Thats a valid point, but I guess the answer would involve taking a look at overall DPS compared to other mana using classes, and the amount of effort/expense to maintain enough mana to remain viable during a boss fight situation. There are others here that are far more qualified to answer that, so I wont venture to.

@Trogdor - Im not sure what I said to warrant hostility or name-calling from you, but if I was overly spirited in my posts or if I offended you, I apologize. I was certainly not calling out anyone or attacking any hunter build in particular.

I stand by my position that the mana management issue is a universal problem across all hunter builds, and that past history and experience (pre-BC to now) informs us that we should pay very close attention to how mana management unfolds in this expansion. There are too many hunters indicating that mana is a problem area both in Live and in Beta, and too many reports of chain-chugging fel mana pots, for us to dismiss them out of hand. Among most hunters list of concerns, mana is frequently close to the top of the list.

As I've said earlier, and as many others have, its too early to jump to conclusions but I think we can all agree that keeping a close eye on this problem area as it pertains to the hunter class as a whole is a prudent move.

It might be better, but is it really a fair thing to say? A Hunter without mana is still a wasted spot that could be used on a class that could maintain some semblance of real DPS. Without us providing our pets with crits they will also drop in DPS. And so the spiral turns down.

And in 10-mans I can easily imagine a situation with no Shamans and no Pallies. In fact I have experienced that more than a few times now in both ZA and Kara. Unless eiher class gets a massive popularity increase I have feeling it might happen again. And it appears that other classes might feel a bit of hurt DPS because of it, we appear to be the ones that will have to say "sorry, I'm not going to be the break tonight, I'll drop." And I really don't like that because certain classes failed to show. At other times we might get three of each and be happy pandas, but that doesn't make up for those times when we are prepared and hyped up to go only to see it go down the drain.

I really hope that JoW gets a smack with the nerfbat. It is too good right now. And something that good can't be purely support. It is a requirement. I don't like that at all... Unless they make MD 100% required on all bosses or something. Technically just as bad, but at least it would serve us rather than serve against us.

I can't be very hyped about WF, but what I do worry about is Strength of Earth. All melee can use it and get it, we need a third Shaman to get it. Again, I have seen more than a few 25-mans with no Shamans at all. Getting three is going to be something like once every five raids. I feel we are pretty much the oddcoloured stamp in the setup. We can use the melee totems, but we are too far away. I feel I have a right to be worried since I'm in a guild where people tend to be much less min-maxing than most. I want to be less effective because of that, but not worthless. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say here.

It's one of those things, I guess, when it comes to Sniper Training [at least for SV inclined hunters]. I don't assume that all enhance shammy have Totemic Mastery, so we either need to be in a 20 or a 30 yard range of the totem to take benefit. The toon is generally about 4 yards from the mob's hitbox (lets just say boss, for ease), which means we'd need to be ~24 or ~34 yards from the boss to have Sniper Training work. Those specs without it, I guess it doesn't matter if they have Sniper Training or not, because staying in range of totems shouldn't be too much an issue as long as you're on the same hemisphere in relation to the boss. Specs with Sniper Training are going to be much more mindful of positioning. Quite possibly lamenting bad positioning choices. BUT.. Sniper Training is more of a filler talent to get to Hunting Party, which is still up in the air (I'm, personally, still leaning towards the positive benefits of HP and keeping an open mind for ES). What are the other options for talents? MT? A completely different tree (only if HP or ES aren't being sought after)?

It all depends. At least in my guild, if I'm grouped with a resto shammy, I'll request GoA (e.g. Brutallus, me, BM hunter, resto shammy, druid tank, other tank) and we'll push the damage. It's not an issue. If there is no shammy for that *shrug*. We have an enhance shammy that has great attendance, but I know for certain that for Brutallus, no hunter would be in range for any of his totems (we set the healers up closer so they can reach anyone in the raid). So in that case it's a moot point, and Sniper Training would still be quite beneficial.

Our set up for Twins (almost kill last week) wouldn't give hunters totem reach other. While I think that it *could* be coordinated to have an enhance shammy move to a position to drop tot that'll reach ranged camp, I'm not entirely sure if it's always possible just due to the semi-chaotic nature of the Twins fight when the tanks get conflagged or stunned, and when the boss(es) will sometimes shift under those circumstances. There can be a lot going on; more than to go and cater to one or two hunters in a raid.

