MANA LEECH IS RUINED

The problem is sustaining mana usage until you get the kill(s). The options are regen and leech, and at least in the case of regen.. why not just go regen all the way? I think the small sum of mana gained on hit would help incentivise hybrid use of the two mechanics.

As I said, it's a very good option, it's just underutilized because it appears to be lacking a certain something compared to its alternatives.

Edit: Just to clarify, the reason it appears to be lacking is because once you're "done" building mana regen or (previously?) leech, that's it. You're done. You need nothing else, so why spend the three points?

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CanHasPants a écrit :

The problem is sustaining mana usage until you get the kill(s). The options are regen and leech, and at least in the case of regen.. why not just go regen all the way? I think the small sum of mana gained on hit would help incentivise hybrid use of the two mechanics.

As I said, it's a very good option, it's just underutilized because it appears to be lacking a certain something compared to its alternatives.

What about once you are high level, and you are Alpha Striking all white mobs and only take two or three casts to down a blue? Could it be the case that, for some builds, making use of regen/leech during leveling and then switching to MPK for "end-game" is the best route?

Let's also not forget about the other ways to provide mana management, such as Reduced Mana (with or without Quality) support and the Reduced mana cost passives in the tree.

Maybe it is just that the solution to the "mana problem" is a little more complex, and requires a bit more mix and match as opposed to min/max.

This thread has turned to a more constructive discussion, which is good.

Throwing my hat into the ring.

What about a keystone that converted a small percent of "mana on kill" to "mana on hit"?

Suddenly, all those "useless" gear mods/passives become pretty attractive.

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CanHasPants a écrit :

The problem is sustaining mana usage until you get the kill(s). The options are regen and leech, and at least in the case of regen.. why not just go regen all the way? I think the small sum of mana gained on hit would help incentivise hybrid use of the two mechanics.

As I said, it's a very good option, it's just underutilized because it appears to be lacking a certain something compared to its alternatives.

I think it would be evidence of the leech mechanic failing pretty hard if people were basically forced to go full regen instead of leech just to spam their spells.

When you spam a spell, your mana drops super fast. Leech gives you that mana back when you need it. Mana regen gives you mana back all the time, which isn't generally when you need it.

It's much more efficient to use mana regen as a buffer rather than as a total solution, unless your goal is to support something you want to be /always on/ - like Arctic Armor.

If your goal is to simply spam a spell, mana regen is an extremely costly and expensive solution to achieve that goal, relative to other options.

This is by design, I assume - because again...Arctic Armor, Mind over Matter, etc. Mana regen achieves a different goal than leech and allows for a variety of different options.

It's the wrong tool to simply spam spells.

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Antnee a écrit :

Throwing my hat into the ring.

What about a keystone that converted a small percent of "mana on kill" to "mana on hit"?

Suddenly, all those "useless" gear mods/passives become pretty attractive.

Well there are also mana on hit from gear, I don't think that "mana on kill" is a spread/sed enough property for GGG to make a keystone about it.

having both merged together would probably work tho.

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tikitaki a écrit :

This is by design, I assume - because again...Arctic Armor, Mind over Matter, etc. Mana regen achieves a different goal than leech and allows for a variety of different options.

I don't think so, arctic armor is a relatively recent gem and Mind over Matter is definitely a recent Keystone also.

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Fruz a écrit :

I don't think so, arctic armor is a relatively recent gem and Mind over Matter is definitely a recent Keystone also.

That just means GGG recognizes that there is a large difference between the two mechanics and is actively supporting more differentiation between the two.

It's pretty clear and easy to see for me....

Edit: Also Arctic Armor came out a year ago....Within one day, lol. March 20th NZ time.

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Sinnesteuer a écrit :

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CanHasPants a écrit :

The problem is sustaining mana usage until you get the kill(s). The options are regen and leech, and at least in the case of regen.. why not just go regen all the way? I think the small sum of mana gained on hit would help incentivise hybrid use of the two mechanics.

As I said, it's a very good option, it's just underutilized because it appears to be lacking a certain something compared to its alternatives.

