I currently have MC1. Is it better to put more points into MC or wis? Am thinking MC but wanted some advice. Probably a stupid question but post away :)

Wis is about 6.1, forget exactly now, mana per point over 200. 3aa for +10 wis cap = about 61 mana. +1 mana/tick = 60 mana per 6 minutes.

If your fights last more than 6 minutes (any time you XP likely!) then MC is better.

With TR nerfed I now can no longer spend all my mana on a raid. Ever. Period. With good mana regen I can nuke hard enough to pull agro off our tanks. Our debuffs and DOTs, obviously generate even more agro per mana. Now our heals look like mana for mana are more agro than our nukes. So for raids, both are probably totally useless skills for you. Welcome to being a caster who can't cast.

Don't worry about it. I'd recommend getting MC 1 because of the low point cost, but don't get the next two levels if you are short on points. The benefit of 1 mana/tick for each level is relatively minor.

Same for wisdom for that matter. Unless you plan to buy it in large doses (e.g., you plan to get to 355), a little bit isn't going to affect your game playing very much.

With that having been said, I went for 355 wisdom first (buy the caps, then the wisdom points), THEN went back and got MC 2 and 3.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So for raids, both are probably totally useless skills for you. Welcome to being a caster who can't cast. [/quote]

You know, been feeling this badly past couple days on our multiple, endless tries at RZ. I cant even @#%$ sneeze or the mobs come after me now. God forbid a mez should break after I TR'd ANYONE in the vicinity, even someone who was doing NOTHING AT ALL, cause that mob will just make a b-line right for me, and then I die.

In fact, last night I asked a couple of my druid friends to see if it was even possible for them to empty their mana bar by either nuking or healing or both before getting killed. None of us could.

I dont empty my mana bar when I xp in a group either. (Not regularly at any rate.) It's difficult to spend mana without an sk or pally tank taunting to high heaven. Risk a nuke or a heal and it's curtains against this stuff.

Soloing I dont empty my mana bar either, but I do use a fair amount of it, and every point of mana regen or mana saved cuts my downtime, so that's the way I've been spending my points. It also helps after dying a lot to have better mana regen. I feel better with a full mana bar even if I cant do anything with it without dying again.

Tia

Empty a mana bar? Hell I'm gtg at 30 percent because I know first heal spell I cast I'm probably dead again. So nice to have these 2 new pop heals (Nature's infusion and karana's renewal) that are completely useless above teir 3 planes.

I've been playing a healing druid for 3+ years, so please don't try to tell me how to manage my agro. I'm well aware of how to manage agro, this is not a normal agro management problem. No one should automatically gain agro almost every single time they throw a spell.

So now we've virtually been forced to quit doing anything accept waiting to die when we throw that 1 life saving backup heal or KR. No more debuffing, no more nuking when time allows, no more regening, no more buffing, just stand back and wait until you just absolutely have to throw a heal to keep someone live so that you can die, rez, loot, med back a bit of mana and do it all over again next time.

After the last few days I've forgotten what a full mana bar looks like but it's not because I'm actually getting to use the mana in it, it's because it's never there anymore thanks to all the rez'ing.

At this point I wouldn't suggest mc or wisdom as good aa's buys but ND3 and Lightning Reflexes probably just got alot more appealing to alot of druids. /sigh

Not getting aggro depends on the situation, and the experience of the group you're in.

For instance, all of the mobs in PoP are about severe aggro control. I find I can generally heal at the start of a fight, but have to time debuffs (like hand of ro) and nukes to not draw aggro. So, I dot first (but not with Ro's), and then I can debuff and nuke about halfway through.

In groups where I'm the healer, then I generally have not had an aggro problem. On named mini's in BoT I start casting CH as the MT is engaging. If I don't start then, then I run the risk of MT dieing if a slow doesn't land. It doesn't matter what class the MT is (warrior, sk, or paladin), the whole group knows we all have our roles to get the battle under control so no one dies.

