There's no such thing as too much mana, the more you can get the better, currently in raid with a totem, no imp, fully buffed/potted as a mage im sitting on 9700hp/13100mana/375spirit, 1700spelldmg 40% AB crit rate and 99% hit. If I only could get more int, I'd do it with pleasure. I'd like to see 15000 mana pool, well, think its possible

You can also just use gear that has more dam/hit/crit instead of int/spi. It more than makes up having to use super mana potions instead of destruction potions.

From a druid raid healing perspective, more mana regeneration allows you to be more "wasteful" with mana in order to heal more quickly. For example, this means that if someone is down ~3-4k hp and may be taking damage again soon, I would either regrowth them (2sec cast, 650 mana, delivers 2-3k healing quickly followed by 2k over time) or cast two lifeblooms (instant, takes 2 global cooldowns, 350 mana, heals 4k over 7sec). Both methods heal for about 4k, which is a reasonable figure for incidental damage in raids, so this is a tradeoff between mana cost and delivery speed/cast time.

Other things you can do with excess mana include rejuv+swiftmend for an inefficient (630 mana, ~5hpm) but fairly large 3k+ "flash heal" that only requires a global cooldown and swiftmend cooldown, and that you can do while moving. You can also be more liberal with swiftmend in general.

OK, so it sounds like this is pretty much a consensus for arcane mages. No surprise to me - I raid as a mage. What I'm curious about is the ability of other classes (or lack thereof) to burn extra mana. I hadn't really given much thought to healers dumping mana into faster, less efficient heals (or being less afraid of overhealing) but I guess it makes sense.

I guess the question I'd have about that is when is the added flexibility of healing more valuable than added DPS? Furthermore, what DPS other than arcane mages can lay a strong claim to SP regen? Is it worth it for notoriously inefficient shadow destro locks? Does it let elemental shamans shock more frequently? Maybe MM hunters? What about shadowpriests themselves (ie two in a group)? This is all speculation on my part - what do those of you who actually play these classes think?

The "who gets the shadowpriest?" game is an old one. I generally give them first to hunters and non-frost mages and then to other mana users. Hunters get a double benefit (mana for a mana-starved class and healing for the pet) and non-frost mages cannot usually sustain a long encounter without the shadow priest mana regeneration. If the encounter is healing intensive the healers will get the shadowpriest instead, of course.

If you put two shadowpriests in one group the priests will benefit but the other three group members will have more mana than they know what to do with (yes, mages can spend the extra mana, but the conversion rate of mana to extra DPS is very poor).

In terms of mana pool, while more mana is never a bad thing, stacking int doesn't make sense because over boss encounters (almost universally 5+ minutes long) regen stats will simply supply more mana and throughput stats (+heal, +damage, +crit, whatever) will have a much greater effect on total damage or healing done.

The mana regen off a 1000-dps spriest + pots gives me about 120dps regardless of the length of the fight.

Even on fights with movement (we're inefficient enough that we can burn off a mana pot in 14 seconds, and our whole mana bar in just over 40 seconds, with no internal regeneration options at all, so we're always going to have space for the spriests mana even if we are moving and have time to lifetap.)


An affliction warlock will gain about the same dps. The only difference is that they weren't losing 1500 health every 12 seconds from a lifetap and relying on a healer to top them off before they take enough damage from AE's/adds to matter.

The only time to much mana can happen is when the expense of mana never drains the pool.

That point is at which when a shadow priest is no longer needed to fill mana pools.

Yes.

I sometimes use more mana pots than our mages do on fights, because I gain a direct DPS increase off them -- they only need them if they will run OOM .

An affliction lock gains 20% more off a lifetap, so they tap a bit less often -- therefore you can discount those numbers somewhat for affliction (they also have dark pact as an option -- still a dps hit, but not also a risk of dying.)

With a deep fire spec, Fireball has better DPM than scorch I believe.

I have 11/47/3 and scorch only has 2% better dpm than fireball. It's much better with JoW, however. Still, fireball lets you get rid of mana much quicker and regen while wanding so it's probably better dpm overall.

Practicly every spell class has a potential higher dps spell rotation that burns more mana then is currently possible to maintain.

When you can burn your highest possible dps rotation, and not run out of mana, then you dont need more mana, until then. more is better.

That accounts more for regen then an inately higher starting pool though. spirit/mp5 vs int.
Unless we are talking about such a short duration period that the starting pool of mana is larger then the potential regen over time.


Specific classes of course have the secondary bonuses to int.

Arcane mages get passive damage from int, and extra mana from int
Elemental shaman get passive mana regen from int.
Balance druids get passive damage AND mana regen from int.

At a high end level, 1 int>1 crit rating for a balance druid, for example. Adepts elixers/dreanic wisdom are actually greater then supreme power infact to give a better idea the importance of int for a balance druid.

Holy Pallys get 30% of int as damage/healing, have a talent to get 10% more int, and of course get more spell crit for illumination.

