enhancement mana in expansion?

[DarkDragoonLord]

I just want to say that I think any idea of us getting an actual focus bar is almost impossible.

We're still using the same spells as elemental and resto, and that's where the problem lies. For enhance to go this route, the "energy talent" would have to be at the beginning of the tree, or fairly early on, otherwise leveling as enhance would be insane.

Taking that into account, they can't possibly put it early, else Resto/Elem get to talent into it and use a never-ending system for heals and spell dps. The only option then is to put it deep, breaking Enhancement until the ripe old lvl of 50 or so.

You really can't say "uses x energy or x mana"... it has to be one or the other, for the same reasons of abuse listed above. Alternatively, you can't just say that all shocks/SS/LL/LS use energy instead of mana, because you now give resto the option to have shocks on an entirely different resource system, saving mana for heals.

As I said previously, the only option I see for this is to either have an early talent that greatly buffs passive mana regen based on agility/haste, or as someone else mentioned, hard buffs to imp stormstrike and the like to return mana on use.

[Blightyboy]

They're not giving you all focus bars, they're probably just going to do to you what they did to retadins; you won't need int, your mana will work without it, through regenerative talents.

[Alltat]

Reworking Mental Quickness to increase your intellect by X% of your attack power (note that AP still exists, just not as a raw stat on gear) would sort the mana pool issue. You'd get the same spell power as before from the intellect, but you'd also get a bigger mana pool. Though I guess it's debatable whether giving enh shamans more mana the more AP they have is a good idea, considering that'd lead to rather odd scaling.

Reducing (or removing?) the mana cost of Stormstrike and Lava Lash and letting Maelstrom Weapon reduce the mana cost of any offensive spell cast with the buff up should work better. You would have limited mana for healing and utility, but you can go on DPSing indefinitely.

[Omanley]

maybe a third bar could be the sollution?

health

mana

AND

energy/focus ( only for enhance )

you use energy/focus for stormstrike/lavalash ( with stormstrike costing more energy/focus, but doing greater dmg instead ) and other melee styles that might be added, you could also add shocks to the list.

your other abilities, namely heals, lighntings, purge, totems etc still use mana,

so you have in terms of pure dmg nuking a energy/focus thing, which enables you to control dmg better ( especially sexy in pvp situations where you need burst ). also, you wont be one of the only two melees to be negatively affected by manaburn again ( in terms of pure dmh-nuking ).

and in terms of supportive casts you still use mana.

[cryogenic]

Umm why? why everything in ths thread
you have shamanistic rage and improved stormstrike the only reason for int on your gear is AP spell crit because hunters used it, some shamans use leather when its got better stats.
You are already much the same as a ret paladin pretty much always have been if you hadnt really noticed, they have blessings you have totems this is the only distinct difference, you have stormstrike they have judgements, exorcism/shock, lava lash/crusader strike, divine storm/wolves, seal/windfuryand flametongue, divine plea/shamanistic rage, these are all very similar things with similar effects.

[Marakara]

Haste: Will also increase the rate at which you gain energy, runes, and focus. Retribution paladins and Enhancement shaman will have a talent that allows them to take advantage of this benefit.

If it increases with haste, it'll probably have something to do with a small return of mana with melee hits.

[Deleted]

Buff Improved Stormstrike

Hard solution yo

This.
If they want to make it "more like ret" its probaly going to be like this.

[Shailaja]

I've been thinking about the same thing, and i can't for the love of me think of anything that doesn't result in either a complete revamp of the shaman class, or just make four sets of mail gear, one for hunters and one for each spec of shaman, which is kinda going back on the whole simplified gear choice thing.

