[Resto] Stacking INT viable?

[zmieer]

It seems, after the patch, it will be viable to stack INT as a resto shaman.
Before it was better to stack +healing since it was the one stat that helped with mana efficiency and increased the chance you would save someone's life when your heals are bigger.

Now when we can't downrank anymore, there is a big difference in play style. We need to heal less often, but for more. The new HoTs help with that. It also means there is a slight chance you go out of FSR in some situations, and since the last buff to out of-FSR-regen INT also increases that amount.
The change with potions is also a big change in play style, before you could trust your potions to give you mana, now you need the replenishment buff from a fellow gamer, which is based on total mana (0,25% of total mana per second). Mana tide doesn't change, it still benefits from a large mana pool, just as before.
The new talents Improved Water Shield and Ancestral Awakening makes critting alot more attractive. Before the benefits from crit was giving the Ancestral Fortitude buff and increasing the chance of saving someone's life through healing for more (but mostly in pvp situations), it was not dependable. Post-patch the benefits will be much bigger. INT raises your spellcrit chance. The change to the talent Nature's Blessing was favorable, if only by a very small amount (depending on which spell power to +healing conversion factor you use).

Simple math can tell:
10 INT
=
11 INT with talent
=
165 mana
=
4.5375 mp5
=
1.65 spell power
=
0.125 % crit chance @70

This is calculated 1. for when having the replenishment buff, and 2. with the assumption the fight lasts exactly 5 minutes, any shorter or longer than that and mana tide gives even more mp5, and loads more for each additional resto shaman in the group. It is not calculated for the fact that crit increases your mp5 thanks to the talent Improved Water Shield since it is not easily modeled when using different cast times.
Ember Skyfire Diamond and Improved Blessing of Kings boost these benefits by 2 and 10% respectively.

As always, there is no simple answer regarding healing stats. There is a balance between healing capacity and longevity each player needs to individually adjust to their play style.
How will you decide to enchant and gem with this in regard? Discuss!

[Kozikk]

Int works for mana purposes, but your hps will be somewhat low. Based on our current itemization, I don't think we will ever have the crit of a healer like a paladin. Because of that, you can't rely on crits to get healing numbers up. The way blizzard has been moving (at least with BT and sunwell), is in the direction of large amounts of raid damage. The fact is you don't have time to heal every person twice, you just wont keep up. This is also true in 5-mans, when both tanks and dps are taking damage.

If you are concerned about mana, you can always increase efficiency by downranking spells. I am aware that they have nerfed downranking a good bit, but it is still a viable method of keeping your mana pool when you don't need your maximum hps. Considering shaman have 3 main healing spells, you can have 2 ranks of chain heal and 2 ranks of LHW, with only 1 rank of Healing Wave because it only needs to be used for big heals.

PS. This also depends on the situation we run into for boss encounters. Encounters in BC were long, lasting far more than 5 minutes. With that in mind, it was more efficient to stack mp5 over int. If fights shift back to shorter times, between 3 and 5 minutes, then int will indeed be better for mana purposes.

[zmieer]

Int works for mana purposes, but your hps will be somewhat low. Based on our current itemization, I don't think we will ever have the crit of a healer like a paladin.

No, probably not at level 80, but at the PTR I merged my best resto gear with my best elemental gear, and ta-daa, 25% crit chance! (While still having 2720 +heal with a 1:1.84 conversion ratio)
And using a mix of these kind of pieces will still be available at 80. Also spell haste help with the healing capacity and gives us more time to refresh our Water Shield.

If you are concerned about mana, you can always increase efficiency by downranking spells.

No, lower ranks has HIGHER mana cost than the highest rank. You don't benefit from downranking at all.
You need to rely on either overhealing (spell power don't help if you're already over healing), talents like Ancestral Awakening (scales with crit but doesn't necessarily heal the tank), HoTs (yours or a fellow druid if you're lucky), to keep players alive.

In TBC I was never concerned about mana, I preferred having +2600 heal and sacrificing my mp5 down to about 80. Mana pot chugging was enough for my needs.
My point was relying on crit for our helpful spirit friend rather than relying on crit for bigger heals (we have tidal force when we need to crit). Also, it seems as if Blizzard's attempt to make us use other spells than chain heal has succeeded, because with the scaling buff to LHW from Tidal Waves, while still being one of the highest, if not THE highest hps spell in-game (that is spammable), we can still save lives when we need to. All we need is not to run out of mana.

[zmieer]

Not many responses yet. Bump!
(Perhaps I should rename the topic to "rate my imba speck LAWL" or "blizz know nading aboot balanzz ret ftw", those kind of topics seem to attract more people)

[drakkan]

At 70? Nah. If anything you may want to get rid of the +haste gems that are scattered in every yellow slot and toss some int ones in there, -maybe-. If you're having mana issues that is. Probably better off anyway, you're not going to be spamming anymore.

Int is definitely going to be a very useful stat (BTW, figure 12 INT per Socket per Kings)

Int seems as if it's going to be king at lower gearlevels at 80, as you progress however, it'll be a tossup between that and your good old +healing/+int, Not too sure where Mp5 stands nowadays. Probably where crit used to be, to be honest. Take it where it comes, don't gem for it yada yada.

[Beefstyx]

I have to agree. I don't think MP5 is something people will be gemming or enchanting for now. Personally, I will be getting a mix of int and crit gems for yellow slots, + healing for red slots, and some kind of hybrid gem for the blue slots.

[zmieer]

I just found out EJ forums discuss this. Their conclusion is "unless you have infinite mana, stack int".
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t27030-r...ts_discussion/
For those who are interested in this matter I suggest using EJ forums instead for inspiration and discussion. Mmo champion's forums seem to attract an audience where the more useless posts you post to get the Spammer XL title, the better. To much posts based on a hunch or a feeling, not much rational consideration from these posters (I am not aiming my criticism to anyone who have replied to my thread).
I appreciate the responses I've got, and most of all the fact that no "hero member" found his way to poison one of few serious threads.

[Mawaru]

Stacking INT isn't worth it until resto has more accessability to Unrelenting Storm.

[greenstripes]

I was just going to go from stacking mp5 to stacking more mp5, however, all the talent bonuses from int do make it look like our best stat for raiding, being mp5, spell power, and crit, so the point per point throughput can't be matched. That is, however, contingent on a couple of people having replenishment in the raid, so stacking int wont really be the way to go until 25 man raiding.

[Thunderball]

Yes, you can stack int for manaregen purposes for sure. I believe intellect is more than 3 times more effective for manaregen than mp5. But dont forget to stack spellpower aswell, int doesnt really help you hps.

[drakkan]

Don't forget the mana battery mechanics (for the most part anyway) are based upon a percentage of your maximum mana. So, the more mana you have, the more you receive. This also goes for Mana Tide.

[czokalapik]

well, mana tide (without new glyph) is <mana>/250 mp5, and with glyph of mana tide it will be <mana>/214 mp5 (ofcourse when recasting every 5min)
so only for mana tide 1int = 0,04mp5, with glyph ~0,0467mp5