WotLK Mana starvation

[uisydkfysdkfjsd]

Hi . When i play with my hunter i get out of mana very fast . what should i do ? When should i turn on aspect of the viper and for how long . Thanks for the help

[DarkenedHue]

Make sure you have some source of replenishment, and that someone is putting judgement of wisdom on the boss. You also probably want some mana talents. Spec into Rapid Recuperation if you're MM.

As for Aspect of the Viper, use it until you have enough mana to last you the rest of the fight, or until your Rapid Fire is back up (if you're specced into Rapid Recuperation). You obviously won't need to replenish your entire mana bar most of the time. The way I tend to use Aspect of the Viper is I turn it on while I'm spamming Steady Shots (since this is the "lull" phase of your cycle), and then switch back to Aspect of the Hawk for Chimera Shot and Aimed Shot, since those two are your main hard-hitters, and then if I still need mana, I swap back again to Aspect of the Viper for the Steady Shot spam, etc.

[Qtinz]

The fastest way to regain mana is using volley. Even for single target.

[jendah]

+1 Viper -> Volley -> close to full mana.

You can also use mana pots + feign death to reset their cd (to 1 minute).

[DarkenedHue]

Volley yields both inferior DPS and mana returns on a single target, as opposed to if you had just been using Steady Shots + Auto Shots instead.

This is ignoring the fact that Aspect of the Viper + Volley isn't supposed to return ANY mana in the first place.

[Xypher]

The fastest way to regain mana is using volley. Even for single target.

Sorry, but that's bull****. It's only really (and I mean, REALLY) efficient when you use it on multiple targets. For every target you hit, you gain more mana (seems to be 488 mana per tick for me). If you hit 1 target with volley, you'll gain 488 mana per tick, if you hit 10 targets with volley, you'll gain 488 x 10 = 4880 mana per tick of volley.

I don't know where this comes from, but there's this really big misconception that volley is good for mana regen on single targets, while it's not. Using regular abilities (arcane shot/steady shot) with aspect of the viper, then swapping to dragonhawk right before you chimera + aimed shot is better in pretty much every scenario. Volley damage is really poor (about half the damage of a steady or arcane shot, when you use it on 1 target), and channeling it feels pretty clunky.

Don't get me wrong though, if you can AoE a mob pack with Volley (+ aspect of the viper), you get full mana instantly, and it's amazing.

EDIT:

Volley yields both inferior DPS and mana returns on a single target, as opposed to if you had just been using Steady Shots + Auto Shots instead.

This is ignoring the fact that Aspect of the Viper + Volley isn't supposed to return ANY mana in the first place.

^This guy knows what's up.

[DarkenedHue]

That in addition to the fact that Volley doesn't proc Judgement of Wisdom, unlike Steady Shots and Auto Shots, and has a fairly steep mana cost itself.

Don't Volley for mana if it's just one target.

[NoManele]

How much mana do you have to start with ? I have no problems with mana except LK where it's a longer fight.

What i use is Aspect of the viper + normal rotation and i get my mana back in about 10 - 15 sec.

[Sxcr3219]

I think I have a 18k-ish mana.. never actually checked it tho.. I don't really run into mana problems though except on first transition phases too when I'm dpsing lk with long range spec and have no replenishments and stuff.. Personally I just quick volley the first valks for 2-3 secs on viper to get back and don't need to use it after that.