Spooncraft

I reported a little while ago about the changes to drinking in Patch 2.4 and how the sole reason was to rebalance mana regen in arenas and the likes. It seems Blizzard got the point and dropped the whole charade. Yes it’s intended to stop cheap tactics in arenas, not a game wide nerf to drinking overall.

This was Drysc’s original comment:

There is indeed a change in 2.4 intended to offset some of the mana regen from drinking away from the very beginning of the duration.

However, we specifically made sure the water would not change the amount of mana regenerated by players who drink between pulls or during gauntlet runs. You should see little to no difference in the amount of mana yielded if you sit to drink for at least 4 seconds, which most players do.

So right now you get a tick roughly every two seconds. After the change the first tick will give you nothing, second tick will give you normal tick+66% extra, the third tick normal+33% extra, and then it levels back off after that. So, at the ~6 second mark (or after three ticks) you’ve made as much as you would have before.

The change has to be consistent across all water as this fix applies to Arenas, battlegrounds, and world PvP, which will have specific emphasis in the upcoming expansion. (src)

However, Kalgan has replied with a confirmation that the change is still slated to cover all water but for the time being will only affect arena drinking.

You haven’t read it wrong, but we’ve decided to have that rule only apply inside arenas. It’s an inconsistency, but one we’re ok with to prevent water from feeling unnecessarily weird everywhere else. (src)

I can only imagine what Blizzard REALLY has in store with Lake Wintergrasp as that is the main underlying reason for them not wanting certain overpowered factors to be so prominent in “world PVP”.

Remember, Lake Wintergrasp is supposed to be an entire PVP zone, no quests, no exp grinding, no dungeons. Just a massive battlefield with quests that involve killing enemy players or using seige weapons like tanks and ballistae to destroy buildings.