Hi,

Sorry if this is considered a non class specific issue, but i didn't feel it warrented going into the General Discussion forum.

I'm after some impartial input from others - as I have a viewpoint, but when i put it to the Hunters and Warlocks, they tell me it's wrong - and yet I somewhat disagree with them, but don't consider I have as much knowledge first hand of their class, as they do.

This is our problem: In raids, we totally abuse Super Mana Pots, as i'm sure most high end guilds do (we're mid way through BT atm, not great, i know - but considering our attendance %s, we're happy with that atm). All healers, mages and shadow priests are spamming Super Mana Pots pretty much on cooldown, from start to end - and we run fairly optimised group setups - healers mostly get a shadow priest, barring the odd resto druid in a tank group who gets innervates - shamans normally run in addition in a caster group etc - yet still (certainly from my point of view as a fire mage), content we run still needs (and by needs, i mean "is helped by") - Mana Pot spammage.

Hunters and Locks though somewhat refuse to, and recount analysis shows in particular fights, even fights where hunters *seem* to be oom, and warlock can pull 40k+ from life tapping, these 2 classes simply refuse to use Mana Pots. They justify this on the basis that they save the pot timer normally for health pots (understandable i guess in some fights) - but even more infuriatingly, they claim that mana pots simply won't increase their DPS by much.

Now, unless i'm missing something, surely Mana Pot spamming is almost compulsory for all mana classes in the high end, where maximising DPS can easy the burden across the whole raid.


So, can some equal level raiding hunters and warlocks please give me their input as to whether they personally use mana pots, and whether mana pot spamming would increase the effectiveness, or even allow different builds to increase output based on the fact they have the mana available.


(Note: Some of the classes bring < 5 mana pots for a full 4 hr+ raid, whereas our casters typically bring 40-60, with some going totally over the top..) [Hyjal trash waves are brutal for mages, even using JoW in 4-6 mobs of the AOE)

Thanks for your time

My personal opinion is that (barring a few fights) spamming mana pots or destruction pots for locks is just as important as any other class. I always make sure I bring 40 mana pots and 20 destruction pots to raids. I don't see why any decent raiding lock wouldn't, considering the dps loss from life tapping is actually quite significant. This is talking personally from a destruction point of view, I don't see why an affliction/demo lock wouldn't abuse pots either though.

As far as hunters go, I haven't got a clue

If hunters are in SP group and/or there's JOW on target, they will only need 1 pot per fight or every 10 min or so.

If not, well, hunters are the least mana efficient class in the game and they will go OOM in less than 2 min Little more as BM. Mana pots spam is mandatory at that point.



I do think you're a little exaggerate maybe saying that you spam pot every cooldown, especially considering that as your gear get better you should have better mana regen / effinciency but meh i see your point.

Unless you give a bm/surv hunter a combination of: shadow priest, resto shaman, jow, bow, they run oom EVEN with spamming the best mana potions. MM hunters use even more mana and get less back from talents. Once a hunter get's oom their dps drops a lot or they have to fd and drink and do no damage at all for 20-30 seconds.


BTW how are your hunters doing on the damage meters without using mana potions? Somewhere around spot 10?

I don't usually pot, I haven't met the pressure to do so on most fights. Because of that, I usually carry around 10 mana pots on a raid (combat/zone specific at that), that are used mostly on Hydross/Morogrim AoE or when I feel that it isn't worth it to stop DPS for tapping.

Our top (BM) hunter abuses fel mana pots and finishes usually in the top five (with me and 2 rogues being the norm).

Well we haven't reached farther than Magtheridon but i will just throw my opinion. In fights like gruul and maggy, if i don't have a shadow priest in the group i can go oom in less than 90secs. So i drink a fel mana potion at every cd. If i have a shadow priest in the group, then i have to consume a lot less mana pots. Generally an oom hunter is a huge loss in dps.

I never have a shadow priest and pot more than anyone else on our raids according to WWS.

Arcane and multishot have a horrible manaefficience, but I think with bm and 1:1 rotation(not throwing in arcane and multishot) a hunter is quite mana efficient, isn't he?


