NOTE: this post is largely catered to guilds that raid in some form, but based on the comments from my last  Wrath post, it’s a process a lot of you are looking for some help with.

In a recent post, I discussed the opportunity for change that Wrath is bringing, and the ease with which people can change their goals, class, etc. So with all this change, how are we supposed to make sure we have what we need for Wrath raiding? Or perhaps a more accurate question would be “How are we supposed to raid with 25 death knights?” It’s may seem overwhelming but in reality this follows much the same process as normal recruitment; identify your needs and then fill them.

Identify your needs:
Repeat after me; “I will over recruit for the expansion.” But wait, Auz over recruiting is bad. Yes normally overrecruiting is bad, but I promise you that some of the people who want to try this new raiding thing/class won’t like it, some of them won’t be good at it and some of them are going to get tired once they realize that Wrath is the same old thing in new paint and quit for War or something. So just trust me and recruit 20% more people than you think you need.

Your Wrath needs are not going to be the same as your BC needs. I’m not in Beta (curse you Blizzard) but several of my friends and co-bloggers are. From what I’ve heard the ratios are largly the same for tank, healing, dps raid slots with slightly less varition in number of healers needed per fight. (I’m not putting too much faith in this because Karazhan didn’t vary as much as Sunwell either) So count on 2 Main tanks, 3 dpsers who can tank if needed, 7 to 8 healers and 12 to 13 pure dpsers for a typical raid mix. The real difference in Wrath is that Blizzard has worked very hard to make sure no single class provides something irreplaceable to a raid. Now I’m not about to get into the whole “Blizzard is making us all the same” debate, but what that means for your roster is that you don’t need to break it up into 1 hunter, 2 rogues, 1 shaman etc. You can break your roster into Tanks, Healers, Melee DPS and Ranged DPS. I’m will admit that my expertise is really in the healing area and so I trust other people to determine our guild’s needs for DPS and tanking.
My desired Wrath healing roster is broken up like this.

• 2 Priests
• 2 Druids
• 2 Shaman
• 2 Pallys
• 6 Really solid healers of any class
• 4 DPS players I plan to give preference for off spec healing gear in exchange for the ability to borrow them for healing heavy fights. In return I intend to give my dpsers 4 healers they prefer for dps offspec gear and they may also steal in a pinch.

NOTE: This will give me 14 dedicated healers. My guild requires 75% attendance so 12 healers should be enough to ensure I can draft 9 healers on any given night. However I’m taking my own advice and looking to go into Wrath well stocked.

I’m not going to give you a list of what your roster should include for Wrath because that is largely dependent on your guild’s attendance requirments and your members expectations for how often they should sit.

Fill your needs:
I believe it is unrealistic to assume that everyone in your guild will want to remain the same class or role for Wrath. With the gear reset there is no need to require them to do so. That being said most guilds cannot allow everyone to just level whatever they feel like and be expect to field a functional raid. Regardless of how much guidance you give your raiding core everyone’s first step should be to gather information about your guildmates intentions. To gather this information for our guild I made the following request in our guild forums:

I then took the responses and entered them into a table so that our leadership team may begin building our Wrath team.

My guild intends to do our best to accommodate the people who want to change classes and met our expectation of skill in their desired class. Depending on the nature of your guild you may or may not be in a position to guide your guildmates as they decide what class they intend to raid with in Wrath, but at least you’ll know what to expect and what needs you’ll have to fill outside of your current guild members. You may also let your teammates know that 14 of them intend to play death knights and while you might not be the type of guild that makes demands of it’s members the competition for death knight slots in raids and death knight gear will be high so they may wish to reconsider those plans.

Mini Ask Auz:
In my last Wrath post Kyrilean asked in a comment:

My answer:

Today’s post comes from the mail bag. By the way, if you are one of the lovely people who have written in and you haven’t gotten a response yet I promise I’m getting to you. It generally means you’re getting a long response I plan on posting rather than a short and sweet answer. Please keep writing in and have some patience with me.

Auz,
I guess I have a sort of question, but it’s kind of rambly and behind a story. I don’t know if you read or follow my blog at all, if you don’t, here is the lowdown: for the past year or so, my boyfriend has been the guild leader of a very fun and active guild of some 200 people. We are a dual roleplaying/entry-level raiding guild, do Kara runs, etc.

