Tyrian

Premise: Mana management is still a continued source of dissension between mages and Blizzard, regarding the current implementation of various mechanics/spells/abilities and talents. Lets get this all under one roof for some consolidated discussion and really expose the mechanics in question and attitudes surrounding them.



Mana is synonymous with the mage class: We've always wanted good options for managing our mana - and since WoW's release - many tools have indeed been added to our arsenal for mana control: Evocation becoming a core skill, Mage armor, redesigned Mana gems, Arcane Meditation, changes to evocations mechanics/cooldown and even upcoming tweaks to Pyromaniac. And, of course, spirit has always been there as 'that stat'.

Before going further, several Blizzard design points should be noted first:

- Mana is, by design, intended to be something we need to be aware of and managed accordingly.
- In this meta-wow era: all mechanics need to function acceptably in both a PVP and PVE setting.
- Spirit is deemed by Blizzard as something all PVE mages should have, to some extent, as shown by its continued placement on our tier gear.

With that in mind, dissention comes from many points. I'll just list a few, other people can add their own:

- Spirit can swing from being useful for one spec, to virtually useless for another. Despite having some talents to make better use of spirit for certain players of a certain spec, its still 'that stat' for the other specs. (Why is spirit considered standard on our tier gear, if only 1 niche spec really can make decent use of it? Is it acceptable that our tier gear, with spirit, is the gear that mages actively seek to avoid the most?)

- Armor spells: Molten armor and Mage Armor force us to make dumb decisions. Naturally fire mages want to use Molten Armor (to the exclusion of Mage Armor) and there goes any benefits from spirit for that spec. To repeat: You just rendered an entire stat (which is deemed something mages require) virtually useless by clicking that Molten Armor icon. (Pyromaniac changes will go some way to addressing this). Frost mages ordinarily have no need for more regen, so why would they want to use Mage Armor over Molten in a raid scenario? This just brings up the obvious question: Why do we even have molten/mage armor separate in the first place. Is choosing between them meant to be a 'fun' decision we make? It's not, really.

- Spirit is just not as 'fun' as other stats. Partly because mana regen is a somewhat hidden mechanic and partly because we don't have talents to make more exciting use of it. I liken this to comparing having a TBC Shadow Priest in your group or a TBC Ret Paladin in your group. In one case, your screen is filled with wonderous regen and an attractive "Misery' tooltip detailing your extra +5% damage. In the other, theres no indication the Ret Pally is even there - even the tooltips weren't updated to reflect Imp JOTC and Imp Ret aura. What did the TBC ret pally give to you? You might be surprised how many players never knew, or cared. Spirit regen might 'be there' and doing something like the Ret Pally was, but just not in a compelling and exciting way like the Shadow priest was. Thus its no surprise we have little appreciation for it.

We know what crit/haste/spellpower/hit do: the effects are fun, visable and transparent. You cast faster. You crit. You hit harder. You don't miss. Those are mechanics we liken to being fun - and no surprise they are stats we openly embrace. Spirit is still the 'I can manage without it, really!' stat that people actively seek to avoid.

When some people say they 'wish they had more use for spirit' they aren't necessarily asking for overpowered regen - they just want something more useful, more tangible and more fun as a reason to appreciate the stat. A common suggestion is a passive ability (like Spiritual Attunement for Paladins) that converts a small portion of total spirit into damage/crit rating.

- Our mana management tools can be frustrating. Whether to use Molten Armor VS Mage Armor? Mentioned prior. I don't consider that a fun decision to make, as a fire spec mage. Evocation? Mages simply don't like standing still doing 0 dps, whether thats the design intention or not. Until we address that issue - that we don't like standing still doing nothing - evocation is not going to be embraced widely as a fun mechanic. Theres lots of creative ways to improve evocation. Make it more AOTViper like, make it castable while moving. Make it charge up a +%dam buff for use immediately after channeling (as an offset for you being stationary for a short period). Playing with the cooldown, doesn't really address anything.

Its not all negative, however. The old mana gems were laughable, yet they were ultimately changed into a respectable mechanic. They now feel like a solid asset to the Mage class. Credit given where deserved. Thus I propose this question,

"Is the current mana model for mages (our management tools, spirit - everything), acceptable to you?"

 

Kikoku_Serapg

In a 25man raid situation I feel the current mana model is acceptable for my spec (FFB). With 2 piece t7 bonus, JoW and Replenishment, I have been using Potions of Speed and almost never using Evocation.

Though, overall I am not happy with the way we as Mages are being handled as far as mechanics/spells/abilities are concerned.

With the upcoming (Today?) changes of JoW and Pyromaniac I have a feeling I might have more mana issues in a raid situation.

As you mentioned, there is little to no desire to use Mage Armor given how strong Molten Armor has become with not only the Glyph, but FFB specs need for crit (In a sense due to Master of Elements we are getting mana out of using Molten).

