Mid-Level Mana Issues
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I'm leveling a Block/Evade/Dodge Scion, currently level 45, and it's been working out pretty well so far. However, once I linked a 3rd support gem to Infernal Blow, and tried running the Grace aura, I'm constantly running out of mana to continue the murder.
I'm wondering what the most effective way to deal with the increasing mana costs of skils, at least until I have enough physical damage where 2% mana leech on a piece of gear is enough, which probably won't happen until level 75+. Current Build Planned Build Gear
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All of it is self found/crafted except for the Shield and Amulet, which I traded for. Stats
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HP: 896, 6 Energy shield (lol) Mana: 393, 71 Reserved by Tempest Shield, 173 Reserved by Grace, leaving 149 for murdering with. 247 Armor (12%, lol) 2974 Evasion (57%) with grace, 1385 (42%) without. 58% Block, 29% Spell Block 40% Dodge 30% Spell Dodge 38% Fire/52% Cold/75% Lighting/-20% Chaos
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The RNG gods have deigned it that every usable piece of gear must have lightning resist and no chaos resist. I'm still capped on Lightning resist even if I take off the shield in Cruel difficulty. I wish my resists were more balanced, but all I can do is hope for better drops.
Infernal Blow + WED + Melee Splash + MPD: 488.4 DPS, 36 mana (117-313 fire, 5-128 lightnimg, 54-159 physical, 0.72 attack time) Double Strike + Added Fire Damage: 444.3 DPS, 13 mana (30-73 fire, 2-57 lightning, 48-173 physical, 0.72 attack time) So what are my options for fueling the murder train? Get a 3rd mana flask? Probably the cheapest option. I'd probably swap out the Granite Flask since it's not very useful. With how few hits I actually take, my energy shield starts to regen while mobs are still attacking me, so a 4 second duration granite flask isn't too useful. Link a Mana Leech gem? Well, first I'd need to get one, either from Sever The Right Hand (Cruel), trade for it, or get it with another character. Then I'd either need to pull out Melee Physical Damage (less of a dps reduction than pulling out WED), or Melee Splash, and rerolling the sockets to RRRG. Conversely I can try to get a 5L Str or Str/Dex body armor and add Mana leech there. Mana leech on a 5L would give on average 8 mana + 4 per additional target which isn't a lot. Still it brings the 'effective average' mana cost to around 28. Use Blood Magic and Life Leech/Life on hit? I'd need a 5L body armor for sure, otherwise my damage will be pretty sucky. Or I lose Melee Splash (which I don't want to do). Either way it'll cost around 55 life to use (or more), though I'd probably get about 20 life per hit plus 10 per additional target with life leech. Or Life on Hit which might be better. Either way I'd probably be running a loss of hp on anything less than 3 targets most likely. Run Clarity instead of Grace? I'd have to reroll some socket colors. A level 4 Clarity bumps my mana regen from 12.4 to 24.6 and leaves me with about 60% of my mana available. Use an entirely different skill? Which one? I could link a Double Strike to Melee Splash and have one not linked to it. I'd need to swap weapons to use Reave. Cleave I could use. Cyclone? I do like Double Strike for single target at least. It gets the job done. Any other options? Keep in mind that I'm pretty poor (9 Chaos + 2 GCP to my name), so options like "Get a Soul Taker" (ignoring the fact that I can't use it yet) is right out of the question. Last edited by InBobWeTrust on Dec 10, 2013, 8:15:09 AM
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-Upgrade mana pots.
-Get Perpetual Mana pots. -Replace Clarity with Purity of the Elements -Replace Weapon Ele with Blood Magic. or... Just use Hatred and mana pots, clarity unnecessary. (My Glacial Hammer is 12 mana cost and I'm doing great at lvl 41) Last edited by Epsilon2012 on Dec 9, 2013, 10:06:34 PM
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" I swapped my granite with another mana pot and it helps. Interesting suggestion for the perpetual mana pots. Getting extra charges from large packs would be helpful I think. " Did you mean replace Grace with Purity of Elements? I'm currently running Tempest Shield and Grace, sorry if I didn't make that clear in the original post. With my current sockets, I could replace Tempest Shield with either Clarity or Purity, and replace Grace with Hatred. Anything else means I'm going to have to reroll sockets/links/colors on gear, and getting 2 blue sockets on non-int gear is going to be a pain. " Easy to at least try. Blood magic has a 250% mana multiplier to start, so I'm expecting it will get very messy without a good source of life leech. Or chugging HP pots like mad. " Hatred would work well, especially with the current links on Infernal Blow. Though I'm not lacking on damage at the moment. Most packs I can kill in 2 attacks regardless of their size. Infernal Blow + Melee Splash is wonderful in that regard. Also, a general question to everyone. With this particular build, is Ondar's Guile worth it? When you have a high block rate, high evasion, and 40% dodge, is the extra evasion vs projectiles worth the points? It's 6 extra points I could shove elsewhere like more life nodes, and that partiulcar area doesn't offer much other than Ondar's. |
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Ended up replacing Wep Ele Damage with Blood Magic like how Epsilon suggested. It works, sort of. 58 hp/attack is more manageable with ~1000 hp, than 36 mana/attack with 160ish mana (after auras). I guess I could run with this for a while until I get a larger mana pool. Though I'm probably stuck with the Crest for the life leech, at least until I find a better gear.
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