The new lifebloom is now on the PTR

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EDIT: Originally botched some numbers, because I forgot about ToL aura reducing the cost of LB by 20%. I went back through this post and fixed them all =)

On the PTR, this is what one lifebloom costs:

With 2-piece bonus and in tree form: 733 mana
With 2-piece bonus and not in tree form: 929 mana
Without 2-piece bonus and in tree form: 782 mana
Without 2-piece bonus and not in tree form: 978 mana

/end edit

The Lifebloom change is finally live on the PTR. Unfortunately, it looks to be bugged. When you put Lifeblooms on someone else and they bloom, the 50% mana return is given to the *target*, not you. So it's not quite working as intended.

Regardless, here's a bit of a general update from Ghostcrawler:

In PvE the goal was to make rolling Lifeblooms on tanks more expensive. We didn't nerf the amount healed by the spell. Currently, rolling LBs + Rejuv on a tank can be as much healing as a priest or paladin who is just spamming all of their heals on the tank. That is a totally fine thing for a druid to be able to do. But currently the druid can do all of that on more than one tank AND also add in some raid healing. That is just too good. We're cool with rolling LBs on a tank and raid healing. We're cool rolling LBs on two tanks. But once you are rolling LBs on 2 (or 3!) tanks and have enough mana left over for a lot of other raid heals, then you are just too efficient a healer. I understand not all of you were able to do that. But many players were.

As much as I want to QQ about the lifebloom change, I read this and surprisingly found myself agreeing with Ghostcrawler. We *can* roll LBs on 3 tanks, and rejuv and regrowth people, and absolutely have enough mana left to raid heal. Blizzard is saying that we shouldn't. I think that we *should* have to watch our mana pool more. We should have tighter rotations. We should feel challenged.

However, they say they're cool with us rolling LBs on two tanks, right? Let's do some math and figure out where that leaves us. The mana cost of one Lifebloom right now without the 2 piece bonus is 14% of base mana, which is 489 mana. Let's assume, however, that you have at least 2 pieces of tier gear. The bonus makes one LB = 465 mana. And assuming you're in tree form, it costs 20% less, bringing it down to 367 mana. So on the PTR, one LB will cost 734 mana. Let's say you put three on one tank, as fast as your global cooldowns will let you. That's 2202 mana eaten. You turn to the next tank, and do the same. That's now 4404 mana used. If I have a mana pool of, say, 19k, raid buffed, then I just used over 23% of my total mana pool.

How much mana would it cost to continue to roll these LBs on two tanks?

Let's assume that our GCD is 1.2 seconds. So you start right off the bat with 6 lifeblooms and 4404 mana gone. But you've been regening mana for (6 LBs at 1.2sec each) 7.2 seconds. Personally, I regen 306 mp5 while casting on the PTR. So I've regened 440 mana. Hence, after 7.2 seconds of casting LBs, I have a net loss of (4404 - 440) 3964 mana.

Let's say I cast some other spells around, hence keeping my mana regen in the 306 mp5 stage. Not necessarily full on spam healing, but a rejuv here and there, maybe one regrowth on the tank, or a WG on the melee. Just enough to keep me in my "while casting" mana regen. And every 8 or 9 seconds, I refresh both of those LB stacks. That's two LBs every 9 seconds, so, about 13 total in a minute. Keep in mind that we're not letting them bloom, so we're not getting the 50% mana back. 13 LBs in one minute is a loss of 9529 mana. But we're regening 306 mp5 for 60 seconds, so we've regened a total of 3672 mana in that minute.

That's a net loss of (9529 - 3672) 5857 mana. In one minute. Plus the 3964 mana in the 7.2 seconds before that.

If we roll lifeblooms on two tanks, we will have lost (5857 + 3964) 9821 mana in 67.2 seconds.

That means we'd have just about 49% of a 19k mana pool LEFT for other heals, just from casting Lifeblooms. And I didn't even count the other heals that I was casting around in between the stack refreshers, which would absolutely eat into that 49%.

A Patchwerk fight is typically close to, or over 3 minutes long, depending on how kick-ass your DPS is. If druids roll 3 LBs on each tank and cast any other type of heal, we'll be out of mana WELL before it's done. Plus, our Innervate now only regens us 30-40% of our mana pool.

And even in fights where we have a break in the action - Malygos in between phases, Gothik the Harvester, hell, even the web wrap in Meaxxna - our out of combat mana regen is nerfed through the ground, so that won't help us either.

Conclusion: We're not really going to be able to roll Lifeblooms anymore. It's simply too mana intensive. I think that Blizzard was much too heavy-handed with this change, especially with it being on top of the out of combat mana regen nerf. It's one thing to want druids to be aware of their mana, but it's another to have them run out of mana in 1.5 minutes regardless of how attentive they are in timing their heals.

/sad panda


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