Mastery > Int?

[Dendrek]

I went for the snowflake retort after you had blamed me for being condescending . Why not go all the way if you're already there?

Irregardless, yes, I would argue for spirit in all cases, even hardmode gear - the main thing here is, that the fights gets progressively more and more intense to heal. As I've already argued, more heals > bigger heals when the damage gets more intense, for a druid atleast (as hots are more effective the more you spread them out).
Let's take the most healing intensive encounter this tier, Shekzeer, and one of those resto druids I argue are "doing it right", Owld from method:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/k...28&e=3366#Owld
Now, numbers are ~, not 100% accurate, but enough to give an idea.
As you can see, over a 14 minute fight, he casts 130 rejuvenations for an average of 114K healing per (or 19K per tick).
He's obviously got the set bonus, so every 5 minutes, 1K spirit will give him another 4.7 rejuvs, making for a total of ~13-14 rejuvenations more over the entire fight, with 1K spirit over 500 int.
13 rejuvenations is 1.5M healing.
Adding 1.5% healing to his current healing done (60.5M) adds 900K healing.
As you can see, spirit is *far* superior.

I mis-worded my question: I meant to ask if you'd argue that spirit is the way to go for anyone not in HM gear/content?

[Edit] And if he isn't going oom, he wouldn't have room for more regen (because he's not technically using all he has in that case). Honestly, I don't know if he is going oom. P.S. He'd get 11 more casts (it's 4.7 casts every 6 minutes :P). But still, your numbers work out to show that the extra casts are worth more than the extra 1.5%.

[Dracodraco]

I mis-worded my question: I meant to ask if you'd argue that spirit is the way to go for anyone not in HM gear/content?

Honestly, that's mostly up to the person to decide - it all does depend on group setups, potential healing done, etc -
As said, you seem to be vastly overgearing the content (when we went in to normal MSV the first week, we barely had 460 average across the raid, and we were only just scraping everyone at +475 when we hit WOTE heroic), which means that the spirit you would need in order to be "comfortably" healing the normal modes is something you have, baseline, from your gear right now, as you're sitting in 487 average (basicly, the max you can get from MSV normals, and higher than needed for doing about 11/16 heroic). Along with that, if you raid with a resto shaman or not will be a HUGE factor. That tide is VERY strong. I healed MSV this and last week on my druid because we use my priest for our 10 man alt raid now, and we're slowly gearing up alts for the next tier when we have the chance, and I don't usually raid with a manatide - having two of them from shamans in +500 Ilvl... Holy god damn batman on a stick. ALLLLLL the rejuvenations.

But as a basic rule of thumb, yes, I'd always argue for spirit, over int. Spirit gives you a throughput increase, just as well as int does, spirit allows for more cockups if you're inexperienced as you can cast more (so throwing a heal on the wrong target won't be as dire), and generally, if shit hits the fan, having the mana to blanket more is superior to being able to snap heal, which every single other healer does better than a druid anyway.

[Dendrek]

Also, while flask and food is obviously the first thing you'd want to drop (it's a 1:1 int:spirit conversion instead of 1:2, and thus your 3% healing from int vs 1k spirit would be suitable for the argument of flasks), I still don't see how, for a "new" player in low-end gear, that int would be better than spirit. Int requires a significantly higher amount of foresight (when to use what heal, is a hot worth it here, where should I drop my effloresence to make sure I don't waste ticks on overhealing, etc) because it makes you more prone to waste your mana by overhealing, while spirit provides a buffer that allows you to make mistakes and keep on healing.

Just noticed this edit. You're sort of right about the added buffer that spirit gives, but that's not much of a buffer at all, really. And the low geared druid gains more than 3% from 1000 Int. When I was first gearing up for raids, I had like 17000 int with a flask. My Spellpower was probably 22,000 fully buffed. In that case, the flask was worth a 5% increase in Spellpower or about a 4% increase in overall healing (i'm nitpicking numbers here, I know). But if you stop to think about it, if people are getting topped off faster from my heals, I'm less inclined to be in a panic-mode. If I don't understand the value of spirit (or lack thereof), then I'd feel (as I did) that I'm incapable of keeping up without it. But what I didn't know, and what most healers don't really understand, is that while that spirit looks nice on paper, it ends up being almost useless in the long term.

