I know, I know... I promised one post per week, but this came out today and I had to write something.

Okay, so here is a quote from GC concerning the upcoming change to healers with regard to mana pool scaling around int.

For healers, there should not always be a clear cut answer. Intellect may still be the superior stat, but not by as much as it is today. (Again, for healers -- DPS specs aren’t designed to run out of mana if they use their regen mechanics every now and then.) Mana pools can still be large (we are thinking 100,000 mana at level 85) so that it doesn’t feel too bizarre to existing casters and doesn’t feel too much like rage or energy.

Okay, so the idea is that mana pools will be static in size and never change; that is, if you have a mana pool then the amount of intellect you have will not change the amount of mana you have.

Guntir pointed this out to me and it hit home, allow me to state that again:

If you have a mana pool then the amount of intellect you have will not change the amount of mana you have.

Okay, so while on Live Resto/Balance Druids have 100k mana pools, for example, because they have huge amounts of int from their gear and gems and whatever else; however, Ferals only have 26k mana because none of our gear has intellect on it. Now are you starting to see the issue? Ferals will potentially have 100k mana pools in MoP simply by virtue of this new mechanic. Intellect will no longer matter, so Druids, regardless of spec, should have the exact same mana pool size. This is HUGELY interesting!

I was concerned about us having access to Disentanglement, particularly because of the statements that Blizzard had released concerning Feral and how it was the escapist class and how other melees did not have the option etc. I was concerned that Disentanglement would be an option Ferals could take, but then Shapeshifting would become this hugely expensive move that would take a majority of our tiny mana pool and cause shapeshifting to become a choice with the consequence being that we may not have the mana for an instant-cast Cyclone later (or what have you).

Feral being a Druid with the same mana pool as a Resto Druid, on the other hand, is hugely appealing. We will just have to wait and see how this plays out.