moowalk

I've been having this discussion in my guild forums, and realised that I have a few questions I can't find answers for.

Which class/specs don't get extra benefit out of more mana?

As a shadow priest I pot every cooldown. With my current gear I need to do this just to keep a low dps mindflay rotation going on long fights. As my gear improves I'll have more mana to play with, and I will be able to use mindblast and Shadow word:death to increase dps on longer fights. I can keep substituting MB and SW for MF to use excess mana until I'm using them every cooldown. I'm a long way off from realising this with my current gear, so effectively - Any mana I can get I can turn into dps.

I can't speak authoritatively for other classes, and this is where I'm requesting input. I suspect that most other classes can convert extra mana to damage or healing in some way. Mages can arcane blast, hunters can multishot/arcane shot instead of steady shot, warlocks can lifetap less.

When do these classes stop getting benefit from more mana?

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It's harder to quantify for healing classes. When I was raiding as holy, any excess mana I had went towards keeping the mt alive. This meant spamming/cast cancelling GH3 instead of GH1. Often all this increased was my overheal - but I felt that I put the extra mana to some use, however small. Our guild was reluctant to use fewer than 8 healers, but I expect if they had I would have been more stretched with mana requirements.

Is it reasonable to assume 'If healers finish the fight with 30% mana and didn't use potions we should bring fewer next time'?

In a similar way to increasing dps, healers can increase their hps. Paladins can favour HL over FoL more. Druids can regrowth instead of just casting rejuv and lifebloom. Priests can uprank Greater heals. I've never played a shaman and don't know much about them, but I suspect they can use a similar mechanic. Of course a paladin can't HL two targets at once, so there is a minimum number of healing classes required. I know elitist jerks often run very healer light, what changes does this require of the healers?

This will be fight dependent - When does the healing requirement change from being a question of mana to being a question of global cooldowns?

 

snape

In real terms, Int matters very very little to a Mage. The difference you get in gaining 1 mana is negligible to the point of laughability.

For a 15 minute fight (long, Vashj, KT, etc.), with Mage Armor activated, 1 int is equivalent to the gain you'd get from 4/9 of 1 Spirit point, if you are constantly casting inside the FSR.

For a 10 minute fight (medium, Tidewalker, VR, Hydross), 1 int is equivalent to 2/3 of 1 Spirit point, if constantly casting.

For a 5 minute fight (short, Solarion), 1 int is equivalent to 1 1/3 Spirit, if constantly casting.

These are for non-Human, non-Gnome Mages. Note that there are definite periods in almost any fight where one IS outside the FSR, even for a brief amount of time, which makes Spirit even more worthwhile in conversion terms than shown above.

I neglect the small crit gain from 1 int here - it's about 0.0125%. I don't think that makes as much difference as the mana regen. So generally speaking, if I have a choice between 1 Int and 1 Spirit - I'll take the Spirit please (and it aids in +dmg too via Imp DS).

Note: In the above examples, I considered "equivalent" to mean that it would take that much Spirit to gain 15 mana (1 int) over the specified duration of the fight. This neglects Evocation, which would make all of the equivalent Spirit values listed even smaller.

 

moowalk

I agree, int is of very little use to most classes. See Mana Regen: the last broken mechanic?

Maybe I didn't make myself clear. I'm not really talking about int, I'm more concerned about the various regen methods available, and who gets the most use out of them. There's possibly some overlap with Shadow Priest, who gets the most benfit? But I'm more concerned with utilizing other regen methods and making the most of the extra mana gained.

 

Marroc

"Too much mana" can only occur when you get to the point where you do not need to burn a single mana potion the entire fight. Until then getting more mana reduces the amount of time you spend on cooldown due to chugging potions, and in turn more time DPSing.

 

snape

Except that drinking a potion doesn't initiate or delay a global cooldown...

However, if you don't need to use an SMP, you could switch to Destruction Potions, increasing DPS (but not DPS time, mind you).

