How are people enjoying the new mana tea?
Personally for me it feels really strange…
I love the flexibility it gives me but also the timing to get good value out of the cost reduction is hard.
I think overall its a massive improvement but kind of wish the cost reduction wasn’t apart of it but rather a different button all in all
(most of my experience is in raid)
Still getting used to it, but not as bad as I thought. We still have the 2p and Rashok’s so I am not sure how things will feel in the future when those go away.
I find energizing brew is very big for giving you more time to abuse the Mana Cost reductions. The slower movement effect feels less…depressing…when you can channel faster too, I barely notice the slow unless I have like 15+ stacks. Huge QOL between packs being able to drink this instead of sitting for mana.
Kinda wish Roll didn’t interrupt it.
Have a feeling we will be micromanaging / using it much more once we lose Rashok’s and 2set.
I’m still leveling a monk, and it’s practically never used. I’m a bit worried that the mana cost on other abilities will be “balanced”/tweaked to be higher just to incentivize its use.
mana costs are high enough at end game that it caused a systemic issue for the last 4 expansions. I wouldn’t take leveling experience as a showcase of the class and any inherent issues.
Yea
You should try to get rid of Rashoks now because Mana Tea is the intended replacement for it and the tier set so it should be tuned to be good for us without them. I definitely felt like I had too much mana in my heroic pugs today with Rashoks so I took it off.
Seems like a general principle is use at 3+ stacks and prevent it from capping at 20 stacks. Channeling 3 stacks gives you 1 cast + 1 instant and then you need 5 stacks for 2 casts + 1 instant, that would be the general trend.
You can take advantage of spell queueing of Instant Casts or Channeled Spells to clip the end of the mana tea, so you should always cast and then clip with an instant or channeled spell.
Someone will make a chart where like 1 axis is haste and the other axis is mana tea stacks and it would tell you roughly how many casts + 1 GCD you can fit in that many stacks of mana tea. Kinda annoying but now we are a haste breakpoint class
Rashok’s healing effect and vers buff are still pretty strong.
Ill swap when 10.2 hits and the changes go through. Chasing trinket drops wasn’t fun this season.
I haven’t got to play much this week, did 1 easy 16 to try out mana tea and I liked it more than I expected.
I wish the consuming of the stacks would be instant.
I haven’t done any difficult content since season 1, but on a thematic level I love that they gave us a big chug jug to slam in-between packs. Haven’t noticed it disrupting the flow much and enjoy the gameplay of it from a casual pov
It honestly has the potential to be a great spell for the class with some quality of life improvements and a choice node that allows you to pick between mana reduction, healing bonus, or damage bonus.
Adding this choice creates so much variety and functionality to the gameplay for mistweaver.
For short fights like M+ or questing, you dont need the mana reduction so it would be better to have the damage option. Alternatively in M+, you might want the healing bonus for really difficult content where the fights are still relatively short.
However in raid environments, where the fight drags on longer, the mana cost reduction talent will become more attractive unless the fight demands tight healing checks where the healing bonus is needed.
CONS:
Channeling mana tea before Essence Font / Faeline Stomp are basically adding extra cast time to these spells. Please consider making Mana Tea something you click and gain passively as a bonus – problem instantly solved and great ability
We need some bigger bonus for the CONS attached to mana tea. Just mana cost reduction is not enough for short duration content where you dont need so many stacks per encounter. It would be better to have this as a periodic healing bonus or damage bonus!
They never really adjusted the mana cost of spells to adequately compensate for taking Mana Tea initially, so it is nice to have back tbh.
This feels weird to me… Mana tea has a very specific niche it is targeting, mana management.
Adding other things to it would overload it IMO
In my head it would be like complaining that Innervate isn’t needed in m+ so it should provide a damage amp
So lets just let it sit at 20 stacks then for all of the use cases that you dont need the mana?
There is a huge portion of content that is short duration and you dont need the mana component. For a 1-2 minute mythic boss, you may not even need mana from Mana Tea.
There are so many scenarios where it would be better to just cast mana tea for a different buff instead, and its good class design, not overloaded.
For longer fights the mana restored does become an issue. Right now the tuning is pretty good and feels good in raid, but in M+ you definitely overcap Mana Tea so different functionality would be ideal.
It would be a lot cooler to have a healing Amp for Mana Tea → Sheilun’s Gift for example its not just about damage amp. Mana Tea → Essence Font healing amp as well.
About to go into a CF window? Big gulp of mana tea for 6s window of healing amp for CF into ReM tier set Chi Harmony. Good mechanics.
For FW you can do Mana Tea → Spinning Crane Kick window or Mana Tea → Rising Sun Kick x3; not complicated at all
Also fits thematically; we have Thunder Focus Tea which charges up our spells, and then we have Mana Tea – literally a tea that is made from the substance of magic, mana itself. It makes sense that drinking a tea of mana would have invigorating magic effects such as boosting healing or damage. We are further reinforcing the MW class identity of empowering brews.
Argowal talks about the need for improvements to Fistweaver ST DPS / healing but when presented with a logical alteration (Damage Amp on Mana Tea) its not good? This change would solve both problems because then you can bank RSK /TOTM/Zen Pulse and have ST Burst windows
As of right now we are already weaving in and micro managing mana tea so its just a choice to weave in a different buff instead of mana reduction weaving in healing bonus or damage amp is great; intuitive
I just realized that I completely forgot about it and healed heroic dawn of the infinite without even noticing or using it a single time.
Exactly there are lots of times where you dont need it for the mana cost reduction so having another bonus would be engaging
It is also very penalizing to use so it needs to have a worthy benefit
Think of it this way. As of right now there is basically only 2 ways to use mana tea.
