[Archery] Archery mana and Replenishing Mana

[Lorax_Pacific]

It comes up often how to get your archer's mana replenished. Thought it would be good to have a thread where you could post your favorite method of building your archer to benefit the most from high mana. Does everyone work like me on having high mana on their suit/template or is mana not important? The following essay is my approach to the problem and I invite you to contribute your own method or comment at will. Please comment on any new properties added that give mana that isn't considered in this essay.

I performed some testing almost a year ago trying to determine the best methods because an archer can never get enough to be the most offensive with my template. It seems like constant tweaking to get an optimum mana on my archer.

My suit first goes into a spreadsheet with all the priorities established SSI, HCI, LMC, DI, Stamina Increase, and Mana Increase. From this subtract 20 for potions from 150 maximum strength and dex to get my target suit dex and str. Add in some target jewelry for SSI, HCI, and DCI and then add in the artifact armor to work around the low properties. After the artifact armor is added I know if my jewelry needs STR and DEX and what my base stats need to be for STR and DEX. Now base stats are determined.

My example:
My target SSI is 55 and I want the maximum on my suit and not the bow due to leech scaling with swing speed. Also, SSI is a high weighted cost property and affects the intensity of other important properties for my weapons. I have stamina imbued Daimyo's, tinker leggings, ranger's cloak, then 10 SSI on ring and bracelet. This gives me 45 on the suit and 10 SSI on the weapon. Thus low SSI on the weapon, I can maximize my mana leech and stamina leech.

For HCI put 15 on each jewelry piece and add 10 for Conjurer's Trinket. This means I can enhance my bow after imbue with yew wood and add 5 HCI and 10 DI.

Decide how to get LMC. Using reforging to get 10 LMC on four remaining armor pieces for 40 LMC is my approach. This forces my DI to be 20 trinket, 10 tinker leggings, and 10 for the bow enhancing for 40 DI. So I need 20 DI on a piece of jewelry and must use woodland to enhance for 10 DI on four pieces, which takes me to 100 DI on my suit.

So each woodland piece target is to have 10 LMC, 8 SI, 8 MI, and two resist properties enhanced after imbue to get the extra 10 DI.

continued...

-Lorax

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

Starting Mana Pool:

I had decided to attempt to get the highest starting amount of mana. My template now uses pots and typically I don't have enhanced potions. So to get the highest starting int I set my strength and dex on my suit to hit 130 and assume constant greater strength and dexterity.

http://stratics.com/community/threa...0str-dex-with-0-25-50-ep.257514/#post-2066375

Subtract all the STR and DEX from the above suit to determine the amount on jewelry and the base stats. My suit now has cloak of power for 2 STR and 2 DEX. Crimson Cincture has 5 dex and conjurer's trinket has 1 STR. I use the Rose of Trinsic for 5 STR and this subtotals 8 STR and 12 dex plus 20 each for potions gives my target stats.

Now addressing the decision on whether to have STR, DEX, or INT on the jewelry seems a little complicated. I could have STR 122, 118 DEX, and 15 INT and none on jewelry. My target is to have the highest base mana so consider enhanced potion compared with adding a stat increase to jewelry. If I add 25 EP then I can have +5 STR and +5 DEX. I can get 10 stat increase for a lower property weight than +8 stat on the jewelry. This means each jewelry I want +25 EP for a total of +50 EP.

I have three more imbues on the jewelry and need to decide on stat increases compared with DCI. For DCI I have a +5 DCI and +1 mana sash. I could get +35 total DCI on this suit or add those imbues into stat increases. The DCI comes down to a fundamental choice in how an archer plays. Do I stand and take damage (tank) or move constantly getting out of damage. Typically I have been doing both so it's a toss up. Using necro cursed weapon I have been staying at full health constantly and can tank to some degree, but that suit has DCI.

If three imbues went to +16 INT and +8 dex then my final base stats are 113 STR, 100 DEX, and 42 INT and my base mana with this suit is about 93. Adding DCI instead I get 113 STR, 108 DEX, and 34 INT with a base mana of 77.

This suit will take forever to finish. I fail to get DI on my four armor pieces and it takes forever to match up eight resistance imbues with the Daimyo's helmet. Currently I am using cursed jewelry for the 20 SSI.

continued...

-Lorax

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

Lowest Mana Cost:

There are few ways to lower the cost of mana of course LMC and 300 skill points. 300 skill points on the template gives a 10 mana decrease special move cost. This is where I have chosen how to get the 300 skill points on my template. In my case I chose archery, bushido, and ninjitsu for various reasons.

We do not want to get a special move penalty so with 55 SSI and my stamina above 180 my crossbow shoots at 1.75 seconds. This means I need to alternate special moves at the best case swing speed.

Leeching Mana vs. mana regeneration:

Now you have used mana and need to replenish it. The ultimate suit would be one where you can have every mana regeneration and leech, but the trade-offs make it unlikely. Wraith form allows an extra property slot on the bow by not having a leech.

-MR
First let's dream that MR would have been a better choice on the suit. Having the 60 INT from my suit, no focus or meditation, with non-meddable armor, and 16 MR then I would get at most 1 mana per second and on average every 4 swing intervals (1.75s crossbow) would be 7 mana gained in four swing intervals. Thus, this calculation shows me MR isn't worth the property weight (16 MR = 800 property weight). If I could add in 240 skill points in meditation and focus then this same 4 swing intervals gets me 12.6 mana each 7 seconds (for 800 property weight and 240 skill points). MR is great if I were a mystic or a caster class.

-Lich form gives MR of 1.3 mana per second. It's best to add 5 Hit Point Regen to your suit in this form to counter the -0.5 HP/s. I don't use this form anymore since Wraith form gives more mana per second.

- Wraith form (100 skill points: 40 necro 60 Spirit speak)

Typically I hit in pvp for 40 damage so that gives me an average mana leech of 7 per hit. The cool thing about wraith form is every hit I get this mana if the opponent has a supply. In PVM the amount of mana drawn is so much greater. If I hit for 100 damage I get about 17 mana on average every hit. So, four hits is 28 mana and even if I land 50% hits I still double the leech of mana regeneration for pvp and get ~68 mana or more from four successful hits.

-HML
Mana Leech works a little crazy. This gives you a random number up to 40% the leech value on the bow. So for pvp and 40 avg dmg you will leech on avg 1.75 mana per successful hit but some hits will get you up to 6 mana on a single hit (if lucky) on a 34% HML. For pvm it's much better because the damage is higher and I could get upwards of 20 or more mana per hit, but the average is close to 5 mana per hit for about 20 mana per hit avg on four hits.

Fletching-reforging with a heartwood runic is used to get 70% hit mana leech. If lucky you may get four properties you want like HML, HSL, SSI, and maybe Hit Mana Drain or HLD. I personally don't think it's worth burning so many heartwood runics to get 70% HML on a bow since it is so unlikely to get anything worthy.

-Lorax