The Mana Problem: How Inconvenience Became a Balancing Tool

[Kulze]

@KilluaZdy

Almost every build that seems remotely fun comes with the cost of being extremely inconvenient to manage mana. You have to constantly use completely useless skills just to deal with mana, and for no other reason

Mana itself as a limiter and balancer isn’t bad itself, just the approach on how EHG deals with it I would argue.

Because several games have mana as a resource, and many of them deal with mana in a way that just feels a lot better, either by having it as a slowly recovering resource which puts a time-limit on high-intensity usage or via allowing you to remove this limitation by investing into it substantially in a passive way of regenerating it… at the cost of other methods of power scaling. So you trade sustain for DPS.

The method of providing this inconcenience of resource-management itself also wouldn’t be bad but then the design of enemies needs to follow-up accordingly. This commonly is timed management of engaging in combat versus disengaging, managing potential buffs or cooldowns this way.
This would be possible as a feasable way if first off bosses allowed that… which they don’t… as well as echo content not being such a mess of difference in enemy density. In one you get rushed non-stop and have to avoid off-screen projectiles without pause… in others you feel like you have to actively go out of your way to kill enemies. It’s just glaring. It could be a build choice but with no means to actively choose it’s a pure downside only.

So yeah, EHG needs to either fix those underlying issues or go with more simple designs, as often the core ideas can work but in conjunction they just fall short.

@Macknum

and you don’t want to make stuff work in a game where mana managment takes 3 braincells to pull of.

It’s not about importance there… it just… doesn’t feel good. Which we hopefully can agree on. It has very little designed purpose in it that couldn’t be achieved with simpler methods. If EHG would’ve capitalized on it to lean into that design direction then sure! All for it! Great! Nigh anything can be made interesting with the right approach after all.
But if you just make it for the sake of making it then… yeah… it’s expected people are scratching their head thinking it to be a bit un-fun, those things just add up when they become more and more prevalent.

@Macknum

This season I will play a Bleed Lich (not yet descided if I play melee or caster) and I have like 0 mana cost. Same can be done for many other builds shown again and again by a real flood of videos that are out there.

Yeah, but why have a limiting resource in there which is supposed to provide a measurement of skill needed when designed well… when you just disable it?
I never understood the 0 mana cost methods, the core design of mana management has a ton of potential and then… it’s just thrown overboard kinda.

@Heavy

While there are some builds that do that, most of the very top builds solve mana problems in some automated way.

That’s what makes em the top builds… because this type of mechanic is annoying for no major reward. Skill should be rewarded accordingly and tedium not be there for the sake of tedium.

Would be fine if it were… then those inconvenient combinations would see the option to be one of the top builds after all.

@Makszi

There’s dozens upon dozens of builds that never have to worry about mana.

Yeah, because EHG shifted away from it. But there’s the remnants left.

It was a design-direction which didn’t pan out well for them, they lacked experience (and likely still do for this) to make it work well. So more and more methods to utterly trivialize it came into play over time. While formerly those things were specific unique gimmicks with respective downsides attached they’ve by now become prevalent instead and with barely any downsides at all.

@KilluaZdy

This means you’ll see builds using the skill in different ways—not actually built around it for high damage, etc.

Yeah, but the varied build-use would actually be good.
If you could also do a build based on high damage it would be better.

EHG is… 60% there basically for enabling variety, but the last 40% are lackluster because of messy designs.

@KilluaZdy

If the game needs mana management to keep you engaged, then we have a serious problem with its core gameplay.

And that on the other hand is entirely wrong. Resource management is mandatory in even slightly more complex games, be it health, mana, stamina… whatever. Mana is simply a resource that has to be managed accordingly.

It’s not the existence itself which causes some issues but the exact specific way EHG implemented their designs revolving around it.

Mana can be a boon or a detriment.

@LividLegends

Why do you wanna spam a single ability so badly?

Why not?
You can with Erasing strike, you can with Mana Blade, you can with Glacier, you can with meteor, you can with… there’s a lot of ‘1 skill builds’ which use the other slots not for damage but for either buffing/CC or movement solely.

So does EHG want players to use combination skills or singular skills now? I would argue the validity of both existing at the same time would be the optimum… after all it provides the largest variety. But the reality is that currently most skills fall into a single category. Not because they have a ‘slight upside comparatively’ but because the alternative is often so sub-par that it makes no remote sense to use it that way, despite providing the potential for it.

@LividLegends

but it’s not the one-button-wonder PoE is,

Yeah, my archer - which is a very simple build - would even disagree there. I got manual marking, a main clear setup for direct attack AoE focus and a supporting single target usage of ballista. I gotta maintain also a Vaal Skill with proper timing for dangerous enemies as well as having to decide to use a degerative buff depending on the map modifiers… used at the wrong one means death, at the right one means substantial increase in DPS. Could avoid em too like many though to sidestep it. And then obviously the movement skill. And not to forget I got a flask which is impossible to upkeep and hence also a active usage before engaging and only if it’s viable enough because something potentially dangerous is there.

So in total it’s active as a 1 (direct use AoE), 2 (supporting single-target turrets), 3 (movement), 4 (defensive trigger), 5 (flask) button build best-case. Which is kinda the norm.
That’s the maximum LE provides and that’s a simple build there.

Even my Summoner is a multi-skill build there with summon skeletons, vaal summon skeletons, movement skill, convocation for recalling minions, a curse skill and a buff skill. Also with a situatinal flask.
7 Button build. Hence beyond any potential complexity of LE already

Sure, you can make your auto-bombers… but such a build also exists in LE… the vast majority of people don’t play single-skill builds in PoE actually… it just provides you with the option to do such builds, often at a severe cost of build complexity raising accordingly. You need to work for it to… well… work

@LividLegends

That being said, this is a different game with a more combo-oriented combat loop where you’re using skills in conjunction with one another.

So like PoE 2 where you chain specific skills after each other because they synergize?

I plainly spoken can’t see many of those. It’s not like we got a flame wall to shoot an arrow through to cause it to become a fire arrow doing more damage then each individual skill. Or a AoE which is triggered to then use a secondary skill on it to make it go up in flames. Or a degen skill which then gets synergized with a proliferation AoE skill to refresh the cooldown of it on every enemy in range when one dies, ar applying it in the first place, hence proliferating the initial effect until it runs its course.

LE has the combinations worked into the skill majorly. You don’t use synergies, you use each for a specific purpose simply.
At best there’s some synergies like reducing resistances with a supporting skill and then following up with a damage skill instead, but it doesn’t really go much further.

@Zaodon

The build works just fine, “waste” isn’t a word I’d use. lol

It’s a very mid build.
Extremely interesting concept, and clearly designed to function… but underpowered as far too many skills sadly are.

Another one which needs a dire balancing pass.

@KilluaZdy

And in what world do those two things have nothing to do with each other?

Nobody stated that either though?
It was stated that both ways can provide a good enjoyment and are viable if executed well.

Your argument of ‘mana in the current implementation poses a problem’ is not counter to the argument of @CaiusMartius here. They both work absolutely at the same time.

That’s all which was mentioned. Nowhere was your claim of Mana currently being sub-par being attacked. It was solely stated that actively keeping you engaged can be an upside, which yes… is 100% true!
So Mana itself cannot be the problem, only how Mana is used can be the problem.

Actually the only factually wrong statement is:

@KilluaZdy

IF the game needs mana…

That doesn’t uphold. If a person names a singular game where mana is used and it provides a significant downside simply by removing it as a resource your claim is immediately debunked. So obviously it cannot be true as the debunking happens easily, a myriad of games enhances the gameplay experience by implementing Mana as a limiting factor, a limited resource to manage around.

@Llama8

But if a large portion of the player base likes a thing why is that “bad” just because you don’t like it?

Which wasn’t stated either though.

In this case the word ‘adapted’ is important. The meaning behind it hence is ‘People do it despite it being a detriment’. Hence success was achieved despite it. Not because of it.

With Mana as a limiting factor not being a bad thing I agree 100% though as stated above.

@Llama8

Are you stoked by the challenge of trying to solve the mana issue by applying your creativity and knowledge of game mechanics or do you just want to see the screen explode without much creativity or thought needed?

I mean… can the answer not solely be ‘yes’ here?

@Llama8

Yay for more passive aggressive denigration of people who disagree with you!

That one actually wasn’t even passive agressive. Because yeah… they wouldn’t like it, it enforces change and that comes with people being generally disgruntled as substantial timeframes in any system causes the core audience to be made up of only people which like the core aspects.
And this kinda is one of those core aspects

@Llama8

Skills that generate mana.

How about passive methods of building being enabled which solve the problem at the cost of power for the skill?

It doesn’t have to be a tedium-based limitation after all, you can sidestep it by reducing DPS by enforcing usage of Affixes which would take up the same place. Balancing those to each other is after all the core mandatory aspect to be achieved by a game of this kind.

Which is a significant issue currently… should I take a mana regen Affix or a damage Affix? Hrmm… unless my skill and passives cause a significant upside from using it. And even then… static regeneration methods are preferred heavily nonetheless. Just look at VK… or Meteor builds.
How often do you go and say ‘Awww yeah… I dropped a mana regeneration Affix!’ outside of specifically dedicated mana builds?

@DJSamhein

You have to manage your mana in the early stages of the campaign and after that mana is a totally irrelevant stat. Almost every single build there uses auras to reserve 95% of mana, or even 100% and switch ES to mana.

The first comes from managing mana through passive means until you can reach that stage. Depending on build this can provide a serious issue (Pure Phys Cyclone for example, or my Tornado Shot archer) which mandates investing serious amount of the ‘puzzling’ as you call it into it. Just the goal after all.

The same goes for the exchange from mana to ES usage, mandates a Hybrid playstyle and hence ‘solving the equation’ for doing so.
It’s just that others have done the solving for you… but finding it on your own? That’s harsh to do in PoE!

