Druid’s ability to recoup mana

Discussion in 'Priests' started by Jack, Dec 29, 2022.

  1. Jack Elder

    I’ve just come back to game after not playing since TBM. Seeing that the state of druids hasn’t gotten any better, but has in fact, decreased, is really disheartening. I’m going to address this with just one spell line. It pretty much speaks for the whole state of the class.

    Bolstered Growth
    You cast the bear and get Growing Exuberance every 5 seconds for 1 minute or 13 hits. Growing Exuberance is 823 mana no matter what rank of Bolstered Growth you have. After the one minute mark, the bear casts Bolstered Replenishment Rk (your rank of Bolstered Growth). This then gives you another set amount of mana:
    Rk 1: 9660 mana
    Rk 2: 10143 mana

    Rk 3: 10650 mana
    You are prevented from recasting Bolstered Growth for 5 minutes due to the Decreased Spell Haste by 10000% component of Bolstered Growth. Your best case situation with this spell is that you recoup 21,349 mana every 5 minutes. And that’s if your bear isn’t killed off early, which no other mana recouping ability has. Just for reference of how much mana this is for a druid, one cast of Nature’s Sweltering Wrath Rk III costs 27,843 mana and one heal will cost somewhere between 2k and 4.9k mana. This is very comparable to cleric and shaman heals and shaman dots. *Please note that these mana costs have not had any mana reducing buffs, worn gear, or AA abilities factored into them.*


    Let’s start with the fact that Growing Exuberance has not been revised since the first time druids were giving this spell line. Naturing Growth is a level 96 spell and gives 823 mana a tick and then 4,530 mana for a best case scenario of 15,229 mana back, if your bear isn’t killed early. The cost for the same line of Nature’s Sweltering Wrath Rk III was level 95 spell Nature’s Scorching Wrath Rk III. This spell cost 5,683 mana. If Growing Exuberance had kept up with the cost of mana inflation, it would be in the range of 4,032 mana a tick and the cast at the end, for rank III would be in the range of 22,194 mana, for a best case scenario of 74,612, which would allow for the same 2.7 casts of the same line of Wrath spell. Which would also put it in line with other classes' abilities to recoup mana.
    Why is there a Decreased Spell Haste by 10000% component of Bolstered Growth. If you want to prevent this spell from being recast more than every 5 minutes, make the spell reuse timer on it 5 minutes. Not paying attention and trying to cast this spell early, or by mistake, means that you’re locked out of casting anything at all until you /stopcast. That doesn’t seem like much of a big deal but when it can be the difference between a well timed last second heal or someone’s death… Just keep the spell gem grayed out until it can be used again, LIKE EVERY OTHER SPELL IN GAME. If you don’t want the use timer on the spell to keep the spell from being used when first memorized, then make it an AA or tie it to another AA already in use, like the 2 wolf AA. If you want to break it down to the 4 minute wolf timer, it’d be like 59,689 mana over the 4 minutes or 1492 per tick.

    Reuse time and amount of mana recouped.
    Shamans have their Cannibalization AA. At XXI this restores 92000 mana and can be used every 2 minutes. That is 276,000 mana recouped in less time than it takes to cast Bolstered Growth and be able to recast it a second time. If you also factor Hoary Agreement Rk III, that is 10,844 mana every 18 seconds and is not on the same timer as the AA Cannibalization. For the same 5 minutes, that’s 16 cast for a total of 173,504 for a grand total of 449,504. This also does not have a built-in function that punishes them if they try to use it too early or by mistake. Nor is there a chance for their mana recuperation tool to be killed early.


    Clerics and Paladins have Yaulp. This AA at XVI Rk III lasts 36 seconds, increases current mana by 1,416 mana (and also provides other beneficial things) and can be reused every 12 seconds. For the same 5 minute span of time Bolstered Growth lasts, that's 35,4000 mana back with Yaulp. Clerics also have Veturika’s Perseverance, which at level 7, also restores another 90,000 mana every 20 minutes. Again, these do not have a built-in function that punishes them if they try to use it too early or by mistake. Nor is there a chance for their mana recuperation tool to be killed early.

