The 2.4 Mana Regen Series
With the release of Patch 2.4, the way that Spirit-based mana regeneration is calculated will be changing so that Intellect is also a factor. On the up side, it’s a marked improvement for Spirit-based spellcasters, and the improvement actually scales exponentially with gear. Notably, all mana users will now use the same base formula for their mana regeneration with no more delineations by class. Classes like the Druid and Priest will still derive additional benefit when talenting Intensity and Meditation, however, and the Druid spell Innervate means that we get an even larger benefit than most. Notably, this also means that a Druid who shifts into Bear Form or Cat Form will continue to regenerate her mana just as before rather than at the decreased rate prior to Patch 2.4.
On the down side, it obsoletes many of the previously written articles here at Resto4Life that deal specifically with the issue of mana regeneration. Slowly, I’ll be replacing those out of date articles with new ones to help you continue to make the best decisions with regard to your gear and playstyle. This article will be focused on helping you determine the optimal ratio between Intellect and Spirit. Because of the complicated interaction between the two, this is no longer a set number and changes based on how much Intellect/Spirit you have, the length of the fight, the use of Innervate, the presence of Intensity, and the use of the Bangle of Endless Blessings. For those that don’t want to get into the gritty details presented below, a good rule of thumb for boss fights will be to aim for 40% more Spirit than Intellect.
Table of Contents
- The New Mana Regeneration Formula
- Optimizing Intellect and Spirit
- The Mana Regeneration Coefficient
- Optimizing Intellect and Spirit with MRC
- ** Significant Observations
- Math
- Credits
** For the TLDR folks. You know who you are!
The New Mana Regeneration Formula
According to Whitetooth of Cenarius (US), author of the RatingBuster addon, the new formula for determining Spirit-based — and now Intellect-based — can be expressed as follows (source):
Base Mana RegenInt, Spi, Level = S * Base_Regen(Level) * √I * 5 + 0.001
As you can see, there is a new variable being introduced by Blizzard, a base mana regeneration factor determined by your current level. For levels 58-70, these factors are:
- 0.011245
- 0.01111
- 0.010999
- 0.0107
- 0.010522
- 0.01029
- 0.010119
- 0.009968
- 0.009808
- 0.009651
- 0.009553
- 0.009445
- 0.009327
This factor scales inversely with level. Due to its relation within the new formula, as you level up, you will require more Intellect and more Spirit to derive the same level of return. This is of course consistent with previous Blizzard design philosophy which encourages continued gear progression.
Optimizing Intellect and Spirit
While level is more or less a factor outside of our control, we can make gear selections based on the other two variables: Intellect and Spirit. Many people have concluded that the ideal method of optimizing these two will be to have your Spirit be double the value of your current Intellect (proof).
2I = S
In other words, if you are currently sitting at 200 Intellect and 450 Spirit and have the choice between an item with 40 Intellect and 40 Spirit, when optimizing for mana regeneration, select the item that will bring your Intellect/Spirit ratio closer to 2 or, in this case, the 40 Intellect. Similarly, if you had the choice between the same two items but had 400 Spirit and 250 Intellect, you would want to choose the item with 40 Spirit.
