Anything Goes D2 Lounge!

[Arparrabiosa]

Correct me if I'm wrong because I'm talking from the top of my head, but to be able to mana leech from an enemy, you must be hit with the physical part of the attack. And I don't think a typical javazon would have enough AR to hit the monsters consistenly enough to mana leech properly. I'd go for +x mana after kill if Phoenix is not available.

I never have problems with the survivability of the merc if I can reposition him with Enigma here and there. Unless he is severely under-leveled, or I forgot to re-cast BO from CtA, that's it. If I would, I would just give him my Delirium helm and call it a day. That should help more than any % PDR.

 

[ffs]

For cows mana leech works well. My go-to setup has 11% leech from rings and 5 MPK from silkweave, this covers upkeep nicely. Using eth upped Titans to increase physical damage, while Penetrate and AR from rings is enough for reasonable CtH. I use Defiance Merc, but if leech is lacking (eg not using eth upped Titans) a Might Merc can help with that.

Leech works less well in areas with unleechable monsters though such as skeletons or ghosts. More MPK helps here, but picking up mana potions every once in a while isn’t too painful either.

I wouldn’t recommend Delirium for cows though. You want to herd big groups of them to maximize damage as well as mana/life upkeep. Confuse procs screw up the process. I wouldn’t use freeze Merc for the same reason, although it "only" slows herding down rather than messing it up entirely.

 

[Arparrabiosa]

For cows mana leech works well. My go-to setup has 11% leech from rings and 5 MPK from silkweave, this covers upkeep nicely. Using eth upped Titans to increase physical damage, while Penetrate and AR from rings is enough for reasonable CtH. I use Defiance Merc, but if leech is lacking (eg not using eth upped Titans) a Might Merc can help with that.

Leech works less well in areas with unleechable monsters though such as skeletons or ghosts. More MPK helps here, but picking up mana potions every once in a while isn’t too painful either.

I wouldn’t recommend Delirium for cows though. You want to herd big groups of them to maximize damage as well as mana/life upkeep. Confuse procs screw up the process. I wouldn’t use freeze Merc for the same reason, although it "only" slows herding down rather than messing it up entirely.

You didn't answer my open question, though. Do mana leech need a hit with the physical part of the attack? Because I suspect you will be missing more often than not, even with eth upped titan's with fax and modem.

 

[ffs]

Yes of course only the physical part leeches, that's why people upgrade their Titan's and sacrifice some life to wear it.

Here's a video with the approach described above, as you can see mana upkeep is fine. Setup/gear at the end of the vid.

 

[Arparrabiosa]

I'm not claiming that it doesn't help to sustain your mana. What I am pointing out is that you can probably sustain the LF with mana per kill mainly and only leech in a lucky hit.

 

[Excalibur]

It's not like you are sacrificing any slot for the mana leech so getting it mainly from the FCR Ring is a huge bonus. Gloves can work too unless you want to swap to +3/20% and finally a crazy FCR Amazon Amulet with Dual leech is what I would aim for, for my final build.

 

[ffs]

@Arparrabiosa depends on the amount of MPK. Sure, with 1.07 MPK rings you're all set and no leech is required at all. Personally I don't time travel so that's not an option for me. I've tried various combinations of MPK and leech and found that 10+ MPK e.g. from Silkweave + Lidless is a good amount when using only MPK. Less than 10 MPK is already getting less comfortable, for example Silkweave + 3 MPK IAS jewel in Griffon's for 8 MPK and no other source of mana upkeep. I use Silkweave as the only MPK source and on its own it's that is not enough to sustain mana. Adding one leech ring can be sufficient when throwing economically, whereas with 2 leech rings it's overall comfortable even when throwing a bit more than needed.

That's my experience in particular from running cows, where both leech and MPK work well due to the amount of monsters killed and leeched per throw. Things are harder to manage in less populated areas, and as mentioned above even more so when they include unleechable monsters. TLDR, mana management with Java is always a bit of a challenge.. but a reasonable downside for a build that is very powerful in PvM in any case.

Gloves are another source as @Excalibur mentioned. Apart from rare ones with leech, I also tried crafting caster gloves with MPK, but never got 2/20 java.