I want to know why Blizzard never followed through with making all dps casters benefit from Spirit. They went ahead and made Spirit a stronger stat for Boomkin (15% damage conversion + Innervate), Warlock (30% damage conversion), and Spriest (10% damage conversion + Spirit Tap changes). But as far as I can tell, Mages get very little to nothing from Spirit.

Lowering the cooldown on Evocation is not the answer to Mana issues during a boss encounter, It only means we drink less during Trash. There have been a multitude of suggestions of how to revamp Evocation and I wouldn't mind if Blizzard went ahead and followed some of our advice.

Lastly, and this may be slightly off topic... I'm not sure I'm convinced Blizzard really wants Mages to use spirit, you made mention to t7 but as anyone on these boards know body/head are the worst pieces and should be first to be replaced (I am using Gothic's Cowl/Spell-weaver robe). I run from Spirit every chance I get, It feels as if an item's stats are wasted on spirit and there is sure to be a better alternative.

What this leads to, and I find to be a serious problem in WoLK is a real collide in caster gear and who should be rolling on what. With the changes to Spell power not helping the situation at all. Do Mages really want an Item with MP5 and Crit on it? Do I want an item with Spirit and Spell Hit? No and No... which leads to a very few select and great items and a bunch of subpar items that all casters are trying to stay away from.

 

Pheroz

The current situation of mana is fundamentally flawed. I dont think its a matter of simple tweaks to resolve the issue, it may require a fundamental overhaul.

The basic problem is that Mana using DPS classes are at the whim of fight length. Either you have enough Mana to last you the duration of the fight, or you sacrifice Damage to regain mana (in several ways, mana pot instead of haste, evo, armors) in order to last the longer duration. The longer the fight, the more sacrifices required. As such, the only real mana management mages due is guess the length of the fight, then adjust accordingly.

Correct me if I'm wrong but nonmana using classes (rogues, DKs, warriors) don't particularly care how long a fight is. Obviously, varying lengths of fights result in different percentage of cooldown uptime, but that aside, their DPS remains relatively stable regardless of fight length, even stretching the fight out to infinite duration. By comparison, Mage DPS is steady up untill a specific fight length (the duration we can last without caring about our mana pool) and then begins to seriously trend downwards.

Obviously, the question of who would fare better in a 30 minute fight is not a relevant one. But as long as the mana situation is dependant on estimated fight length, there is a real problem.

There are two key components to mana management that Blizz needs to have for it to be successful.

The first is choice about when to use them. Not choice about will they be necessary, they must be necessary. If everyone is using them the second they come off cooldown, thats not fun. I think Warlocks life tap is in some ways a good example here. A good warlock chooses to lifetap while moving, a bad warlock uses lifetap while standing still when they could be shadowbolting (TBC destro example I guess). A good warlock lifetaps when its not dangerous, a bad warlock may lifetap when a damage spike is incoming and endager their survival. CHoice about using a mana management tool leads to better DPS (or survivability).

The second is gear decisions. There has to be some choice about taking on mana regen on our gear. Right now, the returns are so ridiculously low for everyone, that the only way spirit works for DPS casters is by giving it a secondary effect, something they havent done for mages. I don't want them to make spirit work by making it do something else. If thats the only reason people want spirit, the stat is a design failure and should be dropped. Right now, becuase so much is dependant on fight length, it cant work. We definitly dont want to try and have a regen set of gear for an expected 8 minute fight, a burn set of gear for a 5 minute fight, and be guessing before the pull which we should wear. Imagine this hypothetical (again using lifetap becuase I like the mechanic of trading a single GCD for mana) with totally made up numbers:
For every 2 minutes of fighting a warlock has to lifetap 4 times. If we give that warlock X amount of spirit, it will increase the mana regen to the point where the warlock has to lifetap only 3 times for every 2 minutes of fighting. You now have a situation where you can compare damage stats versus spirit. That X amount of spirit is worth 1 GCD worth of DPS. That X amount of spirit is also worth approximatrely Y hit/crit/other direct DPS stats based on comparable gear lacking spirit. Make the figure balance, and voila, people care about mana regen when looking at upgrades.

But as things stand right now, we ignore mana regen on gear, and hopefully ignore it with playstyles during the fight unless the duration forces us to suffer for that decision. It's not a stellar mechanic.

 

Gediablo

Not true. PvP mages shouldn't have spirit. As all tier loot got spirit it is fair to make the assumption for all PvE mages, but not for PvP mages.

Actually a very good observation. Another reason why people rarely even mention frost mages when talking about mana batteries.

For bad raids and 5 man groups I would say my mana is ok. It still require management and drinking as soon as possible when you get out of combat. Then again I used to be arcane AB-spammer in TBC so I might be used to drinking more than most mages.