While the 2:1 rule is both easy to apply and understand, it doesn’t tell the whole story, and following it by rote will actually lead to subobtimal gear choices. Just as before, there is additional value associated with Intellect. Not spell crit, from which Restoration Druids derive little benefit, but rather the value of mana provided by Intellect. You can consider the mana provided by Intellect as "bonus" regeneration spread out over the course of an encounter. Thus, to determine the value of Intellect, a necessary component is time, and we must modify our original formula to account for this factor. To do so requires the use of partial derivatives (the proof of which can be found at the bottom of this article), but the final result comes out to the following with "t" representing "# of ticks in the fight":
S = 2I - 30√I / (t * 0.046635)
We can then plot the value of Intellect relative to Spirit over various fight lengths, deriving the following graph:
As you can see above, the 2 * Intellect = Spirit guideline is oversimplified to the point of being incorrect. Also note that the above graph does not factor in the effects of Innervate, Intensity, the percent time spent within the Five Second Rule, or the most popular mana regeneration trinket, the [Bangle of Endless Blessings]. To account for these factors, here is a summary of how they will affect our formula:
- % Time in Five Second Rule
This is the percent of the time you find yourself within the Five Second Rule, the time in which your mana regeneration is reduced to a fraction of what you would experience if not casting. For most Druids, this percentage is at least 30% due to 3/3 Intensity. This base reduction (70%) can be mitigated by other factors, however. As a rule, more time spent in the 5SR will increase the value of Intellect relative to Spirit since, while both Intellect and Spirit are now factored into "Spirit-based" regeneration, Intellect also affords additional mana "up front," mana whose value increases since it does not need to be regenerated. - Intensity
The Druid talent Intensity increases mana regeneration while within the Five Second Rule by 30%. It and the Priest-equivalent talent, Meditation, is the reason that Spirit continues to be a preferred stat for these two classes while Shamans and Paladins instead prefer MP5. Since as a rule more mana regeneration while inside the Five Second Rule tends to devalue the up front mana contribution by Intellect, the effect is to increase the relative value of Spirit. - Innervate
The class skill Innervate increases Spirit-based mana regeneration by a factor of five for at least 20 seconds out of every 360 seconds or 5.56% of the time. The effect of this is to discount the value of the "up front" mana afforded by Intellect, making Spirit more valuable - [Bangle of Endless Blessings]: Proc
When the Bangle of Endless Blessings procs, it effectively removes you from the Five Second Rule for 15 seconds. The effect of this is to increase the value of Spirit since, like Innervate, it serves to discount the value of up front mana. For a lengthy discussion of the effects of the Bangle’s proc on mana regeneration, please see the previous article, Arrrghhh!!! Trinkets!!! - [Bangle of Endless Blessings]: On-Use Effect
The on-use effect of the Bangle of Endless Blessings is to afford an additional 140 Spirit. As it is generally used in conjunction with Innervate, further augmenting the 500% rate of regeneration, it also de-emphasizes the value of Intellect. However, as it innately provides an additional 140 Spirit, it will tend to move the "optimum" ratio back toward a higher value for Intellect since your Spirit will be increased 5.56% of the time.
The Mana Regeneration Coefficient
To simplify determining the mathematical contribution of these factors, it’s easiest to think of most of them in terms of how they augment the percentage of your base mana regeneration you will receive over time. Going forward, I will refer to this value as the "Mana Regen Coefficient" or "MRC." The contribution of % time in the FSR is pretty straightforward. By its definition, any time spent outside the FSR (1 - %Time in FSR) will grant 100% of your base mana regeneration. Effects such as the proc from the [Bangle of Endless Blessings] will also increase your mana regeneration, but only during time that would otherwise be considered inside the FSR (you can’t get more than 100% of your base mana regen except through Innervate). For example, if you were to spend 90% of the time in the FSR, and the Bangle’s Proc is active 23% of the time (cast frequency: 2.0 sec; proof), you would combine the two as follows:
MRCFSR, Bangle = ((1 - 0.9) * 100%) + (0.9 * 0.23 * 15%) = 0.131
While inside the 5SR, Intensity will afford you 30% of your base regeneration, a bonus that stacks with the proc from the Bangle. To also include the effects of Intensity, we modify our calculation like so:
MRCFSR, Bangle, Intensity = ((1 - 0.9) * 100%) + (0.9 * 0.23 * 15%) + (0.3 * 0.9) = 0.401
Because Innervate multiplies your base mana regeneration by five, it should considered isolated from the other factors listed above. To include the contributions from Innervate, we separate our function into two parts: the portion effective while under the effects of Innervate and the portion effective otherwise:
MRCInnervate, FSR, Bangle, Intensity = (500% * 20/360) + (MRCFSR, Bangle, Intensity * 340/360) = 0.657
Unfortunately, the on-use effect of the Bangle of the Endless Blessings combined with the use of Innervate greatly complicates things, marginally moving things in favor of Spirit but more significantly increasing the relative value of Intellect. This modification will be handled in a future article. For now, using the values supplied above, we can assume that our Mana Regeneration Coefficient will be close to 65.7%.
Optimizing Intellect and Spirit with MRC
The MRC can be added to the derived mana regeneration formula by multiplying it into the denominator (which includes your total mana regeneration):
S = 2I - 30√I / (t * 0.046635 * MRC)
This revised formula can be plotted in the same way we plotted the earlier formula. Using the values described above to derive an MRC of 0.657, we can generate the following the graph:
Significant Observations
The following observations can be made with regard to this change to mana regeneration:
- The longer the fight, the greater the value of Spirit relative to Intellect. This makes sense since longer fights place a higher premium upon the ability to regenerate mana over having mana available up front.
