New Spirit Regeneration = Combat Drinking

[lemekim]

Mongo,

So far all your discussions about this have been related to how the priest operates.  I know you're a very experienced priest player.  But the whole "cast a few spells, then whip out the wand/staff/mace" argument does not work for a mage.

Just saying, remember that the priest is not the only caster class.  When soloing, mages cast *constantly.*  Yes, in a group, mages can use a wand and such, but a mage cannot melee against monsters and survive playing solo due to a complete lack of healing.

What this does in groups is slow the mage's nuking efforts.  Spend all your mana in a fight, then stop and drink - or cast a few spells in a fight, and have less downtime.

Warlocks - same boat as priests, generally Warlocks cast their DoTs and then whack/wand at a creature.  This will help them.  But the whole class is getting overhauled at some point, so who knows.

-Bolty

Apparently there are several bugs in the new patch that make soloing with a mage pretty impossible.

1. Every monster attacks at a close range.
Ex) When you cast your first fireball or frostbolt at an enemy, the enemy starts coming toward you with its arms flailing. The problem is the monster starts attacking you at the moment the monster is attacked, no matter how far the monster is from the caster. Thus, there is no point in casting spells at a long range.

2. When you cast your first spell at a monster, and the spell hits the target, the target starts running toward you. When the mage starts casting the second spell, he/she gets the message, "You cannot cast spells when moving," and the spell casting gets cancelled.

3. When a mage is across a body of water from a monster, and he/she casts a spell at the monster, the monster will of course come running toward you. The moment the mosnter enters the water, YOU the caster gets the breathing gauge. Funny bug it seems.

Uh ouch =( Compared to this, 5 second rule is a minor inconvinience.