IS LE Mana Regen Counterculture to its playerbase?

I’m relatively new to LE, and my highest level character is a level 70(ish) shaman. I have been exploring build options, including other class builds, and I noticed that mana regen is in incredibly short supply, but it was a center point of many builds. As an example, Sentinel had several builds that utilized the riposte skill for clunky mana generation. I explored LE’s position on mana regen and found that a year ago, EHG_Mitch on Reddit stated that LE has been “trying to keep mana as a limitation for skills” and the provided solution was “negative mana to give builds that use high cost skills some more flexibility at a cost.” I assume “negative mana” is the mana debt that occurs when you cast a spell that costs more than your mana pool.
I feel that the way the community is using mana is counter to how LE wants to present it as a limiter, and the mana debt function acts as a quasi-substitute to our mana needs/addiction. Builds struggle to find mana regen/generator options and end up being heavily similar to each other with almost the exact same answer for each build (either a single skill or item type per class [at least for sentinel and primalist]). I feel like the solution was going to be different energy types for each major class, but code budget limitations required that we ended up with this uniform energy format. While finding diverse ways to solve a manufactured issue can be very fun, mana regen in its current state seems to be counterculture to the playerbases’ playstyle with this issue (along with avoiding being irregularly oneshot) at the forefront of problems presented at the endgame.
I’d like to suggest integrating more mana regen options that will help diversify build options beyond skill just mana optimization in skills. If players are always putting points into the exact same skill tree, then that tree should be implicit as it only functions as a knowledge limiter. I don’t want to speculate too many solutions here because there are so many ways to go about it. Heck, I’m not even sure if EHG even considers counterculture player solutions to be a problem in the first place. Additionally since I am new, I don’t know how thoroughly this topic has been discussed and I avidly welcome and request all input and dialogue about this.

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Yeah I read that post too and I understand where the devs are coming from, but at the same time if you limit mana regen how are builds gonna work? It’s not like you have time to sit there and wait for your mana to slowly regenerate back at base speed. There probably are ways to make their vision work, but they should implement good methods to make it work first before limiting access to mana regen. Due to limited mana regen some builds can be clunky, limited, unviable, and/or not unique. None the less I trust the the devs will work something out eventually and I am very interested in the route they choose.

First of all welcome TheOddEntity and thanks for starting taking the time for a thorough post on an interesting topic.

I am behind the base idea that mana must be limited, because imo there would be no sense having a resource if it was practically unlimited.
Also I think it helps lowering the game pace, making fights more tactical, possibly longer lasting and therefore more meaningful and memorable. I think having to wait for a bit to cast that awesome skill finishing a mob is an addition, not clunkyness that must be avoided.
I do agree the nodes giving mana cost reduction feel a bit unsatisfying but I want to see it as a choice: the ability to cast a skill more often but with lower impact or less often but with max impact.

I really dislike mana, it’s only purpose is to slow you down and stop you from being able to cast your skills. This isn’t a fun mechanic. I just want to be able to fight monsters not stare at a gauge waiting for it to fill up so I can continue playing again. I hope that they add significant mana regen options because it’s really not fun right now.

People keep trying to make this a slow, boring, “tactical” experience which is the opposite of what this type of game is about. If you want that type of thing then go and play a MOBA.

I agree with you for the mana part; but not the combat pace one. I’m really bored of poe, it gets me sleepy (and i’m playing HC…). One button press and the whole screen exploding isn’t fun, it’s boring. I have “almost” no problem of getting to that state if your character requires two month of farm though. Which is not the case.

EDIT : We could totally think about something different though. Let’s throw an idea i came up within 10 seconds.

Some kind of mana proc every X seconds (let’s say 30) that you can cumulate up to 3 times. Those procs would grant you the ability to use a spell, free of mana.

We could have some kind of mana proc / burst CDR that would lower the the required 30 seconds for the proc. This way we would give incentive to people to use big spells, and they would still have some decision making to when you would be able to dump them.

