Suggested changes to Mana Costs and Mana Regen

[Madsen]

Specifically, what we could do is lower the rate of MP regen (which was increased some months back, maybe too much). And fix the spells that lack an MP cost, as you've so helpfully listed here!

That could work, may also be a bit easier to fine tune adjustments so as to not break the current world balance in terms of combat! I like it.

I'll probably read this more in-depth later, but running out of mana is the absolute worst and should never be encouraged as a mechanic IMO. Nothing more whacky than just standing there like a deer about to be hit staring at headlights on a road in an active RPB.

It's just awful all around. I don't want to go back to the days when it was very much possible to run out of mana.

My idea: Invulns should have high, high mana costs. 0 mana spells shouldn't cost 0 mana. MP regen should be brought down a bit.

But also, running out of mana isn't really that fun. I don't really have any ideas on how to fix that.

I understand where you are coming from, it does suck, however that is why there should be ways to circumvent it ICly-- Also it wouldn't mean you always go OOM, there are plenty of times in an RPB where both players rest at the edge of the opposite sides of the RPB waiting for cooldowns and such, this merely would provide a way to balance CDR-based builds better as at the moment they are strictly superior to mana builds. I could check your stats right now, and I am certain you did not invest into Mana Capacity at all.

In my ideal world you would just invest more into Mana Capacity if you start to go OOM until you no longer go OOM, then you can begin to pump it into Agility. This would depend on how mana heavy your build is, and if you are a combat chad who invests their time into getting a potion or a food item consistently to give you Mana (like with Fantasia for damage), then you should be rewarded by being stronger via preparation.

Though I get that not everyone feels this way, but surely you must agree that always having 100% mana makes the stat (capacity) & the existence of mana irrelevant.

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I am not saying we should all always be OOM in Combat, I am saying that if you spent all your points into Agility for maximum CDR and then went a mana heavy build (with no points into mana capacity and no spells to give mana), and then began to spam your spells with say 50%+ cdr-- Then you should go OOM.

[Cotillion]

I feel like any significant shift will just force the community as a whole to shift a proportion of their point costs into mana regen. It wont actually change anything, it'll just make certain builds entirely unviable and everyone else will just have 20-40 less to put into power/vit. Which wouldn't really radicalize anything since everyone would have to do it. /shrug

I like the premise of the post, I like that Madsen's trying and I appreciate the message.. I just don't think ooming is particularly fun for anyone either, it also just heavily restricts what people can and can't play.

[ACuriousGrey]

Mana Capacity is a ghost stat with no use, Mana is just a funny blue bar on my HUD that I never see go below 75% unless I'm using Wayfinding.

That being said, going OOM can be unfun, but if you have no chance to OOM there's no point in having a mana bar in the first place.

I think all invulns should be a solid 30-40 mana, extremely high damage and extremely high AoE spells should have larger mana costs (Talking mainly masters. Precision Slash, Sword of Heaven, Judgement Beam, Shadow Cannon, Water Dome, etc). I don't think there's a point in increasing spell mana costs across the board, only specific spells. Or, alternatively, increase mana costs but also massively increase the mana regen offered by the mana stat after a certain threshold (perhaps 140, so negative mana doesn't feel like a free trade for other positive stats) so that mana can also be useful.

I'm just throwing ideas out there, I have zero idea on what is the 'correct' solution should be. But, mana is useless, the mana bar is pointless, and OOMing is annoying, and I don't know how to correct all three of these issues at once.

[Lt. Heart]

Water/Cosmic/mist + Burden can OoM atm, idk if any other race/tree will do so but yeah until I got blue cosmic on my undead I would oom and stay relatively oom after 2 spell rotations 3 once I changed to a slight mana invest but not at all anymore with the cosmic shroud upgrade[was mist aura prior]

Outside of that any build i've tried even ones that woulda OoMed in E3 due to the regen buff at start wipe have not had any issue making resource management really only a thing on like the undead if high costs trees are present

[Chance]

Ideally, if you OOM, you should be able to recharge within a reasonable timeframe instead of being indefinitely fixed at 0-20. The sweet spot for this is probably higher MP costs for spells, but a similar rate of recharge to what we have now, so you're never 'just stuck', but MP is up-and-down throughout the battle (thus giving Absorption more opportunities to work its gimmick).

