Trying to do Mind Over Matter (Duelist)

If you don't have at least 50% of your life as available (unreserved) mana you need more, if you have at least 50% of your life as available (unreserved) mana you don't need more. That's the end of how much mana you need.

Wish I could afford to have cool gear like that. QQ

I've combined Lightning Coil, MoM, EB and VP (and Abyssus) in my build here:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/600006

It's the most fun I've had with a build since CB. Any thoughts from the resident MoM experts would be much appreciated.

At the moment I run with about 3.4k health, an unreserved mana pool of 750 and Hatred/Clarity (and 75% capped res). I can also run either Purity or Purity of Lightning (for Ele Weakness maps) and still have 400 unreserved mana.

My itnernal jury is still out, but I kind of feel my survivability is better with 75% capped res + 700 unreserved mana than with 79% capped Lightning Res (for Lightning Coil use) and only 400 unreserved mana.

Petrov.

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mrpetrov wrote:

I've combined Lightning Coil, MoM, EB and VP (and Abyssus) in my build here:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/600006

It's the most fun I've had with a build since CB. Any thoughts from the resident MoM experts would be much appreciated.

At the moment I run with about 3.4k health, an unreserved mana pool of 750 and Hatred/Clarity (and 75% capped res). I can also run either Purity or Purity of Lightning (for Ele Weakness maps) and still have 400 unreserved mana.

My itnernal jury is still out, but I kind of feel my survivability is better with 75% capped res + 700 unreserved mana than with 79% capped Lightning Res (for Lightning Coil use) and only 400 unreserved mana.

Petrov.

That's because you have like 1/4 the mana you really should when you only have 400 unreserved mana.

And with 700 unreserved mana you have about 1/3. Ideally you'd have about 1600 unreserved mana to get the most out of MoM in your build. In all honesty, aside form absolute trash, you might as well not have MoM.

"

Autocthon wrote:

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mrpetrov wrote:

I've combined Lightning Coil, MoM, EB and VP (and Abyssus) in my build here:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/600006

It's the most fun I've had with a build since CB. Any thoughts from the resident MoM experts would be much appreciated.

At the moment I run with about 3.4k health, an unreserved mana pool of 750 and Hatred/Clarity (and 75% capped res). I can also run either Purity or Purity of Lightning (for Ele Weakness maps) and still have 400 unreserved mana.

My itnernal jury is still out, but I kind of feel my survivability is better with 75% capped res + 700 unreserved mana than with 79% capped Lightning Res (for Lightning Coil use) and only 400 unreserved mana.

Petrov.

That's because you have like 1/4 the mana you really should when you only have 400 unreserved mana.

And with 700 unreserved mana you have about 1/3. Ideally you'd have about 1600 unreserved mana to get the most out of MoM in your build. In all honesty, aside form absolute trash, you might as well not have MoM.

Thanks a lot for reading the guide.

I'm not sure it's quite as useless as you say, even with 400 let alone 700 unreserved mana.

Because my mana regenerates at 170/sec, and I have access to mana pots. So life and mana are not interchangeable in a Vaal Pact build (you can't regen life or use pots obviously for life when specced into Vaal Pact). That in and of itself means that my anecdotal experience with high level map bosses means that a 700 unreserved mana pool is still extraordinarily valuable as a defence.

Do you see that or do you disagree?

Thanks again for brainstorming this with me, its hugely appreciated.

EDIT: I agree with your point that if you don't hit the magic 43% efficiency you are underutilising MoM as a form of defence against OHKOs. I don't think that makes it useless against all but trash mobs however.

P.

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mrpetrov wrote:

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Autocthon wrote:

"

mrpetrov wrote:

I've combined Lightning Coil, MoM, EB and VP (and Abyssus) in my build here:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/600006

It's the most fun I've had with a build since CB. Any thoughts from the resident MoM experts would be much appreciated.

At the moment I run with about 3.4k health, an unreserved mana pool of 750 and Hatred/Clarity (and 75% capped res). I can also run either Purity or Purity of Lightning (for Ele Weakness maps) and still have 400 unreserved mana.

My itnernal jury is still out, but I kind of feel my survivability is better with 75% capped res + 700 unreserved mana than with 79% capped Lightning Res (for Lightning Coil use) and only 400 unreserved mana.

Petrov.

That's because you have like 1/4 the mana you really should when you only have 400 unreserved mana.

And with 700 unreserved mana you have about 1/3. Ideally you'd have about 1600 unreserved mana to get the most out of MoM in your build. In all honesty, aside form absolute trash, you might as well not have MoM.

Thanks a lot for reading the guide.

I'm not sure it's quite as useless as you say, even with 400 let alone 700 unreserved mana.

Because my mana regenerates at 170/sec, and I have access to mana pots. So life and mana are not interchangeable in a Vaal Pact build (you can't regen life or use pots obviously for life when specced into Vaal Pact). That in and of itself means that my anecdotal experience with high level map bosses means that a 700 unreserved mana pool is still extraordinarily valuable as a defence.

