Essence Channeler

[hal9000]

How does the Essence Channeler work? It says if you block magical damage it regenerates your mana. Do you put it in your offhand and a spell in the main hand, and then block with the Channeler? Because it also says attacks regenerate 10% mana...spell attacks, or attacks with the Channeler?

[Chaosolous]

I'm pretty sure that weapons wielded while wielding magic only attack, and cannot block.

They should make it a left hand right hand block or attack kind of thing, which would make more sense.

I take it that this is a weapon you'd swap over to with a way to block when you're out of mana.

[BeerdedPhantom]

I doubted it too, because torches and some other weapons don't work this way, but rods (like the Essence Channeler) DO block when held in the off-hand.

The on-hit effect says it gives you 10% of the damage done with the attack as mana, and I assume this means when striking with the rod itself, but I can hop in and test to see if it works with spells or other weapons.

EDIT:
The actual text of the ability is "Attacks regenerate 10 % of damage dealt as Mana."

Mana regen is so fast that it's honestly hard to tell if I'm ever getting mana back even when hitting with the rod itself, so I can't conclusively say that that ability is working at all at this point, though I seem to remember it working when my mana pool was smaller and I had less regen.

If it works with spells, I should see at least a little jump when casting Merlin's Thorn, which does a bunch of damage, but I don't, so I think it's safe to say spells don't trigger it.

EDIT 2:
For science, I used an origin potion to make a more melee-focused build with less mana and mana regen.

Spells do not refund any mana when using the rod as opposed to without, so that rules out spell "attacks" triggering it.

Attacks with a strong melee weapon while holding the rod in the off-hand also do not refund any mana points.

Hits with the rod itself DO refund a perceptible little chunk of mana.

EDIT 3:
As a side-note/clarification, torches DO work for blocking in the off-hand, but not with a spell in the main hand, in which case they only attack. A rod DOES work for blocking in the off-hand with a spell in the main hand.