There are already spells in the game that you do more/less damage based on health. How it will probably work is:

75% - 100% mana = +60% damage
50% - 74.9% mana = +40% damage
25% - 49.9% mana = +20% damage
0% - 24.9% mana = +0% damage

Therefore, never nerfing you past normal damage based on how much mana you have, just buffing you as an incentive if you keep your mana higher (which you obviously will want to do now).

Sounds like lot of fun stuff in Cataclysm. However, my dear Christian, I didn't see anything yet for we few remaining Frostfire mages? We had a nice time at the beginning of Wrath but have kinda' faded since, do you think the elementalist spec might make a comeback in Cataclysm?

I'm sort of picturing it so you want to time Evocate right before the Blood(Mage)lust so you have your most mana for the burn phase.

Unless arcane mages have mana regen near the scale of rage generation.. meaning it's retarded and yes you can blow through your mana and have to wait several seconds for a recharge.. or a steady pacing means you never dip below 75%.

@Celeane

That's what I'm thinking too. It's still rather early to tell how they're going to work the Mana-to-Damage idea, but I'm still sticking with my Strength of the Stream/Name in the Snow (haven't figured which I like best yet) analogy.

What if it's a really long 25 man and/or heroic? Should I look at this as writing an essay instead of my name and therefore funnel (evocate) and drink beer (mana pots/sapphires) as quickly as I can fit them into my rotation to top off my mana pool (bladder)? I know MP5 is getting removed from the game, but are we going to be fighting with healers over whatever replaces it?

I thought (for about a second) how funny it would be if Druid Tree form was more and more susceptible to fire damage the lower their mana was; As the tree became drier, it burned easier.

Then I realized it's a bad idea to tie things to the amount of a resource you HAVE to spend to play the game.

o.O

@murabayashi.harukaze
Deathfrost is for FFB (blue).
FB to set up winter's chill, whatever form of Replenishment we still have, and Deathfrost, FFB spam (with occasional Brain Freeze proc, Deep Freeze, or Ice Lance)
Repeat as necessary

Which is a mirror for FFB (red)
Scorch, Combusken
FFB spam (with occasional Pyroblast, Living Bomb and Flaming Orb)
Repeat as necessary

It just stays up longer than Combustion

I don't think it will be the percentage thing that was mentioned, the increased damage with high mana will be on a sliding scale, otherwise it does not fit with the mastery system.

The more points you have in arcane, the bigger the bonus will be, so we might get +.5% per talent point in arcane over 51 for 100% mana, then degrade the bonus by the percentage of mana, so if we had 3 extra talent points, then we would get +1.5% at 100% mana and it slides down to .75% at 50% mana.

Slightly more complicated maths wise, but the idea is to have something that increases with mastery, not a straight buff.

@Josh: The percentages are irrelevant. Whether it's a bonus at the high end or a penalty at the low end, the simple fact remains: As the boss fight continues, your damage output will drop. It doesn't matter how well you manage your mana, unless you have some magical way to pot/gem/evocate so often it stays at or near 100% for an entire boss encounter, your damage will drop as the encounter goes on. More of a penalty or less of a bonus is a matter of semantics - it's all less damage.

Two mana management systems being proposed for the expansion where a core design goal is casters not having to worry about running out of mana. Seem odd to anyone?

"Sounds like lot of fun stuff in Cataclysm. However, my dear Christian, I didn't see anything yet for we few remaining Frostfire mages? We had a nice time at the beginning of Wrath but have kinda' faded since, do you think the elementalist spec might make a comeback in Cataclysm?"

Unless they mess up the value of mastery tree bonuses frostfire died with the announcement of that system.

I think that's likely a true statement but the reality is, like everything in Belt's post: we have no info. It's all taking whirls at the guess-o-matic. More fun than productive.