There is currently some discussion going on over in the Resto Druid Thread over at EJ regarding the current benefits being offered by Living Spirit for those that are progressed into T10 raiding content and are sitting at 1000+ base spirit in their current gear and utilizing a Celestial Focus build. The thought is that dropping two points in Living Spirita, a talent that has long been considered “cookie cutter”, at this level of gear to pick up two points in Empowered Touch is a larger benefit to your overall throughput as a healer.
Interesting, no? Well, I thought so! So let’s take a look at it and see what we think, shall we?
In the interest of not making anyone’s head explode with numbers (most of all mine!) we will assume that you are a druid with 1000 spirit before any buffs/talents. Nice, round, easy to function with number!
Now, there are currently two talents in the resto tree that are directly affected by spirit, the afore mentioned living spirit and Improved Tree of Life. Living Spirit increases your total spirit by 5/10/15% while Improved Tree of Life increases your healing spell power by 5/10/15% of your spirit while in Tree of Life form.
Let’s start by working out what these two talents do for us, both individually and combined (remember we are assuming 1000 base spirit):
Living Spirit
- 3/3 Living Spirit will increase our spirit by 150.
- 2/3 Living Spirit will increase our spirit by 100.
- 1/3 Living Spirit will increase our spirit by 50.
Improved Tree of Life
- 3/3 Imp ToL will increase our healing power by 150
- 2/3 Imp ToL will increase our healing power by 100
- 1/3 Imp ToL will increase our healing power by 50.
We are going to now assume that you will always take 3/3 Imp ToL. Let’s take a look at the effects of Living Spirit in combination with ToL as far as our healing power:
Living Spirit + Imp ToL
- 3/3 Living spirit will grant you a total of 22.5 spell power with the 150 spirit increase from 3/3 Living Spirit; or a total of 172.5 spell power, assuming 1150 spirit.
- 2/3 Living Spirit will grant you a total of 15 spell power with the 100 spirit increase from 2/3 Living Spirit; or a total of 165 spell power, assuming 1100 spirit.
- 1/3 Living Spirit will grant you a total of 7.5 spell power with the 50 spirit increase from 1/3 Living Spirit, or a total of 157.5 spell power, assuming 1050 spirit.
In addition to the spell power aspect of Living Spirit, your spirit will also have an effect on your mana regen. however, at the current spirit and intellect levels everyone is sitting at in T10 equivalent gear, it is a somewhat minimal effect, but may still be felt in certain mana intensive encounters. You can do the math using the following OOC mana regen calculation: (0.001+SPI*BASE_REGEN[LEVEL]*(INT^0.5))*5. Or…you can trust my math! (Caveat: Attorney’s hire Accountants for a reason!).
In doing so you come up with the following differences in you mana regen (I again assumed 1000 base spirit and assumed 1200 intellect):
- 3/3 Living Spirit (increased spirit by 150) will net you 666 MP5 in this example.
- 1/3 Living Spirit (increased spirit by 50) will net you 608 MP5 in this example.
Therefore, you will loose approximately 58 OOC Regen in making the change. But, keep in mind that this is your OOC regen, which assumes that you will be spending a fair bit of time outside of the 5 second rule, quite unlikely as a druid! Therefore it will have an even smaller effect on your regen when inside of the 5 second rule.
The total effect of the change will be a loss of roughly 15 spell power (unbuffed) and roughly 58 Regen OOC. Again, please note that these numbers are assuming a base spirit level of 1000 and a base intellect level of 1200. The numbers will increase as your stats increase, but the increases will come in small steps, not leaps.
Alright, fair enough, it doesn’t look like you will actually lose very much my dropping those two points from living spirit. But…
What do you gain for picking up Empowered Touch?
This is actually a much trickier question than the first, and it can’t be mathed out quite as easily! Part of the answer is going to revolve around what type of raider you are, and what your assignments are during those raids. However, let’s start with a much simpler dialogue: What exactly does Empowered Touch do?
Well, that’s easy enough! Empowered touch does two things for you: 1) Increases the healing done by your Healing Touch spell by 20/40% of your bonus healing, and 2) Increases the healing done by your Nourish spell by 10/20% of your bonus healing.
This is where it gets a little tricksy, as the benefit that you will receive from Empowered Touch will be directly related to how much you utilize the two affected spells. A 10 man healer will likely find a good chunk of their healing is being made up by Nourish, where as a 25 man raider may only see 3-5% of their healing coming from Nourish. For a 10 man raider, it seems a fairly simple choice. For a minimal loss, you can gain significant power into something that may account for 15-20% of your overall healing.
For a 25 man raider it’s not quite so easy. And that’s the tricksy part, isn’t it? Deciding if a 20% boost to 3-5% of your healing is worth what you are going to give up to get it. And it really is fairly difficult to quantify! In the bigger picture it is likely to increase that 3-5% of your up a percent or two, just from the increased healing.
So, is that increase worth the small spell power and regen decrease?
