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I get the impression from the Kripp interview that, given health potions won't be charging from common monsters, we will want to manage our usage of them over the course of fighting through a zone so they don't run out too quickly. I would expect then that to some extent that may be the case with mana, and given the change where we use spirit and we have a full mana pool, does this mean we will potentially be more concerned with the mana efficiency of skills as we add support gems or perhaps casting speed? I can see mana being anything from something we refill between attack sequences or between battles or maybe even just once or twice per zone, depending on how much mana you have, how much mana regenerates, and how much potions refill... potentially this is even something that varies depending on the skills you're using and the passive nodes you've picked up?

I know there's a lot of concern among PoE players who prefer the current situation where it essentially feels like you have infinite mana but I feel like I've played a lot of games where the tension between how many abilities you can use vs how many monsters you can kill with them are around is an enjoyable concern, so I will be pretty open minded about whatever you want to do with PoE 2.

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5 months ago - /u/Negitivefrags - Direct link

Actually caring about your mana pool is something that you should have to do in PoE2, and it is an explicit goal.

As you said, the first thing we had to do to make that possible was removing the reservation system in favor of spirit. This was one of the primary drivers behind that change in fact. You cant make mana costs matter when you don't have a big enough buffer against them, and players will always choose a smaller buffer in exchange for more power.

For refilling frequency, I would say that it's your flasks that are the real "state" of your character. Your mana orb can fairly quickly with mana regeneration stats, but if you use supports wtih high costs or supports with high mana multipliers, you are going to want to pack some mana flasks.

It should of course be possible to make your build such that mana is no longer a concern regardless, but it will need to be at the cost of damage or defense.