Base mana regeneration is just too low

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The DPS nodes (except for cast speed, that doesn't increase damage per cast) are your friends. Take them.

This is an option, and basically what i am doing right now with witch CE+LMP+Fireball. But it comes at the cost of defense and the game-play of chugging potions non-stop and having to make those spells kill things to refill your pots to keep shooting is not particularly enjoyable imo.

I agree with the OP.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/90218

I made a rather huge thread about this. My basic conclusions are similar.

The thing to ask is Why does everyone use Clarity?

It's because, without it, you need ridiculous max mana and mana regen% increases in order to attain the 100+ mana/sec necessary to make a 4L+ functio for many skills.

People using Clarity was not a case of clarity being overpowered; it's literally the only significant source of flat mana regen around. We need more sources of flat mana regen to be multiplied by mana regen passives/item mods.

We also lost 120 mana because of Alira's bandit rewards going away and -1 difficulty.

One of my main suggestions is:

Give Act 3 a bandit-reward-system of some kind. Cruel A3 rewards would be:

Red: +flat life regen
Blue: +flat mana regen
Green: +% movement speed

That helps a lot - now all classes have some acces to flat mana regen. Obviously the stat needs to be reasonably rare considering its potential strength, but as it stands, it's way too scarce. Even if you accumulate 600 to 1000 mana, you can still have tremendous mana problems. It is not trivial getting 600 - 1000 mana. Especially not when you're trying to otpimize your defenses and damage too.

The result of a lack of flat mana regen is BM/Clarity/EB usage.

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Of course, this honestly begs the question: Should all skills be theoretically be perma-spammable? I don't have an answer to that, but I do believe that since this is an ARPG, resource management should be a challenge and it should provide interesting build decisions. But as it stands, there aren't many decisions you can make in regards to it.

I have also proposed that we consider keystones for alternative resoruce types. Blood Magic works really well, but why not have keystones which turn your mana into 'stamina' or 'rage' or some other resource (souls?)? It would be potentially very interesting:

Rage - Your maximum mana is converted into rage. Rage cannot be reserved. Rage cannot regenerate. 10% of the damage you take and deal is converted into rage. Rage will wane after leaving combat.

Idea: You basically have 0 mana when you enter combat, but build it up by attacking and dealing damage. +mana increases also increase your maximum rage. This is a rather conventional/modern RPG system that has seen widespread use. It's intuitive. It doesn't let you stack auras, but it potentially negates any resource issues entirely for your skills, you just need damage and just enough max mana/rage.

Stamina - Your mana is replaced by 100 stamina. Stamina regenerates at a rate of 20 per second. Skills cost 50% less mana.

Idea: You basically have 100 max mana. You can reserve stamina, but unless it's a percentage-based aura, you'll have trouble using it in the higher levels of the skill. Stamina regenerates quickly and makes all of your skills cost a whole lot less, but it also means you're 'capped' you can't use supports which make your skills cost more than 100 mana. Best used in conjunction with reduced mana cost passives.

Obviously, ideas like these don't fix mana, but that can be addressed partly by giving players options. If you have a build which can fit within the restraints of rage/stamina, why not?

my current main is a 53 ranger using lightning arrow + lmp + fork (all max level for char level), only has 300 mp (no auras running) and as long as im consistantly hitting at least 3-4 targets, pretty much stays at full mp with 4% mana leech.

well done tranx. How do you go against bosses? What is the mana issue like then? Only one target to hit.....your mana leeching will be reduced by 75% compared to what you say is your baseline need....

Now to prove that Anubite and co are wrong, add another support to that Lightning arrow. And then another, and then another. You'll find that physi dmg does not scale up, therefore your mana leech won't scale up. BUT, the skill cost WILL scale up considerably.

Also, you've plugged the mana problem by using leech (on items) and a high physical damage bow.

How does that work for an Ele-bow user? How does that work for a spellcaster (spells do NOT count as attacks, therefore even using EK, leech on physi dmg attacks does not work)?

To bring you back to my witch (which is slowly leveling, YAY :) ), your solution does not work. My witch is using FP, which means no mana leech on attack works, currently using about 60mp/sec. Currently making 25mp/sec. and that's WITH Eldritch Battery and clarity now, and 60% mana regen increase.

still agree with OP and Anubite. Base mana regen and lack of flat mana regen available is a bad way to be.

Hence BM, EB, and ManaLeech Gem, are compulsory. BM and ManaLeech being cheaper to take than EB (my survivability has gone done quite a bit).

Right now, I can get away with using zero mana potions. However, I'm pretty much a purely physical attacker (melee 2h-sword ranger, level 54), with 3% leech from items, Warlord's Mark usage (another 2%), and a mana leech support on my Cleave (for a total of about 8%). My physical skills are cheap and not really heavily supported at the moment due to various issues, so it works fine. But it's leech.

In CB I managed to get to about 115 mana regen per sec with Clarity, about 100% more from passives and 50% more from items (or thereabouts) and as a result pretty much didn't have a mana problem. But I was also constantly supporting my main skill with IIQ and IIR, which don't really raise the cost. So it was really like I was just using a 3link and relying on the imba-ness of Spork at that time. Mana regen could absolutely use a buff.

Perhaps some notable passives that gave +40% mana regen and +5 flat regen, or something like that could be helpful especially for the classes that really want to utilise regen over leech.

in response stillsingle, my facebreaker marauder in closed was running a 5l chest using frenzy as the main attack, costing 36 mana per, and even with purity and haste running, as long as i didnt waste attacks by missing, i didnt run out of mana with only 52 available after reserves. also, my main 1v1 attack is burning arrow supported by faster attacks and chance to ignite (also all maxed to character level) and i never run out of mana there either ( 10 mp per use, 0.4 aps).

right now im working on a hardcore duelist, currently lvl 30, and just starting A3 norm. i have to pop the occasional mp flask, but for the most part im ok unless i let myself get swamped. sadly my HC is taking a break for now, as my room-mate died getting to sarn settlement due to the unique in the pre-area bear trapping his witch and one shotting him with EK...