Concerning the topic:
I don't see how someone can make a big fuss about this:
If your hunters and warlocks go out of mana during they fight they just have to drink Manapots. There is absolutely no argumentation why they should not. If they never run out of mana they obviously have enough mp5/int or are happy with fd and drinking water(respectively lifetap). In this case Manapots will increase the performance, because of less wasted time(respectively disburdened healers).


But I'm not BT yet, so maybe some gameplay changing effects occur there which will change my opinion of absolutely clear logic concerning this question.

It depends; from personal experience, if I'm in the best shadow priests group, I usually potion every 3 minutes or so. Sometimes less. It depends on the fight too obviously, sometimes I need to spam them (Vashj) other times I don't have to pot at all (Karathress).

However, my damage suffers from being grouped with a shadow priest. I'm tending to lean these days on being in the melee group for Leader of the Pack and potential totems, and 10% AP to my pet from Unleashed Rage. Using this setup I have to spam fel mana potions every cooldown, and still end up drinking if the fight is over say 4-5 minutes long. But overall my damage is better using that setup.

Note that we normally never have a JoW up, it would help a ton, and given that setup I'd almost always prefer to be with a feral druid and enh shaman. Your mileage may vary, however.

Also, just to provide numbers, I got through roughly 50 fel mana potions in 3 nights of raiding. So yes, hunters absolutely need to potion if JoW is not present, even when grouped with a shadow priest.

OP - I think you need to compare the damage done to the potion usage. If your Hunters and 'locks are bottom-feeders on the meters, then it's time to crack the whip or tell them to stay out of the raid. If they are getting the job done somehow without pots, then I'd say it's a non-issue. From my experience as a Hunter though, I can say there is no way in hell they are approaching their limits without using pots. Another thing to check is whether they are using Aspect of the Viper on bosses...a sure sign they are not giving their all DPS-wise.

Can't say much about 'locks, but they are hackers when it comes to mana regen. =P

Hunters can sustain without a shadow priest by downranking multi and/or dropping it in extreme mana burn happy, crazy demon lady cases. This is with chain potting and a mark of conquest.

If you are potting once every 3 minutes with a shadow priest though, your shadow priest is bad.

With JoW I might have to pot once in an 8 minute fight, and I totally disregard mana/5 and intellect when choosing my gear in most cases. With a shadowpriest, I can't burn the mana fast enough.

With both...I can't imagine a spec for a hunter that would burn that amount of mana honestly. Our shadowpriests are quite good and consistently over 1000dps, so the mana regen they provide is pretty insane. I am actually going to start giving them mana pots because them chainpotting to keep that dps going prevents me from needing to On a better note, it does allow the hunter to chain haste pots instead.

If I have a shadowpriest and JOW I can last a LONG time w/o a pot.
If I have a shadowpriest I can usually get by with super mana pots
If I have JoW up 80%+ I can usually get by with super mana pots
If I have neither when in marks spec'd I can slam fel mana and demonic runes and still OOM.
If I have neither when im beast spec'd I can slam super rmana and still run OOM.

As you can see it depends on a few things.

JoW is arguably the best buff in the game for DPS mana. For hunters it equates to about 150 Mp5 (In comparison thats 6 mighty restoration flasks stacked on top of each other).

Unless you put a shadow priest in with your hunters, they are destroying their DPS by not using mana potions. And even then only a BM can really get away with not using any mana potions.

I run with more MP5 than any hunter I have met (usually around 150 with full raid buffs) and dual 30 int enchanted 1 handers so my mana pool is somewhere between 8 and 9k, and to top it off I'm BM with 5/5 efficiency (you can't get any more mana efficient). With no Shadow Priest I go through around 2-3 mana pots depending on the fight at full burn. When I was Marksman I went through twice as many. If I drop my MP5 some (or we don't have 2 paladins) I go through 3-4 mana potions a fight. I am normally #1 DPS for ranged friendly fights and top 5 for mobs like Hydross and Morogrim that are much more AE friendly.

Any hunter that refuses to pot without a SP or JoW is either not using the class properly (auto shot bot), or has ungodly amounts of mana regen that I could not even fathom.

