• Do Meditation, Focus and Mana Regeneration items stack?
• What armor can I wear and still benefit from Meditation?
• Is Mana Regeneration capped?

Do Meditation, Focus and Mana Regeneration items stack?

Absolutely. As will be shown by both the meditation discussion here, as well as the Mana Regeneration Calculator, you can achieve very high levels of mana regeneration rates by combining the 3.

What armor can I wear and still benefit from Meditation?

All types of leather armor (normal, spined, horned and barbed) and clothes, but not studded leather, bone armor, ringmail, chainmail and plate. The only exception is if the armor has the magic property "Mage Armor" at which point you can wear whichever you want to.

Is Mana Regeneration capped?

As of publish 18, no, mana regeneration isn't capped at all, other than what you can gain from max meditation, max intelligence, max focus, max items and lich form (up to 4.9 mana/second with that).

Mana regeneration has been a very hot topic since Age of Shadows was launched, as it provided another skill for replenishing mana, as well as items that also add to the regeneration rate. So to answer the most commonly asked question first : Yes, all of these effects do stack, and basically, the more the better. Next, we'll go into detailed specifics of exactly how mana regeneration is calculated; it can be a bit difficult to understand, but bear with me, and I'll provide a table of the effects as well.

First things first, we'll start out with meditation (as it is a cornerstone in pretty much any mage template out there); meditations sole purpose is to regenerate mana, through two modes: passive (main use) and active (which is precisely the double of passive meditation rate); the downside is that you have to wear specific armor or the skill is null and void and has no effect. That said, meditation is calculated using two formulas. One for below grandmaster meditation, and one for grandmaster or above:

• If Meditation skill is less than grandmaster: N = Meditation * 3 + Intelligence
• If Meditation skill is grandmaster or above: N = (Meditation * 3 + Intelligence) * 1.1 (otherwise known as a 10% bonus)

Now, to turn that into something we can use, we have to calculate exactly how much mana we are looking at on a per second basis:

• Mana/second = Floor(N / 40) * 0.1 + 0.2 (0.2 mana/second is the mana regeneration rate everyone has regardless of any other considerations) (note: if you're wearing any meditation unfriendly armor, N = 0)

Example: you have 105 meditation and 90 intelligence, so lets determine how much mana you regenerate per second.

Since your meditation is higher than GM, we'll use the second formula and start plotting in numbers: N = (105 * 3 + 90) * 1.1 = (315 + 90) * 1.1 = 405 * 1.1 = 445.5. We will then plot this into the next step of the calculations, and determine how much mana you do regenerate per second: Mana/second = Floor(445.5/40) * 0.1 + 0.2 = Floor(11.1375) * 0.1 + 0.2 = 11 * 0.1 + 0.2 = 1.1 + 0.2 = 1.3 mana/second. Keep in mind though, that only 1.1 mana/second of that is actually caused by meditation, so if you were to go into active meditation, you would gain another 1.1 mana/second.

That was a tad confusing, wasn't it? Well, I'll provide a table for quick reference of mana regeneration rates (including the 0.2 mana/second you gain as base), so you can quickly look up some numbers.

Now that we know how to calculate the mana regeneration based on meditation, we can start adding on to that, and luckily, this is much easier than figuring out the meditation rate. The two main ways to add to mana regeneration, luckily, works very similarly, so we'll start with those, being the skill "Focus", and the item property "Mana Regeneration".

Each 20.0 points you have in focus is equal to the item property "Mana Regeneration 1"; both effects also stack simply by adding them together. Whichever of these you add to your mana regeneration rate, adds another 0.1 mana/second. So, for instance, if you add 60.0 focus and "Mana Regeneration 3" (through possible more than one item), you've added 0.6 mana/second to your regeneration rate. Much simpler than meditation wasn't it?

And lastly, the last three things that can add to your regeneration rate are necromancer spells; the necromancer spell "Lich Form" simply adds another 1.3 mana/second to your regeneration rate and "Vampiric Embrace" adds another 0.2 mana/second (in my experience). The last and final is the necromancer familiar "Shadow Wisp" which adds mana to anyone with low karma in the area, and, in my experience, it adds approximately 0.1 mana/second (in bursts though, once every 10 seconds).

Feel free to use the Mana Regeneration Calculator hosted on the Stratics page for easier access to your mana regeneration rate.

Luckily for us mages meditation (and focus; henceforth, assume focus is included whenever I say meditation) is extraordinarily simple to train. You, literally, have a chance of gaining in meditation every time you gain a point of mana. This means that, as a mage, all you have to do to have a chance of gaining, is lower your mana below your maximum - nothing simpler at all for a mage, as it happens every time you cast a spell. The one and only reservation is that the skill has an anti-macro code attached to it, so you will have to move around (or run for your life) to gain it.

Note: Meditation is 8x8-able.