So I'm a new druid on TLE, never played one before but they seem pretty fun! The question is about mana management. I'm the sort of player that wants to play at the peak of my classes abilities. Which as a druid means DPS'ing even if I'm the healer. But I have no tools for getting mana back and if I do DPS I run out of mana really fast. Does this change in future expansions? Or is that the balance of the druid? You have to sort of pick what you're doing or face the OOM consequence?
Sadly, if you are wanting to dps as a druid, this just gets worse and worse as you progress through the expansions. Healing however does not suffer the same fate. The dps and mana cost are both massively boosted at the high end, so you'll want all the mana and tricks you can get.
That's kind of what I was afraid of. I like the idea of such a high utility class, but guess over the years they've really just become healers with a little flair. Or maybe a lot of flair.
Not true at all. My main is a 109 druid and I am hunting in EoK Frontier Mountians and for my 3box, I play the role of tank. Yes!!! Tank for you none believers, and we do right nicely.
I'm not sure what you mean by TLE? TLP perhaps? So for Druid, the majority of their spells are low mana. The exception of course being DoTs. The basic premise behind Druid mana was stackable preservation and mitigation. Get Specialized Alteration+Evocation Augs. They eventually account for 2% stackable preservation. By the VoA expansion, between their Spell Casting Reinforcement, Hastened Lycan Soul (or whatever this was renamed in the grouping of AAs) and Druid class BP focus we got tot he point where our Black/White Wolf AAs stay on permanently. Which is an additional 10-12% preservation on either beneficial or detrimental spells. Which sort of forces you to focus on one side of the Druid and accept a slightly higher mana cost on spells on the other side. Plus items that return mana on cost like the UF Shawl and several Alleviation type procs. It should eventually get you to the point where the only time you lose mana is after a death, mana drain or if you're casting lots of DoTs. In RoF this is addressed with the bear pet Spell that returns mana and can be used every 5 minutes. It accounts for about 10k? Mana recovered. If DPSing I'd cycle two Nukes and only use DoTs with GoM procs.
Thanks for the feedback! Yes TLE = TLP Sounds like it eventually gets better but that DoT's are used sparingly. Right now I only have 1 nuke and 2 dots anyways. The dots are are more mana efficient if they last full duration. Nuke is 2.8 dmg per mana Dot 1 is 3.7 dmg per mana Dot 2 is 4.7 dmg per mana I can only kill 3-4 mobs before I'm out of mana and have a 5 minute wait for the next pull. Despite being just about as well geared as possible for my low level. It's brutal, though of course it was worse when this content was released. I guess grouping is the only way to survive for now. Kinda thought druid was going to be more soloable.
At high levels, we get a mana-refresh spell that helps a bit (one at 96, with an upgrade at 106). Also note, when you are in OOC (out of combat) rest mode, you go from 0-100% in 3 minutes. Not 5 minutes. With the introduction of OOC regen many years ago, it's now more efficient to blow your mana quickly, and then rest in OOC mode to regen faster (much faster than normal regen, even with buffs). So, if you're soloing, don't be afraid to blow your mana quickly, and then regen. As an example, when I have my normal buffs, I have a medding regen rate of 600 mana/tick. In OOC regen, I get back 3.33% of my mana pool/tick. My mana pool is about 112K, so 3.33% = ~3739 mana, more than 6 times my medding regen rate. Now, it sounds like you're still pretty low level (I'm guessing in the teens or twenties). Give it some time, and things will get better.
Thanks Tatanka. I'm on a progression server, so we don't get OOC yet. Wish we did though because you're right 3 minutes isn't bad at all. Glad to know it does get better though!
As a druid you are going to be about flexibility, not being the whole symphony at once. We can do many things fairly well so can manage to get stuff done. We aren't the best at anything except making people into wolves whether they want to be or not. Depending on level and playstyle you will change your spell lineup to suit your needs. DD when it has to drop fast, DoT when you can take some time and med up between kills. In a group you are probably going to be healing at least part of the time, but that isn't really mana intensive as much as it is time. If the group is taking a while to kill a mob tossing a dot on it will help and you will be able to lean on others for mana via buffs song or mod rods. Mana recovery is always going to be a big thing for a druid, we can burn thru our pool a lot faster than we can recover it if we don't pay attention. Soloing at least at the lower levels you can root rot or snare kite in some situations. Debuff and dot the mob then back up and sit to recover a little mana. You do need to maintain situational awareness for this or adds will take your lunch tho.
