I have revised my original opinion on this topic. You can find the updated analysis here: Idol Chatter.

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Leighbra of Sentinels (US) writes in with this question:

At the moment, I have 494 Spirit unbuffed. I’m at about 675 fully raid buffed. I don’t have any idea how I ended up with so much Spirit and have been looking at what I can do with my enchants to play with that number, but I’m cheap and don’t like to re-enchant things… I have the [Idol of the Emerald Queen] equipped, and of course Lifebloom is my most commonly cast spell. So, from my Tree of Life aura, in raids, that means about 135ish additional +Healing for the people in my group.

I’m trying to figure out if it would be more beneficial to the guild/raid (not just my healing numbers) for me to be in a group with our tanks and to equip that often discarded [Idol of the Raven Goddess], especially after it gets buffed, than me having the [Idol of the Emerald Queen] equipped. Especially on Gruul, when after 8 growths we tell our DPS to heal themselves, and have all 8/9 healers focus on our two tanks.

First of all, great question, especially in light of the upcoming update to our idols. Previously, the [Idol of the Emerald Queen] was indisputably the best one available to us. This is kind of sad considering it’s a blue item from a non-Heroic dungeon (Shadow Labyrinth). It really speaks to the — likely unanticipated — power of Lifebloom. With Patch 2.4, however, the bonus to your Tree of Life aura from the [Idol of the Raven Goddess] will jump from 20 to 44, certainly a marked improvement. And while I hesitate to tell you definitively which Idol will be better for you and your raid, I can help give you a list of considerations to help you decide!

1. You have to remain in Tree of Life form to get any benefit from the [Idol of the Raven Goddess]. You mention Gruul’s Lair as a consideration, but I would personally be terrified to try to avoid shatters with Tree Form’s 20% speed reduction. Of course, you aren’t as likely to need to be healing while moving around in preparation for a Shatter, but it’s expensive to shift in and out that regularly. Similarly, if you ever find yourself forced to return to caster form for extended periods of time, this is not the Idol for you. For instance, I’m often forced to shift to caster in order to NS + HT and then stay there until I’m able to spare the GCD to switch back. Your experience may vary, however. I know a lot of Druids tie their Nature’s Swiftness to Regrowth to avoid popping out to caster form.
2. The [Idol of the Emerald Queen] is pretty awesome since its healing bonus (+88) gets tripled when you stack up Lifebloom. That’s 264 +Healing for your LB x 3, albeit only for yourself and only for that spell. I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t taken into account when they allocated itemization points. It should really be a purple item, in my opinion.
3. The [Idol of the Raven Goddess] does not scale. Its +Healing bonus is a static one that becomes less significant as your Spirit increases. Still though, to get the same amount of +Healing added to your Tree of Life aura, you’d need 176 more Spirit. That’s not a low number!
4. Do you use an addon like Recount? It will give you an idea of what percentage of your total healing is comprised by Lifebloom. The higher that percentage is (I usually run about 80-90% Lifebloom), the more attractive the Idol of the Emerald Queen will be. If you’re regularly doing 47% of your raid’s healing in 10 mans, I’m tempted to say a buff to your own healing is going to outweigh a buff to the healing from your raid’s other healers.

If you consider the above, it should help you make the decision which you want to use. Obviously, the greater the amount of healing necessary to the tank, the better the [Idol of the Raven Goddess] becomes so it will potentially become more attractive. However, it’s going to be REALLY hard to beat 264 +Healing to your own Lifebloom stacks! I would, of course, love to hear opinions from readers. Have any of you found an Idol that you feel surpasses the value of the [Idol of the Emerald Queen]?

Related Posts

• Idol Chatter
• Mailbag: “Tree Tactics 101″ from Bigtoy of Cho’gall
• Mailbag: Bestowable Threat

This article became obsolete as of Patch 2.4. For Intellect and MP5 comparisons relevant as of 2.4, please see 2.4 Mana Regen - Part 1: The Basics and 2.4 Mana Regen - Part 2: The Mana Regen Calculator.

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Intellect and Mana per Five share an interesting relationship. While every point of Intellect gives you mana up front, the MP5 statistic returns mana over time, assuming you aren’t already at your maximum. As you might have intuited, determining their relative values involves a consideration of time. Luckily, the formula that determines their relationship is one of the simplest.

