Clarity

hmmm, 50mana cost skill is cheap. And that is under the presumption it is a 50 cost per second.

Assuming you've built into your character + 100% regen, clarity at level 13 will give you half of the regen per second needed to support the skill. IF you can afford the 300 mana chunk it takes.

you're right, I just did the math, and clarity is giving my 40% of mana regen when I have 1000 mana, and reserves 30%.

I'm not saying it doesn't help at all. I'm just saying the cost benefit structure precludes it from being used where I thought the gem should be aimed at (low mana toons).

If this skill is supposed to help high mana toons, then, it is porbably well placed, except it is more beneficial to start stacking more mana and mana regen + than keep increasing the gem. But the gem is needed for a boost. But not a max level gem. roughly lvl 10 I think would be ideal.

So does that mean that the progression needs to be changed so that it is worth while using a max level gem? assuming your max mana will barely increase after you get to 1k mana, leveling up the clarity gem to full will take another whopping 10% of your mana. Leaving you with probably only 60% left. Now the gem is definately no good for low mana toons. And for high mana toons you're looking at your globe going, why did I do that? I could have just used that lovely looking amulet to give me the same benefit, and still have mana free to use.

I have found it to be useless in upgrading after about 10 levels, after that it doesn't enhance your regen numbers enough in comparison to your mana pool in my opinion. I have around 670 mana right now and I just wont fork over half of it for that skill all the time when in reality my nice amulet does almost the same thing. So I am finally about to pick up a new aura.

Final opinion its to pricey for what it does. Would be nice if the reserve cost didnt go up so much into the ratio increase of the mana it provides. I think its around 1.1 mana per level increase in the gem, and the reserve goes up in 20 or 15 mana block per level. doesnt seem to be a good ratio to scale it on for leveling.

well i still think its not bad since if you leave it at level 11 it reserves 260 mana and gives the equivalent of base mana regen increase of >1100... that doesnt sound to shabby for me.. so if you need more mana regen you can use pots and still retain a large chunk of your total pool. Hell you could even leave it lvl 1. 60 mana isnt a prob even for low mana build at high lvl but the base mana regen gives you the equivalent of 240 mp.

also dont forget, its not just keeping up the skill without pauses...kiting is effectiv

a quick dodge and your mana is full. The benefit over not using clarity but mana pots: 2 more pots for health speed or any other thing you desire

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StillSingle wrote:

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M3phisto wrote:

i would not change it to %-based. the reason: this would make the player have to decide whether or not to level it up or not. also it would weaken it for templars and witches but not the other classes since it wouldnt stack with %-mana nodes anymore. imo it is fine as it is. It makes my shadow able to use 3 life and 2 utility flasks with no mana ones requiered. You can use it to archieve balance with high mana pool turning your 500 mana into 100 and making you perfect for kiting-casting

edit: erm i mean wouldnt require the choice from the player if he levels up or not sry

I think you got confused by what I said, I meant turn it into a % reserved aura. Leave it giving a flat mana increase.

How much mana do you have mandena? and are you using a maxed out gem for your level? before the reduced mana support, how much as a %% is clarity reserving from your mana globe?

What builds are you talking about using clarity that would not be better off with it being %% based reserved vs the flat bloc of mana it is reserving now? I can only think of..... nothing. Low mana pool people that need the flat regen increase would be better off as they will have more unreserved mana with a %% based aura compared to now. High mana people it's a waste of investment to get clarity to max level, as you get more regen by increasing mana even more, or boosting your mana regen (either through passives, or on gear).

+mana regen is actually quite plentiful. I've got a moderate amount on the skilldrasil, and that gives me +100%. On gear, you can easily get another 200%. I'm not sure where you're going with the whole CI vs health/regen/BM thing.

Basically, what is it targeting? The peeps who can use the high level are better off not maxing the gem level, and instead investing in even more +mana or + mana regen. The people that need the flat increase to mana regen, can't get enough max mana to use the top levels of the gem, but if they do get enough max mana to use it, they are in the same boat as above, where it's better to invest in alternatives! Hence why I suggest make it a %% reserved aura. It can be used by low mana peeps to boost their mana regen subtantially, and high mana peeps might lose more of their mana total, but will be able to max the gem to get the most benefit possible.

I have a little over 1.1k atm at level 70 with mainly badish gear except for a 5l I have. I can get much much higher but only half (or less) of my gear has +mana and the ones that do have low rolls. I've essentially stopped leveling clarity unless my skills spike in mana cost (such as when I went from 4l pulse to 5l) and it currently sits at level 15. So it reserves 340 base without any modifiers.

If it were to be percentage based sure it would turn out better for low mana cost builds. However those characters that need the small active regen have other options for mana that don't involve moving around 10+ passive tree points or retooling entire gearsets. What would high mana cost per sec builds do? Get battery? CI builds. Stack + mana reg? +100% mana reg from the tree without clarity would be pathetic for the amount of mana my 5link frost pulse takes. Mana regen on gear is even more rare and inefficient to use if you need other stats.

