The "Five second rule"

[ntadk]

I'm pretty new to healing, my Holy Priest is the first max level healer I've had. I have heard people talk about a five second rule, heal every five seconds, and the like.

Can someone explain this to me and the reasoning behind it?

[Deralte]

It means, that after you use a mana consuming spell, you have to wait for five seconds until your normal mana-regeneration continues.

[Jaromir]

When you look into your spell tab in caracter sheet, you can notice the last line : Mana regen

200 mana regenerated every 5 sec while not casting

50 mana regenerated every 5 sec while casting


Let's say you heal a big fight for 30 sec. While your are chain casting, you gain 50 mana each 5 seconds. Now if you stop casting for 5 seconds ( because there is less pressure ), your mana will start regenerating by 200 each 5 seconds. If you cast one spell, the regeneration will kick back to 50 mana each 5 sec until you stop casting for 5 second ( will switch to 200 each 5 seconds ).

Hope this clears up.

[ntadk]

ok, didnt know about the 5 seconds after the cast thing ty.

[willie]

Altho it looks clear, some misunderstanding is easely made.
Pointing out some rules for Mana Regen.

You regen Mana via Spirit and MP5

MP5 gives you mana regardless of the situation casting or not casting.
Spirit gives you mana only if your outside the "Five Second Rule"

5 second Rule:
This applies to the 5 seconds after casting a spell that costs Mana, EG Talents or Procs that reduces the spell costs to 0% mana can be cast w/o entering the FSR again.


Now there is an exception for Spirit based regen during the FSR.
There is a talent in the Discipline tree called Meditation which causes you to regen 30% of the spirit you would regen not being in the FSR and act as pure MP5.

Spirit and MP5 are both strong Mana regens and both require a different play style.
MP5 gives you a more fluent regen if you are in the FSR however spirit will give a better regen if you manage to stay out of this alot during specific encounters.

Secondly spirit is a strong stat that adds more then just Regen, talents in the holy/shadow tree makes sure spirit enchances your Spelldamage gained aswell.

Its important for you to know how you play, and thus knowing if you should focus on pure mp5/spirit or a combination of both. If you find yourself casting alot then try gathering some mp5 gear.

[angel]

This is why spirit is important for Holy Priests. Spam spam spam, then stop for 5+ seconds to let the Spirit kick in and regen your mana a few ticks and then you continue.

The more spirit you have the faster your regen will go when you get out of 5seconds rule.

[Arduroc]

Also, you should be aware of FSR manipulation. This is the essential skill involved in playing a holy priest besides just being able to keep your intended targets healed.

Clearcasting procs and skills like Surge of Light (Holy Tree), Holy Concentration (Holy Tree) and Inner focus (Early Disc Tree) allow you to cast spells which cost no mana. And these spells do not force you back in to mp5 or combat regen.

Now HC and SoL are procs which you cannot control, they're a nice added bonus and can lead to you staying outside of the FSR or getting there in the first place.

Inner Focus is different, you can in essence proc a clearcasting when you feel like it.

So spammityspamspam, everyone is healed /pant, you sense a break and hit inner focus and then you essentially get to stay outside the FSR for two more spell casts.

Or you pop it directly after loosing the shadow fiend on the boss, allowing for your spirit regen to begin to work as the shadowfiend also regenerates mana for you, it's some pretty ridiculous mana gain.

[Arduroc]

Now if you'll kindly check the front page, you'll see that in the next major patch they intend to nerf spirit regen, up mp5 regen and change clearcasting procs and skills like those mentioned above to be mana returns as opposed to free spells.

This means there will be no good way to get out of the FSR besides stopping casts entirely and when you do get out of the FSR it wont mean nearly as much.

What does this mean for Holy priests? I have no idea. If these changes go through without some other modification, the basic principle of Holy Priest-ing goes down the drain.

With the way we've stacked spirit up until this point I'm not sure how entirely effective we'll be, maybe it just means we won't have to care about the FSR and continue on our merry, heal spamming way. We'll see.

[bals]

And here I thought the five second rule applied to food you dropped on the ground...

[K21Nova]

And here I thought the five second rule applied to food you dropped on the ground...

...which btw is complete BS. You can eat your food off the freeway and you'll be just fine.

[Ramuh]

don't worry about, seems to get removed 3.1 anyways

[Alienganja]

...which btw is complete BS. You can eat your food off the freeway and you'll be just fine.

That sure sounds like a "freeway" to go to the hospital.

no?

anyone?

Bueller?

[Choff]

...which btw is complete BS. You can eat your food off the freeway and you'll be just fine.

not after 5 seconds you can't

[bals]

don't worry about, seems to get removed 3.1 anyways

i'm glad they are removing this rule so i can eat food i find on the ground without worrying how long it has been there

[Tumdumdumdum]

With the regen changes coming up they will make the same mistake as in TBC.
Pre-TBC a good healer could mana it's mana, with the FSR.
In TBC spirit was broken, everyone stacked MP5, and a good healer, didn't have anything todo with knowing your class or tricks, but was about gear.
In WotLK the spirit is back, the FSR is back, works great for a holy priest with spirit trinkets. And now they say regen ooFSR is to large, and they are gonna nerf it.

I guess everybody will be stacking mp5 again, and the task of a healer can be brainless again (good thing they nerfed CoH & WG to see a little difference in spammers and ppl who know their class.)


But about the FSR and using it in you advantage, read this:
http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t35208-w...aft_specs_etc/
(and then this part III. Cheating the 5 Second Rule)

[Kelesti]

Even with Spirit Regen getting a nerf, and Clearcasting proc's changing to "mana rebate" instead, Stopcasting has been and always will be viable for Holy, and that's all there is to it.

[Cleir]

or

when you drop food on the floor you have 5 seconds to pick it up again else you have to throw it away... or convert to the 10 second rule.

(from the film "waiting")

[Karmac27]

Crazy question here. Besides counting to five, is there a mod or another way to track the FSR?

[Healbot411]

Stopcasting has been and always will be viable for Holy.

First went downranking, then FSR, its only a matter of time before stopcasting is gone to =(.

[Cleir]

xperl has a little bar that goes across as soon as those 5 secs start so when it hits the right side you're into the 5SR. cast in the middle of those 5 secs and it starts again from the left.