The mana cost on spell masteries

[Ketec]

Lets say 30% spell damage, what means do you have to even manage the skill cost now.

That's 80% increase. That might be more than half of your mana for some skills. Even worse if you want to take the crit% drink for another +25% (additive or multiplicative?).

Mana regen does not scale all that well, considering, trinkets got very small bonuses. You may spend more time waiting for the mana regen than skill cooldowns.

You can invest some in focus (but at that point you now lose damage (less crit or SP) in the first place, losing the benefit.

Is this mostly for niche builds (something with very high mana leech)?

[Mawdesty]

There are some spell builds that don't use mana at all. Warden Ranger and Souls Warlock, for example. I often take the drink for 50% spell power on them. Losing percentage health doesn't matter cause I never cast spells and just use the passives.

That said, the cost increase is high. Really late game stuff, if you assume your Sorcerer gonna keep on leveling up higher. Mana regen on the class title there, so eventually it's usable but not much a game changer, I feel.

[✮ ɨʟʟʊʍɨռǟӄӄɨ ✮]

That was a worthless patch. There's no reason to pick it up as most classes. Even without it I'm struggling to held on mana in ng15 even with most of my gear having mana regen. It's only for sorcerer and even then you need good RNG to be able to get anything out of it and mostly ♥♥♥♥♥ up your early game.. Another worthless ♥♥♥♥ that they added without thinking.

[Mistuh von Frothy Chutzpah]

Seemed to me it was mostly to offer an additional sink for an accumulation of excess skill points or placate spellcaster players that wanted a weapon attunement parallel. Also, while the ratio of damage to mana cost does appear steep to me as well, I'd guess you can weigh the options between investing in those spell masteries and either using the double mana regen drink or investing excess stat points into Focus (after you're getting the supposed diminishing returns in Intelligence).

[✮ ɨʟʟʊʍɨռǟӄӄɨ ✮]

Originally posted by Mistuh von Frothy Chutzpah:

Seemed to me it was mostly to offer an additional sink for an accumulation of excess skill points or placate spellcaster players that wanted a weapon attunement parallel. Also, while the ratio of damage to mana cost does appear steep to me as well, I'd guess you can weigh the options between investing in those spell masteries and either using the double mana regen drink or investing excess stat points into Focus (after you're getting the supposed diminishing returns in Intelligence).

It's quite hard to make it viable even with the mana drink that only viable to use as wiz and sorc others cannot really use it. With 50 vit and 150 focus 230 int to use gear of your lvl I can hardly keep my mana without using this function even when 4 of my gear have mana regen. As it is now it's seems like the function is just for show and nothing else. This build is pretty extreme already with bossfights almost one shot you. Maybe its viable if you have very slow play style.

[✮ ɨʟʟʊʍɨռǟӄӄɨ ✮]

I cannot think of any class that actually could benefit from this function. There are just so many better ways to use your points or it would ruin the play style for most of them. There might be a way to do this with paladin, but I would rather have high str and vit than do obscure glass DPS out of it. At least change it 1:1 to make me even thinks of putting any points in it.

[Ketec]

Increasing Focus doesn't help either since it also has diminishing returns.
Gear regen also does not scale. Trinkets don't scale.

A few builds got on hit regen options - but most are melee based.
Sorc has some on crit, but that is irrelevant if you are out of mana and can't crit.
And the returns are poor - especially vs bosses. You cant spam spells like you can melee attacks.