Raid Rx: A new balance for intellect and spirit in Mists of Pandaria
by Matt Low 
Nov 18th 2011 at 2:00PM
One of the proposed revamps coming in Mists of Pandaria is the way intellect and spirit interact with each other in regards to healers. For the new healer, understanding the current formula for mana regen can be a little daunting. To make it really easy, let's just say that it plays off both your spirit and your intellect. However, your intellect has a gradually increasing impact on how much mana you gain back in combat situations as your gear improves.
It appears that will no longer be the case heading into the next expansion. Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) helped shed some light on the issue in a blue post earlier in the week.
The highlights?
- Intellect becomes a sheer throughput stat
- Spirit controls the rate of mana regen
- Mana pools will remain fixed
I included some of the passages that I felt would be particularly relevant to healing as we move forward.
Ghostcrawler, via Nethaera
Hey all, here's some more information from Ghostcrawler about this topic-
This is our intent. We aren't trying to nerf healers across the board, and if we were, there are cleaner ways to do that. What we want to do is make the role of the stats less ambiguous. Currently, when Intellect drives mana pool and Spirit drives mana regen, then they are both longevity stats and interact in complex ways. With the change we are proposing, Intellect provides bigger heals and Spirit improves longevity. For healers, there should not always be a clear cut answer. Intellect may still be the superior stat, but not by as much as it is today. (Again, for healers -- DPS specs aren't designed to run out of mana if they use their regen mechanics every now and then.) Mana pools can still be large (we are thinking 100,000 mana at level 85) so that it doesn't feel too bizarre to existing casters and doesn't feel too much like rage or energy.
This is our intent. We aren't trying to nerf healers across the board, and if we were, there are cleaner ways to do that. What we want to do is make the role of the stats less ambiguous. Currently, when Intellect drives mana pool and Spirit drives mana regen, then they are both longevity stats and interact in complex ways. With the change we are proposing, Intellect provides bigger heals and Spirit improves longevity. For healers, there should not always be a clear cut answer. Intellect may still be the superior stat, but not by as much as it is today. (Again, for healers -- DPS specs aren't designed to run out of mana if they use their regen mechanics every now and then.) Mana pools can still be large (we are thinking 100,000 mana at level 85) so that it doesn't feel too bizarre to existing casters and doesn't feel too much like rage or energy.
I feel that this is the system Blizzard should have settled on going into Cataclysm.
We have come a long way since classic. Remember how the first concept of mana regeneration functioned? Mana regen would temporarily stop after a spell had finished casting. After 5 seconds, it would then begin to regen. That was the origin of the five-second rule.
At least now, it'll continue nonstop. To make life easier for everyone, we don't have to worry about deciding between two mana regen stats anymore. With spirit controlling regen, we might need to blend in some hybrid intellect and spirit attributes more often than not. If the start of the this expansion is any indicator of what it'll be like when the next one comes out, something tells me we'll be needing to stack a jaw-droppingly high amount of spirit just for endgame.
Who wants to guess how much mana we'll have at level 90? I'm thinking around 222,000 as a start.
Ghostcrawler, via Nethaera
In addition, we think fixed mana pools will help healers scale better with content. Some players seem to be interpreting the 5.0 design as healing 5-player dungeons should be easy but healing raids should be very hard. That is certainly a better situation than dungeons being very hard and raids being easy, but neither is really the goal. We want the increase in difficulty to be linear. If you can handle dungeons, you should be able to graduate to raids with the normal incremental gear improvements that most players get. This is particularly true of normal and Raid Finder difficulty settings. Heroic raiding will remain more challenging, but even in that case, keep in mind that the challenge of a raid encounter is often its complexity, which requires the group to learn and execute a lot of mechanics.
Fixed mana pools is another concept that's new. The more I think about it, though, the better I think it will be for us overall.
I've stopped thinking about my mana bar in terms of absolute numbers. I've started thinking about how much of my bar gets eaten up by my healing spells. While my Prayer of Healing may have eaten up 10% of my mana bar earlier in the expansion, now it only affects 4% overall (please note that those numbers are hypothetical). Instead of casting Prayer of Healing 10 times before running out of mana, I can cast it 25 times now.
The concern now shifts to finding that equilibrium between throughput and regeneration. You can have high throughput and low mana regen, but that would turn you into a bottle rocket healer. After a limited amount of time, you'd be fresh out of gas. In other words, the thought process then shifts to asking, "How much of that mana bar is going to increase between the time I start casting and stop finishing this spell?" I have no doubt someone out there who is way smarter than I will figure out how much of each stat we need that will put us in that sweet spot.
The fact that both intellect and spirit affected regen to some disagree caused confusion to newer healers in general.
Ghostcrawler, via Nethaera
Gearing up will still be rewarding and meaningful. You'll still feel as powerful as you do today. Intellect and spirit will just do different things. If you find yourself routinely running out of mana on raid fights, you are probably either overhealing a lot or the group is taking a lot of damage that is intended to be avoidable. A fight like Phase 2 Beth'tilac on heroic is about as mana-intensive as things get, and that phase doesn't last very long, so your mana-regen mechanics and cooldowns should be sufficient to keep you going. That won't change in 5.0.