- As fight length increases, the value of Spirit relative to Intellect gets closer to 2. However, generally the amount of Spirit required will be less than twice the Intellect value, and you should base your optimization upon average fight length.
- At Spirit values between 300 to 450 and fight lengths between 8 and 10 minutes, you will want 30-50% more Spirit than Intellect based on the graph above. Therefore, as a general rule, aim for 40% more Spirit than Intellect.
- As your gear improves, you will want to move away from MP5 and toward Intellect and Spirit because the mana return from Intellect and Spirit increases exponentially while MP5 mana regeneration remains linear. The "break even" point where MP5 is roughly equal to Blizzard’s value of Intellect/Spirit is around 350 Spirit.
- While Spirit now benefits Shamans and Paladins, they are not likely to begin rolling on Cloth and Leather Spirit-gear since they lack talents such as Intensity and Meditation. This means that MP5 will continue to be a more attractive mana regeneration choice for them.
- Other classes that do not regularly receive Innervate will want significantly more Intellect than these graphs indicate.
- Trinkets that augment or that are based upon Spirit-based mana regeneration will become exponentially better. This has tremendous significance for Innervate.
This analysis is, of course, completely irrespective of +Healing and is intended to help you optimize your mana regeneration. How you value +Healing relative to mana regeneration has little to do with the figures and formulas presented here as the only relationship that exists between the two is from the 25% Spirit to +Healing Tree of Life aura. Determining the relative values placed upon +Healing (HPS) and mana regeneration will be revisited in a later article once Patch 2.4 has been released.
Math
For those curious, here is the proof behind the formula to determine the relative values of Intellect and Spirit.
Let:
m = MP5
S = Spirit
I = Intellect
t = ticks in fight
Deriving the original 2 * Int = Spi formula:
- m = S * 0.009327 * 5 * √I + 0.001
- ∂m/∂S = 0.046635 * √I
- ∂m/∂I = S * 0.046635 / 2√I
- ∂m/∂S = ∂m/∂I = S * 0.046635 / 2√I = √I * 0.046635
- S/2√I = √I
- S = 2I
Deriving the adjusted Intellect vs. Spirit formula by taking into account fight length in ticks:
- m = S * 0.009327 * 5 * √I + 0.001 + 15I/t
- ∂m/∂S = 0.046635 * √I
- ∂m/∂I = S * 0.046635 / 2√I + 15/t
- ∂m/∂S = ∂m/∂I = S * 0.046635 / 2√I + 15/t = √I * 0.046635
- S/2√I + 15/t = √I
- 2I = S + 30√I / (t * 0.046635)
- S = 2I - 30√I / (t * 0.046635)
To apply the MRC value to the above formula, simply multiply it into the denominator.
Credits
Credit to Mr. Phae’s Calculus background for the above proofs and other mathematical analysis. Credit to reader Nebelmond of Die Silberne Hand (EU) for sending me the original information from Whitetooth which served as the launching point of this series. Finally, credit to Whitetooth both for his amazing dedication in determining the starting formula and his work on the highly valued RatingBuster addon which is tremendously helpful to theorycrafters.
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@Graylo: Oh, my mistake!! I’ve adjusted the description to be more clear.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 pm
I realize that this talent wouldn’t apply to most resto builds, but I’d be interested in seeing your analytical skills applied to how Dreamstate would impact the intellect vs spirit debate as well.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:28 pm
You wrote 2i=s, but isn’t that spirit should be double intellect? (disregarding time) I think that’s what you meant.
thanks for that graph , most people are saying just straight spirit = double int but really I guess that assumes an infinite time. Most fights aren’t quite that long.
I have still never found the bangle. I will have to keep trying.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 pm
A small correction: Bangle procs dont effectively remove you from the 5-second rule. A bangle proc only gives an additional 15% regen while casting, bringing you up to 45% spirit regen.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:19 am
@Astralwolf: That definitely would be interesting. I’ll make a note of it as a possibility once I’ve been able to revisit the more mainstream Resto topics.
@Yunk: Thank you for that correction! I completely missed it, and had to adjust the example I provided. And good luck with your Bangle!
@SuraBear: Ouch, how embarassing to forget how my favorite trinket works. I’ve made the necessary corrections and adjusted my MRC down accordingly. Thank you!
