Appeal to GGG – Mana leech

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sidtherat wrote:

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tikitaki wrote:

3 nodes is a lot - and you're saying it should be MORE?

you don't need ANY nodes to use blood magic except more life nodes.

all the builds I use are fairly tight. there's no room to go mucking around grabbing 5+ mana nodes.

it doens't work. it only works in the early game. once you get a 4L or 5L going it's going to take extreme investment either in gear or nodes. blood magic just works, even now.

it's not impossible. i have done mana builds before. i remember the "glory days" of running around chugging pots as a level 82 ranger to keep my mana up.

carry on then. but im pretty sure that ggg decided and there is no going back to the braindead times of 'f.. this, lets leech'

i have lvl80 6L cyclone on mana with 2 auras on said mana. no problems. 5L incinerate, had (yet to respec) 1h reaver with 2.2aps sword, ele-crit-wander with 5L siphon etc etc. all on mana, all perfectly viable


3 nodes is cheap compared to socket (or two, because you are then forced to use LL - most of my builds rely on gear for life on hit/leech). so you are spending much more than few passives, you are spending 2 out of 5 or 6 links just to avoid spending said passives. it makes no sense, but carry on

1) there certainly exist some niche builds that are easily built off mana....however... quite a lot of builds, particularly ones that involve LMP (or other pricey supports) will have insane mana costs.

2) almost nobody, especially on the 4-month leagues (you know - where balance actually matters) can afford to get all their leech from gear. everybody who wants to leech life ends up using the life leech gem.

3) mana is hilariously broken and you are just blinded by the couple of builds you have done.

There's just so much e-peen stroking going on in this thread. Like got damn we get it you're awesome you have a great builds before and after the patch you know how to deal with the nerf yada yada. Cool, go tell your mom about it, I'm sure she'll give you that pat on the back you're all so desperately craving.

Think some of y'all are missing the point, it was a nerf for the sake of a nerf. It wasn't a balance thing. No, in a balance they would have provided another mechanic to help compensate. You know like introduce more +mana gain on hit type of affix or tuned up mana on kill or even mana regen in general. They did none of that, they just nerfed it. The nerf itself doesn't bother me, its that they didn't retune anything else that is worrisome.

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Pengwin14 wrote:

You know like introduce more +mana gain on hit type of affix or tuned up mana on kill or even mana regen in general. They did none of that, they just nerfed it. The nerf itself doesn't bother me, its that they didn't retune anything else that is worrisome.

This is actually a valid point.

The balance with GGG is a weird one, constantly nerfing OP things, yet so many useless things exist and aren't receiving any attention.

So I kind of agree with "GGG nerf team" being used instead of "GGG balance team".

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sidtherat wrote:

and you are wrong: top characters as is 'top dmg characters' DO worry about these changes because most of these top builds had absurd attack speed. and the very builds affected are these with absurd attack speeds

and now leech being altered this way seems almost seems to demand off character casting, such as totems and traps, to avoid both reflect + thorns while relying on regen alone with the old EB/MoM combo to sustain themselves. Some of those are quite sustainable, have decent survivability and have decent enough dps to clear most content with cheap gear.

The top end dmg characters actually have choices in some special uniques I think that are designed to restore mana, such as mind spiral, which can and likely will be used to make some new mana refill builds (likely using the EB/MoM combo also).


Overall its just yet another poorly thought out and badly implemented kneejerk nerf that destroys everything else but what it was designed to impact.

I'm of a like mind as you, tikitaki. I think, with the introduction of Vaal skills, the "high mana skills are nukes" justification doesn't fly anymore. We have real nukes now, expressly to punctuate combat, and souls are a much better way to do that even if there are some kinks to work out.

Ideally, this means GGG can refocus the purpose of mana and the systems that intersect with it, notably support gems and auras. Support gems are a shining, defining feature of the game, they should be available sooner and be more subject to player creativity and preference, rather than 'optimal strategy' or the availability of crafting orbs. That could be accomplished by introducing gems and high link/socket items sooner into the game, as well as making them more accessible. Further, I could see the maximum sockets expanded to 8 and 4, for 2-handed weapons, chest armor and 1 handed items respectively. This would all facilitate more innovation by players, not just at the end of the game but throughout it.

Auras are problematic because they are obligatory and undermine an integral dimension of the mana system. If we ever want mana choices to be meaningful the hamfisted 60% reservation needs to go. Auras should either be checked by another mechanic, like the 1 max cap of curses, or necessitate some specialization as a result of different types of drawbacks i.e. Arctic Armor, RF, Clarity. If we did go with a max cap system, I see no reason why items and passive nodes couldn't expand that cap in a fashion similar to curses. I'd go so far as to suggest a support gem with a severe % reservation drawback could exist to go over this max cap. Such changes would also facilitate deeper aura support skill mechanics.

It's worth noting this subject bleeds into the issue of build diversity and build parity but on that topic I will say only the following: GGG has the tools it needs to encourage build parity. Those tools are monster variety and map affixes, both of which can be used to magnify the strengths and weaknesses of different builds. GGG has done this to some degree with monsters but has so far refused to commit with mapping affixes. The problem with monsters, however, is that they can be avoided or selectively prepared for. While that is true for maps also, the latter carries an economic penalty. Indeed map viability is so significant that it often decides FotM builds. I should note I don't mean map affixes that render builds useless, like the Blood Magic affix. I mean affixes that play up or down the strengths of different sorts of builds, such that every efficient build has similar map viability.