Anyways, a few weeks back the boyfriend basically effectively quit WoW and gave Guild Leadership to me. I feel very overwhelmed. I have never really been a “leader” sort of person and suddenly being presented with having all these decisions and people asking me to make decisions, is very hard. I’ve had to scale back the guild because having two different focuses was just too hard: at this point I’ve scaled back on the all-guild raiding and now we’re sorta raiding with other guilds. This is just because first and foremost we are a casual/RP guild at heart, and we all hang out together because we are *friends* (as opposed to because we want to raid– as much as we love to do that, too.)

I have a lot of great support in the forms of my officers– heck you may be pleased to know that the my two second-in-commands are both chicks as well as me and they are very supportive and offer a lot of help. Still, I can’t help but be overwhelmed by the stress and I often feel that I bring nothing to the table as a GM– people tell me an idea, and I don’t know how to approach the idea because I am bad at making decisions so I usually just approve it right off the bat. I don’t think this will be good in the long run.

In short, I guess I am asking… what does one do when a guild falls into one’s lap? And is it possible that some people are simply not cut out for this job? I worry I may not be. I can teach and I can write, but I just have never envisioned myself as a leader. I don’t want to be the downfall of this wonderful guild that was sort of “given” to me.

-Pike (of Aspect of the Hare)

Through informal polling, namely talking to the people I’ve met in my online travels, I’ve determined that this kind of experience is the number one source of all new guild leaders. Guild leading is a huge time commitment and a lot of responsibility, and sometimes changes in real life or just burnout means a GM can’t make the commitment they used to and someone new has to take the reigns, often quite unexpectedly. This leaves the new GM perplexed and needing to get it together quickly. (Remind me later on I want to write about the importance of a succession plan.) It sounds like your question is broken into two parts; Am I doing it wrong? and Are there people not cut out for GMing?

Am I doing it wrong?

First - Your former GM chose your for a reason. Even disheartened GMs who burn out are protective of their guild. My co-GM and I joke that it’s our baby. (Which raises an eyebrow from Mr. Auzara who wasn’t aware I had a kid) Your GM likely knows more about the people in your guild than anyone else, and they picked you. That’s pretty strong evidence that you’re cut out for it. In this particular case, I’m willing to bet your boyfriend knows you very well, and knows your flaws and weaknesses as well as your strengths.

Second - You have something no one else does, access to the former GM. You can ask about how he was working to grow the guild, what he might do, etc. Clearly he doesn’t want the responsibility of full time GMing on his head or he wouldn’t have passed on the responsibility, but if you’re ever stuck he might be an excellent resource.

Third - Leadership is a team effort, I don’t believe anyone can do it alone. Even those who in name are sole leaders often spread tasks and responsibilities to other trusted members. It sounds like you have a team of great leaders with good ideas who respect you. Any new leader of an existing environment will need to identify your existing leaders and cultivate a working relationship with them. In addition, identify potential leaders from the membership and look to develop them.

Fourth -Develop your vision. You don’t have to come up with all the ideas by yourself or any of them to serve as a good leader. You steer the ship so to speak. Keep your eye on the horizon and keep your ear on your crew. It sounds like you have a solid idea of what your guild is at heart and what it’s members want. You could serve as a referee bouncing ideas off of you and making sure they are inline with where the crew wants to go.

Fifth - Define what you are willing to give. GMing will consume any and all time you chose to give it. There is always something else to do. Do yourself a favor and first define what time you can afford to give to the guild and then work to fit the things you have to accomplish into that time line.

Sixth - Find a mentor. As a new GM the best thing you can do is find an experienced GM who is willing to take you under their wing. Some things are common to GMing experiences and some skills are developed over time. If you can, find someone to bounce ideas off of and vent frustrations to. (<3Yeti, Tarsus and Lume!)

Seventh - I, a random internet stranger, cannot tell you if you’re doing it wrong, only your guild can. There are millions of different guilds out there all with different views “right” and “wrong.” Nin has come here and passionately argued with me that overruling a loot decision is “wrong,” while others have argued that it’s “right.” The fact is, it’s wrong for Nin and right for those that argued it’s right. What makes a good leader is ultimately decided by those you lead.
Are there people not cut out for GMing?

