Mana Regeneration for Solo Hunters

Introduction

My 40 something hunter was constantly running out of Mana - stopping for drinks really slows down grinding. And a hunter's life without mana is no fun - DPS drops like a stone, no pet heals, no feign death etc. Eventually I figured out that the key to effective mana conservation is to understand mana regeneration. I'm sure most cloth wearers know this instinctively but few hunter guides talk about it. Here anyway is my two cents worth.

Spirit and Grinding

1. Spirit is very important for grinding. High int will give you a high starting mana while a high spirit will give you a better rate of mana regeneration. Its nice to have a good bit of both but in the long run properly used spirit will keep you going further if you undertstand the five second rule. My aim when grinding easy mobs is to finish each fight with the same mana you start with - no downtime at all.

The 5-Second Rule

2. NB NB Know and use the five second rule. Spirit will regenerate mana during combat but no regeneration happens for 5 seconds after a spell is cast. The five seconds timer runs from the point at which the spell stops using mana. This is important. Aimed shot for example draws mana at the end of the 3 second load up - mana regeneration happens during those three seconds but not for five seconds after. Heal pet on the other hand draws mana at the start but by the end of the channeling period the five seconds is almost up and mana regen starts quickly.

Maximise your Mana Regeneration

3. Fire special shots / abilities in bursts rather than space them out. The key to getting the most out of spirit is to maximise the amount of time for which mana is regenerating. A worst case scenario would be to fire exactly one ability every five seconds - This would result in no mana regeneration at all. The better way to do it is to use a bunch of special abilities and then wait for mana regeneration to act before firing the next bunch. Multishot with its 10 second cooldown allows for a nice bit of mana regen and can be used as a timer if you finish your burst of special shots with a multi.

The Order of Shots and Abilities

4. Pick the order of your shots carefully in order to maximise mana regeneration time. Aimed shot for example should be used at the start of a burst of abilities so you are still regenerating during the 3 second load up. Heal pet on the other hand should be used at the end so that regeneration starts soon after you finish chanelling.

Regen Mana Properly Between Fights

5. Make sure you are regenerating mana fully for the whole time between fights. In the time it takes to walk to a corpse, loot it, select a new target and send in your pet you can regenerate a lot of mana PROVIDING you haven't stopped your mana regeneration by using a spell during this time. This goes against the grain for many hunters who are used to using Hunter's Mark or even laying a trap in preparation for a fight.

- If you are going to open with aimed shot don't use any mana consuming ability before it or else you will delay mana regeneration for at least 8 seconds. This ban includes setting traps, changing aspect, or hunters mark.

- Do not use any special ability to deliver the coup de grace at the end of a fight. If you kill a running mob with an arcane shot then you will waste 5 seconds of valuable mana regeneration between fights. Better to use a couple of autoshots or let your pet take them down (Dash or Dive is handy). If you are really worried about a runner pulling adds then serpent sting them at about 30% health. The last few ticks of the sting will bring them down quickly and your mana regen should start five seconds after the sting was fired. Worst case if you do get unwanted adds at least by folowing these tips you will have plenty of mana to deal with them.

In Case You Pull Aggro from Your Pet

6. If your pet loses aggro and the mob targets you don't panic and spam a whole bunch of spells. I used to be terrible for this - I'd waste a ton of mana with raptor strikes, wing clips, scatter shots all of which just made it harder for my pet to regain aggro. Providing your pet is alive its usually better to absorb a few hits and just keep autoshot or melee attack working away - after a couple of growls your pet will regain aggro and you'll still have plenty of mana to control the situation.

Example Strategies

7. Some sample strategies that work:

1. For grinding lower level mobs: select target, send in pet, load up aimed shot, when aimed shot fires immediately serpent sting, hunters mark and multishot, then autoshot to death. Resist the temptation to fire a second burst of specials - these mobs go down quickly and you'll just prevent mana regeneration from happening during the break from one mob to the next.

2. For grinding tougher mobs: Start as above but if the mob still has a lot of health (>50%) after the 10s multishot timer has cooled down fire another burst of aimed shot/multishot. I have seen this called the hunters cycle but remember to stop at least 5 seconds before the mob dies so that you get full benefit from mana regeneration between fights. If you do use aimed shot do not use any ability before it.

3. If you realy want to set a freeze trap: Perhaps you are trying to crowd control a mob in a group of two. The main difference here is that you should abandon aimed shot if you set a trap - else you lose a lot of mana regen time. Try this: select a target, send in pet, drop a trap while pet is running, then hunters mark, arcane shot and multishot. The multishot will pull the second mob towards you and your trap.

4. Soloing Elites: Conventional wisdom has it that tough elites need to be kited but I prefer this method. Start as before with pet, aimed shot, serpent, mark, multi in that order. Then keep autoshotting until either you pet has reached 50% health or your serpent sting has run out. Then top up serpent sting and immediately cast heal pet in that order. Repeat until mob is dead. The philosophy here is to conserve most of your mana for keeping your pet alive.

Mana Efficiency of Shots

8. I should really add a comment on the mana efficiency of shots:
The exact damage per unit of mana depends on the hunters stats and the targets armour but without going into the maths Serpent sting is very mana efficient followed closely by Aimed shot. Multi shot is a fair bit less efficient and Arcane shot is generally very inefficient A true mana miser would probably avoid multishot but I find that my general mana regeneration strategy allows me enough leeway to use multishot for that bit of extra damage and faster killing. On very low level mobs which go down too quickly to allow time for mana regen you would do better to leave out multishot.

Armour and resists complicate things a little bit because aimed shot and multishot damage is mitigated by armour while arcane shot is not. In theory it might be more efficienct to use arcane shot than autoshot on a very heavily armoured mob. I cannot recall coming across any examples of this however.

9. I have no experience of high end raiding so I cannot vouch for the effectiveness of these tips in raids. Understanding how mana regen works and knowing the correct order of shots in order to maximise mana regen can only help I guess.