1)Weave Mana Tea before each Essence Font / Faeline Stomp for efficiency
2)Use 5-10 stacks in raid environment for an Enveloping Mist Rapid Diffusion Window
If you can choose damage or healing bonus, you have now opened up mana tea to basically apply to any and all spells in the MW kit making it waaaay more versatile and engaging.
1)Healing Bonus before major spells like Essence Font, Sheilun’s Gift, or Revival
2)Damage Bonus before major spells like Zen Pulse, Rising Sun Kick x3, Beacon from Beyond
Adds new meaning to the same thing. You can cast Mana Tea → Essence Font and gain mana reduction or I can choose to do Mana Tea → Essence Font for a healing bonus; its the same thing but new meaning with the choice node.
This sounds like the same problem with both old mana tea and any other talent that gives mana/mana efficiency.
What if I’m playing resto shaman, have Mana Tide Totem, and don’t need mana…
What if I’m playing resto druid, have Innervate, and don’t need mana…
Which this applies to the old Mana Tea as well, Spirit of the Crane, and Life Cycles…
This is exactly what Secret Infusion and Thunder Focus Tea is.
Thunder Focus Tea = Here is a modification to one base spell
Secret Infusion = Here is more power based off the spell you modified
The issue is that while you’re combining these things, one kind of starts being meh compared to the other, 1 free vivify vs 16% of a secondary stat with 33% uptime
Which if we apply this same logic to Mana Tea, you’re either gonna get
A) Meh mana + Strong amp
B) Good mana + meh amp
C) Meh mana + meh amp
Lets not mention balance on these things… And we both know blizzard record of balancing complex spells is spotty at best (no flame to blizzard its not easy)
We could also get into an argument that we are putting a new effect on a button so that you press the button when it isn’t needed.
This assumes I agree with them. We haven’t (and probably won’t) see(n) me agree with the statement that FW needs a ST DPS / Healing increase 
In my honest opinion, if the goal of the spell is mana management, then its GOOD that we aren’t pressing it when we don’t need mana management. If you design a button for goal X but it is also being used for Y and Z when X isn’t applicable then it sounds like there is an underlying issue with the button as the goal isn’t being achieved.
You could easily say what if X just never appears as something you need then you should never press it
You completely ignored my point which is that in its current implementation there are basically 2 ways to use mana tea and outside of that there is little to no gameplay variation.
However, with a good choice node, you suddenly have a ton of variety to the gameplay which is healthy for the spec
Like Mana Tea and its interaction with Chi in original Mists of Pandaria was what defined mistweaver and its rotation
Bringing back mana tea as is a great start but with this choice node it would really become that spec defining flavor that MW originally had in MoP.
Essentially baking in power into a core mechanic that is intuitive for all; now everyone can build around that core moment in their rotation when they Mana Tea → ???
Instead of just having 2 options now you have a ton more.
S3 will feel differently and we will be micromanaging it more for discounts and regen once we lose Rashok’s and 2p as sources of mana regen. This version of Mana Tea was implemented with S3 in mind. Not s2 where we are getting tons of mana already.
Very unlikely we will be sitting at 20 stacks in S3. If we don’t need it in m+ just drop energizing brew for more throughput/healing elixir/ZP+ER. Still have the benefit of popping it between packs too instead of drinking in m+.
Having MT do so much that we have to literally pop it before every thing else we do sounds immensely horrible. ( esp cause we have lots of set up and management already ) Id rather it just stay a mana regen tool with the idea that it can also be min/maxed to reduce EF costs, viv spam, and celestial Env/viv spam.
We already have versatile abilities to buff dmg or healing via Shaohao’s lesson’s, TFT+ secret infusion, and Invoker’s delight like Magna mentioned. Mana tea isnt designed to do any of those things, it’s designed with their intended mana management and healer changes in s3.
Already have to do this, just want a more engaging bonus than mana reduction
Why not have the ability to boost the healing of these windows if you have plenty of mana?
Why is it okay to use a healing ability as a DPS cooldown but not okay for the Mana Tea to be used as a DPS cooldown? Besides, the timing of Sheilun’s Gift healing is much more important than any of the buffs it gives. You are typically using SG for either the heal or the buff rarely get both.
Realistically this is not all that powerful of a cooldown. 15% vers sure but its 2 talent points
-Requires 3 talent points
-Yulon already reduces mana by 50% so you are going to use Mana Tea + Yulon? That sounds silly. How much cooler to have the option to boost healing during Yulon instead?
Now that Mana Tea is here, we have to micromanage and weave between spells so it would be better to have more options rather than fewer options
With the new Tier Bonus, Chi Harmony, we will have little 8 second windows of combo healing and then let the Chi Harmony “pop” on allies for 15% of the healing done to ReM targets during the previous 8 seconds.
Mana Tea is most optimal to drink like 6 stacks or so for 3-4 casts of Enveloping Mist for little Rapid Diffusion windows that proc 8 temporary ReMs then Vivify cleave 1-2x (which got buffed) which stores healing and then the Chi Harmony “pops”.
Blizz is already adding healing bonus to Renewing Mist because they want a substantial healing amp in next season; so it makes sense to attach a healing amp to Mana Tea as a choice node and then gain 6 seconds of healing Amp once every minute or so to feed into Chi Harmony windows
Can do this already through popping Shaohao’s Lessons before Yu’lon. Mana tea is an entirely differently ability that was re-created for a different purpose. ( as a solution to how bad MW mana regen felt before we got rashoks and 2p, and what happens after we lose it )
Id rather they just rework the class tree and get rid of the filler/dead talents at this point…buff ST dmg through Eye of tiger, TP/BOK/RSK/Chi Burst buffs. Current mana tea is fine as it is.