Yes, emphatically yes.

There are universal truths of GMing.

• You will spend more time focused on the game and the guild than if you were not leading.
• You will hear complaints.
• You will have to make tough decisions.
• You will be to blame when things go wrong.

A good GM needs tools to handle these things.

Time - You need the spare time to dedicate to leading. Lack of time is often what ends up causing GMs to have to resign. You also need strong time management skills so you can make the best use of the time you can dedicate to the game and to leading.

Complaints - You need a thick skin. Regardless of how well or how poorly your guild is doing people will have something to complain about. A good rule of thumb I use to measure the health of my guild is not how much complaining is there, instead it’s how petty are the complaints. If people are complaining about things like “He gave the turtle book he won to another mage and not me.” or “The loot I want hasn’t dropped in 6 months.” This is the sign of a healthy guild. If complaints run along the lines of “He called me a useless mage in guild chat.” or “I haven’t enjoyed a raid in 6 months.” This is the sign of a more serious problem. Good GMs learn to take these complaints and turn them into something positive. That being said, these complaints are the highest cause of GM burn out.

Tough Decisions - I’ve said before, you don’t have to have all the ideas to be the GM, but as GM the final call is left to you. You need to have a vision for your guild but that vision has to be tempered by the needs of the other people who share your guild. In many ways your job as GM is to take the needs of 40 or so individuals and mesh them together into one guild focus. This involved compromise on the parts of the members and awareness on the part of the GM. At some point you will make a decision that you know is bad for an individual you value, but is still right for the guild as a whole. It’s a tough call to make and every time I’ve had to make one like that I’ve hated it. It’s also what makes a strong GM.

The Blame Game - People like to assign blame and they rarely assign it to themselves. As GM you’ve signed off on every decision, therefore when something backfires guess who’s fault it is? You need to be able to accept accountability and you need to learn how to turn failure into triumph. I’ll give you an example from my days waitressing.

Once upon a time I was a waitress, I was good at my job and therefore was “rewarded” with twice the tables as a normal waitress. One day I screwed up. My table had ordered 20 minutes ago and I went to ask the cook where their food was. Ooops I never entered their order. FAIL! Fortunately the cook had a kind heart and put my order in with a rush. I quickly went to my table and said “I’m sorry, I’ve neglected to put your order in, it’s in now but it’ll still be about 10 minutes. I’d like to make it up to you with one of our readily available items to tide you over for free, what can I bring you?” The customers accepted my offer graciously and I brought them out salads (paid for out of my own pocket). 10 minutes later the cook had the food ready and I brought it out to them. I apologized again for my mistake and praised the cook for his quick response time. They got through their meal and I was very attentive to their needs (I’d just cost them 20 minutes it was the least I could do.) When they were leaving I noticed them talking to my boss. I was definitely in trouble. I cleared off their table and did my best to focus on my current customers. Having already screwed up once that day, I didn’t need any more angry customers talking to my boss. At the end of the night my boss called us around and read off a note the customer had left to me in front of everyone. Apparently rather than complain my customers were impressed that I’d taken responsibility for my mistake. They were also impressed that I offered them compensation and that I passed praise onto the cook. They left me a $40 tip, and my boss paid me back for the salads. My boss said something that I’m afraid I don’t remember and gave me the note and a raise. I keep that note with me even today as a reminder that it’s okay to screw up, as long as you take responsibility and work to fix it.

You will screw up. You’ve taken on too much responsibility to not mess up from time to time. What defines you as a leader won’t be your lack of screwing up, it will be the grace with which you recover from those mistakes.

That’s a quick and dirty introduction. It should be known that there are about a million things to learn and develop as an online leader. I’ve edited this post about 5 times and I still simultaneously think it is too long and too short. Thanks for your question Pike! I hope this helps you.

Hey Auz!