 

[Arparrabiosa]

It's not like you are sacrificing any slot for the mana leech

Sure, but I'm not debating this point, but this one:

so getting it mainly from the FCR Ring is a huge bonus

I think is a pretty minor bonus. Negligible, in fact, in the grand scheme of things. Try to sustain your LF only with mana leech, using as many slots as you want, and see what happens. I think (barring Phoenix) achieving a certain amount of MPK, like @ffs said in his last post, is the way to go. That will sustain your LF if you are herding properly, even ignoring mana leech completely.

 

[Excalibur]

Try to sustain your LF only with mana leech

I think you misunderstood. Nobody said that Mana leech alone is enough. Even low MKP alone is not enough so a decent amount of both works great.

 

[Arparrabiosa]

I think you misunderstood. Nobody said that Mana leech alone is enough. Even low MKP alone is not enough so a decent amount of both works great.

No, I think you misunderstood. I think that a decent amount of MPK works great, and a decent amount of mana leech does next to nothing.

 

[Excalibur]

I don't think I missunderstood since you tried to refute my statement about mana leech by saying that Mana leech alone is not enough in which case I totally agree and never said it is.
What amount is enough to sustain your mana would depend on the equipment, player settings and playstyle so whatever works for you is perfeclty fine.

 

[Arparrabiosa]

No, that's not what I said. What I said is that mpk does the heavy lifting and mana leech does next to nothing to sustain LF. The argument of using mana leech only, as much as you wanted, was as an example to prove the previous statement. But at this point of the conversation you are answering at your own version of what I said instead of what I actually said. Because it is way easier, of course. So I stop arguing here.

 

[Swamigoon]

If you provide an infinite number of keyboards to an infinite number of monkeys, they will produce poetry.

I just found an example of this phenomonon. The D2 code algorithms that invent unique monster names produced this awesome alliteration:



Thanks, Blizzard North code-monkeys!

 

[Excalibur]

The argument of using mana leech only, as much as you wanted, was as an example to prove the previous statement. But at this point of the conversation you are answering at your own version of what I said instead of what I actually said. Because it is way easier, of course. So I stop arguing here.

I don't understand how this discussion has turned into this. Your post is full of insults towards me and I am not willing to reply.

 

[Arparrabiosa]

Insults

I don't understand how this discussion has turned into this. Your post is full of insults towards me and I am not willing to reply.

Insults? What insults? I didn't insult you. Please, stop saying things that I haven't said.

 

[LouB]

OK guys step back and take some deep breaths while I try and provide some perspective.

@Arparrabiosa MPK vs Mana leach is going to depend on where you are in the build and what equipment you have. Carefully read @Excalibur's Aphrodite build. She is at level 97 runs Cows at P7 and has zero MPK. So for his build Mana leach by itself is more than enough. Of course he does very high damage with his level 35 LF and has a mana pool of 700. Also, with his high Dex he does have a reasonable chance to hit.

I converted my old level 87 Fishyzon into a straight Javazon for the last RFL and though she was just in the 20s for skill levels, a mana pool in the 500s and didn't have eth Titans or Enigma and she did ok with just mana leach. Now I'm sure she would have done better if I had had any decent MPK gear, but 1 or 2 MPK isn't going to help. I found it much easier to use equipment that boosted my mana leach AND provided other benefits than the paltry MPK that I had available.

Also go back and look at ffs's last post about just 5 MPK not being enough to maintain a mana pool in his experience. Between the two responses I thought that they had addressed your comment.

I thought your next to last response showed a high level of frustration more than being insulting, but I can see how it could be taken as being insulting.

 

[Zyr]

Correct me if I'm wrong because I'm talking from the top of my head, but to be able to mana leech from an enemy, you must be hit with the physical part of the attack.

The physical part of LF always hits (though it can be blocked).

 

[Excalibur]

Don't you hate when that happens?

 

[ffs]

It doesn't need to happen, you just need to learn map layouts. There's a simple "left vs right vs straight" rule for most maps in the game. In case of Durance lvl 2 it's "left" for WP and "straight" for lvl 3 exit, meaning the lvl 3 exit is in the general direction opposite of the lvl 1 -> lvl 2 stairs tile where you arrived. I never seriously attempted speedrunning where it's vital to memorize all of this, but I have a cheat sheet with the relevant info. Very helpful for whenever I'm rushing new characters through the game.

 

[Excalibur]

Yeah, I never bothered learning any map layouts, was just sticking to one side of the map and running but Durance is a bit messy on its own. You also have those Dolls chasing you that sometimes force you to change a route.