I'm playing this game yet again

[Boro]

  My only character that ever outspent what I could tolerate on mana was a Nova sorceress, which I think is the skill with the fastest overall consumption, the highest cost that can go the fastest with no cooldown timer.

Indeed. Nova is utterly ridiculous. Also don't be fooled by not seeing any synergy listed, as it absolutely has one that makes sense the moment you think of it: Warmth. 

Disclaimer: This is NOT meant for a hardcore discussion, but merely a little thought exercise that came from starting the MP game with Superdeath. Any hardcore players would look at the skill and run away screaming and seeking the comfort of their frozen orbs or fists of the heavens, and rightfully so. But since we are softcore, I decided to cut loose and play the infernova sorcie I once gave to Dp101. As usual, I started the game putting points into energy, figuring I'd get to the point where I'm comfortable casting my spells, and worry about survivability later, and pumped energy while keeping vit at base. I died in Tamoe Highland (100% lag death tho, I was clearly out of the way of those arrows).

Still, it got me thinking. Since I need to max Warmth for inferno damage, I'll have tons of regenerate mana%. In fact at base Lore helm + Leaf staff, I'll be rocking 378%. Add to that the 25% from Stealth armor and I'm at 403%.

While the actual mana regeneration formula deals in fractions and such, it can be understood mostly as that at base without any regenerate mana% to boost it, your full mana orb recharges in 120 seconds from 0 mana regardless of how much mana it holds. At +100% regenerate mana, the rate is 2x, +200 means 3x, etc. A 2x speed means that your orb regenerates in 60 seconds, 3x turns into 40 seconds, and so on. The formula would be the following

Seconds to refill=120s/(1+(Regenerate Mana/100))

In the sorcie's case, it'll take me 23.86 seconds to recharge with warmth@slvl30. 
 
The actual rate of how much mana gets restored a second of course depends on how much mana one has. Since we go from zero to full in 23.86 seconds, then the result is our maximum mana/23.86 - In a normal scenario, untwinked sorcies put approximately 50 points into energy, which translates into a hundred mana thanks to sorcies (as well as druids and necros) having a whopping 2 mana points return per energy invested. We are also going to assume 25 points of mana from other sources. At level 71, when entering hell, our mana would look like this:

35 base +
70*2 from levelups
50*2 from energy investment
25 from gear
That is a convenient 300 energy. At 23.86 seconds to recharge fully, we're looking at 12,57 mana regenerated per second. This is all nice but...

How much are we spending?

Let's assume that somehow we are rolling a level 26 Nova, which is a nice 40 mana (It's an unlikely scenario but a good one for calculating). Assuming we reach the generous 9-frame breakpoint, we'll be blasting through 111.111111111 mana per second. That is a net cost of 98.54 mana per second. We'll burn through our entire orb in a little over 3 seconds! Super mana potions restore 500 mana per drink on casters, but not even they can quell this thirst.  

The situation is even worse if we reach the miraculous 8-frame breakpoint at 105FCR, as we'll be at a 125 mana cost per second gross, a net of 112.43, and finally burn through our 300 mana supply in 2.67 seconds.  

But if even a fully Warmth-ed average, sensible sorcie with stealth is unable to use nova efficiently, what can we do?

The answer is, as always, to go beyond.

A perfectly rolled Insight runeword Polearm on a mercenary will grant a level 17 Meditation aura when equipped. Meditation gives us 700% regenerate mana. Combined with our 403% from our Stealth and Warmth, we reach 1103% and if we round down a little for clarity, our time to recharge our orb goes down to...

drum roll  

Ten seconds.

This means a recharge of 30 mana per second, and net costs of 81.111111111 and 95 per second for 9frame and 8frame nova spamming respectively. Now don't get me wrong, this is still not enough, but it cuts SIGNIFICANTLY into the sorcie's downtime. From 24 to 10 seconds. The sorcie also gains a whole two casts before she goes dry in each cases. But enough about the sensible 300 energy meta bore, because we are going to go even further beyond.

