Mana regeneration setups should be buffed.
As it stands, mana regeneration, even if you have a maximized setup (mana regeneration potion, star in a bottle, arcane crystal, etc), will lead to a massive decrease dps in comparison to drinking mana potions and taking the reduced damage from mana sickness, as this is better than not shooting at all and waiting for your mana to come back - it would only make sense for the setup that takes the most amount of time to prepare to deal the largest amount of dps, which is why I see the need for this to change.
The only situation in which I found mana regeneration to be optimal, was with the demon scythe because the mana cost is so great that you effectively have a constant 42.5% reduction in damage (it will vary slightly depending on your setup) throughout the fight... In this case, and in only this case, is a mana regeneration best in order to avoid the absurdly high mana sickness (a calculated and in-game tested results in the inserted image with all the potential combinations of modifiers - and remember, this is the best case scenario with only a marginally lower kill time, while being forced to time when you start/ stop shooting - there is still little incentive to choose mana regen over drinking mana pots for simplicity).
(The reason why arcane modifiers are optimal with the demon scythe + a mana regen setup, is because mana regen is based on your current mana, but also your max mana; to put this into effect, you can restore larger amounts of mana when you have a greater capacity in the same amount of time. Therefore using arcane modifiers, means that you will not have to stop shooting as often ((losing dps) (which is better than menacing/ lucky stats by themselves)).
Once you reach hardmode, you will have access to more effective mana potions, but very little benefits to mana regen, making it completely useless past this point (even with high cost magic weapons such as the nebula blaze).
In order to fix this and make mana regen setups better, I would suggest increasing the max mana capacity (maybe via buffing arcane modifiers); this allows the player to shoot for longer once your mana has replenished, thus negating the cost of the setup, as you are not forced to wait for mana to regenerate as often - this would not benefit players who drink mana potions, as they will only restore a fraction of the capacity (which is the case in vanilla regardless), or they will receive negative repercussions for drinking multiple potions.
Buffs to the rate at which mana is restored (from an accessory) can also be implemented - perhaps the magic/ celestial cuffs could receive this buff, as the accessory already complements mana regen setups over any other accessory, while having continuity throughout the game - It should be considered that in order to optimize a setup, mages should only use one class specific accessory (mana cloak/ celestial cuffs - disregarding the sorcerer/ celestial emblem as these are straight up dps accessories), any more than one will not yield substantial benefits to the class, making dps/ survivability accessories more worthwhile. The reason why I want to highlight this, is because any major boosts benefitting mana regen should be focused into one accessory/ accessory tree, and not split between multiple (e.g. cuffs/ celestial cuffs and the celestial magnet/ magnet flower).
Edit - For general weapons, buffing mana regeneration may require absurd boosts, so perhaps the focus could be placed on only a few weapons: nebula blaze, unholy trident, meteor staff, frost staff, and the demon scythe receiving a slight boost in viability, that would be enough - it would also reduce the time required to implement the idea since fewer weapons have to be balanced. - this tiny selection of weapons covers a large amount of game progression so I think it's still worth looking into, e.g. demon scythe for pre hm, meteor staff for mechs, unholy trident for plantera, and the nebula blaze for moon lord.
Thank you.
As it stands, mana regeneration, even if you have a maximized setup (mana regeneration potion, star in a bottle, arcane crystal, etc), will lead to a massive decrease dps in comparison to drinking mana potions and taking the reduced damage from mana sickness, as this is better than not shooting at all and waiting for your mana to come back - it would only make sense for the setup that takes the most amount of time to prepare to deal the largest amount of dps, which is why I see the need for this to change.
The only situation in which I found mana regeneration to be optimal, was with the demon scythe because the mana cost is so great that you effectively have a constant 42.5% reduction in damage (it will vary slightly depending on your setup) throughout the fight... In this case, and in only this case, is a mana regeneration best in order to avoid the absurdly high mana sickness (a calculated and in-game tested results in the inserted image with all the potential combinations of modifiers - and remember, this is the best case scenario with only a marginally lower kill time, while being forced to time when you start/ stop shooting - there is still little incentive to choose mana regen over drinking mana pots for simplicity).