[Nana]

If you lower the damage absorption deals to mana you might as well remove it entirely because right now, the mana aura doesnt even negate mana regeneration and as a I checked with someone the beam doesn't deal enough damage to be meaningful alone between casts. (I.e. you regenerate all of the mana damage between casts even if you manage to land the beam skill shot flawlessly)

[Ohverride]

Absorption's numbers as a tree is already very good. Taking one tree shouldn't be the thing that hinges on being OOM'd for the rest of the RPB.

[Detective100]

My main concern is that you can't actually know for sure whether your build will be mana intensive or not, until you actually have your bar set up to see if you reach 0 mana or not. I had that issue with one of my builds at E3, and it sucked all the way until I finally relented when given an IC way to refund out of one of the trees to switch into a mana+sustain build.

Moreover, if you do end up raising the costs/lowering the mana recharge, what are the ways for someone to compensate? Currently, I can only think of three options:
Either go into Cosmic for the buff that also gives you mana.
Go Absorbion for the other buff that also gives you mana.
Or equip the mana surge spellstone, which I'll admit I don't know if it even gives mana back nor if it'll be worthwhile enough when taking the spellstone's CD into account.

If we do go with raising costs/lowered mana recharge? There should be more ways for someone to recharge in combat, rather than just two specific trees or or a specific spellstone.

[Madsen]

My main concern is that you can't actually know for sure whether your build will be mana intensive or not, until you actually have your bar set up to see if you reach 0 mana or not. I had that issue with one of my builds at E3, and it sucked all the way until I finally relented when given an IC way to refund out of one of the trees to switch into a mana+sustain build.

Moreover, if you do end up raising the costs/lowering the mana recharge, what are the ways for someone to compensate? Currently, I can only think of three options:
Either go into Cosmic for the buff that also gives you mana.
Go Absorbion for the other buff that also gives you mana.
Or equip the mana surge spellstone, which I'll admit I don't know if it even gives mana back nor if it'll be worthwhile enough when taking the spellstone's CD into account.

If we do go with raising costs/lowered mana recharge? There should be more ways for someone to recharge in combat, rather than just two specific trees or or a specific spellstone.

As the system currently is, there is no reason to add any mana regeneration into the game in any capacity-- Therefore you do not see any.

My reasoning is that ways to circumvent going OOM should have been added originally in E3 instead of all Mana Costs being gutted to the ground so nobody ever goes OOM anymore (An issue that became even worse with the introduction of new spells, where a good chunk of them even have a 0 mana cost.)

As I mentioned in my post, if these changes were implemented it would open up the door for us to add a multitude of potential solutions:
- Mana Regen Faith blessings
- Mana Regen Fae blessings
- Mana Regen Attack Gems (Mana Surge for example- I know some of you will shout 'but warcry is a must!', but we'll just have to resolve that issue to make other gems more viable too.)
- Mana Regen pacts
- Mana Regen pets/summons
- Mana Regen potions
- Mana Regen food items
- Mana Regen enchantments (Or just Mana Capacity, since at the moment you cannot enchant that onto items.)
- Mana Regen zones (Dungeons, The Tower etc.) <-- Likely won't be added, but it is just an example.

I understand that not knowing whether your build is mana heavy or not could be a concern, however that is just a learning curve-- One we will help by continually balancing (I.e. nerfing the mana costs of builds that turns out to be too mana heavy).

The aim is not for everyone to go OOM every RPB, but for people who invest solely into Agility with super-hard hitting spells (or lots of invulnerabilities, some of which can deal damage) to go OOM if they spam their spells with an absurdly high CDR.

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tl:dr: We would add alternative ways to regenerate mana if the current system is changed, and naturally we would tone down any mana costs that turned out to be too high.

[Divine Soldier]

Ideally, if you OOM, you should be able to recharge within a reasonable timeframe instead of being indefinitely fixed at 0-20. The sweet spot for this is probably higher MP costs for spells, but a similar rate of recharge to what we have now, so you're never 'just stuck', but MP is up-and-down throughout the battle (thus giving Absorption more opportunities to work its gimmick).

I just had an idea: given that when you're OOM, the only thing you can do is run around or block, how about taking damage while blocking causing you to gain mana depending on how much damage you take? This would encourage people to learn to block and actually use the feature, and ensure that they wouldn't stay OOM for a prolonged period, while still rewarding players for having OOM-causing builds (free damage period). Skilled blockers would be able to avoid OOMing at all by blocking more regularly as well.

Edit: Alternatively, if we're talking about making mana more useful as a stat, how about letting it affect block? Perhaps how much damage they can take before they're stunned? Eg. 25% at 156, 35% at 200?