But the pet does take benefit, so certainly BM hunters are easily going to maintain their power. It's probably why the new talents for the BM tree don't directly add more damage, like we've seen with marks and survival. Personally, I'd prefer to view beta scenarios and think ways around things, than to lament what we don't have. It may suck, but one way or another we'll have to make do.

The unknown wild card in this mana discussion is Inscription. Maybe hunter mana regen/efficiency will come from there.

I agree that inscription could change our mana regen/efficiency, but I wouldn't like to see it make a big difference. To say that any decent hunter of any spec must take an inscription to be worth anything to raid DPS would be akin to giving us 5 inscription slots (and likely it would take a greater inscription slot.) As with most min/maxing I wouldn't mind seeing a certain Inscription, or even combination of 6 inscriptions, be the difference between a decent hunter and a great hunter, I just don't want it to be something required to be a decent raider.

Somehow, the thought of relying on specific inscriptions to solve mana problems doesn't strike me as a very enticing one since that will greatly limit our flexibility or options. Inscriptions should really be seen as a way enhance, not to fill in a gap in a class that should had been resolved in the class design.

Supposedly even that 1% resist chance is gone so you can't miss when you are fully hitcapped. I haven't actually see any confirmation on this or the change to 9% cap for spells but it would be really nice if the rumors are true.

We had that ability preTBC (and for some time in TBC), but Blizz took it away - going ooc when FDing. If they bring it back, we shouldn't have mana issues. But I don't think they will do that.

Except it was ALWAYS a dps loss to FD and drink, even if you were oom. The damage lost from the autoshots while drinking would never make up for any shots you gained from drinking for the remainder of the fight.

The only exception to this was on fights with non-dps periods, such as boss speeches, phase changes, or LoS waiting, etc.

They wont bring back FD-ooc on bosses for many reasons. If they did though, none of us would be drinking when we could be autoshotting with the odd steadyshot at 5% mana. Then again JoW means thats not going to be an issue anyway.

Well, I'm comparing it to evocation - which also means dps loss. But it's true - in TBC FD+drinking was forgotten (even when it was possible) for certain reasons.

I guess I'm on the anti-JoW bandwagon. I don't think all mana using classes should highly dependent on a single target buff. We all comment that "of course we'll have a paladin, my guild brings three on every raid." It's fair to say you should always have a few paladins, but it's not always assumed that you'll have a full three. In raids like Hyjal with a gauntlet style that usually encourages a prot pally there's nothing to say a hunter will always be DPSing the target of the pally, or have a holy pally to pay attention to the target of the other tanks. I realize that the biggest time for oom is during boss fights, but I'm not eager to be out of mana on wave 3 and hoping I can gain enough from Viper before the next wave finally gets over the hill.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: single target boss fights aren't the only time we have to worry about mana, but they're the only time were likely to be consistently benefit from JoW.

Taken straight from MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft Guides and Raid Strategies Build 8681 Patch notes update:
They added cooldown between procs, so its no longer chance on every hit.
(Paladins - say "bye bye" to grinding using reckoning ;/)

While it is certainly a devastating nerf to certain playstyles, I'm happy about it.

This means that we are unlikely to be so vitally tied into JoW, so our own manaregen is likely going to be much better than assumed so far. If not, then I can't begin to explain the epicness of the fail, but at this time I doubt that is going to happen.

A good change. It shows that Blizzard is aware of the things that have been mentioned.

I fail to see how it makes a difference at all. We won't have infinite mana from JoW, but it's still the #1 way for us to get mana back without sacrificing dps.

Blizzard hasn't made any comments about giving us another way to restore mana, so the end effect is that the hunters who were unfortunate enough to be in bad guilds with 0 paladins will see no changes, while the majority of hunters, who's guilds have 1+ paladins will simply have less mana to play with.

