Lifetap and Mana Reservation

Hey

So Lifetap has "supported skills cost life instead of mana"
For reservation stuff we have the Arrogance gem.

So why does Lifetap have a reservation multiplier? Seems like a relic of Bloodmagic times. Why can it even support skills which have a reservation?
It has no upside for any these skills and only ruins their mana multiplier. It is also not very intuitive since the whole point of introducing those two gems was to split the reservation stuff from the cost stuff.

Now you might wonder why this matters at all. Having a movement or utility skill next to an aura or having an aspect on an item where something is linked with lifetap can ruin your whole setup.

So my suggestion is to make Lifetap not support skills that reserve either mana or life in the first place or if that is difficult to implement simply remove the reservation multiplier and just give it a cost multiplier. Either would work fine.

Thank you for your time.

you appear to have missed the point of lifetap...it IS the replacement for blood magic BUT for usable skills, not reservation. Arrogance is blood magic for reservation. They just split it in half.

The MAIN reason for lifetap is the new life-based skills and multipliers. The mana multiplier is blanaced by the lifetap MORE damage multiplier that blood magic never had.

Lifetap has a multiplier in the same way archmage stacks mana costs. Costs more to cast, but deals way more damage per cast. Its essentially archmage for life skills.

As for making lifetap ineffective for reservation skills, just do that yourself...you aren't brainless! Why would you, as a player, choose to use lifetap instead of arrogance when you read the skill description?

As for links, THAT IS LITERALLY THE POINT OF POE. YOU have to choose what to link and how to link it. The game is forcing nothing on you. And you can always unlink...

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jsuslak313 wrote:

you appear to have missed the point of lifetap...it IS the replacement for blood magic BUT for usable skills, not reservation. Arrogance is blood magic for reservation. They just split it in half.

No idea how you come to the conclusion you arrive at. That's literally what I said.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

The MAIN reason for lifetap is the new life-based skills and multipliers. The mana multiplier is blanaced by the lifetap MORE damage multiplier that blood magic never had.

I did not complain about the mana multiplier to skills at all. So again. No argument here.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Lifetap has a multiplier in the same way archmage stacks mana costs. Costs more to cast, but deals way more damage per cast. Its essentially archmage for life skills.

No it's just not.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

As for making lifetap ineffective for reservation skills, just do that yourself...you aren't brainless! Why would you, as a player, choose to use lifetap instead of arrogance when you read the skill description?

Finally we arrive at the point of the whole thing. Nowhere did I say I would use it instead of arrogance. [Removed by Support] Sure I can just link it differently which is for example not possible for aspects since they are always linked to every gem socket. But the whole point was that you would never want to link a reservation skill to lifetap so why enable it in the first place?

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jsuslak313 wrote:

As for links, THAT IS LITERALLY THE POINT OF POE. YOU have to choose what to link and how to link it. The game is forcing nothing on you. And you can always unlink...

Again. The whole point of it was not that it is unavoidable. It's just unnecessary. It has no real use and can be an annoyance. So why is it there in the first place? Maybe there is a valid reason or it's just an oversight. I don't know. This is the "Feedback and suggestions" category. So I gave feedback and made a suggestion. If you, a developer or representative have one or more valid reasons why it is the way it is I can live with that. I thought to make a small contribution by removing a minor annoyance that seemed easy to fix. A support gem not being able to support an active skill gem or even a category of skills is obviously possible to implement and seems to be a worthwhile improvement for the time spent.

Simple example,

Lifetap - immortal call - increased duration - vaal grace/grace

Your grace will be increased reservation by lifetap, so you can't use this set up to share incr. duration between immortal call and vaal grace.

OP wrote: "why does lifetap have a reservation multiplier". He then comments on the pointlessness of the multiplier, as well as how it can ruin a build if its linked to something you don't want it linked to...

Primary complaints: mana multiplier, linkage with auras.

In smtad's example, there is a very easy solution: unlink Grace from the other 3. OR you simply cant use increased duration and need to use Grace+Arrogance, Lifetap+immortal call.

I don't understand the problem. It's exactly as described and functions as intended.

Blood magic linked to anything always had a 200% multiplier, Lifetap in that regard is absolutely no different than it ever was if you choose to link it to something like IC. It now has the added benefit of giving you the Lifetap buff, opening up life-based builds which was the point of the change when it was introduced to the game.

OP says hes not complaining about the multiplier, but that's precisely what he's complaining about!

Yes, this is a feedback forum. But when you post feedback that makes zero sense you need to be prepared for backlash.

If I'm misunderstanding your points, then elaborate. But it seems pretty clear that there are 3 cases going on:
1) you are linking incorrectly and complaining that you don't have enough skillslots anymore
2) You are misusing lifetap as a blood magic reservation support.
3) You fundamentally never understood blood magic as it existed pre-arrogance/lifetap. It has ALWAYS come with a 200% multiplier because most builds have much higher lifepool than mana pools. That hasn't changed since the beginning of POE.

