The Magician's Tower

My problem with no med break groups/some raid encounters is I tend to overnuke and run out of mana fast before 30-50%. I only have around 24k unbuffed but I have the important spell casting aas maxed (fire proc, gom, pet, etc).

What are some general tips on spell casting frequency? If I were to full burn I obviously run out right away, but I don't want to slack. Should I chain spells or should I hold off 30s or so and recast? Or>

This is somewhat dependant on the fight of course but in general:

Try and keep your mana about even with the main mobs hitpoints or if it's an entire event with lots of mobs keep it about even with where you think the entire event is. When the event is half way through you should have half your mana left.

Also try and figure out what the most efficient damage to mana ratio is regarding your aa and gear. Rains use to be the most efficient but that isn't necessarily the case these days.

Make sure you're using nukes from the correct school. Don't laugh, I've known mages that are primarily spec'd in evocation but use conjuration nukes most of the time.

Another thing you might try for xp grinding at least is nuke hard then ooc regen, med through a mob or two if you need to. This may seem inefficient but over the course of a lesson burn it's actually better to burn through say four full bars of mana with three sessions of ooc regen than it is to conserve your mana and just use one over a longish period of time. Granted this won't work for a long raid fight so you'll have to adjust your tactics accordingly.

For grouping it is really hard 2 see how you pace yourself. You can burn then med like it was said above, or you can nuke each mob a bit and never med until the group needs a med. That sounds a lot easier then it is, b/c you want to kill smurf fast 2 get more exp and more lewt. You also don't want 2 be dead weight in the group either. I strictly duo; however, I base my mana on my duo partners mana (I am the puller so mine is normally lower). I generally try and keep my mana even or just below his mana bar. After that it is basically up to you.

On raids however, I think it is a bit easier because you KNOW how long the event is normally (or you have a ballpark figure). So, if the fight lasts 10mins and your only 5min in it you shouldn't be anywhere lower then 50m. If it only lasts 2min you shouldn't have anything left by like a min 45. Raids it all depends on the mechanics of the event and how much time it normally takes your guild to finish the events. Now, if the event is strictly a tank and spank fight I normally use the 'keep your mana at the mobs hp %' to base how I am doing. If I have 10% over the mobs HP I know I am fine to cast a Rbs w/o a GoM proc and i will generally be in-line with the mobs HP.

That is basically how I go about my business, hope this helps.

RmS is your most efficient spell, bar none. So on that note, burn hard until you're about 30% mana, then just switch to RmS + Jolt (if usable), and plink it to death from there. Use mod rods, other mana effects other classes have. Work on your pet so it's doing the most DPS. When you go OoM, you're pretty much just a pet, lol. So I will normally run myself low, then switch to high efficiency setting and make sure I'm maxing the other DPS options that don't eat up mana.

Hopefully, after fixing, we'll have some mana regen options in UF. That should help a good chunk. But, for the most part, burn to a level where you can still put some DPS on if its needed on something else, then switch to just casting less. Our Burn is pretty close to as efficient as we can be.

I know you all look at it from the 85 raid perspective, but I do that also at level 65 raiding. I use my 62 burning sands, while also keeping Calliav up on water pet. Watching for assist calls to peel off on adds etc. When full burn is called I chain rain spells and bolt, pop aa pets. At 30 percent mana if I am lower than mobs health I switch back to burning sands and rain spell. No GoM yet, no fickle, no clickies heh all the while working with 7500 mana buffed and parsing top 5 and first or sec in mages. I do try to balance with mobs health staying close to or just above with my mana when possible. I chuckle when wizards have to back out at 60% to med.

There is also the line of thought that if all your casters are "holding back" to conserve mana and make sure they don't go OoM until the very end of the fight, you might be hurting yourself as well.

Everyone holds back, because it's a "10 minute fight". Well if everyone was burning harder in the first place, it might be a 7 minute fight.

I do exactly what Mend does.

If my mana is decreasing significantly faster than the mob's HPs, I simply abandon the weave and stick to RbS/Jolt/Clickies until I'm oom, or back in line with mobs health.

Depends on survivability too. Any mana you die with is mana wasted. For many fights I try to convert as much of my mana into dps as possible even if I happen to survive and end up plinking with clickies while my mana regens.

Only thing that annoy me, every time I hit staunch recovery I die It never fails. I must be cursed.

Msha wrote:Only thing that annoy me, every time I hit staunch recovery I die It never fails. I must be cursed.

Same here, but then again usually when the need for Staunch arises, s**t has already hit the fan and I'm using stanch in order to try and prevent the inevitable doom.