I gonna have to respectfully disagree on this one… mana burn adds challenge to a game that is already far too easy. We need to make this game harder not easier.
I feel it works fine as is , I use 5 points in energy shield or I doubt i could solo hell in HC with my sorc at lvl 70 without it. Removing mana burn would make the already extremely overpowered sorceress even stronger force to be reckoned with.
ES is perfectly legitimate outside of PvP. The problem is that the sorc would have too much specialized strength in a defensive manner which would not be proper for the glass cannon sorceress and the full mana burn is in the game to keep that improper degree of durability from becoming an archon build with blur passive (% damage reduction) such as in the role broken Diablo 3. We are lucky enough that barbarians with bo and energy shield sorcs can work together with out any further consequences as it is. It only fortifies the point that the entire mana pool needs to be burned at once. Whether the energy shield status is lost or not is debatable.
Like?
What other sorc builds require you to stand still at relatively close range? None come to mind.
I ran Chain Lightning as my primary skill on my sorc unti I got to Hell, because its damage is pretty bad there. (Amazing through Nightmare though.) At that point I switched to Frozen Orb.
Why not fix mana burn and tone down the Sorceress’ damage? Keeping a bug in the game to balance a class is a bandaid approach.
Yes, a full HC SSF run. Just saying it wasn’t an issue for ES.
Why are you getting hit so much exactly, especially with a merc? Again unless you’re running Nova and want to telestomp in, stand still and spam without trying to kite at all. That’s probably a risky playstyle that should be punished by mana burn. But again I never said don’t fix mana burn. I just said it generally isn’t that big of a problem for sorc and ES. At least not in my experience.
As I said I think it would make her way too tanky personally, I like the challenge of mana burn its dangerous and makes you have ti think twice. Adds challenge to an easy game.
I respectfully disagree.
I agree and disagree. I think it needs some work, but it’s not like it’s every single monster group.
For context, my starter was an ES/Max block/Blizz (Don’t care your opinions if this was smart or not, it was/is FUN). The character is durable AF, and I’m still using her to this day. Even single element, I am clearing cows, tunnels, trav, meph, chaos, and I stop by and clear worldstone 2/3 if the enemies are too immune or full of souls. I barely ever die, and my gear is still terrible. 680 life / ~1600 mana AFTER BO. I think it comes down to people’s play style. You can’t just expect d2 to behave like d3 and just tele stomp any and everything especially on a sorceress. She should be nimble and confusing.
However, after all of that, I would also agree it should be toned down just a little. Or have something visible that we can easily identify without having to read the monster text.
Sometimes the same monster take all your mana to zero, more than one time. I use Full Rejuvenation Potion to not die too fast but while I’m trying to run out of danger I got hit and my full 1.5k mana just dissapears in one hit.
I don’t really care for mana, considering what I play, but I still find your ideas useful and interesting. You speak eloquently and rationally on the matter.
I just wanna express one disagreement:
I only play offline (/players8), but mana burn is far from “small fraction.” I mean, super uniques are of course a small fraction of the total amount of monsters. But I’ve found many of those uniques, applying mana burn. Like, it’s one of the most common mods for them in my experience. Easily over 30% of them in an Act have had it, sometimes.
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Even though I play a purely melee Zealot with currently no mana leech, it’s still barely a nuisance 'cos Zeal is very cheap and mana regen is naturally fast. Maybe I’ll throw a few non-Zeal attacks throughout the whole fight with the mob, but that’s it.
And when I have even just a tiny bit of mana leech (like 1.5%), I recover waaay faster and that problem is far less serious even.
One way or another, just the fact it’s WAY stronger than intended should be argument enough for a simple fix. One that keeps it scary and challenging, but not so dangerous. You shouldn’t have to hesitate around every last corner, in fear your mana will be depleted before you can even realise what’s there.
That would be no inconvenience whatsoever. Might as well take it out of the game as do that.
Extremism is rarely, if ever, a reasonable or even an interesting idea at all. It’s, by its essence, dull and short-sighted.
And how can you confuse things so much, you think toning down something and removing it entirely are the same thing and have the same impact? If it’s toned down, it’s still there. And depending on how large the nerfing is, it may still be pretty significant. If it’s gone, it’s not there.
Really. Why do you need something so simple explained to you? Do you see no difference between presence and absence? Specially when talking about one of the most mentioned bugs in the entire game?
Mana Burn remains a good concept. Every large aspect of builds, should find at least an occasional kind of monster that’s specially challenging.
Just like certain immunities are specially challenging for certain builds.
Just make it work as intended. Simple.
i think mana burn bug really affect the play style of everyone , is maybe worst for melee
for my barb i`m limited for very long ww because mana burn and on the top d2re ww bug 
is very painful to play
Yeah, mana burn for WW barb while surrounded is a bad day.
I wish there was a rune or item stat for prevent mana burn. At the very least they should limit it to half mana pool. Just cutting the burn to half of pool per would go a long way.
Game: Here’s a defensive skill for Sorceress.
Player: So I can try a battlemage-themed build, like Enchantress?
Game: Ha-ha, no, because we burn 100k of mana instead of 400.
Yeah, a battle mage-themed melee enchantress could be fun build.
Did you even try using ES? It is very good as is.
Now that is a better reason to fix mana burn
Rejuv potions are bad vs mana burns. Try mana potions!
Yes, mana burn killed my barb on hardcore… was a very sad day.