But for farm content speed clears - like when you do Naxx25 in around 3 hours it really is a big burden and annoyance. On trash nearly all classes can keep the chain pulling going all the time without problems - except mages. Sure some classes needs to drink 5-10 sec here and there but mages far more than any other class needs to drink during entire pulls - even with gems and evocation on max CD. The only way for a mage to be top 3 overall dps in a Naxx25 raid is if the raid is going slow/bad.

Something else that concerns me is the upcoming change to Judgement of Wisdom :

Class Base mana 2% mana

Druid 3796 75.92

Hunter 5046 100.92

Mage 3268 65.36

Paladin 4394 87.88

Priest 3863 77.26

Shaman 4396 87.92

Warlock 4294 85.88

Mages having by far the lowest base mana pool means that we are the class gaining the least from JoW. That combined with being the class needing mana the most on trash I don't like at all.

Another huge problem in my eyes is mana regenerations talents and skills lack of scaling on gear. At the moment most mages got 2xtier7 set bonus and not that big mana pools. In 6-12 months that won't be the case any more. Stuff like Replenish, Mana gems and Water that doesn't improve at all when your gear does is very bad in my eyes. Making those skills scale with spirit and/or intellect is a big priority to me. One of the things that are definitely going to be holding back arcane mages in the future - both dps and fun-wise. Also to me it doesn't make sense that I had to drink more than 40 seconds pre-TBC as arcane mage to get full mana, when my prot-pala alt could do it in a few seconds. It should NEVER take more than 30 sec to drink 100% of your mana - no matter gear or spec.

 

Actovision

Replenishment is not being nerfed, JoW is. Replenishment will continue to return 0.25% of maximum mana meaning that we aren't reaping the least benefit from it.

 

morgulhir

I sense just whining here... all this "we're not happy, we're not having fun" kind of makes me feel bad. Get used to managing your mana - you're a mage, you should be able to do it.

Although, if you don't want any spirit or any passive manaregen like mp5, mage armor ... you should just avoid Haste also.
Haste gives you DPS, fine, but it gives you no DPM - you'll do more damage for more manacost, while with crit or spelldamage you do more damage for the same mana cost.

So I just avoid haste, seldom take some spirit (might be avoiding less with the changes) and don't whine about my manaregen.

And, Evocation IMHO is actually pretty fun. Mostly you can use it with no troubles during the bossfight and it really is fun to see getting all the mana back to continue with fullout DPS again.

 

Pheroz

Maybe you "sense" whining, becuase you didn't bother to read.

Look, 90% of the time in most raid setting, mages dont have to manage their mana. We can ignore all regen stats on gear, not have to evocate, not have to pot, and use the exact same max DPS 'rotation' for the duration of the fight.

That's bad design. It's not what Blizz wants. There's no fun it either becuase there is no choice.

The remaining situations where we do have to manage our mana in a raid setting, it's a simple matter of converting DPS into mana. An outdated list of this concept is here: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html The specifics and numbers have changed but the principles are pretty much the same.

If the design is that most of the time I dont have to manage my mana, and when I do it's as little as possible becuase I'm lamenting the DPS lost with every choice, thats not exactly good design. If the design is that I never want to choose the gear with regen/mana management stats becuase the same item level replacement with nonmanaregen stats is always better, thats not good design. And thats the fundamental problem presented in this thread.

Since Blizz has stated that they want us to be aware/managing our mana, then its likely they wont keep things so we can ignore all of our mana regen options the majority of the time. That may prove to be problematic.

 

Tyrian

And nobody has said otherwise, but the topic at hand is whether the current tools and relevant stats are fun, whether they and the decisions your forced to make interact well (and logically) with the class - and whether there is room for improvement.

Going by this logic, we could also have said "get used to managing your mana" for vanilla wow (Back when we didn't even have evocation as baseline, no mage armor, laughable mana gems) and assumed that everyone should just happily accept those mechanics, too.

 

Nyuu

I think, as others have said, it's more of an issue of fight length and mechanics that cause mana problems. If we consider the balance between different DPS classes and the mechanics each of them have for doing damage, there is a flaw between mana using classes and non mana using classes as pointed out by Manly a long time ago I believe.

Basically, it seems that the dps "balance" revolves around having unlimited mana. A warrior operates under a rage system and a cycle between special and white attacks. A rogue or feral druid operate under a constant regen mechanic with fixed regen amounts again in a cycle. I have not played a DK so I'm not sure how the rune mechanic works exactly but they also don't seem to suffer from "dry" spells like mana using classes do.

All other dps classes or specs operate using mana, and the biggest difference is that mana is something that has to actively be watched, whereas rage and energy is a passive gain. Players make choices based on how much rage/energy they have, but they have no options to actively affect that pool. (Although ferals did use powershifting before) Because they do not have to manage their dps resource it is, essentially, unlimited. They choose how to use it, yes, but they don't have to control how much of it they have or receive during a fight, it just happens. Therefore, the length of a fight really does not mean anything to them.

