was wandering what would be better for a resto druid cloth +healing armor or leather +healing armor? Both my girlfriend and I play WoW and she has a druid and I have been looking for gear and making lists of stuff for us to farm and craft for her. Thing is i cant figure out which would be better for her to be in cloth or leather. Some cloth stuff seems to have alittle better stats for healing, between mp5, +healing and some other stats but lacks in armor. But the leather i've noticed usually has more spirit, only slightly less healing on some stuff and higher sta and such depending on the item of course. Any way which is better for her? Should she stick to only leather since she can wear it unlike priests or should she make a mix of the two two types and go for which ever gives better +healing and stats?

Also which is better to go for mp5 or Spr? I was reading on wowiki and says that druids get about half of their spirit in idle mp regen and then 15% of that while casting with talents (ie 40 spirit from x item, so 20 mp regen idle and then 3 mp while casting). On some of the items I've found where the +healing, STA and INT are about equal but one has a nice amount of Spirit and the other has nice mp5 and the mp5 item would give better regen while casting compared to the spirit item. Im not sure if she should go for more spirit since in ToL form ups healing more but giving less mana regen when casting or go with more mp5 so not to run out of mana as fast. Oh forget to mention we are both 70 and they are end game instance/questing/crafting items I have been looking at.

Sorry for the long read and thanks for any and all advice given.

I'm personally a big fan of the leather healing stuff. Note this is because, I've got a crap set I've just kind of pieced together and it does phenomenally. I'm a full feral build with some minor talents in Resto (mostly the ones that affect Feral of course...) I've found that with only +540 healing (like I said, kind of a crap set...) I barely used any mana. I was dropping a series of HOTs on the MT in Mana Tombs and it was working well. So really it depends on what you want to do with it. I'd imagine healing will be way more intense in the Heroic instances, but overall, I would think the leather would be sufficient. I thought it was itemized pretty well for healing.

From most people, I've heard that mp5 (4, 8, 6, etc...) is way better than spirit. Its a guaranteed mana gain even in combat. Spirit is limited to outside of combat, and most people don't want to wait for a spirit regen. They generally use mp items and water to regain mana.

If you ever plan to PvP, I'd focus on leather items; otherwise, theres nothing wrong with cloth. Spirit is good if you know how to abuse it and MP5 will always be strong. I don't typically aim to get either MP5 or Spirit, I just take the best I can get of the two. Generally speaking, you will get the most benefit if you try to get a balance of the two rather than focusing on just one.

Cloth gear although quite beneficial for a restoration or balance spec, it will also make you squishy.

And if you pull aggro in a raid dungeon or even a 5man, being squishy could cost you.

Personally, I usually go w/ the Leather pieces unless the cloth piece available is such a massive upgrade it's worth sacrificing a bit of armor. Plus...the caster leather isn't as hard to come by at higher levels...and we have a monopoly on it too =D

Im feral and try to avoid healing as much as possible, apart from the casual off healing if Im not tanking, so my xp of healing in TBC is quite low.

As for cloth or leather it wont matter, to the point when Tank loose aggro and you are target. My experiance from Heroic instances tanking is that it's hard to hold aggro due to several aspects.

Hard hitting mobs, generally 1-2k hits (Ive got 6-7k hits on me tanking and seen 22k crit on clothie) big heals are vital here, but big heals cause aggro.

Several mobs, all cant be CCd. Tanking I've taken 2 mobs at once, main target has to be nuked, so 2nd target can and will at times slip away heading to healer, and with no 'preist vanish' getting 3 shotted is much better then getting 2 shotted. I've seen that, for me atleast, I usually pick up any loose mob at 1-2 hits, but if growl/taunt is resisted and bash dodged, preist is squished.


As for mp5 and/or spirit, you always have to consider the 5 sec rule. Five sec rule mean that you wont get any regen from spirit the 5 secs after a cast, meaning that if you cast you wont have any regen from spirit. 5 seconds can feel like forever so in a tough fight there wont be many occasions where you don't cast for 5 secs.

I may be wrong here, may have changed in some patch, as I said, last time I healed was maaany patches ago.

Also a note to remember with the 5 second rule is if your ToL then your going be spending a HUGE portion of your time if not all of it in the 5 sec rule of no spirit regen. So you need to really balance your spirit for ToL form and MP5 for your Hot healing. I personally lean a bit more towards the MP5 due to this regard as a ToL healer. As the mana regened in longer fights out weighs the extra healing I get from the ToL Aura. That mana goes alot farther when your spells are costing 20% less per cast.