As a player who often runs dangerously low on mana during attempts at times, I can tell you that is due to slight additional overhealing. I blame it on healing paranoia. Ever see a target near you that has taken damage, but you can't really do anything about it? I'll sneak them a Renew or another spell. I find that I will sit there and watch a player take damage for what feels like eternity before using a heal because I'm not sure if anyone near them has seen them take those hits.
I really hope the developers can pull off these changes. I like the idea of the proposed changes but am a little concerned in terms of implementation and stuff. Have to wait and see!
Need advice on working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered. Send your questions about raid healing to mattl@wowinsider.com. For less healer-centric raiding advice, visit Ready Check for advanced tactics and advice for the endgame raider.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raid Rx (Raid Healing), Mists of Pandaria
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ObiChad Nov 18th 2011 2:25PM
It all sounds good to me. Int having such an effect on regen has always felt a little off every since spellpower was folded into it. I believe the change will make that make more sense, and have it be more obvious which stat you want based on how things are working for you.
I am curious to see if they can pull off a better balance of healing across the MoP endgame. They seem to have failed on that every expansion so far. Healing just changes so much from tier to tier, especially in regards to mana.
Do you think any of these changes will help them better manage that?
paulmewis Nov 18th 2011 2:24PM
One major benefit of this will the cessation of blanket nerfs to healers every tier due to raising gear levels to still keep mana meaning full to t12 geared folks which just hurts newly dinged 85's.
DPS wise this will hurt arcane (it their current format) most. With rising mana levels certain classes like warlocks, and spriests, have to use mana regen abilities/low dps abilities less and less often, so they will be affected too, within the confines of this new model. (Assuming class mechanics remaining untouched, which we have few ideas about in the MoP system.)
Task Nov 18th 2011 2:47PM
As an active Arcane Mage, I am a bit worried though after reading this, I'll be ready for the change and adapt accordingly.
Though those who use Gnomes for mana classes, will get a slight advantage with more throughput.
moladun Nov 18th 2011 3:01PM
I disagree. You can't think in terms of how things are now, you have to think in terms of the "fixed mana pool" future. Right now, as gear improves and mana pools increase dramatically, Arcane is silly hard to try to balance, to the point where most mages are arcane now, and a tier ago none were. In theory, it should be much easier to balance all 3 specs of mage now.
In MoP, as your gear improves, and you get more intellect and secondary stats, Arcane DPS should increase more linearly in regards to gear level, vs now where it is more exponential due to how mastery for them works in relation to the size of their mana pool.
What I worry about in this situation, is that you could literally have a "perfect" rotation for arcane with this. There will be X number of arcane blasts, mixed with Y number of arcane missles, and go into a regen phase after Z seconds, because your class will play like a swiss watch.
Jabadabadana Nov 18th 2011 5:19PM
Outside of unlucky failures to proc missiles, that sounds a whole lot like energy... a resource system that Blizzard has in the past claimed is a very hard system to avoid, because it's too easy to have everything fall into it.
My guess is you'll end up with random mana procs or more chance at free spells, or something of the sort to vary it up a bit.
Mitch_b_666 Nov 20th 2011 5:45AM
Task - it seems like a nerf to any gnome mana user who has over the new fixed cap or ever would've surpassed it, as Expansive Mind counts your gear too. But to be honest in this day and age the need for that extra 5% is pretty much 0 as I can't imagine anyone who has even the faintest clue about mana management will ever go oom.
Z Nov 18th 2011 2:28PM
I am really curious if this will lead to more frequent reforging between fights for healers than is the case now. Long endurance fights will favor regen, while short healing intensive bosses will favor throughput more. The choice between throughput and regen stats and how to balance them will indeed definitely become more important than currently is the case.
Also, this system lends itself well for the new talent system, where you could choose for either throughput or regen talents for different bosses. But I am not seeing a lot of that in the current proposed talents yet.
Boobah Nov 18th 2011 2:32PM
Just a thought, but... why do we need mana bars in the hundreds of thousands if we can't change them anyway? Make it another 100 point bar (or 1000 point, if you need finer numbers) from level one to cap. Spirit becomes mana regen rating; i.e., you need more spirit to get the same amount of regen as you level) and spell costs don't scale with level.
Shinae Nov 18th 2011 4:03PM
That's a good point; it would make sense with this new model. But it might make mana feel too much like rage or energy, and that's something the devs are trying to avoid.
Wilk Nov 18th 2011 2:34PM
Before the last blue post: "The fact that both intellect and spirit affected regen to some disagree caused confusion to newer healers in general."
Perhaps you meant 'degree' and not 'disagree'?