Finally, there should be more differentiation and delineation in mana generating options. Mana Leech and Mana Gain on Hit should both be available and viable options as support gems and passive nodes. In the case of support gems, instead of increasing the mana mulitplier of skills, they should reduce skill damage output. Mana support skills then, combined with large mana reservoirs, would be used to punctuate combat and generate precious mana. The traditional mana regeneration rate option should still exist but its attractiveness should be in line with that of other options, pending position in the tree. Further, there should be more opportunity cost between having a deep mana pool and a high regeneration rate. It might be a problem that regeneration rate is tied to mana pool size. These factors would allow for more meaningful choice if they were divorced. The problem might be that regeneration rate is stacked as a percentage rather than a fixed number (the same might be said of life regeneration). Finally, Clarity is a crutch for too many builds and needs some significant change or drawback. It should be very attractive for some builds, not most builds - like any meaningful skill choice.

I think their method is to analyze if something is broken, remove the broken elements, and then watch what happens to see what possible recourse might be to rebuild it.

Kind of clever, if not a but frustrating for the player waiting for the solution. Meh. I have no more tears*; just roll with the blows and figure something out. There's enough resources to get by still.

Given the above dynamic, I think self-casters will be in for a huge buff sometime soon, since they were arguably hit the hardest.. mana cost being the primary inhibiting factor to self-casting.

Fake edit: *well, except for some of the stupid shit I read on here.. like "qq, searing bond is teh sux, fix nao!" *buff* "qq, searing bond is teh op, fix nao!" .. make up your mind?

Real edit: veta posted as I was typing.. bah. I shouldn't be replying on my way back out the door, with no real explanation to offer... but w/e, I just wanted to say: artificial caps to aura reservations are a terrible idea. Completely contradicts the whole "freedom of design; be creative" thing we have going, especially when other potential solutions (actual, viable, desirable aura supports) would do a much better job.

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Pengwin14 wrote:

There's just so much e-peen stroking going on in this thread. Like got damn we get it you're awesome you have a great builds before and after the patch you know how to deal with the nerf yada yada. Cool, go tell your mom about it, I'm sure she'll give you that pat on the back you're all so desperately craving.

Think some of y'all are missing the point, it was a nerf for the sake of a nerf. It wasn't a balance thing. No, in a balance they would have provided another mechanic to help compensate. You know like introduce more +mana gain on hit type of affix or tuned up mana on kill or even mana regen in general. They did none of that, they just nerfed it. The nerf itself doesn't bother me, its that they didn't retune anything else that is worrisome.

the tools are already present, there is nothing new needed nor necessary.

you decided to follow the path of least resistance without thinking/checking other venues and now you are in trouble. with this mindset i suggest NOT using BM gem as it is even harder now than with mana alone (ofc if you do the lazy, braindead type of 'build' - slap LL gem + BM gem and call it a day). i think you need to start thinking and fast.



Thiefs Torment has Mana on Hit and is so hilariously broken that even GGG decided that you can have only one such ring.

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the tools are already present, there is nothing new needed nor necessary.

you decided to follow the path of least resistance without thinking/checking other venues and now you are in trouble. with this mindset i suggest NOT using BM gem as it is even harder now than with mana alone (ofc if you do the lazy, braindead type of 'build' - slap LL gem + BM gem and call it a day). i think you need to start thinking and fast.

Ay sid, you don't know my builds. Im still doin fine myself. Don't use BM, never have really and I don't follow fotm build either.

Yea okay mana on hit is a bit OP, but what about something like 2 or 3 per hit, thats not bad. And they still could have tuned up mana regen or mana gain on kill. You're not getting that part. Like I said before it was a nerf not a balance.

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unkempt wrote:

There aren't enough mana regen nodes in the tree and the 8% mana increased nodes barely even make a difference unless you're running EB. The witch area should really have way more mana options than it currently has. I've tried to make a ton of casters and they all end up with mana issues even though I'm taking every mana regen node within reach.

That's the crux of the problem, and the reason EB is practically mandatory for casters.

I have a hybrid Life/ES Witch who subsists on a mere 800 mana. After reservation, I have about 200 mana free with 50 mana/sec regen. To do this, I not only needed to take all mana nodes in the Witch area, but also the Primal Spirit nodes way down in the Ranger area. Shadow is even worse, there are no %Increased Mana nodes in the core Shadow area, you have to railroad down to the Mana Geyser cluster between Shadow and Ranger.

The Ranger also has convenient access to the Charisma 15% Reduced Mana Reserve cluster as well. How does it make sense that the Ranger core area offers better mana management than the Witch and Shadow areas combined?

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RogueMage wrote:

The Ranger also has convenient access to the Charisma 15% Reduced Mana Reserve cluster as well. How does it make sense that the Ranger core area offers better mana management than the Witch and Shadow areas combined?

Simple. Because it's not actually better when we consider that Rangers have a harder time increasing their mana pool size and therefore mana regeneration rate.