By spending the absolute minimum amount on strength, and forgoing Vitality and Dexterity, our sorcie at level 71 can go all out into energy, for 350 points (we're calculating the free stat points we'll gain in hell act 3 to push our strength to 25 base) total. It translates to 700 mana instead of a mere 100, so we're going from 300 to 900 mana. That changes the balance of our math significantly. We're regenerating 90 per second, and burning either a net of 21.11111111 or 35 mana per second. With our massive mana pool, it'll be either 42 or 25 seconds until we burn it dry.

After which it'll rebound in - again - ten seconds. 

But the craziest part is, if we were somehow to gain another +350 maximum mana, we'd be able to cast nova infinitely even at the fastest cast rate we can dish out, without a dent in our mana supply. 

[T-hawk]

Yeah, Insight is easy-mode for anything involving mana supply.  I'm actually glad it and Spirit aren't available in single-player off-realm, since they're all so stupid-easy one-right-choice.

I finished up through act 3 normal with all the characters.  (Man it gets slow turning up Khalim's eye and lung and spleen seven times over.)  No real particular items to mention, just a typical selection of low-level uniques and set pieces, most notable was probably the paladin turning up a +3 Bone Spear +1 Decrepify necro head, which might be worthy endgame equipment in respeccing to save all the hard points of prerequisites up to Decrep. Act 2 was slow for some of the later-developing characters (particularly the barb and druid still whacking through with melee), but by act 3 everyone but the barbarian started ramping up with their main power skills

I didn't mention it in the rules (because it isn't one), I'm using /players X freely for whatever setting I want.  Mostly p5 is the sweet spot for a single playthrough, speeding through required areas but ignoring everything optional; this gives experience such that you stay about 5 levels ahead of the monsters right on the edge where going higher incurs a penalty. Then usually I play most of Hell difficulty on p3, when leveling matters less but you still want more item drops than p1, although tough/boss areas will be on p1.

Also I looked at the monster stats data regarding the hammerdin problem. Turns out there's very few magic immunes affected by the 1.13 patch change: only Plague Bearer zombies and all the greater-mummy Unraveler types. They're undead, so I think this is my answer: Holy Bolt! That does still ignore magic resistance/immunity of undead monsters. And Holy Bolt's damage synergy is Blessed Hammer itself, enough to get it to well-usable levels of damage. And it'll be useful against other undead too, particularly those that run away to long range out of BH's reach, like the gloams and vampire types and Oblivion Knights. Finally, Holy Bolt can also heal the mercenary while he's poking at whatever he does need to kill that the paladin can't. I wonder if it's even enough to sustain him indefinitely against an act boss.

[Boro]

Yeah, Insight is easy-mode for anything involving mana supply.  I'm actually glad it and Spirit aren't available in single-player off-realm, since they're all so stupid-easy one-right-choice.

I guess that's true. Yet still I'm glad the runeword mod re-enables them in single player, as edge bows are my favorite toys.

Stealth armors, lore helms and leaf staves also fall into this category to some degree.

Hard to outperform Stealth's 30% poison resist with 25% movespeed, fast cast, fhr, and regenerate mana in the armor slot.

Or Leaf's 3 to fire skills +3 innate to warmth, firebolt, and inferno on top of the base weapon's staffmods. Also 30% cold resist because why not? all at level 19. That's an endgame weapon right there!

And finally Lore's 30% lightning resist with +1 to all skills and 9 integer PDR.

[T-hawk]

All those are good early, but all have some degree of choice involved with other decent options possible. Leaf involves trading off the resistances of a shield. Competitive with Lore are circlets (most often gambled) with a class or skill tree prefix and other mods. Stealth does go on pretty much every caster ASAP (all mine in this set have it, paladin/necro/druid/sorcie) but even so you feel the lack of good resists once into Nightmare, and eventually it does get replaced with something like Smoke or Lionheart or one of the +2 class skills. Insight for the merc and Spirit for the caster are just automatic choices with almost no chance they'll be superseded during the lifetime of a twinkless character or group.

Lionheart is my favorite runeword. For anyone who needs both strength and dex for weapon requirements (in this set, sword barb, javazon, and trapsin), after accounting for redirecting those stats into vitality, it represents 230 life worth in all! And it's common enough to have a decent shot at it even twinkless, but uncommon enough to be not automatic and represent a significant tradeoff against other uses of the runes.

