Spirit vs. Spellpower (gems)

[Anaire]

Which is better to generally socket for? Maintaining socket bonuses... I know in tree of life our bonus heals are increased 15% of our spirit. But is a 16 spirit gem better than 19 spellpower?

[Massacre]

It really depends on what you need. If you have over 2k sp and find you go oom before a healing intensive fight is over and tend to have to give your innervate to another healer, I'd go with the 16 spirit gems. It depends entirely on your current stats, and what you feel your own issues are, most druids don't have mana problems and want bigger heals. Most ones I come accross(myself included) socket for sp and spirit/sp gems for socket bonuses.

[Anaire]

I very very rarely have oom issues. And currently have a spirit trinket that when I use increases my mp5 by about 150 while casting. I'm sitting at 1995 while in treeform and continually picking up better gear seeing as my guild has the first half of 25uld on farm.

My current stats are:
mana: 17.2k
bonus heals: 1995
crit: 15%
haste: 299
mp5 out: 648
mp5 in: 351

[Massacre]

351 mp5 in with spirit trinkets and you don't go oom? Yeah I'd definitely use 19sp gems.

[Anaire]

Well we always have wis/kings and replenishment in the raid. Plus at least one priest. My trinket is this. I purposely use it every two minutes. My guild just down 25mim last night and for that I was keeping rolling hots on the MT and was instructed to then spam nourish during plasma blasts. I think I only used my innervate once on myself, which was right after a battle res and used it mostly on our holy priest.

My armory

If you have any other tips or advice, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks.

[Massacre]

My suggestions based on your gear would be to replace the 16 haste gem with a mixed gem (sp/crit) if you're going for that socket bonus. Also, if you find that your mana regen is fine i'd definitely re enchant your weapon with 50/63 sp than 45 spirit, and possibly replace your belt buckle gem. Also, I'd move your points from celestial focus in balance to natural perfection, giving you a static 3 crit, which makes your points in nature's grace much more valuable.

Finally take that point in improved thorns and put it in either gift of the earth mother or to nature's bounty, they're much more important to have full/more points in. And if you want you can move those points in tranquil spirit around depending where it seems more key. I'd say having 5/5 gift and 5/5 nature's bounty is better than 5/5 tranquil.

[Anaire]

XD My stats have changed quite a bit.

mana: 18k
bonus heals: 2129
crit: 14.5%
haste: 282
mp5 out: 657
mp5 in: 357

Went and changed a few gems then got a new neck in 25naxx, helm 10uld, weapon 10uld, swapped my offspec boots and took out the hit rating gem.

Thinking about dropping another spirit gem for a little more haste/spellpower.

[Anaire]

Ooh currently also third in line for crafted ulduar piece out main resto druid head of me and a mage... But hey! We get 13 orbs a week so who can complain.

nomnomnom Boots of Wintry Endurance - Thottbot: World of Warcraft

[Massacre]

Ooh currently also third in line for crafted ulduar piece out main resto druid head of me and a mage... But hey! We get 13 orbs a week so who can complain.

nomnomnom Boots of Wintry Endurance - Thottbot: World of Warcraft

Yeah those are hot, I'm stuck with leather haste boots....it's a shame most leather caster gear has haste.

[Anaire]

I'd actually prefer a little more haste currently. Lost some due to a new weapon/helm/gloves. lol

[Ballendor]

I'd actually prefer a little more haste currently. Lost some due to a new weapon/helm/gloves. lol

The only thing I would suggest is taking fewer items with MP5 on them. Spirit contributes to Spell Power and as it scales leaves MP5 behind in terms of value. Also a good rule of thumb is to attempt to keep Spirit and Intellect fairly balanced, so if you have a chance to drop some MP5 itemization for higher intellect by all means do it.

[Anaire]

Only three items with mp5 on them, which are all items I am looking to upgrade soon. Neck, bracers, and a ring. All easy enough to upgrade if it drops and if I get to roll. XD

[Shaiel]

Spirit world glass is a pretty bad trinket. Well not so much bad but there are much better options. You logged out in boomkin gear when I checked so I can't comment much, but I did make a pretty comprehensive post about gearing and such in the "Druid healer, Keep the tanks up!" thread. Just from looking at your latest stats you could use about 100 more haste and follow Massacre's advice.

[Anaire]

My gear seems to update when I don't want it to. lol

[JediBezy]

I personally wouldn't gem spirit. Even when I tend to go a bit crazy healing, I don't oom. I've always stacked spell power gems and have been fine. Most of our socket bonuses are not great, if anything put the +spell + spirit gem in a blue socket to keep the socket bonus.

Socket bonuses are nice guides from blizzards itemization, but I tend more to just keep them in mind, rather than gem accordingly. For example, say you have a red and orange socket slot in pants, and the socket bonus is +5 haste. The red is obviously +19 spell, but what about the orange. Are you haste softcapped with raid buffs? If so, socketing for the bonus is a loss of 10 possible spell power. You'd be better off just going double +19.

[Insahnity]

I would never gem for crit even with the seed buff.

There's a thread for holy priests, talking about spirit. Everybody seems to agree that spirit is borked, and shouldn't be gemmed/enchanted for. Pick Spell power for throughput, Int for mana, and then go with haste onwards. if you need to keep a blue for a meta bonus, go with a spirit/sp or spirit/int or spirit/haste gem.

[Shaiel]

Priests aren't druids. Druids benefit from spirit more. I use sp/spirit for blue sockets. I have spirit on my cloak and on my spellthread. I also have spirit on every piece of gear I wear. Spirit was nerfed yeah but I don't think that in any way changed how we would gem or enchant. We're still getting almost full mana bars from innervate, before I'd get a bar and a half.

My main point is that spirit isn't (and never quite was) some amazing stat where all our gems should be 16 spirit. I mean, we aren't pallies. But unless some people were really under the impression that spirit is so great that druids would do that then I think the spirit bashing has gone a bit too far. Spirit is still better than mp5. So if we don't gem or enchant for spirit it's because we don't need the regen (and because we already should have a lot of spirit on our gear) but not because another regen stat is better.

I've been raiding a lot lately doing hardmodes. I got my Rusted Proto-drake and am now working on 25 man hardmodes with my guild, 3 healing Hodir and all that good stuff. I occasionally run oom (or kinda). Only on hardmodes, but even with every single piece of gear having spirit and all my spellpower/spirit gems I have mana problems. By mana problems I mean I actually have to innervate myself and use a mana pot. Druids CAN run oom. It's hard, but it is possible. We spam heals through a raid, most of which are on a 1s gcd. Our regen isn't fucking magical. We get it from spirit and int.

I was looking through my gear and every single socket bonus was useful, and imo worth picking up. Unless it's something retarded like 4 haste. That being said with the exception of worthless socket bonuses here's a solid guide for gemming as a resto druid:

Red: 19 spellpower
Blue: 9 spellpower/8 spirit
Yellow: 9 spellpower/ 8 int
Prismatic: 19 spellpower
Meta: 2% mana or insightful