Grind Efficiently: Drink While You Fight

The other day, I was doing a quest circuit in Feralas. I was killing a bunch of Ogres for a quest, and I came across a Shaman doing the same quest. He asked to group so we didn’t compete - I said sure.

I ran around, going from one mob to the the next without stopping. What do I really need mana for… I’ve got a pet! The silly Shaman cries, “Mana!” in party chat. To which I respond, “Just sit and drink if you need mana!”

You Can Drink While In Combat

That’s not entirely true. You can’t sit down and start drinking while in combat. You can’t use your drink at that point.

However, if you start drinking before you enter combat - or if you don’t enter combat - you won’t have a problem. Entering combat stops all health regeneration - so your food will do no good - but mana regeneration continues as normal. If you have the “Drinking” buff, you will continue to regenerate mana.

In this case, all the Shaman needed to do was sit down and drink while Rumor and I continued to slaughter poor, defenseless Ogres.

Drink While the Party Progresses

This is a trick I picked up in five mans a ways back. I was running a Mage at the time, so running out of mana was just a fact of life. If you continue to pull mobs, you’ll eventually run out - until you drink.

Rather than hold up the whole group, I would sit down and drink, the tank would pull and start getting aggro, and I’d hop up when I was satisfied. I usually let my mana fill up 25-50% - knowing that I could drink before any fight that I would need to.

This kept the group moving. The tank and melee classes don’t need mana. So why should they wait for me?

Be considerate. Let everyone go on, and drink when you need to.

Hunters, Let Your Pet Keep Fighting

One day while leveling my hunter, I thought, “Hunters would be so broke if I could drink while my cat was fighting!”

I constantly ran out of mana. Rather than sit down for thirty seconds, I’d just keep fighting with 5-10% mana. As a Beastmaster, my pet does most of the DPS, so I throw up a Serpent Sting and auto-shoot.

It never occurred to me that I can drink while the pet fights. Just like the instance example above, I can sit down to drink, send the pet into combat, and jump up when I’m ready.

Here’s the drill:

  • Get out of combat.
  • Sit down to drink.
  • Send your pet after a target.
  • Drink for 15-20 seconds.
  • Jump up and shoot the target before it dies.

You will instantly enter combat when your pet engages the target, but you will continue to regenerate mana. You could even drink for the full thirty seconds, and let your pet gather up 2-3 mobs for you to kill.

The only caveat is to remember that you must hit the target yourself in order to get credit for the kill. All it takes is a single bullet/arrow/swing, but you need to do some damage. If your pet kills a mob without your help, you won’t get XP or be able to loot it.

So next time you’re running out of mana - as a hunter grinding, or as a mana user in an instance - just drink when you need it and let everyone else move on. It keeps up the paces and greatly improves efficiency.

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