How do I consume Mana Tea?

[Kaze 0]

I'm a beginner to the monk class and WoW in general.

I've been trying to find the answer to this question online but it might be such a newbie question that no one has asked it before.

So, how is the mana tea consumed by the character? Does it automatically work once it is activated like a buff? I might have been trolled but someone told me I need to click on the mana tea buff icon to consume it.

I just havn't seen a big difference to my mana with this spell so I must be doing something wrong.

[Orthios 271]

At level 56, you gain both Mana Tea, an active ability that causes you to channel and consume your mana tea stacks at 2/sec, and Brewing: Mana Tea, a passive ability that gives you mana tea stacks for every 4 chi you use. You will need this ability more as you get into higher level dungeons and raids to keep yourself from going OOM. 

[Kaze 0]

At level 56, you gain both Mana Tea, an active ability that causes you to channel and consume your mana tea stacks at 2/sec, and Brewing: Mana Tea, a passive ability that gives you mana tea stacks for every 4 chi you use. You will need this ability more as you get into higher level dungeons and raids to keep yourself from going OOM.

Thank you for the reply! So, I have to wait till level 56 to take full advantage of the Chi Brew talent? Meaning, I can't use mana tea until I hit level 56?

[Orthios 271]

Pretty much, Chi Brew is still a really good talent, even though you can't make full use of it for 11 levels.  It still gives 2 chi on use between then however, so you can utilize that for the meantime.  

[Bedle 11]

Mana tea Is main reason why mist monks dont need to pay attention to their spirit, which ATM is good thing for us, but bad in Blizz designs.

When you hit lvl 90 your main goal is to hit as much spirit till you feel comortable with mana pool, next you goal is to hit one of haste caps and put as much as you can into Int as our mastery is not so useful. At lower ilvls i would personally ignore haste cap and prioritize spirit/Int over haste as i would aim for my heals to be stronger. how will you time mana usage.. its up to you.

Edit: Deleted almost complete comment as it contained outdated info. Ty Orthios for new info.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Bedle

[Orthios 271]

Mana tea Is main reason why mist monks dont need to pay attention to their spirit, which ATM is good thing for us, but bad in Blizz designs. When you hit lvl 90 your main goal is to hit spell hit cap, which is at 5.1k spirit, pretty much everything else should go to Int as our mastery is not so useful. Mana Tea should be always glyphed with mop.wowhead.com/item=85692/glyph-of-mana-tea and used on every 2 stacks IF you dont have any incoming damage to raid.

NO.  As of 5.4, Glyph of Mana Tea is no longer optimal to use.  Also, spirit past 5.1k is perfectly fine if you are uncomfortable with using Mana Tea, however as you do get more comfortable with using it you should gradually drop spirit down to 5.1k.

 

Coming straight form Krazyito in a stickied post:

 

 

In 5.4 they changed the mana tea mechanics so that you can drink 1 stack every .5 seconds.  This alone makes mana tea glyph worthless on any fight where you do not constantly move.  Removing this glyph in 5.4 will help solve A LOT of "mana problems".

 

Edited May 27, 2014 by Orthios

[Bedle 11]

NO.  As of 5.4, Glyph of Mana Tea is no longer optimal to use.  Also, spirit past 5.1k is perfectly fine if you are uncomfortable with using Mana Tea, however as you do get more comfortable with using it you should gradually drop spirit down to 5.1k.

I agree as i didnt played my monk since 5.4 went live, after digging i corrected my previous post to reflect that. gotta check out how that change works out ingame. As for 5.1k spirit, I have played fistweaving for quite a lot, so i mentioned that spell hit value at 5.1k spirit, its just spell hit cap, as you said, its perfectly fine to go over it until he felt comfortable with his mana pool. As i said, with higher ilvl comes more "natural" spirit, but also Int so spells will hit harder and we will feel more comfortable and be able to lower our spirit to lower values and reforge more into haste/int.

 

[Krazyito 521]

You want to stack spirit and crit when you start, not int. Int will come with gear.

Hell, I'd say anyone could do decently by stacking crit right as they start from 90.

[TLTeo 29]

You want to stack spirit and crit when you start, not int. Int will come with gear.

Hell, I'd say anyone could do decently by stacking crit right as they start from 90.

 

I've been gearing up a monk alt in my spare time (510 item level with a Normal mode heirloom atm), and i more or less second this. Mana definitely is a bit tight and i'm not comfortable with my mana regen yet, but it's not too big of a problem if i play carefully.

[Krazyito 521]

I mean, mana problems happen from not having enough crit.  The more crit you have the more mana tea you generate.

 

The second part to that is, the more chi you generate AND CONSUME, the more mana tea stacks you will generate.  What I find the problem with most people's mana is that they are not CONSTANTLY generating enough chi through the entire fight.

 

This only applys to new MW's too, because the more advanced ones already did this before, and are comfortable with how much tea they need to generate, thus focusing on using their spells more for timed healing than for regen.

[TLTeo 29]

Interesting, i didn't think of that.
 

Speaking of Chi generation, assuming my ReM, Expel Harm and Chi Brew are all on cooldown (or i need to save Chi Brew for incoming burst), what's the most efficient way of generating chi? Right now i just kind of jab once because i feel like Soothing/Surging are a bit slow and expensive.

[Krazyito 521]

Technically, jab is more expensive than those two.

What I would do is use use SCK, surging mists glyph with meta proc, jab (get full chi with this, don't worry about jab>TP jab>TP) with meta proc, or SPAM soothing mists (I mean continually press the button, don't do full channels)

If you're not careful, jab can eat your mana and not grant you the chi to generate stacks. Soothing is by far the most efficient (when spamming) while SCK is efficient while healing damage.

Best thing to think of, what should I use during meta proc? For chi use jab or surging. For healing, use 2 SCK. You can use it for mana like in ToT, but it doesn't really matter since it might happen any way while fistweaveing and you can generate stacks so quickly with chi brew and crit.

[TLTeo 29]

Oh i feel silly for not thinking of Soothing. Thanks a lot!

[Krazyito 521]

Another note on jab. I'm sure there are going to be times where your full on mana and full of tea. You can use jab very aggressively during these times to pump more uplifts during high damage phases.

Jab is a very good chi generator, but unless you have the mana to back it up your gonna be in for a bad time.