Patch 2.4: Hunter Mana Issues
I wondered why I was running out of mana constantly while lackadaisically puttering around doing dailies today. Apparently there’s been an unintended (or at least unmentioned-in-the-patch-notes) change to mana regen that is affecting hunters. (Once I read about this and thought to look, I noticed that my own out-of-combat mana regen went from [edit: I was off by 5] 85 to 48.)
(Note: I try to avoid the more inflammatory and/or panicky hunter memes, but since I did honestly notice this change myself today, and since I was honestly puzzled about what was going on, it seems valuable to share.)
56 Comments
Manco se nace » Blog Archive » ¿Problemas de maná en hunters con el 2.4? - March 28th, 2008 @ 5:56 am UTC
[...] van dos sitios donde mencionan un posible problema con el maná regen en los hunters. Yo he ido a la [...]
Indeed – noticed immediately and puzzled over. This is a very bad change, particularly if aspect of the viper has little or no effect. I see little or no logic in this ‘change’. There was *some* logic albeit not logic I could accept, in nerfing the ghost wolves, but this has NO basis, unless our hunter voices are not as loud to the dev’s ears as other groups who feel slighted about silly things.
No idea. Do know this sucks.
::sigh::
I’ve been involved in other games where the focus changed, as did the player. From MMORPG to FSP for example. That was a drastic and horrible change, and tens of thousands of players bailed on it. I don’t say this is as intense but it seems that there might be ways to influence the devs on stuff, but hunters don’t seem to have that voice. Announcing traps? what’s the point of a trap? Yoohoo!! don’t step here!! Well ok, that should only affect PvP but still, what an odd change. are we *that* powerful? poor wittle rogues…tremble for I am HUNTER!
i digress.
Mania this, of all the 2.4 changes, really affects play, serious downtime, and more serious lack of sustained DPS. One (or if lucky two) critters before drinking? I thought I woke up a Mage!
shibumi the confused
2:4 Sobre la falta de mana | conOsinSemilia - March 28th, 2008 @ 7:57 am UTC
[...] le doy importancia, pero a continuacion en Manco se nace, Gio tambien se hace eco de este tema. En Mania’s Arcania tambien, en los foros ya hay varios hilos abiertos sobre el tema (aunque alguno aun no se entera [...]
I haven’t played much since 2.4 due to lack of free time, but it’s good to know it’s going to happen ahead of time. I feel really bad for those still coming up that are going to have no idea why they have no mana anymore.
I feel all sorts of shafted because I just got my Mana regen up to the point where I never really needed to drink for 5-mans, just pop AotV when I needed it.
I’m drinking a lot more now and I’ve been keeping AotV up constantly, which makes me want to respec out of Imp-AotH. It’s bad enough to have AotV and Blessing of Wisdom up and I STILL need to dring with a mostly SS/AutoShot rotation. Happy hunter I am not. BLARGH. Guess I need to grab some +int gems or hope Blizzard thinks of a non-nerfy way to aid us.
Also, do any of you notice your pet not holding aggro like it should? I know Hunters seem to cry about it every patch, but the Mobs really love me now. Did we get a slight DPS upgrade somewhere in there or a Growl glitch nerf?
When I was playing in Hellfire last night, in the course of an hour I went through 20 moonberry juice where I normally go through 1 or 2. And my cat could not keep aggro at all, as soon as I shot the target it dropped her aggro and came to me. I really hope that the fix this.
Mize
My theory is that the whole “resilience affecting mana draining effects” is broken and is hindering/preventing mana regeneration as well. Its just a theory.
They did however, break my beloved boar’s aggro. /cry /pout /stomp
this change was made to increase manareg for all classes with massive amounts of int
and it did, my heal-drood got 20 MP5 while casting and 50 while not casting
basically, the more int you have, the more manareg your spirit will provide
i dont know why it lowered the manareg for what seems many hunters, but crying about getting nerved all the time is just plain stupid
hunters got buffed to hell with aimed shot’s MS-effect and the ranged fighting in melee
so i say: get more int and the aspect of the viper will get you over the hill
No reason to attack someone for commenting about an obvious big change to playstyle. Make your opinion and let it be after that. Do you feel better about yourself now after pointing a finger at someone?