 

Xavias

Int is a very interesting stat. It virtually does nothing (apart from crit rate). One might compare it to stam, but stam can be regenerated by healing, hence stacking it achieves something.

Mana regeneration is the mechanic that is important. That is, in an average raid encounter, the actual amount of mana you have plays a very small part, whereas mana regen plays actual part of importance.

It is interesting to me that they didn't make your Maximum mana directly influence your regenation rate. That is, spirit becomes a multiplyer to Intellect to determine mana regeneration. Kind of like in Warcraft 3

Brutal Gladiator

 

Isstai

And by not having to chain chug mana pots you free up your health pot cooldown for emergencies.

 

Marroc

Correct, but it takes time away from the person because they have to actually click the pot :P It's not much, but if you're min/maxing it is something that can be removed.

Also, as you said, you can replace the mana potion with a destruction potion.

 

mersenne

As a Marksmanship Hunter to whom money is no object when it comes to progression, I prefer to use my pot cooldowns on Fel Mana Potions, rather than Haste Potions. The latter throws off my shot rotation, and my DPS is fine as is. I rely on Fel Mana Potions as my only source of significant mana regeneration (BM Hunters get grouped with Shadow Priests from time to time, and Survival Hunters have Thrill of the Hunt and rely less on mana pots). This being the case, I like to go all out and ignore mana regen and the size of my mana pool: there is no way to significantly increase my mana without gimping my DPS given my itemization, and besides, I can't burn through my entire mana pool in 10 minutes if I've been good about chugging Fel Mana Potions in a timely manner.

So, to answer your question, the Hunters I know don't really care about Int or large mana pools for PvE, and it shows in our itemization.

 

• frmorrison

At least in Arenas (if the other team is good about keeping you in combat), Int is very valuable for casters, even Warlocks (because generally you don't want to Life Tap).


For PvE, it isn't as useful for casters, but more mana means less mana pots .

 

• Playered

Not really, the amount of mana you would need to save 1 pot on an encounter is around 2500, which is around 160+ Int, not achievable in the most remote cases without massivly gimping your other stats.

Reworking Int so it enhances MP5 passivly would be a good step forwards (somewhat a passive minor Dreamstate for all mana users).

 

Tyrian

Int/Mana has more meaning to an arcane mage than many other classes.
For arcane mages, your int/mana is more than just a number, it is a measure of your flexibility and versitility (and strength , to a smaller degree) to adapt your dps/dpm to the situation given at hand.

This isnt to say that omg-int>>>+dam or anything, just that the philosophy of arcane mage design (your mana is the source of your power) is a little different than other classes (your spell +dam gear is source of your power). It comes back to the arcane blast spell design, which (might be wrong?) is quite unique among spells players have.

 

Northerner

Even as arcane, int is only valuable because it is .25 spellpower as well. Mana available for arcane even more than any other mage spec is determined by spirit due to multiple outside 5SR ticks and 45% regen inside the 5SR. (Additionally, although deep arcane is the best spec for converting extra mana into extra damage, the conversion rate is at a horrifically bad ratio.) So unless you are looking at your potential 45 second full burst only, int is still only slightly valuable.

Personally I hate big manapools with poor regeneration simply because they scale horribly with mana-returning effects that are not percentage based. The whole reason that spellpower is so potent is that it makes each point of mana more valuable while holding mana returning methods (pots, gems, lifetap, evocation, etc) static and hence much more powerful as you increase the +damage portion.

 

Xejin

From the point of view of an Arcane Mage, I can never have too much mana. Shadow Priest + all mana regenerating buffs I can think of and I still drain mana quickly spamming Arcane Blast. The more mana you can feed an arcane mage, the higher the DPS they can sustain. I know fire mages do hit a wall where they never need to use a pot because their far more mana efficient than arcane mages (who are spamming Arcane Blast).

As for Int, it is mostly a wasted attribute. However, as the above poster mentioned to arcane mages it does mean something. We usually have +15% Int, we retain some of our mana regen while casting, and we get 25% of our Int as +Spell Damage.