    DPS classes

    Mages have Elemental Conversion, Reclaim Energy, Sickle of Umbral Modulation, and Gather Vigor. Reclaim Energy, which is a level one spell but works on all of their pets, reclaims 75% of the mana used to cast said pet. Mages also get the passive AA Conjurer’s Efficiency, which allows Reclaim Energy to return 300% of the base mana of the cost of their pet. The down side to this is that it does cost them their current pet. While it does have a quick recast timer, it isn’t practical to use unless there is a dire need of quick mana.

    Next they have Sickle of Umbral Moducation. At the rank III, this gives back 32,141 mana and can be used once every 5 minutes. Again it has a fast recast timer, 1.5 secs, but is kept from being used often by the reuse timer of 5 minutes on the actual summoned Sickle of Umbral Modulation. This is still greater than the 21,349 you may be able to recoup with Bolstered Growth if your bear isn’t killed early. Comparing damage spell to mana recuperation, the most mana heavy DD for mages is Spear of Molten Lucinite Rk III. It cost 10,070 mana. That is 3 casts worth of mana recouped in the same five minutes worth of time druids have with Bolstered Growth, which again does not give enough mana back for even 1 cast of our costliest damage spell.

    Mages also have Elemental Conversion available to them once every 15 minutes, which gives them an additional 36,000 mana back, or 1 cast of Spear of Molten Lucinite Rk III every 5 minutes. Lastly, they have Gather Vigor. At rank III this gives you 26,417 mana back every 7 minutes, or 2 casts of Spear of Molten Lucinite Rk III. In total, this is giving mages the equivalent of 6 casts of their most costly damage spell every 5 minutes or roughly 63,010 mana, not including Reclaim Energy. Again, these do not have a built-in function that punishes them if they try to use it too early or by mistake. Nor is there a chance for their mana recuperation tool to be killed early.

    Wizards also have multiple ways of recovering mana. Their most costly damage spell is Ethereal Ignition Rk III and costs 12,719. Shadow Harvest Rk III gives back 46,257 mana every 7 minutes. This equates to 2 casts of Ethereal Ignition Rk III every 5 minutes. While Harvest of Druzzil XX gives an additional 40,500 mana every 5 minutes which is 3 casts of Ethereal Ignition Rk III. In total, this gives wizards back 73,540 mana every 5 minutes, or 5 casts of Ethereal Ignition Rk III. Again, these do not have a built-in function that punishes them if they try to use it too early or by mistake. Nor is there a chance for their mana recuperation tool to be killed early.

    Necros have quite a few costly spells but the most costly one is Prye of Va Xakra. At rank III that is 20,240 mana. Death Bloom XI returns 5800 every tick for 1 minute and can be reused every 5 minutes. That is 58,000 mana or 2 casts of Prye of Va Xakra Rk III. While Lunaside Rk. III can be cast every 1.5 seconds and lasts for 60 minutes increasing mana by 626 a tick or ten times a minute for 31,300 mana for a 5 minute period. That is 89,300 mana or 4 casts of Prye of Va Xakra Rk III in a five minute span of time. Again, these do not have a built-in function that punishes them if they try to use it too early or by mistake. Nor is there a chance for their mana recuperation tool to be killed early.

    **Every one of these classes have at least one spell and one AA that allows them to recoup a significant amount of mana.**

    But have you tried..
    The plethora of ways other druids have tried to say our mana recoup is ok IF YOU USE is really infuriating. All of the other classes also get a lot of the same mana reduction/regen AA passive abilities, augs, gear, and beneficial buffs that druids have access to. They also, like enchanters, necros, beast lords, clerics, and mages, have AA and spells they can use on other players to increase mana recoup. Examples being Great Wolf, mod rods, Quiet Prayer and the like. Everyone also has access to weapons that siphon mana from mobs and gives to the player, clicky gear, using mounts, medding between mobs. It is asinine to read that other druids respond to people questioning the relevance of the Bolstered Growth line by saying “but you should be doing this if you have mana problems. Oh, and wait for Gift of Mana to cast your mana heavy spell” Most useful druid spells are mana heavy and some of our AA abilities also consume mana. EVERYONE who is playing a caster of any sort is already taking advantage of all of these tools provided to their classes. **Wanting to have a way to recoup mana, like every other caster class, isn’t out of line. No one wants to take those tools away from those classes, we just want to have access to a similar tool.**

