Monday, May 18, 2009

Spirit: Obsolete much?

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After I put my gear list together, I got this comment from Aertimus:

"Okay now the only thing that isn't sitting right... Why isn't Guiding Star on your list as a weapon? Even though it lacks the spirit of Plasma Foil and Stormtip, it has (raw) 15mp5 and 63 spellpower which TOTALLY make up for the 40ish loss in spirit."

To which I responded:

"Taking a weapon with no spirit is a HUGE hit for resto druids. Personally I don't think it's worth it. You really, really need that spirit for regen and healing power in tree form." Amirite?!

To which SHE responded:

"If you factor in spellpower from spirit on Plasma Foil in ToL form (and we will even throw in Kings), Guiding Star has 54 MORE healing power in tree form. So we don't need the spirit for that. The mana regen from the spirit is nice. It gives me about 20mp5 from spi/int. But Guiding Star has 15mp5, so Plasma Foil only gives 5mp5 more.

5mp5 vs 54 healing power? I wouldn't have given that a second thought. If I'm missing something major, could you show me your math?"

Well, hot damn. Don't I feel dumb.

And with this, I'm thrown into a conundrum - what's the deal with spirit? So I think to myself, well, obviously there are going to be weapons that *don't* have spirit in 25 mans that are better than weapons *with* spirit in 10 mans (note that Plasma Foil and Stormtip are 10 man drops, and Guiding Star is from 25s) - but surely there are better 25 man one handers that are more itemized towards trees, i.e, have spirit! Right?

Wrong. There are NO one handers with spirit in 25 man Ulduar.

Is this on purpose, or an oversight? Does Blizzard want us to take one handers without spirit, or do they want us to exclusively go to two handers? Is this an issue that's isolated to one handed weaps, or is it more rampant? Even if there WERE 25 man one handers with spirit, would they be better than the ones without spirit?

And then more pressing question: How good is spirit for us now, really? It used to be the golden standard for resto druids. If it had spirit and no hit, it was all ours. If it didn't have spirit, well, it wasn't itemized for you, and if you rolled on it, you were 1. a noob, and 2. probably stealing loot from a paladin.

But, now, with the changes to Innervate going live soon, and our out-of-combat mana regen nerfed, I'm starting to question what gear is best for me.

Let's take this hypothetical situation:

Which imaginary weapon is better for resto druids?

Weapon 1
+120 stamina
+120 intellect
+120 spirit

+80 haste
+550 spell power

Weapon 2
+120 stamina
+120 intellect

+80 haste
+15 mp5
+575 spell power

Look over the stats reeeal carefully.

Obviously weapon 1, right? Look at all that spirit! It's gotta make up for the little loss in spell power! And mp5 is that weird stuff that shaman use!

Nope. Weapon 2 is better for us. Weapon 1 and weapon 2 are exactly the same except weapon 2 will give us 5 extra raw mp5 while casting, and 2 extra spell power. The 120 spirit on the first weapon will actually grant us 150 spirit, if you've got Blessing of Kings and Living Spirit. So that's an extra 23 spell power in tree form (15% of 150) and about 10+ mp5 while casting, assuming you have all the necessary talents. Granted, it'll give us around 20+ mp5 while not casting, whereas in weapon 2, it stays at a flat rate of 15 mp5 - but how often are we not casting in Ulduar? In Naxx, I'd be out of the five second rule quite often - I'd hot up the tank and wait, and wait. And wait some more. Then refresh a couple hots, and then wait again. In Ulduar, there's very little down time. So I wouldn't say that the out of combat regen benefit is really worth taking into account.

Now, if Innervate was staying spirit-based, I'd be inclined to say that the big chunk of spirit there IS worth it, despite all the above talk, because it'll boost your Innervate regen, and I use Innervate quite a lot in Ulduar. But soon that won't be the case.

Funny, ain't it, cause weapon 2 certainly doesn't LOOK like a resto druid weapon....

So, what's this mean for us?

Well, it means that I should go through my entire loot list and do some math on the 'higher-spell-power-no-spirit' loot that I didn't include and see if it's better...../weep. =P

It also means that we might find ourselves rolling on mp5 loot. This *really* makes me cranky, because I do NOT want to be stealing loot from other classes. Mp5 is for shammies, not druids! Right? >.> Sigh.

Now, this is probably a simple case of one handed weapons, rather than a full blown "AMIGOD ALL OUR GEAR IS MP5 NOW AMIGOD". I'll look into *all* of our gear options today - not just spirit ones - and update the loot list as needed.

What are your thoughts on spirit? Good? Not so good? Still necessary?

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18 remarks:

Tolkraft said...

Sad but true, Spirit is no longer THE druid stat. And maybe no longer a stat afterall ;-)

Blizzard changed the itemisation system in order to have less "unusable" stuff if you missed one specific class in your raid.