March 4th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Phaelia-
Glad to see you back after a lovely vacation.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the EJ thread concerning this topic and happy to see you tackle it as well. The addition of the time factor is really a great step and I think gets us closer to really settling on a firm definition of just how valuable int and spirit are now in relation to each other.
That said, I’m still hoping for a little more clarity eventually. Considering that spell haste becomes much more valuable to us with the ridiculous LB nerf and spell haste gear is typically lacking in spirit (yet retains int) I’m interested to see how new regen pans out (especially since this results in us casting MORE than we do now).
I’m also wondering just how valuable +heal is now compared to int/spirit. The LB coefficient change just makes me really confused about how best to gem now. I’ve gone with stacking all +22heal and it’s been marvelous but this LB change over on PTR makes me cry when I see the numbers and I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to have to start gemming for more spirit if I start stacking spell haste.
I’m rambling, it’s exam day and I just read like 14 pages of forum threads. Need. Coffee. XD
March 4th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Hello there,
Thank you for the great article. I really appreciate you taking the time to put together so much good information. I had a quick question about one of the points you mentioned.
In the observations section, when you say that “the ‘break even’ point where MP5 is roughly equal to Blizzard’s value of Intellect/Spirit is around 350 Spirit,” do you mean Blizzard’s item value? In other words, once a healer has over 350 Spirit, they’ll get more mana goodness out of a piece of gear’s item budget if more of it goes to Int/Spi, rather than MP5? I just want to make sure I’m interpreting that point correctly.
Thanks again!
-Tone
March 4th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
@Ada: I’m glad that this analysis has been helpful to you even if it isn’t entirely complete yet. I decided to break it into a series of posts since there was no way I could finish everything that needed analysis and get it posted in the next little while. Not to mention that this article was already a little overwhelming. It was actually originally planned to be two articles with the first focusing on adding the time aspect and the second looking to develop the MRC, but I decided it was important enough to include that factor and not mislead anyone with just the timed information. Next on my list of “TODO” is a JavaScript calculator to help you determine all these numbers based on your own personal experience. I’ll probably need Valenna’s help with that since he’s more experienced with JS, though.
That said, I too am wondering how +Healing will stack up against Int/Spirit. I wish I could advise you in one direction or another but I’m just not there yet. It is something that I’m thinking about, though, and I’ll certainly keep you updated when I know more. The same goes for Spell Haste which I just find a mind boggling new dimension to consider. Yes, I can cast more LB with it, but I don’t really need to roll on more tanks right now so this will really help more with raid healing and keeping Rejuv and even Regrowth up on them without sacrificing my stacks to do so. Again, it’s another dynamic that’s going to take me some time to wrap my head around.
To let you know what *I* am doing about it, I’m planning to stock up on the gems that I MIGHT need before the release of Patch 2.4 (when the prices will skyrocket). I have guildmates and friends who will cut what I end up deciding to use for free, and I can sell off the excess I don’t need — probably for a profit.
@Tone: Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Basically by comparing how Blizzard itemizes for stats and what those stats actually mean to us, we can get a bigger “bang for our buck” since Spirit and Intellect actually end up being devalued relative to MP5, especially at later levels. I am personally looking to replace all the MP5 I can, no simple task for someone who wears two pieces of PvP gear (the S2 hat and S3 gloves) in PvE. PS - Your Gravatar is pretty awesome!
March 4th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Thank you for this valuable contribution to theorycrafting. According to Wowwiki the first 20 points of Intellect contribute only 1 mana each. If that is true your formula might need a minor adjustment.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:08 am
Hi there,
Thanks for the follow-up… I appreciate it!
Regarding the avatar pic: Worg Pup and I have faced many perils… but none, perhaps, as perilous… as the Giant Random Egyptian Guy! (or “Greg” as I like to call him…)
March 5th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Thank you for all the hard work you put into this awesome article! I have one question though….
You weren’t working on this while you were on that cruise, were you?
I hope you had a good time, and I’m glad to have ya back!
March 5th, 2008 at 4:15 am
Thx for the blog. I see that you are good at the math’s and i like it.
Now 2 difficult questions for part 2.