Clarity outscales the other options for massive amounts of mana in small amounts of time. Thus I can spam auras 'till I have ~150 unreserved mana(just enough to double curse stuff)and NOT have to go blood magic/mana leech gems or battery to do it. I can currently use 4 auras and be fine on mana. If I ever need a boost of regen I just level clarity again and I have more than I need for a measly -20 mana.(Which gets more and more irrelevent as gear gets better) Every level multiplies with inner force and mana regen bonus so I don't need to actively level it.

Lets say I had 1k mana.
340 of 1000 =34%
1.2k mana
340 of 1200 =~28%
1.3k mana
340 of 1300 =~26%
As you stack mana clarity gets better and better reserve efficiency. As gear gets better you can add more auras. As it should be for character progression.

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M3phisto wrote:

well i still think its not bad since if you leave it at level 11 it reserves 260 mana and gives the equivalent of base mana regen increase of >1100... that doesn't sound to shabby for me.. so if you need more mana regen you can use pots and still retain a large chunk of your total pool. Hell you could even leave it lvl 1. 60 mana isn't a prob even for low mana build at high lvl but the base mana regen gives you the equivalent of 240 mp.

1100 max mana = 19.25 mana/sec regen (1100 * 1.05 / 60). lvl 13 clarity doesn't even give that much.

So what this has come down to is:
Clarity is to help support very high cost spells for high mana total toons.

In that case it is OK, except for at higher levels. No one has said they keep their clarity gem at max level yet. no one. Which to me means that the cost/benefit of high level clarity is non existent (well that's harsh, but it's not enough).

Good points mandena. However, my build wouldn't survive on having 150 mana free. I also don't need to kite very much due to everything staying frozen, or slowly moving toward me while chilled.

Oh, Mandena, did you look up Zaka's mana spreadsheet? Did you plug in your current spam skill, and mana details? I'd be interested to know what changes would give you the most benefit to your skill uptime.

Hmm I was maxing Clarity on most of my EB chars. Not always right away, quite often I'd stop leveling it for like 10levels until I got better gear to have more mana to afford leveling it, but ended up leveling it after that. Currently on my EA witch, it's lvl 16, which is 1 level less than other auras/skills(since I didn't lvl it right away it obviously lagged behind). I however have enough mana to keep leveling it 4 more times without an issue and would if I still played the char, since I need enough even more regen to be able to run Haste and still EA with a much lower mana pool.

On anything but EB chars I probably wouldn't consider leveling it past a certain point which will depend on your gear and mana % passives. Is that an issue though? To have a skill that is useful at all levels and can be tailored to fit your exact needs depending on your available mana? I guess it's similar to a 40% aura in that regard however it also starts at a lot less than 40% which is a big deal for certain setups. A lvl 1 clarity is still useful especially with a lot of mana regen % yet costs a lot less than a 40% mana aura would assuming you do have a bit of mana%/int too. It's a flexible aura which is why I think it's fine.

On my Eldritch Battery witch, a level 7 clarity is enough to allow me to spam a 50 mana cost power siphon with 1400+ mana. I kept it capped at level 6 before, but level 6 clarity wasn't enough while level 7 is more than enough.

My shadow with 600 mana though can't use more than a level 1 clarity gem.

I think I'm going to look for several clarity gems and keep each one capped at a different level. If I ever add GMP and / chain to my wand witch, she will need a much higher levelled clarity then.

I'm a lv 71 Summoner witch currently running spark-added cold dmg-added chaos dmg and a temporal chains as my main spam ability, i currently have a lv 9 Clarity that reserves 165 of my mana ( i linked it with a high lv reduced mana gem) my spark costs around 60 mana per cast and it has a 0.64~ cooldown timer while the temporal costs 53~ mana with 0.5s cooldown, and even on lv 9 and with lots of % inc mana regen it's still not enough for the cost i'm bearing (my max mana is only 1000~) i think either the mana reg/s needs to be buffed or the cost of leveling it should be reduced to 15~/lv

Clarity is extremely useful, and essential in my build.

With lvl 65 Shadow/Bow, it gives me enough additional mana regeneration to be able to run 3 additional auras without Eldricht Battery, and spam my skills indefinitely without ever going OOM.

My Auras: Clarity+Purity+Hatred+Reduced Mana Cost, and Wrath (need a good 5L armor to link Wrath as well).

As for mana regeneration, alongside Clarity which I keep at level 13, I have about 100% -115% mana regen from equipment + 40% from passives + Inner Force and can spam frenzy shot (maxed at 3 charges) and split arrow both supported with Pierce + Faster Projectiles + Increased Accuracy, or Poison Arrow+ LMP+ Fork.

At around 1k total mana with auras I am down to only 66, which is the cost of my most mana expensive skill, Projectile Weakness, that costs 66 mana. :)
Not sure the exact number of mana regen per second but so far it is enough.

It takes some micromanaging to make it work at full potential and I added back Hatred as my 4th aura just recently when I got some additional mana (from passive or equipment, cant remember now) but its possible thanks to Clarity.

In my case, the mana regeneration from Clarity is very cheap compared to alternatives because I don’t use the mana reserved for the aura anyways.
With Clarity I don’t have to use Mana Leech gems that would occupy slots on my equipment or spend more passive points to get sufficient regeneration (maybe later on I won’t even need the 2 I did spend for 20%+20%, we’ll see).

Clarity gets +1 from me.

Way too much mana reserved for the regen.
No need to say more.