mmmm, Guess it is up to me to provide the WoW Priest world with relevant healing data

Here is an EJ link for mana regen by Nidaba of Fusion on Turalyon:

http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t35208-wotlk_healing_compendium_v3_0_theorycraft_specs_etc/

Thought Process:
I don't care where my mana comes from after I've used it. Just tell me how to regenerate the most mana in the shortest period of time!

note: If you are a new priest and/or have a severe aversion to math concepts then I suggest you start with "The Idiot's Guide to Priestly Mana Regeneration" by Kierahale immediately following this post

Key Concept
The five second rule(FSR). The 5 second rule states that 5 seconds after your last spell cast you normally do not regenerate mana from spirit. However, you do regenerate mana from mana every 5 second gear (mp5) and you can regenerate a reduced amount from spirit by using talents, and/or trinkets like Bangle of Endless Blessings. In game, Blizzard describes inside the 5 second rule as "while casting" and outside of the 5 second rule as "while not casting."

N.B: Rest in peace overpowered transcendence bonus, we thank thee for all your glorious mana you helped us regenerate.

The Mana Regeneration Equation:
Here is how much spirit you would need, in order to regenerate the same mana as 1 mana every 5 seconds (mp5) based on your time spent in the five second rule (FSR)

2(mp5)/5 = (spirit/4)*(1 - % time spent in FSR) + (spirit/4 * % regen during casting)*(% time spent in FSR)

Table 1: 0% regeneration while casting (normal)

Mp5.............spirit.....................FSR
1.................160.0.....................99%
1...................16.0.....................90%
1.....................8.0.....................80%
1.....................5.3.....................70%
1.....................4.0.....................60%
1.....................3.2.....................50%
1.....................2.7.....................40%
1.....................2.5.....................36%
1.....................2.3.....................30%
1.....................2.0.....................20%
1.....................1.8.....................10%
1.....................1.6.....................0%

Here is a simple graph of the mana regen equation with 0% casting:
http://www.wowwiki.com/images/c/c5/0_regen_while_casting.gif

Basically this means that if you spend 99% of your combat time in the five second rule (FSR) then you need 160 spirit to regenerate the same mana as 1 mana every 5 seconds. The middle percentages are the interesting ones, as they are closer to actual boss fights. The bolded line is the ilvl gear equivalence ratio. For more info on what this is see http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Item_values

Now let us see how the numbers change as we start putting talent points in meditation.

Table 2: 10% regeneration while casting (1/3 Meditation)

Mp5..............spirit...................FSR
1.....................14.7...................99%
1.....................8.4.....................90%
1.....................5.7.....................80%
1.....................4.3.....................70%
1.....................3.5.....................60%
1.....................2.9.....................50%
1.....................2.5.....................40%
1.....................2.5.....................40%
1.....................2.2.....................30%
1.....................2.0.....................20%
1.....................1.8.....................10%
1.....................1.6.....................0%

Graph with 10% casting:
http://www.wowwiki.com/images/1/1d/10_regen_while_casting.gif

Notice how as we add points into meditation the amount of spirit needed to generate the same mana as 1 mp5 starts to drop, most drastically at the higher FSR % and less at the lower ones. The bolded gear ilvl line has moved from 36% FSR to 40% FSR.

Table 3: 20% regeneration while casting (2/3 Meditation)
Mp5..............spirit...................FSR
1.....................8.0.....................100%
1.....................5.7.....................90%
1.....................4.4.....................80%
1.....................3.6.....................70%
1.....................3.1.....................60%
1.....................2.7.....................50%
1.....................2.5.....................45%
1.....................2.4.....................40%
1.....................2.1.....................30%
1.....................1.9.....................20%
1.....................1.7.....................10%
1.....................1.6.....................0%
Graph
http://www.wowwiki.com/images/2/21/20_regen_while_casting.gif

Again at 2/3 meditation the trend continues, higher FSR% receive the most benefit of our mana regeneration while casting, gear ratio at 45% FSR now.

