Brief Ret Mana Notes.

Jetliner Asks:

Zebra,
I try and catch your blog just about every day. I just wanted to get your insight on some mathematics / theory crafting on the Judgments of Wise.
"* Judgements of the Wise now immediately grant you 25% of your base mana. (Up from 15%) [Needed to go up, but is this enough?]" your quote from your blog.
Currently on live my gear has me at 5700 mana. This would be my base mana correct? If so that would mean on live I would get 855 mana back if my math is right for JotW at 15%.
Now on the PTR if I had same char with 5700 mana, with new JotW at 25% my math tells me I should get around 1425 mana back. Is that also correct?
I have not done any math/theory around the mana from replenishment, but given those numbers you dont think that Ret; when geared with around 5500 base mana; would be able to sustain themselves?
Given that all ret should have Imp Judgements reducing CD to 8 seconds and then if they even have 4 peice of T7/T7.5 they would get another 1 second off CD. Would this in turn do 1400 mana every 7 seconds?

Thank you for your time
Long time fellow Retadin
Jetliner - Elune - US servers

It's a good question and I'm hoping to have a more in-depth look at it once 3.1 is finalised and goes live. However there are a bit of terminology we need to clear up when approaching this calculation.

Base Mana.

It's something that has caught out many a player. Base mana is not your mana whilst naked, it is instead your mana whilst naked minus the mana from base intellect's contribution. This value is the same for all Paladins: 4394 Mana.

This means that a 25% Base Mana Regen JotW will regen ~ 1100 mana, and Judgement of Wisdom procs (2% base) will return 88 mana.

Anyway, now that's out the way we need to move on to a theoretical Time Till Out Of Mana (TTOOM). For this we need a construct a reasonable set of average cooldowns for each ability. The following is a good approximation:

Ability	Mana Cost	Modelled Cooldown (secs)
Judgement	197	8.5
Crusader Strike	315	6.5
Divine Storm	474	10.5
Exorcism	315	15.5
Consecration	869	10.5

No net mana consumption model would be complete without Divine Plea and Replenishment. Of course, both abilities regen mana based on Total Mana rather than base so it isn't a set amount - the more you buff your mana the better (love your mages, and they will give you their love in return). Generally speaking, a lvl80 Total Mana of 5700 before buffs is reasonable. These two abilities combined make a significant dent in your mana deficit.

And finally we need an approx regen rate contribution for Judgement of Wisdom. Unfortunately this isn't simple as the proc rates for this skill are unpredictable. Empirically a figure of around 35 mana per second for a full Ret rotation is a good enough low estimate (yep, JoW rocks).

Cranking the handle of a pretty simple mana consumption model indicates the following:

When unbuffed and using JoLight a Ret Paladin should have a TTOOM of a little over a minute and a half. This is the baseline self-sustainable requirement as JoL is required to offset SoB recoil damage, and 25% JotW obviously doesn't cut it here.

When unbuffed and using JoWisdom a Ret Paladin should have a TTOOM of almost 5'30". This is the baseline Instance case as recoil damage should be handled by your party healers.

When Raid buffed for 25-man encounters, Ret's net mana consumption is effectively nil. This 25-man Raid case is sustainable in that it requires no special or exotic cooldowns, and allows utility spells such as Hand of Salvation, Flash of Light and the like to be brought in where appropriate.

Reach the Hit Cap! A missed Judgement represents a big hole in your mana pool.

Buffing total mana, even if only using a Scroll of Intellect VIII (48 Int), has a very significant effect on TTOOM as it increases both total mana and regen rates.

BoW and Mana Spring represent significant mana regen buffs in this context. These buffs should not be underestimated.

There is no convincing case for using the new Glyph of Seal of Blood over the Exorcism, Judgement and Consecration glyphs in 25-man or 5-man encounters.

Long, 10-man Hard-mode encounters will be very rough. Ret will almost certainly need to swap out the Glyph of Exorcism for Glyph of Seal of Blood and Judge Wisdom to last the whole fight. Runic mana pots and self-LoH may also make an appearance. However BoW or Mana Spring totem changes the calculation significantly.

Tentatively, I'd say that Ret will be fine in terms of mana for 3.1 so long as the mob we are striking is debuffed with JoW. We won't really be self-sustainable and still do optimal DPS for the situation, and you can forget about utility off-healing and the like. 10-man Hard Mode encounters will continue to be the litmus test, and will almost certainly require specific group composition purely for Ret's mana. Additionally, I've not modelled sub-20% HoW rotations, where mana consumption currently increases significantly. I maintain that a talent reducing the mana cost of Consecration by 50% or more is the best solution to increasing longevity.

It's a good start, but my gut tells me there's a long way to go. The question is: is Ret supposed to be Hard Mode viable?