“Do you truly think it wise to approach a Raid immediately after you have been diminished in power?” Lydia asked, while they walked towards the light gate.

“De-facto, I haven’t been diminished in destructive power,” John pointed out. “I was given tighter constraints in terms of resource management, but my actual damage output is basically the same. My MP pool is more valuable now than before, given that it doesn’t replenish quickly. Not sure yet if that means I should continue on my current path of investing more into Intellect or Wisdom.” He rubbed his forehead. “Do I increase my buffer or do I try to get my mana regeneration back to extreme surplus levels?”

“You should probably… split your attention a bit?” Gnome suggested.

Salamander nodded in support. “The new formula makes the mana cost for each elemental go up by 0,046 per level, for a total of roughly 0,25.”

“Each point of Wisdom adds 3,5 mana per minute to your regeneration,” Undine added, “or 0,058 per second. In other words, you will have to invest 4 to 5 points into Wisdom, per level, to keep up with demand.”

“And I only meet it at the moment thanks to equipment,” John sighed. His character sheet usually displayed his Stats with all of his equipment bonuses considered, even if he wasn’t wearing them at that moment. This was something John had set-up himself, utilizing the options and the pre-set menu, because it was generally more useful. When it mattered, he had the items on him. The inventory made sure of that much.

Between all of his items, John reliably got the following passive bonuses: All Stats +20%, MP Reg +20%, Max Mana and Health +200, and HP Reg +40%. Those were all from the World Ender set. Due to the patch, John had taken a moment between the bath/orgy and them moving to the levelling activity to re-adjust the Suit and Pants of the Chosen.

Thanks to their Modify Attribute, John could switch out the last four of the Suit’s and the last five of the Pants’ Attributes as he wished. Luckily, these weren’t bound to his lacking enchantment skills. Rather, the Attributes had to be similar in power. John had exchanged All Stats +5% on both for Wisdom +10%, giving him an effective 10% bonus there while losing 10% everywhere else, and a number of defensive bonuses he had going on both for some other things that boosted his mana supply. They amounted to another 40 bonus Wisdom, 10% and 60 flat mana regeneration, and 5% Max MP.

The Elemental’s Stats were also slightly diminished, courtesy of John switching his active Class to Arcanist. The 4,5% All Stats for them was replaced by another 10% bonus to mana regeneration for John.

The most quantifiable difference from all of this was that he lost 400 points of Max HP, in exchange for boosting his mana regeneration to 134,80 per second. Less clear was what the losses of such things as Acid Resistance, Sturdy, and points in all non-Wisdom Stats exactly meant. Inconveniently, John had no formula to check how much his reaction speed was impeded by the drop of Agility or how much RP was shaved off by the minor dip in Charisma. They were all minorly affected, so John wasn’t fearful of any noticeable consequences, but he still liked to be able to put a number on things.

The new 134,80 regeneration was subtracted by (adjusted due to percentile costs) 112,67. In other words, John had found a way to solve his issue by utilizing his equipment. 22 mana per second wasn’t even a third of the 70 surplus he had before the patch. A surplus was a surplus, however, and John was just happy the quick workaround had been available to him. While Stirwin was equipped (which he was most of the time in combat), John had another 7,79 MP per second open for other things. Double that if he equipped another elemental. Undine or Salamander were the obvious choice there, due to Purgatory’s Attributes.

‘And, as the elementals pointed out, if I want to keep up with things I have to keep investing in Wisdom,’ he thought.

It was a totally reasonable change. Under the old, percentage-based system he could have, had he so desired, put all of his points into Physical Stats. Making that a playstyle without drawbacks for a summoner would have been an odd choice.

“4 to 5 points a level,” John mumbled. “And that’s just to keep the current difference going… I get 8 points per level, so I could still increase other things on the side.” They finally entered the gate of light and emerged in the darkness of potential within. He looked over to his harem. “What do you think, how should I approach this?”

“What was your plan before ya had to deal with this again?” Rave asked

“Raise Intellect to 1000, then up the Physical Stats to 500,” John reported. “I like the balance in my build.”

“If you want to maintain the balance, you will have to deal with the consequences, my king,” Metra told him. “If I tried to carry every weapon I wanted to use, I’d get weighed down by it too.”

“Yeah,” John agreed, he didn’t care to be annoyed by this fact. He couldn’t have everything and demanding that would have been absurd. “Still though, 4 to 5 points per level to keep up with rising costs is a lot.” He ran the calculations again in his head. “Well, actually, taking my MP regeneration bonuses into account, I ‘only’ need 3 to 4 points.”

“How high would that bonus be?” Salamander asked, after clicking her tongue.

“45% extra, from all Passives and items,” John told her. “So, it’s about 0,084 mana per second per Wisdom.”

“2434 Shwurbels per durbels kernubels,” Sylph blabbered, her head spinning. “All this math makes Sylph a silly girl.”

“You’re always a silly girl,” Salamander said, took the air spirit, and tossed her as strongly as she could. A green streak, Sylph sailed through the nothingness, laughing and unable to intercept the fairly important conversation. “Let’s just go with 4 per level, so you still have an increase in the difference over time.”

“That’s half of my decisions gone.”

“Maintaining a build that lets you keep six elementals summoned at all times is a decision,” Lydia disagreed.

