Mana regenerating

Have you ever started out to explain something really simple and, as you were at it, humhummed to yourself thinking I’d better explain that too since its kinda related, and might throw in a few words on this since it has bearing on the subject, and while I am at it why not cover this adjacent area as well, ending up with something huge and bloated and not at all what you had intended from the start?

No? Well I have, many times, and I’ll give you a great example of it here. I set out to make a small post with a few tips on how to make your mana last a whole 5-10 minute bossfight, but what I ended up with was this several post long article.

(Disclaimer: The following are my opinions and gut feelings for a holy priest that’s currently venturing into 25-mans like Serpentshrine Caverns and the Eye.)

Regenerating mana

1. Your blue bar is full.
2. You cast a spell.
3. Your blue bar is not quite as full as it was before.
4. Rinse and repeat.

You keep this up and eventually there will be no blue left at all and you will be that horrible shameful thing - out of mana!

Luckily, some of your blue mana will trickle back and fill up the bar again, and you want this to happen as fast as possible so you can keep up your spellcasting, right?

The mana regeneration rate comes in two flavours – a sweet bubbly champagne for when you are not casting (= out of combat, fiddling your thumbs while watching your party take damage, or whatever excuse you have for standing around not doing anything useful), and one not quite so bubbly for when you are casting (=in combat).

You want a) as much of the bubbly one as possible and b) to make the not-so-bubbly as bubbly as possible. Makes sense, right?

Now the WoW-gods are a little slow (lagging, maybe?), they don’t understand that you are not casting unless it’s been 5 seconds or more since you finished casting a spell, so once you start fighting you will have to rely mostly on your not-so-bubbly mana regeneration to keep the blueness trickling back.

If you want to know how much time the WoW-gods think you spend casting in every fight check out the Fubar plugin RegenFu. For me, a holy priest, it somewhere between 75-90% of the time, and for a more in-depth explanation of what the so-called 5 second rule is please check out WoWwiki.

So, how do I get that mana juice flowing?

Mana regeneration is made up of two parts: a spirit/intellect-based one and a “restores X mana per second”-one.

According to the same WoWwiki, the formula for the spi/int mana regeneration for a lvl 70 priest is

MP5 = 5 * (0,001 + sqrt(Int) * Spi * 0,009327)

and without talents this will only happen when the WoW-gods are really really sure that you are not casting a spell, i e out of combat or at least 5 seconds after you finished casting.

However, with the priest talent Meditation from the 3d tier in the Discipline tree you can get 30% of the spi/int-regen to continue when you are casting. Take this talent. It’s a must for any priest, holy, disc or shadow, so I'll say it again: Take this talent.

Some of the gear you will encounter has an on-equip use that goes “Restores [a number] mana per 5 seconds.” This is a flat mana regeneration that’s always the same, no matter if you are casting or not, and is usually referred to as mana regeneration from items. There are also gems and enchants with this stat.

So, to summarise:

Really sweet bubbly mana regen = only when not casting = int/spi-based regen + mana regen from items.

Not quite so sweet and bubbly mana regen but hopefully not too flat = when casting = 30% of the int/spi-based regen + 100% of the mana regen from items.

Aha, you might think here, let’s stack up on the mana regen from items since it keeps ticking 24/7! Well, yes, it will, but there are more advantages to going for Spirit and Intellect instead.

Ok, short brief:

Spirit gives mana regen and also health regen and increases healing bonus when talented with Spiritual Guidance.

Intellect gives mana regen and also increases your crit chance with spells and it gives you a larger mana pool to start with.

So, when it comes too stats, Spirit is your dearest friend, Intellect comes pretty close and the cousin from the country Mana-regen-from-items is tolerated but not invited unless the other two are out of town.

Stay tuned for the next part: Saving Ryan’s Privates, eh, no that was not it...ah I have it:
Stay tuned for the next part - The flip side of the mana coin: saving it!