Contrary LE enforces you to use specific Affixes at any time to even make a build work. It doesn’t leave the ‘tinkering top-end’ open a lot. That mandates a sheer scale of mechanical complexity the game simply doesn’t possess yet. Maybe in the future, maybe never… but what you describe with the puzzling is actively the core element of PoE builds.

@KilluaZdy

I used the passive-aggressiveness simply…

Oh come on… I thought an actual argument would be coming up… but instead you said ‘Yes I did!’ and then went on saying nothing of relevance.

At least try rather then making a clown out of yourself when being called out.
Or admit to fault.
Either/Or. Your option is a non-working one.

@DiceDragon

LE really needs more interesting ways to tackle the management issue of mana is all it really is.

Exactly that! Aptly said.

@DJSamhein

So yeah, some people would enjoy this, some would enjoy more the way LE is, some would enjoy the way PoE2 is. Much like some enjoy the way D4 is as well.

In this case the ask is to provide better options to solve shortcomings of builds. In the specific topic it’s ‘Mana’. But the overall task is to ‘enhance build variety through the range of problem-fixers’.

And that is a very viable thing to ask for.

Because let’s face it. If you can make a build which becomes good through usage of mana generators and has the respective upsides it’s absolutely fine! But that doesn’t mean the others can’t exist. They would just face the according downsides for the ease of use. That’s core balance after all.

Otherwise we wouldn’t see Greatsword players in Monster Hunter titles… that thing is a massive downside to lug around. It’s slow, it’s clunky, it misses agile enemies a ton of times, it locks you into huge combos to deal the proper damage.
But when it hits? Ohhh… the enjoyment of it!
But still many use the Longsword instead. Easy, consistent, mid-damage, flashy. Nice!

Is either/or better? You can enable both at the same time with proper design after all.

The ask is solely to allow the usage of this design. No artificially limitations through bad design choices being made. And that’s overall good for the whole game. ItÄs more variety without de-valuing already existing builds. It goes along to even showcase shortcomings and causes the need to fix those, making it overall a better experience as now those styles compete with each other.
Is convenience or power the better option to pick now? That’s an actual choice. And not the ‘but we have no other solution available’ route.

@DJSamhein

They don’t, though.

Umh… they… absolutely do?

That’s just a completely bollocks statement.

Do you wanna tell me that a 8 mana /sec regeneration baseline at all times (Last Epoch) is equivalent with 1,75% mana regeneration (Path of Exile)?
Obviously one allows solutions in a easier way. A 100 Mana Pool in PoE fills in 58 seconds. A 2000 Mana pool in PoE also fills in 58 seconds. That means it starts at 1,7/s with the 100 and it ends with 34,5/s mana regen.

It’s kinda obvious that hence PoE has better ways to solve it as it allows a multi-pronged approach unlike LE does.

For example I could use another Aura in PoE with my Tornado Shot build, but that would mean my Mana is at 5% of the total, which at my 600 Mana there… is 80. Each attack costs me 18 Mana, I attack 5 times a second with my character. Hence I wouldn’t be able to even sustain my main skill for a second, so I cannot use it as it would reduce my DPS output despite my leech by around 60%.
If that is not a meaningful friggin build puzzle method that’s meaningful then I don’t know what is, LE’s definitely isn’t then, that would be a joke.
Secondly, I also have to invest into Mana Leech despite of all that, to enforce that I get as close as possible to my usage of 90/s Mana. After all the core regeneration of 600 Mana would be 10,5/s Mana only. I can either use a pathing which brings me directly along such a node, use it as an Affix, either on a piece of gear or on a Jewel. This provides me with up to 10% of my Mana pool as max leech. Hence I can get 60/s Mana extra for a total of 70,5/s Mana.
So my skill already has downtime. So there’s even at a top-tier end-game char still a relevant thought-process happening to increase efficiency. Hence once again… if that’s not proper solution-finding in a game based around building gear/passives/skills and so on up… I don’t know what is.

You provided a completely nonsensical argumentation line.

@KilluaZdy

Isn’t the biggest ARPG on the market the majority?

Yeah, but you don’t wanna directly compete with the exact same playerbase… unless you got something that playerbase seeks and the product isn’t providing.

LE is not in such a position, so they have to cater to a slightly different but still overlapping clientel. Those which love the genre but not the flavor provided there.

And for someone wanting to be smart beforehand already: Different flavors are not inherently mutually exclusive.

@KilluaZdy

But with a cooldown, I could use several cool skills in the same build.

A cooldown is a simpler methodology to a resource pool.
LE uses both in conjunction which allows a vastly wider range of potential influences.

It’s just that their Mana-related stuff is not overly well designed. It functions… but it isn’t ‘good’.

@KilluaZdy

I’ve never met a single person who actually likes it.

Look above at my numerical example for my PoE Tornado Shot char, which is primarily limited by Mana-usage for me and optimizing that further.

I’m enjoying that definitely. And why wouldn’t I? It’s not overbearing there and it’s still something nonetheless having a substantial impact. Just what the genre promises to give… overcoming challenges for building your character and overcoming challenges of content by becoming skillfull - or overgeared - enough to beat it.

I’m more prevalent leaning towards the gearing solution as I’m not a very good player, mediocre one here.

@DJSamhein

So I guess you want all of these games to change to D4 standards.

Come on and stop it with this disgusting hyperbole all the time. It’s starting to actively sicken me. It’s a ongoing thing since a while since no matter what one says… as long as you were at the opposite side at the beginning of an argument despite providing reasonable input you seem to just want to push over… and over… and over with nonsensical shit.

On the other hand you’re calling others out severly for using even an inkling of the same methodology against you. I realize I’m an arrogant personality thinking I’m right a lot of the time… but you’re really taking the piss in that regard since a while now. I recommend re-evaluating things a bit, it’s getting more then extreme.

A honest mistake and still the same argument provided would uphold as the distinct Mana problem is better solved in that game then in LE. It acts as a direct hard-cap enforcing the - badly designed - rotations of skills there, which does a better job there with their prevalence on cooldowns by giving you for example the option to regen Mana as a burst upon finishing a CD.
I really don’t wanna state that D4 does anything better then another game of the genre… but heck… they actually do the Mana management vastly better then LE in comparison.

A product is never a single thing but a culmination of it, and in that regard D4 actually has better design then LE.

@DJSamhein

There are no real numbers because Blizzard doesn’t release them.

Then also don’t state it as a fact. Might be PoE that’s actually better off and more played.
At least on Steam the engagement absolutely sucks comparatively, so it’s expected that Blizzard showcases the daily individuals playing solely. Which means jack for consecutive online players. Steam showcases the peak count of the people online at any time, which means at 8 AM and at 8 PM we could’ve gone through a cycle of 4 individual sets of completely unique players.

@DJSamhein

And D4 has wildly more players than either game.

Acitve players per day? Peak? Owners of the product?

For owners it’s around 75 mil for D4 and 56 mil for PoE.
For players daily it’s 150k individuals stated for D4 and between 1-1,5 mil for PoE (oh whoops… seems like PoE is the most played game actually?)
For peak we can only see Steam, which goes from release times of 40k for D4 to 150k PoE.

So, what measurement are you using?

@DJSamhein

Steamcharts also supports this.

Yes, it supports PoE being vastly more played
And PoE is also a console game nowadays. Without being a title well known like the Diablo-franchise for console players it still has tens of thousands concurrently online there.

@DJSamhein

So, to reply to your examples of impossible things to do, here is a build using frost claw AND meteor, not using neither mana strike NOR focus, and yet having no mana issues:

Oh come on… now that’s not smart from you at all.
You gave a exact example of it going absolutely counter to argumenting there.

The argument was that you have no reliable methods during progression to make those types of builds, you can only traverse into em and not start out in a reasonably viable way as the options to fix the Mana issue aren’t presented in a reliable way.
And then you go and use a example which is solely based on those limited ways which means you cannot use it before it’s ‘done’?

Really?

@DJSamhein

Except that for PoE2 every PC player uses steam.

???
What?
No?
You don’t use Steam on the PS5
You don’t use Steam with the standalone Client either.

Another factually wrong thing here.

For the PS5 option you can link em together… which means nothing really as you have to own 2 copies of the game and also cannot use the MTX from each other’s side, so why the heck would you do that?

@DJSamhein

Of course. Mana solutions are endgame solutions.

That’s the whole damn point!

@DJSamhein

Same thing happens in PoE1.

No it doesn’t!
And the campaign in PoE is early-game with white to yellow maps being mid-game. Unlike in LE where you enter mid-game at around Act 8.

At least keep it in perspective.

[DJSamhein]

Ok, let’s try to reply to some of it (not all, this is a very long post even by your standards).

@Kulze

The first comes from managing mana through passive means until you can reach that stage. Depending on build this can provide a serious issue (Pure Phys Cyclone for example, or my Tornado Shot archer) which mandates investing serious amount of the ‘puzzling’ as you call it into it. Just the goal after all.

The same goes for the exchange from mana to ES usage, mandates a Hybrid playstyle and hence ‘solving the equation’ for doing so.
It’s just that others have done the solving for you… but finding it on your own? That’s harsh to do in PoE!

95% of builds in PoE have no mana issues without having to invest anything into it in endgame.
ES on mana wasn’t created so you can solve a mana problem, it was created so you can reserve 100% of your useless mana instead.

By contrast, mana is very much an issue during the campaign, where your regen is still too low and you need to rely on mana pots to chug on. Which works fine for skills that aren’t too expensive and have some AoE, but if you have a skill that is more ST focused and is high cost, you’re screwed because you don’t kill enough mobs to fill the charges, leading to waiting times for mana to regen.

Mana hasn’t been an issue you need to solve for the majority of the builds for years now. Only some outlier builds will require it.
And for campaign you never had ways to solve it other than trying to stack max mana and rely on mana pots.

