A potential change I'm keen to hear your thoughts on

I'm not to keen on this idea. Have a hard time as it is trying to get enough mana regen to support 5links. Imagine me supporting 6links. :O IF you guys go ahead and do this. PLEASE lower the mana cost of many/most skills.

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oBLACKIECHANo wrote:

This looks pretty terrible, EB = dead, MoM = dead Arctic Armour = dead, witch = dead.

Seriously, Arctic armour couldn't be run at a decent level without tons of mana/mana regen on gear, and I find it hard to believe you would ever manage a higher level of it, certainly not with inner force.

MoM becomes completely worthless and so does CoD, if MoM goes directly to mana you will never have enough to use auras and MoM at the same time, never gonna be used again.

So you pretty much kill AA and MoM, the main two defences most witches probably use, and if this change happened I wouldn't be playing a witch again, templar or shadow can do the same things and get to armour/evasion nodes.

Well, Rory said that the AA numbers would change to make it easier to run, but everything else you said is spot on. Why go witch, and if this change is made, why even have a MoM keystone. This kills the synergy.

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Rory wrote:

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Boem wrote:

Ha if this is EB being reworked it could be disastrous.

I like it lol.

Can we get another clue Rory? Is it a mechanical change to EB and how it operates, or is it purely a visual change and everything stays as it is on a mechanical level?

(% mana regeneration effect comes to mind, flat mana regen gain per mana amount etc)

Peace,

-Boem-

All the usual effects on Energy Shield will still apply to this ES - Recovery delay, Ghost Reaver, Zealot's Oath, etc. You'll not have any more base mana than you would have had prior to taking the keystone, though. Damage won't interrupt ES recovery any more, only losing mana or ES will. Imagine it as just how Energy Shield operates over life, except applied to mana.

The only builds I've been able to run through my head as getting a benefit from his change (without any mechanical overhauls, of which there will be some) are templar builds (melee or spellcaster) who want to run mana reservations or suffer intense mana costs and want to avoid the implications of both (eg: Cyclone, Incinerate, Glacial Hammer, possibly Dominating blow, etc)
Mana regen-less templars would be boosted by this change. But that's all i can come up with atm...

The concept sounds cool, but I'm struggling to wrap my head around all the interactions it entails. Balance aside, the old EB is a lot simpler and easy to understand.

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uebelblatt wrote:

I've been playing summoners for the last few years and from my perspective, I wouldn't mind at all. running max level AA is/was too easy.

What? Too easy to run AA? How is it easy? Can you explain? You play a summoner build where you don't need any life nodes, and presumably on softcore.

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FunkyFritter wrote:

The concept sounds cool, but I'm struggling to wrap my head around all the interactions it entails. Balance aside, the old EB is a lot simpler and easy to understand.

This is the first thing I thought of though maybe it is just because we are used to it.

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Chundadragon wrote:

I'm finding this interesting - this completely trashes Cloak of Defiance :D

On the other hand, it needed to go - 8k EHP and god DPS for zero investment? :/

Zero investment = 5-6 (unlinked) exalt item... yeah zero investment! So EzPZ.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

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Rory wrote:

Edit edit edit: Stun avoidance will no longer apply. Arctic Armour will still drain mana, ignoring Energy Shield, as will Mind over Matter. You can't reserve energy shield, so you'll just reserve the mana underneath.

More background: This change has an interesting history; I suggested it offhand as a strange idea, but it solved a few key factors we were investigating, like AA/MoM defense being too high for too low a cost, so it was decided to go ahead and try it out. It's quite likely we'll see other changes to the kesytone as testing progresses, but because it's such a big change to one of the most popular Kesytones, any sweeping change won't be made without testing the waters carefully. The change isn't intended to 'kill' any mechanics, but will give us the opportunity to reassess some. Edit: Like the mana drain amount or mechanic on Arctic Armour

Oh. That's...big.

Interesting to see how THAT plays out. Anything that makes reserving mana for power more situational/difficult has my seal of approval. This change makes EB-gained mana much more about active casting, which to me suits the flavour text of the keystone as well:

I like that GGG are considering changes this big in the beta. I just hope my favourite character which relies on a level 25 AA but not MoM isn't broken by this. I also would gain no benefit, as infernal mantle doesn't let me reserve all my mana :(

This is a really interesting change, particularly if zealot's oath works with flat life regen like boem is saying, that'd be so fucking awesome. Another possibility would be to just stack a couple thousand ES via hybrid gear and nodes. The recharge delay wouldn't be that bad at all if your buffer is so large you don't have to worry about running out.

I can also see it being really good on summoners with minimal investment since they don't need to constantly use mana and would definitely benefit from being able to use all their mana on auras.

However, it does effectively gut AA/MoM/EB builds. Those builds will have to somehow manage by investing into both mana nodes and insane regen jewelry. Those builds are popular because they're cost effective, not because the gain in survivability is amazing so a lot fewer people will be running them(and the people who do run them will just be doing so to prove a point). I think it could still be nice for generic MoM builds(since you wouldn't be using mana for skills) but AA will no longer synergize well.

Also something to consider with this change, MoM could potentially be moved to the witch area.

I'd certainly like to play around with it in the extremely unlikely event I get into the beta.

By it's self it looks like a terrible keystone that likely has no value whatsoever. Ghost Reaver/Zealous Oath are non-starters with this because you're sacrificing life sustain (a critical capability of your character that you can never have too much of) for mana sustain (a less-than-critical stat that is useless past its breaking point).

If you want it to work, add some other passives behind the notable, things that massively improve the ES recharge rate and delay. ES would have to be viable as a complete replacement to mana in order for this change to be any way viable.