I addressed this briefly in my 3.0 Ret FAQ, but the problem persists across the Warcraft universe. The issue came up briefly on Maintankadin, with notable MTadin moderator Lore weighing in with his experiences. Here's the exchange, from this thread:
Rasmfrackn: Picking up int is improving your dps. It has to be because Ret is apparently intended to be resource limited and making choices about what to spend its mana on. If the int comes cheaply enough, it's an improvement.
Lore: I've been mentioning this a lot lately: I spam consecrate on every fight. Exorcism too where I can. I push 3200 DPS raid buffed. I have only come close to running out of mana once or twice, and I have never come remotely close to running out of mana after popping a runic mana pot.People, people, people. Please understand: if you're running out of mana, you're doing it wrong. What Lore said is the truth: there is no need to gear for Intellect! Here's a checklist of things to do to make sure you have enough mana to keep chugging along:
- Bring mana potions.
- Use Divine Please once you hit 70-75% mana and then every cooldown there-after.
- Prioritize Judgement to make sure you get the JotW mana kick-back every chance you can.
- Use Avenging Wrath every time the cooldown is up.
- Gear yourself correctly so as to maximize your damage output (do enough damage and you'll hurt yourself more with SoB/SotM, get more mana from heals - get strength, hit, expertise, and crit. This is why you want to use wings every cooldown as well).
- If you're desperate, bring Dark Runes or Demonic Runes.
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3 comments:
Ignoring gear with additional Int, wouldn't there be instances where you would want to pickup mail or even leather to increase DPS? I have noticed that most of it does not have strength, but the extra item budget for AP, Crit, Hit, etc, could make up for that I would think.
On the mana thing, I do run low while questing. However, when I did my city raiding for the War Bear, I didn't have too many issues. The main thing was having to use those pots. You cannot be afraid to burn those. I have done exactly zero five mans though (even regular), so I don't know how the mana thing will work out while doing those.
As Prot, I have noticed that I have fewer mana issues then when I am specced Ret. Weird, but true. Once again though, most of my experience is solo, so your mileage will vary. I really need to get off my ass and do some instances :P
Yes I swap specs a lot. Yes, dual specs will save me more money then I know. And yes, I'm just thinking out loud. Don't mind me....
@Dradis
Yes, there are instances where you would pick up mail and leather. Those are times when the overall combination of str/crit/hit on your plate is less than the AP/agi/crit/hit contribution on the mail/leather. The intellect on hunter mail does not enter the equation. I'll work up some numbers on this when I can to demonstrate.
I would love to see a list of best in slot items for Ret, including mail and leather. I would guess that would be a tall order if you go so far as factoring in raid buffs and such though. BoK alone could probably have a large effect on gear choice.
I would also like to see how much armor you lose going from best in slot leather/mail/plate to best in slot plate only. Ideally, we shouldn't be getting hit much, and we probably won't be able to take more then a couple of good swings before we hit the ground anyway.
Thinking out loud again...
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