First off, I want to tell you how much I _love_ your blog! I mean…you’re a girl, leading a guild, and a healer…it’s like me, only, you know, with better wording. Superb! It provides such a great basis of everything I want to discuss - healing, leading, raiding, and some pretty great singing to boot. However, I’m sure you’re busy so I’ll make this quick. This was titled “Ask Auz” so I thought it was kind of…a good idea to get some feedback from you on a topic that’s been bothering me.

Introductions quickly: I’m Tulani, a holy priest and Healing Leader of Lothar US, currently 208th in the US, with 4/6 SW with Mu’ru less than a week away from server first; the very first server first for my guild (stupid alliance.) However, lately I’ve been noticing a few things in the healing core:

1) Overpopulation. We have TOO MANY HEALERS. But they’re, uh, generally, all great. Maybe one or two aren’t. Everyone’s antsy since sitting out half the roster week after week for Mu’ru isn’t good, and I’ve gotten a lot of “should I quit? I know we’re full” tells, or just the constant bitchingandwhining of “you always sit me!” To make matters worse, an old resto druid (previous healing lead), who is AMAZING, wants to come back, and the other officers, and I even, are all for it, I don’t think I could make room. What would you do to calm everyone down and make them realize that we’re a little full, yes, but that the only reason they’re feeling like this is because Mu’ru only take 6 healers?

2) Also, I’ve been noticing bad looting going on. Not just trying to scramble to get “that item first” but taking items over other people who could use it more. I often pass loot to those it would be better or more of an upgrade for, but the other priest has called me a DKP whore for it (I have amassed a giant pile), even though I pass to her often, do research on the items and my healers, and take upgrades for myself still. She on the other hand, like many healers, bids on ANYTHING she can use - shadow gear, holy gear, you name it. It all culminated on last week’s Twins kill - 5 shaman and 2 priests in raid, and the resto druid takes the haste offhand, which is THE BEST shaman offhand and a superb priest one. I had, yet again, passed in hopes that a shaman would grab it, because I didn’t think a druid would bid. We run flat out Zero Sum DKP, and I’m worried that loot monitoring would cause issues, and also slow raids. How can I tell my healers that SW will be on farm soon and you’ll all get more gear than you could ever want without talking down to them? I wanted to make a big forum post but we don’t have a specified “healing” forum…perhaps I should make one? I wanted to also, with our bloated roster, get down who needs in for what boss to help alleviate loot and raiding woes.

3) Finally, and I’ll make this quick, I started out raid leading and whatnot about 2 years ago, but usually only on the sidelines. I was appointed to healing lead here by the old one when he quit without me hardly knowing what was going on (I should have seen it, he had me start leading more and more healing while he sat out until I hardly realized it anymore). The odd thing was, I didn’t get as much respect as he did. I’m not bad at it in any stretch; I’m actually very good. However, I’ve realized over time it’s really because I’m a girl, and I’m younger than many of them. Over time I’ve gotten more and more respect, and I can lay down the law very easily, but I’m often afraid to make big posts or anything because, well, I’m afraid people won’t listen. Reading your blog though, along with experience, has really helped me out so much. Now I hardly find respect an issue, and people aren’t afraid to talk to me about topics anymore. I can also do more than just heal lead now too; I can actually lead entire raids, discuss issues, and stand up for points of view. It really has made an impact on my leadership career and I couldn’t be more proud of our guild and it’s progress, and feeling like I had a big part in it.

Thanks for your time Auz, I know you’re a busy woman and this turned out a lot longer than I ever expected. If you could respond it would be very much appreciated, but if not, I understand, and I hope you know that I love the work you’re putting out there, and you should know that it helps!

-Tulani

Tulani,

It sounds like you are suffering from one of the same problems I am. As this is something I have been struggling with too, I wanted to make sure I was giving you a well rounded response. This is why I also shared your query with a colleague I respect, Lume the Mad. In addition to blogging, Lume is a resto druid who leads a guild that’s 40th in US progression. You can find his response here.

Sunwell requires a large variation in the number and type of healers you use and the types of healers that are the strongest for the fight. In retrospect it may have been wiser for me to use some of my hybrids for healing the large healing number of healing encounters and keep the healing population more stable. That being said, not all hybrids are created equal on the healing front and in my case the most amazing healers are generally the most amazing dps.

…….

