SCH Mana usage

A while back I queued for a pug garuda hm with the duty finder. Unfortunately, it ended up as a failure after, I believe, three tries with someone leaving. Now before he left, as dps I believe. He blamed the tank for "sucking" and the scholar (which was me) for using to much mana. As a healer who has rarely receives a complaint this actually bothered me a little, and actually made me wonder a bit. Now I admit my mana might have dipped a little lower then most my fights and I might have hit under 1k, but mostly due to the amount of damage being taken plus b-res(s) (imo) but I usually maintained a stack or two of aeroflow.

Is it possible for a SCH to use much mana? Especially if you don't oom or pull aggro?

You can rezz to much or cast succ too often. But at the end of the day thats often not your choice if you have to.

Well, "too much" would really only be too much if you run out and can't heal anymore......

If healing gets intense you can always ask the Bard for MP Regen song or Cleric Stance + Energy Drain.

Commendable for trying to take a criticism in stride to make improvements, but how exactly is this useable feedback to make changes? What did he mean by "using too much mana"? Should you have done less and let people die? Then the complaint would have been you didn't do enough. This rings true:

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Originally Posted by Sinaloa

You can rezz to much or cast succ too often. But at the end of the day that's often not your choice if you have to.

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You can't really control how much mana you'll have to burn to keep people alive and in the fight. The only choice in the matter if have is how much you DPS and overheal...even then DPSing is really the only thing you singularly have control over. If you're in a large group and both healers choose to heal the same target, overhealing is going to happen.

This guy was just upset things weren't going right and was taking it out on his party. Take what he said as a footnote, not as a serious complaint about how well you do what you do.

I wouldn't worry too much unless you found yourself in the position where you were unable to cast a heal. A lot of people don't understand the Scholar class. Even if we do run out, we still got Aetherflow if it's up, and can toss a few Energy Drains (you don't need Cleric Sctance, the MP restore is always the same amount). Most of the time it's the DPS's fault if we gotta do excessive healing.

Only thing I can think of is that you might not have been using Aetherflow on cooldown, or not burning charges with Energy Drain before refreshing Aetherflow.

Chances are, you did absolutely fine. The only way Scholars can use too much MP is if you use Adlo to heal mostly instead of Physick, or if you're spamming Succor - but if you're using Succor a lot, it's most likely because you need it, from AoE damage being taken.

Like some other people have said, one of the biggest things is managing Aetherflow. Say you just started a fight, and you have three stacks of Aetherflow, and Aetherflow is also off cooldown. Once you start to dip to around 80% MP, use Energy Drain once or twice, maybe Sacred Soil, Adlo the tank and Succor the rest to burn a bit of MP. Make sure you use all your stacks, then pop Aetherflow for another three stacks. You should be back at 100% MP and ready to keep healing.

This will work even if you're down to 50% MP or so, popping all three Energy Drains even without Cleric Stance then Aetherflow will push you to 80-100% MP. That being said, it all depends on the fight. If you KNOW there's some random heavy damage, or your group takes a little more damage than they should it's smart to keep one or two stacks of Aetherflow for Lustrate, unless of course Aether is off CD.

You should never really run out of Mana. The only 2 Mana hogs on a SCH are Succor and Adoloquium. Succor is limited in its uses, as is Adoloquium.

So you really should never have to care about using too much Mana since 90% of your healing should be coming from Physick/Lustrate/Embrace and only 1 of those costs Mana.

More than likely the tank was not geared to the 9s and was taking more damage than usual or was not moving out of the way of her cleaves. You probably had no choice so really not your fault. ^^

seems to me like the op did nothing "wrong" and whoever it was just wanted to whinge about anything because the group wiped.
nothing out of the ordinary these days

Typically mana only dips if:
a) You're having to convert all your aetherflow stacks into sacred soil/lustrate (None to use on energy drain)
b) You're forgetting to burn the stacks and flip aetherflow once it comes off CD.
c) You're having to keep rezzing people

I've never actually been in a situation where healing alone has completely depleted my mp reserve (Invariably in tandem with lots of players dying repeatedly). That said, as long as you *had* mp left, it's irrelevant - heals are still flowing. It sounds like you simply had a bad tank in that instance; or a bad team who forced you to keep burning mp on rezes. Either way I don't think the fault lay with you.

No such thing as using to much mana unless you run out. Gotta do what gotta do to keep the team pew pewing.

Using to much mana is more an indication of the group not knowing the fight and taking damage in excess. I.E. Standing front of a sister or not moving out of tornado or migrating to and from*middle during phase changes.

Of course if you're just excessively casting succor for mitigation at wrong times or forgetting to keep eatherflow on cd during the intense periods that can be a problem too.

It's totally possible to run out of mana, unlike what some people are saying. In Titan during the stomps, when you're constantly having to use Succor and use your Aetherflow stacks on Lustrate on the tank as well as people who get hit by the mechanics, you have no MP coming in. If your bard dies in those situations, you will quickly find yourself out of MP.

That being said, in easier content the only real way to run out of MP is if everybody is getting hit by everything, and aggro is everywhere, and you're stuck spamming heals constantly.

FYI: Your mana is your own damn concern and I honestly wish other people couldn't see your mana pool because they tend to freak out even when you have it all under control.

Ending a fight at full mana is probably wasteful anyway.

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Originally Posted by LiadansWhisper

FYI: Your mana is your own damn concern and I honestly wish other people couldn't see your mana pool because they tend to freak out even when you have it all under control.

Ending a fight at full mana is probably wasteful anyway.

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Tell em! xD

The only times I ever find myself running low on mp is near the end of Titan and Garuda, both situations can get very intense and can require a lot of healing. So just ask the bard for balad, if he doesn't give it to you, the party wipes. Near the end of Titan the bard will probably always have balad up, simply because you can burn through 1-1.5k mp on the stomps. Being low on mp basically means you were doing your job correctly, or being a total idiot and just spamming succor all day and night when everyone is at full hp, shielded, and nothing is incoming while using aetherflow stacks to cast bane on a boss with no adds.

Casting a ress is a MASSIVE drain on your mana (6 heals worth!). It sounds like your group was bad, and you had to use your mana to keep them up. I think you are fine.

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Originally Posted by LiadansWhisper

FYI: Your mana is your own damn concern and I honestly wish other people couldn't see your mana pool because they tend to freak out even when you have it all under control.

Ending a fight at full mana is probably wasteful anyway.

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If it weren't for smart bards that watch my MP from time to time and Ballad when I dip to the 1k mark I'd fully agree. (I do yell at them when they give it and I really don't need it, for example when shroud is up, or when I have aetherflow stacks and it's off cooldown) But as everyone else was saying, so long as you're still healing you're fine.

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Originally Posted by Nailkita

If it weren't for smart bards that watch my MP from time to time and Ballad when I dip to the 1k mark I'd fully agree. (I do yell at them when they give it and I really don't need it, for example when shroud is up, or when I have aetherflow stacks and it's off cooldown) But as everyone else was saying, so long as you're still healing you're fine.

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Ultimately, you are the only person responsible for your mana bar. I fully expect harder content to make using Bard Song a bad idea due to loss of damage, so as to force healers to control their mana more stringently.

If you're having trouble monitoring your mana, move the bar until you can see it at all times. But I still think it would be better if other players couldn't see our mana bars, because I often do get mage song when I have no use for it whatsoever (I have a rotation I use to keep my mana from tanking).