A quick glance at your previous comments leads me to believe that you may be lost.

forums.worldofwarcraft.com is apparently the site you are looking for.

Please enjoy frolicking madly with the other screen lickers over on the official forums.

The 5 second rule is not "out of combat". It means that you get full mana regeneration after not casting for 5 seconds, even during combat. Spirit reliant classes such as priests used this to "take a break" from casting as a way to regen their mana pool - the 5sr dance.

The thing they're trying to nerf is the way a lucky clearcast proc can shoot your mana through the roof. We've all been there as healers. Even at your spammiest, you'll have those moments when you get a clearcast proc of whatever form your class has and hold off for just a few extra seconds to get yourself a couple thousand mana back.

As a priest, if I got a Surge of Light and followed it with Inner Focus, I could manage 5-10k mana back depending on how the fight was going.

@Amak

I understand what the 5 second rule is, I'm just not sure what they're trying to do here with their reduction in 'out of combat mana regen'. The reason I mentioned the 5SR is because I thought maybe it was a typo or it had been phrased incorrectly.

@AyaJulia
Ok, so how does 'out of combat mana regen' being reduced by 40% affect the mana you're going to regen with clearcasting in your example? I assume the mana you're going to regen from your Surge of light/inner focus comes from the 5SR because you're effectively not spending mana for a few more seconds?

While "out of combat" and "outside the 5sr" are not precisely the same thing, in terms of regeneration of mana from spirit they are. You get full mana regen anytime you are outside of the 5sr, regardless of whether you are still in combat or not. Your combat status really is a red herring; it's whether you are casting that's important. But people interchange the phrases because it makes no difference for the topic under discussion..

I wasn't aware that the Priests where getting such huge mana surges by going outside the 5sr. I don't get surges like that on my Druid. Having said that, my own opinion is that the change will actually have little impact on the game for most players. But we'll see.

Thanks for the explanation Daniel. That makes sense now. So the whole thing is actually about the 5SR and doesn't have anything to do with 'in combat' or 'out of combat' mana regen.

Just seems to be a weird way of saying it in the patch notes.