Because if Blizzard let JoW stay at the power it had before, then they more or less told us "yes, JoW is the new potionsystem, expect to go OOM without it" because it was so damn powerful. Buffs that powerful aren't just for fluff and support, they are requirements. And if JoW was a requirement for raiding, then we would be very limited in options. Now at least Blizzard has come out and said that they don't want a single buff to be so powerful that it is a requirement for dependable DPS. It is more about attitude to the problem of mana, than actual fact of course.

And that is why I like this change. It remains very strong, no doubt, but no longer can we expect it to be needed for us to do DPS, something else will have to step in and I hope it will be a tool of our own choice (Hunter skill/ability/talent/mechanic).

The difference is that now we can expect Hunters in raids with no Pallies to have better mana than what was to be expected before, because something would need ot make up for the nerf to JoW.

I don't know if we can really 'expect' this. We can certainly hope it's true, but expectations may simply lead to disappointment.

All this really means is that raids with pallies in them will have worse mana regen. Yet still, so far as we know, better regen than groups without pallies.

I also think it's overly optimistic to assume every 10-man raid will have access to a pally. They may have a guild full of bear/warrior/DK tanks, priest/druid/shammy healers, and some combination of the large amount of dps classes. It's perfectly possible, especially horde side, for a smaller guild to lack a raiding paladin.

Can you be a decent raider without enchanted gear? Without flasks/elixirs and potions? Sure, you can be decent. But you can't be a really good raider without them. Inscription will likely be similar. Can you be decent without certain inscriptions? Sure. But if you want to be really good (and in a skilled guild) you'll have them.

It's streamlining. It's new, quite different, and with all the other changes it really mixes everything up. I think that the best players are going to be the ones that put in more thought about what they want to achieve, and consider several methods. Not any one thing is going to be perfect for every situation, but there will be specs/abilities that can have an edge, depending.

Remember back in the day, when you could throw [virtually] any 40 people together and raid MC/BWL? The way I see it now, is that 10 and 25 WotLK raids are going to have a little bit of thought involved in the makeup, at least for covering tanking, healing, and DPS. So long as DPS players are good, they're fairly interchangeable, save for specific class abilities. Potions are going to require proper decision-timing. Drums are now going to require proper decision-timing. I think I like how it seems that more thought will be involved for brilliant execution.

So for mana issues.. we still have (ignoring class buffs):
- Elixirs
- Weapon oils
- Potions
- Non-potions (think demonic runes.. maybe something new will come up like that?)
- Inscriptions (I certainly expect something to reduce mana costs *shrug*)
- Cunning pet (as a non-BM hunter, I'm still leaning on cunning if I anticipate OOM on 5+ min fights)
- [appropriately-timed] AoV


So potions get a nerf, but that means alchemy stones are still going to be quite valuable, and there is also that passive potion ability too? I see options and combinations with the before-mentioned, for mana.

I think it's a reasonable expectation. By bringing the mana return more in line with other methods of raid mana regeneration, it allows Blizzard to set some baseline to balance around. WotLK JoW was so much greater than all other methods of mana regeneration, including potions with the current beta changes, that it could never be balanced; either you had JoW and never had mana issues, or you didn't and couldn't effectively do max DPS on a boss.

With that said, it is interesting to me the dramatic changes that they're making in mana usage for all classes and the implications. The changes to potions implies that Blizzard intends to balance encounters and mana usage in such a way that all classes will be able to do some baseline DPS without them. However, simulataneously they're adding several new forms of raid mana regeneration:

Paladins -- BoW, JoW, (Talented) JoWise
Shaman -- Mana Spring, (Talented) Mana Tide
Priests -- (Talented) Vampiric Touch
Hunters -- (Talented) Hunting Party
Druids -- (Talented) Replenish

Based on their emphasis of 10 mans in WotLK, it appears they're diversifying the raid support role typically fulfilled by spriests into several other classes. While it may be unreasonable to expect a paladin in a 10 man, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some sort of raid support to couple with the deep BM and Surv talents.

Just like there is a worst-case scenario (no mana regen) in order for DPS throttling via mana to be effective, Blizzard would have to balance around the best-case scenario where hunters (or any mana using DPS class) has access to multiple forms of raid wide mana regeneration. Take for example a party of:

Ret Paladin
Surv Hunter
BM Hunter
S. Priest
Enh Shaman

While this may not be an ideal group, based on the changes currently running in beta this group would appear to provide each member of the party with some type of synergy from the other members and it would seem to trivialize mana consumption for all members.

