Intellect will no longer increase mana pool in MoP

[Ferocity]

You got that backwards. iLvl isn't derived from anything, item stats are derived from iLvl.

My fault, did misread it as average character ilvl (blame trade chat).
But for item budget to be spent on Mana Points, there should be some stat which would increase mana pool.

So far they remove this stat capability from Intellect, and told nothing about other means (other stat) to raise mana pool except from levelling, which still makes it static.

[PizzaSHARK]

Because Rogue and Warrior abilities don't cost more Energy/Rage as they level up? Blizzard hasn't said anything about reducing spell costs, as far as I'm aware.

Neither do spellcaster spells. Spells cost a set percentage of your base mana. Yes, your base mana increases as you level, but it's still the same percentage. 20% of 300 mana is the same as 20% of 35,000 mana.

And Rogue and Warrior costs are the same way. Shield Slam always costs 20% of your Rage. Backstab always costs, what, 60% of your Energy? Well, actually, it breaks down slightly for Rogues because they can have more than 100 Energy. But the point remains for Warriors.

Obviously the solution here is to nerf Rogues.

[Pasture]

I don't see the problem with out-gearing old raid and dungeon content. That's what should happen as you get much better gear. A fight that was once hard should become trivial if you over-gear it significantly. I don't think I understand the logic of targeting healers specifically. Why not go the whole hog and get rid of stamina on gear and just have a base health that scales only with level.

If you nullify the effects of gaining gear too much then gaining new gear becomes less fun.

[Deleted]

It's a very interesting and probably great change. It also makes gearing more interesting I think, for example:

When you progress through the Tiers, you will probably be getting more and more Spirit, but at some point you would regen more mana than you can spend while casting. So at this point you have to get some decent Haste. However, what is the right balance between Spirit, Haste and Intellect? It would seem that this can really become a 'choice' rather than some 'calculation'.

I don't see the problem with out-gearing old raid and dungeon content. That's what should happen as you get much better gear. A fight that was once hard should become trivial if you over-gear it significantly.

I don't think this change will really change a lot about that, you will still have the better Gear and Stats.

[Skulli]

I could imagine that mana is a bit like the other bars in the game.
You have 100 or 1000 mana.
A spell cost x% of mana and spirit increase mana by y% each second.
Currently the cost of a spell depends on the base mana i think. This way its always the same and depends on the absolute value, call it 100% or whatever.
Instead of increasing your mana pool, you just increase your regen.

Its just a way of simplification i guess. Today you have to pick between increase regen or increased pool, mix it etc. Back in the days it was a bit easier choice, since int wasnt giving spellpower etc.
Now the choice is, do i want spellpower (int) or do i want more mana (regen) with spirit.
Also we have to wait and see until beta and see how it really works out.

[hagar4172]

ipersonally think this is a stupid idea from blizzard trying to fix something that not really broken and end result will end up with alot less healers out thier

[Deleted]

It's a good thing. At the moment, Intellect is THE stat to go, even for healers. Once they have a certain amount of spirit, they don't need any more regen - Intellect provides both more spellpower, a larger mana pool and a slightly better mana regen thanks to Replenishment. It increases the tension for healers to go for both intellect AND spirit, thus providing more options.
Many people complained about the game being simplified, now that something is getting a little more complicated again is being critisized as well. People gotta make up their mind and not just blurt out their disapproval of everything.

[vertigo12]

Better way of doing so is moving the MP increase stat from intellect to Spirit then Int would give spell power and spell crit while Spirit gives Regen and MP

[Ferocity]

Now the choice is, do i want spellpower (int) or do i want more mana (regen) with spirit.

Where is the choice? I don't see choice here.
When you have thousands spellpower, 40 spellpower more or less will do nearly 0 effect in the long run (unless you are just aiming at topping healing meters not bars, not what healer should aim for though). 40 spirit are adding.

Healer is not dps class. In order for them to go for pure spellpower they must have infinite or close to it mana resource.

People started to heavily stack Int with Replenishment.

It is like asking, do i want spellpower or more mana (regen) as caster dps. Priorities are different.

