When you choose to heal in World of Warcraft, you are choosing to be a selfless player. You are giving up many offensive abilities in order to keep others alive. It would then make sense that if you want to help other players , you want to do so with all of the abilities that you have. The ability that we will now bring to light is the Mana Tide totem. I understand that with the upcoming 3.0 patch, totems will totally be changed, however the basic principles stay the same.
The problem with totems are that they have a certain range and once you are out of that range you do not benifit from them. In most cases, when you are grouped with a shaman you will be close enough to gain the totems buffs. However, there are always cases where, for some reason or another, everyone needs to spread out, or players have been seperated due to assignments in the raid, or are simply unable to get to the totems.
When you are providing radius-based buffs like the Shamans totems, it is the job of that Shaman to ensure that all members of a group or party are benifitting from the totems. This means that if the player is out of mana, however everyone else in the group is still looking good, the mana tide totem should not be used. If everyone cannot benifit from the totem, its not time to drop it. There may be others in the group that are counting on a mana tide totem to supply them with mana.
While on the subject of others counting on a totem, when the totem is dropped, everyone needs to know about it. The best way to let everyone know that you have dropped a mana tide totem is to use a macro. A simple macro can mean the difference between a healer keeping his mana up, and a raid wipe. It may seem extreme, that one simple action can cause failure throughout a raid, but it is a possibility. If you are interested in a macro to use, this one will suffice:
/p "Dropping Mana Tide Totem...Come Get Manas"
/cast Mana Tide Totem
Remeber that when you have an ability that others will benifit from, its your job to make sure everyone gets it. Dont be greedy and hog it for yourself, wait for everyone to need it. Mana Tide Totem sharing really is caring, and your mana users will love you for your consideration.
