Mind over Matter vs Auras

I have a bow ranger (lvl 76) using LA/Frenzy as primary attack skills (+ currently fire trap but might change to puncture for DoT). I am evasion based/acrobatics/Ondars (no iron reflexes). I am considering taking Mind over Matter because one problem I have is I die easily if I get hit real hard. MoM would give me a bit of extra buffer. However, I am currently using one aura (hatred) which is always on. That reduce my mana pool so MoM is less useful. I also plan to run 2 auras at the same time (when I get an Alpha + invets some Sp in aura nodes).

How large should your mana pool be for MoM to be useful? Also how does it work. Will it only take from available mana (and not reserved) ?

Let's say you're hit for 1000 damage and you have 250 unreserved mana and no damage reduction to whatever you're hit by (let's say physical).
The damage would be 700 health and 300 mana, but since you only have 250, the extra 50 would damage your life instead, for a total of 750 life and 250 mana damage.

While MoM is useful, especially for evasion builds, it requires a lot of planning to keep your theoretical HP (the combination of HP, mana and their respective regens) in line with pratical HP, as it is often easier to simply take more life and life regen nodes.

Thank you. Yes it is a bit more complicated. ATM I have no mana problem (LA is using blood magic + life leech and frenzy is using mana leech and enough to leech back mana used). Don't think I have spent any SP on mana regen or increase mana yet but that might be necessary/ more useful. Adding some more mana leech as well.

I am considering (well going to take just a matter of when) taking the Savagery keystone and then MoM is only 2 SP away (and only 1 "wasted" SP on dex; 17% frenzy duration is useful). Can try it and respec if it doesn't work that well.

i think u wont be able to use frenzy reliably on mana if u dont invest HEAVILY into mana nodes/eldritch battery. u should have 20-30% mana of ur life unreserved

especially because its ur single target skill, bosses which deal constant dmg to you will empty ur mana pool and frenzy also isnt the cheapest attack. if u rely on mana leech u need to have the initial mana cost of frenzy at all times + leech more than that to counter the loss.

i think better damage reduction for you would be lightning coil/purity of lightning (its possible to get it to +5max res with a lvl 21 gem and +1 gems on boots/armor/whatever from vaal orb) and endurance charges

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MDGeizt wrote:

i think u wont be able to use frenzy reliably on mana if u dont invest HEAVILY into mana nodes/eldritch battery. u should have 20-30% mana of ur life unreserved

especially because its ur single target skill, bosses which deal constant dmg to you will empty ur mana pool and frenzy also isnt the cheapest attack. if u rely on mana leech u need to have the initial mana cost of frenzy at all times + leech more than that to counter the loss.

i think better damage reduction for you would be lightning coil/purity of lightning (its possible to get it to +5max res with a lvl 21 gem and +1 gems on boots/armor/whatever from vaal orb) and endurance charges

I don't have a problem with mana ATM with frenzy (only taking around 30 mana skills at lvl 18 including mana leech). But of course it might become a problem if MoM drains mana pool.

Lightning coil / purity of lightning combo might be an interesting option. However that will only mitigate physical damage and not elemental/chaos.

Think you are right. Probably better to get more life, lacking enough +life from equipment.

the extra light res would help with lightning dmg and ur own reflect from lightning arrow. but i know it is hard for a ranger to run this, also its better with aura nodes etc.

sure u can try MoM but i think it is better for characters who rely on high mana pool / regen. ur evasion also doesnt help u much against elemental damage (apart from spell dodge) so u could create a double problem versus casters because they now additionally drain ur mana when picking MoM.

MoM also wont help versus chaos degen effects (only on hit dmg - but ondars guyle already takes care of that for you because most are projectiles)

all stuff to consider.. as oblivion said MoM takes a lot of attention if u plan on using it. and even more on a non mana regen/block/spellblock build which relies on leech imo

I wouldn't suggest MoM without EB at all. As well as some heavy investment into mana nodes. Ranger isn't really suited to do all that.

As a MoM caster I would say that you should have 30% of your life as mana constantly when spamming your main attack and you have to be able to regain your mana as fast as you leech your life. Otherwise the moment you start taking consistent damage you will go oom. My spell leeches life and my mana regen is 475 so I can just stand still and spam arc and I get my health back as well as my mana.