Personally I’m not 100% certain, but I am leaning towards yes. The amount of spell power that is lost from giving up two points of Living Spirit is minute at this level, and the mana regen affected will likely be minimal. I’m going to change up my spec tonight (and can take my moonkin spec back as a result!), and test it out. I think the make or break point for me on the spec will be how much my mana feels the change. I am suspecting that it will be negligible, but I’m not positive as to that as yet.
What do you think? To downgrade living spirit or not?
Falling Leaves and Wings 
I’ve been following the comments too.
I guess it depends on your situation. If you’re doing a lot of blanketing and not much Nourishing, I’d lean towards keeping Living Spirit and taking Revitalize – but wouldn’t care too much about Emp Touch and say, Living Seed.
If you tend to jump more into direct healing (especially if you do a lot of 10 mans – I always found I had to do a lot of direct healing), then you’d probably want Emp Touch and Living Seed, but wouldn’t care too much about Living Spirit or Revitalize.
But at the moment I’m sporting everything plus 2/2 Imp Barkskin – the only thing I miss out on is 2% crit from 2/3 Natural Perfection, and I don’t care about that. 😛
I never like taking points out of anything that provides more spellpower, however minor. It hurts 😦 But – obviously larger Nourishes each time (if you’re using the spell frequently) is more important than that small amount of spellpower.
I’d prefer to find somewhere else to grab the points from if possible, but dropping Living Spirit as probably one of the better choices. Guess it just depends on what your current spec looks like, how much wiggle room you have, and your role in raids.
Keeva –
I noticed in your amory that you are using haste items instead of a 4 piece set bonus (well, I’m not sure about your hat cause you are cooking 😉 but I am making the assumption that you are using a haste helm). I suspect that you are at, or very close, to the haste cap without celestial focus.
I’m curious if you are going to opt for a CF build + 4 piece; or if you are going to stay with the haste gear for a 11/0/60 spec?
If you opt to go for a CF build with a 4 piece bonus, where are you going to toss the points? At that point you are forced to give up something, unfortunately 😦
I did run with the 1/3 Living Spirit build last night, and I think it worked out well. Unfortunately, I got put into a state right before the raid which really soured my mood, and it affected my performance and me, so while I can look at my WoL from the night, I was so distracted throughout the raid I just felt off the entire night. I think I need a few more experiences with the build to definitively decide if it’s worth keeping or not 🙂
Great post – even I, a non-druid, understood it.
I think I’m going to propose this question to my fiance – he’s the raid healer for our 10 man, and I know he uses Nourish a LOT.
Good Luck! You will have to let me know what he decided to do, and if he made the change, how he felt about it.
In my testing last night I lost right around 20 regen in combat. I did feel it a little bit, but there was never a danger that I was going to run out of mana.
I love the fact that there are so many druid bloggers out there, as it lets me – a very uninformed and probably sloppy tree – find out about great stuff like this! As someone who primarily heals heroics and 10-mans, I’m going to tinker with my spec when I get home and boost my Nourish power. 😀
I’m glad you found it helpful!
If your gear can support it, you probably won’t feel the regen loss much 🙂 And I do think that Empowered Touch is a very good talent to have as a 10 man raider, because your responsibilities are so much more diverse!
I have full Empowered Touch AND Living Spirit. Non-issue 🙂 But then, I’m also without a CF build! Yay for freed talent points!
/jealous!
I really don’t mind the celestial focus builds that much at all. Then again, I am fortuntate enough to have a weapon that’s going to take me through endgame rocking 50 haste, which is something a lot of people are struggling with.
Everytime someone brings up the question over on EJ re: the ICC weapons vs. Val’ynar the focus is always on what Val’ynar provides healing wise (generally how much does the shield heal vs. what you are losing in Spell Power and if it’s worth it), I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone mention that fact that Val’ynar *also* has haste as one of it’s base stats! Something that shouldn’t be overlooked!
That being said, my haste is at the point that I can remove at least one of the 3 points I’ve currently got in CF, and I am considering doing that and putting a second point back into living spirit.
Huh that’s a lot of math… but makes perfect sense. Fortunately, my gear isn’t to the point where I have to make the hard decisions.
The change in the spec really is a bit gear dependant, I believe. Until you can support the loss of spirit and regen at the higher levels of gear, I *do* think that you would probably feel the missing 2 points a bit more.
I definately wouldn’t recommend moving those points out for someone that was just starting druiding and was looking for advice.
I recently converted my tree from a raider into a pvper. Even in battlegrounds and arenas I was scared to go without 3/3 in living spirit. A lot of arena specd druids take all three points, and matches only last a few minutes at the most. But in pvp I’m throwing out my heals like crazy non-stop. Seems like it would make a difference on a long boss fight, but if your math is right I suppose not. I tried to go 1/3 in living spirit the first week of my arena, and I definitely noticed a difference when I raid healed in pvp spec. Don’t tell anyone I did that. I’m sure it is possible to go 1/3 but for me it’s not worth it.