Mana using classes on the other hand, can run out of their dps resource and have to actively manage it during a fight. Now this causes problems depending on how the fight is tuned and the regen available to these classes. If dps is balanced around the assumption that because mana is a finite resource, these classes should be able to do higher dps up until mana is exhausted at which point there is a period of lower dps or recovery while it is regained. The problem is how these classes are balanced around this and occurs when:

A) Mana is never exhausted either because of outside mechanics and regen factors, or the fight length and mana using dps can go all out the entire time.
B) The fight goes too long, mana regen is not sufficient, fight mechanics cause a loss of mana(drain) or require excessive use of mana (aoe)

In both of these cases an imbalance happens between mana and non-mana using dps. In the first, because mana is never exhausted, the mana using classes will trounce the other dps because they never have to use their recovery options if they are balanced around doing higher dps because thier dps resource is finite, despite not having that occur.

In the second, the opposite happens and the mana using classes will be trounced due to not being able to sustain their dps resource if they are balanced according to the situation that occurs in A.

So I guess the question is how are the dps classes expected to be balanced? Should we all be expected to perform somewhat equally in any fight? Something has to change in regards to mana for that case. If not, then is it acceptable and/or enjoyable to have that imbalance based on the fight design to sometimes top the meters, and other times spend a large portion of time doing low dps or nothing to recover?

To answer Tyrian's question, No, I don't think the current mana regen mechanics are acceptable. I think they are workable, and playable, but I do not like how hit and miss they are. With the right group setup we are just fine, if we are missing some crucial part or don't have access to all the buffs we might have in a 25 man while doing 10 mans, we can be severely crippled. If we are balanced around having replenishment and/or jow or tide or blessing etc, etc then we need to always have those or something to compensate. When we are missing any combination of those and suffer because of it, it becomes a flaw in our mechanics in my opinion.

 

Obfu

I would say it's acceptable, in that it is playable, and not overly irritating. I guess I'd give it a C grade.

It's biggest failing is that our most effective choices for adjusting regen all require significant time and effort to change (gear, enchants, gems, and glyphs).

I would like to see more interactivity during combat, as opposed to the current system of planning (hours or days) ahead to reduce mana to a non-factor.

 

Ushtarador

At the moment I'm happy indeed with the amount of manaregen we got, especially with 2xT7-Bonus. Since other classes still have stronger aoe's than we mages, I don't think we will run into manaproblems soon.

I think there is enough gear available for mages though, and I'm quite happy with the situation, since most classes are bidding on spirit-items (at least in our raid), leaving the "mage-gear" to us mages.

I could live fine with evocation and gems, I just hope they don't put spirit on T8 again...

 

UnifiedTheory17

I'm quite fine with the spirit mechanic as it is, even if it is not vital to every mage depending on talents.

1: I see spirit as just 'that stat' added on to my gear, on a piece of gear i would take regardless of whether the stat was there or not.
2: Mage armor is that buff I use on non-dps fights that are all about survival. Mage armor and molten armor are just different tools for the job.
3: With a priest with talented divine spirit, or on the fights where I might be vital enough to warrant getting innervate, spirit is a great stat to just have in the background.
4: a) Evocation is meh. Personally I like seeing the little bar go up really really fast. But it often doesn't get to last for the full duration, because either the channeling part can get knocked down in raid damage (so I have to save icy veins for when I'm about to evocate?) or right after you cast it, a mob targets you with some deadly aoe that you need to move out of.
b) How about we just get a glyph that makes use "phase-out" while we evocate. You won't take damage and you can't be healed, but you regen and don't have a chance to get pushed back unless you cast a spell. But maybe, just maybe with the new patch fixes in 3.0.8 that at least arcane mages will get to celebrate dominating on the 2min evocate + meditation, even if their overall dps is found lacking in my raids.

I would like something in the fire tree, or passive for all mages, that makes spirit directly beneficial. That being said, I'd rather not have a direction spirit -> worthwhile stat conversion because I'd like to pretend that I'm not just a lower dps version of an affliction lock + mana strudel. Understanding that it's hard for the blizz team to just come up with a new innovative idea for how to meet my needs on fire mages on spirit, maybe that's what the fire tree should be about: giving up spirit implementation in trade for higher raid dps.

 

LiquidHAL

Evocation needs to be moved away from a channeled spell. Something along the lines of how Divine Plea was changed from an evocation-like spell in beta to a buff like innervate. Restores 25% of max mana over 15 seconds at the cost of 1 GCD (and lowers healing by 20%, which does not effect two out of the three paladin roles). My perception of the change might be wrong, but it seemed that it was in response to a lot of whining on blizzard's forums. A similar change, also in line with Aspect of the Viper, would be preferable. Castable buff, restores 60% mana but lowers damage done by 20% while it's up.