@Kulze

In this case the ask is to provide better options to solve shortcomings of builds.

No, the reply was to the question of whether anyone would like the current system. To which the answer is clearly yes. Much like some like the cooldown method (D3), spender/generator (D3/D4), etc.

@Kulze

Do you wanna tell me that a 8 mana /sec regeneration baseline at all times (Last Epoch) is equivalent with 1,75% mana regeneration (Path of Exile)?
Obviously one allows solutions in a easier way. A 100 Mana Pool in PoE fills in 58 seconds. A 2000 Mana pool in PoE also fills in 58 seconds. That means it starts at 1,7/s with the 100 and it ends with 34,5/s mana regen.

It’s kinda obvious that hence PoE has better ways to solve it as it allows a multi-pronged approach unlike LE does.

You don’t have 8 mana/sec regen at all times. You have tools to increase it. The difference is that LE requires you to actually use them, as opposed to PoE which just requires you to level up.
Sure, some builds require actual solving, like yours apparently does, but this is far from the norm. It’s why you rarely see builds running mana potions anymore. They’re not needed currently.

@Kulze

Come on and stop it with this disgusting hyperbole all the time.

It’s not a hyperbole. He was suggesting that we should do what PoE does because they have more players. I was simply going the next step and saying both should change because D4 has more players.
The argument was the exact same and was using irony (which not everyone gets).

@Kulze

Acitve players per day? Peak? Owners of the product?

All of the above.
If we look at sites that try to monitor connections (very unreliable but unreliable in the same way for every game), we clearly see this.
Even though D4 had a massive dip in players since launch, they still have millions playing.

You yourself has said it categorically in the past, I don’t know why you’re throwing doubts on this.

@Kulze

Yes, it supports PoE being vastly more played

Considering PoE has a much higher percentage of steam players vs their client, it would be strange if it weren’t the case.

After all, more than 2/3 of current D4 sales were made before D4 even arrived on steam.

@Kulze

The argument was that you have no reliable methods during progression to make those types of builds

There are no reliable ways to make these types of builds early on in PoE1 either. If you try to make a high spending skill and spam it during the campaign, you’ll constantly run out of mana.
But to adress that specific issue, yes, there are ways to solve it during progression. In the case of this build it just means using an unspecced mana strike of focus. Or using -spell cost. Or investing into regen. Or all 3.
Until you can fix your mana issue for endgame, you have tools to fix your issue during progression. Which is more than PoE does.

@Kulze

You don’t use Steam on the PS5

@DJSamhein

Except that for PoE2 every PC player uses steam.

Last I checked, PS5 wasn’t a PC.

PoE1 already has more steam players than players in their client. PoE2 attracted a lot more new players. There are no number on it, but I think it’s fair to say that the majority of them bought it via steam, since that’s the platform that’s readily available (and trusted) to everyone.

So if PoE1 has 60-70% of players using steam, I think it’s not a stretch to say that PoE2 has at least 80%.

@Kulze

And the campaign in PoE is early-game with white to yellow maps being mid-game. Unlike in LE where you enter mid-game at around Act 8.

This is also wrong. You end the campaign in PoE1 at level 70-ish and then jump into white maps.
You end the campaign in LE at level 55.

So the equivalent to the end of the campaign in PoE is finishing normal monos in LE.

At least keep it in perspective.

[Llama8]

@Kulze

@Llama8

But if a large portion of the player base likes a thing why is that “bad” just because you don’t like it?

Which wasn’t stated either though.

Maybe it’s a language thing, but it’s so strongly implied he’s bludgeoning us about the head with the idea wrappen round a cinderblock.

@Kulze

How about passive methods of building being enabled which solve the problem at the cost of power for the skill?

Like mana regen or mana efficiency or a proc in other skills that make it free or refund a % of mana or a variety of other tools that the devs give us?

[Macknum]

@Kulze

Which we hopefully can agree on.

Since I started to play LE it was like this and I never thought it would change so i worked with what I got. So we can’t as it seems .

@Kulze

But if you just make it for the sake of making it then… yeah… it’s expected people are scratching their head thinking it to be a bit un-fun, those things just add up when they become more and more prevalent.

Why? That’s a legit thing to do. The same as using Cooldowns instead of making all skills spammable. They wanted to make ressources something you need to work arround and it works rather well. if you ignore it you run out. if you overdo it to spamm away you do most likely no dmg. You can reach sweetspots though and that’s rather nice.

@Kulze

Yeah, but why have a limiting resource in there which is supposed to provide a measurement of skill needed when designed well

Again will you pet the next players head who crys about cooldowns? I don’t get it what you are on about. It’s a mechanic, a built in game system that was even made less punishing by a lot.

@Kulze

I never understood the 0 mana cost methods,

I don’t have anything to do for it. Passive mana gain get’s me covered so I have 0 cost. I spend mana but so little it doesn’t matter.

@Kulze

the core design of mana management has a ton of potential and then… it’s just thrown overboard kinda.

And it has it’s expectations. You can even use skills without having mana or skills that refund a lot of mana. Again what’s your point? To me it sounds like we need no skills and only one good working skill all classes could use would be enough. No exeptions, no systems to change it up, just working as coded without any changes to it.

I may get it that some people don’t like the system in place and want to argue about it. I understand that people want some kind of change and we had change and now everything is already more braindead to manage. So as unhappy as you are with the system in place you for sure have soe suggestions how it should be done right… right?

[corwingeorge]

I totally agree, I like LE just as much as POE 2. I really love both and I spend 200 hours a season and I’ve spent the last few days theorycrafting to solve the mana problem for a bunch of builds that seem diferent/fun for me and none are gonna really pan out.

Unfortunately this LE season will be an afterthought compared to POE 2 this time around where I normally divide my time evenly between the two

[Kulze]

@DJSamhein

95% of builds in PoE have no mana issues without having to invest anything into it in endgame.

Because you’ve already solved it. I mean… that stuff’s for the progression there, you’re supposed to not have a problem after the solution. That’s kinda the goal.

@DJSamhein

And for campaign you never had ways to solve it other than trying to stack max mana and rely on mana pots.

That’s because for a large amount of the campaign you’re not expected to fill your flask slots with support flasks outside of a quicksilver and a single elemental flask to counteract the drop-RNG of those during the campaign.
Only in the second half of the campaign you start to get more reliably tools for managing it, be it jewel drops which have mana leech on it, access to leech nodes, simply converting the usage over to life rather then Mana and so on.

@DJSamhein

You don’t have 8 mana/sec regen at all times.

And you also don’t have 34,5 Mana/sec with a 2000 mana pool in PoE at all times. I mean… it was kinda obvious that the example is from the base regeneration system and the differences there. So no shit Sherlock.

@DJSamhein

He was suggesting that we should do what PoE does because they have more players.

No, that was not what was said. You interpreted it this way simply. It was much more leaning already towards the ask of ‘copying pre-existing models’ rather then 1 to 1 carbon copies, especially since PoE also has Mana and the initial ask was ‘No Mana, only Cooldowns’. Which is a premise which was obviously shot down.

You simply were a few steps behind with your thought process here which led to utter nonsense.

@DJSamhein

You yourself has said it categorically in the past, I don’t know why you’re throwing doubts on this.

I’ve always said it’s likely… but that we don’t know as Blizzard doesn’t provide numbers properly. And even if it’s a game which focuses on a high turnover rate which mandates a higher player-count to function anyway.
So it’s a bit more complex then what you make it out to be. But fair.

@DJSamhein

There are no reliable ways to make these types of builds early on in PoE1 either.

Oh come on… proper comparisons, not those simply fitting your bill… do you mind doing that for a change here?

What progression stage? What does it relate to in PoE at the progression? How do you compare it?

I mentioned already… early game is the whole campaign in PoE, not in LE, since total content is spread differently out. Mid-game same… end-game same.

You 100% get provided with the options mid-game which is when the major transitions for core itemization should happen, like moving from a hybrid or pure life build into CI should be managed at the end of mid-game commonly. Exceptions apply (seemingly always gotta say that…).
Comparatively for LE this only happens at end-game which is a distinct difference. That’s a position where your core build should already be ‘online’ so to speak.

And outside of a few exceptions LE doesn’t have the concept of ‘league starters’ and ‘second builds’ yet. And even then when it’s in the same mastery the switch is not a secondary character but instead a full-blown rework of your core build ideology since it saves on time after acquiring everything. Unless you specifically want to go out of your way for a few extra hours, but it’s not needed. In PoE this comes at that stage commonly at a still substantial cost of time investment to do versus currency investment. Less so since Settlers since Gold can now be used to respec and that’s easier accessible in needed amounts compared to Regrets… but is also more valuable when used half-way decently.

@DJSamhein

Last I checked, PS5 wasn’t a PC.

True, my bad.
Standalone client still exists though.

@DJSamhein

This is also wrong. You end the campaign in PoE1 at level 70-ish and then jump into white maps.

Content is relative to invested play-time and perceived progression overall. Level in PoE looses progression value swiftly, it’s the end-game content which is not limited to level increase that’s making up a substantial amount of content.

You also don’t state that you end campaign at level 60 and hence you’ve still 40% of the content left. That’s not how it goes.

If your level 1-70 takes 3 hours but the content (not senseless repetitive grinding without a distinct goal which is set by deisgn-positioning and natural storyline.) is 160 more hours then that’s at best ‘early-game’. Unless you wanna say you’ve done early- and mid-game in those 3 hours and now the next 160 hours are solely end-game despite non-stop progressing further and further with a distinct end-goal.

