One of the many, many problems I see with this change is the opposite of the intended effect. This has made spirit an even less desirable stat for mages, because of how gear is itemized. Even though not much gear without spirit exists, our best in slot items would now include Stam / Intel base stats, Spellpower, then 2 of 3 following Equip stats: Hit / Haste / Crit. Because of the poor conversion of Spirit -> Crit, the stat allocation on gear would be put to better use with either Haste or Crit Rating as a direct Equip stat. Compare it to Warriors and Ret Paladins who desire Strength above Attack Power. The difference being that Strength scales better with buffs then Attack Power does, and the scale of Spirit is insignificant with the type of gear currently available (and what will be available in Ulduar 3.1).

Would I rather have ~62 spirit * .40 = 24.8 Crit Rating?
-or-
The same slot item with no spirit and ~50 Crit Rating.

Yes, Spirit does effect mana regen as well, but the only spec that really requires Spirit to maintain significant regen is Arcane. With the nerf to the co-efficient for Arc Barrage, TTW Fire will be the most desirable raiding spec, and Mana Regen isn't nearly as important.

This all comes down to a fundamental lack of understanding with how mages' gear should be itemized, how our abilities scale with that itemization, and downright laziness to create gear itemized more effectively for the mage class. Since everyone uses Spellpower now, it's easier from a design standpoint to create "standardized" gear, with stats allocated for the majority of casters.

It's true that in raid situations with the proper amount of spirit, our MA will increase our crit% slightly over current levels. But it's also true that the spirit on gear allocation required to get there takes away from other stats that are more desirable to mages. I sincerely hope GC and Blizz listen to the mage community and fix this problem before 3.1 goes live, or I foresee another Sunwell-type situation in our future.

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