Yeah i noticed that the more intelect i have the higher my mana regen is O_O
as long as i use aspect of viper with underspore fronds and my power infused mushroom(200 mana per kill)
Children. Let’s think about this for a second.
They changed mana regen so that int effects how much mana your spirit regenerates. This means that for classes who stack int (mages, priests, paladins, druids, shamans) to not have what amounts to basically a constant evocation going, while still being able to see a bonus to their mana regen from a marginal (10 or so) increase or decrease in int, they had to nerf to HELL how much mana spirit alone gives you.
So, for classes who already have high intellect, the change was a slight increase, and they were all happy. For the one class that relies(d) heavily on an already tiny amount of mana regen, and does NOT stack intellect as a primary stat (though gets a good amount of it from our T5 and T6 armor [favoring MM, which again becomes the primary raiding spec in T6 content]), we get a shotgun to the balls.
I personally haven’t felt this nerf too hard, as I have a pretty decent amount of int. And I would imagine that people with better gear than me (full T5 to full T6) may actually be receiving a buff. For you non-raiding hunters, though, I have great pity.
Oh, and I have no idea what the pet aggro nerf is about either, but I’ve noticed it as well.
“I have no idea what the pet aggro nerf is about either, but I’ve noticed it as well.”
…
I really hope I don’t have to start my reviews all over again… T_T
I was wondering why I was going OOM in SM last night. I had never gone OOM before and was curious as to what happened, so it’s not just my playing technique eh?
In a raid, do you really think regen outside the 5 second rule is significant outside a few fights? (Also, raidbuffed I have close to 300 int anyway)
Here’s a good explanation about what happened.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5591050109&sid=1
400 int to get it back… and you’re SOL if you’re a lowbie or don’t raid.
We ask for a little hand up for our little buddies the pets and insted we get another nerf. WTF bliz every one elts asks for some thing, they get it or close to it, we hunters ask for some thing and get spanked and told “NO! Bad hunters asking for help, here is another nerf for your insolance.” So in others words I have noticed the seaming pet nerf, I have been useing my warp stalker and he has a hard enough time keeping agro over me and now I think I have mobs in my lap more often than not.
As a Beastmaster, I havn’t noticed my pet losing aggro -although hes pulling it off of warr’s easier, without growl – so its possible there was an unannounced change to aggro in 2.4. Such a change may explain why the aggro meter makers (like Omen) have comletely redone there programs for 2.4. But all of this in conjecture, as I have no real way of knowing.
As to the mana regen, yeah it sucks, but I’ll just have to take gear with a little more Int and I’ll probably be grabbing more Purple gems with Attk Pwr and mana/5. Can’t wait for AotV, that’ll probably save me a bundle in water.
So, I’m not paranoid or a conspiracy theorist! Phew! NONE of my pets can keep aggro off me anymore! Even when I just do auto shoot with the occasional steady shot or serpent sting! I am one very irate blood elf right now…
I did some math using the formulas in the link I posted. To get back the previous mana regen, I’d need 231 more int. But if I instead kept int the same and stacked spirit, I’d only need 41. That’s much more tolerable and could possibly be fixed just by boosting hunter’s base stats.
Conclusion is that if you’re having mana issues you weren’t before, get some spirit.
Math:
http://themystichunter.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/a-priest-explains-mana-nerf/
Mania darlin’, I know your probably gonna slap me on the wrist for this, but I am a bit aggrivated. But before I get to the scorching, I do feel the need to point out that this was not an intentional hunter nerf. A stupid, accidental one, but not a direct nerf gun pointed right at us. What makes it stupid is that Blizzard has been trying to work on our mana regen through Aspect of the Viper, and this change seems to smack part of that in the face. It makes little sense.