To the original poster, any hunter that does not use super mana or fel mana potions will be mediocre at best, regardless of the fight. However what some people in this thread don't seem to acknowledge is the fact that a BM hunter does not need a shadowpriest. From my experiences raiding with BM hunters that can exceed 1200 effective DPS a shadowpriest does nothing to improve their damage whatsoever; it just saves them the discomfort of having to buy mana potions. However, if you put that same shadowpriest in a party with an arcane mage you will notice a substantial increase in damage. The fact of the matter is that at this point it is pretty much consensus in the WoW community that the best shot rotation for BM is almost exclusively auto-steady and kill command whenever it is up. People may disagree with me on this point but a shadowpriest in the same party as a BM hunter is just a huge waste; I would rather give them a feral druid for leader of the pack which will actually increase their damage, not just save them gold for consumables.

Claiming that using mana pots won't increase hunter DPS is flat-out wrong. Even as a hunter with 5/5 Efficiency (talent that reduces mana cost of special shots by 10%), I'll go OOM quickly with a max-dps rotation and no mana regen group buffs/boss Judgements.

What potting allows is mixing in Arcane Shot and Multi-Shot, as opposed to auto/Steady spam. Both Arcane and Multi will do more damage than Steady (Arcane's only "bad" in this case if a target has 0 armor). BM hunters can "get by" with only auto/Steady, and it's pretty good DPS if they know how to use their pet, but I'm assuming that being in BT you're playing to win. Which means every class needs to be chain-potting for maximum warp DPS.

My question to the OP: is your raid DPS the limiting factor on getting additional boss kills?

OP: it sounds like your hunters probably don't know more than you about their class if they refuse to pot. As people already stated - even with the most mana efficient build (bm) you need to pot to deal your best damage. Unless you have a shadowpriest.

If you have RDX or something you could just monitor your hunters mana during fights and compare that to their damage output. If they are MM they can't possible be dealing good damage without a shadowpriest and should respec or be gkicked.

What other assumptions are you making? My experience is that using auto/steady+KC I will run out of mana after ~3 minutes even when chugging fel mana pots assuming I don't get any other mp5 buffs.

I don't even have a mana potion hotkey on my bars.

Dots and nukes interspersed with life tap and dark pact is how I maintain damage while minimizing downtime or heart attacks in my healers. It is also a useful activity during the inevitable "DPS OFF!" call that most BC boss fights require. And it is a useful activity to mitigate threat, albeit in a roundabout manner.

Perhaps its because my guild is only in TK and SSC, but it seems sufficient for my purposes. I maintain a respectable rank amongst the DPS dealers.

Oh, and I buy and send my healers mana pots when I have the wherewithal to do so, so it's not a money issue. Although the destruction potion thing sounds interesting...

Our warlocks use mana pots right now (9/10 TK/SSC), simply because it's higher dps than tapping. The saved time from tapping is another shadowbolt, which is more dps, which is ... etc.. Plus, there's just too many times that tapping more than once can be dangerous. If you tap down on Vashj, she'll chain lightning your face, guaranteed.

Our hunters chain-pot. If they get a shadow priest ... then chain pot, AND take advantage of the shadow priest. It just lets them go more aggressive on their rotations. In a fully buffed situation, with JoW and shadow priest, they can push 1400 dps, T5 or below gear. That's worth potting for.

I'm assuming no KC.

However, lack of KC isn't exactly a great way to DPS, so realistically I'd assume mana oil and mana/5 food, since I don't see how one would avoid going OOM with KC included in the rotation.

Affliction warlocks have infinite mana through the use of class abilities. A super mana pot basically saves them one or two global cooldowns of dark pact/lifetap, giving them an extra shadowbolt every two minutes. That's pretty Meh. Yeah, it's an increase, but it's not really noticeable and it's really worth crunching numbers to compare it to a destro pot.

Destruction warlocks (and probably raiding demo locks), on the other hand, are mana-inefficient enough that they may run into a wall of not having enough incoming life to lifetap (or sponging non-VE heals to maintain dps), so it probably be worth it.

Any warlock, regardless of spec, that ends up taking enough damage to interfere with lifetapping, but not enough to otherwise kill them, should generally be using mana potions, not health potions. It's easier to hit this barrier as destro than aff, but it can happen even to aff locks in some fights (goddamn VR and his health-leech immunity). They gain more mana from the mana pot than from lifetapping the health pot away, which means they get more health from not having to lifetap as much than from the health pot directly.
Of course, any warlock who is hardcore about it will be using rejuv pots, not health or mana pots.