Mana DRAIN

George_Black

I am watching Simurghs latest Ashes Pathfinders episode and they are having a chat about the recent reveals from Dev Update. Wandering Mist brought up a possible (it has never been mention from Steven as far as I know btw) Mana Drain concept, and I started praying "God please no" even tho I'm not very religious.

I am against any short of concept that flat out deletes players MP and I'll explain why since I have played in such an environment for a couple of years.

Back in Line][Age this skill was introduced in the mid years of that awesome mmorpg, and was added to the tool kit of the magic support/healer classes. Back then classes were more simplistic, and Mana Burn was very exciting for the players that player magic support/healers, because for the first time it made them DANGEROUS.
In very small group fights (4v4 or 6v6) it wasn't extremely noticeable, even to me playing a class that relied on quickly using all of my MP for very hard hitting bursts.

However, take this concept in anything larger than that and you'd see people force to play with normal attacks or switch to Spell Casters due to their triple size MP. Why? Because the tactic was protect/heal the Mana Burners and watch the other side using ZERO COMBAT ABILITIES.
Groups started inviting more MP Burners, even tho THEIR ONLY NEWFOUND USE was to spam Mana Burn, and then pretty soon every melee fighter would simply use normal attacks.

In championship arenas (the prize for the best players of each class [there were 30 original classes based on tanks, dagger/bow, warriors, bards, spellcasters, summoners, healers] was unique status in the server for 30 days), if you were faced by a Mana Burner you knew you'd lose due to having to use normal attacks within 15s.

Next post coming up...

George_Black

Mmorpgs have evolved since the glorious days of L2.

Combat has become a lot more engaging. It isn't about raw stats and exchange of blows anymore, nor is the concept of HP/MP the same as it was back then. Health and Mana are treated as renewable sources during a fight, unlike how it was in L2 and many older games in which: if you used your HP and MP during a fight you might wanna sit down for a couple of minutes before fighting again (unless you have a healer and an MP recharger player in your group).

Also back then normal attacks were a real way of fighting, combined with class abilities. Now normal attacks have taken a supportive role when it comes at least to PvP.

***off topic real quick...
Tera Online did a great job with normal attacks in their game. As a warrior I would use 80% of the time my abilities, but every now and then I'd use my left-click button to deal 4 normal attacks to recover a bit MP with each hit and on the 4th I'd kinda push back my enemy for a split of a second, some times interrupting them.
They were great, nice animations and functions, without making combat feel boring
****

TLDR;

I think that classes in 2020 have a lot more abilities than magic support/healers had back in L2, and they are fun to play.
Adding a Mana Drain would be very annoying and ruin AoC combat. I hope the devs don't have any plans to add flat out mana burn in the game.
Increase cost of MP debuffs are ok, but seeing your MP reach 0 quickly and then being forced into light atks is very bad.

Yuyukoyay

If it's not too much it may not be too bad, but I'd rather not have mana burn. Attacking the resources that allow you to do anything with little drawback just makes the game more annoying without adding anything to the game.

As long as it doesn't drain my entire mana bar over the course of like 30 seconds. it might be fine. It's not a very good mechanic in a game though.

Niraada

Mana burns/mana drains exist in a place where if they're overtuned, they feel excessively punishing to the people playing against it, and if they're undertuned, they feel worthless to the people trying to use it. That being said, I think as long as it doesn't become a situation where someone is spamming a "You do not get to play." button, it won't be any worse than a typical soft-cc skill.

Resource denial introduces additional dimensions to strategy and play, and using skills that provide it appropriately are clear ways to differentiate a skillful player from a mediocre one. Mana burns exist in a similar space to Silence mechanics, and I don't think there's any inherent reason they shouldn't be included.

If Cleric/Cleric "High Priests" end up being the extraordinarily potent healers they're being billed as, I suspect that mana burns are going to be integral in denying them the resources they need in order to make their party live. Because that is very likely what they will be able to do.

Hypothetical here:
If you're in a team fight scenario, and say for example you're a fighter, up against another fighter with identical gear, but with you being of superior skill. You leverage your skill advantage, and get the enemy fighter low, but within a few casts, that fighter with less skill then you is back to full HP, because his High Priest expended maybe 15% of their total MP.

Still, not a big deal, you get him low again, and maybe you needed a heal yourself, except just as you go for the kill, that fighter is back to full HP again. The High Priest expended 15% of their total MP again, and regenerated some while you were fighting, and maybe even received a Gift of the Magi to make sure they stayed topped up. Settle in, because you're probably going to have to win that fight many times over before the High Priest starts running low.

Staying power is what healers bring to their parties, and the ability to deny them resources ensures that they can't capitalise on that staying power with maximum efficiency. Burning away a chunk of that High Priest's mana forces them to make hard choices about how often to heal their party, applying direct and indirect pressure, and ultimately (I think) making the dynamic of battle more interesting, giving truly skillful players opportunities to stand out.

Do I think you should have to live in fear of having your entire resource bar burned away at any given moment? No, of course not.

I would love to see resource drains implemented in a way that:

1) relies on the action combat system in order to be effective. I think resource denial should be a technically and mechanically demanding skill,
2) relies on casting interruption or some other mechanic ensuring that such things aren't spammable.

If your only window to mana burn someone is when they're mid-cast, I think this alone would go quite a long way towards making it feel less punishing to players on the receiving end. Just like with casting interrupts, you know that you're vulnerable during a channeled cast, and can take appropriate action to protect yourself, or even use a cast to bait out someone's mana burn cooldown (hopefully it's on a cooldown).

If there are mitigating steps players can take to combat it, as well as meaningful counterplay, I think that resource denial skills like mana burn will ultimately find a healthy place in the game, being useful tools that are punishing when used, but not excessively so.

I know it's easy to see a mechanic that was implemented in a way that made it unfun in the past for a variety of reasons and desire to have nothing to do with it, but new development really does mean a chance to take a fresh look at just how things can be done in a way that's rewarding and exciting for everyone involved.

Clonage

Former competitive L2 player here. I can confirm what George Black is saying. In private servers the meta evolved to a point where there was some party compositions with only 2 Damage Dealers(out of 9 slots) because mana burn was that strong. I also agree that Magical Backfire was a decent skill(debuff which increased mana usage) because it was an indirect way of attacking the mana bar of a target. The skill also had counter play since it was 'cleanseable'.
Most likely the skill mana burn was introduced in Lineage 2 because support classes had no(limited) damage dealing skills in PvP.
Would prefer not to see Mana Burn in Ashes but i also think the skill can be way more balanced than it was in L2.