Exit the "Class Only" loots from the beginning of the game. Now Boss drop "coupons" that 3 or 4 classes can exchange for gear.

Hence, weapons follow the same rule : no spirit, more MP5, so a weapon can be used by Paladins, shamans, Priests and droods !

I anticipated this by collecting myself a "+MP5" gear before 3.1 was out, and I made the right choice : my "spirit set" is taking dust in the bank.

Like you said, we no longer wait OO5SR, and we - soon - won't need spirit for Innervate. Sad but true, Spirit is no longer the good stat it used to be...



PS : Excuse my mistakes, english isn't my mother tongue.
I'm looking forward for your updated gear list. :-)

Anonymous said...

Interesting. With the way resto druids have been messed with by Blizz, they have broken our spirit both inside and outside of the game.
-Aden

Maerdred said...

"Mp5 is for shammies, not druids! Right?"

Wrong! Never was true. It's just what some druids told themselves, and others.

I spent TBC in Mp5 gear and had a blast being the top healer in my guild who also never ran OOM. With recent changes to spirit based mana regen, Blizz is forcing others to see what I saw back then. For pure Mana regen (which can be more important than even Spell Power at some level) Mp5 is the stat to stack.

Dan said...

Talkraft beat me to it :D

The reason I think we're seeing a lack of spirit on things like maces (and perhaps rings) is because unlike Naxx, Ulduar doesn't have about 15 billion weapons (okay, exaggeration, but Naxx had what, 3?)

Having one mace means you don't have half your healers waiting for the *other* mace to drop (when it never does....)

I still see spirit being a useful stat for druids into the future. However, I think they're trying to make it not the "be all and end all stat" that it has been in the past.

They did the same thing to Pallies with Spell Crit back in TBC - albeit in a different way.

Orbitz said...

Aww... sad realization that I too need to update my Ulduar loot list... at least its a project to do? :)

Honestly Blizz is pushing crits on Druids since almost any raiding druid can hit the haste softcap. Woah - crits? Crazy huh... but I guess that is where we'll make up healing on the meters from all the future crit-action we're getting. :)

Phil said...

This is a really delicate subject I must say...
And please notice this is MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION.
What really matters is your playstyle (aka spec and most important your spell rotation).
This is what defines if you are running oom or having mana to give out to the entire raid.
Personaly I only use gear if there is spirit on it and all gems are straight spell power.
Believe or not... I can cast NONSTOP 2 lolblooms, 1 rejuv rotation and regrowth or Nourish if I have to every single fight in Ulduar beggining to end and don't run oom.
So, it really depends...
Ohhhh and btw, I always top heal charts with a lot difference from the rest of the healers.

Anonymous said...

I made a similar post about weapon enchants (which is better, spirit or spell power?) a few days ago. Funny how things have changed so much for the resto.

@ Phil: That's a really interesting idea. I may have to give that a look over in the coming days. I hate the idea of rolling on non-spirit gear because the shaman or paladin in my group might be loosing out.

Unknown said...

Well, IMO spirit is not that important. I agree with Maerdred and having much less spirit than other druids, I still "top heal charts with a lot difference from the rest of the healers" like Phil does.
So in the end it's not spirit or mp5 what matters. We should only remember two things: running oom = epic fail, spell power is what strengthens us. So we should be strong and enduring, no matter how.

Aertimus said...

@Aden - that could not have been put any better. "Broken spirit inside and outside of the game". Can I use that?

I don't think spirit is TOTALLY out... I still does give us healing power and mana. It just requires a CRAP TON more math to figure out where the items fall. But yes... spirit and MP5 just got that much better.

I'm going to bid on "the shaman mace" because its my DKP and hours too and Bliz HAS decided to nerf spirit into the ground. And AGAIN with the innervate nerf.

Your list really is close to mine as is... it was just that one thing. But I totally understand and approve of the need to evaluate the gear yourself. It makes anyone a better player!

One last note - I still LOVE spirit. I stacked it in TBC as the main tank ToL aura bringer. I still drink a Kreeg's Stout Beatdown and say the words "I've got spirit! Yes I do!" before every boss pull - and NOTHING is going to stop THAT!

Lissanna said...

I made this argument in the Legendary weapon threads that I put out a while back. Basically, if you have spirit on everything else, it's not going to matter at all if you have spirit on your weapon or not. I'm running around without spirit on my weapon, and I'm hardly ever running OOM on anything I'm doing in Ulduar because I have way more spirit than any other stat even with zero spirit on my main-hand weapon. Take spirit as you get it, but value Spell Power above anything else.

Lorangriel said...

I have to agree. Spirit is no longer the be all and end all stat for resto druids. It's kinda fallen into that category of it's-nice-but-not-at-the-expence-of-spell-power. Or mp5. Or Int. Or haste. I might even have gone so far as to say "or crit". But I won't...

