I just got some armor that includes 7% mana skin. The LS help section says that mana skin is supposed to "give a % chance that a portion of any damage received may be absorbed into your mana pool, instead of receiving full damage."

I tested for a while to see how effective it seems but I have never seen my mana drop after taking damage hundreds of times while wearing this armor. I checked with normal monsters, EPs, melee, magic but none of this seems to make a difference. Has this mechanic been changed? Is it broken?

Additional info: I tested with my level 65-75 paladin with full and partial mana. The armor is XIV (55) scale.

You think your mana should drop? Damage is absorbed into your mana pool, not drained from it.
From my understanding it is like this:

You have 100 out of 500 mana in mana pool. Mana skin is activated from an attack of 200 and rather than receiving damage of 200 to your health, 50 of the damage is absorbed to your mana pool increasing it to 150, while only 150 of the 200 damage is dealt to your health.

Now I could be way wrong but that's how I've interpreted it.

Interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way. I was expecting something more like D2 energy shield where damage is diverted from HP into mana reducing mana pool but your interpretation is that it diverts from HP but then adds/absorbs to mana pool.

I'll have to test to see unless anyone else knows for sure.

I'd love for some others to chime in, especially people who cast often. I mainly melee so my mana pool is pretty much always full.

I am also curious about the "% chance" and the "portion of any damage received may be absorbed".

I assume that 7% item stat would mean that it will trigger on 7% times hit for damage but have no idea.

Is the "portion of any damage received may be absorbed" a range or static? Is it always 5%, 20%, 50%, etc. or based on char lvl or something else?

I'm not sure why I think this since I didn't test it myself, but I think I looked at some old threads and stuff and it seemed like mana skin gave a chance to reduce damage taken by a small amount (the amount of which is increased if your mana is higher)... I think I speak for almost all of us when I say "it's a trash mod."

Generally the % is actually the chance of it happening. for example critical strike pretty much adds 1% per +1crit.
So the amount is almost certainly static, probably something like 25%, and 7% in this case is the chance of it happening.

Given the whacky damage of mobs, i doubt you'll notice it. However if it did trigger, you'd presume you'd see a change in mana. Wouldn't surprise me if it was broken, ideally would want to test it with 2-3 7%+ mana skin items and get the chance to more like 20%

Depends on how you read it I suppose.

+ % Mana Skin Gives a % chance that a portion of any damage received may be absorbed into your mana pool, instead of receiving full damage


+ % (chance) ... i.e. 7% chance on your item will take effect of the Modifiers specification:

... any damage received may be absorbed into your MANA pool instead of receiving full damage.


Now, this also indicates that your damage is reduced if the % chance activates.

Now as for the amount or total, that is dependent on the damage taken, and what is returned to your mana pool etc.

Hope this makes sense, I kinda don't get it either, but someone mentioned it previously.