[bashastick]

hmm... if intellect doesnt increase max mana, then what does? What mechanic will make a feral druid have less mana than a resto?

[Ferocity]

Better way of doing so is moving the MP increase stat from intellect to Spirit then Int would give spell power and spell crit while Spirit gives Regen and MP

At least this. But static mana pools would casue LOADs of problems for some casters, who wouldn't really value Spirit except those cases where Spirit converts to Hit.

Many fresh 85 shadow priests were OOming doing their single target rotation in seconds. In t11, as class who shines in multidotting, they go OOM trying to multidot.

It will be sad to see character being stuck all in same spot in terms of mana efficiency in short run.

---------- Post added 2011-11-12 at 07:21 PM ----------

hmm... if intellect doesnt increase max mana, then what does? What mechanic will make a feral druid have less mana than a resto?

Armor specialization + talent spec. So if you are feral, still will be a waste of space on action bars for Innervate.

[huth]

At least this. But static mana pools would casue LOADs of problems for some casters, who wouldn't really value Spirit except those cases where Spirit converts to Hit.

Many fresh 85 shadow priests were OOming doing their single target rotation in seconds. In t11, as class who shines in multidotting, they go OOM trying to multidot.

It will be sad to see character being stuck all in same spot in terms of mana efficiency in short run.

Or they could just make it so that caster DPS never have mana issues unless they mess up and don't need any additional mana.
That's not an unsolvable problem.

[Bashkar]

Or they could just make it so that caster DPS never have mana issues unless they mess up and don't need any additional mana.
That's not an unsolvable problem.

That is the stated design goal.

Ultimately, they want all DPS specs to become mana independent, with the exception of Arcane Mages. They have said that they want Arcane Mages to still have a mana-management design, preferably moreso than burn-phase -> conserve phase.

With a static mana pool, it'll probably be a bit easier to balance Arcane Mages with the rest of the specs; As it currently stands, stacking intellect increases the number of casts in a burn phase, not just the damage dealt. It's also easier to maximize Mastery benefits during conservation phases when the percentage of mana spent goes down. It's a bit harder to balance when the next tier of gear can inflate damage in such a non-linear fashion.

I think it should make for more interesting encounter designs in regards to healing, not just gearing choices. Currently, there's an incredibly thin line between having plenty mana at the end of the fight, and having absolutely none. This change should hopefully widen that line by a substantial margin, give room for some more creative mechanics.

[Roxiss]

It sounds like they are going to up the power of intellect to help heals. And Mana Regen is going to be more important.

[Deleted]

When you get down to it, something had to give. INT simply affects too much as a caster increasing spell crit, spell power, regen and mana pool/longevity.

Breaking it up allows each stat to be tailored individually. Whether this turns out to be a good idea depends on how they do it.

EJL

Basicly, this says it all.

[DKThaelias]

Here's the thing. Blizzard doesn't seem to completely get that mana is a flawed mechanic. They need to make it more like energy or rage, which is somewhat the intent of this change. They're making spirit into the haste of spellcasters in that it helps build energy.

Personally, I don't think there really should ever be energy system scaling as it just leads to odd balance problems later. A better model is a mixed cooldown model like the Sorcerer in D&D. That class worked like deathknights, somewhat, in that tiers of abilities shared finite resources and you could pick spells to cast from a tier but the total casts was capped per reset.

So why not just make it so healers can cast "ZOMG AWESOME" heals on a CD and no restriction on the most basic of heals? It would make more sense than the current system where mana is a joke or crippling and would make more sense than a mana pool that's non-scaling. A non-scaling mana pool pretty much should, and will, mean you can just spam your basic heal. So why have mana?

