I've recently switched back to my level 50 Balance druid. I have 10 characters between 45-70. One for each class (2 warriors for some reason). I like to think that I have a decent grasp of the value of attributes for specific classes. But Spirit stymies me a little bit.
Thus far I have avoided Spirit like the plague for most of my characters. It doesn't seem to contribute very much to any of them. Why take Spirit when I could get mp/5 or some other more effective stat in it's place? But I had some vague notion that it was important for druids. I see that it is included in the sticky as an important stat for Balance druids. But I'm not sure why. It is clearly important for Resto Tree form...but why Balance? It seems that Spirit doesn't contribute anything beyond the non-casting/non-combat regenerations. These regenerations are nice and all...but seem hardly essential with the availability of mp/5 gear.
Am I missing some important feature of Spirit? Or some key element of Spirit's contribution to Balance Druids?