If I'm ever at a point where I'm at full mana during a fight, or if I'm never at a point of being oom during a fight, that extra spirit did me absolutely no good. Because we can't then say it gave me 4.7 extra casts of anything (or in the case of Regrowth, 2.3 extra casts).

[Edit] I should probably comment on the resto shaman thing since it's come up more than once: I've only healed with him once. I've done all the fights so far with either a paladin, a monk, or another resto druid. And I was fine on mana in those cases (usually). I did go oom a few times on various fights, but that was mostly due to bad play (on my or other player's parts) and not on my inability to heal with the mana I had. My first time killing protectors in ToES, I was 2 healing with another resto druid who was doing about half my healing and who was oom before the fight was over. (I'm not bragging, I'm merely pointing out that mana is not and has not really been an issue for me with or without a resto shaman.)

[Dracodraco]

Argueably, though, you should never ever be at 100% mana. If you're at 100% mana, it also means that intellect is useless as a throughput, simply because there is no damage to heal. My current non-buffed (non-trinket) mana regen is 12.3K per 5 seconds, and nourish costs 6.1K mana every 2.3 seconds. It's like, *only just* mana positive, outside of trinket procs, of course.
Using any other more expensive heals, should be constantly draining your mana.

I'd also say that the "being topped off faster from my heals" aren't really worth anything at all - here's the deal:

Your rejuvs will tick for around 15K in entry-raid gear (assuming owld in super-mega-pimped gear ticks for about 19K average). Adding 5% to that, they'll tick for 15750. Your healing touch might be 100K So 105K with 5% added on top - with 400K health pools, you're literally not going to notice that people get topped off 5% faster, and suddenly it turns into overhealing again.

[Sanadoz]

I believe in always gemming some sort of INT + X. The spirit you get from gemming purified in blue sockets + gear + running 2 regen trinkets should be more than enough mana regen even on progression. A big reason reason why I feel like you should always lean toward INT +X and int food/flasks is due to the HoTW talent.

Most druids, especially in a 10 man setting underrate this talent so much. 6% more stam and int is very strong. The damage you can do with HoTW is quite ridiculous for the 40~ seconds you have it up. In a 25 man setting you aren't adding that much to the overall raid DPS but in a 10 man raid you are adding significantly more. During progression being able to do 4+ million damage at the beginning of a fight when almost no healing is required (or another healer can easily cover) or during certain calm healing periods is invaluable especially considering Blizzard uses harsh DPS checks to make fights harder. Especially considering Nature's Vigil is getting changed next patch, getting used to HoTW might not be a bad idea.

Note that I have felt very comfortable sitting around 8.5 - 9.5k spirit throughout this entire Tier's progression and this is without Mana Tide or Tsulong's mana regen trinket which I want because Int proc trinkets aren't as hot as spirit proc ones. For those people saying you need more mana regen/spirit, I suggest looking at your playstyle or working better with your raid's healers. Also before people say I overgear content, realize I killed Heroic Sha in about 490 ilvl gear. Some of the other bosses such as Shekzeer was prob around 485~.

As for OP gem INT+spirit and INT+MASTERY as necessary to get socket bonuses. If necessary to get to the 3043 haste breakpoint use a int+haste gem.

EDIT: I feel like gemming FLAT spirit might be arguably more beneficial in a 25 man setting due to the way raid damage is amplified in 25 man while the tank damage not so much so you will naturally be healing the raid moreso, meaning more rejuvs.

[Deleted]

This whole int vs spirit discussion really shouldn't only be a mathematical question imo.
A whole other set of things do think about is how the gemming/gearing fits your playstyle and the playstyle of your raid.
How much spirit you need is as much a question of how well you're and how well you're raid team is playing. (Be honest with yourselves, i would bet my account that noone can play it mathematically perfect anyway)

If your raid is just a bit slow at moving from the non-lethal, yet damaging abilities, you might have to heal a lot of those "80k" damage portions with your 100k heals.. (borrowing from the previously used examples).

My point is: If you want to maximize what you bring to the raid, you have to consider the general skill level of yourself and the raid members too, and not just what is mathematically best.

That is probably why people disagree so much too. They get different experiences with the gearing strategies, as they are different players and have different raid groups.

