Mana | Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog

Shadow Priest T10 4 set bonus makes procing replenishment a dps loss.

But ” A good shadow priest… ”

1) Proc’s Replenishment because we are the original mana battery B*tches

2) Does what is good for themselves ( and the raid by doing awesome dps!)

3) Trys and finds a happy compromise like a good raider should.

I aim for # 3

But I need a little help. Replenishment lasts for 14 sec I could proc it so it overlaps more if I used Mindblast on Cool down but I don’t have to unless people are having serious mana issues.

I set Power Auras the add on up to show when Replenishment is active – so If I am not seeing it often enough I can deliberately proc it.

^^ Dodgy Screen shot taken while writing this and waiting for a TOGC to form.

I have a regular 10 ICC group now ( does 2 weeks so far make it regular?) and I am the only source for replenishment.

It seems kind of silly though, that of all the things to be concerned about in a raid – that replenishment becomes so important when it’s not there

Love or Hate it – our ( Shadow Priests) little special corner of the raid world and mana return got more crowded when we were advised that 5 ‘specs’ will now be able to spec into Replenishment

Shadow Priests
Ret Pallys
Survival Hunters
Destro Warlocks
Frost Mages

While Doing 25 Chain Naxx trash pulls last night – one of the healers piped up. “I’m not getting any Replenishment, is something wrong”

The Three shadow Priests said – “We don’t put VT up in trash pulls”
“Oh”

The crux of this observation, is that regardless of our abilities & talent trees and talent tree point placement – we have Vampiric touch – it doesn’t mean that we will actually produce the conditions to proc it all the time.

While we are AOEing we are not producing these conditions. I loves our AOE it, even better it crits! Its also shadow Damage, so I can use it to bolster up my VE healing when my party takes damage during trash by sticking on my instant cast VE and then Mindsearing the target next to it.

But!

Mind sear is sitting round about 27-30% of our overall raid damage.
so I’m, thinking along the lines that 30% of our dps time isn’t procing Replenishment. I don’t need Replenishment, and I’m not really interested gimping my DPS I don’t want to resort to single target dps when I can aoe.

Shadow Priest dpsing ‘culture’ to coin a line – seems to be following along the lines that VE is not always important. So the result is Shadow Priests don’t stick Ve up as diligently as we used to in BC. Even I in Patchwerk did not recast my VE That may have been what helped me get over 4k dps on him last night. ( my 1st time over 4k)

Our Vampiric Touch Dots are scaling much higher then our Shadow Word Pain – regardless that SWP is getting auto refreshed with Mindflay. So in a boss fight where there is sustained constant damage being done, of course we will keep using Vampiric Touch, and we will keep using Mindblast which causes the Vampiric Touch to proc into Replenishment, just not when we Aoe when mobs go down so quick.

However the Mana regen changes to come in 3.1 will make Replenishment more important, just from a chain pulling point. You want to clear the trash as quick as possible without wiping, and healers running low on mana is dangerous. We might need to make the conscious descision to single target for the good of the raid.

Well as for warlocks getting replenishment

As an example Warlocks improved Soul Leech are reported to be going to proc Replenishment. – I don’t play a warlock so I went looking to see what Soul Leech does – and Soul leech gives a chance for health returns if certain spells are cast. Improved Soul leech – Also restores Mana in addition to the health to yourself and your summoned demon.

So the conditions for a Warlock to Proc Replenishment are that Soul Leech is up, and the Warlock has cast Shadow bolt, Shadowburn, Choas Bolt, Soul Fire, Incinerate, Searing Pain, or Conflagrate

( Thats alot more then just Mindblast! 😦 )

However, just from reading comments on Wiki and random forums Soul Leech or Improved Soul leech doesn’t seem to be taken rather seriously for a Destro Warlock unless they are soloing. In a Raid, they run out of mana they tap down, a healer heals them to full health. Even with the added bonus of Replenishment, will that be enough for a Destro warlock to make sure Soul Leech is up in every raid, for trash and Boss fights? I doubt it.

Poor frost mages seem to gotten a shorter end of the stick when it comes to Replenishement – they seem to need to rely on their water element being up and for the proc to be available, and the Elemental is not a constant companion.

Where as Pallys and Hunters in the right spec, use their abilities that proc replenishment on a regular basis.

Ret Pally
Judgement of Wisdom/Judgements of the wise

Survival Hunter
Procs off Explosive Shot crits

So regardless of the spreading around the love and the Mana. Given that from I’ve been able to find – two of those ‘special’ 5 classes, the Destro Warlock, and the Frost Mage are not going to want to be relied on to produce Replenishment on a regular basis in a raid. and even Shadow Priests that are merrily Aoeing 30% of the time . We seem to be comming less reliable as the only sources for Mana return. We lose our specialness and become more ‘comparable’ to other dps classes – is that a worthy trade. Let me have a serious chance at the DPS metres and you will make me not so special?

As long as they keep taking shadow Priests to raids right?