rgirty

I use a +55 healing elixir and try to use fel mana potions. With the elixir active three debuffs drops my healing less than 100. I would much rather use fel mana as I get a steady stream of mana which is always 3200 mana. Super mana pots often give me less, or approx 2k mana.

I feel the trade off is very justified. If the battle is long, I will take a super mana first, when I hit about 80% of my mana pool then follow it up with fel mana pots after that.

 

Nezralix

Well, that's a very enthusiastic approach!

 

Anedris

I don't use them too much (working on Leo in SSC with Lurk, Moro, and FLK down) but it still bothers me that all my mana regen games of dancing with the 5-second rule and so on can be utterly trivialized by a consumable. And when we reach a more healing intensive encounter (I heal graves in Morogrim else that would probably be one) I will not be happy if I have to start burning through 3-5 per attempt or kill.

(Daily quests are nice but more of a band-aid solution IMO because the mechanic remains clumsy and boring and the existence of potions severely devalues spirit and mp5 as desirable stats on gear.)

 

Nezralix

I'm not raiding anything beyond Magtheridon right now, and I've never been a healer in a raid in TBC, so I certainly can't speculate on healing demands, but I hear mixed responses. Quite a few people claim the necessity to chug potions, quite a few claim they hardly need potions at all, and quite a few probably do just to feel like they're playing as best they can as a healer. I'm a little skeptical of the people who say that potions are overrated, because it usually comes in the form of anecdotal evidence like "my guild just did <fights X/Y/Z> and I didn't have to use a single potion!", which could easily mean that all the other healers in the raid are picking up the slack for the guy who's partially afk. Or that gear improvements and an abundance of shadow priests are significantly factoring into mana longevity, as discussed earlier in this thread.

I can only speculate that I would be annoyed if I had to farm 40 potions a night.

 

Ailetha

I picked up herb/alc and made an alc stone so I could go through 20-30 mana potions per raid night and not give it a thought. Not an issue at all; although sometimes I wish I didn't go through so many; on the other hand, I'd feel like I wasn't giving my best if I simply just stopped chugging.

The fel mana potions, with the Alc Stone, give me a guaranteed 4500 mana. The Super Manas range from 2590 to 4200; it's really a non-issue for me.

However, contrary to the way most people feel, I am also of the opinion that everyone has their own professions; if you have a problem using alot of consumables in a raid, then you should pick up the professions that help you in this regard or stop complaining. Everyone has something that gouges their money. Just because you have tailoring/enchanting/skinning/leatherworking/etc is no excuse to be lazy in regards to potions, flasks, and elixirs.

EDIT: That only applies to learning attempts. Lowbie instances (which are different depending on guild progression) like for us Karazhan & Gruul, I would be and do get pissed when I even have to bother with mana & buff potions. What a waste.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...ks/Ailetha.png

 

◊ zeidrich

The issue is this: Fights are DPS sensitive. If you can go through an encounter without any of your healers using a potion, then you can more than likely get rid of one or more of your healers to bring in another DPS.

When fights are about maximizing DPS, it also means minimizing slots taken by healers. So you really need to ensure your healers are taxed to full capacity

 

Nezralix

Based on this model, isn't every healer forced to use an Alc Stone and chug Fel Manas?

 

rgirty

I wouldn't think so. The debuff will become more powerful than the mana you regenerate. Something like the essence of the martyr of fel reavers piston and even a rejuv gem is more powerful over the course of a raid than the alchemy stone. At least, that has been the result of my calculations (poor as they may be)

 

Anedris

In a mana intensive encounter, yes to min-max every healer should have an alchemist stone and every healer should be taking a potion every 2 minutes (not necessarily a fel mana as the debuff will begin to stack up but SMPs aren't much worse). Of course, not every healer will have a stone so those without it will lose 40 mp5 on SMP chugging but the 100 mp5 gained from the SMPs (sans stone) still obliterates all other mana regeneration options except shadowpriests.

I don't like consumables in general but I particularly don't like mana potions because it makes it distinctly hard to get excited about regen upgrades on gear. I can gain 10 mp5 and that is... less than 10% of what I get from potions. Ho-hum. It's nice to no longer be forced to pot but it's not like I can realistically run out of mana anyways (if people die it's because there was too much damage to react to all of it at once; I can't remember the last time we wiped because the healers went oom).