Now, to my anger. Agrod? Your a restoration druid. The most valued companion in arena’s, and my personal favorite healers since old Stratholme. You come in and call Shi a whiner, and yet you, in almost the same sentence, whine about our ‘buffs’ in a previous patch. One of which, the elimination of a dead zone, was a declared bug by Blizzard. The other? Mortal Strike on aimed shot? We never asked for. Hunters asked for fixes for pets, for mana regen, and more viablity for the survival tree. A few other things. But never MS. Your just ticked off because a hunter can aimed shot you and wauuuggghhhh, your overpowered heals aren’t as overpowered! They’ve just accidentally broken part of our mana regen (Don’t tell me to go regear. I shouldn’t HAVE to work on another stat this late in the game.)) they broke our Agility to AP over a year ago now, and they’ve apparently broken our pet aggro.
Oh, and Agrod? It might be wise in the future to reconsider before going to a hunter forum, run and managed by a hunter, before calling hunters whiners.
Agrod: Please do not attack other posters here. I’ve edite your comment very slightly to remove the bits that contined direct attacks.
Palladiamors: Aggravation is understandable, but please let it drop now.
Znodis said: “I really hope I don’t have to start my reviews all over again.” Believe me, I feel your pain! And thank you very much for that link — that was quite enlightening.
As a solo hunter with about 120 Intellect, and as someone who runs multiple lower level hunters constantly, I am not at all thrilled with the notion of waiting for a progression fix in WotLK. So I think that Planeshaper’s suggestion is a good one: We should encourage Blizzard to hotfix out a simple correction for level 1-70 hunters to help even things out.
I’m also interested in this possible aggro change. Has anyone seen any hard evidence or formulas for that?
Level 61 and grinding frostsaber rep, I noticed going oom, pet agro, and pet health issues. Solved with Spirit V scrolls for me and Sarge, and Aimed Shot as my openner (after marking and sending in Sarge). Gives him an extra 3 seconds to get that first bit of agg ;)
I have NO formulas but its evident that growl is broken not only on hunter pets but warlock pets as well
Agrod – Reading is fundemental. I wasn’t arguing against the change that Resilience now reduces mana-draining effects, I was simply stating my theory that the said change may be broken and thus, affecting mana regen.
Actually, I just tested the aggro change. On some mobs, pets are generating much, much more aggro. My wolf is holding aggro on most humanoid mobs through almost everything I can throw at them. I haven’t noticed a change on demons, and on beasts, it goes up and down. Against mechanical enemies, none of my pets can hold aggro. I’ll test this in various other locales and get back to you.
I’m very interested to see what you turn up, Palladiamors!
Palladiamors – Our main concern is with Boars and Cats mainly. :-) Got one to test for us?
It was soon after the patch I began to suspect something was different. It was when I first got to the plague lands that I went from 20 moon berry juices too 4, used six elemental waters, and four mana potions in a span of about 30 minutes when I had been holding those items for about 30 hours of play time. Hunters already have to carry food and ammo, now we have to carry mana regeneration stuff as well. Man my pack is gonna be full.
agro – noticed that right off on my lvl 60 orc hunter running ghost saber. I have *never* had agro problems with the saber until I got to Outlands and the very first event with a demon boar after 2.4. Seems like I do a lot of stance dancing to get them off me when the saber loses agro – something I’ve not had to do. I even find that just about anything will break agro at the very last of it’s health and head for me, regardless … almost as if pet agro wasn’t even there.
no math, no empirical data – apologies. I was going to wait to lvl 63 and grab a ravager and see how that might have been affected as well.
This has been a strange patch. caught myself thinking of trying to level up a druid or something :) egads!
I think they tried to make spirit more functional and unintentionally screwed it up badly. It isn’t just hunters who are effected though, everyone is. My Mage is having to drink far more often than she use to. Because Mana regen is now bound to Intel and Spirit, you almost have to have those maxed out to get any decent mana regeneration.
To Shibumi,
I tested all of this on my hunters and had no aggro issues. Now, I have Growl 2 on all my pets, and charge 2 on my boar (the fun of five hunters). Not a single pet had trouble holding aggro.