Other than that, I agree with this article. That fact that so many mana regen abilities give back a % of total mana instead of mp5 just makes people lean on int as a regen stat more than they normally would. (Poor water shield.)
liquidken420 Nov 18th 2011 2:44PM
"degree" may have been the intended word, but I like the use of the word "disagree" here, if for no other reason than there has often been plenty of disagreement amongst healers about how much regen is needed vs how much throughput. A noob healer will ask how much combat regen they need, healer A might say start at 2k, healer B might say go for 2400, healer C might say 'spirit be damned!'
Ben Nov 18th 2011 2:35PM
Makes me wonder
a) what will happen to spellpower? seems like spellpower = int under this method... kind of makes the whole swap from spellpower-> int seem unnecessary now, but okay.
b) should mana pool size change at all while leveling? i'm not seeing a purpose to the increase if our spell costs are going to increase at the same rate. sure it effectively "nerfs" spirit as we level in that case, but why not change spirit to a rating, like every other stat that gets nerfed while leveling? 1000 mana for everyone, spirit rating increases regen, all spells have a fixed mana cost, makes a lot more sense imo.
liquidken420 Nov 18th 2011 2:46PM
spellpower only appears on weapons, and it's there to make up for the fact that a 1:1 intellect:spellpower conversion will leave a caster a bit lacking in the damage dealing / healing throughput department, when compared to melee / physical dps. Outside of weapons, spellpower isn't a consideration.
Ben Nov 18th 2011 2:50PM
and under the new system what is int doing that spellcasting isn't?
Dan Nov 18th 2011 3:07PM
Well, right now Intellect provides a tiny bit of extra crit, making it superior to SP, so I assume it would continue to do that under the new system. Judging from what they're saying, they'd just make it so that Int doesn't increase mana and there's not that complicated algebra equation with how Int interacts with spirit; otherwise, Int and SP would remain largely the same.
gymboy91 Nov 18th 2011 3:11PM
Ya this is what I don't get...
I'm worried that intellect won't feel like a primary stat after this...they want it to be a sheer thoroughput stat, which is fine, but it seems like it is going to be just like spellpower and won't be as powerful as other primary stats (if they keep the boost to crit it may help this??)
Also it seems like they really want spirit to be more important than it is now...would it be beneficial to just make it a primary stat so intellect and spirit are on the same level of importance and therefore can be balanced against each other??
It seems that this change could make the other (thoroughput) secondary stats much less important than spirit and intellect, which is fine, but it feels weird to me that spirit would stay as a secondary stat and be balanced against haste/crit/mastery
Just a thought...hopefully someone can help me understand this better :-)
Paul Nov 18th 2011 3:23PM
Regarding Spell Power on weapons. You have to remember why it is there. It is there as a substitute to the lower swing damage from caster items.
Everything on an item (except for the default swing speed) is based on ilvl. The damage range on a melee item is affected by the ilvl. Since the damage range is reduced on caster items (to make them less desirable to melee), spell power is added as a direct replacement.
It's to make ilvl and stat distribution conform across the board. There would actually be nothing wrong with a caster weapon having all that spell power thrown into the intellect stat, but Blizzard recognise that a caster item with 611 stamina and 2645 intellect would look exceptionally odd next to a melee item with 611 stamina and 311 Strength.
The issue of that much intellect causing us to have silly manapool in the currect version of the game would be solved by reducing how much mana you gain per point of intellect.
Paul Nov 18th 2011 3:34PM
In case people are unsure about what I mean regarding why spell power is on caster weapons, take the DPS value of a two hander and multiple it by 3 (the base cast speed a spell has to have in order to gain 100% spell power co-efficient) and then compare it to the spell power value on a staff.
One handers make it harder to work out because you can't dual-wield caster items, and the disparity of the off-hand damage reduction, but if you take the DPS of a one hander and multiple it by 1.5 (the total DPS, at base value, when dual-wielding), then multiple that by 3, then you get...well, very similar, but slightly higher values. I assume at that point they take into account the intellect spell power of a caster off-hand, but I am guess at that point. It might have more to do with very few special attacks being affected by off-hand swings, so DW-melee get a slight buff.
Either that or I defuncted myself.
Boobah Nov 18th 2011 3:47PM
"You have to remember why it is there. It is there as a substitute to the lower swing damage from caster items."
Not exactly. It's there to make weapons an upgrade for casters the way it is for physical classes. And while it's not as big of a boost to get the next tier weapon for a mage vs. warrior, it's still a larger boost than any other piece of gear.
It IS true that Blizzard replaces weapon DPS with spell power, but your statement has cause and effect (mostly) backwards. Mostly, because sure as anything there were some folks who snagged caster weapons despite otherwise-useless stats; it's also why caster weapons have wonky swing speeds, too.
Boobah Nov 18th 2011 3:52PM
"but it seems like it is going to be just like spellpower and won't be as powerful as other primary stats"
Err... you mean as powerful as strength, which does nothing for damage aside from adding attack power? Or do you mean as powerful as agility, which does nothing for damage aside from adding attack power and critical chance? Because right now intellect does the exact same thing as agility, only it ALSO gives more resource (and as a consequence, more regen), and only that last bit is (known to be) going away.