hypernetic]

what he should "try" to do is have spirit be a base stat on each piece of gear, and use intellect trinks (with spirit procs/use if possible). I use Fall of mortality and DMC: Tsunami, have about 2250 spirit and i don't usually get that close to ooming (guild is starting 25m HMs), and i still pull all my weight. Just make to sure to squeeze lightning bolts in there.... a lot. For instance, on heroic halfus i generate about 300k mana from LB alone. Its really a helpful thing.

What you said about TC is pretty misleading for people who don't know about stuff. The damage increase on heroic halfus once the drakes start dying is insane, there is no other fight in this tier where you can regen like that.

TC is great for quite a few fights for sure, but don't over sell it. I think it's a waste on most fights. On most fights without a damage boost you'll end up healing for more by just being efficient and healing throughout the whole fight, rather than trying to burst/regen.

[Mammoth]

At this point in time, whatever you are getting from gear is generally "enough" there is no reason to go out of your way to gem/enchant/reforge for spirit.

Haste isn't bad either, some people prefer it over mastery.

My take on these priority systems is if you have enough of a stat, then you should reforge away the extra. So if he's unable to obtain DMC:Tsunami surely it would be best to reforge the Spirit on his trinket into Mastery instead?

[Hypernetic]

I don't see anything particularly wrong with doing that, no.

[Whoopsa]

The thing is that it's very dependent on a lot of things. Do you have Heartsong on your weapon? Do your trinkets have Spirit proccs at all, and what do they amount to? Do you have the 4-set bonus, and how often are you letting it fall off?

Generally speaking, "enough" refers to using a normal healing style (in 25 man heroics, probably not using HW hardly at all, but being able to keep HR down and use CH when there's massive damage, spot heal with HS/RT and use GHW on tanks), while also using TC where applicable, and having just enough regen to hit 0% mana the second the boss dies. With Tsunami and the Vibrant Alchemist Stone, and the 4-set, I've found that 2k-2.2k is more than enough on most fights, but just barely enough on some really healing intensive fights. Your mileage may vary, of course.

[Mammoth]

He has Heartsong, doesn't have the 4 set yet, and his trinkets are currently:

Core of Ripeness: http://www.wowhead.com/item=58184
Mandala of Stirring Patterns: http://www.wowhead.com/item=68711

and I believe he is aiming for

Jar of Ancient Remedies: http://www.wowhead.com/item=59354

[Hypernetic]

To be frank, the small stat change between reforging a few pieces here and there and not isn't going to do anything.

Minor tweaks here and there might eek out a few more HPS from a player who is playing at or close to the skill cap.

I'm not trying to sound like a dick or anything here. Healing isn't like DPS where you stack the correct stats and then press 1111121134 over and over and do well. It takes time and practice to get good with it. From the sounds of it your friend seems like more of a beginner to healing. If so, time and practice will improve his healing way more than reforging a few pieces of gear EVER could.

[Radux]

When I wrote the guide, I still took some information from the previous Resto guide (which was written about 3 days or so after release of Cata) as well as put in some of my own.

When I said 'enough' it was meant to mean that you are comfortable with your regen. Now some people can pull that off by ignoring a lot of Crit and having more Spirit or having lower* Spirit and having more Crit. Both of these stats are here to improve your mana regeneration (if you exclude TC).

Hypernetic is very correct, though. There is no direct formula for success in healing. If everyone lives and you were competitive, you were successful. Many people can do this with high amounts of Mastery. Some can do this with high amounts of Haste. It all comes down to play style. So long as you're comfortable with your mana regeneration, you can tinker around with your throughput stats as you please until you have a good feel for how you want to play.

[Phoenix15]

You'll find most shamans these days sitting anywhere from 2.2k spirit, which seems to work very well for normal modes, to around 2.6k for heroic modes. If he's sitting at 2.8k he's sacrificing other stats to get that much regen, which means he'll have to heal more to get the same output. I am currently sitting around 2.4k and am 6/13 in 25 man hard modes and if I'm smart with my spell usage I can generally last through most fights with any issue. Also if he can get trinkets that work WITH mana tide that'd help him even more, like DMC: Tsunami for example which also gives 321 int on top of the spirit.

Another poster mentioned having Telluric Currents (regen from lightning bolts). I currently have this in my spec and if there is ever a time where there is no damage going out and i'm not having to move, i'll cast a few lightning bolts. While the mana regen isn't "much" it's atleast some. If you look at fights like Heroic Halfus, where he gains a damage increase from each "drake" dead you can restore 30k mana PER lightning bolt.

Ideally the regen issue has many factors besides just your friend's gear. In my guild we run two resto shaman so we have usually 4 mana tides per fight. If your DPS are bad and constantly stand in shit its going to require more healing and more regen. Also the better your other healers get, the less healing will be needed which will also lessen your need for regen. So its hard to put a number on it, but like I said up top, 2.2k is good for normal modes and ~2.6k is a good spot to aim for heroic modes.

[Mammoth]

We're currently working on HMs, so I guess his 2.8k is okay. He's kindof the Mana Tide Totem jockey for all the other healers, so I guess they want him to have high Spi.

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm now resolved to stay out of the affairs of my shaman friend, its obviously based more on style these days than when I was Resto healing in Wrath. I'm just worried that he isn't scoring high enough on the meters for the shaman officer. In this new Cata healing model my tip to stand in the fire and chail heal from yourself seems to no longer apply.

[Pope]

Well I'd guess it depends on playstyle / raid composition / and other stuff.