However, people using other ranks of Growl and Charge have had issues. I have wondered on the Blizz forums if this might be a problem with specific ranks and not with the whole mechanics.
I’ll pull out my cat, and my snake, and see how that goes. If you like I’ll test a lower level boar on one of my other hunters, but it probably won’t be as accurate.
Further testing with cat and serpent type pets reveals the same results. Tested each mob using the same pattern, each mob reacted in the same way, regardless of criticals by either pet or hunter. Further testing revealed that certain demons, most notably the infernal type enemies on the Isle of Quel’Danas, reacted like humanoid mobs, and could not be coaxed off of my pet. Also of note, not even intimdate would pull the mechanical mobs off of me, even if I’d done nothing but aimed and arcane shot on the target. Tested all of thee above with both kill command and without, no effect either way.
An interesting side note, pet healing now seems more erractic. I don’t mean mend pet itself, I mean it seems like my pets don’t need as much healing at times. Aspect of the viper is managing to keep my mana acceptable, but only just. Would hate to be involved in longer fights at this point.
Finally, just witnessed the ‘huge pet’ bug, still in game. Saw a lost torranche the size of a house. That being said, the beast was also, oddly, still called a Lost Torranche. Didn’t think you could space in pet names, so it struck me as odd.
Testing on lower level hunters seems to run parallel to the seventy, certain mobs are reacting to pets aggro with increased fervor, while others don’t seem to notice the pet at all. Going to test this on my fourty next.
Mania’s Arcania » Patch 2.4: Hunter Aggro Issues - March 28th, 2008 @ 7:36 pm UTC
[...] ever. I’ve also heard but been unable to verify that ranks Growl 7 and below are unchanged. Seidouyumi let us know that Growl Rank 2 seems unchanged, for instance. And Palladiamors tells us that he is [...]
Tests on the fourty, with growl rank four, reveal no change. Going to test the lower levels again, to see if I was innacurate. So far it seems like this is predominately a higher level problem.
I will also test on a high and low level warlock.
I don’t see a difference in my warlocks. Will test a bit more, might have a lot to do with the growl priorty. Still seems weird that the wandering machines refuse to be aggroed to my pet. Note to self, try misdirection.
I have noticed that my pet is holding aggro pretty well until i use mend pet and it seems like as soon as I use it everything comes at me. Andi have noticed that if my cat is holding aggro on multiple targets but only attacking one he will hold the one but the others eventually come at me, even feign death doesnt seem to help for long. And yes I have had major issues with mana as have others, i have had 20 elemental waters forever and now i am down to 4 in less than an hour.
Aggro on pet seems a bit touchy, but not broken. (Maybe there was a staelth increase in DPS *g*). Or there was an increase in heal aggro…
Mana regen is plain broken. For me it’s down to half. As a hunter, I am forced to invest in far more base stats than any other class. With BC Blizzard dropped spirit from Hunter useable gear, most of the heavy armour is perfectly tailered for Shamans not Hunters.
There are no available pieces with good AGI/INT/WIL +AP +Hit +Crit for Non-Raiders (even the self made items are lacking for a Hunter).
The change to mana regen was to help healing classes, it did more than well for Priests and Druids, not so well for Paladins (which was intended, according to Blizzard) and broke Hunters (looks like an unintended side effect, but Blizzard never cared much for Hunters anyway *eg*).
If you have your T5 or T6 it may not be that obvious, but for all other players, especially those who don’t/can’t raid the higher instances, this change is a major nerf! The class is broken!
Thank goodness it isn’t just my new gear that left my mana at 0 every battle. This is a terrible change for hunters like me, who are looking forward to some good fighting WITH OUT drinking water every five seconds. My first thought was, “Oh my god my gear sucked up my mana. Crapola!!!!!!” and felt pretty bad that I had to use only auto shot and a few stings, instead of aimed shot, arcane shot, etc.
My dad, on his preist, hasn’t noticed a difference. Probubly because he has loads of spirit and intelect?
