Friday, February 12, 2010

QQ: My Mana Pool Is Too Big!

My mana pool is too big...

...to receive Replenishment in a 25 man raid with only one replenisher. Lately, that's all we had. I am probably the only person in the raid who cares. It means that only 10 people (with the lowest mana) receive this buff-that-gives-you-lots-of-mana when the replenisher his that special button in his rotation. It means that five to ten of us are left unbuffed each time.

It's like need before greed. Obviously, it makes sense to do it this way. A buff that gives you mana, if "smart", should definitely assign it by need, naturally, the people with the least mana need it the most.

However, the disparity of mana pools does impede those who focus on having larger pools to work with. Retribution and protection paladins have a mana pool of approximately 7,000. Hunters in ICC gear are sporting 16,000 to 17,000 mana. Caster DPS in our raids have anywhere from 20,000 to 25,000, and only a couple of us healers clear 30,000 (our mages all focus on Intellect and have 30,000 to 33,000).

That means that the smaller your mana pool, the more guaranteed your getting Replenishment, even if you get less mana per tick than someone with a larger mana pool. A hunter with 99% mana (15,999 of 16,000) will get the buff before me, unless I have spent 61% of my mana pool just to so that the server will consider me a candidate for the buff. I have to exhaust my resources considerably just to be eligible for Replenishment in this scenario.

My mana pool is by far the largest, after all, I'm an intellect-stacking holy-light spamming holy paladin. Part of the reason that Intellect is so great for us is because of all the mana regen that is based on max mana. Replenishment is a lot of mana for us. I've been vocal that I consider Replenishment overpowered because when I have it, things are often trivialized. When I don't, I am in danger of going OOM with out thoughtful cooldown management.

Oh, QQ, healers have to manage cooldowns just like everyone else.

Life without replenishment sucks. Ok, yeah, most content is trivial and it doesn't matter and QQ MOAR you don't need Replenishment, Enlynn. *sigh* Except, when it's not trivial. For Festergut and Rotface (progression for our guild), I end those fights with less than a thousand mana. Healing without replenishment sucks. It's stressful because Blizzard designed the encounters around having Replenishment. A holy paladin in ICC gear can expect 33,650 mana from Replenishment in a seven minute fight. That's 29 Holy Lights I get extra just by having a replenisher in the raid. OR, if I don't have replenishment, that's 29 Holy Lights I don't get to cast.

Obviously, the best course of action for me would be to convince our mages that they are not getting their fair share of Replenishment (and that it's hurting their DPS), and they should demand MOAR RESTOPLENISHMENT for our raid group.

My mana pool is too big! QQ

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