Consumables

Potions, food buffs, enchanting oils, and elixirs…

…oh my?

I’m going to start off by saying that the consumable I most advocate is the potion. And as a healer, one particularly of the mana variety. Your staple is the Super mana potion, which restores 1800 to 3000 mana when you drink it, and sets off the potion cooldown timer of 2 minutes.

However, these are fairly expensive. Probably about 3-5 gold apiece. So, an easy pair of alternatives are the Unstable Mana Potion and the old-world equivalent, the Major Mana Potion. I don’t remember how much mana they restore right now, suffice it to say it is a little less. However, on my server they are 1-2 gold apiece, a much better deal for not so big a loss in mana gained.

However, I have recently learned of these “Fel Mana Potions”…they restore a whole bunch of mana over a duration, but reduce your healing and spell damage by a small amount over that time. Let me go find those numbers real quick.

*jeopardy music*

And back! They restore 3200 mana over 24 seconds, but also reduce your spell damage by 25 and your healing by 50 for 15 minutes.

I don’t know what to think of those. 50 +healing isn’t that much, but for 15 minutes? That’s a lot of healing out the window for something that restores mana over time. I haven’t actually gotten to try one of these yet, but I hear they’re great for hunters! (Spell damage and healing reduction? They don’t care!)

I’ll stick with my regular mana potions for now.

As for other consumables!

I like food buffs. They’re pretty cheap, but kind of rare. I get the idea no one is leveling cooking. As a healer, I’m fond of the Fish Sticks…they increase healing done by 44 and spirit by 20.

As for enchanting oils, your mainstay as a healer are the oils of the mana variety. They increase your healing done and also come with an mp5 boost. Very nice.

Elixirs are the biggest (and generally most expensive) buffs. They come in two kinds: battle and guardian. You can only have one of each type on at once. Again, as a healer, my favorite is the “Elixir of Healing Power,” a one-hour duration drink that increases healing done by 60. After that, I like the “Adept’s Elixir,” one which increases spell damage by 24 and spell critical rating by the same amount. Better for paladins than other healers of course.

There’s another “kind” of elixir I suppose, which is the Flask. The most expensive consumable type there is, these are two-hour duration buffs which persist through death, and you can only have one on at once. There’s the Flask of Distilled Wisdom which increases your maximum mana by some 2000 or so. Then there’s the Flasks up in Blade’s Edge Mountains which only work in that zone and Gruul’s Lair. There’s many varieties of these, based around the item suffixes you see on greens and some blues. There’s Beast, Bandit, Sorcerer, and undoubtedly others. I don’t generally head up there on my paladin to obtain these flasks, but the sorcerer one increases intellect, spell damage, and stamina I believe. It’s a nice one.

In my opinion, consumable buffs are ideal for when you’re about to down new content. If you’ve almost got the boss, get some consumables for that little extra kick. Then ween yourself from them as time goes on. This is true for any class or role.

As you gear up, consumables become less and less important. I used to have to drink 3-4 mana potions and use my cooldowns 2 or 3 times on the Curator fight…now I don’t use any potions. We’ve gotten better as a group and my gear has gotten to the point where that stuff isn’t necessary.

Also, on the subject of mana potions, if you watch your mana, drink your first potion as soon as possible. If we’re talking Super Mana Potions, once you loose 2-3k mana down one of those. This will bring you back to close to full mana, and start your potion cooldown timer earlier, allowing you to drink another sooner than later. Then once your cooldown timer is up, drink another. If you wait til you’re already out of mana before you drink your first, you drink your one potion and then your cooldown timer isn’t ready for when you need another.