I do hope that they change this a bit… I don’t really like playing a charecter that has to spend all day drinking water!
Running out of Mana in the longer boss fights has always been an issue. It seems you gotta pace yourself. We get so much dps when you are popping trinkets, Beastial Wrath, Rapid Fire in succession then Multi and Steady, along with the wide array of stings and traps you got, depending on your opponent, its easy to blow through the Mana, I try to pace myself during the longer fights, that will control aggroing anything to you, offer more than ample dps and give you enough Mana to complete the fight and keep your pet healed and in the game.
The dragon hawks seam to hold agro well as do the Owls but warp stalkers are still nix, Lizzy is mopeing in the stables while her two budies have all the fun. All I can say about the mana regen is do you really think they will fix it? Ok I admit it wasnt really done on perpous but still its really anoying. Its all in the pace you use your mana now, furthering our uselessness in raids is aufly agrivateing.
(yes my spelling is still bad please dont bring it up lol)
I’ve never felt this toon was useless until now, guess I’ll go back to solo so I’m not asking the mage for more h20 every 30secs. Mana regen sux!!! Aggro issue is evident on all my pets even my lowbie “Litterbox” elder springpaw growl2 claw2 if I use arcshot that’s it no more mob-kitty-love. ‘sigh
I haven’t yet touched my hunter since 2.4, but this does stick out for me, theorycrafting:
If, as it seems now, mana regen is now more affected by stacking Int than Spirit, doesn’t this make the Spirit stat itself close to useless? Perhaps the closest we’ll get to a “solution” for this is for Blizzard to blow away the Spirit stat entirely and just make mana regen solely dependent on Int? Perhaps making the +Spi gear add mp5 instead?
@Amber: Low INT coupled with low WIL leads to not enough mana regen. That’s the case for Hunters. Our equipment lacks at those two, now essential(!) stats since BC.
Short term solution for Blizzard: add WIL to all our Items (like it was before BC).
Long term solution: hire some designers that are worth their money *eg*.
Mania’s Arcania » Patch 2.4: Tiny Changes in Hunter Stat Display - March 30th, 2008 @ 6:00 pm UTC
[...] recording session, I expected my stats to be exactly the same now as they were then (except for mana regen, of course). But today I went ahead and took a look just to be [...]
Mana regen is a big blow to hunters. Only time I ever used to use viper was when in an instance and would save hawk for boss fights so I wasn’t constantly drinking and then switch to viper when aroud 30-40% of mana. In bg’s I was always in hawk except in av but now I can’t even try to take one base/flag in a bg without going oom so I just stay in viper all the time now. Blizz has officialy made aoth an endangered species.
I’m not too sure about the pet aggro issue. Due to my high crit rating I was pulling aggro off pets with growl 9 (or is 8 highest I forget) after just a couple shots. While farming it wasn’t too bad since mobs <70 would just die at my feet with a shot or with one swing from my axe. It’s a bit more of a pain now on the isle with the lvl 70 mobs since they have a few more hp, I find myself having to kite for a second to get an extra arcane shot on them.
Not yet mentioned here and wondering if anyone has noticed but I’m finding my pets Intimidation failing much more often in bg’s and pvp. Any one else?
The only Words i found for this Patch are “it sucks”.
When I startet a little BG in AV and after 10 mins when I arrived the allied Boss, our Warriors, druids and pets began to attack, after some secs I do. BUT after spelling Aimshoot I got the Aggro of the boss and got pinned down and I used the “Aggro-change shot” (don’t know the english name for the Shot who changes the aggro from your next 3 shots to a selected partymemeber… xD)
WOW more aggro than a Warri, a Dudu and a Pet together… oO
And this Mana-reggen change, I noticed it too… although i activated AotV I could only kill 3-4 lvl 70 NPC’s before I’ve got to regg myself…
Those changes are very boring for a Hunter like me and all other Hunters, hope Blizz got that and rechange it…
Happy Hunting from Germany ;)
M.-P. M.
