Subsequent to my 3.1 information post, another blue post hit the waves. I should warn you now.... this is not pleasant reading!
From 3.1 changes will be introduced to mana regeneration across the board. However it is the regeneration outside the FSR that will hit the hardest. To implement this change blizz will be reducing mana regeneration granted by spirit, which means all you druids and priests out there who have been stacking spirit for the last 2 months better think again. To balance this effect, blizz will be buffing some of our mana regeneration talents, such as meditation and spirit tap, however like me, you are still likely to be taking quite a knock from these changes.
ive copied the full blue post for further details:
- Regeneration while not casting (outside of the “five second rule”) will be decreased. We think that (1) the ability to cast heal over time spells and then sit back and (2) benefitting from a clearcasting proc that also gets you out of the five second rule both provide too much mana regeneration, even over short time periods.
- To make this change, we are reducing mana regeneration granted by Spirit across the board. However we are also boosting the effects of talents such as Meditation that increase regeneration while casting. The net result should be that your regeneration while casting will stay about the same, but your not-casting regeneration will be reduced. This change will have little impact on dps casters, since they are basically always casting.
- The specific talents and abilities being boosted are: Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap, Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac and Spirit Tap. Yes this makes these “mandatory” talents even more mandatory, if such a thing is possible.
- Since paladins rely less on Spirit as a mana-regeneration stat, we have to address them in other ways. We don’t want to change Illumination or Replenishment. However, we are going to increase the healing penalty on Divine Plea from 20% to 50%. Divine Plea was originally intended to help Protection and Retribution paladins stay full on mana. It should be a decision for Holy paladins, not something that is automatically used every cooldown.
- In addition, we are also changing the way Spiritual Attunement works. In situations with a large amount of outgoing raid damage, as well as in PvP, this passive ability was responsible for more mana regeneration than we would like. We want to keep the necessary benefit it grants to tanking Protection paladins, while making it less powerful for Holy paladins in PvP or raid encounters with a lot of group damage.
- We are also taking a close look at clearcasting procs themselves. One likely outcome is to change them to an Innervate-like surge of mana so that the net benefit is the same, but healers won’t shift to out-of-casting regeneration so often.
- We balance around the assumption that even 10-player groups have someone offering Replenishment. To make this even easier on players we are likely to offer this ability to additional classes, as well as make sure that existing sources of Replenishment are more equitable.
Once we have a better idea of numbers the theorycrafters will no doubt be able to provide a more formulaic explanation of exactly how noticable these changes are going to be, but in the mean time i am going to start picking up some mp5 gear in anticipation of the bad news....