 

Northerner

At some point you run into issues with pure healing throughput of course. So you can reduce healer numbers somewhat but you really can't simply replace more actual healers with healers + better potions. For mid-tier content though you can indeed do exactly that a lot of the time and many guilds certainly do.

I'm not sold on the Fel Manas for healers too much, although I chug em on my Hunter quite happily when JoW isn't up. I guess it is very fight-dependent though.

 

◊ zeidrich

The gap between not drinking a potion and chugging super manas is much larger than the gap between chugging super manas and chugging fel manas with an alchemist's stone.

I'll take Gurgthock's regen from armory for an example. He has 165 mana/5sec

Super mana chugging is 100 mana/5 which is a 60% increase in mana regen.

Fel mana chugging with alchemist stone is 186 mana/5sec, 86 mana/5secs more than the 265 mana/5secs you get from supers, or a ~30% increase.


Super mana potions aren't that expensive. Chugging them is a nice equilibrium price point for a massive increase in healing power, and you don't necessarily need to drop a profession for it. As much as I may dislike the semi-requirement of potting, to not pot AT ALL is really not living up to your potential. There is just no source of regen from itemization that can even start to match that you get from potions.

 

Nezralix

Well, I suppose one question might be, how often are you able to determine in advance how many potions you'll need to blow in total after only a minute or two in the fight? Obviously unforeseen events occur, a healer may die or a good chunk of the raid might take some unexpected AoE damage. Can you often say, "yeah, I probably won't need more than one potion for this fight so I'll just hold off", or is there a pretty constant pressure to drink them?

That's probably what I see at the worst aspect of mana potions in raids, in that you don't know if you need them until after you should've used them. But not being a healer, I can't really say for sure how much of an impact this has in practice. It seems like a shitty decision for healers to have to make, and I don't know if I could ever feel like I was doing the best I could in that role unless I was chugging potions constantly. That was certainly the problem I had on my mage.

I certainly wouldn't weep for alchemists if they restricted mana potions (and haste/destruction/ironshield potions, for that matter) to zero or one use per raid encounter. I really wish someone would've asked this question at Blizzcon.

 

Starfire

NapkinMath (tm) states that 16mp5 over 2 minutes is equivilent to 384 mana, however an Alchemist stone grants 15 intellect, 15 spirit (and 15 stamina/15 agility (which is slightly useful)) in addition to 40% more mana per a pot. At best, the 40% mana works out to around 1280 extra mana from a fel mana pot, on average it is about 960 or so mana on a super mana pot.

Now, its true that the fel reaver piston does have that 500 heal. But that's a hot and it is uncontrollable with an internal cooldown. Unless you are exclusively healing the main tank, I'd wager that many times the Piston's HoT won't do much healing.

Roughly put, the Alchemist stone with chain chugging is around 40mp5 (rounded). Also, mana potions can crit, and when they do, it is oh so lovely.

Still, even assuming you weren't chain potting, and say you potted once per 4 minutes, that's still around 20 mp5 to the stone.

 

rgirty

When chain chugging it would indeed be very powerful.

 

Nezralix

This is somewhat off-topic, but... somewhat on-topic too. Does anyone know if there's an updated version of this:

healbot1.40

Or something comparable? Because that's a pretty awesome utility.

 

◊ Vectivus

I forgot that site even existed.

The original creator gave me administrative privileges on there just after it went live, since I helped mod those forums. God, that was a long time ago.

Sorry, wicked off-topic. Continue.

 

Ailetha

It's really too bad that website is outdated; I too would very much like to see something similar.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...ks/Ailetha.png

 

Deris

This may be just my feelings, but I remember tons of healer websites, and all kinds of min-max stuff pre2.0 for Healers like spreadsheets, charts, graphs, downranking theory, and now it seems like all healing Theorycraft has basically been nuked to "use mana pots, and downrank chain heal. gl."

That being said, I chug mana pots like there is NO tomorrow on any "newer" fight (Archimonde, Mother Shahraz) but tend to level off as people get more comfortable with the fight, and I understand how bad the need to heal someone is (I don't snipe someone within range of my party for a 1.4k heal anymore if he is in no immediate danger of dying : the tree snags him, etc.)

But on fresh learning fights.. 30 mana pots on a wipe night is nothing uncommon.

 

snape

Mana potions can crit? I don't think I've ever observed this.