(The reason why arcane modifiers are optimal with the demon scythe + a mana regen setup, is because mana regen is based on your current mana, but also your max mana; to put this into effect, you can restore larger amounts of mana when you have a greater capacity in the same amount of time. Therefore using arcane modifiers, means that you will not have to stop shooting as often ((losing dps) (which is better than menacing/ lucky stats by themselves)).
Once you reach hardmode, you will have access to more effective mana potions, but very little benefits to mana regen, making it completely useless past this point (even with high cost magic weapons such as the nebula blaze).
In order to fix this and make mana regen setups better, I would suggest increasing the max mana capacity (maybe via buffing arcane modifiers); this allows the player to shoot for longer once your mana has replenished, thus negating the cost of the setup, as you are not forced to wait for mana to regenerate as often - this would not benefit players who drink mana potions, as they will only restore a fraction of the capacity (which is the case in vanilla regardless), or they will receive negative repercussions for drinking multiple potions.
Buffs to the rate at which mana is restored (from an accessory) can also be implemented - perhaps the magic/ celestial cuffs could receive this buff, as the accessory already complements mana regen setups over any other accessory, while having continuity throughout the game - It should be considered that in order to optimize a setup, mages should only use one class specific accessory (mana cloak/ celestial cuffs - disregarding the sorcerer/ celestial emblem as these are straight up dps accessories), any more than one will not yield substantial benefits to the class, making dps/ survivability accessories more worthwhile. The reason why I want to highlight this, is because any major boosts benefitting mana regen should be focused into one accessory/ accessory tree, and not split between multiple (e.g. cuffs/ celestial cuffs and the celestial magnet/ magnet flower).
Edit - For general weapons, buffing mana regeneration may require absurd boosts, so perhaps the focus could be placed on only a few weapons: nebula blaze, unholy trident, meteor staff, frost staff, and the demon scythe receiving a slight boost in viability, that would be enough - it would also reduce the time required to implement the idea since fewer weapons have to be balanced. - this tiny selection of weapons covers a large amount of game progression so I think it's still worth looking into, e.g. demon scythe for pre hm, meteor staff for mechs, unholy trident for plantera, and the nebula blaze for moon lord.
Thank you.
Attachments
Last edited:
Meowlegend
CelebrationMK10
I prefer Mana regen over mana potions and I havent seen any problem with Mana regen. For me, it is better, even. better than attacking and getting damage penalty every 8 seconds.
You can prefer mana regen setups as they are now, but they are objectively worse in 99% of cases. If you send me your discord, I can post some side-by-side comparisons.
Does forums allow video attachment? If so I can send it here (I'll try the 'insert link' later) - It might take a while to set up all the testing because I'm busy at the moment, but you're more than free to try it yourself if you want the results sooner.
Last edited:
J Bame
Terrarian
What happens when you have minions summoned? If you are optimizing killtimes there is no reason to use the 3 minion slots you get for no loadout cost, and those 3 minions (either frogs or imps) are extremely good, and get benefit from Menacing and not arcane or lucky.
Regardless, very interesting find. Though for prehardmode im pretty sure mana regen is only better because Mana Potions are just soooo bad. Basically limit your max mana to 100.
Regardless, very interesting find. Though for prehardmode im pretty sure mana regen is only better because Mana Potions are just soooo bad. Basically limit your max mana to 100.
I haven’t tested with minions because I am against multi-classing (only a preference, I don’t mind if other people use them). In that situation menacing would be better.
As for the latter comment, potions are worse, meaning that the time it takes to deplete your mana is shorter, resulting in a higher average reduction in damage. However this doesn’t change the fact that high cost mana weapons in hardmode will still suffer from significant mana sickness… just not high enough for mana regen to be worth it. What I am suggesting is for mana regen to be boosted enough, to the point where it generally better across the game.