What you describe is the ‘end-game mechanic’, which in most games would be a fitting naming sense. In PoE it really is not since after the Campaign you get a second full-blown story about the eldrich being ‘Maven’ and the effect she has on the Atlas, introducing you to a myriad of side-arcs with their own more or less established storylines. Especially Heist has a clear-cut progression line where you help out each character individually to resolve their problems.
But the major part is that the Maven is set up in a way to be a follow-up campaign to the existing campaign. You are directly told that issues are happening in the Atlas and you’re the only person able to solve it, then you’re progressing through it to find what the issue is, encounter the Maven and together with her the ‘champions’ of other Eldritch being like the Eater of Worlds and the Searing Exarch.
But I cannot fault you for not knowing that since I don’t expect anyone in a ARPG to follow a story properly. Those beings are the champions respectively from the ‘Cleansing Fire’ and the ‘Tangle’, which are on the same evolutional level as the Maven… but unlike her they’re adult Eldritch beings and not basically a baby like the Maven is.
This is hence a full-scale establishment of a full-blown campaign after the campaign, directly tied to the immersion and lore. The design-setup hence is clear-cut.

It’s unlike the end-bosses in most other ARPGs actually, they just let you do a specific mechanic and say ‘here you go’ without introducing a overarching goal. Some not even introduce the ‘big bad’ at the end of the line. It’s just a freestyle thing where you stumble upon things. ‘Unguided’ hence.
Which is very distinct comparatively to PoE, hence why it’s often talked about as ‘the end-game is after hitting T16’ because then you’re supposed to kill Maven and enter the actual end-game grind. All before is relatively smooth progression-wise.

@Llama8

Like mana regen or mana efficiency or a proc in other skills that make it free or refund a % of mana or a variety of other tools that the devs give us?

I mean… they give it to us theoretically. But does it work in reality? As mentioned, are the potential of the provided tools even remotely reached?

A prime example for that is a zoo-build in LE on a necro. A zoo build has troubles with providing both minion improvements while getting defensive measures… for either yourself or the minions. You already are starved for slots in total to achieve a viable top-end solution.
Now imagine your zoo gets demolished. 2 Bone golems = 70 mana, your skeletons are 9 mana each cast (I think 3 casts to max was it? So 27?) for a total of lets say 27., your mages cost 21 Mana which is at the baselone only already 63 total and then you’re supposed to provide shades to their rank as well.
A total of 160 Mana hence.

The base regeneration is 8 Mana per second. so we’re talking about 20 second of a return to the baseline ‘online’ state if bad stuff happens simply without a single shade even being put into existence.

How much is acceptable? 5 maybe? So 400% mana regeneration in your build? Where are you supposed to slot that? Any options available?
That’s why I’m saying ‘we don’t have the tools’ as a prime example here. Yes… they exist theoretically on paper, but the balancing of them is atrocious still.
And that’s why I mentioned the mana generating skills and ‘0’ cost skills as a counterexample.

The whole thing is just badly designed currently. A percentile regeneration like in poE would already handle a lot of the weight there as we have a secondary scaling vector. Also we could actively decide to simply buid a buffer instead for a single ‘issue time’ instead and still come out with a better rewarding amount of increases there since the base regeneration would scale into it.

@Macknum

So we can’t as it seems .

Fair

I started it before the majority of ‘0’ Mana nodes existed. When it was a very special thing and you had it as a special gimmick with few interactions existing that made it strong.

Even @Heavy had a post about the topic back in 2020 already!

The Importance of Mana in Last Epoch

So i wanted to start a healthy discussion about Mana in LE. First of all i want so say: In my opinion, Mana Management and everything else revolving around Mana in LE is already alot better than in any other similar aRPG. The pure fact that you basically cannot trivialize Mana in Last Epoch is a good thing. You need to either heavily invest into Mana-Regen/Mana Efficiency or you need to sacrifice a skill slot for Mana Management(or at least slightly adjust some skill spec trees to have some ki…

Back then the design-philosophy behind the ‘0’ Nodes was quite clear-cut. ‘You get this free skill so you can do something… it can also be a Mana generator… but they’re weak to make up for it’. Hence a ‘fallback’ skill. A skill solely meant to manage upkeep for other powerful skills.

He even specifically mentions Smite there, which nowadays is a top-tier damage dealer skill! So something went ‘awry’ a bit with the initial design.
As said, Mana management is important. And I would enjoy to see the initial design philosophy to be upheld rather then further and further muddled as it happened since those 5 years of that post there.

I also agree that Mana Leech is not a good solution as it cheapens the management of it. But that still means that the respective build types which are left on the side because of Mana issues need to have methods revolving around Mana to enable em. And as a extra mention: It can also be done without directly tackling Mana at all, but then the relevant values for those types of usage need to be adjusted accordingly to fit properly with the Mana usage. And that part especially is not well upheld.

Also one of the immediate things standing out to me was this post in there which happened as the second answer:

@benj92

I think mana is in a very good spot right now. The only thing with mana generating skills is that they feel mandatory. Like focus on wizard.

Which yes… I fully agree with! It’s not an ‘option’ when one choice is clearly superior to the others.

That’s why I’m speaking about the whole thing with the upsides versus downsides applied. For a choice you need to have to think about which to go, and those should be roughly at the same value then the competition.

EHG doesn’t even balance the usage of their skills within themselves. A direct hit VK with Erasing strike is so vastly stronger then a Time-Rot based one is… so either the direct hit method has to be adjusted or the Time-Rot increased I would argue. No matter of what other skills have for the moment, that’s the second stage following that, to bring skills in line with each other.

If you got more tedium and hassle then it should also be stronger… with less? Weaker obviously.
Effort being rewarded, lazyness needing more effort in terms of gearing instead.

@Macknum

Why? That’s a legit thing to do. The same as using Cooldowns instead of making all skills spammable.

Yeah, that’s not something I argued about though.
That missed the point a bit there.

For something to exist it needs to have a function. If you provide a system which is primarily limited by Mana usage then that’s great! Fantastic even! We got our limiter! We can balance around that, right?
Now you implement a ‘0 Mana’ skill. You got something to balance around, which is Mana usage… that removes that. So… can the skill ever be allowed to do as much damage or have as much functionality as one costing Mana? Obviously not!
That’s the point.
If they wanna make a skill strong enough to be standalone (which every single damage dealing skill should be in some way of building it, we got too few to not use that methodology) then to achieve that with a Skill allowing to not use Mana or recupe a vast portion of the Mana used… it needs to have a severe downside in some way.
One option would be to cause mana reducing nodes to affect damage effectiveness for example, which is a hefty hit, always. Same with recuping ones.

This way you actually have a option. One is ‘I want to have my Skill up at any time, at the cost of damage in a short timeframe, but it’s steady’ versus ‘I want to deal hefty amounts of damage right away, but afterwards I’ll not be able to do anything and be a sitting duck’.
This is proper management of Mana after all. That’s why it was implemented with the hefty limitation after all, wasn’t it?

@Macknum

Again will you pet the next players head who crys about cooldowns? I don’t get it what you are on about. It’s a mechanic, a built in game system that was even made less punishing by a lot.

I mean… when you read the second part of the sentence you quoted rather then leaving that out without any inclination of even going into that second part… then obviously it’s something entirely different then what I talked about

I said what’s the meaning of it if you simply disable it anyway?
That was the question. What you answered here is something entirely else.

Yes, I’ll also ‘cry about someone completely disabling a crippling cooldown for no downside’. Because no shit Sherlock!

[DJSamhein]

@Kulze

Because you’ve already solved it.

If by solving you mean leveling up, then yeah, you’re right.

@Kulze

That’s because for a large amount of the campaign you’re not expected to fill your flask slots with support flasks outside of a quicksilver and a single elemental flask to counteract the drop-RNG of those during the campaign.

Oh, so you mean that in early game you have no tools to handle mana? I thought that was the issue here and that PoE1 did it so well.

@Kulze

And you also don’t have 34,5 Mana/sec with a 2000 mana pool in PoE at all times. I mean… it was kinda obvious that the example is from the base regeneration system and the differences there. So no shit Sherlock.

To get to 2k mana you have to invest into it. Otherwise you’ll have 634 mana at level 100. Which is much less than 34.5 mana/sec.
The truth is that you never actually manage mana regen in PoE. A full mana bar will always take 56s, no matter if you have 100 mana or if you have 10k.
What you do is simply increase max mana so you get enough regen at base to cast your skills, not because you actually need max mana. And then, because all that max mana is useless, you just reserve it with auras.

@Kulze

You 100% get provided with the options mid-game which is when the major transitions for core itemization should happen, like moving from a hybrid or pure life build into CI should be managed at the end of mid-game commonly. Exceptions apply (seemingly always gotta say that…).
Comparatively for LE this only happens at end-game which is a distinct difference. That’s a position where your core build should already be ‘online’ so to speak.

You actually get given those tools very early on. There are plenty of cost reduction nodes/affixes, there are generators available as well, some skills even let you cast it at negative mana.

Like the meteor example. You can totally spec into spamming them constantly. You just need to take focus and take the node that immediately gives you mana if you’re in negative mana.
So all you need to do is spam meteors and occasionally tap focus. Or channel it if you want to go back to full so you can full spam again.
And this happens very early on, if you want.

@Kulze

In PoE it really is not since after the Campaign you get a second full-blown story about the eldrich being ‘Maven’ and the effect she has on the Atlas

You mean like the whole harbingers arc?

@Kulze

I mean… they give it to us theoretically. But does it work in reality? As mentioned, are the potential of the provided tools even remotely reached?

If you want to make them work, yes. If you just go “Waaaaah, want power without thinking or hitting another button”, then no.
You have tools to solve it in endgame, you have tool to solve it until you get to the endgame tools.
That is why you have plenty of working builds using high cost skills.

@Kulze

How much is acceptable? 5 maybe? So 400% mana regeneration in your build? Where are you supposed to slot that? Any options available?

Yes, plenty actually. There’s the lich passive that gives you mana regen (with the added bonus of also giving you armor), there’s the node in skeletons that give you mana when they die, there’s skills that give you mana, like chaos orbs, marrow shards or drain life, which you can use. There’s the mana on potion passive node and affix.
So several options, really. On some you’ll have to sacrifice something, on some you don’t sacrifice that much.