    Druid vs Shaman as priests

    For those of you thinking that druids are a priest class so why does this matter? Shaman are also listed as a priest class. Their heal lines are much more in sync with clerics. Every priest class, except druids, have HoT and Splash spell lines. Also, no other priests have timers on their heal spells preventing them from using lower level spells in the same line. For example, clerics ignore the Light line and shaman ignore the mending line, choosing instead to use multiple levels of the same spell lines, Remedy for clerics and Reckless for shaman.
    Shaman also have multiple damage spells that cast multiple damage spells in one cast, freeing up spell gems for other spells such as heals, adps, and debuffs. Shaman aura is also a permanent cast. Druid aura lasts for 5 minutes, causing us to take up yet another spell gem for aura casts. Druids also have damage and regen auras, even though the regen aura has been left behind, the last being level 70. Clerics and enchanters are able to run multiple auras at the same time. There is no reason why druids should not be able to run both damage and regen aura at the same time as well. If making druid aura a permanent aura like Packt of the Wolf isn’t possible, then making the aura last closer to the hour duration more in line with other classes most definitely is.

    If you’re getting ready to post, "then just play a shaman," don’t. I’ve already done that. Was my first toon actually. Wanting your class to be on par with its peers isn’t asking for too much.
  2. Ythera Augur

    My friend plays a druid on live in a raiding guild with me. This is his #1 problem and the things he's had to do to try to keep gas in the tank compared to other classes is absurd. ToL was a nightmare for him with its extremely long duration raids. Hopefully, NoS raids won't take as long, but it would be good for druids to get some sort of more aggressive mana regeneration ability, especially for after a death, when they become super useless.
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  3. code-zero Augur

    Make friends with a Bard is the best once you've done everything else
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  4. Slasher Augur

    The issue is balance. Druids are a very powerful class but also a class that can do many things and if you give them the type of mana regen necros/shamans have it would really be unbalanced.
  5. Jack Elder

    That's something every class can do.
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  6. Allayna Augur

    Lemme get this straight, so being able to splash heal like a shaman, heal over time like a shaman, regen mana like a shaman, throw multiple dots with limited spell gems like a shaman, have a permanent aura like a shaman, load multiple 1 second cast heals like a shaman...

    That would be out of balance?
  7. Slasher Augur


    Shaman are not doing the dps a druid can put out right now and when they were they nerfed it. The druid class is kind of in a difficult position what do you want to give up for the mana regen ? You have to give to get and right now the class is pretty good dps and a good healer but the sacrifice is mana regen.

    If you give the druids the dps they do right now and the healing plus give them the kind of infinite mana a shaman has you wouldn't call that OP ?
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  8. Allayna Augur

    Shaman can easily be #1 on a parse. Definitely have infinite mana. Definitely out heal a druid. I actually LOL'd when you said druids were a pretty good healer, with 3 unique direct heals, varying in cast time, but all slower than shaman, cleric and even paladin...a group heal, an intervention heal, zero splash and zero heal over time. So what is it that druids have that they would need to give up to be on PAR with a shaman?

    Ports? Comparably, shaman have a pet
    Snare? Comparably, shaman have slow

    I'm just not sure were the push back is coming from with regard to a class that near no one plays anymore.

    I also don't think the OP was asking for infinite mana.

    No one is asking for shaman to give up anything to have all that greatness, just for druids to have a revitalization of the class to make them on par with the rest.
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  9. Joules_Bianchi A certain gnome

    Beastlord crack stacks with chantycrack stacks with druid self regen.
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  10. Dre. Altoholic

    I think I blocked yaulp on my Paladin somewhere in the 90s when it became a proc because it was overwriting Tunare.
  11. Szilent Augur

    blocked this:
    Knight's Yaulp IV
    1: Increase ATK by 350
    3: Increase Current Mana by 120 per tick
    8: Increase Worn Proc Rate by 60%


    so's to not block this?
    62478 Strength of the Dusksage Stalker
    1: Increase ATK by 628
    4: Increase Max HP by 2962

    which also conflicts with:
    62397 Brell's Tenacious Barrier
    4: Increase Max HP by 8552

    that's a bold decision.
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  12. Allayna Augur

    You should unblock it. I'm assuming the Tunare you are speaking of is Preservation of Tunare. The Knight's Yaulp IV has no stacking issues later in game with the preservation line and you're missing out on mana regen, attack, haste and a proc mod.

