Active-Mana-Regeneration
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Warlords of Draenor: What is the future of mana regeneration?
One of the biggest changes to the Alpha Patch Notes for Warlords of Draenor has been the removal of the entire Active Mana Generation section of said notes. That's a pretty big change, and what's bigger is, we at present have no idea of what's going to replace this paradigm, or even if it is to be replaced - it's possible that there will still be an active mana generation system at play, but that current ability pruning (classes like druids and shaman saw significant pruning changes) means that there's a need to figure out which abilities will remain first before deciding which abilities will return mana actively. What's interesting, however, is that the entire section was removed, including its header paragraph. Another part of the changes to healing is providing a way for them to better manage their mana. There are ways to spend more mana for more healing but we're also adding methods for healers to trade extra time, healing, or more mana to use later in a fight when they really need it. Why remove this entire paragraph, and the section as a whole, rather than simply remove the abilities that weren't in play? It's possible that testing has shown a flaw in this design paradigm - that some particular aspect of the design isn't working as desired. Whatever the reason, however, it does leave us wondering what we're going to see for healers in Warlords? Mana is the 'soft enrage' of a healer - it's as their tanks run empty that fights become unwinnable. They need some method to regenerate mana to keep in the fight. And clearly Celestalon is aware of this, based on today's forum posting.