But, and this is important, options are only avaiable if you want to actually search for them.

[Macknum]

@Kulze

We can balance around that, right?

Well I could do that even less then EHG while my lack of skills in this department komes from a lack of knowledge I didn’t heared from EHG why it isn’t working out on their part.

Long story short enough with the bibels. The game is in a wonky state and as long as we don’t have clear goals to reach we can’t say shit about balance or what some mechanics are. Some people like the state mana reg is in other people want to throw Meteors 24/7 and i can’t tell who is right or wrong because I don’t know it. I can guess EHG is against people throwing arround meteors 24/7 but then again have skills that cost only a fraction of a Meteor (or even nothing) that do the same dmg.

I guess we can both agree that the ingame systems are all over the place without a clear goal . I think Manareg is in a good place but high cost mana skills fell like shit because you don’t burn the world down with them and they are a missconception in a game like LE where you kite arround or have boss end goals like uberroth.

Many people might call me names for this but LE needs an overhaul and clear goals or it will go to waste.

For the mana part… if I can make it work everyone can make it work. Sure there will be still be badly designed skills but if people pick them up as if their life depends on it it’s on them. Could it be better? Yes. For my part it should be even worse then befor the last mana approach we had because it was already to managable back then.

[ExSea]

lmao

youre 100% right on that!

tho the fact that players reach 60-600 mil is the problem to begin with.

[Kulze]

@DJSamhein

If by solving you mean leveling up, then yeah, you’re right.

You get 6 mana per level, you start with 40, that means at level 100 you got 640 Mana.
Also you get 2 Mana per int. A build not based on Int will have the minimum it can get away with, with is usually around 80-100, which means between 160 and 200 mana.
So at worst we can say to have 820 Mana at level 100.
Most players never go beyond level 95 though, so we loose 30, means 790 for the follow-up example.

Your regeneration is 1.75% of max mana without any investment.
That means you start with 0,7/s reg and end with 13,825/s reg.

The 2 most used skills in PoE currently are Kinetic blast and Volcanic Fissure of Snaking.
The mana usage for both is the following for a prime build example:

Kinetic Blast:
Starts with 6 Mana solo gem.
Goes to 9 Mana, 5 links with 4 30% and one 40% support. Total 160% more Mana per use. Means 23,4 mana/use

Volcanic Fissure:
Starts with 9 Mana solo gem.
Goes to 14 mana, 5 link with 4 30% and one 40% support. Total 160% more Mana per use.
Means 36,4 mana/use

Both obviously go highly into attack speed of possible, Volcanic feels a bit awful if you don’t, kinetic scales extremely well with it.

So we can say +~50% attack speed for both, higher investment for it with volcanic fissure as it has loads of negatives.
The weapons are different with the base attack speed, snaking has ‘1’ and kinetic blast has ‘2’

So 3 uses for the kinetic blast.
1,5 uses for the volcanic fissure.

That means per second kinetic blast uses 70,2 Mana.
Volcanic Fissure uses 54,6 Mana.

Kinetic Blast invests into Int though, so we go with more Int, let’s say 400 instead of 100. That means an extra 600 Mana. Another 10,5 Mana/s.

End Result:
Kinetic blast generates without any other means 24,325/s Mana and uses 70,2 Mana. Which means you need to invest into it or you run out.
Volcanic Fissure generates without any other means 13,825/s Mana and uses 54,6 Mana. Which also means you need to invest into it or run out.

So kindly… can you finally stop blabbering nonsense non-stop? It’s become a menace by now that no matter what is said you’re throwing in factually wrong statements, misunderstanding things constantly or de-railing stuff like with making me provide examples for kinda obvious things basically non-stop.

@DJSamhein

Oh, so you mean that in early game you have no tools to handle mana? I thought that was the issue here and that PoE1 did it so well.

That means it’s expected to have the mana flask, which is your early game means

@DJSamhein

The truth is that you never actually manage mana regen in PoE. A full mana bar will always take 56s, no matter if you have 100 mana or if you have 10k.
What you do is simply increase max mana so you get enough regen at base to cast your skills, not because you actually need max mana. And then, because all that max mana is useless, you just reserve it with auras.

At least inform yourself about the game you’re talking about.

Just no.
The example above showcases it already, if you don’t understand it still then I’ll leave it at that. Useless to speak on.

@DJSamhein

You actually get given those tools very early on. There are plenty of cost reduction nodes/affixes, there are generators available as well, some skills even let you cast it at negative mana.

It’s in relation to the respective needs of the respective skills.

A league-starter in PoE (where there’s more variety then in total builds in LE by the way) has no need to traverse over to another type of build, it only has the options but it’s designed to function to a comfortable playing state in end-game. Which is the equivalent of 500c in LE currently.
In LE you have a very small amount of skill variety existing, some of those ‘like Erasing Strike or Meteor’ work quite badly if you use em from the start. Which means you first have to put everything together before you can start playing it without it being a pure chore. You could theoretically power through but that’s just a nonsensical thing to do as it’ll feel quite crap.

That’s the core point here still.

As for your Meteor example:
Yes, don’t use any damage modifiers but instead go the first 4 points into recovery, which at 48% recovery means you’ll ‘only’ need to pay instead of 56 Mana effectively 29,12 Mana, which effectively means you can fire a single Meteor every 3,64 seconds, given you only use that skill.
Peak gameplay clearly!

@DJSamhein

You mean like the whole harbingers arc?

You mean like the thing tucked on after going randomly into echos for no reason and waddling through confusing alternative storylines not stringed together without any goal at all first? Before re-doing the exact same content solely to re-beat the exact same bosses (several times even the further you go) to get a shot at the next generic one of 2 variants which copy the mechanics of the boss mildly differently?

Seems like great goal-driven design to me, clearly so… not.

They’ve got as much core storyline progression as Betrayal in PoE, they’re just badly tucked on. Betrayal is meant to be a side-thing… Harbingers are not. That’s a big difference design-wise, and they’re not well designed, never were.

@DJSamhein

If you want to make them work, yes. If you just go “Waaaaah, want power without thinking or hitting another button”, then no.
You have tools to solve it in endgame, you have tool to solve it until you get to the endgame tools.
That is why you have plenty of working builds using high cost skills.

Missed the point completely, not gonna re-explain my last post though, it’s in there, re-read.

@DJSamhein

Yes, plenty actually. There’s the lich passive that gives you mana regen (with the added bonus of also giving you armor), there’s the node in skeletons that give you mana when they die, there’s skills that give you mana, like chaos orbs, marrow shards or drain life, which you can use.

Chaos Orbs, Marrow Shard or Drain Life would go against the purpose of making it a zoo build.
You got Skellies, Mages, Bone Golem, Wraiths. That leaves 1 skill open. The most sensible choice for survivability is Transplant since it’s a mobility skill and Necro tends to be slow anyway and as a zoo you need to re-cast shades regularly, making it hard to have another active skill as upkeep. Unless you reduce the shade numbers, which would reduce your zoo, hence counter to the zoo-style… but we’ll go with that then. Rip Blood it is, because it provides a mana generator, right?

So… 1,5 attacks per second. 3 points regen per attack. Tripled against rares and bosses which we say is the primary target anyway.
That means… a whooping… 13,5/s at optimal use without any downtime at all.
Which is around 180% Mana regain left to make up for.
We got 20% from your node… so 160% left. Fantastic! Such a great example! Now we need another avenue with cast speed to scale that while already being currently starved for Mana and hence would need it for regen.
But we got 2 more, right?
Chaos Bolt you mean? How do we curse? With Transplant which we don’t have?
Marrow Shards then it is! So, lets use our already lacking defensive measure of Health which as a summoner we won’t have EHP anyway, to then use that to gain with a 40% chance that then further has a 33% chance to return us 15 Mana? Which is 0,2 times per second happening roughly? So that means your effective Mana regeneration rises by a whooping… 3 Mana/s? Yep, great
The last option is Transplant, which we would take anyway as it’s a Zoo addition, the only sensible skill to take for Zoo. Extra 4 permanent Bone Minions.
So reduce the 5 second CD by 15%, which makes it a 4,25 CD. But we increase that by 30% anyway… so actually we have a 5,75 CD. We don’t intend to hit mobs so the +2 per use are irrelevant, we keep that at ‘1’ anyway. Instead we have 30 Mana restored, actually decent! It’s a total of… 5,2 Mana/s optimally.

Yes, fantastic options from skills, great!

But don’t worry, you said we got our passive still anyway!

So let’s check, we have the Lich one already, we need 400% total anyway to reduce it to the 5 second ‘worst-case scenario’.
Would mean 200% armor anyway, good good.
So we take 20% there, 10 points, another 8 points into Warlock while wasting the unlock since we don’t curse still, 3 int, can take 2 extra for good measure since we get a bit of flat Mana as a buffer, ok. Then we waste 5 points into a node giving us exactly nothing to reach a node giving us your lovely ‘Mana on potion’ node. For a damn whooping 12 Mana per potion. Yes… let’s throw em back! That’ll save the day for sure!

@DJSamhein

But, and this is important, options are only avaiable if you want to actually search for them.

Yeah, or you can just go and tell everyone that building a skyscraper out of a single matchbox is entirely possible!

@Macknum

The game is in a wonky state and as long as we don’t have clear goals to reach we can’t say shit about balance or what some mechanics are. Some people like the state mana reg is in other people want to throw Meteors 24/7 and i can’t tell who is right or wrong because I don’t know it.

Yeah, that’s a very fair take, it’s a mess and EHG needs to clean a bit… or a lot there.

@Macknum

Many people might call me names for this but LE needs an overhaul and clear goals or it will go to waste.

And that’s what I’m saying! I’m 100% agreeing with you there.
It’s overdue since ages, and the game isn’t too far off to become great… if the effort is put in and no misguided weird stuff happens.