So how should enhancement shammies be balanced with regards to mana and spellpower? Right now we have an awesome balance of melle and spelldamage, and our gear and talents give us enough to not horribly break the EP of any stats at higher itemlevels (like ARP is for some classes)

How will removing mana affect our spells, compared to elemental shamans for instance.. Will we be as versatile when healing or casting spells as enhance as we are now? or will we be closer to ret pallies or druids (pick a role and stick with it)

Lots to think about, it should be interresting to see either way :P

[Omanley]

the only reason for int on your gear is AP spell crit because hunters used it, some shamans use leather when its got better stats

it´s not about pve only. believe it or not, but there are enhancers still trying in pvp. and selfheal costs a huge chunk of mana because we heal for crap and need four big heals ( non critting ) to fill our health up from 10% or so. imagine that with only 5k mana.

[mchltlt1037]

They said they were going to make mana a non issue for DPS, or at least try to. *Shrug*

They did?! w/e happened to mana is finite, that is supposed end.. I wonder if they changed their core design of mana or are they gonna balance around the fact that it is "finite". Personaly i think the latter is more like blizzard.

[Sasquach]

Plain and simple. Hoping for an Energy or Focus conversion is silly and pointless; It won't happen. Think about it a second, hunters use mana currently too, and the Mail gear is designed around it. We simply won't get any Int from gear in the expansion, and talents aren't going to convert agility to mana or whatever.

There isn't going to be Int, or Attack Power on Enhancement/Hunter gear. There will simply be more Agility on the gear from the start. So that will take away the need for the Int to AP conversion right there. It's also possible that they will boost Shaman AP from Agility to 2:1 like Hunters as well...

Then for the mana pool, they will simply reduce the cost of abilities, whether its talent based, or whatever... Then they will also boost self-mana regen (Buff Imp. Stormstrike like someone already said for example...)

Instead of thinking of the most complicated solution you can think of, try and simplify things more.

We will simply have less mana, need less mana, and get more mana returned. It is as simple as that, which is exactly how Prot and Ret Paladins were changed.

[Melynx]

I'm hoping something like this will happen (It won't...):

Boiling Power
You can no longer generate mana through conventional means (Potions, MP5, JotW, etc) but your mana regenerates at a X%/Y (100% / 6 seconds for example) seconds rate.

Obviously all your abilities would have to cost a % of total mana for it to work, but it's just a way they could turn Shamans into Rogues (Which is what we all really want) without having to give us Focus or Energy.

[Deleted]

I'm hoping something like this will happen (It won't...):

Boiling Power
You can no longer generate mana through conventional means (Potions, MP5, JotW, etc) but your mana regenerates at a X%/Y (100% / 6 seconds for example) seconds rate.

Obviously all your abilities would have to cost a % of total mana for it to work, but it's just a way they could turn Shamans into Rogues (Which is what we all really want) without having to give us Focus or Energy.

We all really want that :S
Also that would be the worst change. We are not rogues and we will never have regeneration system as them.
It would most likely nerf our dps if they done that.
Currently never go oom with so many mana regan talents in enh.
With that system its fairly likely we would be going oom every few seconds and not being able to do abilitys while we wait for "mana/engery" to regen.

[Fosorrow]

Then for the mana pool, they will simply reduce the cost of abilities, whether its talent based, or whatever... Then they will also boost self-mana regen (Buff Imp. Stormstrike like someone already said for example...)

Instead of thinking of the most complicated solution you can think of, try and simplify things more.

We will simply have less mana, need less mana, and get more mana returned. It is as simple as that, which is exactly how Prot and Ret Paladins were changed.

While the "simple solutions" are nice, here it may not work. They can't just reduce mana cost on shocks, spells, or heals, because that would change ele/resto, meaning they'd have to put less int on that gear, etc etc. They also can't put the talent to make the spells use less mana early in the tree, because resto/ele could get that and not have to watch their mana bar. If it's put too late in the tree, it would make lvling as enhance suck untill you get there, because none of your gear will help your mana, and you still need a lot for casting (untill you hit that talent). So yea, endgame things may seem easy for that single spec, but you have to consider it's implications on the other specs, as well as leveling

[joshfatal]