Names are obscured to protect the healy. Why’d I take a picture and not just copy the text, Matt says I need more pictures to break up my wall of text. (See Matt I listen, and yes pictures of text count)

I made that post for the first time about a month after we started the guild and since then I’ve updated it about once a month, or after a significant healer change. I think this post provides the following 3 benefits:

• My healers know I have a plan - We’re not just willy nilly adding people or making a mad dash for the best healers we can find.

• They can clearly see my raid selection criteria - When I say, well dude, you’ve been missing raids without telling me, they can’t say “I didn’t know that meant you’d be sitting me.”

• It’s clear what my expectations are and what my goals for the team are - I expect the things that get you raid invites, my goal is to speed up our target identification and reaction time.

Aside from the “State of the Healing” address, my individual healers that I think need improvement know what I want them to work on. For example, last night I took two of my druids in a channel and said: “DruidA you are amazing at emergency healing but you lack confidence in your target selection, and DruidB you are amazing at keeping hots up on the tank(s) at all times, but you are lacking in your utilization of your emergency healing spells. Finally DruidA you’re going on vacation, teach DruidB what you’ve been doing on the new fight we just learned. While you two are at it, teach each other how to do what the other is doing, because you’re both better druids than I am.” This doesn’t work with every healer pair, but it works with these two because of their respect for each other and generally positive attitudes.

Over time, I’ve found that most “’should I quit? I know we’re full’ tells, or just the constant bitchingandwhining of ‘you always sit me!’” comes from insecurity or feeling under valued. You can combat this by making the time to sit down with each of your healers and speak with them individually. I forget which leadership book I picked this up out of, but I like these meetings to follow a Positive, Negative Positive pattern. (You can see an example of this pattern in the Druid conversation above.) Regardless of if you have to go looking for the negative feedback go find it. Give them something to work on and focus on other than raid selection. If you have to dig extremely deep to find it tell them that too. Lume’s post also suggests this kind of meeting and addresses another topic you can discuss in this meeting.

It sounds like adding that resto druid back into the mix will strengthen your healing core and I think you should do it but I think the way you do it will carry weight with your team. Make it a point to sit him at first and gradually fold him into your healing roster. As a previous officer he should see the wisdom in earning his stripes with the team (especially the new ones) and he needs to learn the fights he missed while he was gone and gear up anyway. Seeing your previous officer sitting with them will drive home the point that it’s not about all about skill or trust especially with your veteran healers.

Poor Looting

First YES add a healing forum. Go do that now! I’ll wait for you to get back .

~hmms quietly to myself~

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….

….

You back? Okay good. Now this can wait until after the blog reading, but if you don’t have one go add the Tank, Melee and Caster forums too. You’ve outlined a classic problem, is having conversations with my raiders about their loot choices important enough to take up valuable raid time? The good news is we don’t have to answer that question. Make the loot decisions and have the conversations before the loot is on the floor. In my forums each of my raiders is requested to publicly post their gear plans. This provides us with the following benefits:

• An opportunity for raiders to see what their teammates want- I use a staff. Would the Illidan Gavel and the Archimonde offhand provide me with stronger stats? Yes. However, all of my healers can use the gavel with great result. I want that gavel in the hands of the people who AoE heal for me. I wear my staff with the pride of knowing that I’m one of the few people on my. team who can put that staff to good use, and having that staff means the gavel is in the hands of the people who benefit the most from it. My other healers can see what their peers want, and they can discus in advance who benefits the most from it. Do I require this from my healers when they bid on gear? Absolutely not. I do instill in my healers the knowledge that healing, more than any other role, is about teamwork, the strongest team kills bosses, not the strongest healer.

• The ability to quickly evaluate what bosses my healers still need to be killing – When we look at dropping instances or bosses off our raiding schedule, I look at these gear plans. What bosses do my healers want? When I make decision regarding who’s in for farm nights, I look at these plans. This information makes my decisions stronger.

• It forces my healers to think about what they want before it’s on the floor – When people are forced to make split second decisions, they tend to take something they aren’t sure about rather than miss the opportunity. Requesting gear plans requires them to think this out in advance when they have more time and more information available, generally resulting in better decisions.