@Macknum

Sure there will be still be badly designed skills but if people pick them up as if their life depends on it it’s on them.

Yeah… but it’s kinda the point of those talks to make it known that there are those skills… and which they are. Or which parts of em.
Like direct hit Forge Strike, which is just… not feasable. Or comparatively (to the other options available) Time-Rot Erasing Strike.
It’s the things which kinda don’t make sense with what else is around, many avenues which need a fixing… but plainly spoken I think EHG simply needs to sit down and say for a Cycle ‘Yeah, we’ve gotten ourselves in a bad position, we need the hail mary large-scale full skill rework for all classes and skills at once. New baseline, once, going from there’.

[Macknum]

@Kulze

Yeah… but it’s kinda the point of those talks to make it known that there are those skills… and which they are. Or which parts of em.

I don’t give a rats ass. EHG has all the datapoints they need to act upon it. It’s on them if they deem this an issue or if they let it slide. They reduced and changed the people in the CT programm and time will tell if we get better quality updates this way but so far I’m not impressed.
Sadly I even think we are in a state where EHG is putting on bandaids again. Sentinel patch? Yay! 2/3 masterys are awesome… the third they overlooked somehow. Pet and Necro changes… look pretty half assed on paper but lets see what experienced pet players say.

To me most of LEs problems I see are the good old matter of doing one step to the front and one step back and to deliver the minimal viable product. My mother always told me: “If you do something do it right. If you are unable to do so try to learn how to do it right. If you can’t get it done because you have no talent on the matter then don’t mess arround and ask someone who is capable to do it right for you. You are responseable for what you are doing and how it looks and works. Now stop excusing yourself and clean your room!”.

Maybe I don’t get the big picture here but to me it looks like EHG is taking half meassures to keep the boat afloat as long as possible but those don’t cut it for me anymore. Those don’t get less over time but even more.

Without having goals and the mindset of doing things right we are in a limbo of half meassures. Experimental WASD with buffs to mobs that hard Nerf M/K players. Class reworks that somehow end up making some masterys realy good and treat another like the ugly smelling bad mannered stepchild. Flow breaking boss mechanics. Powercreep and more powercreep. The saddest thing… nothing feels new and more of the same old stuff with a bit of a different polish and a new effect.

[DJSamhein]

@Kulze

That means it’s expected to have the mana flask, which is your early game means

That means that in LE you’re supposed to use mana strike or any of the generators, or any of the cost reduction/can cast with 0 mana nodes, which are your early game means. How is that any different?

@Kulze

Just no.
The example above showcases it already, if you don’t understand it still then I’ll leave it at that. Useless to speak on.

Can you change the 1.75% mana regen? As far as I know you can’t. And your example doesn’t change this percentage either.
That means that going from 0 mana to full mana, no matter how much max mana you have, will always take 56 seconds because you will always regen 1.75%/sec.
You might regen more mana per second or less, but 0 to full will always take the same time.

This means that, given your examples, you invest into max mana so you reach 4k mana to get 70.2 regen. At which point, 3930 of your mana is useless because you’re not using it.
And this works for any value. If you apply cost reductions and you now only need 50 m/s, then you need 2860, at which point 2810 of your mana is useless.

I’ve looked at all the top builds in PoEVault. Not a single one has less than 90% reserved mana and many even have 100%.
You’re not solving your mana issues so you can spam your favorite skill. You’re solving your mana issues so you can use it as a resource for something else.
Because once you achieve base regen to keep spamming your skills without mana loss, at which point 98% of your mana is useless.

There used to be a time where mana was solved with a mix of increasing your max mana and using mana flasks. But people complained about this, so after some point (Harvest? Heist? Somewhere around that) GGG “fixed” mana and now mana flasks are only useful for early game and for fringe cases.
Because they “fixed” it in a way that most of your mana pool becomes useless.

This happens because the only way to have high regen is to have higher max mana. There is no other way to increase your regen.
Whereas in LE you can have 100 mana and regen 50 mana per second if you want.
Or you can reduce mana costs to 8.

So I don’t know how you think that’s not true.

@Kulze

Yes, don’t use any damage modifiers but instead go the first 4 points into recovery, which at 48% recovery means you’ll ‘only’ need to pay instead of 56 Mana effectively 29,12 Mana, which effectively means you can fire a single Meteor every 3,64 seconds, given you only use that skill.
Peak gameplay clearly!

Unless you use another solution that LE presents you.
Like using mana strike/focus, which are like your flasks, except they can be specced to give more utility and even more damage to your main skill.
Or use one of the early mana regen nodes in the passive tree.
Or use the nodes in meteor that refund your mana.

There are solutions, but only if you want to look for them. And for early game, much of it is based on a generator (though not all), much like in PoE it’s based on using a mana flask or even two (and that’s the only solution, there’s no other).

@Kulze

The most sensible choice for survivability is Transplant since it’s a mobility skill and Necro tends to be slow anyway and as a zoo you need to re-cast shades regularly, making it hard to have another active skill as upkeep.

That is not very sensible. Almost every single zoo build specs mages as a movement skill, which also teleports minions so you can reposition them. So speccing transplant would be a waste of a skill slot.
Shade would be the most optimal choice.

@Kulze

Chaos Bolt you mean? How do we curse? With Transplant which we don’t have?

With Marked for Death which any zoo build will run in an idol?

@Kulze

Yes, fantastic options from skills, great!

Interesting that you ignored the most important, which is skeletons giving you mana when they die. And giving you more mana than they cost.
And you also ignored the “There’s the mana on potion passive node and affix”.

So, going back to that first sentence:

@Kulze

Chaos Orbs, Marrow Shard or Drain Life would go against the purpose of making it a zoo build.

Yes, they would. That’s why you solve mana by sacrificing things. You don’t even need to use another skill. That’s just an option. You can use the skelly mana refund with a few mana on potion affixes and you’re set.

Truth is that some skills aren’t meant to be spammed. You can solve it and spam them, but you only get solutions for that in the endgame.
It’s no different from having a cooldown and only getting tools to remove the cooldown at late game. Which, you know, also happens in PoE and many other game. When they even let you remove the cooldown, which most games don’t.

[Llama8]

@DJSamhein

Can you change the 1.75% mana regen? As far as I know you can’t. And your example doesn’t change this percentage either.

You can get % increased mana regen. Which has the same effect.

@Kulze

Yes, don’t use any damage modifiers but instead go the first 4 points into recovery, which at 48% recovery means you’ll ‘only’ need to pay instead of 56 Mana effectively 29,12 Mana, which effectively means you can fire a single Meteor every 3,64 seconds, given you only use that skill.

That’s also on average, you can use the normal flow of gameplay to be a bit more bursty & regen during the downtime between packs. Or use Focus, or Mana Strike. Or build more into regen or max mana.

It’s almost like there are options.

[DJSamhein]

@Llama8

You can get % increased mana regen. Which has the same effect.

Ok, I wasn’t aware of that, so I’ll admit I’m wrong on that.
Although I’m not wrong on mana being solved as a resource for auras, rather than just for mana sustain.
Your starting point is always “I want to reserve 90%+ of my mana for auras, how can I cast my skills with what’s left?”.

[Kulze]

@DJSamhein

That means that in LE you’re supposed to use mana strike or any of the generators, or any of the cost reduction/can cast with 0 mana nodes, which are your early game means. How is that any different?

Really now… if you can’t see how ‘Playing another build’ and ‘Using a mana flask instead of advanced measures’ differs then I can’t help you further. Not even going into that.

@DJSamhein

Can you change the 1.75% mana regen? As far as I know you can’t. And your example doesn’t change this percentage either.

Yes, if you use ‘% Mana regeneration’, which hence is a multiplicative layer rather then a additive layer since investing in Mana makes that Affix more powerful.

50% Mana regen is kinda different when you have 5 regen/s versus 30 regen/s.

Unlike in LE where that value is static. Which means the further you advance the less useful that stat becomes as usage count of skills increase and/or mana needs of the skill increase.
While LE has no scaling mana usage like PoE has it still has attack speed and cast speed, as well as methods to trigger chains of skills or increase Mana costs for upsides. That makes it a methodology where you have to see it as a hard multiplier for potential DPS rather then a soft scaling method as your means don’t increase along the way to solve it.

@DJSamhein

You’re not solving your mana issues so you can spam your favorite skill. You’re solving your mana issues so you can use it as a resource for something else.

Still factually wrong.
You reserve Mana because the usage of Auras takes away percentile amounts of Mana commonly, with exceptions applying.
So if you got 2000 Mana and reserve 50% of it is’s kinda then same then having 10 Mana and reserving 50% of it

You’re right though that at times you reserve less so you can more comfortably use your skill. Which is a balancing act. Too little reservation and you’ll loose out on the usage of a powerful Aura. Too much reservation and you’ll have a veeeery bad time with your active skill.

@DJSamhein

This happens because the only way to have high regen is to have higher max mana. There is no other way to increase your regen.

Yeah, I’ll leave it at that.
Clearly %Mana regen doesn’t exist in your mind, same Affix as in LE. Different method it works though since the base of one game scales and not of the other.

But yeah… this topic is getting really annoying with a myriad of crap being thrown out from you which then boils down to ‘I ignored a main element and based my assumption on a non-existent fantasy reality where this absolute core element simply doesn’t exist in my mind’.

@DJSamhein

Unless you use another solution that LE presents you.

Which was the topic that there’s issues with some of them making it so some options are simply only available in end-game for a full-scale build rather then earlier on. Yes… surprise… that was the topic. You lost the plot here.

What you explain though with the comparison to PoE… the PoE Mana Flask suffices to use your stuff earlier on. It doesn’t commonly in end-game, which is why other methods are used.
In LE your generators are not sufficing always though early-game. Which is the whole damn topic for the whole damn time.

I don’t even know what you’re arguing about here anymore.

@DJSamhein

Shade would be the most optimal choice.

