Does Mana Shield make the Protection stat useless?

• Transcendence wrote on 2014-08-02 06:31
  First question: Is the formula on wiki regarding the Mana Shield effectiveness correct?
  
  {[(Magic Attack - 2) + Mana Shield Rank Efficiency] * .004} + Mana Shield Rank Efficiency + Healing Wand Bonus + Mana Reduction Bonus
  
  Second question: If it is true, does this mean that Mana Shield is like boss (even after the revamp)?
  
  Some quick math: Rank efficiency at r6 is 1.8. Even without any Magic Attack, healing wand or Mana Reduction gear, this means that damage taken in Mana Shield is Damage Taken/1.8, meaning that you will only take 55.55% of the damage you would take without Mana Shield. This effectively means Mana Shield r6 grants you a base of 44.45% protection. I don't know about you guys, but 44% protection seems pretty hard to obtain without putting some effort into getting Protection gear and enchants.
  
  Even with maximum possible 92 character-screen protection which grants 61% (stupid revamp), Mana Shield easily trumps this, assuming Mana Reduction set effect and Healing Wand (Mana Wizard Accessories + Mana Conjurer Tikka Wand). Since Mana Shield ignores protection and the relative ease of achieving high amounts of mana (Magical ES, anyone), should Protection be abandoned all together?
  
  TL;DR - is the protection stat useless with a decent mana pool (easy), capped Mana Shield (easy), and a Healing Wand (easy--you can keep it in secondary weapon slot or even inventory as long as you equip it in time)?
• Ninjam wrote on 2014-08-02 06:50
  The protection stat is constant, unlike mana shield, where it is in effect at all times. Mana shield takes a drain of .5 mana/second which adds up quickly, where protection(or just defense from standard str gain) will easily render low-level content to doing 1s. I have had hard-mode SM mobs hit me for 1s and I am nowhere near the str cap, and only have 5% protection.
  The higher-level missions such as lord missions and such that would benefit from higher defensive stats deal insane amounts of damage to the point that tanking is almost imposable either way. A 10k attack with its damage halved is still going to wipe your mana pool out even if its severely reduced by the efficiency.
  
  For standard play, I would say that protection is better simply for the constant effect. 30% protection is easily obtainable via upgraded heavy armor and r1 mastery and a few non-cloth equips+accessories. Add the defensive values of 100+ from str alone and you have a fairly durable character even in higher-level missions.
  
  On the other side of the coin, Magic-focused characters that have not or do not plan to branch into melee can use manashield as an excellent shield the way you describe. In addition, Magic defense and protection is not dependent on str and gear, but on will and int, meaning a melee-focused character that has yet to branch to magic and int skills is actually disadvantaged compared to a pure-mage tanker when fighting against mages, which are common enough in missions and dungeons.
  Sorry for the wall of text here, just my thoughts with more personal experience than hard numbers as a mage/melee hybrid.
• Rydian wrote on 2014-08-02 16:01
  One concern for comparisons is that you're not factoring physical defense into it. I do melee and have 120 defense (and 25 prot which is -31%) with my armor and titles on, versus 42 magic defense (magic protection does not work with MS). Rank A Mana Shield, 139 MA currently.
  
  Enemy does 100 damage?
  No MS: I take 1 damage.
  MS: I take 11 damage.
  
  Enemy does 150 damage?
  No MS: I take 21 damage.
  MS: I take 39 damage.
  
  Enemy does 200 damage?
  No MS: I take 55 damage.
  MS: I take 66 damage.
  
  Enemy does 250 damage?
  No MS: I take 90 damage.
  MS: I take 93 damage.
  
  Enemy does 300 damage?
  No MS: I take 124 damage.
  MS: I take 120 damage.
  
  So with my stats and skills, MS doesn't actually reduce my damage until I start getting ~275 or so thrown at me. This would be different if I had MS capped, but I don't (though my efficiency is 1.8532, which is almost the number you were using).
• Darkboy132 wrote on 2014-08-02 16:38
  I thought MS only takes Magic Defense into account? Having MS is like having Berserk on.
  
