The Importance of Mana in Last Epoch

[Heavy]

Lots of good suggestions.

I think most of them should become either affixes, uniques or passives.

But i really don’t think we need more baseline mana regen.
I really want all additional mana regen to come from character investment.

[darkdeal]

I think the one single improvement they could do that would help with a lot of it is to get rid of the base 10/sec mana regen and replace it with a % of max mana base regen. Make it equivalent with no investment.

[Heavy]

That could work of course to support high max mana builds. But needs to be balanced carefully.

Maybe a combination? Flat 5 Mana/sec + X% Max Mana/sec?

[darkdeal]

I don’t see why. The balance should be the same mostly. Just make the % so that, at base, it is the same as 10/sec. It just helps flat mana increases. Maybe makes % based increases as an affix worse. Would make flat mana regen increase much better.

[talkinkorean]

Not sure if you’re confusing his statements with my statement about the clunkiness. If you are, just wanted to point out that’s not why I believe the current system to be clunky.

[Heavy]

Might be not sure, maybe he can elaborate.

I thought he think it’s “clunky” because you can’t do your favorite skill 24/7

[Llama8]

I’ve been having a bit of a play with the Acolyte, making a Sacrifice Necro & made the mistake of unspeccing Rip Blood (which was just about ready to start taking the mana nodes). Sacrifice & Summon Wraith are both quite expensive skills, so I was wondering, what about if the Acolyte got mana back based on the amount of life she spends on skills?

You could have a node that adds a life cost to some of the skills that don’t have it already & when you spend X life on a skill you get Y mana back. It could be either % or flat and IMO, would lean into her unique mechanic of spending life to cast (some) skills.

[XLVI_carpo]

Some classes or specific builds struggle with mana currently. Or in other words, there are some mandatory mechanics or skill combinations that are needed to get along with mana.

I personally like the Sentinel mechanuc where you get mana back with some filler skills. When the filler skills do more DPS than your high cost attacks# there needs to be tweaking. But many of the filler skills get additional mana costs when skilled for more damage. That’s a good balancing method.

In the other side I also like the suggestion of @Stormquake in his thread about mana here:

A suggestion regarding Mana, Mana Regen, and Diversity for High-Cost Builds

Mana is a stat that I have always wanted to matter in Last Epoch. I mean this in multiple ways. It should matter when an ability has a high mana cost and you have to adapt and use low cost “filler” abilities as well because your main ability is difficult to sustain. It should also matter when a player puts a hefty investment into mana and its related stats in order to sustain an ability better. Currently, my issue with the mana system is that it is inconsistent about the first of these purposes,…

This would give mana based classes like mage give an increased incentive to build high mana pools.

Somebody here said that hes fune with mana reg being an issue early/mid game, but with endgame the character should be able to get that mighty si mana gets trivial.

I can’t agree with this. Yes, this works this way in other games. And I couldn’t say I dislike it. It doesn’t feel bad in any kind that I can spam all my high damage skills forever like in PoE. But combat wise LE feels very different than PoE. Much slower pace. And imho the current “importance” of mana or in other words the lack of mana trivialisation in endgame fits very well into this.

[talkinkorean]

As a concept I like what D3 did with resource management. It can be debated if they did it right, but I like that each class has a different way of managing resources. It can be a way of creating distinct class identity depending on how you design the resource bar. I can imagine the rogue class wanting a bursty playstyle, which would need the resource bar to be full and emptied out. Sentinel can be the opposite, where you can build up from zero and spend the resource. Acolyte could be more slotted towards using HP as a resource. Just throwing out examples but it would be great to see more than just a mana bar on all classes.

[Heavy]

While i generally like very unique ressources for different classes/playstyles, this is a horror to balance.

I would like to stick with a baseline ressource (inthis case mana) but i still like giveing different classes sligthly different appraoches to ressource management.

Maybe give some classes optional secondary ressources.

Example for Acolyte would be more support to spend health on skills. Maybe give acolyte some passives/affixes that gives almsot all skills health costs, but boosting other attributes of that skills, like damage or less mana costs.

Rogue could go with a secondary ressource system similar to a combo system, where some skills give you stacks(combo points9 and some skills consume a certain number or all stacks for additional effects. Just make this a optinal system and no baseline system.

[talkinkorean]

I’m fine with anything as long as it feels right and actually works like a resource you have to manage. I disagree it’s a horror to balance. It’s just like anything else that sets each class apart. Skills, passives, and items would have to work with the resource. Although I do think it’ll be a nightmare in the beginning if this ever comes to fruition (highly unlikely).

I like the idea of a secondary resource although I think that’d be even harder because you have to balance two different resources and their interaction. For now the low hanging fruits are 1) mana regen affixes, 2) base mana regen scaling, 3) damage balance for mana generators, and 4) clunky mana generating skills (tempest strike, focus).

[chocho32]

Hi, I think that another kind of resource is overkill.
We aready have health for acolyte and sentinel also use it to boost damage on some skill.