 

Neuromaster

Mana regen helps everyone's longevity, but I think the OP was just as interested in how different levels of regen affect DPS.

As a mage, I think there're basically three different situations depending on spec. From least to most affected:

Frost mages: Probably the least affected by different levels of regen simply because their cast "rotation" is usually just frostbolt spam. While mages of any spec can burn extra mana with arcane blast, deep frost mages on the whole just don't have a terribly good way of turning surplus mana into damage. This might be different for arcane/frost, but survey sez that spec is pretty weak for raid DPS anyway.

Fire mages: Somewhere in the middle. Fire mages can chain scorch for cheap damage when faced with an endurance fight without the benefit of external regen. Chaining fireball & scorching occasionally to keep fire vuln up is pretty standard for moderate/long fights with some regen (say some combination of chaining pots and/or an average shadowpriest). Finally, fire mages can go "all out" by using a fireballx2, fireblast rotation - this can turn excess mana into damage at a pretty good rate. Still, it can't compare to the flexibility of...

Arcane mages: Mana regen is KEY for this spec. Damage/crit/etc from gear is important, but that's not what lets this spec put out big DPS numbers. Without special regen arcane mages will usually follow a rotation of 1 or 2 arcane blasts, followed by a volley of missiles & maybe a scorch to let the debuff fade. Put them in a group with a good shadowpriest & a stack of mana pots to chain & they'll switch to three or four blasts in a row. Give 'em two shadowpriests and there's a good possibility they'll be able to chain-cast arcane blast for a good portion of the fight. More than probably any other spec regen is key to letting arcane mages do damage. I'd even argue that arcane mages benefit the most from high levels of regen of any DPS class, simply because they can more radically tune their spell rotation to fit the situation.



I can't really speak for other classes but if I had to guess who'd benefit least from SP regen among mana-using DPS, I'd have to guess affliction warlocks (due to dark pact, lifetap, and self-heals via siphon life). Frost mages are also up there, and maybe BM/steady spam hunters (ours are much more interested in GoA or LotP than regen)

 

Lumi

DPS wise, hunters and mages are often starving for mana. Offspec, ele shaman and moonkins also have trouble sustaining on their own. Shadow priests of course benefit from each other as well, and warlocks probably gain the least (but still gain GCD's).

Healer wise, every healer can use more mana by being more reckless with it. When a healer doesn't need to worry about mana, heals that normally would have been canceled land. More inspiritation uptime, frequently the MT will be topped off, etc. Also things like PW:S, Flash Heal, and LHW can be used more often with little concern with mana. This also opens the door to health pots for healers.

 

◊ zeidrich

Mana is still worth something.

Assume you have x outgoing mana per 5 seconds from casting, and y incoming mana per 5 seconds from regen.

I'll use chain casting arcane missiles for an example, which eats up 785 mana per 5 seconds.
You have 250 mana/5seconds from shadow priests, 150 mana/5seconds from gear, and 200 mana/5 seconds from potions.

Your mana expendature in that case is 785 - 600 = 185 mana/5seconds.

A 20% increase in mana pool means a 20% increase in casting available before running solely off of regen.

In this case, your pure regen DPS is 600/785=~76% of your max DPS.

Assuming you have a 10,000 point mana pool, you can sustain max rank AM for 270 seconds or only 4.5 minutes. But raising mana pool to 12,000 gives you 324 seconds of your full rotation or 5.4 minutes.

Assume a 10 minute fight, case 1 you have 4.5 minutes of 100% dps, and 5.5 of 76%, case 2 you're doing 5.4 minutes of 100% dps, and 4.6 minutes of 76% dps. In case 1 you do 86.8% of your maximum optimal dps from that rotation, in case 2 you do 89.0% of your maximum optimal dps.

As long as your maximum DPS cycle takes more mana than you can get from regen, then more mana is worthwhile.