    But that's not really what this thread is about.
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  13. Kaeladar Journeyman

    Unfortunately druid is not a popular class on live so devs prefer to work on other classes and as a result even less people play it...
    In terms of druid being fun in raids, its really dependant on the performance of your raid, event design and RNG but playing a druid on a bad day where you die to untanked adds, or noone healing you when you are dotted and silenced, is one of the most frustrating thing i have seen in a video game. Auto attacking a mob to regen mana after death is not fun gameplay.

    One thing with druids is they can do a lot of things but they can't easily carry anything. Healing is too slow and limited to really matter, dps is good but not reliable and not sustained.
    If you run 10-20 players alt raids, a druid will be less interesting than another priest or dps, you need more powerful classes to do the heavy lifting.
    I think this alone is a big price to pay for the versatility and we shouldn't have to struggle with mana so much.
    Aenvar likes this.
  14. Szilent Augur

    I think it's a good thing on a meta level that the druid class kinda uniquely among the three priest classes really feels different when the character is un- versus partially- versus fully-developed. A top druid with 3800 hWis has 72 mana/tick more than a nooberboober with 2k hWis, and really feels it. One with Hero's Resolution filled out by doing all the stuff from the past 8 years has 172 mana/tick over the PLed port-monkey. Getting a raid ring, a Splinter of Potency, a Bixie Summoning Stone, a Tome of Manipulation, a Brell's Sacred Prayer Shawl -- playing a druid really feels different with all those boxes checked, and that's cool. That sort of "felt" development is not as available to clerics & shaman.

    There's substantial misinformation in the OP, but having Growth be a bit stronger would probably be a fine thing. It has advanced via the Replenishment stinger from 4530 at 96 to 10650 at 116, which is the same(ish) proportion as wizards' Harvest going from 21722 to 46257 across the same expansions, and magicians' Gather from 13033 to 26417, but that advancement doesn't account for Exuberance ticks going from 13*823=10699 per summoning to…still 10699. whoops.
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  15. Jack Elder

    I'd like to know what misinformation you are referring to. These are the base numbers, taken from the spell data. All of the classes have access to similar AA, gear, and buff spells to increase their mana regen and decrease their mana usage.
    You also mention the spells the casters get, like Shadow Harvest, but failed to mention the AA abilities that they also have, like Harvest of Druzzil. Every one of the caster classes listed get both a spell and an AA to recoup their mana.

    So, Hero's Resolution currently maxes out at 43, which is 86 mana a tick, which is half of what you are claiming. You can find that here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/heroic-aa-still-capped-at-tol.287451/
    Even if I had 0 ranks of Hero's Resolution, that would be a difference of over 32 minutes to regen enough mana to cast one cast of Nature's Fiery Wrath at it's base cost.

    I'm not sure where you were going with the playing for 8 years verses a port bot but whether or not a toon has been playing for 17 years or 1 year, shouldn't make the difference between being woefully behind your peer classes or still being woefully behind your peer classes but with just more gear and aa. I've been playing a druid since 2005 and while I haven't played since TBM, I am playing now and upgrading my gear and working on all the new AA. That doesn't mean I don't know how to manage my mana. I've raided with top end guilds with mana drain events.

    I'm not sure what you read, but nowhere does this post say druids should have infinite mana. It asks for enough mana back to cast Nature's Wrath spell line twice, like every other caster class gets. I'm not asking for anything about mana regen. That is already increased with AA, gear, augs, and buffs from other players, like every other caster class uses.

    What do druids get over other classes that justifies punishing them disproportionately to those classes.


