Concerning Mana Management: Spirit, Evocation, Gems - Page 9

bombdigie · 01/15/09, 3:59 PM

Originally Posted by homet

^ Agreed, kinda. I was thinking of something that was on a much shorter cooldown (like 6 seconds, etc.) and it could possibly scale to some degree with spell power (base damage + spell power coefficient). So, to use it, you may just get to blow extra mana you have at the end of a fight, or if you have great regen, use it more regularly, etc.

18 out of 120 seconds not good enough for you?

Thats 15% of the time you have Arcane Power up.

solbergb · 01/15/09, 5:05 PM

Originally Posted by Ilgenio

As for damage done on KT, the one time I went completely OOM at 5% I was still at #2 dps and #5 damage done.

I had something similar happen my first time there. Felt bad that I died at 3% till I looked at my contribution for the fight on WWS, which was higher than most previous fights relative to my other raiders where I'd been shooting the whole time.

Ranged dps has it easy in KTz. Just stand 10 yards away from your buddies and dps unless you are needed to sheep something or unless you get mind controlled. It can be a fairly long fight but as long as you start phase 2 with all your mana, I didn't notice that it was awful from a mana standpoint. Although when you get mind controlled he WILL pick expensive spells to cast on your buddies.

Montegomery · 01/15/09, 7:30 PM

Originally Posted by bombdigie

18 out of 120 seconds not good enough for you?

Thats 15% of the time you have Arcane Power up.

I think what he's getting at isn't that Arcane needs more options, but that other Mage specs do.

As it stands in 3.0.8 Arcane will have the ability to manage their mana on the fly via how they DPS and use cooldowns. The issue is that other specs don't have those options. At best you can remove one spell from your rotation, and at worst you simply stop casting. There's no cooldown or DPS cycle that turns up the volume at a potential longevity cost.

So when an Arcane Mage sees that they have plenty of mana left near the end of a fight, they can turn up the juice. Other Mages just have to lament the fact that they'll still have half their mana bar remaining.

bombdigie · 01/15/09, 7:33 PM

@ 1300 int, 80% regen I'm getting 1 spirit = 1 mana/5

galzohar · 01/15/09, 8:16 PM

Another possible idea is replacing mana gems (or adding a new type) by gems that give double or more of the original amount of mana, but reduce damage done by something like 20% for X seconds.

They could even go by something as simple as fixing evocation, like at least one of the following (in this order of importance):
- Make it a cast time spell that restores the mana upon completion, so it can't get messed up by bad luck but you still have to stand in place.
- Reduce Cooldown, casting time and mana returned by X%. That way you're not as forced to spend time filling up more mana than you actually need.
- Give a small/reasonable damage buff for 10-20s when cast is complete, that way it's still free mana when used during times you can't dps, but isn't as bad of a dps loss when done during a normal burn period.

Really, there are a lot of things they can do to make us last and still not be "OK mages can now DPS forever in a standard raid" kind of fix (which would still be better than what we have now).

homet · 01/16/09, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by bombdigie

18 out of 120 seconds not good enough for you?

Thats 15% of the time you have Arcane Power up.

No complaints about Arcane Power here! Rather, thinking of ways to execute "mana dumps" that add increased value to Int as a stat.

bombdigie · 01/16/09, 2:38 PM

Originally Posted by homet

No complaints about Arcane Power here! Rather, thinking of ways to execute "mana dumps" that add increased value to Int as a stat.

The only talent tree that has value for int is arcane. You can argue (quite weak argument might I add) that int provides crit to the fire tree mage, but thats at a rate of .006 crit per int.

Gnome Bonus aside I have int valued at 0.19324 spell power for the arcane tree.

1 int = 1.265 with Arcane Mind and Kings
1 int = .1875 spell power
1 int = .00759 crit
1 crit = .46 spell power
1 int = 18.975 mana
1 int = ~.237 mana/5 from replenishment (Therefore difference between 1 int and 1 spirit is ~.763)

@1300 int, +1 int provide 18.975 mana, +1 spirit provides 18.975 mana every 2.07 minutes (chain casting).