EDIT: also, as soon as i finish working on mid-game gear and start working on end-game, ill be adding elemental proliferation and possibly chain to my LA, but even doing that i shouldnt have problems with mp, as i open fights with projectile weakness + increased duration at 90 mp per cast, so approx 1/3 of my max mp, which the first lit arrow takes care of, and 5-6 burning arrows takes care of. currently 4% of my phys damage is way more than mana cost, so i basically dont run out of mp unless i use poison arrow (still sad that the chaos cloud isnt a bit more accomodating to hit and run tactics on faster mobs).

Tranx, both your builds are physi attack + mana leech on physi attack builds. I agree with you, that works. but what about:

do a spellcaster

do a ele-damage weapon user

Then you can't rely on leech on gear because 5% of something tiny is.... something tiny and won't recuperate the cost of the skill.

What you're saying is that mana IS fine, IF, you use physi damage attacks, AND, stack mana leech on physi damage attacks.

I'm barely breaking even with a 2L Ice spear......at level 36...... with EB......and Clarity...... and +60% mana regen........ that......is.....wrong.....

Another thing to note, attacks are generally less mana base cost than spells.

base mana regen is.not.fine.

Case in point, I've made a comment on how the Blood Magic support gem is absolutely useless in its current incarnation. http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/22859/page/7#p1023855

The reason behind this was so that I could put Grace aura (flat mana cost) on my life and free up my mana for Haste and Hatred. Little did I know the darn thing had a 250% cost multiplier.

Obviously the reasoning behind this was because I don't have enough mana to support my skills running the aura, or auras. For Rangers, Grace is a must have, no two ways about it. As a Frenzy/physical Ranger, Haste makes a very nice addition especially after the buff and Hatred takes advantage of physical damage. At the current stage, I can't support more than 2 auras at once, otherwise I'd literally have NO mana to attack with. Due to the Blood Magic having a ridiculous cost muliplier, I have to rotate my auras based on the situation.

However, the problem with the skill Frenzy is that it can't be supported without Mana Leech. In fact, short of BM or EB, I can't see how people can support Frenzy without the Mana Leech support gem. Here's my current setup with mana-regen equip:



As you notice, Frenzy is socketed with Faster Attacks, Faster Projectiles, and a 11% quality Mana Leech. Without that Mana Leech, the mana regen mods, and the Mana Flows notable (another 20% mana regen), there was no way I could support Frenzy. Right now, I can literally shoot Frenzy nonstop and never run out of mana. But then I need a Projectile Weakness curse thrown out or a Decoy Totem thrown down, and oops, my mana's run out. (424 mana currently at lvl 60) I would have liked to use hybrid flasks, but the little amount of life they heal up isn't even worth its dual usage. My flask selection is this:



So now we run into several issues with mana management.
1) Dex builds have a rough time with mana without significant investment in gear mods and mana passives OR taking BM/EB.
2) Life flasks and hybrid flasks are beginning to see their limits due to mobs have increased damage/life all across the board
3) Auras have been nerfed to a degree that exacerbates the mana problem for dex-builds using mana

In retrospect, I think the easiest way to solve this issue is to simply increase the HP/Mana gained per level by a few. This will help recompensate for the increased difficulty introduced in OB, not to mention the chaos damage that's giving most builds a run for their money.

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StillSingle wrote:

I disagree, but that's only because the way I want to be able to play a character by the end game. low level, i don't mind too much living on flasks.

My philosophy for building a character is that by the time I reach the end game stuff I shouldn't need to be relying on flasks to use my main skill. I should have enough regen to cover it. Currently that is not possible. Hence why you use blood magic, mana leech or eldritch batter with a lot of investent in mana nodes...

Also, You haven't really compared apples to apples. Comparing using flasks to get the mana you need, ie actively having to use an item for EVERY fight, is markedly different from using a setup that requires no active participation in mana recovery.

I was well aware I wasn't comparing apples to apples; that's because I'm an orange supremacist.

I believe this "marked difference" is developer intent. On the one hand, you have the need to time a keystroke during fights for optimal combat; on the other hand, you have fully automated recovery. Which is more skill-intensive?

Let me make the following clear: contrary to pretty much everyone else in the thread, I want flasks to have a huge comparative advantage over time-based regen, for game design reasons.

The elephant in the room in this thread, until my post, was that flasks exist. When I do post it, you take some time, come up with a fairly eloquent reply, sweep it under the rug, and tada! The thread has activity again because people like easy.

When I'm playing, I like easy, just like everyone else. But when I'm giving suggestions to hardcore game designers, I hate easy. Easy is the worst.

I personally love the Clarity nerf. I'd hate to see anubite's suggestions for bandit rewards implemented. I'm kind of OK with mana leech because it helps out melee; same with Blood Magic. Ambivalent about Eldritch Battery. But in general, I hope automatic forms of mana regen stay about as lackluster as they are now and do not receive any buffs.

The only thing I might like to see — since they increased max content from level 66 to level 75 — is perhaps another tier or two of flasks for the late game.

Isoldox:

I posted a reply to the thread you linked to. It seems you missed a very good case where BM gem is very useful.

For this thread, BM gem is useful for active skills where your build has high life + high life regen (and you haven't taken the BM keystone).

That is why BM gem, BM keyston, mana leech gem, are the easiest ways to support high level skills.

EB and all mana node ways are just too difficult and overly expensive, especially if you want to get to break even while spamming skills.