    I find the pushback on this thread really interesting. No one is asking for any classes to have anything taken away from them. It's merely stating that while every other caster class has had their mana recouping spells and aa keep up with the mana cost of spells, druids have not. While every other priest class has gained more healing tools, druids have been left out. I'm not asking for druids to be getting their own line of new and improved druid only spells and AA. I'm simply asking for druids to be treated the same as the rest of the priest classes and be given access to a similar set of tools.
    Aenvar likes this.
  16. Szilent Augur

    Dismissing mana preservation across the board is misinformation, as it pretends druids don't benefit from Great Wolf 100% of the time instead of a max of half time for other classes. Other classes that notably have to be grouped with a druid to benefit, which is super rare for other priests in particular.

    If for the sake of argument we put the whole raid in the druid's group for Group Spirit of the Great Wolf 4 minutes out of 7.5, the druid themselves would still benefit above and beyond that buff's efficacy for 30s of overlap at 60 mana/tick, and across the 3.5 minute gap at the full 140/tick of Spirit of the Great Wolf. 5200 mana total, which actually pales in comparison to the mana preservation advantage, 19.5% on the self buff, 13.5% on the Group.

    The debuff version of recast delay on Growth is a substantial upside, not handicap, as it not only allows swapping that spell gem to a more productive spell in the intervening 5 minutes, the debuff goes away if you die. So in the unfortunate event of a death, the druid isn't out of luck on this tool. It can't be wasted by early use as others' tools are.

    Cle Yaulp is 290/tick, it doesn't matter how often the buff is put on. so 14500 on 5 minutes, not 34500.
    Pal Yaulp is 120/tick, so 6000.

    For magicians and wizards, you gloss right over just how much damage their highest mana cost nuke actually does. More pointedly, how little those do compared to the druid spell you're most concerned with. How many casts they get is only interesting if it doesn't take many more casts than that to keep pace with a druid dot. Druids, after all, have their version of Mag Spear / Wiz Ethereal with the Roar line of nukes. You're just not real concerned with them, are you, since it kinda sucks compared to the dot. Less dps, less damage per mana, way less damage per cast.

    The necro spell can keep pace, but we're right on back to nonsense arithmetic on mana regen. Lunacide is 626 per tick, no matter how many times it's recast, for 31300 mana over 5 minutes but also it overwrites Voice of Perception (we'll ignore Perception's mana pool buff) so it's actually just 626-227 = 399/tick, so 19950.

    And none of those three classes have priest heal spells in their pocket, a secondary "guess I'll just play the support half of my class since that costs nearly no mana" mode.

    Further, if Cle & Pal & Nec self buffs count (as long as they're things that stack with Skin+Perception+SE), then so does Dru "Mask" line for 86/tick.

    Hero's Resolution, which comes from playing content across the past - pardon me not eight, ten from CotF through NoS - expansions/years, increases mana per tick by 86, and also raises the cap on worn mana regen by 86. Bingo bango, 172. When the bugged cap is fixed, that'll be another…whatever, some number, again times two for the direct mana and the item regen cap.


    All of which just points to some rhetorical overreach. The point that Bolstered Growth (specifically the Exuberance part of it) hasn't had proportional advancement didn't need any disingenuous embellishment.
  17. Dre. Altoholic

    Not that one.
  18. Warpeace Augur

    Druids are currently double dipping and doing way better at DPS than healing.
  19. Kaeladar Journeyman

    The mana preservation stuff and gear in general does help, also makes it less likely to die and lose mana. But some people are coming back to EQ after big breaks and don't have the time / power to farm all the stuff, it makes it very hard to recruit druids and have them be useful. But I agree that the feeling of progression is nice. The after death recovery should be better at least, having to rely on focused paragon and/or bard regen is not good.

    I play druid and magician on raids as DPS.
    If I die early on a fight as a druid on a 40 min fight, I will end up doing something in the order of 650K DPS sustained over 40 min starting from 0 mana.
    With magician who has lower gear, if I die early too on a 40 min fight, I will still do about 1.3M DPS over 40 min.
    It could be worse for druid, but it's quite a punishment compared to the normal no-death DPS and what other classes can do. And the thing with druid when you recover, is that you need to save mana a lot for your burns (mini burns with twincast every 5 min and big burns every 15 min), so between the burns you have to aggressively save mana to make it available for burns, while the magician can go full DPS cycle quite fast and have fun actually playing between burns.
    And yes magicians are OP but the recovery gap between the 2 classes is really big.