The biggest question which I believe is nearly impossible to answer is the value of spirit in terms of spell power, but it does have a value based on length of fight and length of mana dump and mana available for mana dump.

I've been valuing gear at the following:

1 spell power = 1 spell power
1 hate = .8 spell power
1 crit = .47 spell power
1 int = .19324 spell power

One thing is for sure with arcane tree, there is a minimum spirit level you must maintain in order to keep up a rotation, and depending on the length of the fight, the more spirit you will need. It can not be ignored.

Spirit is nothing something you trade-off for int either, it either comes with an item or it doesn't. It also provides you with mana to dump at the end of the fight.

bombdigie · 01/16/09, 2:48 PM

I'm kind of curious to get a real value for int in terms of mana/5.

1 int = 1.265 with Kings and Mind
1 int = 18.975 mana
1 int = .2371875 mana/5 from replenish ment
1 int = 11.385 mana from evocation
1 int = .474375 mana/5 from evocation

Sqrt(int) is also included in the spirit calculation for mana/5, but this is probably very minor per int.

So I'm getting ~.71156 mana/5 for 1 int

Wow thats a lot better than I thought. About 70 mana per int over a 6 minute fight.

homet · 01/16/09, 3:53 PM

Originally Posted by bombdigie

@1300 int, +1 int provide 18.975 mana, +1 spirit provides 18.975 mana every 2.07 minutes (chain casting).

Is this supposed to be 2.07 seconds, instead of minutes?

bombdigie · 01/16/09, 3:59 PM

Originally Posted by homet

Is this supposed to be 2.07 seconds, instead of minutes?

(18.975 / .763) * 5 = 124.34 seconds or 2.072 minutes

But actually, since evocation provides mana/5 per int, .763 is not a valid number. Instead it should be .28844.

(18.975 / .28844) * 5 = 5.482 minutes

So if the fight is under 5.482 minutes you gain more mana from 1 intellect then you do from 1 spirit @1300 intellect. If the fight is longer than 5.482 minutes then you gain more mana from 1 spirit then you do 1 intellect. These are under chain casting conditions with no movement, etc.

Its funny, spirit is a really bad stat but can not be ignored, you have to have it because it works together with intellect.

galzohar · 01/17/09, 2:06 AM

Originally Posted by homet

Is this supposed to be 2.07 seconds, instead of minutes?

18 mana every 2 seconds for 1 spirit would mean 45 mp5 from 1 point of spirit. This is definitely not the case.

Seems like some people forget int gives regen via replenishment (and mana tide), not just a fixed amount of mana.

Kyth · 01/17/09, 2:33 AM

Originally Posted by galzohar

Seems like some people forget int gives regen via replenishment (and mana tide), not just a fixed amount of mana.

And evoc as previously noted.

And via MoE to a small degree because of the crit.

manly · 01/17/09, 7:17 AM

I don't know why it takes many post to come up with the proper mana regen amounts; the formula is given on the first post of the ffb thread.

homet · 01/17/09, 9:23 PM

Originally Posted by manly

I don't know why it takes many post to come up with the proper mana regen amounts; the formula is given on the first post of the ffb thread.

I'm just going to use Manly's formulas! Easier to follow. So, 1300 int, 700 spirit (doable in an arcane gearing scenario and raid buffs).

ManaRegen(SPI, INT, LEVEL) = (0.001+SPI*BASE_REGEN[LEVEL]*(INT^0.5))*5

ManaRegen(700,1300,80) = (0.001+(700*0.005575*(1300^0.5)))*5
                       = (0.001+(700*0.005575*(36.055513))*5
                       = (0.001+(3.9025*36.055513))*5
                       = (0.001+(140.7066))*5
                       = (140.7076)*5
                       = (703.538) Mp5 resting.