I see the old blog about blessing of kings and blessing of wisdom. The conclusion was there unless you have skyhigh spirit the BoW is better. But with 2.4 int will be very important. I think now that BoK will be better with abit normal value’s of int/spi. Because you are good at math’s i think you will put a nice graph (spi-int) with a line that is saying above this BoK is better.
When i did read about the int and abit the formula i bought already 2 cheap shadow pearls. I think the prices will drop of royal nighteye and prices go up for pearls. :). At which value of int/spi will healing-spirit better then healing-mana?
Thx alot again…
Thalosar
Shadowsong-eu
March 5th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Yay, you’re back! Couldn’t wait for this post
I’m really happy about 2.4 changes on this regard. I always wanted to stack spi instead of mp5, feels much more “druidic”. I wonder if I actually can replace most or even all of my “Royal Nightseye” for “Purified Shadow Pearl”.
Something else I’m thrilled about is my DC:BD. I haven’t done many tests on PTR, but with MotW alone I’m around 500 mana regen OOC. Raid-buffed and with a bit more spi/less mp5, card procs are going to be awesome.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Hey Phaelia, great article, it’s nice to see the time element incorporated. I thought I’d throw in my thoughts regarding 2.4. As noted, spell haste still won’t help us with MT healing, and so it’s really only going to help with raid healing because it allows you to throw out one more heal per cycle. I personally would recommend druids at this level focus on two sets then. Continue to gear your primary set for straight +heal. Yes, LB will be a little bit nerfed, but with the spirit regen changes mana is going to be even less of an issue (and it wasn’t to begin with). If you’re interested take a look at post 417 in http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17783-druid_raiding_tree/p17/, where I’ve shown that high end druids will actually have more mana regen without their innervate post patch than they do right now with innervate. Hence, there’s really no advantage to be gained from stacking more spirit.
However, in cases where you’ve switched over to a haste set you’ll suddenly be consuming mana much faster while also having sacrificed some regen (often that’s the trade-off Bliz has made in their itemization). So I’d recommend when you build your haste set, focus your gemming and enchanting a towards mana regen since you’ll be casting more and with a smaller mana pool. You really should have two sets anyway so why not specialize them appropriately.
March 5th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
@Richelieu: Oh, no I didn’t realize that. It should be a simple — and minor — adjustment, and I’ll try to get to that this week! =) Thanks for letting me know.
@Tone: GREG has killed me a fair number of times. Stupid Cenarion Circle reputation grind 3 months before TBC obsoleted all the rewards!
@Leighbra: >.> <.< Maybe … cruises have a fair amount of downtime! But there was a lot I couldn’t do like create links and such since I had very limited Internet access.
@Thasolar: BoK vs. BoW is a good question. However, I already have plans for Part 2 (and beyond) in the series. But I will make a note of it. =) Your question about gems is addressed in one of my earlier comments (the answer was … drumroll … I don’t know, yet ;-)).
@Hokuto: I agree with you. I’m happy to be switching over from MP5 to Spirit, especially since it means there are some actual “upgrades” out there for me that my guild can actually get to.
@Kalaghan: I haven’t really done the analysis for +Healing yet, so I can’t really say one way or the other. This analysis is only supposed to help you optimize SPI/INT. Even doing so at lower levels of Spirit and Intellect (while primarily focusing on +Healing) would be a wise decision since it would result in fewer “wasted” stat points. Thank you for the link, however, and you do make excellent points with regard to spell haste vs. mana regen. I’m sure it will be very helpful in the future!
March 5th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Ya, my comment regarding plus healing was geared more towards the subset of druids who are already stacking straight +healing (eg. Ada above). 2.4 shouldn’t change this. Yes, you will derive less effiency from your +healing post-2.4. But the whole argument behind stacking straight +heal was that you didn’t need any more mana. If you don’t need more mana now, then you certainly won’t need it post patch.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
“If you don’t need more mana now, then you certainly won’t need it post patch.”
I have this growing fear that there is a reason they’re buffing both mana regen and haste and giving us more haste gear: New fights will be so tough we’ll never be out of the 5sr, and we’ll need to cast as fast as we can
March 5th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
@Kalaghan
I didn’t mean to sound like I thought I should regem from +22 in my current gear. It’s just that my healing and regen are pretty maxed out right now (well until Illidan drops my Memento rawr) so I feel that I have enough room in my “stat budget” so-to-speak and *should* try to squeeze in that extra LB with haste gear. I’m usually raid healing along with tank-healing anyway so it would be helpful at least in any encounter where the raid takes damage. And if I really want to do as much healing as possible, I think I’m going to have to change things up a bit, namely by wearing haste gear.
