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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