Spirit and Healing with concerns to gemmingFollow

Alright well, I've been looking over my priest and talents as well as my gear since I'm looking to hit t5 once I finish my badge gear.

I looked at some different gemming patterns I could use for my gear and I have looked through several different "point value" calculations for gear. What I have found on a few of them was that +8/10 spirit gems suggested over a +9/11 healing +4/5 spirit gem for blue spots. This got me interested so I popped over to warcrafter.net and regemmed my gear with new gems and compared the differences.

Current:
1761 Healing
184 In combat mana 5
494 Out of combat mana 5

With full spirit regem:
1621 Healing
206 In combat mana 5
569 Out of combat mana 5

Now I'm at a crossroads in my mind. I can't really decide completely if I want to give up that 140 healing for 22 mp5 and 75 out of combat mp5. I can see its uses and such but I'm worried the efficiency will be lost by the lower heals. I did the same thing to a t6 level priest and the loss of stats was almost identical with a bit higher gain in stats. I am honestly unsure what to do in this case. Anyhow offer me up some opinions one way or another if you would. Someone better at math could probably show me healing efficiency compared to mana regen efficiency. Anyway just wanted some opinions before I blow a ton of gold on regemming :o

Armory:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=The+Forgotten+Coast&n=Lofri

**Edit** Just did some looking at some models and such and it seems I lose about .4 hp/mana on heals I'm not sure if that out weights the mana regen gain or not.

Edited, Sep 10th 2008 3:04am by Voicelessbass

If your guild is stuck on a boss because you run out of mana in the middle of the fight despite drinking mana potions at every cooldown and using your shadowfiend, then consider regemming for mana regeneration.

Otherwise, stick with greater healing power on your main set. You might also carry around a few pieces of gear with really high +spirit and +int and configure your Outfitter to swap you into them whenever you're out of combat and out of the five second rule, or drinking.

Basically, until you start getting to fights where you're having to spam coh for extended periods you won't need the regen as much. Once you start getting to that stage its time to look seriously at gemming for heavy spirit. I've healed everything up to brut so far and I would estimate that you don't really need to worry about it until you reach probably vashj or kael. Those fights are particularly long and draining so you'll need some decent regen by then. At T6 level and above the regen is really your premium stat as you go through long periods of casting followed by short periods out of 5 second rule (if you're lucky). Oh and btw, when you're in ssc look out for the earring of soulfull meditation. It is by far and away the best priest trinkets out there (especially for regen) and I still use it today.