“Ya say that like we could live without the five beauties and tiger’s pride regulator around,” Rave said. “Which is, to say it like you would, an utter disgrace of an assumption.”

John chuckled at the spot-on impression. “Yeah, we can’t do that,” he backed up the point. “Technically speaking, I also get mana regeneration through Intellect, but it’s quite negligible.”

“How much are we talking about?” Siena wanted to know. Like all of the elementals, she could have gone burrowing in his memory or subconscious for answers. Unless he actively thought about it, talking was quicker though.

“3% of my maximum mana per minute. I get 15 MP per Intellect, plus 10% from bonuses, for a total for 16,5. That means I get 0,012 mana per second for each point of Intellect. About an eighth the amount.”

“It’s still going to help.”

“Yeah. Primarily, it will help offset the 20% I need to withdraw at the end of this entire calculation for the Artificial Spirit and Extension cost.”

“Gaia, okay, I need this to stop,” Rave cried out. “Can ya finalize your damn math already, brainiac?”

“Sure, the only important point of this is the question of how much Wisdom I need every level to keep up with the demand and grow a little… that would be…” He ran the number in his head. “0,25 divided by the multiplication of 0,084 times 80% that equals… 3,725369458. So still 4 points per level.”

“Why did ya have to start with this after we left the house,” his girlfriend complained. “Shouldn’t ya crunch numbers like this with Scarlett or subject Eliza to that kind of torture?”

“Fair on both accounts,” John laughed. “Anyway, with all of that math in mind, I will be putting the necessary points into Wisdom in the future and increase Intellect at the side. The alternative, as I see it, would be to single down on Wisdom until the next efficiency increase. Given the patterns up until now, that would be, if it exists at all, at 2500 points though.”

“Striving for that goal would inhibit your growth in other areas for a considerable time,” Lydia commented.

“Pretty much,” John nodded. “For the moment, I’ll concentrate on two things. One: find a number of Perks and Passives to incrementally reduce mana usage. I still got one Elementalist level to go, which would cut the costs of all elementals by another 5%. Well, 5% of the original costs, so about a tenth of the current cost. Then I could look into Metracana Master for ways to cut the Artificial Spirit and Extension upkeep and Silver Arcanist for general mana things. I’ll do that, likely, after I’m done with Unfound. Second: we’ll have to adjust our fighting style with the new restrictions in mind. Which is why,” he looked to Lydia, finally ready to answer the question that had started this whole tangent, “we’re doing the Raid now. It should be challenging but also fairly beatable. We out level the first mob pack now.”

“A fair point,” the queen took the explanation in stride and they finally entered the Raid.

The Twisted City of Ohmior was exactly as they had found it. Despite its name, the Gaia-created scenery was far from disorderly; hundreds of buildings, all connected with each other in some fashion through passageways and bridges, slowly rose the further away from the spawning platform they were. The entire city seemed to have the shape of a bowl. A beige and purple bowl, filled with artificery, uniting magic and science in hovering spires and flak that would fire on any of the party members that distanced themselves too far from the laid-out path.

It was a very game-y solution to the flyers in their group, but Gaia could do what she wanted in these Raids.

Their group moved along the single available path. Down an extravagant flight of stairs, then following a walkway that was attached to the side of a cathedral, until they arrived at the first group of enemies. The Ohmior Knights, five large golems that had the shape of armour forged from silver metal, each had unique combat equipment. A bow, a staff, a sword and shield, and an axe rested in the respective hands of four of them. The fifth held no armament, but possessed an additional pair of arms instead.

They were all level 325, fifteen levels lower than John currently was. Last time the group had attempted to fight them, they had stopped after one try, due to time constraints and them being of a lower level at the time. For Raid enemies, they were remarkably passive, only watching the group from a hundred metres away. They guarded an arch in the cathedral wall to John’s right – doubtlessly the continuation of the path.

“Alright, here are the two most important differences in our fighting style from now on,” John said, turning to the elementals. “First off, I am not supporting you with as much mana as before. I’ll back you up when I see the tactical advantage, but otherwise you should use your own resources. Secondly, we’re going to use Combination more often than before.”

A Combined elemental only cost the upkeep of one, no matter how many were part of it. This made Combination not only a superb tool to put a stronger piece on the board, be that to equal the playing field with an otherwise stronger opponent or to exploit the specific power of one combination, but also to give John’s mana pool some additional breathing room.

“Uh! Uh! Can we use five-kinds?” Sylph asked.

“Let’s stick to four or lower.” John shook his head. Aside from the cooldown, being a week shared between all five-kinds and a month between the uses of a specific one, John was wary of the whole ‘may be difficult to control’ warning. He had read the descriptions of all six of them and it was clear which ones would be the rebellious ones. As it usually was, those were also the damage dealers in the crowd. “We’ll mostly use the reliable two and three kinds. Smlere, Sylfrena, Shadowflame, Staran and Edge, their powers are useful in general combat. Everyone else we’ll Combine as is appropriate for the situation and environment. Although we’ll mostly stay away from Stirwin Combinations, because it’s less effective to get rid of his mana cost. Alright?”

“”Alright,”” the elementals responded as one.

“Okay then, here’s how we’ll engage with that pack…”