Comments on: How to Tank Heroics and Not Run Out of Mana

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:04:18 +0000

I’ve been trying to use the whacking critters trick, but they never seem to be around when I need them!

I find myself rethinking about block and mana these day. I like block rating, since it increases how often I block and thus return from BoSanc, but too much block value and I start absorbing all the damage. I wouldn’t give up my Libram of Valiance and my Darkmoon Card: Greatness though!

By: Iceylady

Iceylady — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:35:56 +0000

Great write-up. As someone who has both a raiding disc priest and a raiding prot pally, I see both sides of this all the time.

On the pally, I have a set pretty much exactly like yours, a solid BV set (even with the good old Gnomeregan Auto Blocker). Another thing I find helpful is to keep the time between pulls down, and even things like whacking on a rat or roach between pulls to keep Plea up.

On the disc priest side, I keep an eye on the tank’s mana. If it isn’t an issue for the most part, I just shield everyone and eat my dinner. If it is, I just make a point of shielding the rest of the party and Flash/Penance the tank. Sure, Diving Aegis still procs, but it’s a lot less then a full shield. Also, for what it’s worth, I tend to hymn of hope on CD with pally tanks. Not much mana, but I really don’t have that much to do in heroics anyway.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:51:52 +0000

Yeah, thats pretty similar to the holy gear swapping trick Tego suggested. I can see that working out of combat, but ideally, you wouldn’t be running out of mana in the first place .

By: person

person — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:47:05 +0000

If a pally tank is running low on mana, they could aways use the equipment manager to swap to there offspec gear that has lower hitpoints so when they are healed back up they recive mana from Spiritual Attunement. This is a way for the pally to “life tap”

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:44:00 +0000

I can see the usefulness of some holy pieces, although I personally prefer the added dps/threat from some ret or high threat Naxx/Ulduar pieces. But after all, it’s a 5 man so as long as you have mana and aren’t driving your team nuts, it doesn’t really matter.

I have heard of paladins using a /sit macro to be critted to get mana back and it seems to work ok. As you said, with high armor it shouldn’t be much of a big deal. I’d rather just not run out of mana in the first place, but, yeah, that is an option.

By: Steelforge

Steelforge — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:38:55 +0000

I use two tricks to fight mana starvation. The first is to use one or two pieces from my Holy set, which dramatically increases my mana pool, while slightly reducing avoidance and armor mitigation. Extra points if that piece provides MP5. The second I will only use rarely when I get sloppy enough to mana-starve myself. Please note this is useful on damage-predictable mobs, definitely not to be used on a boss, and only with a trusted healer. Sit down and take a crit. Again, given a reliable healer, it’s an instant spiritual attunement kick in the pants, and with my high armor poses no threat to the group.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:12:05 +0000

Hmm that healing gear swapping trick is naughty! I can think of a healer or two I’d do that to just to tease them. But since a pally tank only has like 5k mana anyway, wouldn’t it take about the same time to drink than swap gear sets and wait for a heal?

I completely agree with the ret gear. I like recycling my old tanking gear, but swapping in a few more pieces of ret stuff has the same effect. I wouldn’t want to drop below 535 def unless I know my healer is ok with it, but with the insane amount of def on high level tanking gear, you can probably swap out quite a few pieces before going too low.

By: Tego

Tego — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:00:44 +0000

Thats an interesting take, as a raiding paly tank there have been times where I walk into the instance buff and have 50k health, yeah this is a bit overkill, so now I am saving some trimuph badges for the t9ret shoulders, and possibly gloves, gemming strait str like any good ret would do, this may drop me under 535 def, but honestly I couldnt care less, throw on the raid tanking gear for the bosses and be happy. One other trick that most healers will tell you is evil is to use a gear switch that either switches you to your holy set (what i use in this case) or some other low health set and back. Its like a lifetapping lock “I’m not OOM till you’re OOM” and being the tank, letting you die doesnt work. Still this is an evil thing to do to a healer and should be avoided if possible (switch between pulls and be careful that you dont get stuck in the gear) On a final note the ret gear helps 2 ways, one you get hit more and 2 str = threat so more str gets you more threat for less work. If I am feeling lazy I will do 2 or three full rotations on a boss, then keep my judgement up until I see a dps catching me on OMEN Will have to look into getting a dps 1h though that would be rather nice.

By: Ophelie

Ophelie — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:08:23 +0000

I always QQ when I have to switch to seal of wisdom, but it does make life easier!

I tend to forget to use divine plea too, or I time it wrong, or pull too slowly and it runs out. (I’m looking forward to trying the killing the critters trick) As for consecrate, it’s hard habit to get rid of. But yeah, unless you’re fighting a lot of mobs, it’s often overkill. (I’m also guilty of draining my mana with Avenger’s Shield, but shhhhh)

By: Gameldar

Gameldar — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 06:07:38 +0000

Thanks for this post… I’ve just switched my pally to Holy/Prot (using Rhidach’s SoCommand spec) and have been tanking the last week or so and been having mana issues – largely due to forgetting to start divine plea before the fights (I should really slot it into divine plea = bloodrage – coming from being a warrior tank) – but as the comments suggested I’m probably dropping consecrate too much as well. And as a main spec holy pally… I’m ashamed to admit I forgot about seal of wisdom…

If I’m seeing more issues with mana I might try the Seal of Command glyph… but largely I think its a management issue (although I understand the gear issue as well from a rage starvation perspective)