Mana reservation is broken (double cost)
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The mana-reservation system is broken.
When I turn on an aura, my mana pool is reduced by the amount of the reservation, AND that amount is also reserved. If I then turn it off the aura, I have to regain the mana that was previously reserved. WHY? It wasn't consumed; it was only reserved. The word 'reservation' suggests that the mana is being held in reserve to power the aura continuously. Once I turn off the mana, why doesn't that mana just become available for my use again? Instead, it's just gone. This is wrong. This can be a big deal if you accidentally turn off an aura in the middle of combat. Turning it back on consumes ANOTHER reservation's worth of mana. One way to fix this would be to make the mana reservation at the bottom of the pool, not at the top. For example, suppose I have 100 mana and an aura that needs to reserve 20 (making up numbers for simplicity.) As it is now: when I enable the aura, my available mana is reduced to 80, and the top 20 of the mana pool is blocked. When I turn off the aura, I still have only 80 mana, and it has to recharged. If I immediately turn it back on, my mana drops to 60, and the top 20 is reserved, and I still have to recharge from 60 to 80. As it should be: The bottom 20 mana is reserved. When I turn on the aura, I still have full mana pool - except I can't consume the last 20 mana I have. I still only have access to 80 mana. When I turn the aura off, the reservation goes away, and I can use all 100 without having to recharge anything. Last edited by Cristo9FP#5725 on Mar 24, 2012, 3:11:42 PM
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Wait, you can turn off aura? Without leaving the area?
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I believe the devs are thinking of it this way: mana reservation is as if you're casting the spell, constantly. You're not just setting mana aside, you're using it.
Also, instantaneous recharge of reserved mana would have significant balance issues - equally instantaneous aura swapping, for example. I have wandered through insanity;
I have walked the spiral out. Heard its twisted dreamed inanity In a whisper, in a shout. In the babbling cacophony The refrains are all the same: "[permutations of humanity] are unworthy of the name!" |
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" Joking? Yeah, just 'cast' it again, or right-click the buff icon in the upper-left corner of the screen. Last edited by Cristo9FP#5725 on Mar 24, 2012, 7:53:07 PM
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" What's wrong with that? There's still a casting time involved. I can see your point, though; perhaps there'd be a way to allow the same aura to be re-enabled without penalty, but not a different one. I'm thinking of when I accidentally turn off Hatred because I hit T instead of 5 or whatever. |
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"Yeah, agreed, I can't see how switching auras quickly would be any kind of balance problem. You're spending time to do it, you're taking up another gem slot and another hotkey slot, and you're still keeping a chunk of your mana reserved in exchange. On the reservation though, I have no problem with having to regenerate the mana that was reserved. I would however prefer that there wasn't an actual "mana cost" underneath that. That is, if I'm sitting at say 90/130 mana as my new cap because of 40 of it being reserved, then I turn that off, and then turn it back on straight away, I think I should just re-cap at 90, not drop to 50 and regenerate back to 90. I just think it'd be smoother and make auras more clear and unique functionally if they only played with maximum mana, only affecting current mana if it's greater than the new maximum. As an aside, I'd also suggest some sort of hidden delay be added so that when turning an aura off, you can't recast it instantly. There have been a number of occasions where I've meant to turn an aura off and have ended up turning it straight back on, wasting a hefty chunk of mana. I believe it's because there's no casting time on disabling the aura, so holding the button down even slightly too long initiates another cast. Or maybe I'm doing something wrong. Has anyone else noticed this? |
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" Not joking. I tried to cast it again and it would just activate the aura again. Didn't know about the right click on buff icon |
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Sounds like the rapid-recast is a bug (sorta):
" http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/22679 |
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Ah thanks, glad to hear they're aware of it.
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Mana reservations skills still require you to spend the mana to start casting them. All skills, including mana reservation ones, will cost mana when you begin casting, and take effect at a later time in the casting animation, based on the cast time.
Auras and other mana reservation skills cost mana when you start casting them, just like other spells, and then when they are successfully cast, they reserve an amount of your maximum mana equal to the cost - this means it's possible to be stunned between the two points, thus interrupting casting and preventing you from getting the aura (and therefore reserving mana to maintain it, but like all spells, you'll still have paid the mana cost. |