And before someone blames me for not being an uber awesome resto druid i'll just straight up agree with you :P Not that good on my resto druid (actually changed away from it because i didn't like the 'feel' of the druid healing). I do still believe i am right, that you should consider your own skill and your groups skill though :P

[Dendrek]

A few fights that come to mind on which I've been at full mana mid-fight: Gara'jal, Elgalon (ToL for orbs, HoW for pillars has gotten me to full mana at least once), Will of the Emperor (perhaps I should dps that fight while the dance is happening…).

But even still, the fact that I don't go oom on most fights says more than that I happen to be at full mana on a few. It says I have more regen than I need. It suggests that I am not getting more casts from the spirit I have, and I certainly wouldn't be getting more by adding more spirit. I could theoretically drop some spirit in favor of mastery, but like you I do think it's necessary to be geared for those times when you need the mana, so I'm willing to prioritize spirit over secondary stats (where reforging is concerned) — that's an especially compelling argument when you consider that the secondary stats aren't even worth half what int is; spirit clearly wins out in any case where the spirit is needed. But spirit loses to int on most fights for me (even at a 2:1 budget), and I think it should lose out to most other druids as well (unless they spam RJ mindlessly). I think it's far more important to learn good habits when healing than to create an artificial cushion to make up for bad habits.

Also, although I agree that a single cast that's 5% stronger won't be very noticeable, the fact that you're seeing that increase on every cast you do begins to have an observable impact.

[Cairhiin]

I have no clue how Resto Druids work as I'm a Holy Paladin but the point to make for spirit is the fact that it allows you to cast bigger heals more often. What is the point of casting a beefier Holy Light when, with more Spirit, you can cast Divine Light instead? DL will beat HL in throughput any day. The point people are trying to make is that spirit allows you to cast your expensive mana heals more often increasing your throughput more than what you would get from increased Int.

[Dendrek]

Are you considering just how many more times that spirit is letting you cast? "It lets you cast more" isn't a good enough argument. If you could say "it lets you cast 20 more times in a normal fight" then I'd say: You're totally right, gimme all the spirit! But that's not what we're saying here. The truth is "it lets you cast *maybe* 4 or 5 more over an entire fight — and that's assuming you're even at risk of going oom." It becomes a lot less of a compelling argument when you begin to think about it in practical terms.

[Deleted]

Mastery *2 > int *1.

But point for point, int is better.

[Raugnaut]

Spirit vs int is a mostly fight-per-fight base, that you only really know once you downed it.

Did you down a fight? Yes/No. If no, Down it. If yes, Congrats!

Did you run under 5% mana at any one point in the fight? If yes, you were just a few casts away from running oom! Depending on the damage taken during the raid, you may need more spirit next time, or possibly use different spells for the situation (Remember, the CURRENT purpose of Nourish, and Mushrooms, is not healing, but rather mana longevity. While they aren't as mana efficient as other spells, they use a SIGNIFICANT less amount of mana per cast time. If you are ok with not pushing any buttons while letting HoTs do thier work, then you dont really need to worry about Nourish/Shrooms. If you must ALWAYS be casting, the Nourish, and Mushrooms, are for when there is very, very light damage to heal. Of course, on heroic modes, there is almost always healing to be done. Sometimes there is less, but most of the time theres a ton)

If you did not run below 5% mana at any time, you never ran oom! You could probably stand to take a bit of spirit you have and convert it into Int. Or mastery. Or crit. Anything but spirit.

Of course, one reason for all the spirit stacking COULD be that you have enough base int/mastery/crit/haste to provide the minimum HPS needed to survive any encounter, so the more mana you have, the more mistakes your raid can make and you cover em.

[Dendrek]

Mastery *2 > int *1.

But point for point, int is better.

Although this is somewhat gear dependent, I'd argue that Mastery *3 > Int *1. (At heroic level gear, it might be closer to Mastery *2 = Int *1.)

[Maxvla]

I have no clue how Resto Druids work as I'm a Holy Paladin but the point to make for spirit is the fact that it allows you to cast bigger heals more often. What is the point of casting a beefier Holy Light when, with more Spirit, you can cast Divine Light instead? DL will beat HL in throughput any day. The point people are trying to make is that spirit allows you to cast your expensive mana heals more often increasing your throughput more than what you would get from increased Int.

