By the Numbers: Mana Regen Tweaking

[fiere redfern]

I found this on mmo-champion today - GC finally clarified what exactly is happened to spirit regen:

[blizzard]The goal is to have mana last about the same for all healers. We don't think many players would be that interested in a style where you heal crazy good for a short period and then run OOM. How classes manage their mana varies a lot, and we are making tweaks to it for 3.1 to try and keep them in line. For example, the shadow fiend needs to be more reliable.

I am still not following the logic that Int now trumps Spirit by even more. It may have been a better stat already, but these changes shouldn't affect it that much unless you A) skip Meditation and Intensity, or B) relied a whole lot more on OOFSR regen than the average raid healer of reasonable skill.

I will break from our normal practice and go ahead and provide the numbers, just to make sure nobody is guessing about the details when doing their estimates:

    * The amount of base mana regen granted has been reduced 40%. We called this "Spirit" in the notes, since most players associate OOFSR regen with Spirit, but in reality Int factors into the equation as well and we only lowered the constant, not the relative contributions of Int or Spirit. In retrospect, this probably caused more confusion than it alleviated, but mana regeneration is a fairly technical concept.
    * The effects of talents that provide mana regen while casting have been increased by 67%. This includes: Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap, Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac, and Spirit Tap. For example, Intensity and Meditation are now 17/33/50% mana regen while casting (up from 10/20/30%). For most dps classes who never got much mana from OOFSR in the first place, the results should not be noticeable. Boomkin may be a possible exception because of Innervate, and we'll take a look at that.
    * This should leave mana regeneration while casting (even the contribution of Spirit) relatively unchanged, but reduce mana regeneration while not casting by 40%. (If you don't understand our logic, I suggest you re-read the excellent post I quoted above.)
    * Since paladins don't rely on any of those abilities for mana regeneration, we lowered the healing penalty of Divine Plea to -50%. We are also likely to make Spiritual Attunement provide less mana for non-tanking paladins. We are not touching Illumination for the moment. Nor are we lowering the effects of Replenishment (though as I have suggested, it would be our likely next target if we aren't happy with the results of these changes). [/blizzard]

I honestly feel better now about the changes since GC made the above clarifications. I mentioned before that I didn't think resto druids should be swapping all their spirit gear for mp5, and this confirms it. Spirit as a stat is not getting nerfed into the floor, so we restos can still call ourselves spirit-based healers - we just won't get as much regen out of spirit as we used to. I have a feeling the casting regen talents will go through changes later on, as 50% seems a bit much, but we'll see about that when the patch hits live.

[Kothnok]

> ...we just won't get as much regen out of spirit as we used to...
but, from Blizz:
> ...we only lowered the constant, not the relative contributions of Int or Spirit.

It sounds to me like Spirit is not getting nerfed at all.  The regen you get from spirit still applies and if you have it stacked, you still get full benefit from it.  It's just "base non-combat regen" that is getting lowered and that is not stat dependent.

Sounds to me like they are just undo-ing the change made at the end of TBC just prior to the release of WotLK where everyone saw a HUGE bump in the amount of mana regen.  Rarely did anyone need a mana pot let alone fear going OOM in combat after that change was implemented.  My priest didn't even drink after combat in BT after that change since it came back so quickly.

[fiere redfern]

That makes sense, then. I didn't heal on Fie near enough going through BC to notice a change like that taking place. I'd just assumed my regen was so quick because my gear's gotten better, but I forgot the first rule with blizz: never assume anything is stable and constant.