 

Nyuu

To expand on the idea of mages either usually being mana starved or more mana then we know what to do with, rather then focusing on evocation restoring mana, what if the functionality was changed entirely. Instead of evocation restoring mana and requiring us to do no dps for 8 seconds, not get hit etc, what if evocation gave us a buff that allowed us to cast spells for a period of time with no mana cost, perhaps modified by spirit? It would be something unique to the class, and not require us to figure out ways to make up the dps lost by having to use evocation.

Considering operating on the principle of unlimited mana from gems, replenishment etc we are in-line with other dps, rather then focusing on ways to maintain or restore that mana, give us a mechanic to ignore it completely for a period of time. This could work better then having to micro manage mana, as you would instead have to plan on when to best use the cooldown for maximum effect. During a transition or period of movement when you wouldn't be casting it would be wasted, but using it at low mana when you normally might have to evo or stop casting to regen would allow us to continue casting while still recieving outside regen. Sort of like innervate in that we don't have to stop casting, but we can't just mindlessly pop it whenever we want.

I hope this doesn't seem like a wishlist post, instead being another way of looking at mana mechanics in a fight not focused on just restoring mana all the time.

 

Allanonn

FYI, no priests have Imp DS anymore because it only grants spellpower equal to the amount of spirit buffed which is 80 spellpower. Not only does it no longer scale with your amount of spirit, the buff is overwritten by other buffs; most notably the shaman totem.

 

ebbv

My Naxx-10 last week had no Replenishment. It really wasn't that bad. Yeah my Trash DPS suffered due to drinking but we still got Arachnophobia. Whoopitee-doo.

Evocation fills the role of a last resort "I gotta do this or I'm going OOM" mana recovery tool fairly well, I think. Yes it's not equivalent to Life Tap but it's not meant to be. I think part of the trick for us is that Mana Gems are so good there's no decision to be made there, you just hit them every cooldown. Even if a fight lasts long enough to use all three charges, if you can use a fourth charge you recast it since that fourth charge will more than pay for itself.*

I do think the Pyromaniac change is a really lame band-aid, and I still won't care about Spirit. Honestly I don't need it and the tiny bit of regen i'd gain from Spirit does not begin to compare with the freed up item budget on an equivalent item without Spirit.

I could sit here and play arm-chair developer about how it would have been more interesting to change Master of Elements to give a stacking recovery buff so that chain crits result in more regen or make Mana Gems scale with Spirit, et cetera. But I'm not going to do that. Oh wait.

edit because I realize my line of thinking is not totally obvious here:

* - The problem here is that the Mana Gems are a no brainer use every cooldown thing, so they require no decision or thinking and yet they are not enough to sustain us. This is why Evocation gets all the focus, because the Mana Gems aren't even thought about one way or another. If Mana Gems scaled with Spirit they could be scaled up to be enough to sustain us in most situations, and Evocation could really be a tool only for fights that require a lot of AoE, have Mana Burns, etc.

The 2pc T7 bonus does give some incentive to think a bit about when to use Mana Gems, but since it's a 2min cooldown it lines up nicely with all other cooldowns, once again basically removing all decision to be made here.

I think Mana Gems are the place where more interesting mechanics would do the most good. Preferably something situational so there's some interesting decision to be made. They are really the closest thing we have to a Life Tap or Aspect of the Viper.

 

Wizeowel

I think you bring up some good points in the OP, but by ending the post by asking if the situation is 'acceptable' you do make the discussion largely value judgement based. Which indeed leads to lots of posts making suggestions 'this is how I'd do it if I were Blizzard'. Posting that T8 shouldn't have spirit is like saying drop the arcane tree. Posting that we should have something like Life Tap or AotV is missing the point - Blizzard have tried to give us something different and a different way of playing than those classes.

Mage armor was added long before BWL and as such, spirit was somewhat useful (if not exactly desired) on mage gear for pretty much all of vanilla. It was TBC's introduction of molten armor which suddenly gave us the choice to regen as normal, or get some extra crit at the cost of less mana returns. If I remember mage forums correctly: in the first weeks of 2.0, many people doing the longer Naxx fights still prefered mage armor and there was a lot of presumption about molten armor being more of a pvp option. Later on it became the standard choice for pve and suddenly everyone has amnesia about mage armor while complaining that the spirit on their gear is useless. Sure, we didn't like to drop molten armor since we were often behind on the meters in TBC anyway, but you know, mage armor was still there, it was still an option for managing mana when needed.