    I think it would be nice to have something to recover that we can do in a more active manner to recover mana and doesn't involve staff melee attacks. Like magicians have with reclaim energy where they can choose to stop doing DPS and actively recover their mana pool.
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  20. Allayna Augur

    There's a lot here and having played a druid myself for far longer than I've played a paladin, I'd like to chime in.

    The OP did a disclaimer that AAs, gearing, etc was not calculated in to those numbers but they did also leave off things like how mages can benefit from an endless supply of mana from monster summoning/reclaim energy.

    I dusted off my druid for this bit. I say dusted, but max hero's resolution, fortitude and vitality, raid geared, albeit a few years back, but all focus remain for level 120.

    Butt naked combat mana regen, no buffs, no gear, no mount blessing etc:

    266

    Fully geared, with the best mana preservation available at 22% to level 120, (we're not 125 so it's fine). Best wolf (single), the Knowledge of the Past 26 shadow buff, Jann's Veil, Mask of the Duskage Tender, Luclinite Blessing, Mount Blessing Kala...but not on a mount (indoor zones are a thing)

    874

    NSW RK II - 26267 base cost becomes (5844 - 14249) with a primary spec of evocation/secondary spec of conjuration.
    This obviously includes the 22% mana preservation from the raid focus as well.

    So we're still talking a best case scenario of 3 casts IF you get the low end cost or 1 cast if you get the high end cast using Bolstered Growth and waiting the 13 ticks to get the full mana amount?

    Same scenario under group wolf by the way

    Mana regen 814

    NSW RK II - 26267 base cost becomes (8471 - 14775)

    So again, a best case scenario of 2 casts, worst case of 1 cast?

    No issues with the rationales here personally. For a spell gem to be freed it would be nice to move to an AA but that downside would be what you listed above, can't reuse if you die.

    Aye, no issues here either.

    The base damage of NSW RK III is 38777 initial nuke followed by 3 ticks of 37188 for a total base damage of 150341 damage for a BASE mana cost of 27843.

    Spear of Molten Luclinite RK III is 80498 base damage for 10070 base mana cost.

    Looking at base costs, the damage return per mana cost is nearly 8 fold for Spear, is it just over 5 fold for NSW. I understand the intricacies of mana preservation, including wolf affect this number but the easiest way to compare was base.

    I don't necro. But on my earlier math I specifically didn't include "outside help" like Voice of Perception or Spiritual Erudition buffs in the mana regeneration, but I can here.

    227 for VoP and 192 for SE = 419

    419 + 874 = 1293 standing combat mana regen buffed, raid geared, under our best wolf ability.

    The hamstrung support class? 4th best to cleric, shaman, and paladin? Unable to effectively heal target's target, they have the remote line, which they can only load one of. They have the ecliptic line, which is once a minute. They lack a reliable way to spam heal quickly, since all three base heals are timer tied to lower level lines, preventing what every other priest can do. They lack a heal over time, they lack an AE splash ability.

    It is disingenuous to say "because druids get heals they should suffer". Other classes listed have niche abilities that they are not the worst at, necromancers are pet classes that are the best at dotting, have feign death pulling, stellar at solo. Magicians are arguably better than wizards at nuking, again, a pet class, summoning various items to help along the way, including CoTH. Pet tanking is incredibly useful and shouldn't be discounted.

    You are pretty blatantly wrong in your understanding of this, based on the numbers above. But I'll reiterate it here.

    266 naked combat mana regen at level 120, with the Knowledge of the Past 26 shadow buff AA of 132 mana regen, 45 from mental clarity AA and the supposed 172 from what you are saying, my combat mana regen SHOULD be 349.

    45 + 132 + 86 = 263

    I made a level 1 druid, the combat mana regen was 1.

    So I'd say that 86 mana regen, not 172 for Hero's Resolution is actually tested and accurate and you maybe were misrepresenting the data...unintentionally, hopefully.

    I personally didn't get that from the post. There were many points in the OP thread that actually said the opposite, that these were the basest of numbers and they were returning to game and noticed that mana was a massive issue. But I broke it out more in depth to show real numbers with a raid geared druid, with significant character development.
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