[T-hawk]

Posting an update just in case anyone cares.  I finished normal difficulty with all seven characters, all between levels 40-42 now.  (Including the cow level for most, though the barb skipped it.)  I'm becoming more sure I want to do this without rerunning and farming any areas or bosses, since once you start on that there's no real end point, the right thing to do for hardcore survivability would be to grind up as high as you can in easy areas but that would take forever.

Notable items:

Baal for the trapsin dropped a Rockstopper helm.  Quad resist (three elements and physical.)  No skills, which is usually what you go for in the helm slot.  It's often merc equipment and may end up there eventually.  For now I'm putting it on the paladin, who probably needs the physical resistance the most, and +skills the least (basically no passives, and BH is already powerful enough to destroy Nightmare.)

Darkglow armor (actually 2 copies of it), +5% to max resistances.  The paladin also got that, since he can live without +skills in the armor slot too, and can reach the high resistance cap between Rockstopper and a paladin shield.  The second copy might have gone on the trapsin, but she got something else cool: a Twitchthroe armor, but ethereal.  Only the trapsin and javazon on this team can use the IAS, but the javazon gets hit more, and she also gets a Peace runeword (+2 amazon skills) instead.  So the trapsin will use the eth Twitchthroe while it lasts, so far for all of act 5 and it only lost 6 durability.

Sigon's gloves and belt (30% IAS partial set bonus), gave it to the javazon as the only one who really uses IAS continuously.  Also Sigon's helm but that doesn't add anything, along with plenty of all the usual junk set items.

Also a Wall of the Eyeless (20% FCR in the shield slot), would be fun for the sorceress or wind druid in normal difficulty, but once into nightmare (it was found late in act 5) can't really use the lack of resists.

The bonemancer shopped his +3 Bone Spear wand, and someone turned up an Io rune, to account for half of his White runeword.  Hopefully the Dol will show up too before too long, from the hellforge in nightmare if not sooner.

Also started to find Sol runes for Lore helms, a standard early option for most characters, currently on the sorceress.  Barb and druid are waiting for some good class-specific helm to load up with Lore, haven't yet found anything with enough relevant skills, though the druid does have a +1 circlet.  Amazon got a great gambled circlet too, +1 skills with life and resists.  A Tarnhelm also dropped, also +1 skills, currently on the bonemancer.

And Anya's class-specific-item reward for the sorceress delivered a hell of a beauty, an orb with +2 lightning skills and good life and mana and even fire resistance.  That happened because of something I did right - delay talking to Anya until you gain more levels, because the item depends on that.  I didn't think to do this with the other characters but remembered for the sorcie, it paid off, a +2 tree skills prefix requires affix level 40.

Ironically, I kept getting good 1H melee weapons -- the one item category I don't have anyone on the team to use.  (Barbs want 2H swords, because for Whirlwind all swords count as 1H for better speed breakpoints, but deal 2H damage.)  Found a General's Tan Do Li Ga and Griswold's Edge, both could have been pretty decent paladin Vengeance weapons for quite a while, cube-upgraded to exceptional.  Also got one ethereal self-repair rare sword, hah.

But the barbarian had a hell of a time finding any good 2H sword option.  I made all of Steel, Malice, and King's Grace runewords in various 2H sword chassis, and gambled a few rares, but wasn't really happy with any, best was Steel in a Flamberge because it reaches the best WW speed breakpoint, but it's still not great damage.  He went all the way through act 5 with that, though it got grindingly slow particularly against Lister's pack and then Baal.  Then gambled a rare flamberge (fastest 2H chassis) with some enhanced damage, serviceable after a cube upgrade to exceptional, but also still not great.

But then at the very last moment of normal difficulty, Baal for my last character (the sorcie) dropped a Bloodletter unique Gladius!  Even as a 1H weapon, that deals more damage than any of the 2H swords!  So the thing to do is dual-wield that and the next-best sword, the gambled rare (both are the same speed.)  Usually dual-wielding doesn't really help a whirlwind barb, your best sword loses more damage dropping to 1H than your second-best sword is worth, but now it's the right setup until something better comes.

Anyway, on to nightmare difficulty after the holidays.

[superdeath]

Im still following this, keep up the good work!

[Meiz]

I'm once again addicted to the game as well. Playing on battle net, started with a fireball / meteor / frozen orb sorcerer who focused on magic finding. With incredible luck, she managed to find perfect gear for a fury druid. 