I'm reminded of 2T5 Arcane Mages in BC; capable of amazing burst damage but requiring lots of raid resources to produce it. Essentially if Blizzard is trying to throttle DPS through mana, it seems counter-intuitive to give SO many ways for groups to regen mana. Not everyone may have access to an idealized group, but high-end progression guilds would.

Edit: To extend the thought and clarify my point.

It was clear that JoW needed some sort of internal cooldown, as hunters had unlimited mana with it up. It was also unbalanced against casters who cast 2.5s spells, when hunters are doing two shots in ~1.5s.

So if we assume a 3500AP ret pally, that gives ~420 mana per proc. With our shots, we could probably have fired two more shots at around the 5s mark (shots fired approximately 1.5s, 3s, 4.5s etc).

So rough calculations indicate JoW is ~420mp5 for hunters at start of raiding.

(for reference, Hunting Party is ~125mp5 with 10k mana, Steady Shot spam is ~930mp5)

Yes raids with pallies will get worse mana regen than before (in Beta obviously), but that is ok. The Paladin support tools are there to support, not carry us. This is a move in that direction. If we were balanced around JoW having no CD, then having no JoW would be devastating. Obviously Blizzard wants JoW to help us a lot, but not be what keeps us aloft (any class, but obviously more critical to Hunters with our fast drain, slow regen and fast attacks). If the Beta was already balanced around not needing JoW, then there is no loss to this change, if it was but that will change, then again no loss since a no pally situation is still something we can live with. If it was balanced around JoW and there is no other cahnge than the CD, then we are royally screwed, as we lose out in both no-Pally situations and when they are there. The last one seems to be the least likely, if still possible. At least to me.

I don't care if someone wants someone else to begin recruiting some class. We can make do without Druids, DKs, Hunters, Rogues, Shamans, Mages, Warlocks, Warriors and Priests. We damn well should be able to make do without Paladins as well. Not that there aren't, or shouldn't, be fights where certain specs/classes are needed, but overall no class should be needed every time. That is the argument. Guilds that have too few Paladins should do less well overall, but they shouldn't begin to falter. Endgame, well that is for the really dedicated min-maxers, and as such the spectrum broadens on needed classes. But from the earliest raids as well? It would be too much for the lower guilds to cope with.

And remember this, we are the class that gets the most from JoW. Yeah, Enhancements Shamans gain a lot too, but Shamanistic Rage reduces the need a lot (might be a change with the expensive spells Shamans get). But other classes see nice and helpful numbers, however not comparable to us. If they don't need it, but we do (still hypothetical), then it isn't hard to see fewer raiding Hunters, save from the more progressionminded guilds. The reason being that these guilds, having a hard time getting Paladins in sufficient numbers, would not feel the hassle wasn't worth the results. There are so many going by the line: "If it worked before..." Kick the Hunter, bring another class that doesn't need JoW, problem averted and raiding can keep on going. I think that would be a loss.

I feel this is turning into a 'little guys' vs 'big guys' argument.

Dont be so sure this new version of JoW is a nerf to mana income. I've been told the JoW procs themselves are in the range of 400ish. It sounds like they just upped the proc amount but gave it an internal cooldown.

What this means is that the mana return is now more evenly spread amongst the classes. Currently, enhancement shaman get an ungodly mount of mana back from JoW. Hunters at an easy second. Casters like locks and mages get noticeably less obviously, because of their reduced frequency of attacks. This is really warped, because if anything mages should get more mana than hunters from such a spell, due to their higher mana pool/spell cost.

Hunters and enhancement will still get slightly more mana back from JoW than the casters, and the mana they get back is obviously much more in comparison to spell costs and mana pools, but at least it is now quite a lot closer in terms of pure mana given back.

Any word on bigger ammo pouches/quivers in WotLK? Given the slight mechanics change (plus the Windfury haste totem), I expect we will go through more ammo/bullets than TBC.