Any Class Introducing Spell Cycles

ok so if you read those 2 threads i made like 2 nights ago and wondered "hey what happened to those" they were complete clusterfucks which mislead and didnt even present the point i was planning on making at all
sorry for wasting your time with those, now im here with the real deal

ok so chances are youre following a vaguely guessed amount of necessary mana and int when making a build, those being the minimums or 68 int and 7 mana regen (you wouldnt accept a spell build with either being under those would you?)
that's because youve been making builds for free-form spell casters. low-minded fools who dont budget their mana usage and instead cast random spells whenever they feel like it. disgusting.
so im here to show you a new style of casting spells, which will allow for builds with as low as 1-2mr to be viable


CYCLE BASED CASTING
it's based on 2 concepts, mana cycles and spell cycles
mana cycle: how much mana you gain in 4 seconds (natural mana + mana regen/steal) these exist for all spell casting
spell cycle: a spell combo you use in-game (arrow bomb, arrow bomb, arrow storm for example) this is what separates cycle casting from free-form

i'd suggest approaching the style by first figuring out your spell cycles
on mage, i'd use spell cycles like meteor, meteor, ice snake for basic damage or ice snake, teleport, heal for crowd control and surviving
here's the build i'd like to use, it has 4 mana regen (ignore steal for now) so it has 9 mana cycles when you add natural mana to it. is that enough to support my 2 spell cycles mentioned above? 2 meteors cost 6 mana, and the ice snake after will have an increased cost of 3. that's 9 in total, this spell cycle is supported by my mana cycles. the other cycle, snake, teleport, heal costs 6 mana, leaving 3 over. that's enough for me to add another spell to this cycle, or i can choose to waste it to make up for any mistakes i might do


ok but is any of this worth the time? check this build. it has similar int with 16 mana regen, allowing you to constantly spam meteor, meteor, meteor, [other spell] (13 mana cost) without ever running out of mana. so now you can cast an extra meteor compared to the previous build, thats a massive damage increase.
i wont use the inferior tankiness as an argument as it can likely be fixed by optimizing this particular build

wtf kurre you just completely shat on the playstyle youre trying to promote. yeah it's weaker when directly comparing damages, but the main thing about cycling is it allows you to get by with very low mana income (which can in most cases be improved at nearly no cost lmao)

so whats the main point of cycle-based spell casting? it makes your brain feel bigger and let's you understand that much lower mana than what youre used to is viable even in free-form builds

 

The problem is that a lot of people aren't aware of the natural mana regen. I already know that tons of people use spell cycles, but they don't base their build around it, along with Mana cycles (because they don't know the natural mana regen). As a result, you end up with many builds that have an excess of mana with people using spell cycles but not even thinking about mana cycles

 

thought about cycles more and figured some neat things
you can calculate spell dps if you use cycles, since if you spell cycle uses bomb bomb storm for example, you deal the total of those in 4 seconds
heres a high spell spam build that works with cycles, let's use it as the example build. since the int is so high, we can fit in an extra bomb and use bomb bomb bomb storm (11 mana) as the basic damage cycle. so thats 3x bomb damage (3*13429=40287) and a storm (32359) which totals to 72646 damage, spread over 4 seconds so it's ~18.1k dps
i also figured since the cycles i'd use the most with this build are all 11 mana but it has a bank of 12, you can buy a 3/4mr spring and save quite a bit of le

 

Whats the point about these cycles? Yes, you should alternate between spells to reduce mana cost, but this mechanic should be common knowledge by reaching endgame, I'm pretty sure almost everyone is aware of it and therefore does it this way. But alternating doesn't require you to to use specific cycles, it can be applied to free-form casting equally well without adding unnecessary restrictions. Free-form casting doesn't has to mean that you "cast random spells whenever you feel like it", it means to cast a spell because its useful in a specific situation, not because its the next on you cycle-list. Although most of the time you will still end up with meteor, meteor, (meteor), ice snake against bosses if you are in a safe situation, as this is just the most effective way of dealing damage.
And for the time management: You don't have to plan within four-second-intervals in which you consume as much mana as you regenerate, as long get you remaining mana low enough that you don't waste mana the next regen tick, everything is fine. Thats why your total mana regen doesn't has to equal your cyclecost, because you can spare additional mana. So overall, as long as you alternate between spell and don't waste mana during regeneration ticks, I see no reason for using strict spell cycles over free-form casting.
Normally I like to look at games in a more mathematical way, but this concept seems to complicate things that don't have to be. Just follow one simple rule:
As long as you alternate your spells and cast them fast enough to prevent your your mana regen, including natural regeneration, from exceeding your mana limit, the amount of spells you can cast is strictly proportional to your total mana regen.
(As a result of this, as some people are unaware of the natural regen, this leads to the problem you pointed out of some people underestimating the potential of low mana regen builds. 9/4 mr might seem to be much more than 2/4 mr, but 9+4 is "just" twice as much as 2+5, resulting in "only" twice the damage.)