Mana leech for spellcaster on gear and Mind Drinker

Hi,

Since 1.0 physical melee/rangers were buffed alot for different reasons not to mention here. I feel they are particularly better than spellcaster right now because they don't have to use a mana leech gem. Instead they get mana leech basically for free, using eg a rare rign + %mana leech from phys dmg or the 'Mind Drinker' passive on the tree. Thus they have 1 more slot to use for pure damage compared to spellcasters which is a huge difference. How is that justified? I mean the majority of spellcaster are also in close combat (except sparkers who have been nerfed to the ground), maybe not as much in a party but still rather close if you think about freeze pulse, Arch, EK etc.

What I'd suggest is to introduce mana leech mods for spellcasters on jewellry (sthg like %mana leeched from spells) and also change the 'Mind Drinker' so it allows to leech for a caster as well.
Does that make the mana leech gem redundant for casters? Yes, but only to the degree it makes it redundant for phys dmg based characters. On another note 'Soul Siphon' really sucks and is not a comparable alternative to mana leech in any way. If you got a 6-linked ability, you would need much more mana per kill to make it useful and in boss fights it doesn't help either. I have never heard that anyone really uses it.

If you feel like spellcasters are better (which I repeat isn't the case anymore imho), you could introduce lower %-values on the leech gear to force people to use more of that gear if they don't wanna use a mana leech gem.

Thoughts?

Spellcasters purposely were wiped off the map.

Leech on elemental based damage has been discussed quite often already and to be fair, it wouldnt be balanced. I agree that the advantage Rangers and Physical builds in general get through mana leech is huge, but its somewhat justified by the accessibility of the mod. Its a really rare roll that is hard to find on otherwise decently rolled items.

Casters have other way to make sure they dont run oom. Int, Clarity, Mana Flasks and a lot of %regen in the starting areas. I personally feel that its neither necessary nor balanced.

You're supposed to use and abuse clarity, that's the thing about these new aura changes and why they made them percentage-based and left clarity alone. If you take a few reduction nodes you can run discipline and clarity while having plenty of mana left for casting, non-casters can't do that easily because of huge flat mana cost.

So it's pretty much fine, physical users can get leech on gear and casters can get plenty of regen. The ones with problems are elemental attackers, those have to use a leech gem.

Ok the regen tactic, I tried it back when I played before 1.0. But does it really work? What level of clarity + how many 40% regen nodes do you need to support eg a 6L-freezing pulse? I think it's a lot of wasted points on the tree.

Instead I can just go Lightning arrow ranger e.g. the build I made. It's 50% phys and 50% light. You can stack huge phys dmg, leech enough mana AND generate the best dmg type in the game namely lightning. I just wonder how that can be justified. Ranger isn't close in combat either.

Clarity gets boosted by the new +%increased effect of auras, plus there are many good increased mana regeneration nodes in the starting area of templars/wichtes/scions as mentionned already.

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Instead I can just go Lightning arrow ranger e.g. the build I made. It's 50% phys and 50% light. You can stack huge phys dmg, leech enough mana AND generate the best dmg type in the game namely lightning. I just wonder how that can be justified. Ranger isn't close in combat either.

Go to the barracks and do that, you'll be really happy to see what happens :> even post nerf.

Enjoy reflect as well.
Still LA has always been a powerful combo, nothing surprising to me.

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Fruz написал:

Clarity gets boosted by the new +%increased effect of auras, plus there are many good increased mana regeneration nodes in the starting area of templars/wichtes/scions as mentionned already.

"

Instead I can just go Lightning arrow ranger e.g. the build I made. It's 50% phys and 50% light. You can stack huge phys dmg, leech enough mana AND generate the best dmg type in the game namely lightning. I just wonder how that can be justified. Ranger isn't close in combat either.

Go to the barracks and do that, you'll be really happy to see what happens :> even post nerf.

Enjoy reflect as well.
Still LA has always been a powerful combo, nothing surprising to me.

My build uses vaal pact. It doesn't care about reflect or lightning thorns at all.

Then just enjoy your combo if it works.

Spellcasters have more way to manage their mana because they can use any kind of high-cost abilities, I think it's pretty balance on this part.

Casters also get a dps gain just by leveling while physical weapon users have to find/make upgrades. Sometimes you're lucky and hit gold, others you're looking at maps with 1-2k DPS, no orbs wondering why melee sucks so badly.

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Moosifer написал:

Casters also get a dps gain just by leveling while physical weapon users have to find/make upgrades. Sometimes you're lucky and hit gold, others you're looking at maps with 1-2k DPS, no orbs wondering why melee sucks so badly.

I highly doubt that spending 2 chaos is harder than getting your gem from level 17-18.

Mediocre weapons really arent expensive, in any league. And spell casters dont deal jackshit as damage without a decent wand either. So that argument doesnt work, at all.

And no, melee never sucked badly. In fact, even pre 1.0 melee had some of the most efficient builds in the whole game.

How can it not seem balance when in top gear both have roughly the same DPS even though casters wastes a gem on LL and/or mana leech?

There's too many variables in the middle to compare them evenly. But at the top of the heap, they are balanced fairly well against each other in effectiveness and clear speed, only a few outliers which are casters.

Also need to consider that casters have INT which give mana, EB, more mana and mana regen passives along with higher crit to make up the DPS difference. While melee is more based around leech and life regen.

You don't need to preach to me about melee. I play mostly melee, including during the times everyone said it sucked.