Mana Loss and Dual Spec. Fair or Unfair? (see first post)

[Auxis]

So, I just had a slightly unsavoury "disscussion" with my GM over what has been happening with your mana pool and when you change spec. I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure I saw a Blue Post somewhere saying that it was unintentional that we've been keeping our mana. But thats not the main point of this.

My question is: Do you think that it's fair or unfair that we lose mana when switching specs? May sound odd, and it is. But it's a relatively simple one.

To me, it just seems stupid to keep it. Sure, it may be handy, but there HAS to be some downside to having dual specs.

For clarity: Fair = Should lose mana. Unfair = Shouldn't lose mana

[Rivin]

I've never liked it. I'm not sure that I'd call it unfair, but it's definitely annoying.

[Darsithis]

It's quite annoying and pointless. You can't switch in battle or in BG's, so it's an outdated and pointless effect of spec switching.

[Raugnaut]

Which class are you? shamans, druids, and paladins loose thier base mana whenever they swap- if you go from prot to ret, mana gone, feral to guardian, mana gone. If you go from enhance to either resto or ele, you keep 240k of your mana because of the mana increase in those specs.

When it coms down to it, compared to all non-mana casters, its pretty unfair to loose mana when you swap because mana takes 50x longer to fully regen without food. (Enhancement and Ret/Prot, this doesnt apply given that they regen mana very quickly.) So for mages, priests, non-caster druids, and to an extent, warlocks, have a significantly unfair disadvantage compared to the various non-mana or hybrid caster specs. With those, you change specs, and can enter combat almost immediately. With the 4 mana-based classes without high constant regen, you change specs, and have to eat for 10/20 seconds, however long it takes to get your mana back to full.

So, because of energy/focus classes, and how quickly they can regen (Within 10 seconds), as well as the DK/Warrior class, who dont loose ANYTHING when swapping, Priests, Warlocks, Mages, and non-caster Druids are put at a significant disadvantage (Heck, as a druid, if I get attacked as soon as I swap, and I dont have master shifter glyph, and my innervate is on CD, I may as well lie down and die, because I cant do shit for about 20 seconds. Warlocks can lifetap, shadow priests can dispersion, mages get thier mana talent stuff, only caster priests are in the same situation as feral druids, except they can start doing stuff 5 seconds after swapping, rather then 20 seconds after swapping.)

So, its entirely unfair.

[Justignoreme]

It's an outdated mechanic for reasons already pointed it out. All it does is waste time, typically a raid's time while you're sitting and drinking to get a full mana bar to start an encounter.

[smegdawg]

It's quite annoying and pointless. You can't switch in battle or in BG's, so it's an outdated and pointless effect of spec switching.

Mana loss I can deal with its not to big of a deal, just a slightly annoying side effect of changing specs.

There is a situation involving GoSac for warlocks(No Idea if this happens with other classes) where if I I sacrifice my pet I gain a buff and the sacrifice button is put on a 2 min CD. However if I change a talent, not the grimoire talent, It removes the buff but keeps the duration.

I have had to delay quite a few pulls because I wanted to change a talent and then had to wait for my CD.

[Rivin]

Enhancement and Ret/Prot, this doesnt apply given that they regen mana very quickly.

Not quickly enough. :( Without drinking it still takes like 20 seconds just to rebuff, a lot more to gain enough to heal back the health lost from switching to Prot.

[neccowafer]

It's annoying and unnecessary. I quest and do dailies in Elemental and queue for dungeons as healer. Once I actually get into a dungeon, I have to switch to Resto.

If it's really a bug that I've been keeping most of my mana, I hope they decide to turn it into a feature. Because it's hard enough making the group wait long enough for me to spec change before they pull, let alone waiting that long and also standing there while I drink. That essentially never happens in randoms.

[Rivellana]

I didn't even know people were keeping their mana now...

When I switch from windwalker to mistweaver I not only have to change to wise serpent stance because it automatically puts me in fierce tiger stance when I switch, but I then have to sit because my mana bar starts at empty. Switching from mistweaver to windwalker is super easy because my energy bar fills up in five seconds.

I had to delay questing when I was leveling if I wanted to run dungeons because I ran them as a healer and I couldn't quest as windwalker and enter then switch to mistweaver to heal...no one would wait for me to get mana. Most of the time the tank would be off started pulling as soon as the instance loaded and I wouldn't even have had time to type "Wait let me switch specs" if I had wanted to.