For every point of Intellect, a caster adds 15 more mana to her base mana pool. And every point of MP5 returns 1 Mana every 5 seconds. Therefore, at 1 minute and 15 seconds, a single point of MP5 is worth a point of Intellect. This sliding scale can be expressed by the following formula:

(Fight Length in Seconds/5)/15 = Intellect required to Equal 1 MP5

If we consider the value of Blessing of Kings, a buff grantiing 10% to all stats that is available in most 25-man raids, it increases the value of Intellect by 10%, changing our formula to the following:

(Fight Length in Seconds/5)/(15*1.1) = Intellect required to Equal 1 MP5

Applying these two formulas to fights varying from 0 to 10 minutes, we can derive the following graph:

Therefore, to know how much you value Intellect, you will want to consider the average length of those boss fights which which your guild is currently struggling (i.e., disregard encounters you have on farm; they are less likely to require optimization).

Related Posts

• MP5 vs. Intellect
• 2.4 Mana Regen: Paladin Blessings
• Blessing of Kings vs. Blessing of Wisdom

Bellwether of Dark Iron (US) writes in with this great question:

I often run with a Protection-specced Paladin tank, and he recently asked me a question I don't know how to answer. It was a question of Blessings, and he didn't know if it would be better to give me Blessing of Wisdom (mp5) or to increase my Spirit through Blessing of Kings. I was unsure which would be better. I do most of my healing in Tree Form with constantly refreshing Lifebloom stacks. Would this make BoK more appropriate overall then?

Bellwether sent me this question in October, and I originally intuited the answer from my own experience and personal preference for mana regeneration. However, dusting off Excel for the recent Thorns post inspired me to do a little math to flesh out my response so that I could share it. Like most stat/gear/spell comparisons, it's helpful to convert them so that they speak as close to the same language as possible. Since Blessing of Wisdom grants pure mana regeneration, I converted the Spirit component of Blessing of Kings into the equivalent MP5 it would grant. This, of course, ignores its auxillary benefits (additional HP from 10% more Stamina, additional mana from 10% more Intellect, and any additional +Healing if you use it while in Tree of Life), but it does give us a good starting point.

MP5 from Blessing of Wisdom

The MP5 value for BoW is pretty straightforward:

Blessing of Wisdom Rank 7 150 Mana 30 yd range Instant cast Places a Blessing on the friendly target, restoring 41 mana every 5 seconds for 10 min.  Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.

Paladins can also pick up a 2-point talent from their Holy tree called Improved Blessing of Wisdom. This talent increases the MP5 from BoW by an additional 20%, from 41 MP5 to 49.2 MP5. Since this Blessing grants pure MP5 it is unaffected by Spirit or percent time inside the Five Second Rule, thus making our lives a great deal less complicated.

MP5 from Blessing of Kings

To find the MP5 value of BoK, I'm assuming 3/3 Intensity (30% mana regeneration while casting). We don't need to take Living Spirit into account since BoK is multiplicative; we need only look at the "base" Spirit on our character sheet. We can then modify the formula from the earlier Spirit vs. MP5 article to derive its corollary, the formula for determining how much MP5 is required to match the value of 1 Spirit:

Mp5 required to match 1 Spirit =

Using this formula, we can determine the MP5 contribution of Blessing of Kings, assuming we know the following information:

• Base Spirit (SPI)
• % Time in the 5SR
• Casting Regen (assume 30% from Intensity)

Blessing of Kings vs. Blessing of Wisdom

I've calculated and graphed the MP5 contribution of Blessing of Kings at 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100% inside the FSR:

Then I performed the same calculation as above assuming that I used Innervate once every six minutes:

Note: For those who are curious, I can factor in Innervate by assuming that I'm under its effects (regenerating at a rate of 500%) 5.6% of the time and outside of its effects (regenerating at my normal rate) 94.4% of the time. For simplicity's sake, this assumes it's used once every six minutes. This should be considered a conservative estimate since it can sometimes be used at one minute into a fight and again at seven minutes — or once at one minute into a shorter fight (3 minutes).

From the above graphs, note the following:

• Because BoK gives Spirit, its MP5 equivalent decreases as the amount of time spent in the 5SR increases.
• Because BoK is percentage-based, its MP5 equivalent increases as the amount of base Spirit increases.
• Without considering Innervate, even at extremely high values of Spirit (700+) and at 50% of the time in the 5SR, the MP5 contribution of Blessing of Kings is less than half that of Improved Blessing of Wisdom.
• Once you take Innervate into account, however, a very conservative FSR percentage of 90% yields approximately half the value of MP5 from an Improved Blessing of Wisdom at very high values of Spirit.

