When I made my pre-raid gear list, I mentioned the priority of stats for me. One of the things that I mentioned was that spirit was preferred over hit for boomkins now since Balance of Power converts all of spirit to hit. This was all before Cataclysm came out. Now having played for over a week, I can definitely and without question say that spirit is preferred over hit. Here are the reasons why you should use spirit to get to hit cap (1742) instead of hit itself:
1) Makes Duel Speccing So Easy - I'm not a healer. I prefer playing a tank. However, if you are healer, having as much spirit as possible will help you be a great healer as well. If you take out any hit gear and keep just spirit gear, you could literally use one set of gear (At least until you get to T11 tier sets) for both specs.
2) Hit Provides 1 Stat While Spirit Provides 3 Stats - Hit only provides one stat, which is hit. Spirit provides 3 stats, all that are important now. Of course, with Balance of Power, we get our hit from the spirit. We also get two types of mana regeneration, in combat and out of combat mana regeneration. If you have done any heroics, you may notice that you go OOM a little quicker than you should. Spirit doesn't completely solve this, but it improves it drastically. You still have to be smart with your mana and smart with your Innervate use. However, this will help you retain mana better.
3) Increases Your DPS Indirectly - This is an indirect benefit secondary to mana regeneration. If you are OOM, you are providing approximately 0 DPS. You are as effective as if you were dead. Since spirit can help you from going OOM, it can provide a DPS increase since it will take longer for you to go OOM.
4) Gives You More Of A Reason To Hit the Hit Cap (And Maybe Go a Little Over) - While 1742 is the hit cap, a little extra spirit couldn't hurt you. You shouldn't go way over though since some things that have spirit sacrifice intellect or haste for it. If you are way over, you can reforge it into a stat that will provide more DPS like haste. I'm currently at 1782 with 1488 of it as spirit (minus whatever the natural spirit is since it doesn't count in it). I would say if you are above 1800 hit, reforge your hit or spirt. If you are not, it is probably okay to keep it. If a piece of gear has hit and spirit on it, you should take out the hit.
5) Saves Your Innervate - If you are not having to use your Innervate because you are not close to OOMing, you may be able to use your Innervate on your healer, which in turn may save a 5 man or a raid. I have not had a chance to step into a raid yet with replenishment to see what my mana would do in a raid enviroment, but if a healer is OOM before I hit about 50% mana, I will let them get the Innervate so they can finish healing. Plus, depending on how you are glyphed, you get 10% mana back anyway.
As you can see, spirit has become a moonkin's best friend in terms of stats for all the additional benefits it provides. Once above the hit cap, the important stats become intellect/spellpower and haste. However, if most of our hit is spirit, it will provide us more of an ability to use that intellect and haste.
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4 comments:
Spirit is only providing in-combat regen for healers right now (through their specialization bonus). So, you still won't want to go over the hit-cap by much as a moonkin.
@lissanna
I absolutely agree with that. As I said, your hit shouldn't be above 1800 anyway since you can change it to haste. The stats sheet does say I have about 900 something in combat regeneration, which is literally nothing. However, I do have over 2000 out of combat regeneration, which helps alot in 5 mans to help prevent from drinking or innervating myself.
This is a great topic. There was an argument of hit vs spirit for boomkins in vent the other day and I couldn't join in because I had no clue about the topic. And you know how much I hate not being able to get involved in an argument ;D
How mana intensive is the boomkin rotation anyway? Up until now, I was told there were two rotations: one was slightly more dps but would drain your mana like nothing else, the other was slightly less dps but wouldn't touch your mana bar. What are your thoughts about that?
@Ophelie
I tried doing some research on a secondary mana saving rotation for moonkins and I couldn't find anything about it. I think it is the same rotation we had post 4.0.1 with maybe Wild Mushrooms set up at the beginning of the fight.
I have heard that some moonkins were having mana issues but personally I haven't noticed an issue too much just doing the normal rotation unless I'm spamming Moonfire/Sunfire due to movement, like the 3rd boss (fire guy)in heroic BRC. I'm just trying to innervate myself at about 50% to save mana.
In terms of spirit versus hit, I still think spirit is superior. It is the same argument that feral druids had in Wrath and BC with agility versus dodge. Both give the same amount of dodge, but agility also gives critical strike and armor, which made it the superior stat. Spirit and hit are equal in just giving hit, but since spirit also increases out of combat mana regen, I prefer spirit over hit.
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