Table 4: 30% regeneration while casting (3/3 Meditation)
Mp5..............spirit...................FSR
1.....................5.3.....................100%
1.....................4.3.....................90%
1.....................3.6.....................80%
1.....................3.1.....................70%
1.....................2.8.....................60%
1.....................2.5.....................51%
1.....................2.5.....................50%
1.....................2.2.....................40%
1.....................2.0.....................30%
1.....................1.9.....................20%
1.....................1.7.....................10%
1.....................1.6.....................0%
Graph
http://www.wowwiki.com/images/c/c9/30_regen_while_casting.gif

Now compare table 1 (0% regen from spirit while casting) with Table 4 (30% regen from spirit while casting). FSR percentages above 50% are very unforgiving to spirit with 0% regen during casting. However, 30% regen during casting shows a significant decrease in the spirit required to match 1 Mp5. Notice with 30% regen while casting you get the almost the same equivalence at 40% in FSR as 60% in FSR with 0% regen while casting. Lower FSR % gives some benefit but not nearly as much. Finally, notice what happens to the ilvl gear ratio at 30% regen. The percentage increases from 36% with 0% regen to 50% with 30% regen.

Here is a graph for a visual representation with all of the graphs for comparison: http://www.wowwiki.com/images/9/99/All_regen_while_casting.gif

Actual equations for creating the tables above:
m = x mana every 5 seconds
p = % of time in FSR
s = spirit
k = regen while casting = .00, .15, .30

To get spirit:
S(m,p) = 1.6*m/(1-p+k*p)

To get mana every 5
M(s,p) = ((s/4*(1-p)+(k*(s/4)*(p)))/0.4)

To get %FSR
P(s,m) =(8*m-5*s)/((5*k-5)*s)


In conclusion, these tables (and more importantly the mathematical model) are merely tools for us priests to understand our class better and make more informed decision when selecting gear. My aim is to clear up this fake debate over spirit vs. mp5. The answer to the question "which is better" is NOT some flat unchanging value, but a percentage. In order to decide if x mana every 5 seconds is better then y spirit then you need to know the percentage of time in the five second rule. This percentage is what makes playing the game fun and will keep it challenging.

Jundicator - 70 priest
Jundic - 70 mage

Created: 3/29/06
Updated: 8/25/06 - New Forums!
Updated: 2/09/07 - RIP 3-piece transcendence, we salute thee!
Updated: 3/28/07 - Fixed graph link
Updated: 11/15/07 – patch 2.3 and various other changes

Converting to Intellect

Now that we have a solid footing of how we regenerate mana we can use this to easily convert to other aspects of the game. Here is intellect. Using table one from above lets see what it looks like:

table 1.1: 0% regen while casting(normal)
mana/5......... spirit.............. Time spent in FSR.....mana per tick.........int per tic
1........................160.0..................99%.............................0.80...................0.05
1......................... 16.0................. 90% ............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 8.0................. 80% .............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 5.3................. 70% .............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 4.0................. 60% .............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 3.2................. 50% .............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 2.7................. 40% .............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 2.5................. 36% .............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 2.3................. 30% .............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 2.0................. 20% .............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 1.8................. 10% .............................0.80...................0.05
1........................... 1.6................... 0% ...............................0.80...................0.05

Because of our assumptions above we don't need more then one observation from this table, but I'd figure that its easier to understand it this way. You see that if you have mp5 and spirit at the equivalence FSR% ratios then your mana regen per tic is constant over all FSR%. This makes intellect per tic constant over all FSR%, and all we need to figure out how useful intel is the length of the fight. Here is the equation:

I(r,t) = r(t/2)/15
r = mana per tick from regen modal above = (2*m/5)+(s/4*(1-p)) +( k*(s/4)*p)
t = combat time in seconds

For intellect we include a second variable, length of time in combat. So as priest healers we need to consider only two variables for a fight when deciding between spirit, mana every 5, or intellect. Those variables are length of time in combat and percentage of that time in the five second rule. Once you know the length of time in combat and percentage of that time in the five second rule then the equations above will tell you exactly which combination of spirit, mana every 5, and intellect will suit you the best. Now we are free to go out and develop better healing strategies based on the information I've presented here. Enjoy!

