Any alternate to Insight ?

Hi, I’m mostly playing casters, with

Teleport (lightning sorc, foh).
I don t see how it would be possible to play without Insight on my merc, unless drinking a potion every 5seconds.
Is there any alternate gear that could provide enough mana regeneration?

Thank you for any suggestion

my sorc, light, cold, fire, with native 1400~1500 mana, buffed to ~2000, can self sustain mana consumption without Insight, unless under heavy fire in which case

Energy Shield will need pot to support.

you will need gears that can bump max mana and mana regen up. for instance,

Frostburn, SOJ or

Arachnid Mesh, gear in that nature. Of course, 1 point in

Warmth.

do not know available options for FoH.

I started this ladder with a CL Sorc, and I ran into the same problem. Even with Level 17

Meditation I was drinking pots like an idiot.

There are some ways to increase manareg, but none of them is working for a CL sorc.

Maxing

Warmth: Since CL sorc needs to put 100 pts into lightning tree, theres not much left over.

Increasing Manapool:

Frostburn, CTA, maxing energy etc. Regeneration increases with higher mana pool, but again, as CL sorc you have to go the vitality route, not much mana to be expected (I ended up with around 1200 life and 300 mana). Due to higher breakpoints, you need GG gear to replace

Magefist with

Frostburn to reach the 117 FCR. CTA being the best solution here.
Since self-wielding Infinity is no good choice for CL, I need to keep that Insight merc or give him an Infinity, losing the best mana source there is. No way.

Use items with MaeK: This is another difficult option for CL sorc. For example,

Silkweave will give you a lot of Maek, BUT since you don't have access to ES, resistances from boots matter a lot.

In the end, I respecced to

Nova, and holy moly, that's one difference. I never looked back. No mana problems anymore, fully synergized ES and killspeed increased by 300%. I went full energy route and have 600 Life and 1500 mana without BO. I didn't change a single thing on my gear, actually working on a self wield Infinity (using Crescent Moon and Spirit at the moment and Memory for 92% ES).

My personal conclusion: CL sorc sucks (at least, without GG gear).

Same is for FoH Pala. Merc is

Prayer merc with Cure and Insight. I just leave it like that, because its very convenient to not need potions.

Simply put, it depends on your specific class/build and your overall gear.

Between mana/mana regen from gear (SoJ being among your best friends here), passive regen skills like

Warmth and so on, some caster builds can indeed chain-dps/tele without Insight and without ever needing a pot.

Depending on build/gear you may also have the option of

Redemption or the like (e.g. Phoenix) offsetting your mana consumption.

Other options that work quite well for certain builds include mana after kill for something that kills mass amounts in relatively few casts (e.g. javazons).

And if all else fails and you just need a bit more to hold you over, you do always have the option of dumping a few points into energy to bump your mana pool and regen.

All that said though, yes, some builds do have mana consumption that is so damn high that there simply is no realistic alternative to Insight.

Redemption - direct or via Phoenix on switch

Many guides will tell you not to put a point into energy. The reasons being that with decent gear, you can usually get away with it. Also, in the past you couldn't respec, so skill point and stat point had to be carefully placed.

Now, you potentially have infinite respecs with tokens, not to mention the three Act 1 respecs added. If you play D2 like a normal RPG though, certain classes should be investing some amount of points into energy.

To be honest, I don't know how you expected to play a sorceress with 300 mana. Every sorc I've ever played, around 600 was the minimum healthy number.

Schnorki wrote: 1 month ago

All that said though, yes, some builds do have mana consumption that is so damn high that there simply is no realistic alternative to Insight.

This. You just need to accept that some items (1.10 runewords and Mosaic) are insanely OP and there is hardly any alternative to them.

Just look at

Warmth vs

Meditation. The former provides 18 + 12*slvl% mana regen. The latter provides 275 + 25*slvl% - much higher at level 1 and per level. For the entire party. With additional healing (when synergized). And even the worst Insight gives level 12

Meditation - 575% mana regen.

Warmth would catch up at level 47.
We can also look at other sources of mana regen. No other source gives a three-digit bonus, yet alone that high.

Similarly you could ask if you could play a caster build without Enigma or a melee one without Grief. Sure, you might, but not without severely crippling yourself.

Also, speaking of 1.10, the gameplay was much different before it. Slower, more careful, without spamming and class homogenization. Not only we didn't have those OP RWs. but you couldn't even buy mana potions from vendors - you had to find (and thus conserve) them.

for foh - on switch Call To Arms in a

Scepter w. +1

Redemption

Energy Shield

Fire Wall sorc here so don't care about 105% FCR but I get it easily with Spirit shield and

Magefist to

Teleport faster.

Here is my gear:

Silkweave, double SOJ,

Arachnid Mesh,

Frostburn (or

Magefist), HOTO and Phoenix shield (or Spirit).

Warmth is max out with perfect Memory rune word (+9 to

Energy Shield to hit 90% goes to mana).

Nothing to life, all to mana and you easily reach 3.3K mana points.

Heart of the Oak

Stone of Jordan

fredkid wrote: 1 month ago

Heart of the Oak

Stone of Jordan

For my lightning sorc it's Heart of the Oak and two Sojs.

mhlg wrote: 1 month ago

fredkid wrote: 1 month ago

Heart of the Oak

Stone of Jordan

For my lightning sorc it's Heart of the Oak and two Sojs.

So it’s enough regen to pass on Insight?

Szambodiver wrote: 1 month ago

Redemption - direct or via Phoenix on switch

I had

Redemption in mind, is it working if it’s by a rw equipied on the mercenary? (Forgot the name of the rw)

Then the mercenary gets the healing (and no mana, as he doesn't have such a stat). So the only benefit for the player is clearing the corpses.
The RW is Phoenix.

Yes, only option is to have on switch cta + Phoenix. Loosing a +2 to BO but nice healing! And of course - this doesnt solve long distance

Teleport (but this shoudnt be a problem if u have >600 mana)

Second cons is small lag on

Redemption - u need to get used to it

Jakouilles wrote: 1 month ago

mhlg wrote: 1 month ago

fredkid wrote: 1 month ago

Heart of the Oak

Stone of Jordan

For my lightning sorc it's Heart of the Oak and two Sojs.

So it’s enough regen to pass on Insight?

My build is a (chain) lightning sorc and it works for me. I also use mage fist for cast rate and mana, I only have to use potions once in a while so I keep a

Belt of full rejuvs which I find at a faster rate than I use. This allows me to arm my freeze merc with an Infinity.

Thanks for all the replies
I ll try to get a huge mana pool with my light sorc and see if it’s enough.
For my Foh, looks like Insight on Merc is the best for my lazy playstyle