However, my question is that if I switch to more haste gear, should I start gemming 11heal/5spirit or 11heal/5int or use 11heal/2mp5 or stay straight +22heal? I’ve always done these things rather intuitively, getting to a healthy regen level and then going straight heal - this has become with current gear, all +heal - but I feel like it’s going to change in 2.4 and it makes me nervous not knowing how to re-gem (or if?) on patch day.
And I do have a side haste set now that I’ve never really used and will certainly not destroy the gear I have - it’s more just wanting to know what’s really the optimal way to get the most possible healing out of my little tree at least for the majority of encounters.
March 6th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Hi all
im a holy priest with ~500 spririt , 500 Intellect +1900healing
and gear having ~90MP5.
Have been changing MP5 gear towards spirit gear the last few weeks
but im “missing” a question : Just “how” much worth is MP5
compared to Spirit/int assuming u are close to 100% inside FSR raid-healing.
Just a “thump” of rule my “math” says : 1MP5 is “maximum” worth 3 spirit
going to 2 spirit after 2.4
just my 2 cent
Steen
March 6th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Mp5 cost more Ilvl than spirit and healing, if you go with gear with no MP5 and still got enough Mp5 in 2.4 you will get more +healing and more sta/int/spi
March 6th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Many thanks for doing a series about the change to mana regeneration post 2.4!
It’s much appreciated. =)
March 7th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is the relationship between +healing and MP5 and the fact that everybody seems to assume all that extra mana per five can be put to a good use (namely more lifeblooms).
In my experience, when healing a tank, I don’t really feel comfortable just throwing extra lifeblooms out to the raid. Instead, I end up throwing more regrowths on the tank. These regrowths don’t get me the mana efficiency of a lifebloom, but they do let me use the mana.
In other words, I can’t wait to see your next article comparing +healing to int/spirit and I’d love to see your analysis take into account that exact problem: the druid healing model, and how hard it is to find efficient ways to use extra mana.
In my current model, I end up seeing +1 MP5 being equal to about +3 healing, by the way. That seems a lot lower than the average analysis out there at the moment.
March 8th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
You shure are keeping Mr. Phae busy. =P
This certainly gives spirit the final push that it needed to make it the all around better stat than straight Mp5. Of course this dosen’t mean we should shirk Mp5 all together since split stats mean more for your item budget. 2.4 will certainly be difficult to get around my head that i should seriously consider spirit now. Ill bludgeon it into my head somehow.
@Adarel that depends on the mana regen you keep with your haste gear. If you feel confident enough that your regen is adequate. If not (probably) you should probably gem for the healing and spirit.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Balancing out Int/Spi/MP5 just became a bit clearer. Thanks for the numbers.
Cheers from a new resto
March 11th, 2008 at 12:39 am
@steen:
As a holy priest, you shouldn’t be spending “close to 100% of the time in FSR.” You should more likely be in the 65%-75% range. Use a mod and try to measure it more accurately. (The only mod that I can think of off-hand to measure FSR % is FuBar_RegenFu, which can be downloaded from: files.wowace.com.)
@Phae:
Nice approach to the changes. Not to nitpick or anything, but I have a few questions about how you value certain things. For example, what does it matter how an increase in 1 point of spirit or 1 point of intellect changes the mana return on Innervate? If Innervate goes live the way it is, the mana regen from it is insane! For most priests/druids the mana return will by far exceed their mana pool. I don’t care if innervate gives me 15k mana back or 16k. A full mana pool is a full mana pool. I believe you value spirit a bit too highly compared to intellect in light of this fact.
March 11th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
@Normong: It looks like we were on the same page! My recent articles on the use of Regrowth demonstrate a way to leverage extra mana in such a way that your raidmates will be better off — and you’ll have done more effective healing than if you’d relied on Lifebloom alone. Great catch. =)
@Zackoria: I AM keeping him busy. But he’s been playing online poker for several months. I figure the least he can do is help me blog if he isn’t going to play WoW with me. =D
@Dark Spot and Xotli: You’re welcome! I’m glad I’m helping save others from a headache.