Last edited:
Meowlegend
CelebrationMK10
I have a Discord tag on my Profile, you can send me friend request and show it if you want to. And no, forums dont allow video attachments as far as I know.
Okay so as for why I prefer regen. I personally hate the mana sickness damage penalty and I dont see a difference between my Mage gameplay when I use Mana potions and mana regen aside from the damage loss. Celestial cuffs is my choice for mana regen and even into the late game I find it to be really good. Mana regen rate increase, restoring mana when damaged and mana star pickup range increase are all really good and work well since you wont get a damage penalty either. The only problem I find with it is that it does not have a late game upgrade like mana flower does. It would be really good if I could combine it with star cloak or something like that.
I especially find mana regen to be superior than mana potions against events. In events, you already kill a lot of enemies and all of them will drop mana stars. If you had something like Celestial cuffs, you could get them from far away and restore your mana (almost) instantly like mana potions, but without the damage penalty. In a event like Old one's army, mana regen becomes even better to me. Same happens In boss fights where there are a lot of boss minions to kill and get mana stars from too, like the Wall of Flesh.
There are times I would prefer mana potions over mana regen though, like if I am on a boss fight like The Twins, Empress of Light or Moonlord, where there are no boss minions to kill and get mana stars from. Or if I use a mana hungry Weapon like the Last Prism and Nebula Blaze.
I would like to see your comparisons, though.
I'll send them when I can, just something to consider: the celestial emblem also increases your reach for stars and should be used in all mage runs, in terms of dps, it's the second highest below the destroyer emblem.
And although restoring mana after getting hit is nice, it isn't worth it over a dps accessory or increased survivability - the mana cloak will cause mana starts to fall that will damage targets and restore some mana + the added benefit of drinking mana potions automatically and a reduction of 8% mana cost, for simplicity, you should be using this throughout the run... If you're comfortable drinking pots manually, using neither would probably be the best way to optimize dps.
Last edited:
Meowlegend
CelebrationMK10
Yeah yeah, thats why I want some late game upgrades to Celestial cuffs.
chewythebigblackdog
Terrarian
There was a guide to restoring mana posted on the forums a while ago and they came to a similar conclusion: pre-hardmode mana potions are so bad that mana regeneration is superior. Mana regeneration gets even better when you have a secondary weapon to fire while your mana regenerates (even pure-classed mages have one with the space gun/grey zapinator with meteor armour). In hardmode, mana potions become better than mana regeneration setups by quite a bit.
The main issue with these 2 is this: As long as you aren't drinking mana potions when you already have mana sickness (only 2 weapons actually consume mana fast enough to require this with super mana potions, and a handful more do it with greater mana potions), drinking mana potions only works out to a ~10% dps loss. Since mana regeneration basically doesn't apply while actually shooting your weapon, to get a similar dps loss from mana regeneration, you need to be able to regenerate your mana 10 times as fast as you spend it, which just isn't reasonable.
The main issue with these 2 is this: As long as you aren't drinking mana potions when you already have mana sickness (only 2 weapons actually consume mana fast enough to require this with super mana potions, and a handful more do it with greater mana potions), drinking mana potions only works out to a ~10% dps loss. Since mana regeneration basically doesn't apply while actually shooting your weapon, to get a similar dps loss from mana regeneration, you need to be able to regenerate your mana 10 times as fast as you spend it, which just isn't reasonable.
Yeah, I wasn't sure how high mana regen/ max mana capacity would actually need to be buffed in order to be optimal... at least if it became the best option for a few weapons: nebula blaze, unholy trident, frost staff, meteor staff, the demon scythe receiving slightly more viability with the setup, etc, that's enough ig - they all cover different stages of the game so it's still worth looking into imo (demon scythe for pre hm, meteor staff/ frost staff for mechs, unholy trident for plantera and the nebula blaze for moon lord).
Last edited:
Similar threads