Jundicator - 70 priest
Jundic - 70 mage

Created: 3/29/06
Updated: 8/25/06 - New Forums!
Updated: 2/09/07 - RIP 3-piece transcendence, we salute thee!
Updated: 3/28/07 - Fixed graph link
Updated: 11/15/07 – patch 2.3 and various other changes

note: This is Kierahale's post from the thread on the old forums.

Alright, I've read it all, and now I can safely say I have a strong hold on what everyone is saying, and I can also feel for the guys/gals that are mystified, see this post first because it's stickied and don't know what the charts mean, even what FSR means. I'll try and lay out what everyone's been saying in a more simple tone:
"The Idiot's Guide to Priestly Mana Regeneration"

What is FSR?
Everytime you cast a spell, at the END of the cast (when your spell actually lands) a 5-second timer begins during which time you regenerate no mana. This is called the "Five Second Rule."

Being "Inside" the FSR (Five Second Rule) means that you are casting spells before those five seconds are up and your Spirit's regeneration can kick back in.

For example, if you start casting Smite and don't stop until your enemy is dead, you will be 100% Inside the FSR, because you will have not stopped casting for more than five seconds.
On the other hand, if you cast Smite twice consecutively, and melee/wand your enemy to death thereafter, the amount of time between the first Smite landing and five seconds after your second Smite lands is your period of time "Inside" the FSR.
This would be 8 seconds out of however long the fight lasted: The first Smite's landing starts the FSR, your second Smite 3 seconds later (the casting duration of Smite) resets the FSR, and then 5 seconds later, your mana begins regenerating. If you were in this fight for, say, 32 seconds total, you would be in the FSR for 8 of 32 seconds, or "25% FSR"

So What's the Deal with MP5?
Mana Per 5 Seconds (MP5) ignores your Spirit and the FSR and pumps you full of mana every 5 seconds wether you like it or not. For a Shadow Priest, (Go Facemelting Go,) who is in the FSR nearly 100% of the time and constantly draining their mana pool without stopping, sees nearly no benefit from a high spirit during a fight and so would turn to MP5 gear. In this fashion, mana is regenerating regardless of what's casting when, or what order you're casting in.

And all these charts and talk of math mean...
These charts are simply an excruciatingly exact method of showing you how to get the most efficient mana regeneration during a fight given how long you're in FSR.

For example:
Say, using a mod (check the rest of the threads for mods used, i've heard MUSE mentioned) that you've learned you have a 70% FSR.

Looking at the chart you see:
MP5.......... Spirit....... FSR
1.00......... 5.33......... 70.00%"

This means, primarily:
1 Mana per 5 Seconds on an item is worth more to you as a priest than +5 Spirit, but less than +6 Spirit. For example, if you had a choice of a belt with 1 MP5 or +8 Spirit, the Spirit belt will generate more mana for you with your playstyle. Inversely, a belt with 2 MP5 (equivalent to 10.66 Spirit) is worth more to your playstyle than a +8 Spirit belt.

And so the charts deliver once you understand them. Some more points to consider:

Intellect vs. Spirit
As a priest, we are told "spirit, spirit, spirit!!!" for various talents and abilities common to our kind, to be explained below. But if you're in the FSR 99% of the time, it may be far more beneficial to you to load up on +Intelligence (which increases the size of your mana pool and therefore the amount of time you can fight without regenerating mana) and MP5 gear for the simple reason that your Spirit will only come into effect when the fight is over. Look at the first line of the first chart (Yes I know this is with 0% regen... read on)

MP5.......... Spirit.......FSR
1.00..........160.00.......99.00%

This means to someone who is in the FSR 99% of the time, you would need 160 Spirit to equal EACH POINT of MP5. In the case of a Shadow Priest, who is constantly Mind Flaying/Mind Blast/Mana Burning etc... it would be far more beneficial to you to simply gain a gigantic mana pool, stock up on MP5 Armor/Weapons and never pick up another item with +Spirit again.