While the "simple solutions" are nice, here it may not work. They can't just reduce mana cost on shocks, spells, or heals, because that would change ele/resto, meaning they'd have to put less int on that gear, etc etc. They also can't put the talent to make the spells use less mana early in the tree, because resto/ele could get that and not have to watch their mana bar. If it's put too late in the tree, it would make lvling as enhance suck untill you get there, because none of your gear will help your mana, and you still need a lot for casting (untill you hit that talent). So yea, endgame things may seem easy for that single spec, but you have to consider it's implications on the other specs, as well as leveling

There's already a talent early in Enhancement that reduces the cost of shock spells. and really, Enhancement shouldn't be using Lightning Bolt. Talents like this could very well stay where they're at in the tree, as lower-cost spells wouldn't be the ONLY mana benefit available to Enhancement. Basically, Enhancement the way it is now is kind of a good idea of where this would be going, and only needs further implementation. There are talents at the top that increase mana and lower the cost of Shock spells, and talents way lower in the tree, such as Shamanistic Rage or whatever, which help generate more mana.

[Deleted]

Remember, AP and SP are being removed, yes?

My theory: Mastery. They'll do it through the Mastery system.

Nope they are not removing AP & SP from the game, they are only removing it from gear.

[Horn]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I read that int will be removed from hunter/enh shaman gear in expac. how is this effecting shaman's mana then?

if i'm wrong about the int being removed, does that mean they're going to have to make 2 mail agility gear sets, one with int and one without for hunters? so confused at what's going on lol

You're getting Stormstrike of the wise, only differance is yours will work on absorbs. Oh btw they still count the 'hybrid tax' on damage even if you can't cast more than two heals. Welcome to the club. :-X

[Gunwolf]

We have great mana regen already. If they do anything, I hope it's a change in Mental Dexterity to convert a % of Agility into Int, and then a change in Mental Quickness to make all spells a little cheaper.

Shaman need a large mana pool, atleast 10k+ mana. Speaking from a PvP perspective (PvE mana regen will prob be safe), we do alot of totem twisting, shock spamming, MW5 Healing waves, and purging....so we rely on that big mana pool.

[Sasquach]

While the "simple solutions" are nice, here it may not work. They can't just reduce mana cost on shocks, spells, or heals, because that would change ele/resto, meaning they'd have to put less int on that gear, etc etc. They also can't put the talent to make the spells use less mana early in the tree, because resto/ele could get that and not have to watch their mana bar. If it's put too late in the tree, it would make lvling as enhance suck untill you get there, because none of your gear will help your mana, and you still need a lot for casting (untill you hit that talent). So yea, endgame things may seem easy for that single spec, but you have to consider it's implications on the other specs, as well as leveling

There's already a talent early in Enhancement that reduces the cost of shock spells. and really, Enhancement shouldn't be using Lightning Bolt. Talents like this could very well stay where they're at in the tree, as lower-cost spells wouldn't be the ONLY mana benefit available to Enhancement. Basically, Enhancement the way it is now is kind of a good idea of where this would be going, and only needs further implementation. There are talents at the top that increase mana and lower the cost of Shock spells, and talents way lower in the tree, such as Shamanistic Rage or whatever, which help generate more mana.

Exactly... Enhance won't be using lightning bolt until after they get maelstrom weapon. Won't be using Lava lash until after we get that. Won't even be using Stormstrike until after we get that (Which conveniently already has a mana return shortly after that is attained).

So the only thing that a low level Enhance Shaman (Pre 40) does is Shock (Which DOES already have a spell cost reduction early on), and wait for a WF proc on a big 2H weapon.

It's really not that difficult of a concept to grasp in my opinion. And I never said reduce the cost of heals... How many non-mana classes have healing spells at all? At low levels you throw a quick heal and keep going, or eat/drink if you're low on mana... If you are THAT low on health to where it eats up your entire mana pool healing yourself up, then you probably would need to eat/drink anyway... It really isn't that hard.

If you have mana issues spec into improved shields or something early on... lol... (I know, I know... sarcasm on the internet is hard...)