I really think that regen on mana pool is too OP and hard t o balance.
I agree that some skill/class are hard to manage actually.
The best we can do is point them, and so devs will be able to add or modify node to allow others options for these skills.

Skill node and affix is the way to go.
Mana efficiency work really fine, as affix and as node. It’s easy to balance in node as you can add trade off (forge strike reduce aoe)

I also reconize that a big mana pool seems useless. Some mana affix are usefull, to get a decent mana pool, but affix and passives for big mana pool are not strong enought for the investissment. Just make them stronger. Node are welcome too, so we can really build around that. Big mana pool build are useless without big filler (like focus).

A good exmple of node is in mana strike, where base damage and crit depend on your mana pool. It’s really a good mecanism. I love this kind of node.
Actually big mana pool is only interesting for mage (perhaps only sorcerer). That’s ok for me.

For other classes/skill that have some issue, node and affix is the way to go. Efficiency is a good solution, filler too, but I don’t want that all build need one.

[meesterg]

@Heavy

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 kind of mana cost/mana regain thing going).

So my general Statement is: Mana in Last Epoch is in a really good spot.

What i would want to see are more different ways to manage your mana.
Good Examples for creative mana management are cool uniques like Urzil’s Pride.
Or Skill Spec Tree Nodes like Aftermath or Cycle Of Fire, latter requires heavy investment, since you need to use 2 different skills to make use of it. But the gain from it can be incredible, making Fireball either a basically 0 Mana Cost Skill or let you even regain Mana with Fireball.
Even entire skill slots dedicated to either pure Mana Management or other utility stuff in this game can be really creative and awesome too use, like Volatile Reversal.
While things like Focus can be clunky to use, there are really cool opportunities to use Focus, with itemization(while channeling) and some of the Nodes inside the Skill Spec Tree are also cool.

The easiest way to deal with mana issues in LE is usually to increase Max Mana, since that is the most common and easy available affix. But that won’t solve sustaining mana issues.

Every Class has some sort of free to use skill, that often times also can be used to regain mana with some minimal investment. Like Sentinels Vengence, Rive or Smite Node Time And Faith in the Sentinel Base Passive Tree, which is only up to 5 passive points, but leads to cost a skill slot, which is totally fair.

On top of that almost every other skill, even the more expensive ones have ways to deal with their mana costs inside their skill spec tree.

One thing i want to mention here is also the very unique mechanic of being able to go into negative mana, which is something i have never ever seen in any kind of similar game. And it is awesome. It makes high mana costs skills so much easier and smoother to use in early/mid game, when a skill basically costs more of 50% of your mana pool and you are still able to cast it twice, if neccessary.
And the option to go into negative mana still does not solve sustain issues, but as i said, makes builds feel good if you kill everything in 1-2 casts and then have some spare time to regen.

Also I want to never see something remotely similar to Mana-Leech in Last Epoch.

My most played aRPG of all time is/was Marvel Heroes, which had a very similar approach to Mana(in Marvel Heroes it was called Spirit).
Basically you genrally had two types of active skills: Builders and Spenders.
Which was more basic as a system and didn’t had much creative freedom, but it worked.
Generally strong abilities should be impactful, but should have such a ressource cost that you cannot spam them indefinitely. (Except you invested sooo much into gear/passives etc that it’s justified)

What do you guys think? Do you agree, do you disagree?
What other ideas or suggestions you might have for the future?

I have mixed feelings about this.
Yes it is a chore to have to cast another spell to return your mana again.
At the same time there are actually good ways to get mana regen with gear.
I think that mage is in a scary place if you give to many options of even more mana regen and added mana.

What is the downside of mage then in LE? I think nothing.

• Damage of mages are great. AOE and Single target options are good aswell.
• You can blink away at a chosen spot without downsides.
• Mages are mostly range so you can hit enemys from a safe spot which melee cant.
• Mage has the exact same defence possibillities in defences as the tankier classes + scaling ward is easier with mage. Yes the same goes for Armor with Paladin but at the same time… mage is able to get armor aswell.
• Mage doesnt wear cloth as some games have or other downsides.

Am i missing something about the downside of mage in LE beside mana?
I like mage to be fun for everyone but boosting it from (in my opinion) a S tier class damage defence and mobility wise into an S+ tier class doesnt sound like a good idea to me unless you nerf mage in a different area. You could lower some caps at phys resist or armor for example.

There are many ways to do it but it requires a lot of math and thinking since you need to change a lot if you lower the base foundation.
I think they should experiment with this non-theless.

It would also give mage a more classic mage identity. The downside however is that if you want to be a more tankier mage you couldnt. So a better thing would be to let the player choose. You want more mana regen? Ok you can but then we lower X or Y defensive cap or your skill X is nerfed. Another option would be to receive More damage from monsters but you get a lot more mana regen. By doing this you give the player the option to be glass canon or to be a more balanced overall mage who’s not glass canon but survives certain fights easier.

[Irrelevant]

So I want to share my oppinion on the matter as well even if most people won’t like it…

Mana and Mana reg is fine.

[meesterg]

i agree haha