Demon Pact costs 20 mana (plus rune tapping costs) and apparently lasts 1 minute. According to the
wiki it adds +50% mana regeneration.
By observing the ticks, which went up roughly from 9-10 to 10-11 mana gained per tick, I am guessing that this is 50% of base regeneration, not 50% of the mage's total current regen (3x base), so for the mage class it's effectively +14% of the previous rate.
The question is, is it worth it? Does it return more mana points than it costs? Perhaps at some hypothetical level of the mage - with a large enough base regen - this becomes true. But for my current mage character, 10 ticks (1 minute) of roughly 1-1.5 mana gained each tick sounds like it would add up to 10-15 mana, less than the cost.
But doing math in the head is one thing, getting actual in-game results is another. I decided to run a simple test on my level 13 mage: can I cast more fireballs in a given period of time while keeping up Demon Pact than without Demon Pact?
Game version: 1.04 DOS
Class: mage
Level: 13
magic: 105 (including Amulet of Magic +25)
mana pool: 121
Testing phase 1:
Wait for full mana.
Drink a Potion of Water.
Start a stopwatch for 5 minutes, cast Demon Pact.
Cast as many fireballs as I have mana for, and count them.
Keep recasting Demon Pact instantly after it wears off, keep casting fireballs.
At the end of the 5 minute period, write down total number of fireballs managed.
Testing phase 2:
Wait for full mana.
Drink a Potion of Water.
Start a stopwatch for 5 minutes.
Cast as many fireballs as I have mana for, and count them.
Keep casting fireballs.
At the end of the 5 minute period, write down total number of fireballs managed.
Testing phase 1 result: 54 fireballs.
Testing phase 2 result: 59 fireballs.
Some analysis:
Subtracting the 12 fireballs from the initial full 121 mana pool, we get 42 and 47 respectively, meaning 420+ and 470 mana. To that first number we also need to add the cost of the Demon Pacts (5x20 = 100) and rune tapping (didn't keep track, but let's say a total of 10), for 530 and 470 mana regained in 5 minutes, meaning 108 and 94 per minute, meaning 10,8 and 9,4 per tick. The gain from Demon Pact is thus 14 per minute, which is indeed roughly 14%. There's some error margin here because I only kept track of fireballs, and not of exact amount of mana left at the end, but the gist is clear enough methinks.
Much as expected, Demon Pact isn't worth it.
Possible suggestions to fix it:
- lower mana cost
- increase duration,
and/or make duration depend on magic stat(actually that part was a bad idea)
- increase bonus
For example with a +100% instead of +50% bonus, and a lasting time of 3 minutes, my testing character would be gaining 84-22* = 62 mana per cast, which is actually useful and yet - spread over the course of 3 minutes - isn't too overpowered.
*I counted a cost of 22 mana because usually tapping out the Demon Pact and then tapping back to the spell I was using costs me 2 mana.
______________
Edited to add:
Finished the game (done all the quests at least once) at level 15, 87 magic, 140 mana. Retested:
5 minutes with Demon Pact: 73 fireballs
5 minutes without Demon Pact: 78 fireballs.