Comparison and Conclusions

Clearly, Blessing of Wisdom is going to grant much greater mana regeneration than Blessing of Kings since Kings spends a portion of its "spell budget" on other effects (increasing your Intellect and Stamina along with other stats which are mostly worthless to a Restoration Druid). Given my preference for mana regeneration, I'd almost invariably choose Wisdom over Kings unless the encounter was really Stamina-dependent (in which case, I'd be more likely to put on a few pieces of PvP gear). In general, my order of preference for Blessing requests is as follows:

• Trash Fights: Salvation, Wisdom, Kings
• Boss Fights: Wisdom, Kings, Light *

* Of course if the boss fight is an aggro-sensitive one, you might interpose Salvation before or after Wisdom.

Related Posts

• Blessing of Kings vs. Blessing of Wisdom
• 2.4 Mana Regen: Paladin Blessings
• Revaluing Spirit

This article became obsolete as of Patch 2.4. For +Healing and MP5 comparisons relevant as of 2.4, please see 2.4 Mana Regen - Part 3: Valuing +Healing.

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As a Restoration Druid, there are several stats that must be considered when determining whether a given item is an upgrade: Intellect, Spirit, MP5, and +Healing. Each of these should be weighed relative to one of the others to get a good idea of how a given item “breaks down.” MP5 is my favorite indexing stat since the other stats have values greater than 1 when making a comparison. Today I’d like to examine how much +Healing equates to MP5. But unlike the calculation for Spirit vs. MP5 (in which it is relatively simple to account for time spent within the 5SR), the value of +Healing is a much more complex calculation that must take into account the following variables:

• The percent of total healing comprised by each of our various Healing spells
• The total health restored and mana cost for each of the above spells
• The scaling of each of the above spells for each point of +Healing (article here)

From the above data, we can calculate the HPM for each spell (health restored per point of mana) and then weight this HPM by the percentage of total healing provided by each spell. Obviously, the way in which we heal (and thus the percent of our total healing that comes from each spell) is subject to the dynamics of a particular encounter. I will be using data from last night’s Gruul kill to demonstrate how this can be calculated. I am using the excellent UI addon, Recount, to breakdown my healing by spell:

Breakdown of Total Healing by Spell

(Phaelia vs. Gruul the Dragonkiller)

As you can see above, Lifebloom was the source for 71% of my total healing. Unfortunately, Recount doesn’t track the difference between a triple stack of Lifebloom and a single application. This is important, however, as the strength of 3x Lifebloom is its high HPM efficiency. To determine that, I used additional data from our guild’s cumulative raid stats that indicates that 47% of my total healing was to our main tank (the most likely target for 3x Lifebloom):

% Total Healing _{3 x LB} = 0.71 * 0.47 = 33.37%

% Total Healing _{1 x LB} = 0.71 * 0.53 = 37.63%

Note: I recognize that this estimate does not account for the other forms of healing I applied to the tank, but this is an unfortunate limitation of the data I was able to mine.

Using these values and assuming an average of 1500 +Healing, I was able to generate the following chart (download the spreadsheet):

From the values above, I can conclude/calculate the following:

• On average, 1 point of mana converts to 11.74 points of health.
• Over the course of an 8 minute fight (estimated time for Gruul), 1 MP5 provides 96 mana or 1127 health (8 * 12 = 96; 96 * 11.74 = 1127).
• 1 MP5 converts a 0.46% boost to Healing (1127/244826 = 1127 / total healing).
• 1 point of +Healing represents a 0.0418% boost to healing.
• If 1 point of +Healing is valued at 0.0418% boost to healing and 1 MP5 is valued at a 0.46% boost to healing, then 1 point of MP5 is equivalent to 11.00 +Healing (0.0046/0.000418).

I recognize that I had to make a lot of assumptions to find this value and that there are a lot of variables that might change based on the encounter. I’ve provided the spreadsheet for download below, so feel free to adjust the figures for your own collected values. Note that there may be reason to further increase the relative value of MP5; after all, if at the end of the fight the tank dies because you are out of mana, having healed for a bit extra at the start will be of little comfort.

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Note: This calculation ended up feeling less “solid” than calculations I’ve been able to perform previously, mostly because I lacked good data for the number of stacks of Lifebloom that were applied. Nonetheless, after plugging in different values for the “soft” figures that I’ve estimated (% of 3x Lifebloom vs. single Lifebloom), the numbers do not seem to change significantly.

Related Posts

• MP5 vs. Healing
• Spirit vs. MP5, Blessing of Kings Version
• MP5 vs. Intellect

This article became obsolete as of Patch 2.4. For Spirit and MP5 comparisons relevant as of 2.4, please see 2.4 Mana Regen - Part 1: The Basics and 2.4 Mana Regen - Part 2: The Mana Regen Calculator.

