I just realized that all my mage spells have mana costs associated with them and I was wondering… why?
Fireball cost 1,000 mana… ok… is that a lot?
I mean is it even possible to run out of mana as a mage? I’ve tried really hard and I can’t even get my mana meter to budge. So what is the point of it if it’s always full.
How long has it been like this? Is there any chance we can make mana a useful game mechanic?
Arcane mages and healers can run out of mana.
Arcane spec relies on managing mana, that’s its whole thing. Not so much for frost and fire.
Arcane Mage relies heavily on mana management.
Healers also rely on mana management.
MoP or WoD. Mana management was still a thing in Cataclysm, but I don’t remember if it was still like that in MoP. I remember it was definitely changed by WoD though.
It already was once. The game has evolved since then. In WoW Classic and TBC Classic most classes rely heavily on mana management. If you’re genuinely interested in mana being a part of the game like you want it to be, you should give Classic a try.
All this did was remind me of mana gems and mp5.
spell steal thumps a bit of mana, spam that and you’ll oom.
This. Does scorch even have a mana cost now? I remember I used to be able to run around spam casting it for 0 mana cost, while moving.
spam spellsteal and you’ll find out.
play arcane and you’ll find out
Play a Mistweaver monk and you’ll find out. :}
Arcane, yes…unless they changed something since Ive played it.
With one or maybe both of the other mage specs i dont even know why they bother with mana at all.
Just get rid of mana. The CD is enough.
moar like . . . OOMweaver. Or maybe Drinkweaver.
I dunno, maybe I’ll have something clever in an hour.
Mana for non-healers is for their utility or dps specs offhealing.
Spam spell steal a few times trying to get buffs in PvP and see how fast you oom.
Never been and Arcane mage, I take it?
It’s a limiter for your utility spells.
For most classes the healing/defensive spells use a lot of mana and you can run out.
If you spam drain life constantly on a warlock you can run out.
Healers can run out (except holy pals because they’re special and also get to do 1222309dps because blizz likes them)
Shamans can run out on ele/enhance if they heal a lot.
Usually you won’t run out from using offensive spells, except maybe arcane mage.
etc.
I have and I enjoy it which is why i’m asking whats the point if 2 out of 3 specs don’t need it.
The game hasn’t evolved then has it. The devs just haven’t bothered with it.
The point is things still cost mana and it’s easier to go with that than to add a new resource just to replace mana.
You haven’t played for very long if you genuinely feel this way.
All of those are evolutions within the game.
Whether it’s been good or bad, the game has definitely evolved.
Mana is more of a utility resource for most specs. If your spells cost mana it’s either DPS abilities that cost very little in the grand scheme of things or utility abilities that cost a metric ton.
Healers (usually) care about Mana as a resource, and Arcane Mages use Mana as their primary DPS resource.
RPG formality
and dps specs that can cast heals 
Mana exists for hybrids as a means of limiting their healing potential (to the point where pure DPS passives often do more overall healing - hybrids just have more control over where it goes and when).
Mana used to be kind of a thing for whatever warlock spec used Life Tap, that’s gone now though.
For the other 2 warlock specs and non-Arcane mages though?
Idk. It’s been pointless for a very long time. At most, it prevents you from changing specs and immediately going ham since it puts you at 0 mana IIRC, but I’m not really sure what purpose that serves since you can’t change specs in combat or anything.
You could argue that for non-Arcane mages right now in Shadowlands mana limits how much Arcane Explosion spam you can use - since that’s actually good DPS on mass pulls due to nonsense with target caps.