So I'm to the point where I need to really be focusing on augments and I've been told so many different ways that I'm not sure anymore. Some say you're a caster, just load up on INT. Some say that mana isn't an issue, so boost the HP. Some say just sort the list by Spell Damage and use that even if it is an AC/Dex aug with 70 SD. Just curious what the consensus is for normal augments and type 5 augments out here these days.
There is two schools of thougbt- 1. Maximizing SD on your type 7/8 augments, and heroic INT for type 5. 2. Maximizing SD on your type 7/8 augments, and heroic STA for type 5. Some group magicians prefer to focus solely on heroic INT for the mana pool so that they avoid downtime in groups, or to extend kill count while soloing before med/pet canni. That should be fine for the group magician, but the raider goes for one of the first two. I will say regardless of which route you choose, I strongly recommend the two specialization augments from COTF for evocation and conjuration. As well as Shawl 3.0 augment. Those three augments may never be replaced for magicians, and are quite essential for our class.
I'm on team HSta. Casters have so many ways to regain mana, it's ridiculous. The difference in health /mana in full sta vs int is pretty modest anyway, but i view health as the primary protection vs dying and mana pool as a tertiary way to increase DPS in that you might get an extra nuke off or something in a weird mana starved fight that you don't die in.
A growing number of magicians feel the same as you, going full STA. My belief is this- on raids, Shield of whatever it is called this expansion (fate, consequence, etc) keeps me alive for events. It is always up on me, and if I do die it is because either I did something horribly wrong that more heroic STA would not have helped me either way, or the raid wipes in which case no amount of heroic STA would save me. So while I do understand the logic and rationale of hit points and heroic STA, I do not see it as that much of a difference. Which leads me to the solo and group game. Where for me, the limiting factor is not hit points since my pet is the one getting hit, but rather my mana pool and how much of it I have before I need to med. Since I generally have a pet suspended, pet canni is not an option. And my philosophy is, I would rather be able to kill non stop for 25 minutes straight and take a med break rather than 18 minutes and take a break (numbers for illustration only). Hence why I go heroic INT on my type 5 augments. Either way has pros and cons. I do not think one way is better than the other, just which ever side of the coin you see. As long as you have enough hit points to stay alive, and enough mana to cast spells, you are good. And both ways deliver on both fronts...
This is why I prefer to use a mixture of both and just go by the best available aug. You get better overall stats if you use several of the dropped and TS augs even if they aren’t the stat you are primarily focusing on.
People still use the specialize conjuration/evocation augs? I phased those out a long time ago, as I thought the only benefit was mana preservation. Am I missing something?
Well sure. The only benefit is mana preservation. So they only matter if you cast spells. Don't sweat it.
I am sure Sancus will reply and correct me, or like this reply if i am right... The augments return a guaranteed 40 mana back every time you cast a spell. Nothing else in the game gives that kind of guaranteed benefit on every cast. Now I anxiously await my fate...
Lol, so cheeky. I don't run into mana issues at all on the group or raid side running max dps, so I felt I was benefiting more from the extra stats... I could see a couple select scenarios where they might be beneficial, but was just curious what people's actual usage of those was....
I've been happy in the HSta camp through TBL and ToV. TBL aoe dmg was high, and you really wanted the hp buffer. I'm often sticking my mage in prickly situations, and using coth for group while i get beat on. I box, so i appreciate the additional reaction time the hp pool provides. In my experience mages don't struggle with mana regen. We have a half dozen mana regen tools, and i find mod rods alone are sufficient to cover most mana regen needs. I havent been paying much attention to stacking spell damage. Does SD affect proc damage?
It's 2.25% mana preservation (Spec Skill / 20). Sorry That's about half the benefit of going from group to raid shoulders in terms of mana preservation, to put it in context. Throwing some appropriate-ish variables for a raid into kizant's webapp, the ~120 SD you're giving up for them is worth about 0.15% DPS. That's obviously a rough estimate, but point is that you're not giving up much in return for that additional mana preservation. Personally if I only raided, I'd probably go for the Spell Damage augs. Soloing, I absolutely run into issues with mana, and I don't really believe that there are Mages making no DPS tradeoffs who don't eventually have problems with mana solo. We certainly have methods to recover mana, but many of those involve not DPSing (to reclaim, to cast gather, to cast thaumatize, or whatever else). There are definitely other considerations. If you're always able to use Of Many in groups, or you're frequently Beaming, or you're always grouped with classes that have good group mana return abilities (e.g. Enchanters, Bards, etc.), then I can understand having different experiences. That said, I'm kind of skeptical that most Mages never find themselves in situations where they have no mana issues without using any of those mana return abilities that have DPS tradeoffs. If you do find yourself using those abilities, I'd suggest the specialization augs offer a better damage to mana tradeoff than our mana return abilities.
They return no mana, they save mana you'd otherwise have spent. 45 specialization skill is 2.25% mana preservation. Getting a 40 mana discount implies a 1800ish base mana cost spell. On a 7358 mana spell, the CotF specialization aug would save 165 mana.
It's my understanding that worn focuses provide a variable preservation, and that mana preservation focuses don't have a minimum set. So group mana pres is 0-17% (8.5% avg) and raid is 0-22% (11% avg). Their averages being just 2.5% apart, the specialization aug is very nearly the same.
Yeah that was my bad on the wording. I knew it was a mana saving thing as opposed to a mana return thing, i just typed faster than my brain. I think the augs say 15% (40 max) or something which is why i thought it was a flat 40 mana savings on each spell. Fact that it is 2.25% is even better as far as mana savings go. In any and all events, i think we can all agree that unless you never ever go OOM these two spec augs are extremely important. And furthermore if you never ever go OOM then you or your group is probably not maximizing the time as well as it could...
LDoN augs are (40 max) and restricted to type 8 (raid) aug slots, CotF augs are (45 max) fitting type 7 slots
The way I evaluate mana preservation is through thinking of it as 'mana regen when I'm going hard' where if I'm spamming spear / chaotic I'm spending a certain amount of mana per second. That number changes of course, but if I'm spending around 2000 mana a second by going hard, I'm getting 45 mana a second or 270 a tick from the preservation aug. If I'm spending 1000 mana a second over an encounter, that's 135 / tick from the preservation aug. Obviously the mana spent per second number is the dubious part of the above thinking, but it puts it into a frame of reference I'm used to considering. For me it's a no-brainer at those numbers. The extra ~120 spell damage or other stats just don't achieve the same level of impact (although situational impact) that 2.25% reduced mana cost does.