Bad news for everyone whining their head off: the patch didn’t affect hunters that much.
This change does not significantly affect hunters while in combat. Hunters have no mediation type ability, and will be inside the 5second rule for the duration of any meaningful encounter. This change only hurts passive mana regen while running from one mob to the next or if you spend a good chunk of time autoshotting to begin with (and if you like autoshotting that much, you can’t need the mana that badly)
Pretty much every other class, with the exception of warlocks and feral druids, needs to eat and drink regularly to stay at full pace grinding or 5-manning. Complaining that you actually have to drink like everyone else will earn no sympathy from anyone, except maybe other hunters.
All that being said, I did notice a decline on my low intellect BM hunter, and it is nowhere near as dramatic as everyone makes it out to be. I STILL have to eat/drink less than a warrior, paladin, priest, shaman, or mage. The hunter is STILL the fastest, easiest grinding class I have played yet, granting that my mage is only level 25 and my hunter is only level 50.
Hunters are still easymode, this is such a minor nerf many other classes would shrug it off. As has been said earlier “it’s like a priest complaining about an agility nerf”.
Aggro on the Mechanical’s on Isle of Quel’Danas is bugged i think.
Ive installed the new omen (2.4 compatible) and it seems the mechanical is ignoring ALL non-damage related aggro gain from my pet.
I had a boar at the time, and charge generated virtually nill aggro, as did growl and intimidation.
Other mobs i dont know… but the pet does “feel” less able to keep aggro glued to it.
@nano
Try playing a lvl 20 Hunter wearing a mix of grays, whites and greens. Your Hunter wouldn’t be at lvl 50 yet if this mana regeneration formula had existed before now. I have six Hunters from lvl 16 to 46 so I’ve spent a lot of time playing Hunters. Hunters should now get the conjure water skill that mages have. Or at least be able to tame Mages.
I raid in SSC/TK as a core raider, and before now I haven’t noticed the change in mana regen too distinctly.
In hindsight however, I do indeed regen less then I did pre-2.4.
Maybe T5 quality geared Hunters are less affected then less geared characters.
Remembering how mana regen was during levelling, I’m frankly annoyed that Blizzard did this – “Hey Bill, lets change how spiritbased mana regen works by making intellect change how much mp5 each point of spirit gives, helping priests, paladins and mages (‘noticed absence of thoughts of how this would effect other classes’).” “Good job Bob, PROMOTION.”
>.>
FYI the mechanicals on the Isle of Quel’Danas are immune to growl. This is intentional from Bliz. Just have to take it easy on them, melee or kite :)
Xago
I’m disappointed (but not surprised) by the WoW community’s response to the hunter mana issue.
I’ve seen a few “If it’s so bad how come nobody complained about the PTR?”
Answer: Not everyone does the PTR thing, especially lowbies.
And many lvl 70s saying “I see nothing… nothing”
They would not had much fun lvling from 1-70 under these conditions.
I guess the prices of “of the Falcon” and “of the Wolf” gear are going to skyrocket?
Oh, I forgot.
Many are saying “Just use Aspect of the Viper”. That’s a little tough for a lvl 23. Holey Moley!!
Hi,
So I broke lvl 60 shortly before 2.4 hit. Got AotV, loved watching my ooc mana regen go over 80. Logged on the next day….35. If I’m lucky. Thought that was just this “level scaling” I’d heard so much about (yes, I’m a newb :) ), but after reading this…
What’s that mean to me? I only use AotV now. Period. In bg’s I do very well against one attacker. But if a second one comes in before I get a full 24 seconds to drink (or if I don’t think to pop a beverage in the middle of a fight), I die. Period. Not because I can’t handle 2-on-1; I do quite well against groups, thank you very much! But because once I’m low on mana, all my attacks require me to stand still.
And PC’s don’t give you a chance to do that.
So my choices in PVP now are 1) stand still, continue to attack, and die; or 2) run around, have limited attack options, and die.
Anyone wishing to tell me to get better gear is welcome to send money/more free time.
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