Elk

Phil said...

It looks like top stat for druids (resto) atm is (weird as it sounds) spell power, plain and simple...
With the spirit nerf, the stat isn't that atractive to trees anymore plus blizz is trying to mix spirit with crit (so moon chickens might be interested), another stat that isn't so atractive for resto...
The logic now is kinda simple... the more spell power you have, the more your hots are going to tick and the less you have to cast... saving on haste (global cooldown), saving on mana regen (spirit or plain mana per 5) saving on crits (hots don't need to crit, if they do AWESOME) and saving your mana pool...
Want an advice?
Go for spell power as much as you can, talking about gems, enchants and gear...
The other stats... oh well, they're just there.
A simple example?
What to get for a gem...
+19 spell power
+16 spirit
+16 int
+16 crit
a mix maybe????
well, with simple math u NEED at least 120 (a little bit more actually) spirit to get the same +19 spell power... funny isnt it?
But I must say spirit is still my highest stat, just because I can get more spell power out of it...
But go for spell power as much as u can...

Aertimus said...

(First of all, I think we all agree on the fact that spellpower is king/queen right now and know we are arguing B-stats. That said...)

Was thinking about a little math thing that can really add up:

120 spirit on imaginary weapon 1 or Phil's imaginary gem - on a resto druid that is:

120*1.15(living spirit)*1.10(kings)= 150 spirit

150*0.15(tree of life)= 22.5 healing

(I didn't rerun your regen numbers)

That puts weapon 1 at 4.5 healing over weapon 2 and it also has better OOC regen for weird fights like Mirmiron where we are sitting OOC. Weapon 2 only has 5mp5ish IC on weapon 1. Unless you are starved for mana IC, I would say weapon 1 is still the way to go for a resto druid.

As for the imaginary gem, you only need 102 spirit with living spirit, kings and ToL to reach +19 spellpower. However, that doesn't change the fact that it is a HECK of a lot easier to gem for the straight spellpower and most druids do it (even if I can't bring myself too).

Tolkraft said...

Maybe there is still a way to use Spirit : stacking it a lot ... let's say at least 1600-1800 spirit or more (sorry, I can't do the math right now, it's just an estimation from the test I did yesterday : switching from my usual gear (full T7.5 + some MP5 item (giving me about 1100int, 900Spi, 2200SP, good mana regen)) to my scavanged spirit stuff (crappy Naxx25 stuff with mass Spirit on it (giving me 900 int, 1300Spi, middle mana regen and ... 1900 SP :-/)).

What I mean is, if you stack spirit a lot, you might(eventually) get decent output (SP and mana regen) from it, but stacking spirit at the price of loosing SP isn't a good choice.

And I don't know if there is enough stuff with mass Spirit and mass SP in Ulduar to make a gearset of this kind viable.

Like aertimus said, this would need a crap ton of math and testing.
If someone has some spare time ... :-)

Phil said...

@Aertimus...
Want an advice?
Try not to do your "math" or depend on buffs / spec...
Whatever comes with buffs (even more if no self buff) and stats should be considered an extra.
But please don't take my word for it, like I said it's just different playstyles...
But hey...
There is a reason why I do an avarage of 8.5k hps on iron-council... That's close to 3M healing done (Including overheals of course)...
I'm just trying to give tips and advices... Isn't that what are blogs for? lol

Anonymous said...

Oh noes, the latest patch gives (improved) Moonkin form a +spell power bonus as a percentage of spirit. Ok now they are just messing with us...
-Aden

Aertimus said...

@Tolkraft - You are totally right about what you are saying, but I don't think it would be worth it any more. Blizz would have to start putting a lot more spirit on items without taking anything else off. Back in the day when ToL aura was group only and was based on the resto druid's spirit, it made sense for one druid to sacrifice their healing and mana and stack the crap out spirit to increase the healing on the MT from every other healers. Now there is no extra perk for making that trade off *cry* I miss those days!!! It makes me want to run the numbers you suggested. If you do it, let me know!

@Phil - Do you want me to stop doing math, period? Or just not use multiplicative buffs and specs as part of math? If you don't normally have BoKings that would make a difference in how much the spirit would scale and when you figure out how much spirit you would need, your spirit would be a higher number than mine, since I DO always have BoKings in raids.

I also would like to point out that I agreed with your tip to go for as much spellpower as possible - I said it is the king/queen stat at the start of my previous comment and that most druids gem straight spellpower at the end of my previous comment.

Phil said...

@Aertimus
Please, do whatever you feel like it...
Again it was just my opinion.
btw kings is a MUST have in all raids and not a druid buff... Which is why I don't math kings as well...
But hey, I can be wrong... Or maybe don't understand the mechanics and how resto druids are, like I said I only pull 8.5k hps... I know I still need lots of improvment.
Best of luck :-D