Personally, I would go for as much mana as possible - so up your wisdom cap. Items (as you get them) and the new pop kei+ spells will push you far above old 255 cap. I woulldn't worry about what's best for soloing. You should be tuning your skills for groups and raids. Some clearing fights to mobs are more intense than the boss mob itself. They can consume lots of mana over time, and you're useless for healing or nuking or debuffing once you go oom.

Confusus say, is always better to have rather than to gather.

Uh.. or something.

In other words, if you can spring for it, it's better to have a bigger storage of mana then it is worrying about how fast you'll get it back.

Look at the worst case scenario. At the MC3 level you're talking 6 points for 1 tick of mana.

12 points of wisdom at L65 is ~80 mana or so (78 if the 6.5 per point is correct).

80 mana at 1 / tick will take 8 minutes to "equal out" cost. If your kite (if you're kiting) or battle (if you're doing an all out mana dump) will last longer than 8 minutes, you're better off buying MC3 than you are straight wisdom.

Personally I think that with the advent of huge +wis items out there, it's not very hard to get to 355. Maybe at the moment it's still only the top couple of guilds that have people hitting it, but ask yourself if, in 6 months, you think you have a shot of having 355 wis via items. If so, I would personally consider spending those points elsewhere for skills that you don't KNOW will be invalidated down the line.

So, IMHO buying MC over wisdom is a much better plan in almost all cases.

Remember too that C3/4/5 have huge +wis and +mana (~27 and ~250?) as well, so it isn't really necessary to get all the way to 355 via items. Personally I don't cap wis at 355 unless I've got a c3+, but I'm happy with that.

I also haven't bit the bullet to buy mc3 yet either. LR2 or MC3? Tough choice but I think I'm going LR first.

Glynna, between the two choices you give. I'd go with Mental Clarity first.

Reasoning
1) It's outside of all caps.
2) When the boosted mana pool is consumed it will take longer to regen.
3) It makes exping easier. As the average quad-kite in POP takes 10 minutes or so, thats another 100 points of mana. You're Ahead. Of course, a selo's horse is better ;) Estimate, 1 tick in 4 you get to med for full. 20 mana every 4 ticks = Ft5

As far as I'm concerned the order of AA's are.
1) Mana preservation - SCM
2) Spell slot preservation - RC, SoTW, Exodus
3) Raid Skills - MGB
4) Grouping Skills - Dire Charm
5) Mana Regen - Mental Clarity
6) Raising Caps - Stat/HP/Resists etc
7) Mitigation Skills

People's priorities are different, there is no set guide for this stuff. I can honestly tell you though, the extra 400 hp from mitigation skills rarely will save you. A lot of the second/third/fourth tier mobs hit for 500 to 700 damage a swing on trash mobs. The best thing you can do is keep your melee's alive, and the debuffs off of them.

Iegil Eyriewind
Fury's Edge
Morell Thule

Iegil,

As I am just really starting out in my aa's (after the first basic six), I found your list of order of aa's very helpful!

Just as an update to the original question of this thread:

After much research on Magelo, SEQ forums, and a few other places, it appears any WIS over 200 (NOT 255, but 200) is worth 4.66 mana at level 60, and 4.73 at level 61. I didn't figure the numbers for other levels, but it should be linear.

So if you're over 200 WIS already, and are level 60, 2 AAs into WIS will net you 4 WIS, or 18.66 mana at level 60. Those same two AA points could buy you MC1, which is an extra point of mana regen per tick.

At that ratio, I'd prefer MC1.

Tat

I'm at Flowing Thought 14 atm, and MC2. I'm going to pickup MC3 I think. Mana regen > stored mana at all times.

As a backup healer, we die a lot, as a nuker we die a lot. I only drain my mana (from FM to OOM) once every coupld raids with a 280 wisdom.

However, after death, they say pulling uber_mob_01 in 3 minutes in raid chat. It doesn't matter how much mana your pool is. All that matters is how quickly your battery fills up.

wtf

whoa...double trouble...

/ducks for cover
/gets popcorn

/asks Chenier to get him a popcorn while she's at it.