Energy shield speculation

[LucianDK]

as ive heard, you need to have 200% damage taken to mana to break even with energy shield, that eats 2 mana per point of damage absorbed

nightsmoke 50%
najs light plate 45% socket with ith for 60%
howltusk 35% socket with ith for 50%
lance guard shield 15% socket with ith for 30%
angelic amulet 20%, or any rare ammy with 10% and other mods.
And you have reached the 200% breakpoint. And your energy shield would never eat any mana, as its replenished instantly.

But i am wondering about in what order things are calculated. for im speculating on if 200% damage taken to mana is really needed, because the energy shield does not absorb 100% damage like mana shield in diablo1.

if you have lvl 22 energy shield, you might be able to get away with 130% damage taken to mana, because...i am speculating that the mana loss is ONLY related to the damage absorbed. Lets say you take 100 damage, lvl 22 energy shield absorbs 65 damage, but eats 130 mana in doing so. You have 130% damage taken to mana. You took 100 damage, and gains 130 mana. No loss of mana here to energy shield.

and it works teoretically. Take 250 damage, 65% is absorbed, which is 162.5 damage. Which becomes 325 damage to mana. Having 130% damage goes to mana which becomes 325, resulting in no mana loss.

[Brista]

Interesting idea

Tommi's site should help:
http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/damagereduction.html

[LucianDK]

interesting site, but it doesnt say anything about when damage taken to mana is factored in. I really could like to know when its worked into the damage equations, and how its effect will be when in conjuction with energy shield. If it could work like i have outlined. Or damage goes to mana is counted at the end, the final damage you take after Eshield negates 65%. Then you would need a huge amount, with 50% damage absorb, you would need 400% damage taken to mana to just break even, as the damage you actually take is halved, plus the fact that EShield eats 2 mana per damage point absorbed.

[Dagni]

I'm almost completely sure that damage taken goes to mana applies to the final damage (after all the damage order calculations). So you would need the huge amount.

- Dagni

[Striker]

Click me

[Brista]

Hang on though, how useful is this?

Say you get hit for 100 damage and you have 85% Energy Shield

You take 15 damage to life, giving you 30 mana back but take 170 mana loss

OK, say you have 66% Energy Shield

You take 34 damage to life, get 68 back and lose 132 mana

Now say you have 33% Energy Shield

You take 67 damage to life, get 134 mana back and lose 66 mana

So in the last case you lose 67 life and gain 67 mana. What's more your ES only blocks a third of damage which might be a little low for Hardcore

And that's a lot of gear dedicated to achieving something that a bit of max mana or mana regen might do more reliably (keep your mana high)

Or am I missing something?

[Baajikiil]

And that's a lot of gear dedicated to achieving something that a bit of max mana or mana regen might do more reliably (keep your mana high)

Or am I missing something?

Well, say you have 15% ES (slvl 2), and take 100 damage. ES will reduce the damage to 85, and you lose 30 mana points. Nightsmoke belt alone gives 50% damage returned as mana, or 42 mana back.

With one item you've gained a permanent 15% damage reduction vs all damage types(except poison/open wounds, perhaps others...). Not too shabby.

But also not too good. How many sorc players have +0 to their skills? Any more points in ES, and you start needing significantly more % damage returned as mana to keep even. I've considered using this setup for my melee sorc though.

I submit that ES is not designed for a sorc that get hits alot, but one that gets hit rarely and needs the extra seconds of life that the ES will give to escape(thus the mana regen will help make up for the loss).
It is quite useful in avoiding one hit kills as well.

Hang on though, how useful is this?

You are correct, it is not worth it at all to go for max ES and max damage returned as mana. I've crunched some of the numbers before when planning said melee sorc, and only at very low lvls of ES does mana returned make a significant impact.

[kier]

It is a usefull skill if you use a low mana skill, and have good warmth. the drawback with this is you then need to put more stat points into energy, and less in vitality, which may mean it can have a negative effect :blink: The skill does go well with damage reduce, I have a friend who made a sorc with good damage reduce, max warmth, ts, energy shield (and one other skill I can't remember that he used for killing cows). This build made an excellent pvp/boss killer.

[whereagles]

Well, I once had an interesting pvp sorcie idea on this: maximize energy shield, aiming at lev 29 which gives something like 69% absorption (IIRC). Compared to a more normal 50% or something (1+skills), this ends up being equivalent to `increase maximum life ~30%'.

Such sorcie would need to have a lot of mana and prolly maxed warmth, leaving no skill pts for thunderstorm, but she could take considerably more hits than normal pvp sorcies.