Which is also a more viable total choice, yes. But that kinda goes into the way of using a mana Generator… which was the topic here though, wasn’t it?

@DJSamhein

With Marked for Death which any zoo build will run in an idol?

Does Marked even count as a curse? I couldn’t find anything about that.

@DJSamhein

Interesting that you ignored the most important, which is skeletons giving you mana when they die. And giving you more mana than they cost.

Yep, forgot to include it. That’s true!
So we pay 2… we gain 5. Hence a net value of 3.
Which is still hot garbage though, isn’t it?
First off… it means you need to loose your skellies, which you don’t want after all, do you? You got Shades to cast.
Secondly, it enforces somehow to summon them and then to have them killed, in a sensible timeframe to use the Mana in that specific timeframe of the example I talked about, which is beyond unfeasable.
Thirdly, it enforces you to abstain from the multi-summon or you’ve got a zero-numbers game and not a Generator, making summoning individually the only option, which takes ages and works counter to ‘I need to get up my zoo again quickly!’ now… does it? Sure, if you need 20 seconds to re-summon your skeletons then you have the Mana for the others anyway!
Fourth, even if all of the above works the return still is ‘ass’. 3 Mana per skeleton? 1,5 speed? So you get 4,5 Mana/s max again. Hurray!

@DJSamhein

And you also ignored the “There’s the mana on potion passive node and affix”.

I didn’t, you missed it.
I specifically went into the passive node, which is 12 per pot. Which is what? Half a mage? Surely helps to empty my only means of emergency survival to re-summon a fraction of my zoo.
As for the Affix: First of all, it’s a experimental mod. Secondly, it takes up the same slots as your Minion Affixes, hence causing a direct competition. Thirdly, it Still is jack-all, you would need to combine it with the passive one to make a tend… and the passive ones comes at the cost of literally wasting 5 points for nothing, just empty nodes.

I don’t take you for a shit-tier build creator, so don’t recommend shit-tier solutions.
I suck with builds and even I know that this option is beyond crap. You have to alleviate it through other means, and those always compete obviously with other slots and Affixes… which is fine generally but currently poses a problem with the overall balancing for it. Like many… many… many other things as many… many… many people point out.

You’re acting as if the game is a perfect masterpiece with no faults despite having more faults then any other game in the competition currently.

@DJSamhein

Truth is that some skills aren’t meant to be spammed. You can solve it and spam them, but you only get solutions for that in the endgame.

If I cannot ‘spam’ a substantial portion of the few damage skills we have then that reduces the viable build range accordingly.
Which in a game which severely struggles with build variety that’s kinda a problem. If it weren’t it wouldn’t be one. But it is, hence it is.

@Llama8

It’s almost like there are options.

Yeah, I never denied ‘there are options’. After all you can make that build work… but it’s hard-pressed to feel any way decent before end-game there. Which was the topic for it. To use a range of solutions at once needs a specific time investment after all.

And the whole meteor mess examples popped up because the argument after all was ‘There’s issues related to Mana and it causes some builds to not really be viable before end-game, when you’re already ready to move on to another build instead’. Which… is kinda fair in the current state of the game. If we had more content which actually feels like content rather then fillers then sure. Or if we had such a variety of builds to make up for ‘loosing’ one for the progression stage it’s also fine.

But the point is that it’s not fine because the situation simply isn’t the case.

@DJSamhein

Your starting point is always “I want to reserve 90%+ of my mana for auras, how can I cast my skills with what’s left?”.

Kinda, it’s more like ‘How much can I get away with to remove and still make things work?’.
Also you can reserve Life for Auras too, which some people do for low-life builds with a serious amount of Auras. Rather scuffed nowadays.

It uses Mana as a limiter for power scaling yourself basically. If you don’t have to care about Mana at all because you divert usage over to Life for example then you need no scaling there of any kind which allows to reserve 100%. That on the other hand allows to instead go into reservation efficiency for example to make the percentile reserves less and hence cram in more Auras as a end-result, mostly defensive ones by that time.

Which is a fine approach… it’s a bit wonky definitely and makes Mana feel ‘odd’ but it’s a unique way of approaching things and actually works surprisingly well. It has nothing to do with the core scaling differences between the game though, reservation was never a important topic for it, it’s a mechanic layered on top of the existing one, with the only effect being that the percentile regeneration of the Mana pool is 1.75% and not more because the pool is accordingly increased then it would be otherwise without this system.

Remove the reservation and instead you could regen 10% for example as a base and have 20% of the total max that’s existing there now. That’s basic balancing to shift those numbers around simply in that case, nothing major.

[DJSamhein]

@Kulze

Really now… if you can’t see how ‘Playing another build’ and ‘Using a mana flask instead of advanced measures’ differs then I can’t help you further.

Is playing a meteor and using specced flame rush a different build from using specced teleport?
Your build is meteor. The supports you use can change, but the build is the same. Mana strike/focus are supports.

Otherwise each skill has 100 different builds, both in LE and PoE.

@Kulze

Does Marked even count as a curse? I couldn’t find anything about that.

It does.
Description also literally says it applies a curse.

@Kulze

So we pay 2… we gain 5. Hence a net value of 3.

Huh? What? Skellies cost 9 mana. With that node you get back 15. So a net value of 6. That means that if your party is wiped (that is the example this part of the conversation started with) and you have 9 skellies, you’ll get back 135 mana from that alone. Or a net positive of 54. From that source alone.

@Kulze

First off… it means you need to loose your skellies, which you don’t want after all, do you?

This all started because of your example where your minions are wiped by a boss.

@Kulze

Secondly, it takes up the same slots as your Minion Affixes, hence causing a direct competition

That would be part of sacrificing something for it, wouldn’t it?

Honestly, it seems at this point you’re just arguing for “Gimme mana without me having to sacrifice anything”.

@Kulze

You’re acting as if the game is a perfect masterpiece with no faults despite having more faults then any other game in the competition currently.

I’m not. I’m just saying that I played plenty of zoo builds and never had any mana issues. Yes, it sucks if your party is wiped, but you just resummon them as you can. And you do have options to deal with mana.
You can even have skellies resummon on their own with 100% chance now, which is a net positive of 54 mana without you having to spend it on skellies, just on other minions (which are usually beefier than skellies anyway, so they’re less likely to die).

Because you’re acting like the game doesn’t actually let you do anything in regards to mana when this just isn’t true except for a few skills, most of which haven’t been touched in forever. Almost no build has this problem.
Some require you to use alternatives (like focus) until you can solve it in endgame, like in the video I showed).
Some require you to think outside the box and generate void essences so you get a % of your mana back when dipping into negative mana (which is only 2 passive points, btw).
Some will lean into the burst and recover mode, where you’ll burst a pack and recover mana while you’re moving to the next.

There are alternatives and mana isn’t an issue with a few exceptions, which should maybe be looked at. Or maybe those exceptions aren’t supposed to be “fixed” and spammed non-stop in the first place.
Like Judgement. If you want to spam judgement, then you need to spec into vengeance giving you mana. Or you make your peace that you’ll not be casting it 20 times per minute. But whether you use vengeance or not, it’s still a judgement build.

@Kulze

If I cannot ‘spam’ a substantial portion of the few damage skills we have then that reduces the viable build range accordingly.

It’s not a substantial portion, though. It’s a few skills that have a very high mana cost to prevent spamming. The majority of skills can be spammed. As you well know and you’re just being hyperbolic and disingenuous.

@Kulze

Yeah, I never denied ‘there are options’. After all you can make that build work… but it’s hard-pressed to feel any way decent before end-game there.

How is that any different from several builds in PoE that tell you to use something else to level up? There are plenty of high cost builds that will tell you that only in endgame do you have the tools to deal with.
You can use them to level up, but it will be slow and painful. Same as in LE.

Most skills will have solutions early on. The high costing ones will have solutions later on. So you play something else until you can solve it. Same in both games.
Or, if you really really like watching the build grow, like I do, you play with it from the start, even when it’s painful.

[Kulze]

@DJSamhein

Is playing a meteor and using specced flame rush a different build from using specced teleport?

No, but playing one without ‘Mana Well’ definitely is. Which is the node needed to not stand around basically non-stop as you’re always oom.

Which is not even remotely early to achieve, it’s the peak skill of a passive tree, that means you won’t see it before reaching empowered likely.

Kinda end-game if you ask me.
I mean… good node, clearly so! Extremely powerful! Just a shame that playing Meteor feels like crap before having that Node as well as ‘Archmage’, that’s why nobody plays Meteor without Mana-stacking after all.

@DJSamhein

It does.
Description also literally says it applies a curse.

Ah, fair, missed the Tag for it, my bad.

@DJSamhein

Huh? What? Skellies cost 9 mana.

Complete brain-fart there, 9 mana versus 15 with 3 points, means 6. Yep.

As for the wiped party it means you get a net value of 54 Mana with 9 skellies, which yeah, is a bit better definitely, roughly makes up for your dual bone golems, but you’ll still need 3 mages and won’t have your shades up, which is missing hence around 100 mana at least to get back to a decent state.

And that only if we don’t spec into ‘Empty the Graves’ which would rise the cost to 11 Mana per skeleton for a net-gain of 4, which reduces hence the effective gain to 36 Mana, which doesn’t even pay for your golems.

@DJSamhein

That would be part of sacrificing something for it, wouldn’t it?

Absolutely, and fine!
But a choice is only viable when you gain something from it.
One allows you to get miniscule amounts of Mana back while the other allows you to not needing to spend that mana in the first place. As in both cases you’ll be down a substantial amount of defenses and your whole offense.

If it would be a viable thing to pick I would be entirely on your side here, but sadly Minion Health has become such a ‘you need it basically always when possible’ part that it’s just a shame.

@DJSamhein

Yes, it sucks if your party is wiped, but you just resummon them as you can. And you do have options to deal with mana.

