manapool and exp gain

[Lumi]

Ok, I'm having an ongoing discussion about manapool size and exp gain. One side thinks that someone with more mana won't exp faster then someone with less mana and one side thinks that the more mana you have the faster you can exp.

They argue that say person A has a 1k mana pool and person B has a 2k mana pool, and they each solo a mob that takes 500mana per kill and it takes 5 minutes to regen 1k mana. Person A kills 2 mobs and meds for 5 minutes while person B kills 4 mobs then meds for 10 minutes. What do you guys think?

[ShamusChad]

I would argue that I have no idea what you are asking for since EXP gain is completely dependant on a series of variables beyond manapool...IE- Class... location of exp gain...assistance (PLing or group) among others.

Are we talking 100% solo as what class? What are we fighting?

[eqsaelie]

If a mob takes 1000 mana to kill, and you regen 100 mana per minute, with a mana pool of 3000:

You can kill three mobs, then every ten minutes thereafter you can kill another mob.

If someone else regens at the same rate, but has a manapool of 6000, then they can kill six mobs, then one more mob every ten minutes.

It looks like this:

#mobs killed = 6x + [(manapool - 1000)/1000]

x being the number of hours you are exping.

Thus, for one hour,

# = 6(1) + (3000-1000)/1000
# = 6 + 2 = 8 mobs/hr

Someone with the same manaregen and a manapool of 5000 will kill, in one hour,

# = 6(1) + (5000-1000)/1000
#=6 + 4 = 10

Over time, the disparity diminishes;

# = 6(5) + (3000-1000)/1000
# = 30 + 2 = 32, for person_a

# = 6(5) + (5000-1000)/1000
# = 30 + 4 = 34, for person_b

Mana regen is the really important factor, since it determines the variable, x. Manapool is a constant, so that a bigger manapool makes a *huge* difference in kills for the first half hour or hour, but a diminishing difference as time increases, and therefore x increases.

[Anyen]

I don't beleive in hypothetical things, so i'll use something real as an example. It takes approximetly 6k mana to quad kite the valorian sentries in halls of honor. Person with 4k mana will have to quad to oom, and spend 10 minutish kit-medding to finish them off. Wizard with 6k mana can kill them and med for the next quad without wasting 10 minutes time. More mana pool = more exp

[Firamas]

why would you intentionally mention something that requires the very highest end mana pools as far as exp'ing goes? that's an isolated situation with specific variables, that doesn't prove anything

max manapool matters most in short boss fights and hectic exp situations (your group has been trained, etc)

mana REGEN is the important thing normally, again assuming the single encounter doesn't *require* more mana than you have at FM. if two wizards both happen to have 50/tick regen or something, but one has a 4.5k manapool and one has a 6k manapool, the difference over a couple hours of exp'ing is going to be basically unnoticable. it amounts to about one or two extra kills, i.e. the period of time that the 6k wizard spent killing another few mobs while the 4.5k wizard sat down to med the very first time. that first 1500 mana difference is the only one that matters. if you want to think of that 1500 extra mana as "free mana", and apply it over, say, a three hour exp period, then it's equivalent to about an extra 0.8/tick regen. whoopdeedoo. =)

or, to summarize and agree with a previous post: if you're only dealing with a 5 minute span of time, mana regen doesn't mean much. the longer you extend that span of time, the greater an effect regen has, obviously.

[Ishaca]

Well not only did the person pick a fairly high end quad, it's also obvious that he doesn't know what he's talking about and never done it himself.

As a druid, I used to quad in HoH, and I had about a 5000 mana pool at the time. I could easily quad them down using using the 62 spell and my mana pool. So there went his wizard taking 6k mana pool to do it, their spells are a much better ratio. Oh and the other part that was blatantly wrong, sentries are immune to changes in run speed, I'd like to see the wizard who could quad them.

Like a couple people have said, it's all about your mana regen rate. The faster you regen mana the faster you can use it. The only time you could argue mana pool is if you logged on, burned a few things down, then gated to nexus and sat down to med for a half hour while you watched tv, then came back, killed until oom, rinse repeat. Then yeah manapool would be the determining factor. In a normal xp group I hover around 80% mana the whole time. I would hover around 80% whether it was 80% of 2000 or 80% of 10000.

Ishaca

[larseny316]

As long as you are active enough to never hit max mana you should kill the same number of mobs (give or take 1).

Of course in a real play setting there are the mobs where you just needed 300 more mana to get that last nuke off, instead you have to do some inefficient combat medding to get enough. The higher mana person wouldn't.

And in real solo exping, I doubt mana people sit there and watch there bar regen, so they can stand up and cast 1 pixel before it maxes. We go afk and try to come back in time. A larger manapool buys you an extra minute or so to eat your sandwhich.