I think, maybe I misread, that OP is not against how mana works but is suggesting that more options for mana regen would give builds different options so that your not forced to take the one branch in a skill that helps regain mana.

I think having more sources could help diversify as long as it didn’t make it “easier” to get mana and thus diminishing the “mana as a limiter” concept (which I like,)

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Removing mana as a base mechanic is not the way to go. IMO

Having a combination of mana cost and cooldowns gives the devs alot of points for tuning/tweaking/balancing, while also offers alot of customization for builds.

I do like that mana management is meaningful in LE, unlike in many other aRPG’s where it get meanigless after a certain point(without putting very much effort into mana management).

I do agree that they could be more gear/passives/spec tree choices for mana managment. Some Skill Spec Trees and Passives Nodes already have great mana management nodes. Mana affixes on gear on the other hand is quite rare. As long as it doesn’t get meaningless i up for some more options, but there always needs to be a opportunity cost.

Also, as OP already stated, LE has a pretty unique mechanic with the negative mana thing, which is something i have never seen before but works very well. Some of my builds that use high mana cost skills feel very good with that system.

That is a thing i 100% agree with, we just need more options overall on all classes. But all of those options should come with some kind of opportunity cost.

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I really like the way LE handles mana. I love it, in fact. I would be crushed if this game turned into other arpgs, where mana is simply a strategic requirement arbitrarily applied to certain builds, but never impacts tactical gameplay. I just had to get that said first.

I do agree, however, that there should be a larger variety of options for mana management, preferably that also change the way your character fights. The basis for this is already in the game, but seems awkward in practice. For example, volatile reversal is a great idea, but it’s very awkward to use reliably (in my limited experience) because the cool down can only be managed by repeated kills, which leaves you strictly dependent on another generator against tough enemies. Disintegrate has a mana generation node, but it completely savages the skill’s damage output for mediocre returns, which isn’t fun at all.

Ideally, mana generation options should never feel like a tax, or a turn a skill into only a tool for generating mana (because just generating mana is boring by itself). Skills you use to generate mana should have at least one other beneficial effect or tactical use.

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I agree that skills that have some form of mana regain should not “just” regenerate mana, but it should be a possitive side effect of it, depending on which nodes you pick in the skill spec tree.

With the Skill Spec Systen present in LE i feel like there should be no skills that regenerate mana baseline, but alot of skills should have various options for mana management in theri tree(either lower their cost, or giving them some form mana mana regen or situational free uses that cost no mana)

Totally disagree, while the damage output get significantly reduces with the Lightning/Managain protion of Disintegrations Skill Spec Tree, it is still a very good dps skills. And depending on how many noddes you take exactly from that portion of the tree you can still sepc into other portions of the tree.

I personally like that nodes alot, because for example for one of my buidls that revolve around triggering Lightning Blast from various different sources(While Channeling Disintegration + Arcane Ascendeant), this nodes helped me alot with my mana managment with a big downside(that’s called opportuntiy cost). I got rid of that node with better gear adn stuff(max mana. other forms of mana regain) and then could spec more into Disintregations direct damage portions.

That whole build felt very good because it was evolvign constantly depending on my current passive/gear and every now and then i coudl tweak certain nodes, mostly the mana management ones.

I know what you mean, I really dislike monsters, their only purpose is to slow you down and stop you from being able to pick up loot. This isn’t a fun mechanic.

Yes, mana is solely there to slow you down, it’s one of the balancing levers that a dev can use to differentiate big skills that do lots of damage from small skills that don’t do lots of damage. Other levers include AoE/single target & cooldowns. The general idea is that the more damage a skill does, or the larder the AoE, the less frequently a dev is going to want you to be using it.

Managing your mana/cooldowns is one of the challenges a game throws at you (in addition to opponents that want to stick pointy things in bad places), along with some tools to solve them.

If there was no challenge, there would be no game.

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