Jalal's mane helmet
IK Maul
IK Belt
Laying of Hands gloves
Goblin Toe boots
Great Hauberk with Duress runeword as armor.

And my druid got Highlords wrath for amulet from NM Baal! Now for the first time, I actually have a melee character managing to survive solo on hell, now in the beginning of Act 3.

Sorry for highjacking, and keep on posting 

[T-hawk]

With incredible luck, she managed to find perfect gear for a fury druid.

There's an effect called the multiple-endpoints fallacy that's notable here.  You weren't seeking werewolf-druid gear in particular, you converged on that result after it had already happened.  Your sorceress might have found perfect gear for any of a dozen different character builds.  You just didn't notice all the ones that didn't happen and called out the one that did.  Anyway, that said, I had a similar experience long ago when I started playing hardcore: my first few characters found a great Immortal King collection as well (maul/gloves/belt/boots), which also went on a fury druid to great success.

Anyway, my own team update: finished through act 1 nightmare with everyone as well.  This is the peak of the power curve, everyone has a major attack skill maxed and synergized, but monster health and resistances haven't ramped up yet.  I blasted through the whole act at about 90 minutes per character.  If you know the patterns in the map layouts to find the exits, and don't bother full-clearing the dead-ends, you can get through very quickly.

Notable items:

Barb and druid are waiting for some good class-specific helm to load up with Lore

That happened.

   

Barbarian also got a decent one, +2 Battle Orders on top of Lore.

Biggest prize was a Meat Cleaver, unique exceptional polearm with big damage and life leech.  No character on the team to use a polearm for melee, but excellent mercenary weapon.  I gave it to the hammerdin's, he's the one who most relies on his merc for tanking.

Chance Guards, popped from an ordinary monster in the Blood Moor.  I put that on the hammerdin too, since he doesn't need anything else in the gloves slot, can't get skills, doesn't use IAS or leech or crushing blow, doesn't need resistances which are covered elsewhere.  Although it feels weird for him the one greedy for money, thematically the paladin should be above that.

Spectral Shard unique blade (50% FCR).  Would be a good choice for the wind druid; he can't get all that much else in the weapon slot, remember no Spirit off-realm, and I'm nowhere near Heart of the Oak or any such.  But it has that pesky 51 dex requirement, which isn't worth spending stat points or trading off other equipment.  Debating whether to spend dex points now and undo with a respec later... still haven't decided if I want to use the respecs at all, just doesn't feel right.

I'm debating whether to make the bonemancer's White wand now.  (I misspoke before: the Dol dropped, not yet the Io.)  I have just barely enough runes now: three extra Dols and two Hels that could all cube up to the one Io.  I'm not sure I want to spend all that on it, though, rather than saving the Hels for something else like Lionheart.  Also the bonemancer used up his normal-difficulty Larzuk socket quest, on a head with +3 Bone Spear to load it up with diamonds for resists, so he doesn't have a socket quest available for the wand yet.  I could risk the cube recipe (1/6 chance of blowing it and granting 1 socket), or wait until act 5 nightmare for another socket quest; I don't want to hijack someone else's socket quest, let each character keep their quest rewards for themselves instead of trying to min-max that among the whole team too.

Reaching Act 2 Nightmare opens up most of the best mercenary options, so let's talk about that, most of the reason I'm writing an update now.

The default for most hardcore characters is wanting Holy Freeze.  But I really wanted to get some variety in mercenaries, particularly at least one rogue as somewhere to use any good bow that drops.  The two characters with their own best crowd control are the necro and assassin.  Assassin gets the rogue, I want her merc to work at long range under Cloak of Shadows like the trapsin herself.  I also want one barbarian merc somewhere, which fits the necro best, he can protect him with bone walls and curses so doesn't need any aura support, but does need to rely on the merc's physical damage against magic immunes.  My barbarian wants a Might merc, to multiply his own damage since Whirlwind's own multiplier isn't big, and he also doesn't rely on the merc to tank, between the Battle Orders life multiplier and in that Whirlwind can't really hide behind a tank anyway.  Everyone else (sorceress, paladin, wind druid, javazon) will stick with Holy Freeze, they need it for lack of their own crowd control.  As for Iron Wolves, I really can't think of any build that wants any at all, they don't tank or deal enough damage or freeze duration to matter.

