shame and regrets

The goal is to have mana last about the same for all healers. We don't think
many players would be that interested in a style where you heal crazy good
for a short period and then run OOM. How classes manage their mana varies
a lot, and we are making tweaks to it for 3.1 to try and keep them in line. For
example, the shadow fiend needs to be more reliable.

I am still not following the logic that Int now trumps Spirit by even more. It
may have been a better stat already, but these changes shouldn't affect it
that much unless you A) skip Meditation and Intensity, or B) relied a whole
lot more on OOFSR regen than the average raid healer of reasonable skill.

I will break from our normal practice and go ahead and provide the numbers,
just to make sure nobody is guessing about the details when doing their
estimates:
* The amount of base mana regen granted has been reduced 40%.
We called this "Spirit" in the notes, since most players associate OOFSR
regen with Spirit, but in reality Int factors into the equation as well and we
only lowered the constant, not the relative contributions of Int or Spirit. In
retrospect, this probably caused more confusion than it alleviated, but mana regeneration is a fairly technical concept.
* The effects of talents that provide mana regen while casting have been
increased by 67%. This includes: Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap,
Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac, and Spirit Tap. For example,
Intensity and Meditation are now 17/33/50% mana regen while casting (up from
10/20/30%). For most dps classes who never got much mana from OOFSR in
the first place, the results should not be noticeable. Boomkin may be a possible
exception because of Innervate, and we'll take a look at that.
* This should leave mana regeneration while casting (even the contribution of
Spirit) relatively unchanged, but reduce mana regeneration while not casting by
40%. (If you don't understand our logic, I suggest you re-read the excellent post
I quoted above.)
* Since paladins don't rely on any of those abilities for mana regeneration, we
lowered the healing penalty of Divine Plea to -50%. We are also likely to make
Spiritual Attunement provide less mana for non-tanking paladins. We are not
touching Illumination for the moment. Nor are we lowering the effects of
Replenishment (though as I have suggested, it would be our likely next target
if we aren't happy with the results of these changes).

Healing - Mana Regeneration in 3.1
To those players who feel like they already have trouble managing mana now,
it's hard for me to evaluate each case to know what is going on. My only
suggestion is you need to treat mana regeneration as a real mechanic and not
just go for throughput in all of your gear and talent choices. We are going
to get all of this on the PTR so that we and the community can run additional
tests to make sure that all four healing classes feel valuable and effective.

Ulduar is definitely going to shine a harsher light on PvE balance in all
forms and we're just going to have to deal with problems (real or imagined)
as they come up.