However, that solution, while ideal, isn't practical. By my quick educated guess (correct me if I'm wrong here) even a priest covered in high-end MP5 gear and items like Brilliant Mana Oil will only gain maybe 40-50 MP5 (and that's even a stretch); simply not enough to attain the required mana regeneration to keep up in a fight 100% of the time. Additionally, you will be faced with extra downtime between fights regenerating your mana pool with (typically expensive) drinks, since you would have such low spirit (think Mages :D). Hence abilities like...

Spirit Tap and Meditation? How do they figure in?
Say, for example, you're constantly gaining Spirit Tap in a large, million-mob fight. Spirit Tap gives you not only double your Spirit, but 50% of that then-doubled spirit "while casting". If you're constantly in the FSR as you may frequenly find yourself, that means you're regenerating at 100% of your normal Spirit's regeneration rate (mana per tick, or MPT) "while casting". Meditation, of the Discipline tree of talents, gives you 15% of your mana regeneration "while casting".

By "while casting," the descriptions mean that you regain mana inside the FSR. Suddenly, Spirit is alot more valuable. The charts go on to give examples of Spirit vs. MP5 with "while casting" bonuses, given by abilities (like meditation) or armor sets (like transcendence), or both.

So how can this all help me, in the end?
The whole entire purpose of this thread is to help you maximize the efficiency of your mana pool: to get the most bang from your blue-bar-buck, and your hard-earned equipment dollar. By using these charts, you can figure out which equipment most suits your playstyle, and by using the information everyone else has so lovingly contributed, fine-tune for variances in said playstyle: a new wand might be more appealing than casting Smite that extra time like you normally did, so a little more spirit is in order. Do alot of soloing and want to tweak for an Int-MP5 Shadow Priest but you're not sure wether to turn down that +22 Spirit for a +4 MP5? Come and visit.

The End.

Well, it looks as if this will be the end for this post, as I am not playing much WoW anymore. This model has had a good run, 2 years I think, but I'm just too far removed from WoW priest healing at this point to justify updating it. However, no matter what mechanics change underneath the first line of the post will always be true:

I don't care where my mana comes from after I've used it. Just tell me how to regenerate the most mana in the shortest period of time!

Thanks to all who contributed, especially Robble who was usually answer questions before I could, and for all the kind words. I may come back to WoW in the future, and of course will be playing other games under the same handle.

Cheers!
Jundicator


BTW, I saw Niimue had a nice looking post with the 2.4 info. Might be a good replacement.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5540036755&sid=1&pageNo=1

mmmmmmmmmmmm

give back teh sticky

bump, sticky please.

sticky!

---

Q u o t e:
Reported for a sticky.

What I like about this thread is how it teaches people very clearly what the [i]right /i] questions to ask are when comparing mana regen pieces.

---

Reported for reporting.

/bump

Reported for sticky.

alt bump for sticky

bump, reported.

bump

bump

/target Post
/script CastSpellByName("Power Word: Bump(Rank 10)");
/s This %t shall not die!

The humpty dance is your chance to do the hump.

/bumpty bump!

Well, here you go. This is eyonix's response to the topic of class stickied posts.

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Q u o t e:


We've already received hundreds of requests for sticky posts across all forums. We are going to be much more strict in deciding what's considered 'sticky worthy', however. Sticky requests which are reported using the bio-hazard symbol will be considered. Moving forward though, we're much more interested in reviewing the reaction a given post has, rather than just the content itself, seeing as both are equally important.

And no, seeing the words 'bump', and 'sticky plz' as a reaction to a given post is not indicative that it's sticky worthy...

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So lets hear the reactions. How does this information help you!