What about once you are high level, and you are Alpha Striking all white mobs and only take two or three casts to down a blue? Could it be the case that, for some builds, making use of regen/leech during leveling and then switching to MPK for "end-game" is the best route?

Let's also not forget about the other ways to provide mana management, such as Reduced Mana (with or without Quality) support and the Reduced mana cost passives in the tree.

Maybe it is just that the solution to the "mana problem" is a little more complex, and requires a bit more mix and match as opposed to min/max.

This thread has turned to a more constructive discussion, which is good.

Well the first thing is seperating the issues. The Mana-Leech problem is something that is a problem in itself even if mana in general would be fine. That is simply because it bloats the leech-mechanic in a totally unnecessary way. The only reason I can see why they decided to go with 12,5% cap instead of 20% is so that EB chars can't leech too much mana... but why would they want to in the first place. A leech-dependent char wouldn't have a high mana-pool because if he would he could rely on regen.

Reduced Mana as a gem is problematic. It is a more general approach to the same issue and thus should be less effective. If the better solution for mana-management of a damaging spell is reduced mana than why have a mana-leech gem in the first place? If you are actively dealing damage with a skill mana-leech should outclass reduced mana.

Mana on kill has another problem... try using it for bosses, it sucks. And bosses are the situation you are actually requiring your dps. So there are 2 issues however. A single cast of my EK 4l costs 84 Mana. With every cast I would have to kill about 3,5 enemies. A shotgunning FB propably costs over 100 Mana. Mana on Hit on the other hand would propably be a good addition and actually help... if it would work with spells in difference to LGoH.

I agree on reduced mana-passivs being a way to go... however they are mainly placed in the red area of the tree not really accessible for casters.

So if we go back to mana for casters we are at the same spot.

So I'm still with my 2 points:

1. Change Mana-Leech to a 20% cap
2. Change Mana-Flasks (and maybe also life), although I agree propably not all flasks just add a modifier for making them always go the full distance.

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tikitaki a écrit :

That just means GGG recognizes that there is a large difference between the two mechanics and is actively supporting more differentiation between the two.

Maybe.

But you know, 5~10 years ago, most games had down times between fights ... it looks like in most games nowadays, game designers tend to try to assist people as much as possible in every single aspect of the game so that people would get no frustration at all ... and down time disappeared.

But the thing is, downtimes where there because it was proposing you a choice : can you sustain the whole fight because you chose to invest in it, or are you going to wreck faces until you run out of mana, in which case => down time.

This basically means that player can tun their char so that there is for example 250 unreserved mana, and enough mana regeneration to throw 7 spells in a row before running oom, then they have to wait ( or move to the next pack ) 3 seconds to have it filled again.
Mana regeneration works quite fine for that ( I personally prefer this design ), it should still give player a mana leech option ( at a cost, of course ) to skip those 3 seconds and then be able to reserve more mana.


If it's what GGG is aiming at, and player are used to just spam everything without any down time, that means a lot of frustration during the "adaptation time" of course.
I honestly think that most of PoE's player complaining about the mana leech nerf take easy mana management for granted, and too much. There is a middle ground to reach here as usual, but I definitely think that taking it for granted is not good for PoE.

@Emphasy -

I have to point out that, for bosses, EK and AoE skills are going to be insanely inefficient uses of your mana resource for a single target that would be better dispatched with a strong single-target option that is likely to have a lower resource expense.

I agree that some of the reduced mana cost passives might be harder to get to for some classes, but it makes sense for them to be in the red part of the tree, where they can provide most benefit for those classes with reduced access to high INT values. Distance from a starting point does not invalidate a passive, IMO, all part of build choices.

My other planned experiment in Ambush is going to be a hard casting, ice based Templar. It will be several weeks before I start this build, will definitely have this thread in mind as I build it.

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Fruz a écrit :

But you know, 5~10 years ago, most games had down times between fights

Not that I recall, unless you were crappy at the game or undergeared.

I have been playing ARPG's for over 20 years, since before they were called ARPG's and looked like this:



And unless something catastrophic/horrible happened to your character, there was very little "down time."