@MK: It does matter how you allocate your stat points between Intellect and Spirit. If you can improve your mana regen simply by increasing your Spirit 30 more points, that’s fewer points that you need to allocate to MP5 or Intellect and more points that you can allocate to improving +Healing or spell haste or whatever your cup of tea happens to be. Bringing Innervate into the equation was more a means of making sure you recognize HOW MUCH mana regeneration you’re going to be seeing. Then you could opt to scale back (in favor of something else) or ramp up accordingly. Still, if it turns out that Innervate is completely filling your mana pool, that’s a whole different animal! (And one that must be bathed, fed, and watered.) I’ll have to take a look at that; thank you for pointing it out. =)
March 11th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I wasn’t saying that how you allocated points between spirit and intellect didn’t matter. I was trying to say that it didn’t when innervating, provided the mana return from innervate was greater than your mana pool.
March 12th, 2008 at 11:53 am
You keep saying how spirit will help Innervate in 2.4.
While this is true in 2.3.x and below, in 2.4, any reasonably geared healer is going to have enough spirit to COMPLETELY FILL HIS or HER MANA BAR. As a result, the stat you want for getting more out of innervate is INTELLECT because that increases the size of your mana bar.
Raid buffed in the current gearing on my priest I’m around 620 spirit / 660 INT (this is 2/5 T4 and 1/5 T5 + some ZA loot, even some kara stuff, nothing exceptional) and innervate will regen over 16,000 mana over 20 seconds if I don’t have a spirit swap weapon. Well, that’s more mana than my bar, so more spirit does nothing for innervate. I need an INT swap weapon to get more out of innervate O_o.
and for regen trinkets, the Darkmoon Faire Blue Dragon Card becomes pretty insane. 2% chance to sit outside FSR for 15 seconds. This essentially means the card is worth out of FSR MP5 - inside FSR MP5 * 0.x%. Raid buffed after 2.4 I will have about 500-550 MP5 difference between inside and outside FSR, which makes the trinket worth ~50 MP5 under normal GHeal tank healing type casting conditions and ~80 MP5 when I am in a Circle of Healing spam type assignment where I am casting significantly more often.
At that point you are getting so much regen from one trinket, that you don’t even need to worry about regen on your other trinket, just go for +heal.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
This is a great point. It looks like I will have to come up with a second formula for those cases where Innervate will completely fill your mana bar. This is going to take me a bit. =) Thanks to both of you for this revision and the subsequent information you’ve provided.
Also, it appears that I am not “reasonably geared.” /cry!
March 23rd, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Thanks so much for this great article. It really helped me understand how 2.4 is going to affect my mana regen. With the addition of epic gems for heroic badges, it’s really too bad there is no craftable epic healing / spirit gem.
March 24th, 2008 at 10:21 am
@Bri: I’m really glad it was clear enough to be helpful! And that really is a shame about the epic gems. I put a Luminous Noble Topaz and a pair of Purified Shadow Pearls into my new robe this weekend!
March 26th, 2008 at 6:34 am
As a new (noob, lvl 49) to the Druid class and Theory Craft I have a quest which i expect to get burnt for!
Am interpreting the I vs S graph correctly in that for ‘lvling up’ if you apply the above information, considering that most individual fights are <2mins a ratio of 2int to 1Spi is preferable.
I appologise if this has been raised before, I have read so much information i came upon this Blog in a somewhat glazed over state! I will however be subscribig to it.
March 26th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
@Energence: No worries about the questions! =) It’s actually a good one. The graph above isn’t going to be the same that you would expect to see at level 42 since there’s a variable in the equation that changes as you level (the base mana regeneration factor listed here: http://elitistjerks.com/635940-post114.html). Unfortunately, there isn’t really any analysis being done for gearing pre-70 since mana regeneration is less of an issue during instances at those levels. However, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing to add a level dropdown for the mana regeneration calculator … Hmm …
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
[...] Druid, any tips, information and general healy goodness I can usually find here. Phaelia has some excellent theorycrafting and she will take the time to answer questions. I can’t say enough great [...]
April 8th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Just wondering if you have any thoughts/math that deals with how Spirit is valued vs. MP5 for druids with the new Int/Spirit interactions? I know they do different things based on the FSR, but I think I (and possibly many others like me) would benefit from having a fairly standard formula to use (e.g. 1.4 Spirit: 1 Int). Thanks for your work and being a great source of information to all resto druids.