I think Holy Pallys get the most benefit, but Balance Druids look second.

Resto shamans who do not get Shadow Priests (I can't remember the last time I saw one. I'm always stuck in the tank group) make quite effective use of Int. With no passive regen other than gear and totems, Int gives base mana, some scaling mana return from Mana Tide, and 30% to spell damage.

They claim that they're going to do something to revise the mana regeneration mechanic, and ideally that change will come with making mana potions completely unusable in raids (such that they'll be forced to deal with the issue, rather than using consumable use as a crutch). Something that regenerates mana based on your mana pool size (at maybe half the rate per stat budget of strict regen stats) might work.

Whatever they do, they really need to completely phase mana potion use out of the picture and move forward from there. Anything that involves people burning money to get more damage is bad for raiding.

I don't have a problem spending money to get more damage. What I have a problem with is using a disproportionately LARGE amount of money for a relatively mediocre gain in damage (or in this case, simply longevity, which in point of fact is the real issue).

I think the runaway success of a number of guilds prior to the 2.1 raiding changes indicates that a fair number of hardcore players have no issues spending money to get more damage. However, in the big picture it takes away from the game, because (a) competitive content is designed around people who bleed money, and (b) it lets Blizzard somewhat neglect players who don't. Raiding is a substantial time investment, and really, that time investment should mostly stand on its own without the additional time investment of farming gold or materials (beyond minor, permanent character advancements from crafted equipment and the like). Flasks are quite enough.

That said, mana longevity *should* be a tradeoff from healing power (much as the mp5 vs. +healing scheme *should* work now for healers), and a balance of that should require some planning and intelligence. Certainly, if they do finally take a hard line with potion chugging, this will be a more important factor in the expansion than it is now. They'll need to rework classes such that mana efficiency is realistically attainable for hunters, mages, oomkins, etc. I think that regenerating mana based on the size of the mana pool would be a good change, because not only does it give tangible benefits to INT in a raid setting, but classes like hunters could have their spell costs set at a low enough level that they could receive a substantial amount of their overall regen (as it relates to core damage skill use) from INT. It could also give them options for more burst damage or "special actions" (like trapping or wingclipping) at a more mana-intensive rate. This is more similar to how it works in other games.

Value mp5 at a price where it gives double the regeneration benefit of equivalent INT and they'd be at a good itemization starting point. I'm pretty confident in saying that the FSR is a failed mechanic, or at the very least should be shorter.

I submit to you that this is the case for all casting classes (even Warlocks, whose longevity depends on Healer mana).

As a fire mage, if there's a good shadow priest in the group, it's really hard to spend mana fast enough to make it worth potting. I still burn gems on the cooldown just because they're free, but with a good shadow priest in group, I can chain nuke the entire fight with Molten Armor up and I might be able to get near the bottom of my pool after 10 minutes or so. About the only time I run into mana issues are in aoe situations, and that's kinda of to be expected.

I've never seen a Shadow Priest that can keep up with the optimal Fireball Fireball Fire Blast rotation, and we have excellently geared one. If you're not doing that rotation for max DPS, I suggest you try it.

For an Enhence shaman, the *too much mana* cap comes super soon. Once you are pressing SS almost each 10sec, and a Shock each 6 sec, there's nothing else in the rotation, save refreshing totems and maybe a Heal here and there when T5 2pc proc.

We can also turn AP into Mp5 through SR. I'd say Enhence shaman have the least benefit from more mana, or more mana regen.

To the OP:
For your healers, a very important mana threshold (and one they should reach fairly early) is the point at which they can keep the raid alive without Innervates on the healers. At this point the Innervates should be given to the Shadow Priests instead, which, in your situation, should increase DPS substantially.

Hmm, I don't know about this. Are you talking innervates from feral druids?

As a resto druid, I always use my innervate on myself whenever it's up, regardless of whether it's trash mobs or bosses we're fighting. I think during all of my raiding experience on this toon, I've had to get an innervate from another person twice. And that was after 10-11 minutes on a boss fight to battle res someone real quickly. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten either of those innervates.

I would never consider giving my innervate to someone else unless like, a RL told me to (which they never would), or it was in Karazhan and the other healer was seriously undergeared.

I am never in the shadow priest's group with exception of one-two fights. I usually don't actually run out of mana (i.e. no pot/innerv timers to use) till 10-12 minutes through the fight; for most bosses this is fine with the enrage timer. If I do end up in the SPriest's group, I can go on indefinitely. I'd be able to go 15+ minutes in the FSR without stopping. For the really long fights (12+) I use Alc Stone with Fel Mana Potions.



At the point where I am now, I'd never pick Intellect over Spirit, Healing, and or MP5. My stat preference order for raiding gems/gear/enchants goes like this atm:

Spirit
Healing
MP5
Intellect
Stamina

Other healing classes, and even Dreamstate Druids, don't play like this, I realize.