Roywyn

Mana vs. Damage

With the recent changes - talents, gems, flame caps (3m cooldown) - mana management has suddenly become more interesting in a min-maxing scenario.

"But there is no mana issue!" - Well, there is, but in a more subtle way. Can you spec out of all mana talents, use flame caps, destruction potions, molten armour, no evocation and still last through a fight? Maybe with a very good shadow priest, but what if you don't get one on Sharaz/Gurtogg?

There are quite a few means of recovering mana, but which one to chose in which situation?
Let's take the following scenario:

A deep fire spec as base, Fireball spam. T6 level gear, 350 spirit raid buffed (100mana/tick or 250mp5 when not casting), 12k mana (for Evocation, a Z'A staff can push that to 13k).

I take a 6 minute boss fight, uninterrupted casting. That way, you can use your 2m CDs 3 times, or 3m CDs 2 times. That fight length is a multiple of these cooldowns, so nothing can get a benefit from cooldown coming up early.
The actual length of the fight shouldn't matter too much to the model, but I think that one is a pretty decent model.


How much is spell hit worth? At T6 level gear, people generally grab their spell hit from gear and gem for damage, which is generally accepted as the best choice.
Seeing that T6 gloves are usually socketed with 12 damage instead of 6dam/5hit+2dam bonus, 5 hit is not as good as 12-8=4 damage. I'll just set the value of 1 spell hit to 4/5=0.8 damage.


Regarding talents and talent choices - Arcane Meditations means you lose Elemental Precision, Arcane Concentration means you lose Icy Veins. A fire spec needs 42 points to maximise PWF, Critical Mass, Fire Power, Pyromaniac, Combustion, Molten Fury, Empowered Fireball.
To get Clearcasting and Icy Veins, one would lose more in fire talents than the Tri-Spec gains.



Talents

Elemental Precision
3% hit translates to 37.8 hit rating or 0.8*37.8 = 30 damage. 3% cost reduction is 12.75 mana less per cast, or +21mp5.

Icy Veins
20% haste for 20s every 180s => 2.2% haste averaged. Makes it ~35 haste rating averaged, or 39 damage and -12mp5.

Arcane Concentration (Clearcasting)
Saves ~40 mana per cast, or +66.5 mp5.

Arcane Meditation
Returns 30%*250mp5 = +75mp5 while casting.

Master of Elements
Assuming 35% crit chance, it saves 425*30%*35% = 45 mana per cast, or +74 mp5.


Armour/Evocation

Mage Armour returns 30%*250mp5 = +75mp5 while casting.

Molten Armour gives 3% crit ~= 68 crit rating ~ 51 damage and +6mp5 from Master of Elements.

Evocation with 2/5 T6 gives you 75%*12k = 9k mana at the expense of 10s cast time. That means a 9000mana/6min = +125 mp5 at the cost of 10s/6min = -2.77% haste = -43.6% haste rating = -49 damage, +15mp5.
So, using Evocation is a +140 mp5, -49 damage change.

Using Evocation in the last moment of Heroism makes it -38dmg +11mp5 from the time lost casting, or +136mp5 at the cost of -38 damage.
Then again, you'd want Heroism when the boss hits 20%, which is too late to use Evocation.


Potions

Mana Potions return +100 mp5, or +140mp5 with the Alchemist's Stone (few mages are alchemists though).

Destruction Potions give 120 damage and 2% crit for 15 seconds on a 120 second cooldown. That's +19 damage and +0.5mp5 from Master of Elements.


Gems/Flame Caps

Mana Gems return +100 mp5, or +125 mp5 with the Serpent-Coil Braid.

Flame Caps give 80 damage for 1 minute on a 3 minute cooldown, or +26.6 fire damage average.


Trinkets

Icon of the Silver Crescent averages at +69 damage, Hex-Shrunken Head at +88 damage, an ideal DM:Crusade is +80 damage.
Thus, I'll just assume a static +80 damage trinket to compare the other two mana trinkets to.

Serpent-Coil Braid gives 30 crit rating, 12 hit rating, 25mp5 and 225 damage for 15 seconds every 2 minutes. I take 12 hit as 12*0.8 = 9.6 damage (see above).
This adds up as +60 damage and +28 mp5 together with Master of Elements.

The Alchemist's Stone gives +15 to all stats and 40mp5. The 15 stats yield about +5 damage (crit and IDS), 248 raw mana, or 450 mana with evocation, and +0.5mp5 from crit.
So, a total of +5 damage and +44mp5 to +47mp5 averaged over the fight.


Blessings

Blessing of Wisdom gives you +41mp5 or +49.2mp5 if talented.

Blessing of Kings gives you ~35 spirit and ~60 intellect. This is ~19 damage, +1.5mp5 from crit, 900 mana, or 1615 mana with Evocation (and some spirit ticks), +24mp5 total.


Summary/Comparison

This is a list of choices you can make to maintain your mana.
It's ordered by efficiency, by the amount of mp5 you gain per point of sacrificed damage.

1) 5.27 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Potions over Destruction Potions gives you +99.5 mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

2) 3.70 mp5/dmg - Chaining Mana Gems over Flame Caps gives you +100 mp5 at the cost of -27 damage

3) 2.86 mp5/dmg - Evocation gives you +140 mp5 at the cost of -49 damage.

4) 2.03 mp5/dmg - Arcane Concentration instead of Icy Veins yields +79mp5 at the cost -39 damage.
5) 1.80 mp5/dmg - Arcane Meditation instead of Elemental Precision yields +54 mp5 at the cost of -30 damage.

6) 1.40 mp5/dmg - Serpent-Coil Braid gives you +28 mp5 at the cost of about -20 damage.
7) 1.35 mp5/dmg - Mage Armour gives you +69 mp5 at the cost of -51 damage.
8) 1.36 mp5/dmg - Talented Blessing of Wisdom over Blessing of Kings gives you +25mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

9) 0.89 mp5/dmg - Untalented Blessing of Wisdom over Blessing of Kings gives you +17mp5 at the cost of -19 damage.

10) 0.63 mp5/dmg - The Alchemist's Stone gives you +47 mp5 at the cost of -75 damage.


This means if you're min-maxing to the extreme, you'd chain mana potions as first priority, and mana gems as second priority.
Using Evocation is a clear third priority, and respeccing to 10 or 18 arcane are choic 4 and 5, both with comparable returns when you can get the hit from somewhere else.

After those, using Serpent-Coil Braid, Mage Armour and Improved Blessing of Wisdom instead of Kings (if you lack paladins for both) are the next choice.

A normal Blessing of Wisdom is a weaker choice after that, and the Alchemist's Stone significantly weaker.