Eighty percent of that is (703.538 * 0.8) ~= 562.830 Mp5 without raid buffs. It's just something to look at for a frame of reference, I suppose.

Xmasman · 01/22/09, 6:25 AM

nice calculation.
Does a spreadsheet exists, where i can see how much mana i get from which ability.
Like 1,2 or 3 Points in Student of the Mind gives x Mana in x Minutes fight?
The same for Arcane Meditation and Master of Elements.
Perhaps it's possible to use the simulationcraft Model and your own talents/gear.

Nyuu · 02/05/09, 5:57 PM

I am interested as to how their views differ between healers and dps using mana according to this section:

We want players to have to keep an eye on mana. We don’t want you to go out of mana every fight, but running out of mana should be a very real risk for sloppy playing or attempting content that you aren’t yet ready for. When mana regeneration is trivial then certain parts of the game break down – classes that offer Replenishment are devalued, stats that offer mana regeneration are devalued, and spells that are efficient are neglected in preference to spells with high throughput.

Obviously, healers all but ignoring mana and only being limited by GCD's or cooldowns is not a playtyle they encourage, but how does mana regen for dps factor into this? From what I've seen, mana using dps classes don't necessarily have an advantage dps-wise over classes that don't use mana (current balance issues aside) but for us, having 10k or 2k mana left doesn't affect our dps at all (directly). Where a healer should probably be balancing mana usage against how long is left in the fight to avoid not being able to heal, and therefore fights being a race of whether the boss dies before their mana pool dries up makes sense and makes dps important. The same does not hold true for dps in reverse, we tend to adjust cycles or casting if it looks like we will run dry, but other then that most dps operate on a full burn cycle and our actual mana means little to us. It is all about the rotations and cooldowns and procs. We can't make use of extra mana(for the most part) and yet without the right buffs we are sometimes crippled by lack of it ( no replenishment, mana burns etc) On a full burn cycle however we are still on par with other dps, so why the suggested penalty?

For all intents and purposes, what would happen if mana was simply taken away for mages,warlocks,hunters,shadowpriests etc? Other then some unique situation's I don't see that dps would change much. Arcane blast spam is an example where it wouldn't work, but otherwise would it matter? We would be operating much like a rogue/warrior/deathknight would, where the length of the fight does not impact our ability to effectively dps. Are we then to assume fights and our dps are balanced around the assumption that if the fight goes too long, mana users will run out and raid dps drops therefore hitting the enrage timer and wiping and this is intended?

I think the mana regeneration system makes sense for healers and does not currently for dps. Other then specific spells like arcane blast, or abilities like evocation or lifetap where mana consumption or time regenning has a large impact, I don't see how actually having mana makes much of an impact for dps other then being something that has to be managed like resources in an RTS. Except that the extent of managing it is making sure we don't run out, we get no bonus from being able to burn extra mana so as long as we have enough to get by, it is largely ignored. Is this how it should be? A rogue/warrior/dk can go back and mow down low level instances/quests etc and never have to stop. A mana user doing the same will usually have to drink or regen every so often. Many of these other classes can effectively solo old bosses because of higher armor/life/avoidance and some form of self healing but a mana or cloth user does not gain any benefit from having higher regen or a bigger mana pool in the same situation.

How well does mana really fit in or work with dps classes?

TigaFin · 02/05/09, 6:14 PM

Mana detonation and mind controls on Kel'thuzad mean that you can't have a precise plan on how to use your mana in that fights. I guess there are a couple of other fights too where you could go out of mana just because of random events.

Mana has a huge impact on PvP, where it can easily be drained and it's also harder to predict how much damage needs to be done to kill a target. A mage that didn't need to rely on mana would be an entirely different beast in PvP than what we have now. I don't think Blizzard wants to add another mana-using class with rogue-like regeneration (like retribution paladins) - it's just one of the fundamental differences between mages and rogues.