How the heck do you support the mana cost of 5 link gems?

Use mana leech. Im spending more than 150 mana per second with crit damage, lmp and faster casting so my 4th support is mana leech and cero problems with mana

Mana leech applies to all damage so it's a wonderful thing.

Also there is a reduce mana cost gem albeit mana leech scales better. If you're using two curses and have some STR then you can use warlords mark. Makes for a stronger discharge and the damage reduction isn't half bad either they may have changed the mana leech from that to just physical though.

Mana leech is actually a good idea. Cold pen isn't all that great after the change. Your 5 link should be FP - LMP/GMP - Mana Leech - Faster casting - faster projectiles. This is easily sustainable.

A lot of people don't understand that you will have higher mana regen if you have a higher mana pool also. So get more regen on gear, but also get more mana. In theory you should drop a link if you can't sustain the spam. But with the above information you should be able to spam indefinitely.

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Lachis wrote:

Mana leech is actually a good idea. Cold pen isn't all that great after the change. Your 5 link should be FP - LMP/GMP - Mana Leech - Faster casting - faster projectiles. This is easily sustainable.

A lot of people don't understand that you will have higher mana regen if you have a higher mana pool also. So get more regen on gear, but also get more mana. In theory you should drop a link if you can't sustain the spam. But with the above information you should be able to spam indefinitely.

Yes, here is what I heard:

Frostbite and elemental weakness shred 50% resist each, whereas the cold pen gem lowers their resist CAP by 30. So unless they have 150% resist that cold pen gem is doing nothing. Correct me if I am wrong.

Frostbite and Weakness are curses. Mobs can be immune to curses, but cold pen will always work. That's why pen is considered OP. I have no knowledge of the changes you mention tough.

Cold pen isn't op anymore. It used to be a higher flat value. Now it starts lower and scales less. As such, frostbite does the trick. Cold pen still works, but not if you have faster casting. If you can sustain a 5 link without mana leech then use cold pen. Still think life leech would be better though. I tend to steer towards more defensive styles than offensive.

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sanleon wrote:

Use mana leech. Im spending more than 150 mana per second with crit damage, lmp and faster casting so my 4th support is mana leech and cero problems with mana

If I use 4 gems now and put a 5th as mana leech, then there's no damn reason I should even use a 5 slotter because I was just fine with 4(Lmp/projectile/chaos).

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Lachis wrote:

Cold pen isn't op anymore. It used to be a higher flat value. Now it starts lower and scales less. As such, frostbite does the trick. Cold pen still works, but not if you have faster casting. If you can sustain a 5 link without mana leech then use cold pen. Still think life leech would be better though. I tend to steer towards more defensive styles than offensive.

Yeah cold pen took a big hit.

Added chaos damage must've been buffed or something because it gives an incredible boost to freezing pulse.

Rank 14 adds about 60 base damage at 12% quality, a rank 15 freezing pulse has 120 average damage so it's a 50% boost overall assuming I don't take any "elemental/ice" damage nodes which I should never do anyway since FP does so much damage with a 100% SP wand and the beginner spell damage talents.

You would use mana leech as a 5th link so you could run an extra aura or two at that point.

I haven't had an aded chaos on HC yet. I'll have to grab one and test it out. I still would use faster casting over that. You'll do more dmg with more cast speed using FP.

Here is an example of a fireball witch build that uses some brilliant ideas to keep a 5 support gemed fireball as a very viable way to role.

I have very same problem, I use those mana flasks that recover slow (10+sec) but give lots of mana.