A 20% mana increase is a 20% increase in the duration you can maintain a mana consuming cycle before you must switch to a mana-neutral cycle.

The larger the difference between the mana consumption of your dps, and your mana regeneration, the greater the value of an increased mana pool

 

Rudi-CO

They are good points on how important (or not) int is for mages. As a gnome arc mage with spellfire set bonus I've found stacking +int to be useful up until you get to ~11k buffed mana as the more mana you have the more flexible you can be for a fight. But... I play a gnome arc mage with spellfire set bonus, which is probably the only combination that can argue that stacking int over spell damage has any benefit.

Stacking mana/5 isn't something I've really considered tho since I think when spamming Arc Blast you'd need, what, 2k mana/5s to keep up? Something crazy like that. Anyone take a serious look at mana/5 and the arc mage?

 

songster

Um, the question of whether to go for int or regen is not very spec dependent. What matters is the length of the fight. From the length of the fight, you can calculate your *actual* mana pool, which is:

Starting mana +
The amount you get back from Evocate +
The amount you get back from mana/5 +
The amount you get back from spirit regen (Mage armor or FSR) +
The amount you get from a s'priest +
The amount you get from mana pots

All of the latter four increase over time (as does Evocate if the fight's long enough to get two off), so in a long fight, your starting mana pool is more or less irrelevant, and you should stack regen. This is true independent of your spec. The only wrinkle is that for an Arcane mage, int gives you some spelldamage as well as contributing to your starting pool.

 

Golpe

I've actually been wondering the same thing as the OP. As a raid healing priest, i'm pushing the 10k-12k mana pool (depending on buffs) but i have yet to reach my rough goal of 200 mp5 in combat. I've debated whether changing some sockets out for + heal/MP5 gems (over some + heal/Int gems) or just start implimenting some 6 mp5 Star of Elunes.

What are some good mearsurement numbers that you high end priest shot for or have?
I've heard +1600 heal, 200 mp5, around 11k MP and 8k hp?
Anyone agree with this estimate as a holy healing priest?

 

Jenos

With the amount of regen you get raid buffed int becomes fairly trivial in most encounters. In any case, the 9 healing 2 Mp5 gem is always superior to the 9 healing 4 int gem unless the yellow color of the gem helps meet some socket bonus that is worthwhile(You're in your grinding gear so I can't see the gem layout of your healing gear). For 2 MP5 to be better than 4 int, you need to be in combat over 2.75 minutes(assuming kings). Nearly all raid encounters will take this long, so the 2 Mp5 part of the gem will always result in more mana.

 

Opioid

/click [modifer:alt] AutoBarSAB4P1; (or whatever Super Mana Pot button is) [modifier:ctrl] AutoBarSAB7P1; (or whatever Destruction Pot button is)
/stopcasting
/cast Shadow Bolt (or whatever direct damage spam is)

 

moowalk

Thanks, this was exactly what I was looking for - a break down on how each class and spec uses excess mana when available.

Is anyone able to do something similar for other classes? Healing classes too, if possible

 

Thelyna

Holy paladins scale three ways with int: more mana to cast spells with, more crit from int (and basically the entire meat of the holy tree [sans Illumination] is about crit) and more +dmg from Holy Guidance. Oh, and we get 10% more int from talents.

Despite all that, I don't think stacking int is particularly viable for a serious healing holy paladin (aside from the 'zomg 12k unbuffed mana' thing, but that doesn't really count). More int is never "bad", and we do scale in the ways I mentioned from it, but for me the baseline stats are always going to be +heal and mana/5, everything else is fairly secondary.

DeeNogger: "No dot timer? Get your belt off, its spanking time."

 

Blindrage

I can think of one more example where more int ( a larger mana pool ) would give you more mana regeneration and that is when you have a resto shaman with mana tide in your group.

Since TBC mana tide gives you a percentage of your total mana pool back per tick in order to make it scale better with gear. Altough it is not a reason to "stack int" it does help you with the regenerate mana.