If you're going for a crit and haste-heavy playstyle, with a lot of TC-usage, I guess you don't need 2800 spirit

But if you're currently working on hard-modes, and healer-mana (not only your own) is a problem, then having spirit on every piece is probably important.

I'd say it's more important to have 4pc and accurate trinkets, then having a fixed base-spirit-amount.

----
To the 916-haste question:
Personally, I'm a fan of high haste. But most people currently working on hardmodes are known for using a lot of healing rain. And unfortunately, healing rain doesn't benefit a lot from haste, because it has a 10-sec duration and 10 second cooldown.
So a Healing rain with ~800 Haste (first breakpoint) has the same HPS like a HR with 2500 Haste. When you reach the next Breakpoint, your HPS increases. But unfortunately, it's at 3000 Haste.

[Phoenix15]

We're currently working on HMs, so I guess his 2.8k is okay. He's kindof the Mana Tide Totem jockey for all the other healers, so I guess they want him to have high Spi.

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm now resolved to stay out of the affairs of my shaman friend, its obviously based more on style these days than when I was Resto healing in Wrath. I'm just worried that he isn't scoring high enough on the meters for the shaman officer. In this new Cata healing model my tip to stand in the fire and chail heal from yourself seems to no longer apply.

If he's gearing for being a Mana Tide Bitch for the other healers mana pools, then don't expect him to be topping meters. I said in my previous post, that if he's truly that high in spirit then he's lacking in other throughput stats that would help him climb the meters.

Now while meters don't matter that much to healers by themselves, you have to dig deeper with WoL parses to see active time, proper cd and spell usage, etc.

Like the previous poster said, having 4 piece tier 10 (540 spirit after using riptide) and trinkets like DMC:Tsunami, you can really boost your spirit without lacking any throughput. I posted that I'm running 2400 spirit right now, add in 540 spirit from the 4 piece and 400 spirit from that card and i'm already up to 3340 without including any other raid buffs or flasks/food. Personally I'd say its more about balancing your stats than trying to be a mana battery for your other healers, especially if you're in hard modes.

[Whoopsa]

2.8k spirit with only Heartsong and Core to rely on as non-passive spirit is fine. He probably needs that much, which is also fine. The difference is that while he can have effectively 3k spirit once you factor in Core, I can get 3k spirit while having Tsunami, the 4-set, and a Vibrant Alchemists Stone, and only show 2k spirit on my character sheet, but that way comes out like 200 rating ahead and 340 Intellect. It really goes to show just how important picking trinkets and getting your 4-set is, because there is no magic "you need X amount" like hit rating or something. There is only what you need to not go OOM with you playstyle.

[Hypernetic]

2.8k spirit with only Heartsong and Core to rely on as non-passive spirit is fine. He probably needs that much, which is also fine. The difference is that while he can have effectively 3k spirit once you factor in Core, I can get 3k spirit while having Tsunami, the 4-set, and a Vibrant Alchemists Stone, and only show 2k spirit on my character sheet, but that way comes out like 200 rating ahead and 340 Intellect. It really goes to show just how important picking trinkets and getting your 4-set is, because there is no magic "you need X amount" like hit rating or something. There is only what you need to not go OOM with you playstyle.

People also seem to discount just how much an effect INT has on MP5. For example, not including mana tide, I lost a grand total of 3 mp5 switching from JoAR to DMC:T (this is comparing my combat regen with each trinket stacked up). So it's what, a 100 something spirit difference but only 3 mp5. JoAR's on use complicates things a little there, but you get the point.

[Whoopsa]

People also seem to discount just how much an effect INT has on MP5. For example, not including mana tide, I lost a grand total of 3 mp5 switching from JoAR to DMC:T (this is comparing my combat regen with each trinket stacked up). So it's what, a 100 something spirit difference but only 3 mp5. JoAR's on use complicates things a little there, but you get the point.

Speaking of JoAR, I found a little quirk with its tooltip after acquiring the Heroic version. It says it consumes all applications and prevents gaining any for 30 seconds, but that's not true. It does not consume the current ones, all it does it put a 30 second debuff on you that prevents them from refreshing or gaining new stacks. The downtime is actually around 16-20 seconds without having any stacks before you can start getting new ones. Food for thought.

[zshikara]

We're currently working on HMs, so I guess his 2.8k is okay. He's kindof the Mana Tide Totem jockey for all the other healers, so I guess they want him to have high Spi.

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm now resolved to stay out of the affairs of my shaman friend, its obviously based more on style these days than when I was Resto healing in Wrath. I'm just worried that he isn't scoring high enough on the meters for the shaman officer. In this new Cata healing model my tip to stand in the fire and chail heal from yourself seems to no longer apply.

If you're doing stupid tricks like that to artificially inflate your meters you really need to reevaluate the importance you're placing on meters. Seriously, recount doesn't matter unless you wipe due to healer error. In which case recount can be used to see where the lack of heals happened and still HPS doesn't matter that much.

Sure I can hold 17K HPS on Chimaeron, but if I am worrying about getting everyone back to full instead of just over 10K then I'm doing it wrong even if I top the charts.

[Dirtyfist]

Also if he can get trinkets that work WITH mana tide that'd help him even more, like DMC: Tsunami for example which also gives 321 int on top of the spirit.

You can't use "on demand" spirit trinkets with mana tide anymore. Gimme a few min and ill find the patch note post. Actually nvm finding the post, it says right on the Mana Tide Tooltip "Excluding short duration spirit bonuses".