[T-hawk]

Micro-update: I spent most of an evening sorting and allocating items between the characters. Mostly to balance out all the resistances, and cram in magic find whenever someone had enough maxed resistances to free up a slot. I took the druid wand shopping at Drognan, to find something good for his weapon slot, and he turned up a Jeweler's Wand of the Magus. I loaded it with my two best resistance jewels, which got his resists high enough overall that he could swap out a diamond shield for the Wall of the Eyeless instead. (Everybody but the barbarian is using a diamond shield. I'll switch the trapsin to a second claw for more skills eventually, once she gets to nightmare act 5 Anya to shop them.)

And I decided to just go ahead and make the bonemancer's White now. Lionheart is the only realistic runeword that would use the Hels, and more of those should come up by the time I also get any Fal plus Lum for that. And Act 2 is probably where I most want Bone Spear maxed, since there's a lot of shooting in straight lines, at those resurrecting mummies on the far side of dungeon rooms, plus the Arcane Sanctuary.

[T-hawk]

Nightmare act 2 update.  Everyone blasted through on players-7 again in about 90 minutes each... except the barbarian, who took more than twice as long as anyone else.  Partly because he had terrible luck finding the exits and had to fight through a lot of extra territory (he ended up a level higher even after dropping down to players-5), but mostly because he's still hurting that badly for any good weapon.  But stay tuned.

It was dry for any fun items, the most interesting being a Razortail belt to give the javazon, and a Goldwrap belt also.  But otherwise little in the way of remarkable items for the act...  until my bonemancer (playing second-to-last) turned up three different hits.

   

First, from an ordinary beetle or maggot in the lair, a Skin of the Vipermagi!  It's common for a mid-level unique and I was hoping one or more would turn up.  And this one even rolled its maximum resistances.  Who gets to wear it?... well, it's cliche and I wish I could be more creative with it, but it's going to the sorceress.  She's the one who can use the resistances to allow the Wall of the Eyeless in the shield slot, where the other casters (paladin, necro) want a class-specific item.  The druid might be the other option, but I care more about speeding up Lightning than Tornado, and also the resists can let the sorcie keep the Tarnhelm too in a slot where the druid also goes class-specific.  And finally the sorcie gets more out of the +skill (quadratic with lightning mastery) than the necro or druid (just linear.)

   

Next, a Fal rune.  Wasn't expecting that yet - I had found each rune in order up to Io, but then this skipped two entries.  I also found three more Ios (needn't have worried about that White wand at all), so if cubed into Lum, all together that's enough to make the first Lionheart.  That will go to either the paladin or druid, who are the ones that fight at close range and get hit; I haven't decided between them yet; it's not super important before hell difficulty and also I'll wait to find a good base armor for it too.  (Defense is unreliable in general, but a few hundred points does take a little sting out of melee crowds.)

And finally, this jackpot:

   

RIBCRACKER.  I was only vaguely aware this weapon existed.  I've never had one.  I didn't even know what the unique Quarterstaff was, would have thought Ribcracker was a maul.  All I knew was that Ribcracker is popular for wereform druids, because they go faster with 2H swinging weapons.  But after looking it up, it's also considered a top-tier Whirlwind weapon, despite the short range.  When upgraded to elite, the damage skyrockets up over 400.  Even as-is, it's better than any sword I've found for damage, even before figuring the crushing blow and defense.

The only problem is that my barbarian has 20 points in Sword Mastery instead of Mace.  I'm still hesitant to use the respec quest.  This made me state more clearly why: if respecs are on the table, there's no such thing as distinct character builds for achieving Guardian; anyone could finish the game with the class's most powerful build and then respec.  But that does matter less for a barbarian than anyone else, since basically anything with Whirlwind is his strongest build anyway.  The stat points matter too: he has about 80 dex for the purpose of meeting sword requirements, which would get reset back into vitality.  I'm still on the fence here.  For the moment I'm postponing the decision, for now I'll use the Ribcracker as-is with 1 point in Mace Mastery.  The runes from the Nightmare Hellforge may indicate how to go (Lum + Pul for the upgrade, or alternatively maybe Lem for a Passion sword runeword or Um for Crescent Moon.)