• It allows us to have discussions where I am thinking about overruling them in advance – I love my druids, but they aren’t getting Illidan’s Gavel over my AoE healers or even my pallys. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Knowing if they want it in advance means I can tell them when I’m going to overrule them in advance. It gives me a chance to talk to them and allow them to make their case for the item in their hands when I can really focus on just them. It also allows them to hear my points without feeling rushed or having the adrenaline of having just killed a boss and thinking they’ve won loot in their system. Lume has gone over in more detail the hows and whys of overruling a player’s loot decisions in his post.

Compliments all around

First, thank you very much for the kind words. It’s very affirming to hear that the time I spend working on the blog is having a positive impact! Hearing from readers definitely adds to the reward of writing beyond just what I get out of writing things out and forcing myself to take my own advice. (I hate it when I’m right and it means more work for me.)

Second, the fact that you’re taking the time to read and ask questions means you’re doing it right. Certainly there are great leaders that can do everything by instinct, but even these great leaders can learn from other people’s experience rather than having to experience it themselves. I can’t tell you how much better my leadership has gotten since I’ve met Lume and had him to bounce ideas off of and share frustrations with. Don’t get discouraged while you try and herd your healers through Sunwell. Your leadership got them there and your dedication and continued leadership will get them through it. The trying times are what define people as leaders and give your team confidence in your leadership once you’re back on firmer ground.

Long Boring Intro:
I have a secret. A long time ago, I was a “casual” player. For about a year I had a real life priority that took enough of my time to prevent me from raiding with any regularity. In that time I was part of a pvp team (where I met my partner in crime! Mikedabutcha) and then part of a real life friend guild. (You had to know someone in real life who was in the guild, A la Kevin Bacon). Once my real life priority had passed, I found myself too bored to play casually and sought out a raiding home, but I’ve always stayed in touch with that real life group of friends. Recently one of those members e-mailed me and let me know they were considering “raiding” and wanted advice. What is “raiding” and where might they find a good home? I e-mailed them back a specific response, and then upon re-reading it decided some of the advice I’d given him could be generalized and may be interesting to others.
The better player myth:
Intrinsically, dedicated raiders aren’t any better or worse than their casual counterparts. Rather than a reflection of skill, dedicated raiding is reflection of effort. Most people do become better with time and effort, but I’ve seen some really terrible players in some really good gear. In fact, in some cases I’ve been responsible for putting some good gear on bad players.

The “raider” mindset:
In another post, I’ve already talked about how the commitment to raiding, alters a players view of the game, so I won’t rehash that here. The advantage of this mindset is that you feel more involved in the game, you are able to see more things and the encounters do challenge you to master your class. The disadvantages are the you have to make raiding a priority in your life, you may end up playing with people you don’t necessarily enjoy outside of raids, and gaming time becomes a little more stressful.

Defining your commitment:
Often times in discussions we’ll put players into boxes: “Casual,” “Hardcore,” “Elitist,” “Scrub.” But in reality it’s not that simple. Rather than black or white there is a grayscale of levels of commitment to raiding and ability. So while considering raiding, consider realistically how much time do you want to spend playing this game? How much time can you spare from your everyday lifestyle? Remember that you are committing to more than just raiding, but also to being prepared for raids. A good rule of thumb to consider is that you’ll need about 15 minutes of preparation time for every hour of time you spend in a raid.

Finding a guild that matches your expectations:
This isn’t always easy. In fact, it was so hard for me that I ended up making my own guild. One of the easiest tricks to finding a guild that raids when you want to is to just type “/who Serpentshrine Cavern” (Or whatever zone you’re interested in raiding) and note the guilds of the people who are in that zone. Do that for a few days and make a list of the guild names you see. Once you have your list, do a search on the internet for “GuildName WoW Servername” or ask a member for the guild’s website. The first thing you should check is that their raid expectations match up to what you want to commit. Second, check their available information and see if their culture seems like the kind of culture you want from a guild.