Is this a viable option at Uberroth? With a zoo?
I mean Uberroth with a zoo generally isn’t viable, which poses another issue… but even if they would be viable enough to at least deal enough damage so you won’t use 30 minutes for the fight… would it be viable to non-stop resummon your minions as they’ll just waltz into DoT’s right away again and crumble into nothingness?

@DJSamhein

when this just isn’t true except for a few skills,

That was always the point… the ‘except’ is what is talked about here, and I simply brought out the zoo example since it’s a prime thing because of the changes this Cycle while you brought out Meteor which is a clear-cut case of an issue there even.

I mean… that’s the whole thing, I dunno when you lost that thread there that it’s about this baselone topic the whole time.

@DJSamhein

It’s not a substantial portion, though.

Meteorite, Erasing Strike, Glacier (albeit that one works half-way decently earlier at least), initially elemental Nova causing it hence only to be used triggered or when you achieve it to be targeted and already decently scaled (120% damage effectiveness works well end-game but not so well during progression). Volcanic Orb, Forge Strike for direct damage as you have no decisive scaling and simply run out of Mana before it does much at all. Hail of Arrows could be a fun one but it’s just unrealistic to sustain 23 mana/s outside of end-game options.

Yes, all of them are used as builds as you progress on. But the majority of them either feels absolutely awkward to start playing with… clunky, situational, not very helpful or simply so slow that you’re basically fodder while gradually growing with investment into something useful… while we got skills like Mana Strike which just are multi-talents providing you with mana generation, ward generation and triggers of powerful abilities at once. No clear downside at all there while being one of the most spammed skills in the game.

It feels like the design is partially easy cheap accessible skills for the start and the more advanced ones to spec into. Which is absolutely fine! But for that the quantity of skills is simply missing to allow that to be done this way. Yes, most skills can be used in several ways… but first off… many of those you see are because of balance fairly much awful. Others you see are unrealistic to be pulled off from the get go and at some times it’s nigh impossible to make a build work half-way decently during progression at all.

It’s not PoE here where there’s more solely Strength based active skills then LE has in total.
LE is vastly closer to D4 in variety then Torchlight Infinite even. And PoE is a step beyond.

And never forget that PoE’s skills also have the ability to be used in a variety of ways, since that’s so often brought up with the ‘grand build variety’ we seemingly have here, making it a laughable comparison.

So given all that I would argue that OPs argument about the aspect that Mana is currently a large build limiter is a valid point. Which is only important because the build variety simply doesn’t exist in LE, so reducing it with further limitations is something that obviously makes it seem like even less as you cannot access all the possible ones easily.

@DJSamhein

How is that any different from several builds in PoE that tell you to use something else to level up?

Because you also need to level up to use for example Erasing Strike?
There’s a difference between something that’s given to you right away and does work right away (and yes, PoE also has some skills feeling not good in that regard still) and one which you simply have no access to but gets provided to you at a fitting place where you already can make it work.

Not to speak of the build variety and having the option to use adjacent builds which feel rather similar in style for the meanwhile, which comes from the sheer scale that game has reached over time… but a significant portion was there already a long long long time ago.

[DJSamhein]

@Kulze

No, but playing one without ‘Mana Well’ definitely is. Which is the node needed to not stand around basically non-stop as you’re always oom.

Why would Mana Well be build defining? You have several ways of increasing your max mana. That will give you 15% at most.
If that were so build defining, then other classes wouldn’t have ways to reach 1k max mana. Except, oh wait, theydo.

This is to not even mention that for this node to get you to 1k mana, you’d already need to have 870 max mana.
The node is very far from being build defining.

@Kulze

One allows you to get miniscule amounts of Mana back while the other allows you to not needing to spend that mana in the first place. As in both cases you’ll be down a substantial amount of defenses and your whole offense.

Or you do what zoo minion players have done ever since D2. Which is to panic and try to re-summon your minions as you can, often having to wait a bit and hoping that the ones you did summon don’t get wiped.
Or portal back and try again later.

All part of your choices.
Zoo minion is a build where single minions are irrelevant. You’ll be often summoning when a couple dies regularly.
If your whole party gets wiped, then it’s because you’re biting more than you can chew. Which is fine if you want to try it. But you can’t blame the game for that.

@Kulze

Is this a viable option at Uberroth? With a zoo?

Like I said. If you’re trying zoo with Uby you’re biting more than you can chew. If your party is getting wiped out because you’re at 1000c, go down in difficulty until they aren’t.
That’s part of being a zoo minion player. You have to know your limits.

@Kulze

That was always the point… the ‘except’ is what is talked about here

Well, that will heavily depend on your interpretation of “Almost every build that seems remotely fun comes with the cost of being extremely inconvenient to manage mana.”.
To me, it seems like the OP is implying this happens with most builds.

@Kulze

Meteorite, Erasing Strike, Glacier (albeit that one works half-way decently earlier at least), initially elemental Nova causing it hence only to be used triggered or when you achieve it to be targeted and already decently scaled (120% damage effectiveness works well end-game but not so well during progression). Volcanic Orb, Forge Strike for direct damage as you have no decisive scaling and simply run out of Mana before it does much at all. Hail of Arrows could be a fun one but it’s just unrealistic to sustain 23 mana/s outside of end-game options.

So out of almost 150 skills there are 6 that have issues. And you consider that a substantial portion of the skills in LE? 2.5%?

@Kulze

and yes, PoE also has some skills feeling not good in that regard still

Yes, this was my point. Even in PoE you have some skills that are very hard to manage while leveling up due to high costs.
I wasn’t talking about the ones where you need a specific unique. Or the ones that only become available at level 30. I was just talking about the ones that are available early on but are just too much of a hassle to get working until later.

This happens in every game. Quite often these are actually pretty good build in endgame, they’re just very slow or cumbersome to use until you get to the tools that let you bypass that.

Not every skill needs to be available at level 10 and work right off the bat. Having a skill that is harder to solve is also part of the fun. Otherwise it also becomes boring. You start with fireball at level 2 and you end with fireball at level 100 and nothing changed.
It’s fine that this can happen with some skills and it’s fine that other skills require you to get further into the game before you can solve them.

[Kulze]

@DJSamhein

Why would Mana Well be build defining? You have several ways of increasing your max mana. That will give you 15% at most.

In that case it’s important because of the Ward which allows you to open up some Prefixes and hence get more Mana from there.
I know, a bit unfair since it’s not directly influencing it but it’s a relatively big aspect for that build especially since it helps push you over the 1k Threshold. 15% is a lot as you can’t easily get % Mana otherwise.

@DJSamhein

Which is to panic and try to re-summon your minions as you can, often having to wait a bit and hoping that the ones you did summon don’t get wiped.

That’s what I said at the beginning? But the timeframe is too high to make it feasable? Which started this whole argument?
Is this a Ouroboros topic?

@DJSamhein

To me, it seems like the OP is implying this happens with most builds.

Yes, which is fair to say.

But don’t infere that others follow the exact premise of OP. People tend to speak about the core aspects. If you get hung up on the specifics of a post from OP then it kinda makes it hard to have any sort of proper argument. After all everything needs to be non-stop reframed simply because it’s taken in conjunction with the post of someone entirely else hence.

@DJSamhein

So out of almost 150 skills there are 6 that have issues. And you consider that a substantial portion of the skills in LE? 2.5%?

Yes, since many skills are also not damage skills rising that percentile of the ones which actually are talked about.

I mean… you can try and make a Teleport character for killing stuff… tell me how that goes!

@DJSamhein

Yes, this was my point. Even in PoE you have some skills that are very hard to manage while leveling up due to high costs.

So… the basis of the argumentation is hence: ‘Others have it too so for us to have it is fine as well’?

That’s a bad basis to make any argument from. At best it leads to a mediocre product when the specific detailed reasoning for things aren’t known… or at worst-case similar implementations cause a detriment even when not understood.

Just because another product has a similar issue doesn’t mean that it’s not a net-negative there. It actually was more severe years ago and GGG has worked quite heavily to remedy those shortcomings.

You kinda gotta learn form how they fixed stuff and not focus on leftover bits which haven’t been handled yet.
EHG sadly doesn’t do that well either, which is why we see so many small and large messes strewn about left and right.

@DJSamhein

This happens in every game.

Prevalence and variety to avoid it.

All I’ll say to that.

[DJSamhein]

@Kulze

15% is a lot as you can’t easily get % Mana otherwise.

Sure you can. You can get 20% max mana in your helmet and 30% in your body armour. That’s how other classes get to 1k mana.

@Kulze

Yes, since many skills are also not damage skills rising that percentile of the ones which actually are talked about.

That is fair. So let’s look at it.
Primalist has 19 clearly damage skills. It has 4 clearly non-damage skills. It also has 3 transofrms which can be seen either way.
Mage has 21 clearly damage, 7 clearly non-damage.
The rest of the classes follow the same pattern. About 75% of skills are damage, 25% are support/movement.

That means that LE has about 110 damage skills. So we bring that number up to 5.5% of skills in LE. Or 1 in 20.
So I ask again. Do you consider that to be a substantial portion of the skills?

@Kulze

So… the basis of the argumentation is hence: ‘Others have it too so for us to have it is fine as well’?

No, the argumentation was that “PoE does mana right” isn’t a valid one.

The point is that every game has some skill or combo which isn’t feasible until later progression. And that is not an issue.
So arguing that because a handful of builds struggle in early game LE has a mana problem while PoE does everything right isn’t a true statement.

Nor is it an issue. Having builds that are easily solvable from the get go are fine, but so are builds that are hard to build around. Each will present a different challenge and provide a different reward.

Like I said, if every skill is like Fireball where you start with it at level 1 and finish with it at level 100, then there’s no challenge and the game becomes boring.

These games need both: easy builds that don’t require much to solve (but which likely don’t scale as much) and builds that are hard to build around (but which likely end up scaling better) but are satisfying to pull off.