Better to sit this one out. You don't know know how we operate, as you said, and then demonstrated.

[Deleted]

I sit at around 8k spirit... and ill either use a int or spirit flask depending on the fight (got darkmoon + spirits of the sun trinkets - probably the 2 best mana regene trinkets)... and i never go oom, and do pretty decent amount of healing.

I think a lot of ppl are forgetting about trinkets... they play a huge factor in our mana regene.

for example the on use 1min spirit trinket from shadow pan is no where near as good as darkmoon.. my darkmoon on avg has an uptime of around 40-50% per fight



Ive checked out quite a few top druids, and most of them seem to be at around 9-12k spirit, depending on their trinket (the higher end spirit ppl are with the wil of emp spirit trinket).... and i sorta argue with what draco is saying about being able to cast more vs slightly better heals, but then on fights that really dont have much damage, ur gonna be way over the "cap" and be ending the fight with like 80% mana.

gara spiritbinder for example, you cant say spirit>int on that fight.
garalon however you could maybe say spirit>int


I think a happy medium of around 9k spirit is the way to go, but i dont agree with losing INT to gain spirit (eg pure spirit gems, spirit+mastery gems)








On topic tho of the mastery vs Int thing.. heres a few results from changing Int and int/mastery gems to full mastery

Spell - With Int - With mastery ----- difference
-------------------------------------------------------------
Rejuv - 18,188 - 18,239 ---- +51
Wildgrowth - 34,112 - 34,208 ---- +96
Regrowth - 44,492 - 44,618 ---- +126
Healing Touch - 86,346 - 86,590 ---- +244

So seems mastery is better.. at least for me ne way

Int: 19,575
Mastery: 6104 (22.72%)

self buffed+HOTW (dont rly like natures vigil)

[Stommped]

Thread title: Mastery > Int?

ITT: Spirit > Int?

On topic, no OP.

[happyzod]

I gem solid int on res, solid spirit on blues, and solid mastery on yellows. Usually, a few gems are not enough to make that much of a difference.
I do prefer to be spirit heavy over int heavy. Just a personal preference.

[Juvenate]

For Resto your stat priority should be:

Intellect > Haste to 3043 > Mastery > Crit > Excess Haste

You should not be gemming for Spirit unless you use the Purified gem for Blue sockets. Intellect gives you a larger throughput increase than Mastery, especially if talented into Heart of the Wild. However, the socket bonuses usually give enough extra stats to not make gemming pure Intellect preferable.

Your sockets should be:

Red: Brilliant

Yellow: Reckless to hit the Haste breakpoint, otherwise Artful.

Blue: Purified

[Druover]

I just wanted to thank Dendrek and Dracodraco (and others) for the best actual theorycrafting discussion i've seen on these forums in months. Great discussion about spirit vs int, situations where each is better, how they play out numberwise, etc... I wish we could have like a weekly back and forth blog from you two on similar topics.... glyph of regrowth, sotf vs incarnation, etc...

[Banakh]

I'd like to point out that most of our spells have a global cooldown. Even if it's instant, you still have to wait at least a second before you can cast another heal. This means that there is a finite number of spells you can cast per fight.

Say, for example, you had a 6-minute boss fight. If your GCD was one second, you could cast a maximum of 360 spells. If you focused on primarily on spirit to have enough mana to cast that many instants, you will likely not have enough spellpower/mastery/intellect to make your heals big enough to be an effective healer. With the GCD we are limited in the number of heals cast for any given period of time. That means you have to give some priority to throughput stats.

But what are the magic numbers? It depends on how you play. It's a balance of the two. You have to have enough spirit to get you through the fight, but enough throughput to make your heals effective. Seasoned healers can give general guidelines, but they can't look at someone's armory and say, "You would be better suited to a throughput build." You have to look individually at how you heal, compare it to the guidelines given by our veterans, and decide what's best for you.

I personally favor the throughput stats. I force myself to find ways to make my heals more efficient. If I get stunned/silenced/interrupted, the HoTs I put up prior are likely strong enough to get my team through that period I'm not able to heal. I will, however, keep spirit food or flasks on me in case a new fight is draining me.

[Sunfyre]

Here's an interesting post by Hamlet. That being said, I don't think I've seen a mastery vs int response since the OP. If you'd like to debate spirit vs int, please open a thread for it.