Pheroz writes "That's bad design. It's not what Blizz wants" but I believe GC posted something that for a stand-and-nuke fight (like Patchwerk) that Blizzard wants mage abilities to be balanced for molten armor and the possibility to use a damage pot rather than mana pots as in TBC. The 'mana management' part comes from fights where you must use costly aoe spells on adds or there are mana drains or even that you don't have an optimal raid setup for replenishment. It's at this point that you can manage your regen using the various tools mages are given. We do have to plan this more than other dps classes since the abilities we have are not so reactive. Okay, so at the moment we can blow through most of T7 without really having to think about it, but maybe that's more a balancing issue than anything else.

Anyway, my two cents: I'd rather suffer useless spirit my gear and be left with 50% at the end of trivial farm content fights, than have the situation from Sunwell back again. Carrying 60 mana pots per progression night and still forced to have 3 shadow priests in the raid for everyone to be happy with their regen. Do I think anyone in this thread will come up with some original amazing suggestion to make mana regen exciting or challenging? No I don't because when looking at the mechanics only from a mage viewpoint we can't really have the same objective view that Blizzard must have.

 

Mode

It's not true that we have no control over our rage. We can make choices to get more rage (spec into AM, improved berserker rage, pot for it); we just can't actually do much with that rage besides dump it with heroic strike/slam/executes.

Before you go preaching the superiority of not having to deal with a mana bar, I suggest walking a mile in the shoes of those that don't use one/don't have a relevant one/. Sure, you might have your DPS crater if you screw up your mana management, but melee DPS craters when they have to run out of chills, when the melee stack gets frost breathed, when dancing their asses off, when running away from insect swarm, when chasing down a spore, blowing up safely away from the raid, chasing the tank when he charges into range of the worshippers, etc.

 

epoh

I don't think anyone here means to insult non-mana users. We love our tanks and their ability to manage their cooldowns and such. If they weren't awesome we wouldn't be able to do what we do. I think what the OP was getting at was that rage/energy are not really comparable to the mana situation. Not that they are not important, or are not managed.

 

Lhivera

That's the big difference: when you have excess rage, you have a means to dump it. Mages don't; when they have excess mana, there's not a thing they can do with it, unless specced deep Arcane -- which is, not coincidentally, why deep Arcane is the spec that has a use for Spirit.

One possible solution to the problem is to give Fire/Frost/FFB-spec Mages a high-DPS mana dump that's good enough that they want to use it and are willing to use Mage Armor to feed it (which means that being able to feed it with excess mana increases average DPS more than 5% crit does). There are, of course, many other possible solutions.

Important thing to bear in mind is that a solution that works for Fire will not necessarily work for Frost and Frostfire. Frost and Frostfire are much, much more efficient than Fire -- if Fire can get through a fight but needs to wear Mage Armor, Frost and Frostfire will get by with Molten Armor. If Frost and Frostfire need to wear Mage Armor, Fire won't get through the fight at all. The solution is going to need to be tailored to each tree.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

Roywyn

So, I was writing rather lengthy reply and my system liked it so much that it decided to keep it.
Hence, the short version.

Mana Management in 2.4
Don't use Mage Armour.
Don't use Evocation.
Don't spec Clearcasting.
Don't use Mana Gems.
Use haste as second stat.

That's pretty much what our mana management was in BC. "Ignore your class abilities and spam pots."
That's not management or skill, that's just garbage.


On Mana Limited DPS
I had written some things and thoughts about being hard limited on mana.
Enhancement Shaman are cooldown-limited on their abilities. Once they get into epic mail, their mana pool is large enough enough to last for 2 minutes, then they can rage back to full.
Warlocks and Hunters can tap/viper back up when they are out of mana. It costs them DPS to do, but they can do it anytime they want.
Paladins and Mages can just get a glass of wine when they run out of mana and all their mana cooldowns are used.
Priests, Druids and Shaman are limited as well (Fiend/Dispersion, Innervate self, Thunderstorm) but do not actually run out of mana as far as I know due to lower spell costs.

Shaman, druids, priests can be balanced around all-out spam.
Warlocks/Hunters can be balanced around using tap/viper. They were arguably balanced in 2.4, but SPriests/JoW broke their balance.
Mages/Paladins have 3 modes - all-out-spam, sensible-spam, and OOM.
Which means they are either too good in short fights or too bad in long fights, and worthless when they hit the OOM timer.

Also, people have to swim in mana right now by design, because Naxx is balance for casual players in mostly blues.
Currently, fights are short because players out-skill and out-gear then, and we have more mana than we're supposed to have.
So, we currently have three factors that cause us to have "too much mana".

Long story short.
I think that mana limited DPS is fundamentally flawed.
But I think it can be adjusted to work most of the time.



I'd say yes. Better yet, I'd love to answer this with a "Yes, but!".
I think I like the model. I very much like the tools we have.
But the problem is that the numbers don't work at all.


