Arctic Armor and Mana Regen: Something doesn't add up

I really wonder why you've chosen to put a mana degen effect on this skill while other auras reserve mana?

Is it meant to be the opposite of Righteous Fire?

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retsamzaps wrote:

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The mana degeneration part of arctic armor is NOT a buff, no matter how you look at it and should not be affected by inner force. This breaks the foundations of logic that GGG developers have set themselves by the way aura and aura reservations synergy with inner force. It simply makes no sense to treat mana reservation as debuff and mana degeneration as a buff.

So like GGG explained previously in this thread, you have effects that you choose to apply to your character (buffs) and you effects that you do NOT choose (debuffs).

http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Arctic_Armor

If you look at the description you can see that the skill has a cast time, base duration, cost, and applied effect (or the buff, because you are optionally applying it to yourself).


Cast time: 0.5 sec
Base Duration is x seconds
Mana Reserved(Cost): 0
Effect (aka, Buff):
x Mana drained per second
Additional x Mana drained per second while moving
-x Physical Damage taken when hit
-x Fire Damage taken when hit

Inner Force: x% increased Effect of Buffs on You

So based off of what Mark said, Inner Force will increase the effect of [any]effect that a buff applies to your character. Since part of the buff is to drain x Mana, this effect is also increased.

Do I like that it works this way? No, obviously not as awesome if the mana drain didn't increase.

Does it logically make sense that all effects (negative and positive) become increased? From a programming point of view I would say Yes. Because the mana drain is part of the effect and not the cost, it is increased. Same reason why mana reserve from aura's are not increase. They are part of the cost parameter and not the effect parameter.

the additional drain while moving is NOT affected by inner force, though. I'm having trouble understanding why, in the context of what's been discussed in this thread.

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the additional drain while moving is NOT affected by inner force, though. I'm having trouble understanding why, in the context of what's been discussed in this thread.

As described earlier, this was not intended and needs to be changed. I'm guessing this will be addressed in the near future.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

When you begin moving, it adds a second, invisible effect, which has one stat:
1) Mana Degen
This is removed again when you stop moving.
This is an invisible, background effect, so Inner force doesn't count it as a buff (it affects buffs in the sense of things giving buff icons), and thus is not affected, while the base mana drain, being part of the buff, is.

That's fairly unintuitive and in terms of this skill, inconsistent, so I'll be looking at ways to improve this in future.

says nothing there about it being unintentional

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retsamzaps wrote:

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The mana degeneration part of arctic armor is NOT a buff, no matter how you look at it and should not be affected by inner force. This breaks the foundations of logic that GGG developers have set themselves by the way aura and aura reservations synergy with inner force. It simply makes no sense to treat mana reservation as debuff and mana degeneration as a buff.

So like GGG explained previously in this thread, you have effects that you choose to apply to your character (buffs) and you effects that you do NOT choose (debuffs).

http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Arctic_Armor

If you look at the description you can see that the skill has a cast time, base duration, cost, and applied effect (or the buff, because you are optionally applying it to yourself).


Cast time: 0.5 sec
Base Duration is x seconds
Mana Reserved(Cost): 0
Effect (aka, Buff):
x Mana drained per second
Additional x Mana drained per second while moving
-x Physical Damage taken when hit
-x Fire Damage taken when hit

Inner Force: x% increased Effect of Buffs on You

So based off of what Mark said, Inner Force will increase the effect of [any]effect that a buff applies to your character. Since part of the buff is to drain x Mana, this effect is also increased.

Do I like that it works this way? No, obviously not as awesome if the mana drain didn't increase.

Does it logically make sense that all effects (negative and positive) become increased? From a programming point of view I would say Yes. Because the mana drain is part of the effect and not the cost, it is increased. Same reason why mana reserve from aura's are not increase. They are part of the cost parameter and not the effect parameter.

You're grasping at straws by saying an effect equates to a buff. An effect can have both buff and debuff elements to it; it is more like a sum of the parts in this case. Just because Inner force has the word Effect in it doesn't mean that that's the important part of the skill; it increases the effect OF BUFFS, which can be (easily, unlike your interpretation) interpreted as being the buff PART of the various skill effects.

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Vipermagi wrote:

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sage2050 wrote:

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Mark_GGG wrote:

That's fairly unintuitive and in terms of this skill, inconsistent, so I'll be looking at ways to improve this in future.

says nothing there about it being unintentional

Considering GGG is all about being internally consistent, concise, and clear, I'd say this being inconsistent and unintuitive qualifies as 'not intentional'. :/ Additionally, the whole 'going to improve this' part, implying it will change.

The part about Inner Force increasing the mana drain is most certainly intended, if that's what you are referring to. The only thing they said they're changing is the fact that inner force apparently doesn't also increase the mana penalty while moving, perhaps by consolidating that penalty into the buff.

The argument of "if it's negative, it's not a BUFF..." is pure semantics, anyone pursuing that logic after reading their explanation is willfully ignoring the facts. GGG has already explained what constitutes a buff according to the game rules. A buff is a single entity that may or may not apply multiple effects. It's far more elegant than breaking up a skill like Arctic Armor into multiple buffs/debuffs, presumably each w/their own icon.

The important thing to keep in mind is when you are casting arctic armor, you are not applying multiple buffs to yourself: you are applying multiple effects that stem from a single buff. You do not have a -physical buff, a -fire buff, and a ice field buff. You are welcome to think of it that way, but that is not how the game works.

That means that when you invest in a passive that increases the effects of buffs on your character, it is being applied to whole buff: not specific, positive effects from the buff. Clearly, if you're using the buff in the first place, the sum of the effects is a net positive. This will still be true, just more so, after applying inner force. Consider the following hypothetical example:

"Good Stuff Buff"

Cost: 20 Mana
Duration: 10 seconds
Effects: +100 to good stuff, -10 to bad stuff.

You have a net positive of +90 to good stuff. After Inner Force, the effects are increased by 30%. This means:

+100 to good stuff becomes +130 to good stuff (100*1.3)
-10 to bad stuff becomes -13 to bad stuff (-10*1.3)

For a net positive of 117 which, not coincidentally, is a 30% increase from 90 (117/90 = 1.3). So you see, even though Inner Force is increasing both negative and positive effects of the buff, it is increasing the net positive at the exact same rate of buffs that don't have negative effects. Lets see what would happen if it did not:

30% increase is +130 to good stuff and -10 to bad stuff, for +120 net positive. This is a 33.3% increase (120/90 = 1.3), which would mean inner force (and other items/passives that increase the effects of buffs) is potentially broken when combined with buffs that have built-in downsides. Clearly, GGG has thought this through in more depth than the people asking them to buff buff-buffs ;) i.e. inner force

everything in the skill seems to be working as intended atm. so lets get past that. obviously the skill is good but having one skill that can have no other different forms of it makes the skill either yes or no. its in the extremes both good and bad. \tbh id like to see other types of buffs like this with various other requirements etc. tar+chaos damage reduction pls...

nerf it set a percentage of mana degen so someone with 50 regen a sec can support it and move on...

edit>
i found a away around its mechanics lightning warp and flicker strike.