Do you see that or do you disagree?

Thanks again for brainstorming this with me, its hugely appreciated.

P.

It has a lot to do with how incoming dmaage is working. If you had more unreserved mana you'd feel tankier, because you'd be "losing" less damage resistance.

You aren't gaining any real DR against rares and bosses, given their increased damage, by having MoM with that mana pool. If you specced out of it you'd probably barely notice.

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Autocthon wrote:

It has a lot to do with how incoming dmaage is working. If you had more unreserved mana you'd feel tankier, because you'd be "losing" less damage resistance.

You aren't gaining any real DR against rares and bosses, given their increased damage, by having MoM with that mana pool. If you specced out of it you'd probably barely notice.

Hmm, excluding of OHKOs (and with Lightning Coil on there aren't many situations where a boss - and certainly no rares I've ever encountered - have OHKO'd me) I think instantaneous mana pots changes that analysis, I really do. Do you see how that might be the case?

P.

It's heavily dependent on your total DR, and also very heavily dependent on your incoming damage.

If you assume you always have full mana (no two hits ever hit you between regaining mana) you absorb up to 400 damage from an attack vs the up to 1600 you could have.

What's your physical DR and resists, and what kind of mobs (in terms of level and damage potential) are you fighting?

It might be working for you because of your chest armour, which adds a massive wrinkle. But overall more mana would make you tankier regardless.

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Autocthon wrote:

It's heavily dependent on your total DR, and also very heavily dependent on your incoming damage.

If you assume you always have full mana (no two hits ever hit you between regaining mana) you absorb up to 400 damage from an attack vs the up to 1600 you could have.

What's your physical DR and resists, and what kind of mobs (in terms of level and damage potential) are you fighting?

It might be working for you because of your chest armour, which adds a massive wrinkle. But overall more mana would make you tankier regardless.

Well I was thinking about the impact of mana after all DR was taken into consideraiton. For example, in your example of 1000 damage (after any DR) incoming - it clearly must be the case that you need 43% of mana/health to get the full benefit of MoM - no dispute from me on that!

All I'm saying is that MoM still has some value outside of OHKO's because you can replenish it instantaneously with pots, regardless of it not operating at full efficiency.

I think you could argue that in a long fight with a tough rare, more of MoM's value comes from the fact that it can be replenished with pots than from whether or not it is operating at the key 43% efficiency. Ie if it's someone like map-kraitlyn who kills you by death with a thuosand cuts, having optimal MoM efficiency isn't that useful when you can just replenish your mana pool regularly by using pots.

But to answer your original question, I have virtually no armour to speak of. All my DR/mitigation comes from Block, popping a jade flask and 75-79% Resistances (including Lightning - I use Lightning Coil).

P.

Well, peak efficiency is peak efficiency. Sure Kraityn does death by a thousand cuts, but others don't.

The tactic will of course work assuming you have exceptional mitigation (between Lightning Coil and Evade) against low end damage. But as damage gets higher you'll want that mana even if you can instantly replenish it.

Personally I don't have VP, and I use Hybrid Flasks to normalize my regeneration (I prefer to deal with incoming DPS rather than spikes which are much less meaningful in rotracted battles). Most of the damage I take is "visible" on my mana, while my health barely moves.

You're tactic is obviously working, I won't dispute that. But it's a niche tactic, rather than the broader general tactic.

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Autocthon wrote:

Well, peak efficiency is peak efficiency. Sure Kraityn does death by a thousand cuts, but others don't.

The tactic will of course work assuming you have exceptional mitigation (between Lightning Coil and Evade) against low end damage. But as damage gets higher you'll want that mana even if you can instantly replenish it.

Personally I don't have VP, and I use Hybrid Flasks to normalize my regeneration (I prefer to deal with incoming DPS rather than spikes which are much less meaningful in rotracted battles). Most of the damage I take is "visible" on my mana, while my health barely moves.

You're tactic is obviously working, I won't dispute that. But it's a niche tactic, rather than the broader general tactic.

Interesting thanks - I observe a similar phenomenon, where my health barely ever moves, but my mana is always up and down (some of this is due to skill spamming of course).

I think what is working really well for me is that Lightning Coil does such an amazing job of reducing damage along with a high Lightning Res that it makes my effective mana pool a lot higher than "just" the 700 on screen that would otherwise be the case against high single-target phys damage attacks (like Vaal smashes).

In fact, I'm going to go and record me standing under a vaal smash or two and see what it does - you got me thinking.

You've also got me thinking that Evade might be less useful than IR in combination with MoM. I'll try speccing into IR and see how it feels.

Cheers!

Ps: I use Vaal Pact so I can run ele/phys reflect maps and deal with thorns mobs without issue. My Lightning Strike is 25k dps (domination), so Vaal Pact is really a must have for me.