Impressing the guild you want to join:
Once you’ve decided you want to join them, you have to explain to them why they should want you. Take a look at their raiders who play the same class/spec that you are playing in the armory and see how they have gemmed or enchanted their gear. Take a moment to evaluate your own character and used the “find upgrades” button to see if there is something easy you can do to make your character stronger. If this guild is killing bosses you haven’t seen yet, read information about those bosses. Remember in an interview, the recruiter is checking you to see if it’s worth making a time investment in you. The more things you can do to show them that you are investing time in yourself and your own progression, the more likely they are to feel that time invested in you and your progression is worthwhile.

I’m feeling lazy, but also feeling the need to update. I’ve decided to cater to both by sharing some healer math I posted in response to a friend rank guild member’s question in our guild forums.

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Question: “Healers in general, but specifically for paladins (as we have other perks to int) What is the perception on mp5 versus mana pool? Is a weak mana pool ok with enough mp5, or vice versa a huge mana pool ok with lower mp5?
I’m worried I might have stacked too much mp5 and sacrificed some of my overall mana pool. My mana and mp5 stats should be in my signature, i can regem to get my int up higher, but I’d lose some mp5 in the process. Not to mention one of my rings has zero stats on it, and desperately needs to be upgraded.
But yea, anyone have some advice on mana pool vs mp5? “

Long nerdy AuzAnswer(tm): “The significance of a large mana pool is relative to the length of the fight. I did my calculations based on a 10 minute fight which I’ve found to be the average length for a NEW boss fight (I emphasis new because as a boss fight becomes farmed the time it takes to down it shortens). For a 10 minute fight 1 mp5 is equal to 8 int. (I’d like to add a caveat that this is for MANA REGEN only.)

Ooo look math:
1 int = 15 mana
8 * 15 = 120 mana

1 minute = 60 seconds
60 * 10 = 600 seconds
600/5 (mana per 5 seconds) = 120 ticks
120 ticks * 1 mana = 120 mana

So in 10 minutes 1 mp5 gains you 120 mana or 8 int gives you 120 mana to start the fight with. As you can see from the math portion, the shorter the average fight you experience the more important int becomes relative to mana regen.

In addition 80 int = 1% spell crit (NOTE: I’m certain this is true for PRIESTS, I haven’t done all my fact checking for other mana users, honestly I just care more about priest minutia than other classes) I know that as a Pally you get 60% mana back for a spell that crits. So you can 1/800 * .6 * average total mana you use per fight and add that to the total mana you gain via int. (To be honest this number will probably be small enough to discount.)

Other considerations:
Blessing of Kings will multiply your int by 1.1 giving it a greater yield in comparison to mp5 which does not scale with Kings. This changes the ratio of a 10 minute fight to 7.27 int = 1 mp5, but this is only when you have Kings active.

When you get to a ridiculously small mana pool, the mana gained is too slow to meet up with your usage curve. (Remember 1mp5 is given out 1 mana point at a time) For 5 mans this is probably evident with mana pools below 6k and in raids below 8k but I’ve never seen gear allow you to drop below this pool unless you’re making an effort to avoid int)

If you use spirit, which as a pallidan you don’t, int also raises the amount of regen each point of spirit provides you. Given your small spirit score it’s not worth calculating.

5 man fights and 10 man fights tend to be 6 minutes or less, I won’t redo the math for you but you can see this will skew your ratio more heavily in favor of int.

Mods:
If you want help gaining the assumed statistics I used, I reccomend RegenFu (if you use Fubar) it will post your total mana regen and the length of the fight after each combat in it’s display.

Caster Weapon Swapper also does the same thing (and switches weapons for Spellsurge procs automatically!) only it reports in to your chat window.

Healpoints is a stand alone mod that will allow you to theorycraft changes to your stats and how they will affect your healing per second as well as your endurance (how long you can heal before you go OOM) Maybe if I get bored I’ll make a Healpoints theorycrafting guide.

/nerdmode off

{Name removed to protect the guilty} will tell you to maintain a 9.5 - 10k mana pool and ignore my nerd math, {Name removed to protect the fanatic} will tell you “FUCK REGEN” and request that you hit 14k mana by tomorrow”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So that’s my lazy post idea. Also now that I’ve discovered people actually read this stuff, if you have your own questions feel free to post them and maybe when I’m feeling less lazy I’ll provide an AuzAnswer(tm).