Thanks for the thoughts. I always appreciate people posting with their experiences, as many times I don't think of everything or from every perspective.
I have always dealt with the #invul issue, and actually think it shouldn't be too hard to fix. I've just never thought too hard about trying..
Bots definitely use mana more quickly, so I know this will have to be tuned.
Bards tend to be squished pretty quickly, but I think I removed or reduced singing their heal song while engaged, as healing a whole raid seemed to build a lot of hate (and aggro).
One thing about rebuffing, and probably why more mana is being used.. If one character or bot in the group gets dispelled, they will cast the buff, even if it's a group spell... recasting Hand of Virtue is very mana intensive. Perhaps I could build in the same group buffing logic I use in group healing, so that if they have the single target buff as well as the group buff, they only cast the group buff if more than 2 need it or something.. But that would require a way to determine what the equivalent single target buff would be.. hmm.. this seems a little more involved.
Out of Combat regen works nicely though, and is definitely used, whereas before, my bots rarely needed a med break except after raid encounters. (I play a Mage and can't always split camps or single pull, so I tend to send my bot group into a spot where they will have adds). I definitely need to think about mana now, which I rarely had to do before.