[Traknel]

You are entirely wrong. Pressure will be even more on DPS to perform as healers will be quicker out of mana. Have you actually ever healed? Most healers know which heals to cast in what situation. Being 'smart' isn't as much a decision made by you as healer as forced on you by the circumstances. If the raid plays to their best and avoids damage you will get by, if however people take unneeded damage, you won't. See what I mean? Decisions for a healer to heal smart aren't really in his hands; spell usage is mostly forced upon you by how others play. This is even more the case in heroics where half the idiots have no clue how to play. This is the problem with healers in WoW; in WotLK good healers dragged entire groups through heroics becuase they could. In Cataclysm healers got the blame for a lot of wipes cause all of a sudden good healers couldn't make a difference anymore. The incoming damage in some cases was just too much to keep up with, and the triage type healing failed. This obviously isn't the healers fault, and it was obviously what Blizz intended, however in most LFD runs the healer nevertheless got the blame. Good healers didn't really feel so much anymore that they could drag groups through content but more hoped they didn't get a half asses undergeared tank with crappy DPS.

This is exactly what I foresee. I retired my healers after about a month of trying to stress my way through Cataclysm. I had hoped that things would change for the better when I heard MoP was going back to a more WOTLK dungeon style. But if they're going to continue to try and build the dungeon difficulty on the backs of Healers I might as well just go ahead and delete them now.

[PizzaSHARK]

hmm... if intellect doesnt increase max mana, then what does? What mechanic will make a feral druid have less mana than a resto?

Armor specialization, specialization bonuses, Spirit on gear (Feral gear will have none or very, very little), and maybe even spec skills (Meditation, etc.)

[Yoshimiko]

Where is the choice? I don't see choice here.
When you have thousands spellpower, 40 spellpower more or less will do nearly 0 effect in the long run (unless you are just aiming at topping healing meters not bars, not what healer should aim for though). 40 spirit are adding.

Healer is not dps class. In order for them to go for pure spellpower they must have infinite or close to it mana resource.

People started to heavily stack Int with Replenishment.

It is like asking, do i want spellpower or more mana (regen) as caster dps. Priorities are different.

Let's put it into bigger numbers here. Which do you want - 4000 int or 4000 spirit? Maybe a mix between the two? 40 int here, 40 int there, all of a sudden you're looking at THOUSANDS of points difference.(JUST looking at current gear - The difference between fully gemming and enchanting int vs spirit is something like 900, with the added bonus of heart song vs power torrent)

40 int might not matter, but compound that on every.single.piece of gear, and every.single. gem slot, ontop of every.single.enchant - and you have a lot of variation here.

[darkwarrior42]

Step one: Original design. Spellpower is independent of maximum mana.

Step two: Hey! Let's add spell power to Intellect, then redesign a whole bunch of regen abilities so that Intellect increases your maximum mana AND your critical strike chance AND your raw power AND your regeneration! Nothing can possibly go wrong with that!

Step three: Hmmm, something went wrong... well, clearly the problem is the mechanic that's been in the game since launch. It's obviously not that we overloaded one stat with too many bonuses, or that we took a bunch of regen abilities and tied them to a throughput stat instead of the regen stat, so let's just remove that part of healing.


It irritates me so much because I don't remember how much healing I was doing when I hit level 85 on my druid. I don't remember what my haste was, or my intellect, or my crit, or my spell power, or how much my healing touch crit for, or how much my rejuvenation ticked for. I remember my max mana. I don't care about my raw hps as a healer, because what I do varies by fight and by situation; maximum mana is the benchmark. Or it was anyways... now I suppose I won't have one. There will just be gear, and I'll be out there doing stuff, and maybe the gear helped, maybe it didn't, who knows?

There was a great rant on the official forums about it... it boiled down a (very correct, imo) accusation that Blizzard is once again intending to punish healers for finding a way to persevere in spite of the new design.

*shrug* In MoP, heroics will be heroic for healers, just plain dungeons for everyone else. When something goes wrong, and the new design once again stops healers from being able to handle the situation, they'll be the ones blamed. I had hoped it would go away in Cata, but it didn't....



And yes, supposedly the new design for encoutners for MoP will take the new healing system into account. Just like the encounters for Cataclysm encouraged triage, emphasizing your slow and efficient heals for mana conservation, less raw AoE damage that demanded the entire raid be healed quickly, and leaving people a bit injured because they didn't need to be topped off immediately or risk death..... except that's not at all what happened with Cata, and I expect the MoP raid design to go about the same way. Everything they're saying now is basically what they said for Cataclysm, so I'm a bit less willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this time around.