I orginally wrote this because I got tired of useful information getting bumped off these forums by the retarted number of , "ZOMG my MP5 OWNZERS spirit!" and vice versa posts.


Also here is a response post I wrote about the usefulness of the priest mana regen model from the old thread:

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Q u o t e:

I agree the information is quite useless for a new encounter, but for fine tuning older MC encounters it is very useful.

This is were the mods come into play. MUSE and some others will give you an accurate FSR% after the fight is over. Then use that FSR with the info here and do a quick analysis of your performance, and decide if you want to try it differently the next time.

For instance do you want to re-arrange your casting style to lower your FSR%? Or would you want to keep your casting style and swap out some spirit for mp5?


It is kind of like keeping a monthly budget. Before the month starts I decide how I want to try and use my paycheck. During the month I do my best to stick to that goal. Sometimes unexpected things happen and I spend more than I wanted too, and that requires some adjustments. When the month is over I look back, see how I did and decide if I should keep my budget the same, or modify it for the next month.


Like the monthly budget, before a fight I have a choice of gear, and an idea of what my FSR% might be. So I choose gear accordingly. While the fight is happening I adjust my playstyle to come as close as I can to my pre-selected FSR%. Unforseen events occur and I adjust. After the fight is over, analyze the information and the adjustments then plan accordingly for the next fight.

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Wow, the report post method really /does/ work. :O
In other news... I loved the old thread for this and I love the new one too. Thanks for the stats and everything, Jundicator.

- Shaei
(Blue's made a believer out of me)

OK, I'll post this to this thread too:

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A long digression on +healing: Many people ask why we can't add +healing to this analysis. The problem is that +healing has some effects that are directly translateable to mana, and some that are not.

The first problem is that the effectiveness of +healing depends on how many spells you cast. Your rate of casting implies a minimum and maximum FSR% (when you're not under Blue Dragon/Innervate, but we'll ignore that), but your cast cycle can vary quite a bit. So now we're talking about roughly a 3 variable system, which means we need a lot more tables, or a lot more assumptions about casting cycles.

The second problem is figuring out what +healing is doing for you. Adding +healing can be used for one of two things: downranking, or increasing the efficiency of a given spell. The first wouldn't be so bad, since you could find the point at which Rank N-1 heals for the same amount as Rank N does with no gear, then say that that amount of +healing saves you the difference in mana cost every time you cast it, which again goes back to the rate of casting issue.

But what if you just use +healing to, say, make your Flash 7 hit harder? It could be argued that since every point of damage you heal now is one you don't have to heal later, that a Flash 7 that hits 10% harder is worth 10% of the mana cost every time you cast it.

But it's not that simple for two reasons. First, this causes even nastier overheal problems than the mana/5 vs. spirit analysis and the downranking analysis, since we've mostly ignored overheal to this point. But now we're introducing larger single heals, and implying that those larger heals hit for full effect (otherwise your +healing is in fact useless), which means we need to ask whether the extra healing is useful, something that's very dependent on what you're fighting and what other healers you have alongside you.

Second, and even more problematic, in the presence of other healers +healing doesn't necessarily save YOU mana, it saves SOMEONE mana. If you heal a 5-man tank 10 times using a 1.1k heal instead of a 1k heal and you're the only healer, you just saved yourself one heal (assuming no overheal). If you heal a raid tank 10 times using a 1.1k heal instead of a 1k heal, SOMEONE is going to save a heal (or burn it on overhealing), but it may not be you. And that someone might be of any of the healing classes and be using any spell, so you don't even know how much mana you ended up saving... did your +healing just make someone else overheal and save 0 mana, or did you just save a paladin one 35 mana FoL1, or did you just save another priest a 380 mana Flash 7? Now you're looking at an effect that varies significantly with the gear, casting pattern, and class of the other healers in the raid.

So with all of these issues, the answer to your question is "no, we really can't incorporate +healing into this analysis". You'll have to evaluate your own gear choices, sorry.