Take a Frostfire spec with 2T7, Mage Armour, standard spec, all-out-spam. Assume you go out of mana.
Zeroeth problem - you can last quite a while right now. When OOM, you use a mana-gem, no-brainer. Use it as early as possible even.
Now, what happens when you run out of mana and gems are on cooldown? Rawr says it takes 12 minutes to get there, and I think when you know the fight is that long, it's better to recast Mana Gems at 6:00 and use them.
You use Evocation or a Mana Potion, or you go back in time and start the fight with mage armour, or you go back in time and don't cast Living Bomb.
You have to calculate the ratio of damage loss and mana gain and pick the best options you have.

With Speed Potion being much better than a Destro Potion, Evocation actually overtakes Runic Mana Potions according to Rawr.
So, you're better off using Evocation for Mana while using a Speed Potion.
That's pretty much a novum in mage history!

Mage vs. Molten Armour is usually a rather bad conversion. Switching mid-fight costs mana and time, so you have to guess how much mana you need before the fight starts and pick one.
You also need to use up all the mana from Mage Armour. You can do a partial Evocation, but not a partial Mage Armour.
Removing the mana cost on Mage Armour would be situationally helpful I think.
When you have to cancel Evocation due to standing in fire, you could activate it on the run for free, and adjust for the lost mana from the cancelled Evocation.

Eyeballing your mana bar and deciding how much you can afford to Living Bomb is a good management skill as well.
It's too efficent though, the numbers force you to always cast it and get mana elsewhere.
It's not a proper mana dump like Arcane Blast spam, it's your normal cycle really.


The Mana Dilemma

In current gear and full raid buffs/debuffs, Frostfire is fully sustainable with only Evocation.
(Rawr doesn't model it, but you should recast Mana Gems if you can use them all up. Off-topic.)

So, the other mana management options are not relevant for us.

You could make them more relevant by increasing the mana cost of spells, but that is counterproduive.
Because you then would reduce the value of extra mana, because you now need more mana to cast this one extra spell or sustain that mana dump.

So, increasing mana shortage actually reduces the effectiveness of mana regeneration.
That is a pretty tough nut to crack. Right now, we don't want spirit because we don't need it.
If mana costs go up, we won't want spirit because the gains from more mana won't be worth it.

That's where the number game is broken and pretty hard to fix without overpowering healers with spirit.
(On that note - MP5 should be scrapped and everyone get 30% spirit regen baseline. The spi-vs.-mp5 gear is silly.)



Summary
I do very much like the model toolbox we have to manage mana, but some things do need adjustments.
In particular, the ideas behind talents and the actual numbers often do not match.


Evocation
I do actually think that the immobile channeling is perfectly fine, as time fee for mana. It's better than mana pots already.
The problem is getting interrupted when you actually need the mana. You're OOM and can't use Evocation for 4 minutes.

I'm thinking of a 2 minute cooldown baseline, or 1 minute even.
Make it recover 0%, 20%, 20%, 20% instead of 15%, 15%, 15%, 15% to require more thinking to compensate for the smaller cooldown.
If you use Evo early at 30% mana and it gets interrupted, you still have 30% of your mana, probably a mana potion (emergency use) and a mana gem coming up soon, which should last you through 2 minutes easily.
That's where popping a free Mage Armour while running out of fire would help.

Mana Gems
Are currently not a choice, just click every 2 minutes.
Once we drop 2T7, they are still the best thing to use when mana is tight because Flame Caps are very mediocre.

Spirit Regen
Our spirit-to-mana-to-damage conversion is abysmal. We can get up to 90% combat-regen and it's still best to skip it.
Increasing the spirit-to-mana conversion would unbalance healers, increasing the mana-to-damage conversion paradoxically requires lowering the cost of spells.
One of the toughest nuts to crack, a Gordion Knot.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

Duodecimal

I really am mystified as to whatever happened to the idea the developers had that I could swear I remember reading -- that they were planning on making Spirit a stat with class-specific benefits that would make it individually useful and desirable for everyone.

The relatively insignificant 'gear reset' (near-non-existent, at that) of 3.0 compared to 2.0 probably indicates that they didn't really want another gear reset, which a spirit retooling would have required for most specs. There's any number of interesting procs they could tie to spirit, but re-itemizing a couple dozen specs' worth of gear probably wasn't worth the effort.

Or I could have imagined it.

 

Nyuu

I did not mean to imply that not having a mana bar was superior, but rather the fact that it is more passive when dealing with a fight. A warrior does not "run out" of rage, they can make choices that affect their rage, but simply doing regular attacks, which are a staple of thier dps, will give them rage. Of course that rage is managed, but you can't really run out of it.