All a big manapool does is allow you to be a little bit lazier and a little bit more careful. You will make a tiny bit more exp, but not enough to brag about.

[Dethfang]

OR if you are soloing and then going afk for long periods of time while you med up a bigger mana pool is bigger

This is alot like comparing hitpoints and regen... they are both very important and different times.

Given the same mana regen a person with more mana will kill more things over time. If mana regen isnt the same then you are asking a completely different question

[Qhue]

Unless your manapool allows you to kill a mob or mobs that are otherwise unkillable with a smaller manapool AND these mobs have a ludcirously high exp value then manapool doesnt matter for exp purposes, only regen does.

Now this presumes that the player isnt an idiot in an exp group who is continually used to being full mana for any significant pull and gauges his mana usage by his percentage of mana. I have run into a few clerics who are like this, they have abysmal mana regen and and toss out mana freely until they hit 50% mana and then they want to med back to full...regardless of how much total mana they started out with! So these saps double their manapool and just get wastefull with their casting and yet bitch when the exp flow slows down as they med. This is why I would rather solo my umpteenth Diaku than ever join a pickup group.

[Liz]

Originally posted by Qhue
then they want to med back to full

Somebody said they needed a med break the other day in a group and i nearly fell out of my chair. I don't think they liked it much when the question was asked. 'WTF is a med break?' as they proceeded to chain pull.

[Melrin_Specclaster]

A med break is only an issue if your healer is totally inefficient or if your tank has bad kit. I've had a cleric with ft4 consistently have more mana that a cleric with ft15.

As for mana pool, it only matters if you have 'enough mana to win when things go their worst'. IE, charm break alot, lots of resists on a quad etc. Otherwise its all about FT.

[Ravensign]

Every tick you are FM your mana regen is a big fat 0.

Sitting, standing, on a horse, with KEI, with FT 15, big fat zilch.

The greater your mana pool the less likely you are to be FM and therfore unable to regen mana.

[Ishaca]

Actually no, your mana pool doesn't affect how often you are at full mana and thus getting no mana regen. The rate at which you cast and use mana affects the % of your mana pool. I don't care if you have two people, one with a 1000 mana pool and one with a 10000 mana pool. If both are not paying attention to the screen due to drooling over the latest episode of survivor and only casting one spell per minute, they are both going to be FM most of the time. That argument (whether you realize it or not) was equivalent to saying "oh my god, people with smaller mana pools regen mana faster".

[ThatGuyThatIAm]

So, like, I hear drinking a lot of Minotaur Hero Brew makes you regen mana faster....

[Axterix]

Originally posted by Ishaca
Actually no, your mana pool doesn't affect how often you are at full mana and thus getting no mana regen. The rate at which you cast and use mana affects the % of your mana pool. I don't care if you have two people, one with a 1000 mana pool and one with a 10000 mana pool. If both are not paying attention to the screen due to drooling over the latest episode of survivor and only casting one spell per minute, they are both going to be FM most of the time. That argument (whether you realize it or not) was equivalent to saying "oh my god, people with smaller mana pools regen mana faster".

True to a point, but if you are maintaining a reserve of, say, 2k, then the guy with the 4k mana pool has 2k worth of mana to regain while watching Survivor and the guy with 6k has 4k to regain. Doesn't matter much in a constant pulling group, but in case of downtime, the bigger mana pool guy loses less mana regen. This sort of thing applies mostly not due to Survivor but in contested situations, where there isn't a mob up and waiting whenever you have mana. In a situation with a limited mob pool, having enough mana to kill to kill 2 in a row and then med while there is nothing is better than killing 1 and having to med while someone else kills the second...and then waiting at FM for the next mob.

On the opposite side, people saying the bigger mana pool means a few more kills, not necessarily true. You start with full mana. And you want to start with full mana the next time. So every bit of mana you use, you got to get back.

Anyway, it's kind of silly the way it's stated right here. You'll dealing with an uneven quantity. Yes, a person with a bigger mana pool is better equipt to handle an emergency or can maintain the same reserve while being less vulnerable to being at FM due to non-steady pulling. But that's pretty obvious. It's also pretty obvious that if you can pull steady and you have enough mana to handle the situation, more mana does jack for your kill count over an extended period of time.

At the lower levels, when items don't come complete with mass mana, focus effects, and FT. You have to choose. And it is here where the guy with the bigger mana pool tends to be less effecient. He has less FT. He has less focus items. Less hp. Opportunity cost. So there, having the bigger mana pool costs you xp, because you become less effecient in your use of mana and your ability to regain it.