Spirit vs Mana Regen

[Kothnok]

As I've always been confused as to what was better, +spirit or straight mana regen, I went looking for something that could explain the difference between the two.  I found such a write up at http://www.wowwiki.com/Spirit ... unfortunately it's quite technical and very math-heavy which will probably just confuse a lot of people.

In an attempt to cut down on FUD, I'd like to point out one of the examples used in that article and also add my own observations.

As an example, one could compare [wowitem]Shadowy Laced Handwraps[/wowitem] with [wowitem]Gloves of Rapid Evolution[/wowitem], as a priest with 30% mana regeneration bonus:

    * Gloves of Rapid Evolution have a 32 spirit bonus. This regenerates 6 mana every 5 seconds while casting. However, 5 seconds or more after casting they will regenerate 20 mana every 5 seconds.
    * Shadowy Laced Handwraps regenerate 5 mana every 5 seconds at all times.

As you can see, the massive spirit bonus is better no matter what.  Also, notice that the mana regen has nothing to do with combat.  Mana regen is only affected by "casting a spell" vs "not casting a spell".

As a druid with 219 spirit and an item giving me 8 mana/5sec, I was averaging mana regen of 64 points every 2 seconds (using Titan's regen calculator).  This means that at my spirit accounted for roughly 56 points of that regen - which translated to about 120 mana regen per 5 seconds.

How Spirit affects each class is slightly different but as a very simple general rule of thumb:
    * While Casting - 1 mana regen per 5 sec for every 5 sprirt
    * 5 Sec After Casting - 1 mana regen per 5 sec for every 2 spirit

Hope this helps!  (and I hope I understood it correctly, lol)

[Lyte]

(using Titan's regen calculator).

what's that?

[Kothnok]

 Titan Health and Mana Regen Plugin (part of the Standard Titan addon plugins)

Tracks your health (HP) and Mana (MP) regen rates inside the Titan panel. Functions as a Titan plugin so obviously you need Titan running. Very very, compact and very low performance overhead. It's event driven, NOT timer driven so the update only runs when needed, not all the time. You can enable only Mana, only Health, or both. The tooltip shows more extended information such as best/worse recovery rates, overall health/mana stats, and how much mana you regenerated during your last fight.

(description taken from it's entry over at http://acmappy.tripod.com/titanmods/titanmods.html)

[un4]

CT Mod also has a health/mana regen counter.

[Emmalina]

One thing to take into consideration in this example is that 30% mana regen while casting is only attainable with the talent points in Meditation, and the 3/8 Transcendence bonus, Transcendence being our priesty tier 2 set. I've read some similar articles, and determined that the effectiveness of each (mp5 or spirit) is dependent on the fight, and your healing style. I'm not well versed in Druid healing methods, but it seems if you constantly toss smaller heals out, you wont spend much time out of the "five second rule" and mana per 5 seconds would be better. Or, if you usually wait and give bigger heals, you'd spend more time out of the five seconds, and spirit may be more effective. I've given up on understanding all the exact math of it though. In my experience, switching one mp5 item with a more spirit based item rarely changes my mana regen per 2 seconds by more than 1 or 2 mana. I find it all to be too subjective (healing styles and battles) to be able to be figured out on a chart or anything like a lot of websites give.

My 2 cents,
Emma

[un4]

For shadow priests, go with spirit to go with your spirit tap (200% spirit and mana regen while casting after kills).

[Genoism]

the mana regen is diff for all classes in regards to the amount of spirit they have. So while those gloves may benefit priests more then the mp5 gloves they probably wont benefit druids as much.