So I watched a build video which show ice shard sorc who can keep 100 mana almost all the time and without using any resource aspect.
I follow the guide, picked frigid breeze and avalanche, equip aspects such as piercing cold and frozen memories…but I’m still just able to shoot 3-5 ice shard most the time.
How many lucky hit and cost reduction do I need? Or did I’m missing something else?
its really only infinite when you have the right amount of enemies and the correct stat weights to ensure your lucky hits regen mana to keep you topped up. video you watched was prob before the big nerf tho so who knows if it still works
After the nerfs, it has been much harder to keep mana up. I have the lucky hit resource regen plus I’ve gone a little off meta and am running the aspect that gives a 50% chance to spread CC effects to surrounding monsters.
When it works and it is chain proccing, it is awesome. But once and awhile the game decides I’ve had enough luck and I’ll fight mana for a solid 5 minutes before my procs kick up again.
When cooldowns and mana fight me, the rhythm of the game is way off and feels bad. It’s like shoving a branch in your bicycle spokes at random.
drinking that resource potion/resource reduction do help too as well but you need to have the primary resource lucky hit in your gloves or focus affix while stacking maybe lucky hit % by a little in order to be “infinite mana”.
I’ve been playing Ice Shards in this current patch and it seems to me that Mana Cost Reduction is rolling quite a bit higher than it used to? I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but my amulet is currently rolled with a max value of 17.4% at Item Power 617+25 (important breakpoint).
Stacking mana cost reduction is absolutely huge for the build to work and I still have CDR on every piece of gear that I can get it on simply so that I can keep barriers active for maximum lucky hit chance. It’s also worth getting your hands on the Devious (purple) heart that reduces mana drain effects by x% while also increasing resource generation by x%. You won’t be able to find Resource Generation as a stat on rings until you can get ancestral gear in Tier 4, but that stat is also crucial for maximum sustain.
The build guide may not have had any resource aspects with the right gear, but until you hit that point in progression I would still highly suggest taking Umbral or Prodigy aspect on one of your rings. The QoL from either of these will be huge for you.
There is another heart available this season, one of the grey hearts of Vershann items that will cycle between effects every 20 kills. One of these effects is a free barrier for more Lucky Hit that refreshes itself and another effect allows core and basic skills to fully restore 100% mana. This thing is wild.
(edit)
Just pulled up my Lv.100 sorc on Eternal, I guess MCR isn’t as out-of-line as I thought. i800 amulet has a cap of 23.7%
There is another stat worth looking for, I usually find it on gloves or off-hand (resource generation is a better stat which can also be found on off-hand weapons) but Lucky Hit: 5% chance to restore X resource is something else that’s available on ancestral gear. It may be available earlier than this, but I have not seen it on any gear pre-Tier4
I’m building towards infinite mana ice shards on seasonal sorc.
I’m using frost bolt and fire bolt enchantments.
For mana regen I have frigid breeze and fiery surge both level 3 and avalanche and 25% mana regen with ice armor.
Using aspects piercing cold and frozen memories.
Also have malignant hearts that give x7% mana regen and the one that casts a free core skill for life every 5 seconds.
Mana cost reduction is 23.9%
Luck hit bonus is 19.9% which only takes ice shards to 19% lucky hit.
I have 31.5% mana returned on lucky hit from my Staff of Lam Esen.
The staff isn’t ideal for the build but I couldn’t turn down a 730 item power staff (once upgraded) with it’s end game stats and massive damage when it dropped at level 52.
I am currently level 60 and can burn a tier 15 NM boss down without running out of mana.
To help you until you get geared up look out for the +50 mana elixirs and the 10% resource reduction elixirs that you can find in dungeons and helltides.
The more initial casts you can get off the more chance of getting a lucky hit with on avalanche to let your mana refill.
Think you are missing high mana count beyond 100 and resource regen rate on rings. e.g. if your mana is 175 with resource regen of 20, then you’ll probably not run out of mana while mixing in cool down casts and jumping around.
Holy crap, does mana regen scale with +Max Mana? I understood increasing max mana for Elementalist/Edgemaster’s and similar talent tree passives, but I never actually went out of my way to really push Max Mana beyond what was functional to maintain those specific aspects XD
This is pretty wild if it is the case! Glad I’m still learning something new every day, I had never even considered this but … it makes sense as I think about it. I’m still so used to thinking of things as static values instead of % values. XD