Mana regen a Ulduar (patch 3.1)

Con tempismo comprensibile, ma anche discutibile (sistemate la lag!!!), la Blizzard sta rilasciando le prime idee sulla rivisitazione delle classi in programma per la patch 3.1 Ulduar (qua). Questi cambiamenti subiranno notevoli ritocchi prima dell'uscita, però vale la pena mettere in evidenza il nuovo corso che intendono dare al mana regen.

Prendiamo il post ufficiale e commentiamolo.

Quote from: Bornakk
As we have suggested, we have become concerned that mana regeneration is currently too powerful, especially for healers. We want players to have to keep an eye on mana. We don’t want you to go out of mana every fight, but running out of mana should be a very real risk for sloppy playing or attempting content that you aren’t yet ready for. When mana regeneration is trivial then certain parts of the game break down – classes that offer Replenishment are devalued, stats that offer mana regeneration are devalued, and spells that are efficient are neglected in preference to spells with high throughput.

La Blizzard si dichiara preoccupata del mana regen perchè, almeno per gli healer, è tale da non porre quasi nessun problema di mana e questo crea altri problemi. Praticamente eliminando la necessità di amministrare il mana, le classi che forniscono Replenishment perdono valore, le stats che favoriscono il mana sono svautate, non c'è convenienza ad usare spell ad alta efficenza e i requisiti di accesso al contenuto PvE avanzato sono in qualche modo smussati.

Here are a list of changes you are likely to see in 3.1. They will be available to try out on the PTR. Mana regeneration is somewhat technical, so please bear with us.
* 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.
* 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.

Una linea di azione sarà la riduzione considerevole del mana regen while-not-casting (la five second rule) attraverso la riduzione dell'effetto della stats spirit. Per lasciare inalterata la situazione while-casting (condizione tipica dei DPS), verranno potenziati i talenti che la favoriscono.

* 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.

I paladini sono un caso a parte perchè non si basano sullo spirit, per loro ci sarà un aumento della riduzione delle cure dal 20% al 50% quando Divine Plea è attiva, ed inoltre ridurranno l'efficenza dello Spiritual Attunement.

* 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.
* These changes are ultimately being done to bring the different healing classes more in line with each other as well as to give the encounter team more leeway when designing encounters, who can balance with these new mana regeneration numbers in mind. In a world with infinite healer mana, the only way to challenge healers is with increasingly insane amount of raid damage, so that global cooldowns become the limiting factor since mana fails to be. An example is the Eredar Twins in late Sunwell. We weren’t necessarily happy with that model, and this change hopefully allows us to move towards giving healing a more deliberate and thoughtful pace rather than frenetic spam.

Lo scopo finale di queste modifiche è riportare la gestione del mana tra le variabili considerate nella pianificazione e nell'esecuzione del combattimento. Nella pianificazione ad esempio verranno rivalutate le classi con replenishment e le stats che favoriscono il mana, nell'esecuzione ci sarà una maggiore attenzione all'efficienza (che ora è praticamente assente). Se il mana fosse virtualmente infinito, l'unico modo di aumentare le difficoltà per gli healer sarebbe aumentare a dismisura il danno ad area e giocare sull'uso di tutti i global cooldown (il Sunwell alla sua introduzione, per capirsi).

Ci ho pensato un po' e devo dire che sono totalmente favorevole a questa linea teorica. Come healer la cosa che trovo più stressante e noiosa è fissare continuamente le barre, cambiare target e castare ad ogni global cooldown. Rendere il mana molto più prezioso dovrebbe in linea teorica ridurne l'utilizzo, cioè ridurre i cast complessivi fattibili in un combattimento e alla fine ridurre il tempo che fisso le barre e magari osservare un po' la scena.