World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

In World of Warcraft the idea of mana managing seems far-fetched considering all you have to do is sit down and drink some water. But what if you sit down to drink, you only have 30% mana and the tank pulls or accidently pulls, and knocks you out of drinking? You’re all going to die! Unless you know how to manage that last bit of mana to keep the tank and everyone else alive.

Ok, so the first thought that comes to your mind is “I just use my shadowfiend and then I will have more than 30% mana.” But let’s just say you used it 2 minutes ago, and now you’re back to low mana, what now? Use your mana potion, that’s what it’s there for. Unfortunately, you don’t have any mana potions because you’re cheap and you didn’t want to buy any, then what? All out of options, nothing else left to do unless you’re lucky enough to be a Blood Elf and can use Arcane Torrent, but that doesn’t give you much mana to work with. It’s a good time to start learning to manage your mana to make that last 30% of mana that you have left last the entire fight (unless you’re one lucky priest who only got stuck healing everyone through one tiny little mob who dies in 10 sec, but we’ll just pretend it’s a boss fight).

Why it is Important to Manage Mana

So, continue to think of the scenario I mentioned above. You only have 30% mana, it’s a boss fight, and you have nothing to fall back on to regain some mana to survive through the fight. This is a perfect example of why it is very important to be able to manage your mana. But considering the scenario is a good example of a 5 man instance run, compared to a 10 or 25 man raid, where you have other healers you can fall back on. It is good to ask others for help, that’s what they are there for, to spread that healing love. Unfortunately, a lot of boss fights in Naxxramas and Ulduar can be very mana heavy, especially in Ulduar where boss fights can last for a great deal of time if the raid is not over geared. Patchwerk is a perfect example in Naxxramas where healers only focus is the tanks and must constantly cast heals to save them from giant blows that can take away 60% or more of their HP. In some cases with Patchwerk if a healer runs out of mana, there’s usually no other healer to fall back on to help heal that tank you are in charge of keeping alive, and so if the tanks dies and there is a wipe, it could fall on your head for not being able to manage your mana properly during Patchwerk.

Since a raiding environment is so much different than a 5 man instance run, I will focus on 5 man instances. You have no one to fall back on but yourself in instances. If you can learn to manage your mana in a 5 man instance, then you can do it in a raid.

Tips to Mana Management

We are all guilty of overly healing targets that lose just a tiny bit of HP, it’s just common instincts; you see HP is missing and you fill in that gap. It’s not a bad thing, at least we are doing the job that our class is designed to do. In some cases, though, this is a bad thing to do, especially when you know it is going to be a long fight and you need as much mana as you can hold onto to last through it all.

Know how much you heal for. Knowing how much you are capable of healing for will be able to allow you to determine when it is best to heal. When healing in instances I would wait till the tank’s HP falls to a certain amount before I would start casting Greater Heal. This will save me mana in the long run and the tank loves being able to never stop pulling.

My Greater Heal would heal for an average of about 9500 HP (this is with pretty epic gear), 14500 HP with a crit. Flash Heal would heal for an average of about 4500 HP and 7500 HP with a crit. This will allow me to determine, when to start my heal and if it should get them to almost full hp or over heals them.

Know how much HP or damage those around you can take. This goes with knowing how much you can heal for. The tank is in a whole different class than the DPS, they would be healed the same amount no matter what armor they are wearing. Unless aggro is gained from a mob, I would tend to only throw them a Flash Heal or Renew so I can stay focused on the Tanks HP.

When healing the Tank I would see if the Tank has more or less than 30k HP, if more then I would wait longer to heal. If less, I would start healing earlier, and keep renew up. Renew helps a lot in keeping the HP up without me having to constantly heal and keep my mana high.

When healing other group members, I would heal them all around the same amount, 20% hp loss, with a Flash Heal. Renew is good to use if you need to stay focused on the tank.

Know your environment. Many instances are pretty much the same; you have groups of 3 or more mobs and several bosses. But they are all different. For some, you have to make time between heals to dispel or cure debuffs. So have good knowledge about what you are heading into, if you don’t have any knowledge at all about who does what, most groups will explain boss fights. So when it comes to healing your group through trash mobs to get to the boss, learn from it. Do they hit really hard and require you to use bigger heals? Or do they not hit very hard and you can just Flash Heal or keep Renew up on the tank?