SCK has a decent range and, in a pinch, can deal adequate damage that can keep some pace with TP, BOK, and RSK rotation.
The second I’m forced out of of melee I Essence font and vivacious vivify. If I have done my job and have multiple ReM on the raid, I SooM the tank and start cranking more vivifies. Really the only time I SooM.
So lifecycle is getting removed and replaced with more of this mana tea thing. I remember mana tea a bit back it was a stop all healing to channel guzzle some tea and it seems the same but you can now move and it was removed because of how clunky it was.
I feel like this is going to just be a repeat of how bad it was back then. Well goodluck on your healing when you need to stop to drink.
I don’t know where this idea of Mana Tea being bad back in WoD/MoP came from but it certainly wasn’t true when I was playing MW in HFC.
IIRC Mana Tea was basically mana neutral when it was first introduced which meant it was like Mistweavers having the same mana longevity as other healers with extra steps which wasn’t ideal but it also wasn’t that bad considering it could be gamed to be a benefit.
But then sometime in WoD the mechanic was added which allowed Mana Tea stacks to crit which made it a huge benefit and gave Mistweavers an enormous edge in mana longevity compared to other healers.
I specifically remember being able to use my whole mana bar during P1 and P2 of Gorefiend prog and keep up with other healers but then I’d channel a full 20 stack of Mana Tea just prior to P3 and go into P3 with 90% mana and carry the whole raid during the final and most difficult phase because every other healer was running on fumes and I was ramping through a whole mana bar.
Same thing for Mannoroth, same thing for Archimonde. Mana Tea was incredibly good back then. I imagine it will be similarly powerful when we get it back.
I don’t remember having to stop healing to channel Tea back in dungeon content in WoD, either. I would always just channel it during downtime or between packs to stay above 60%. There were also many times once I was geared where I could be at 90% mana with 20 stacks waiting.
I also don’t know why there is so much Doom and Gloom around Mana Tea coming back. I see people talking about the current Mana Tea and Lifecycles going away as if they’re staple talents that people actually play around and losing them will be a detriment to the spec. Mana Tea gets some value in raid but both talents are practically useless in keys.
I could be overall bias though because late WoD Mistweaver with the Extend Life set bonus from HFC is the most fun spec I have ever played in WoW and getting even a small part of that back is exciting to me.
I just hope it wont be how this/most MoP guide(s) describe(s) it:
“As you have probably noticed already, you generate Chi by spending mana, and you then are able to regenerate mana by spending Chi (thanks to ManaTea). This cycle is mana-negative, however, meaning that the mana you gain from Mana Tea will never fully make up for the mana you have spent to generate the Chi in the first place.”
Because at that point it’s just more work and more tracking for no trade off.
Looks like we also had a few sources to mana regen at the time on top of Mana Tea:
-Muscle memory ( a talent that regenned mana ) that existed too at the same time during MoP.
-Vital mists also helped reduce costs of Surging mists.
-There was literally a way to increase our mana by 15% through a talent.
-Spirit as a mana regen stat was still a thing in MoP too. Healers would play around with spirit as a way to get more or less regen if they needed it.
-There was also the legendary proc gem that literally reduced mana costs by 100% for 4 sec - that MW could kinda abuse: There are 2 ways of using your legendary meta gem proc, and that is for conserving mana you wouldn’t have spent otherwise and actual mana regen. The latter is the most typical use of the LMG simply because as a mistweaver it provides an interesting source of mana regen by using a Jab > TP x2 rotation, resulting in a 24k mana gain, so if you don’t stand in melee range this is one more reason to do so whenever possible. The general rule of thumb is that you want to use your proc and prioritize your mana consuming spells that you won’t have to use and spend mana on later when you don’t have the buff up.
-Other healers could have popped Hymn/Tide at those downphases too too to be ready for p3, /shrug. ( if they were smart healers they would have or not dropped that low for p3.
So it’s not like we were anything special with mana tea, looks like it was just a way to offset the extra chi generators/mana costs.
The mana tea we are getting seems like a generally better talent than the MoP version tbh, and should be a mana positive thing. If we were getting the MoP version Id be much more upset. Going to probably run energizing brew to just offset how clunky channeling so frequently will feel. Too bad they couldn’t add in that glyph that lets us consume a few stacks instantly instead of channeling it.
For me it’s a loss of sotc thing. Dang shame they couldn’t balance SOTC in the same node with similar mana regen and keep both.
Spirit also increased mana regen through mana tea, so early mana tea vs SoO mana tea was extremely different in possible regen.
Between packs would be nice but most dungeons these days are GO GO GO! Chain pulls galore and the spike damage being so harsh now the moment you start to guzzle your tea you’re slowed and you’ll have to cancel it, not knowing if you wasted any.
All i can think about is a scene of some old guy downing a liquor bottle as he walks backward and now thinking about it happening during a fight it just on the surface looks ridiculous.
How would you waste it? It’s not a set time, it’s a variable channel. The slow could be a definite issue but you quite literally can’t waste mana tea stacks unless you were already full on mana.
Given how often I get stuck in combat, at least I can drink something, lol
This is what makes night elf the ultimate hack.
While yes but Oh dear the tank just dashed into combat while you’re slow walking while pouring tea all over your face.