If they were to change this so that you didn't lose mana on swapping specs it'd make it much easier for healers to queue up for dungeons while questing in their dps spec waiting for queue to pop.

[Cirque]

I never understood the upsides of it. Not like we can switch specs during combat or w/e anyway - it's just a needless inconvenience and it slows everything down - we gotta drink to get back to full mana, unlike other resources.

[openair]

Do rogues, Dks, hunters, warriors, feral druids, and ww/bm monks have ~20 seconds of down time (drinking) every time they switch specs? 'No?'

Fair = all classes having the same down time after switching specs. Unfair = only mana users having down time every time they switch specs.

Just leave mana as is when switching specs. If i have 50% when i switch, i should have 50% after.

[Ralera]

I think it's pointless given the limitations on changing specs in the first place.

[Fullgore]

Why should there need to be a downside to having dual specs.....

[Sansnom]

So, I just had a slightly unsavoury "disscussion" with my GM over what has been happening with your mana pool and when you change spec. I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure I saw a Blue Post somewhere saying that it was unintentional that we've been keeping our mana. But thats not the main point of this.

My question is: Do you think that it's fair or unfair that we lose mana when switching specs? May sound odd, and it is. But it's a relatively simple one.

To me, it just seems stupid to keep it. Sure, it may be handy, but there HAS to be some downside to having dual specs.

For clarity: Fair = Should lose mana. Unfair = Shouldn't lose mana

Not sure why we have to lose mana when switching. Seriously, why? Why is it so unfair? We cannot switch during combat anyway. So it is not as if a healer died and a DPS can switched to healing spec to cover. All it does is add delay. If they really want to delay the switch, make the switch take 5 secs or 10 secs.

I am also curious why there has to be some downsides to having a dual specs. A shadow priest may have healing skills but would you have a shadow priest heal through a raid? Or a resto druid DPS in a raid? No, just because a class can performed more than one role does not mean they perform both roles at the same time with the same level of capability.

[otro]

Im pretty sure some creative player out there would be able to exploit somehow switching specs on the fly with no down effect.

Just sit down for 10 seconds, not that hard.

[neccowafer]

Im pretty sure some creative player out there would be able to exploit somehow switching specs on the fly with no down effect.

Just sit down for 10 seconds, not that hard.

Maybe I can sit down for 10 seconds, but Turbobutt, the average LFD tank, certainly can't.

[Orange Joe]

Maybe I can sit down for 10 seconds, but Turbobutt, the average LFD tank, certainly can't.

I have found a feast at the start makes everyone sit down and eat. Leaving me time to change specs and get ready

[openair]

Im pretty sure some creative player out there would be able to exploit somehow switching specs on the fly with no down effect.

Except you can't switch specs 'on the fly.' You cannot switch specs in combat. In order to swap specs you first have to drop combat.

PVE: dropping combat means the mobs reset position and health anyway. No possible exploit.

PVP: the only 2 reasons someone would want to swap specs in pvp is maybe a hybrid in arena wants to swap from heals to dps or vice versa, or someone in their pve spec getting ganked wants to be in their pvp spec. In both cases if you let your enemy slip away long enough to drop combat, and swap specs, i think you deserve to lose. But simply adding a no spec swap to arena matches in progress would fix arena.

[Deleted]

there should be a small downside for a few mins, but losing all your mana/focus/energy/rage is just a nuisance so they shouldnt do that.

what they should do instead i dnt know

[freakyduck]

Man, it's true what they say - people will complain about anything given a forum to complain in.

Seriously, it takes all of 10-15 secs to eat/drink to recoup lost resources, are you really in that much of a hurry?

It's annoying and unnecessary. I quest and do dailies in Elemental and queue for dungeons as healer. Once I actually get into a dungeon, I have to switch to Resto.

If it's really a bug that I've been keeping most of my mana, I hope they decide to turn it into a feature. Because it's hard enough making the group wait long enough for me to spec change before they pull, let alone waiting that long and also standing there while I drink. That essentially never happens in randoms.

If people can't be bothered to wait for their healer to regen mana, then they deserve what happens when they pull and you're not ready.

there should be a small downside for a few mins, but losing all your mana/focus/energy/rage is just a nuisance so they shouldnt do that.

what they should do instead i dnt know

I suppose you could be as lost as this guy is. Says there should be a downside, then complains about the one in place. wtf?