Importance of Spirit for balance/resto druids

[Orcduck]

For example let's take:

Civinad Robes:
7 stam
18 spirit

IWould this much spirit provide a large boost to my short-term mana regen, such as grinding mobs while leveling (or even killing 5-man dungeon bosses)?

I'm a half balance/half resto druid btw

[The Shortest Path]

Spirit gives you mana regen while you haven't cast a spell in the past 5 seconds. 18 spirit is a pretty significant amount, so it will help your water use yes. You still need to drink between every few pulls as balance though, not much you can really do about that till AQ/Naxx gear.

[Larsen]

When you cast a spell, you're in "casting mode" for the next five seconds. During this time, you get no mana regeneration from spirit. There are exceptions to this -- for druids, the Reflection talent in the resto tree allows 15% of your regeneration to continue while casting, i.e. during those five seconds.

Needless to say, 15% of your spirit regeneration isn't very much. At level 60, it takes 13,6 spirit to give 1 mp5 during that 15% regeneration window. Items with actual mp5 tend to give about 5 mp5, which translates into way more spirit than there is on any item.

On raids, you spend almost all your time casting spells and won't really have many opportunities to take breaks in order to get your full spirit regeneration, so mp5 becomes very important. You still want some spirit so that when you do go OOM, you can regenerate quickly, but you don't need to focus on it. Whatever spirit you automatically get from your druid gear will be enough.

In 5-man dungeons and leveling, this isn't so much of an issue because you spend much more time outside of combat, or are able to take breaks from casting in order to regenerate. You also get to drink regularly. For dungeons and leveling, a large mana pool is probably better than anything since this determines your staying power much more than any mana regen stat will.

[auk]

druids should look into getting a spirit weapon to swap in when they innervate. there's some blue boe staff with a ton of spirit on it that fits the bill.

other than that i would view spirit as a fairly poor secondary stat for every class. it's less shitty for classes with % mana regen while casting talents but it's still not a stat you should really seek out over int, +healing, or mana per 5.

[Arise]

druids should look into getting a spirit weapon to swap in when they innervate. there's some blue boe staff with a ton of spirit on it that fits the bill.

other than that i would view spirit as a fairly poor secondary stat for every class. it's less shitty for classes with % mana regen while casting talents but it's still not a stat you should really seek out over int, +healing, or mana per 5.

For a priest soloing spirit beats everything.

[auk]

if you want to build your class around spirit tap or whatever, be my guest