MP conservation

losstarot

Simply, what's the best way to conserve MP while grinding and in general. Water Shield does little, and there's still a constant need to pot or meditate and apothecary powders are expensive and the herbs aren't that abundant at all. Charms are a waste of money and event pots are fading away.

Is there anyway for Wizards and any other class to not drain MP so quickly?

Mizuoni - Dreamweaver

as a wizard i use water barrier and pyro > gush spam. It saves mana and it does great damage.

losstarot

Thought I posted this in the Wizard section...

I do that, but it still drains MP fairly quickly.

Seiowan - Harshlands

I hate to break the news, but we're wizards. Every attack we make is magical and therefore eating up MP. If you want to conserve MP you need to get the best out of each spell, which means using those attacks which have the most bang-per-buck.

The earlier poster suggested Gush spam. I don't. The reason for this is that Gush is a relatively low powered spell and the MP costs at most levels aren't massively lower than other spells which can deal greater damage. Another issue I have with casting the same spell over and over is than enemies more resistant to water damage will require more castings to kill, defeating the whole purpose of using it in the first place.

Glacial Embrace will help somewhat, but its not to be relied on wholly. Another issue with relying on a water shield is you can miss out on the benefits of increased defense. This can often mean substituting MP potions for HP potions if you get hit. I prefer to use the sheild most appropriate to the damage type I am taking (where possible) before considering MP conservation.

My first suggestion for conserving MP is simple. Join a team.

In a team you'll be casting less. The first reason for this is obviously to avoid grabbing the monster's attention prematurely and the second is because the monsters will die faster with other squad members assaulting them. Wizards aren't ever going to be all-powerful soloists because we lack the survivability of other classes so, having a well-built Barbarian to hide behind does wonders for us. Our spells are strong enough (assuming pure MAG) that we don't need to spam them constantly anyway.

My second suggestion is to pause.

A brief period of waiting between monster kills makes a huge difference to your MP regeneration. While out of combat, MP regeneration is much higher than normal. You can enhance this with certain apothecary medicines (duration of 10 mins) if you've got the patience to farm the herbs required for them, but even if you don't the benefits of increased MP regen can't be denied. Along with Glacial Embrace this becomes a very impressive regen indeed.

Other than that, im afraid 'soak it up' is all I can say. Get apothecary medicines (yes, they're a pain to farm for, but you don't need many of them!) crafted and use them. At level 71 im sitting on around 10k mp. A single apothecary medicine can restore almost my entire MP bar in a mere 30 seconds (9000mp total). As you can see, they're frighteningly powerful, so you'll use less of them unless you're constantly depleting your entire MP bar.

You're always going to be an MP heavy class, but if you go in prepared you'll never worry about low mana again.

PartyAnimal - Harshlands

Foucs Powder, that is all.

PetUser - Lost City

Wrong forum :P

Thrasymachus - Sanctuary

If you don't want to use pots, pills or powders your options are limited to meditating for regen or just slowing down between killing. Keep your water shield maxed, and when you finish killing a mob wait for the picture of your character in the upper left to stop flashing red, then count to thirty before you go after the next mob. Use that time to reposition yourself and plan your kiting. At lower levels, you'll probably still need to med from time to time since you won't have as many points in mag, but it'll help a lot. At my level, pure int build, I only have to meditate two or three times in a quest where I have to kill 60 mobs, usually for less than two minutes with water shield up, and I don't slow down between killing unless the place is crowded with aggro mobs or they're spaced so far apart that I've got no choice. If I follow my own advice, I don't have to meditate at all.

And really, learn the Apothecary skill. It's super easy, cheap, and the benefits of learning it are vast, probably better than investing in learning any other manufacturing skill. Farm all herbs and other mats whenever you see them, and use the ones you farm to make the pills and powders you want, sell the ones you don't need to make just those pills and powders and either bank that money, or use it to buy more herbs you can use.

Finally, apothecary pots are not expensive. You get a bunch just from drops, and while I usually only use them while I meditate, or if I've completely run myself out of mana and need one or two more shots to kill that mob, I can easily go through that many. So buy 'em from the Apothecary when you start to run low. The level 60 pot costs what, like 1700 coins? Sure, there's more efficient ways to buy MP, but it's not like you'll be losing money doing it. Just don't rely on them as a way to never have to slow down, but as a way to temporarily speed regen when you have to regen.

MeatbunXD - Dreamweaver

It depends what level you're at, how much magic you have statted, and how high your skills are. Usually, the higher the skill is the more mp it uses. o.o

Things that may help:
+More magic points=faster mp recovery, higher damage output (kill mobs with fewer number of hits)
+Decent or Excellent weapon=better damage
+Cleric buffs:
-Celestial guardian seal (maxed)= additional 10 hp and mp recovered per second
-Spirit's gift (maxed) =Increases weapon magic attack bonus by 25%
+Stack your own buffs on top of the cleric buffs
-Glacial Embrace (increase mp regen) & Wellspring Quaff (increase your maximum mp... more mp for you to burn through )
+Squad with others to finish quests faster
+Use mp pots while meditating
+farm herbs in between fights
+try using sandstorm as an opening attack, spam gush and pyrogram, distance shrink or Will of the Phoenix if you need to, continue to spam gush/pyrogram

Surprisingly, I burn through mp faster than my wizard hubby. Most of the time, he uses Glacial Embrace and Wellspring Quaff.