Meditation & Mana

This page explains mana — the resource that powers spells — and how to recover it, both passively and with the Meditation skill. It is written for casters who want to spend less time standing around and more time casting.

What mana is

Mana is the energy spent to cast spells. Every Magery spell has a fixed mana cost that rises by circle (see the spellbook overview); other schools spend mana too. When you cast, mana is deducted; if you do not have enough, the cast fails with “Insufficient mana for this spell.”

Your maximum mana scales with Intelligence — the higher your Int, the larger your mana pool and the more spells you can cast before resting. See Character & stats for how Intelligence and the other stats work, and the stat cap (225 total across Str/Dex/Int — see shard caps).

How mana regenerates

Mana comes back on its own over time — passive regeneration. The base rate is slow. Three things speed it up:

• Meditation skill — even when you are not actively meditating, having Meditation skill increases your passive mana regeneration (the “passive meditation” benefit).
• Active Meditation — invoking the skill to enter a trance regenerates mana much faster (see below).
• The Focus skill — Focus adds passive stamina and mana regeneration, and unlike Meditation it works regardless of what you are wearing or holding. It stacks usefully with Meditation for hybrid builds.

Armor matters: heavy/metal armor reduces or blocks mana regeneration (the “medable armor” rule, below).

Active meditation: step by step

Active meditation puts your character into a trance that recovers mana quickly until it is interrupted. To meditate:

1. Stand still and stop any other action.
2. Make sure your hands are free — a weapon in hand blocks meditation. (A spellbook or runebook is allowed.) On our shard, if you are holding a non-channeling weapon you are told “Your hands must be free to cast spells or meditate.” (Source: Meditation.cs CheckOkayHolding — Spellbook, Runebook, and SpellChanneling items are permitted.)
3. Make sure you are not wearing meditation-blocking armor (see below). If your armor blocks it you get “Regenative forces cannot penetrate your armor!” and the trance fails. (Source: Meditation.cs checks RegenRates.GetArmorOffset(m) > 0.)
4. Invoke the Meditation skill — open your skill list and use Meditation, or trigger a bound macro/hotkey.
5. On success you see “You enter a meditative trance.” and your mana climbs rapidly. The chance to enter the trance improves with higher Meditation skill (and is harder when you are nearly full on mana). If it fails you see “You cannot focus your concentration.” — simply try again. (Source: Meditation.cs OnUse: trance chance derived from skill vs. missing mana.)

If you try to meditate while already at full mana you are told “You are at peace.”

What stops a meditation trance

The trance ends when you:

• Move (take a step), or
• Take damage, or
• Take another action (cast, attack, pick something up) — meditating requires you to be busy with nothing else; the skill refuses if you currently have a target cursor up (“You are busy doing something else and cannot focus.”).

Because of this, meditate in a safe spot away from enemies.

The medable-armor rule

Meditation (active and passive) is reduced or blocked by armor that is too heavy or metal. On our shard the active trance checks an armor offset and refuses entirely if that offset is above zero — heavy/metal armor stops it cold (Meditation.cs -> RegenRates.GetArmorOffset). Lighter, “medable” materials (such as leather and cloth) let meditation work. The exact per-piece thresholds and which materials count as fully medable are unverified here; the practical rule is:

Wear light, non-metal armor (leather/cloth, or other “medable” pieces) if you want to meditate. Plate, chain, and other metal armor will choke your mana regen.

The Focus skill is the workaround for warriors who must wear heavy armor: it regenerates mana passively without the armor restriction.

Managing mana cost

Even with good regen, mana is finite in a fight. Practical habits:

• Match the spell to the job — don’t open with an 8th-circle spell when a 1st-circle one will do. Lower circles cost far less mana.
• Carry reagents generously; running out mid-fight is as bad as running out of mana.
• Raise Intelligence to enlarge your mana pool (see Character & stats).
• Rest between fights — step somewhere safe, free your hands, and meditate back to full before re-engaging.

Tips for mage builds

• Wear light armor (leather/cloth) so you can meditate, and keep Wrestling as your defensive melee skill — it lets you defend yourself with empty hands, which also keeps hands free for casting and meditating.
• Train Meditation high for both the passive regen and a reliable active trance.
• Add Focus if your build sometimes wears heavier gear or you want extra stamina regen.
• Use the gaps between fights to meditate; treat mana like ammunition you reload while safe.

For how casting itself works — invoking, targeting, fizzles — see Spellcasting. For training the skill, see Meditation and skill gain.