Cheers,
Strad
April 8th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
@Stradivari: Unfortunately, there really can’t be a “standard” formula anymore as the value of each Stat changes as your others stats change (so if you add Spirit, more Spirit might become slightly less attractive until your Intellect increases to compensate). Optimal mana regeneration has become a “moving target” that you have to adjust for as your gear improves or changes. Luckily, the mana regen calculator (http://www.resto4life.com/guides/calculator-mana-regeneration/) should help you determine how much you personally value MP5 vs. Spirit vs. Intellect with a good deal of accuracy.
In general though, I would suggest avoiding MP5 as soon as you can in favor of Intellect and Spirit. MP5 increases your mana regeneration linearly while doing nothing to improve mana return from Innervate, total mana pool, or the +Healing aura from Tree of Life. On the other hand, the returns from Spirit and Intellect in terms of mana regeneration scale exponentially, all while providing the additional benefits not afforded to MP5. I say “as soon as you can” since much gear early on will be loaded up with MP5 and intially it may provide you better mana regeneration returns than similar Spirit/Intellect increases. Once you hit the “sweet spot” where the calculator tells you that 1 MP5 < 2.5 Spirit or 2.5 Intellect (the magic place where Blizzard assigns it in terms of itemization values), you’ll want to start steering away from MP5 in favor of Intellect and Spirit since that’s where you’ll be getting the most bang for your buck!
April 9th, 2008 at 9:53 am
[...] on spirit and then not put spirit on what should be the best gear in the game? On top of that they revised how we regenerate mana from spirit in 2.4 making the stat even more [...]
April 9th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I just wanted to point out that this change is pretty sweet for ferals that have to don the old healing kit every once in awhile. HotW’s +20% INT now essentially gives us +10% base mana regen. (root of 1.2 ~= 1.1)
April 14th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
@Maulrush: Good observation. Unintended buffs to Feral mana regeneration are always welcome and are sure to be at least somewhat of a boon in PvP where Druids’ constant need to shift is a stumbling block.
May 4th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Dear Phae
First i would like to praise your mathmatical manipulative skills, that proof of S=2I was a feat of dexterity that i have yet to accomplish.
My dream would be to have your mp5 calculator in game (as a mod) automatically assesing the character and telling them what stat they need more of to improve.
would you concider working with someone to impliment this?
for the good of all treekind?
May 4th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
@Gararf: Thank you. =) I am glad it is helpful to you. As I am not an addon author myself, the only kind of help I could provide would be the math above. But I am certainly happy for anyone to use it as the basis for an addon such as you describe!
May 15th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Phae
im not sure if you received my email, but the gist of it is that im making the addon myself with verly little previous programming experience. Its all going well, im almost at the stage where i put in the actual calculations. i’ve posted progress screenshots along with the incomplete addon on my guild forum. Everyone feel free to test it. once its finished i shall put it on curse and Full credits to you ofcouse mr Phae.
http://www.eurokremguild.net
—> Forum
—> Chat
—> Garry’s mod so far
June 5th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I have a question: mana regen ticks every 2sec. When does the first chunck of mana from outside of the FSR tick? Is that the 6th second after you’ve stopped casting?
June 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I wasn’t able to test it myself, but I did dig up the following tidbit from Formulas: Mana Regen via WoWWiki.com:
This would seem to imply that your mana regeneration will tick every 2 seconds whether handicapped within the 5SR or for the full amount outside. So sometimes it will tick immediately after you leave the 5SR and sometimes it will take a second.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:05 am
I was wondering if your calculations could be influenced by the fact that we continue casting while Innervate is running. Usually I can look at my Mana bar during INN and continue casting Rejuvenation on raid so that the bar never refills to 100%. With my numbers your calculator suggests High Int weapon to swap, but I am wondering if I should not invest more in Spirit still - since I feel that I can intensify casting (particularly with [item]Scarab of the Infinite Cycle[/item] instead of Bangle) so that the Innervate never really refills the mana bar completely.
If I cast 10 Rejuv’s during 15 seconds, I will effectively use over 4000 mana - this is an extreme, but it does happen in healing-intense fights where the entire raid takes continuous damage.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:50 am
@Fiord: This is a great point that I haven’t emphasized before. This really only comes into play in borderline situations, where Innervate is just barely filling up your mana bar, but if you consistently find yourself with less than full mana at the end of an Innervate, then switching to a Spirit weapon is probably the thing to do.