If #3 is your gripe, then that is an entirely different matter that would fundamentally change a core concept of blood magic. Which is fine, but it has nothing to do with Arrogance vs Lifetap.

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smtad wrote:

Simple example,

Lifetap - immortal call - increased duration - vaal grace/grace

Your grace will be increased reservation by lifetap, so you can't use this set up to share incr. duration between immortal call and vaal grace.

Good example. Maybe I should have included one. Thank you for that.

But in your example you could simply change the links and all would be fine.
In the case of this item providing an aspect you would not be able to do that.
And guess what. That's how I came to make this thread.

My helmet had:



Holy Relic - Animate Guardian - Raise Spectre - Lifetap
(lifetap makes the Carnage chieftains cast more frequently since they don't run out of mana.)


So I thought I can just put aspect of the Avian on it to utilize the free suffix. My understanding was that Arrogance was for reservation stuff and Lifetap for actual skill cost. So intuitively it should not care about an aspect. But it does! Is there a valid reason why it does?

I can maintain my frenzy charges without Lifetap and just put Meatshield in there. Problem solved for me but others might not be so lucky.

^but this example is how it has ALWAYS functioned with the old blood magic gem. Splitting the gem did not change the function of blood magic, it simply added different buffs to the gem you choose to utilize.

Before Arrogance/Lifetap, your Aspect example would have functioned exactly the same way and it was the reason why you couldn't put Aspect onto a Summoner helm you intended to use blood magic in.

Without the multiplier, lifetap would easily be abused and Arrogance would be completely pointless. But this way, they both have unique buffs without sacrificing their similar penalties to usage.

You shouldn't have ever expected it to work any differently, and the descriptions on the gems are perfectly clear as to what they do and support.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

1) you are linking incorrectly and complaining that you don't have enough skillslots anymore
2) You are misusing lifetap as a blood magic reservation support.
3) You fundamentally never understood blood magic as it existed pre-arrogance/lifetap. It has ALWAYS come with a 200% multiplier because most builds have much higher lifepool than mana pools. That hasn't changed since the beginning of POE.

If #3 is your gripe, then that is an entirely different matter that would fundamentally change a core concept of blood magic. Which is fine, but it has nothing to do with Arrogance vs Lifetap.

1) Not the issue here
2) Not the case at all
3) Also besides the point

This was never about Arrogance vs Lifetap
This is only about Lifetap

Arrogance should work the way it does only affecting skills that have a reservation.
Lifetap should only affect skills that do not have a reservation since it won't give any benefit to them and only increase their cost.


I apologize. I really thought you were strawmaning. I can see now that you simply misunderstood the issue at hand. I was never planing to reserve any life for the aspect. I simply thought it should do nothing (not even show up as a support in the skill menu) since the Lifetap support is meant to be used to spend life instead of mana for a skill and not to reserve life instead of mana. I really thought I made this unmistakeably clear in my OP.

I'm not misunderstanding anything lol. And there is a benefit to using lifetap with auras: reserving life instead. That alone is a huge benefit, even without the added aura effect that Arrogance gives. Of note: the arrogance multiplier is higher than the lifetap multiplier which might cause mana-tight aura builds to use lifetap over arrogance. Granted, its only 1% but 1% could be a big difference on aura stackers. ***ed: this was functionally my misunderstanding.

What you are describing on Lifetap would be ridiculously OP on the top end, and would introduce a new level of power creep that hadn't existed in any form of this game. Considering GGG is actively combating Power Creep, this shouldn't have ever been a consideration in your mind to begin with!

The tradeoff to using blood magic for a skill setup was the inability to craft or use aspects/auras on that same piece of gear. If lifetap ignored reservations, but still functioned as a blood magic replacement, this fundamental game mechanic would be upended. Aspect crafting has always been a min/maxing challenge at the endgame and there is no reason to make it EASIER to do...

Your argument is not only about lifetap. Your argument is about the functionality of blood magic gems as a whole. You can't have it both ways. Selective blood magic in the way you describe already exists in the form of build and gear planning.

I get that, on paper, Arrogance = auras and Lifetap = skills. But blood magic is overarching both of those.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

I'm not misunderstanding anything lol. And there is a benefit to using lifetap with auras: reserving life instead. That alone is a huge benefit, even without the added aura effect that Arrogance gives. Of note: the arrogance multiplier is higher than the lifetap multiplier which might cause mana-tight aura builds to use lifetap over arrogance. Granted, its only 1% but 1% could be a big difference on aura stackers.

OK now I am pretty sure you are just trolling. You can't use Lifetap to reserve life instead of mana. If you link lifetap to it you just reserve more mana. Just to be certain I just tested this. Since this presumption of yours was already wrong all of your conclusions of the impact my suggested change would have on POE as a whole are completely invalid. No idea why you introduce Bloodmagic into the conversation again. I do not want any changes to Bloodmagic.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

If lifetap ignored reservations, but still functioned as a blood magic replacement, this fundamental game mechanic would be upended.

This is exactly what you do not seem to understand. IT DOES NOT WORK TO RESERVE LIFE and this is intended!