Edit: It appears they can. Again, I don't think I've ever seen this - what's the supposed rate? Is it tied to a melee / spell crit rate?

 

Zoner

Considering I've raided every pre BC instance all the way through and we managed to keep nearly every boss judged with holy paladins, I would say that you are definitely overstating things. And this was with the old 8 and 16 debuff slots, it was that valuable (and still is, but everyone has become lazy or their guilds full of people who have not raided pre-BC).

 

Zoner

5% for all potions, except the volatile & unstable ( I believe they are 20 %)

 

Kallisti

Just a question since there are still so many talking about "chain chugging" and using a lot of potions:
Depending on your progress, on which encounters do you need to use potions?

Raidbuffed, I have 250 mp5 when casting, almost 500 mp5 when not, 1800+heal and 11k mana now. As a resto druid, 70-80% of the time in tree form, it is really hard to spend that mana. If I have a shadow (which I often do, since we cant fill two dps caster groups setupwise, so healers get one), it's like unlimited mana.

We are working on Kael'Thas now and i think the only encounter where i really use mana potions is lady vashj, since I have to heal 5 stairs (= 3 elemental killers) plus the kiters when in range.. With innervate, I still have 30-50% mana left usually, when it's over and even without the Lifebloom endticks, us resto druids dominate our healing meters in most fights (except for shaman on voidreaver and tidewalker, but we are close to them).

From time to time, i might use one (one!) potion for A'lar (healing the 2 offtanks together with another resto druid), if some damage dealers die and it takes longer.. and those Tempest Keep pots cost like 10-15 silver each, when nobody raided TK on our server and i bought 100 of those. ;-)

Still, Vashj is the only encounter where I use restoration flasks and where I sometimes consume a mana pot...

I wonder how it will be in Hyjal and Black Temple. Mostly, I feel bad when I see our damage dealers consuming flasks and some of them haste potions a lot while I spent almost nothing on consumables.. Going for 24/7 healing power and draenic wisdom to feel better i think. ^^

Is there someone with the same impressions from SSC/TK as me and some Hyjal/BT experience to share his observation with me? Will things change? I heared Gurtogg will be healing intensive? What about the rest?

 

Wintern

Might be different for a Druid and also your group setup ofcourse, but Najentus, Teron, Bloodboil then Shahraz onwards is where I use the most mana pots (3 per attempt, more on Council and Illidan), the rest of the bosses I use either one or a few of those Skettis reward potions.

 

• Playered

I rarely ever had to use mana potions in pre-BT bosses, I dont believe even in Hyjal except ofcourse Kaz'Rogal without SR.
However I quite often get a SP (we tend to run 3) and also keep my IV for myself (& Bangle).
Back when starting raiding I was Dreamstate spec and assumed the huge amount of MP5 was the reason for my guilt over never needing pots, respecing however did not change much :P

Naj'entus depends, with a SP I can quite often manage without either IV or pots nowdays.
Gurtogg is somewhat the same, but that is the power of Lifebloom and my role in the raid moreso than not, Teron drains my mana the most but that is simply again because of my role and my method of supporting it (Regrowth everywhere...)
Cant say for the last 3 bosses of BT thou, but yes Druids tend to have it easy depending on your role in the raid from my experience

 

Nezralix

So basically, it seems to be the consensus that the correct equipment, group configuration and talent spec (plus class choice!) eliminate a lot of the need for potions. And that's good. That's how it should be. If raids are going to have encounters five times longer than your average 5-man boss, then raid synergies should account for that mana regeneration. It probably shouldn't come in the form of bringing shadow priests, but if they added a few more options like that (maybe hunters could return mana to their groups? that would make them a little less useless!), then they might be in a good position to nuke mana potions from orbit.

I personally like the idea of INT providing mana regeneration at maybe half the point-for-point value of a straight regeneration state like MP5. I also like the idea of Spirit providing some high percentage of regeneration while casting, say 50% while casting and still 100% while not casting (leaving MP5 at the "75% all the time" budget point). It's easy to provide raid buffs that improve core stats like INT and SPI.

Anyway, I value working within your means, but I say that as someone who comes from a first person shooter background where there was essentially no such thing as character development or farming, just strategy and practice. Seeing as how raiding is intended to be the competitive aspect of PvE, I think they really need to ditch the laborer mentality.