Prior to charm kiting the best kill rate still isn't nuking and snaring.
Treeform + self thorns + flame lick = profit in those awkward levels 9-15.
Sucks that you can't move and all, but with proper planning you can keep a lot more mobs dead with very little comparative mana expenditure. I did this with nothing but a cracked staff and some patchwork up to 15. I was broke at the time. If you haven't tried it in those ranges you don't know what you're missing. Tree regen is enough to offset a large portion of low mob incoming damage. Instead of ending a fight having lost a big chunk of my mana I'd end a fight having lost 20-30% of my hit points and the cost of thorns, 1 root/snare and flamelick. I could speed up the killing and milk 2 mobs out of 1 thorns by chain sitting - losing more health, but then very quickly getting back to full health while meditating.
Point is - snare nuking is incredibly inefficient in the absence of clarity line buffs. A deeper mana pool doesn't mean a lot at low levels where your bottleneck is mana regeneration. The exceptions we've already discussed. With quadding you CAN'T do it if you don't have the mana pool to kill them. In higher groups you will benefit from a deeper pool by holding se reserve for emergencies. In standard groups, charm kiting, root rotting, etc ... the bottleneck is, has been, and will always be mana regen - not mana pool.
Look man, we'll just agree to disagree. Wisdom and mana are a Druids bread and butter but the question here is a guy low level with limited resources. Those 5/55s will pay for themselves. They are very consistent in the market and everyone wants them and can wear them. Doesn't matter what your class is, they are a fantastic investment.
More mana at low levels does not increase kill time. It gives you a slightly deeper reservoir for those moments you might need it - but the reverse is also true with regards to having more hit points giving you more hp reserve when the alternative is death.
"Potato tomato potato tomato"
-Megamind
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