Mana Globe / Mana Recovery skill - How do these work together?

[melianor]

The Mana Recovery (http://www.diablowiki.net/Wizard_skills#Mana_Recovery) skill has the following description:

Enemies have a 7% chance to drop a mana globe that return 25% of maximum mana when picked up.

Under the Mana Globe (http://www.diablowiki.net/Mana_Globe) entry it says the following in the wiki:

Mana Globes are orbs of magical energy that are created when a Wizard uses her Mana Recovery spell.

Does this imply that Mana Globes can only spawn when you actually have 1 point in Mana Recovery and upwards?

Do you think that Mana Globes would spawn without this skill?


The Mana Globe wiki entry was made by Leord, who was present at Blizzcon. So asking him to verify this would be interesting.

Please discuss :)

[Sass]

I think it's more like 7% more chance. IDk the system they use and if it's like hp, if it's dependant on your globe's level, etc. I think they'll drop regardless, but that skill ups the chance.

[melianor]

Interesting. Just form reading the text it sounds to me, like there will only be mana globes if one uses the skill.

That would raise the question how you would come about mana in other ways.

There are skills that raise your mana (Greater Mana (http://www.diablowiki.net/Wizard_skills#Greater_Mana)), reduce mana cost (Efficient Magics (http://www.diablowiki.net/Wizard_skills#Efficient_Magics)), or return mana in other ways (Static Charge (http://www.diablowiki.net/Wizard_skills#Static_Charge))

So speculating on those skills, it might be possible to play without Mana Globes and still have enough mana.

But still its hard to deduce anything form those two descriptions. From what i remember from the Blizzcon play experience reports, there were NO mana globes dropping, no matter which character played.

[NKlint]

Since seeing a Mana orb drop is not possible for a lot of us to witness... I wonder just how much mana they regenerate when they are picked up. Also, since health orbs contain a party-wide heal, mana orbs could feasably regenerate mana for the entire party (for whomever consumes mana for their skills)

Efficient Magics (http://www.diablowiki.net/Wizard_skills#Efficient_Magics), at first glance, appear to gain 3% per level starting at 6% at level one. Reducing the cost of mana by a maximum of 48% if the increments maintain at 3% per rank in Efficient magics. Efficient Magics being a Tier 1 skill in the Arcane Tree. It appears that Vitality and Willpower will not increase the amount of maximum mana a Wizard can have, but rather increase the base mana regeneration and damage from the Wizard's spells respectively. Does the Wizard's mana increase per level? Or does it remain at 80 points unless altered by Greater Mana (http://www.diablowiki.net/Wizard_skills#Greater_Mana), or an item which is enchanted with a mana boosting modifier. Static Charge (http://www.diablowiki.net/Wizard_skills#Static_Charge) is rather conditional unless you're a Melee Wizard, or some kind of masochist :wink:

But just to clarify, a Wizard Starts with 20 health and 80 mana. He/She gains 2 health per vitality, but no mana. The Wizard does gain extra mana regeneration per point in vitality, however... We need to know two things about the basics of game play for a Wizard...


How much mana does a Wizard gain per level?
Do mana orbs drop naturally?


Next we need to understand how many skill points we get per level... Also if the requisites for obtaining skills from the next tier require that you've used a total of 5 points per tier to be able to use skills in the next tier.
or are the requirements for growing to the next tier are...

spending 5 points in tier 1 to grow to tier 2
spending 10 points in tier 2 to grow to tier 3
spending 15 points in tier 3 to grow to tier 4


- The following is strictly hypothetical -
This all depends on the idea that we will only have one skill point per level and also excluding any skill point quests, but... If we can get to the next tier simply by using 5 points in one tier, then we could conceivably be hurling Tornadoes and summoning Blizzards by level 16. If the requirement is 5 in 1 to reach 2, 10 in 2 to reach 3, 15 in 3 to reach 4, then we'd need to be level 31 to use our "ultimate skills" in whatever tree we chose. This means that Mana Recovery a tier 3 arcane skill would only be useable once a character reached level 16 , while the other skills are tier one arcane, and tier 2 storm's (albeit conditional) energy management skills. This is all speculation based on some rather nebulous theories catering to a worst case scenario, but level 30 for an ultra strong skill might not be such an unreasonable number.

[Matora]

Reading all this got me to thinking...

The WD has Soul Harvest to grab mana back should the need arise. Perhaps this is how the Wiz does it. The WD can use barriers and such to slow hard mobs while moving in close while the Wiz can teleport and slow mobs with th time shpere to grab orbs...

Could just be a way to keep the action going, so you have to jump around every now and again to keep pumping out insane amounts of spells.

Hope this makes some sense.

[Sein Schatten]

Also if the requisites for obtaining skills from the next tier require that you've used a total of 5 points per tier to be able to use skills in the next tier.
or are the requirements for growing to the next tier are...


No, just no. That will be a design error if it is anything besides total spend points. If you put 15 points into tier 1, tier 3 will be unlocked. Anything besides that is a crapfest.

[melianor]

No, just no. That will be a design error if it is anything besides total spend points. If you put 15 points into tier 1, tier 3 will be unlocked. Anything besides that is a crapfest.

Hm, i am not sure. You do not know about prerequisites for the next tiers, not in term of points, but in term of skill relation, just like D2 skill tree. You might have to invest some points into each tier to get to the next, but overall you might need to place a few points into each tier to advance to the next.

Again this is not about how many points are required overall, but about relations between skills in different tiers.

Though i would say this topic is fit for a new thread.

[Farmrush]

Hm, i am not sure. You do not know about prerequisites for the next tiers, not in term of points, but in term of skill relation, just like D2 skill tree. You might have to invest some points into each tier to get to the next, but overall you might need to place a few points into each tier to advance to the next.

Again this is not about how many points are required overall, but about relations between skills in different tiers.

Though i would say this topic is fit for a new thread.

If I'm understanding this correct (and I'm not sure I am), I believe that they already addressed this. They don't want players to have to chose useless skills, or at least not too many of them, and have passives in each tier which can be taken instead of an active skill. So it's to my knowledge that there are no skill-dependent prerequisites, only the number of points invested per tier.

As far as the mana globe thing goes. I don't see why it can't be a wizard specific skill. Perhaps monsters simply do not drop mana globes without the skill and the wizard will have other skills to deal with mana regeneration if a player chooses a different path. This leaves options open to other players as well for skills that regenerate mana (ie Witchdoctor's Soul Harvest or whatever it's called).

[Brother Laz]

They don't want players to have to chose useless skills, or at least not too many of them, and have passives in each tier which can be taken instead of an active skill. So it's to my knowledge that there are no skill-dependent prerequisites, only the number of points invested per tier.

Which means if you want a level 30 skill, you have nothing to use until level 30, only passives. They still haven't solved this issue. If they can't solve it, the skill trees may be changed radically between now and release.

[Farmrush]

Which means if you want a level 30 skill, you have nothing to use until level 30, only passives. They still haven't solved this issue. If they can't solve it, the skill trees may be changed radically between now and release.

That would be true if you only intended on using a single skill, but that doesn't seem feasible especially considering they are aiming for players to use 5-6 skills as their main skills.