  I never fully understood MS, but even at Rank 6 I effectively take almost double the damage than without it.
• Osayidan wrote on 2014-08-02 16:39
  Ever since the big "fuck you to mages" patch mana shield serves very little purpose. I basically just turn it on if I get hit by thunder, as an extension of my HP bar so I can tank the full 5 hits. Otherwise like Rydian said most mobs will hit more damage on your mana bar than HP bar, and I don't need my HP bar to be shooting balls of fiery doom at my opponents.
• Darkboy132 wrote on 2014-08-02 16:43

  Quote from Osayidan;1236758:

  "fuck you to mages" patch

  
  
  I don't mean to go off-topic but how was it the middle finger to mages?
• Osayidan wrote on 2014-08-02 16:47

  Quote from Darkboy132;1236759:

  I don't mean to go off-topic but how was it the middle finger to mages?

  
  
  Mostly just because of the mana shield. I used to wear cloth armor with mage enchants or light armor, after the patch I had to invest in full heavy armor and r1 heavy armor mastery.
  
  I like some of the other things we got from the patch, but my play style is and always has been battle mage, I get hit. I need to tank shit. Mana shield was my armor. Felt like a pretty big middle finger to me forcing me to change such a large aspect of my character.
• Rydian wrote on 2014-08-02 20:42
  Yeah Mana Shield ignoring everything except magic defense now is a huge nerf and I see it used much less, only to like, avoid taking wound damage from archers and junk.
• Renzato wrote on 2014-08-02 20:50
  Yeah. Whenever I use Berserk skill I instinctively turn on Mana Shield just because why not. It's basically the same thing in terms of taking damage. Extra health bar HELLO. Another reason that I reforged over my Mana Shield reforge.
• Darkboy132 wrote on 2014-08-02 21:12
  Just what was going on in DevCAT's mind when they implemented that nerf?!
• Kelvas wrote on 2014-08-02 22:40
  [UB]

  Quote from Darkboy132;1236804:

  Just what was going on in DevCAT's mind when they implemented that nerf?!

  
  
  People with high def and prot could make use of MS as well as mages could. It was useful to everyone, regardless of talent. Nexon probably thought the skill was too broken, and nerfed it to the point in which only mages with high M. attack could use it efficiently, if at all. [/UB]
• Tyskiyomy wrote on 2014-08-02 22:42
  "Does Mana Shield make the Protection stat useless?"
  In most situations its the other way around basically...
• Darkboy132 wrote on 2014-08-02 22:54

  Quote from Kelvas;1236818:

  People with high def and prot could make use of MS as well as mages could. It was useful to everyone, regardless of talent. Nexon probably thought the skill was too broken, and nerfed it to the point in which only mages with high M. attack could use it efficiently, if at all.

  
  
  They obviously didn't think Enlightenment through. Defensive stats weren't easy to get until that patch; with full Royal Knight Armor, 887 Str, 602 Int, and 751 Will, I get 166 Def, 30 Prot, 106 M Def, and 41 M Prot, and with Battle School I have 121 Def, 3 Prot, 83 M Def, and 29 M Prot.
  
  There's no need to nerf Mana Shield; that much defense is pretty broken in almost everything. An unnerfed Mana Shield would help GREATLY survive against Lord or Abyss.
• Zekkii wrote on 2014-08-03 01:13
  Mana shield is extremely effective if you have the right set up for it now, but that's pretty much no one. It's much easier to build a good defense setup.
• ironwoman wrote on 2014-08-03 01:56

  Quote from Darkboy132;1236823:

  They obviously didn't think Enlightenment through. Defensive stats weren't easy to get until that patch; with full Royal Knight Armor, 887 Str, 602 Int, and 751 Will, I get 166 Def, 30 Prot, 106 M Def, and 41 M Prot, and with Battle School I have 121 Def, 3 Prot, 83 M Def, and 29 M Prot.
  
  There's no need to nerf Mana Shield; that much defense is pretty broken in almost everything. An unnerfed Mana Shield would help GREATLY survive against Lord or Abyss.

  
  
  You're not getting this.
  
  I had less than 500 int back when MS wasn't nerfed, and I still could run missions without losing hp just because of using Mana shield.
  People started to abuse it really, to the point where MS was really being used more often than not, especially thanks to butterfly enchant. With reforge, even if you had like 200 int, you could pretty much take anything. Mana shield was meant to be a skill that was to be used situationally, not all the time. The nerf effectively did that.