Nourish spammers can pick up both talents. Seems like revitalize would be a more preferable loss. I think I read some math somewhere on this one. Maybe go into how useful revitalize is in the raid? This one probably depends heavily on raid make up. In a 2 healer ten man team, I would prefer to hold on to my extra spirit.
The math on revitalize as a raid healer shows that it is a very, very strong talent. Kae over at Dreambound did a very good series of posts showing the effects that revitalize has on a raid. There has also been an similar discussion and more numbers over on the EJ boards about the value of the talent.
Losing revitalize as a raid healer really isn’t an option, which is why it wasn’t discussed 😉
With regards to mana regen, last night with the 1/3 living spirit spec my in combat regen went down by 20. We cleared 8 of the ICC 25 bosses, and I can say that I didn’t have any mana issues with the spec. My mana may have drained a bit faster, but I was never in danger of running out.
“Revitalize: Once considered a firmly optional talent, Revitalize was yoked to Wild Growth (in addition to the original Rejuvenation bonus) in patch 3.1 and became significantly more useful. The people who benefit most from it are death knights, rogues, and cat druids, so if your raid doesn’t have any (or you spend very little time raid-healing), don’t bother.”
– http://www.wow.com/2010/01/26/shifting-perspectives-restoration-101-part-2/
It seems as though the revitalize argument is still up for debate. Like I said, it depends on raid make up, and in a ten man two healing team, I would prefer my extra mana. I think it depends on what type of healers you are running with. When I am running with one of my groups, I never worry about mana, but when I am healing with my guild, I usually pull over 40% of the healing with three healers causing me to have mana issues. Sorry, I may have misunderstood your post, I didn’t realize it was only for raid healing. When people spam nourish a ton, I generally think they would be doing a lot of tank healing, which I don’t see revitalize being as useful for.
O side note, I’m dumb at math, so I may be really wrong, but I have raided a ton playing around with my talents, and this is where I draw most of my conclusions from.
Kailanii –
In reviewing your armory, based on your non-pvp items equipped, I think probably you aren’t quite at the gear level where you would have as much benefit from dropping the two points out of living spirit. The discussion applies more to those who are at the T10 raiding level, where the gear can better support the small spell power loss, and the lost regen won’t be felt as much.
For example, on Beru I’m sitting somewhere around 1400 intellect (which provides me mana via replenish) and am over 1000 spirit with the loss of two points in living spirit. You are at just over 900 in both Intellect and Spirit, which means that you aren’t going to have the same level of regen that I get with Beru, and losing the two points in living spirit for you is going to have a more significant impact 🙂
http://dreambound-druid.blogspot.com/2009/05/revitalize-wws-report.html
There is the link to one of Kae’s studies on Revitalize if you’d like to look at some of the numbers. There is also a healthy discussion with even more numbers over on EJ regarding the talent, but I think Kae’s is a more “user friendly” read on the subject 🙂
how is the new build working out for you? and have you used it in 10-man raids?
i’m thinking of trying this out on my druid (Adeanna – Proudmoore, US if you’re curious. but i can’t remember if i logged out in my healing set). anyways, she has a celestial focus build, over 1K spirit, and raids 10-man only; and this seems like a good thing as i use nourish quite a lot. but i dislike when something changes and throws off my healing rhythm. and it’s not like i can see how the changes affect my healing by practicing on a target dummy. 😦
thanks in advance. 🙂
Adeanna,
I think you gear is in a spot where it is right on the cusp 🙂 I think my suggestion would be to experiment with it and see how it feels.
If you end up feeling the loss to the mana regen, swap back, but if not then you’ve made a change that will help you in your 10 man setting! (actually in looking at your armory again today, it looks like you took the leap already!) After the change, it looks like your spirit took a little bit of a hit from when I looked at your armory on Friday.
How are the changes working out for you?
yeah i made the leap. 😛 and yeah, the mana regen lost was noticeable. then again, i was healing a lot more as i was going back and forth from the tank to the raid during our rotface fight, which could explain the mana usage. (i usually focus on tank healing and have a little time to regen ooc).
anyways, i like this new build as my nourish seems to hit bigger now. and i think if i use the spark of hope trinket and +spirit food, mana should be manageable for me.
and thanks again for posting such a great post! it was really helpful with the data and such to help me decide to try out this new build. 😀
Great thanks for the follow up. I really was confused but obviously if I read your post closer, you were focused on T10 geared druids. It makes a lot of sense to re-evaluate talents at various gear levels. Having such a huge druid community is awesome and really makes me miss raiding with my druid as my main. You guys are great for providing so much info. If I ever get to bring my druid back into ICC and upgrade my resto gear I will def try out the loss of spirit again. Thanks for fully fleshing it out with me!
I’ve been using a build with both living spirit and empowered touch maxed out, but without revitalize or cf. I tried the cf spec for awhile but just ended up frustrated because my healing went down so much. I personally love the spec I’m running with now. I mostly heal 10ms. I’ve been debating about putting revitalize back in my spec, though.
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