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Within each class, the playerbase debates different game mechanics. Rogues debate Mutilate vs. Hemorrhage. Mages debate Fire vs. Arcane. Warlocks argue about whether they'd like their Fel Fire of Ultimate Win to be green or red. And for Restoration Druids, we frequently argue about the value of Spirit relative to MP5.

According to WoWWiki's calculations Blizzard considers 1 mana per 5 equal in value to 2.5 Spirit. That means, for the same item budget, you could get 100 MP5 or 250 Spirit. Which would you rather have? Let's look at each stat individually to shore up your rationale (whatever it might be).

What Spirit Does

From the official site, Spirit is described as the stat that:

Increases Health regeneration rates out of combat and Mana regeneration rates when not casting spells.

Sounds pretty good. More mana means more healing, right? Sort of. Not all classes benefit from Spirit in the same way. Some classes benefit more than we do from Spirit (like the Priest - boo! hiss!) and some classes — such as the Warlock and Paladin — benefit far less (these classes are inferior and undeserving of our Innervate). Here's how it breaks down among the four healing classes:

Class	Mana/Tick	MP5 per Spirit
Druid (Caster, Tree, Moonkin)	(SPI/4.5) + 15	0.555
Druid (Kitty, Bear)	(SPI/5) + 15	0.5
Paladin	(SPI/5) + 15	0.5
Priest	(SPI/4) + 12.5	0.625
Shaman	(SPI/5) + 17	0.5

As you can see, Priests regenerate the most mana for each point of Spirit, followed by Druids, followed by everyone else (including us when we shift into a Feral form). Interestingly, a Druid with the Living Spirit talent has mana regeneration per point of Spirit higher than that of Priests:

Class	Mana/Tick	MP5 per Spirit
Druid (Caster, Tree, Moonkin)	(SPI/4.5) + 15	0.555
Druid with Living Spirit	((1.15 * SPI)/4.5) + 15	0.639
Priest	(SPI/4) + 12.5	0.625

Spirit and the Five Second Rule

One of the biggest limitations of Spirit is that you only receive the benefit of its mana regeneration if you haven't cast a spell within the last 5 seconds. This is known as the "5-Second Rule" (5SR):

After a character expends mana in casting a spell, the effective amount of mana gained per tick from spirit-based regeneration becomes a ratio of the [the values listed above], for a period of 5 seconds.

The default percentage of mana regeneration within the 5SR is 0%. However, there are several talents and abilities that boost this value, including Priest Meditation and the Druid-equivalent Intensity. Both of these are 3-point talents that afford an additional 30% of mana regeneration "while casting" (i.e., inside the 5SR). Having three points in Intensity is a prerequisite for Nature's Swiftness so it's unlikely to find a Restoration Druid without it.

Class	Mana/Tick	MP5 per Spirit
Druid with Intensity	0.3 * ((SPI/4.5) + 15)	0.083
Druid with Intensity and Living Spirit	0.3 * (((1.15* SPI)/4.5) + 15)	0.096

There are also a few items which can boost your mana regeneration while casting, at least temporarily. Perhaps the most notable is the Bangle of Endless Blessings which has a chance to proc an additional 15% mana regeneration while casting for 15 seconds (at level 70):

Bangle of Endless Blessings Binds when picked up Unique-Equipped Trinket Requires Level 70 Equip: Your spell casts have a chance to allow [15 - max(PL - 70,0) / 2]% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting for 15 sec. Use: Increases your Spirit by 130 for 20 sec. (2 Min Cooldown)

Of course, you already have one of these after reading the article on Getting the Most out of Innervate, right? And speaking of Innervate it's worth noting that since Innervate is based upon its recipients base mana regeneration (outside of the 5SR), the more Spirit the better. This also means that giving your Innervate to a Warlock is less efficient than to a Priest or another Druid (or to yourself).

For more information on mana regeneration and the 5 Second Rule, be sure to visit Egotistical Priest and Priestly Endeavors.

The Tree of Life Aura

With the release of the Burning Crusade (technically just before), Blizzard added new talents for all classes, among them the 41-point Restoration talent, Tree of Life:

Tree of Life Shapeshift 28% of base Mana Instant cast Transforms the Druid into the Tree of Life Form.  While in this form you increase healing received by 25% of your total Spirit for all party members within 45 yards, your movement speed is reduced by 20%, and you can only cast Swiftmend, Innervate, Nature's Swiftness, Rebirth, poison removing and healing over time spells, but the mana cost of these spells is reduced by 20%. The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of Polymorph and Movement Impairing effects.

