For me, the biggest point of contention is the "Mana for Spellcasters" section.
GGG decided to kill mana leech for spellcasters entirely, and are seemingly intent on forcing the mana regen angle, but mostly via roundabout ways, including forcing the mana flask usage.
And no word about rebalancing the base mana costs of spells. Or Eldritch Battery.
I don't think that players will take kindly to that. I guess EB will be the "mana pool" of choice for most of spellcaster builds.
You mean people won't be able to sustain those billion damage builds ? the horror.
In case your memory is really that bad, or you never cared to notice:
Most (like, vast majority) of the busted dps builds have historically been either attack-based (mostly ranged, DUH, but some faux-melee skills as well) or attack-based trigger-casters (coc, poet's pen).
This is mostly because such builds have WAY more damage-scaling potential than straight spellcaster builds.
And the distinct minority of busted straight spellcasters would always circumvent mana problems in non-linear ways, like:
a) playing a skill that deals damage by itself, reducing a player's need to cast it constantly (totems, brands, winter orb).
b) dealing so much damage per cast that it's not necessary to sustain the skill for long even against top bosses (traps and mines).
c) abusing certain mechanics available at the time (old EB
oM, or nullifying old-old incinerate's mana cost by elreon jewellery).
Finally, mana leech has never been a sole reliable way to sustain self-casters, mostly because of how mana leech works (leech cap is 12.5% of max mana). That means that mana leech alone would not sustain some of the more mana-hungry spells that would require upwards of 250-350 (or more) mana/sec to be cast indefinitely.
Great content, would play again.