I was not trying to compare the dps output between mana and non mana users, but in how they dps. Yes, melee dps drops if they have to run out, or chase things etc, but that's fight design and not a dps mechanic difference. Mana users do not have a passive regen system but rather a pool from which we use it, and we can't do anything without it. Rage on the other hand, is built from white attacks which opens up the use of other abilities. Thats what I am comparing. Because warriors get rage like this, fight length really does not matter. On the other hand, if a fight stretches to the point where a mana user has no more options to regain mana othe then passive regen, our capability is severly limited. A warrior will operate at 100% regardless of fight duration.

 

Ivorthemage

Mana regen/spirit mechanics have not been well thought out by Blizzard. Energy, rage, and runic power serve as a cap on dps, while still allowing damage to occur and easily recover more when you are out.

But mana is a constant pool. This means that either Mana Using Damage Dealers (MUDDs) are gimped on long fights where their pool runs out while other damage dealers are not, or their pool and regen is high enough that they can safely ignore mana considerations.

I think this is just a crappy way to implement mana for such classes. Making spirit a damage stat does actually make it useful, but it also makes it completely redundant to spell power. For a lock, it is just a "spellpower version 2" stat.

I think Holy priests show us the way here. Spirit has always been more valuable for priests for two different reasons: Easy in-combat regeneration, and the availability of high hps spells with high mps.

Spirit has been useful for mages at brief times when arcane was viable, because dps parallels to holy priests suddenly existed. You had high dps and high mps options, while having high in-combat regen. Arcane specs were also pretty popular when viable, because their dynamism made them *fun*.

I see this as the solution to spirit. Note, I see this working best for classes who already have spirit all over their gear like priests, locks, mages, and druids. If hunters shammies and pallies want to keep their current regen mechanics and avoid spirit while counting their blessings, power to them.

1) Completely get rid of the idea that there should be different in combat versus out of combat regen rates. If regen cant be used in combat, it is useless. Normalize regen around desired in combat regen rates.

2) Convert all relevant mp5 gear to spirit equivalents.

3) Make sure all "MUDDs" have a mana dump option. a very high dps and high mps spell whose use is only constrained by mana.

4) Make sure the mana dump operates by some mechanic that renders it very difficult to use in pvp to maintain class balance. Very long casting time, windup (like AB stacking), high susceptibility to pushback, increasing cost, "cannot be cast on players" like curse of doom, etc.

5) each "MUDD" class should still have an active mana regen mechanic that comes at the expense of dps. Evoc, life tap, etc. This eliminates the possibility that you will be rendered completed useless by a depleted mana pool, while making the optimization of passive and active regen, with spell selection, the hallmark of a good caster.

6) Balance such specs so that well-managed mana pools can generate dps 10% higher than simple spam specs. The ambitious mages will go for the 10%, but the rank and file can still have fun without constantly playing with modelling tools.

7) For mages, each tree should have a good mana dump. Imagine hot streak only proccing from FB or FFB, with 50% more damage and triple cost and only working on targets who have fully stacked improved scorch. The ability to merge with your water elemental doing 20% more damage jointly but costing 2% of your mana pool to maintain each second, effect broken when you take damage or on the use of active regen. Not sure on specific numbers here, but pretty sure you could find some specific numbers to work with these types of mechanics that serve the desired goals.

Those sort of things not only make spirit useful, but make the playstyle more challenging, interactive, and fun.

You are missing the point. rage actually serves as a constraint on warrior dps. You have to actively manage your skills based on the amount of rage you have.

This isn't the case for mages. The only way you can badly manage your mana is if you try to conserve it. Mana has *no* functional limit on mage dps unless fights are eternally long. This renders spirit completely useless, Not just less useful. Completely useless. Give me a choice between an item with one million spirit and another with 1 spellpower, and I would wear the spellpower. It also makes Intellect only valuable insofar as it has a minor impact on our crit rate (1 intellect point is what? 1/4 of a crit rating point now?).

Translating into warrior-speak, imagine that strength didn't affect your attack power, but instead did something useless like increase the maximum of your rage bar, and yet your tier gear is still completely plastered with the stat.

As for other issues you mention, casters have their own fight mechanics to contend with, like silence, and the need to stand still to cast. I would recommend sticking with the mana/rage constrasts, as they are more revealing.

 

Mode

You can't just look at their underlying power mechanic, you have to look at the class as a whole. The classes/specs that don't have a mana bar (warr/dk/rogue/feral) or have an entirely irrelevent one(enhance/ret, both have mana dumps(chain lightning/consecrate) but AFAIK they can sustain themselves indefinitely) are all melee specs. Melee DPS tolerate having to run out of fire more often, sometimes ending up off-target if the tank zigs when they zag, and curse Daelo's name when KT decides to frostbreath the melee stack, ranged DPS tolerate managing their blue bar with viper/evocation/etc. It's the way of things.

Is this conversation more than an academic one? As their max DPS spec, are mages going OOM (ie reduced to wanding) on any fights?