While in Tree of Life, a Druid causes all heal spells cast upon her party members to receive 0.25 points of +Healing for each point of Spirit she has. At 400 Spirit, that's 100 +Healing (115 with Living Spirit). (For more information about how the +Healing coefficient affects our spells, see Mystery No More: +Healing Explained.) In a 5-man instance, that's effectively 100-115 extra +Healing for the Druid since she won't be healing anyone outside of her party. In raids, this healing bonus generally only benefits one or more main tanks, assuming the Tree has been placed in the MT group and the dynamics of a given encounter allow for the form to be used.

Mana per Five Seconds (MP5)

This term is pretty self explanatory as how many points of mana you will regenerate within five seconds (2.5 ticks). While it's often used as an overall measure of a character's ability to regenerate mana, both in and outside of the Five Second Rule, it's also available as a pure statistic on many pieces of gear. Unlike Spirit, MP5 runs all the time, disregarding the 5SR altogether. Acquiring a new item that grants you 4 more MP5 than you had before will therefore increase your mana regeneration while casting and while not by 4. There isn't much more to describe about MP5 since it's a pretty straightforward stat.

Spirit vs. MP5

According to WoWWiki.com, each point of MP5 is valued equal to 2.5 points of SPI. How much each is actually worth to you personally, however, depends on how much time you spend inside the 5SR. The more time spent outside the 5SR, the more beneficial Spirit is. More time spent "casting" increases the value of MP5 relative to Spirit. A good way to determine how much time you spend inside the 5SR is to run a UI addon like RegenFu (Ace2, FuBar required), which not only summarizes the amount of time spent inside the 5SR by each fight, but also calculates the relative value of Spirit to MP5 for that specific encounter. It is a more significant relative measure on boss fights than for trash when raiding since it's more rare to run out of mana on trash.

Sample Data from RegenFu

WoWWiki.com includes an incredibly useful article on Mana Regeneration formulas (albeit, based upon Priests) that we can adapt to determining the relative values of MP5 and Spirit for Druids. Adjusting the formula to account for Druids' slightly lower base mana regen:

Spirit required to match 1 MP5 =

Applying the above formula, we can derive a graph of the amount of Spirit required to equal MP5 based upon the amount of time spent within the Five Second Rule, both with and without Innervate*. Rather than only evaluating mana regeneration from Spirit at the new 30% Intensity, I also calculated it at the previous 15% for comparison's sake. Once again, I've graphed it over the % time spent within the Five Second Rule and according to the use of the following talents and abilities:

• Intensity (both 2.2 and 2.3 versions)
• Innervate
• Living Spirit
• Possible combinations of the above

Here's the graph of the new Intensity vs. the old Intensity. Future values are shown in a darker shade of the plots of their current values (eg. Red for "2.3 Living Spirit + Innervate", pink for the current value.

From this graph, note the following:

• With 2.2 Intensity, you would need to be inside the 5SR (considered casting) no more than 32.5% of the time for the value of Spirit relative to MP5 to match that which is currently budgeted by Blizzard. With 2.3 Intensity, that number is increased to 40%. With Living Spirit, the number increases from 45% to 53%. With Intensity and Innervate, the number increases from 62.5% to 78%. With Living Spirit, Intensity, and Innervate, the number goes from 75% to 92.5%.
• Assuming a Druid has both Intensity and is using her Innervate at every opportunity, the changes to Intensity with Patch 2.3 will make the value of Spirit much more closely match that currently being assigned in Item Values, especially if she is able to remain outside the 5SR 22% or more of the time.
• Even if you were always within the 5SR (Lifebloom maintenance) and assuming you are using Innervate at every opportunity, 1 MP5 will be approximately worth 3.1 Spirit (down from 4.3 prior to Patch 2.3). With Living Spirit, 1MP5 is worth approximately 2.8 Spirit (down from 3.7 prior to Patch 2.3). That's an increase of value in Spirit by 28%, 24% if you factor in Living Spirit (the additional mana regenerated with Living Spirit is outweighed by the mana regenerated by Innervate so even though you will get a substantial increase, the rate of increase is not as high).

Factoring in Blessing of Kings

By popular request, I've added a graph that compares the valuation of Spirit relative to MP5 with Blessing of Kings, using the 2.3 value for Intensity (30% mana regeneration while casting). Non-BoK values are graphed in a lighter color than their BoK values and, as one might expect, the 1.1 factor on total Spirit causes each plot to shift slightly down:

Related Posts

• Revaluing Spirit
• MP5 vs. Spirit
• Spirit vs. MP5, Blessing of Kings Version