did try 15% ms staff, got nothing on my mage in arena/well with casting
did try 14% ms robe, got nothing on my mage in arena/well with casting
did try 12%ms charm (main slot) got mana! on my mage in arena/well with casting

so need some help here understanding how mana syphon works, and what it does not work on

Well it only works when you take "Magic damage" so maybe you only got matched up versus a caster monster when you had the charm on?

did try it for about 3 lvls with each item btw, so dont think so, or i was VERY!!! unlucky

well, with a high int char, you take much less magic damage (esp with robes) than other chars, meaning less syphon

an it's speculated that about 1/3 of arena mobs spawned are casters.

if you did this in catas with a char in the back, it would be very hard to get the syphon to kick in..

Not 100% certain, but the amount of damage you take shouldn't affect how much your Mana is replenished.

According to the LS Portal
"+ % Mana Syphon Gives a % chance to absorb a portion of the mana used by an enemy when they cast a spell against you."

And from the most recent update regarding Mana Syphon:
"- Mana Syphon recovery range has been doubled (2 to mana cost)"

From what I gather, if a Monster attacks you by casting with a Charm, and you have X Mana Syphon, it means there's a X% chance you'll gain from 2 Mana, to the Mana Cost of the Charm the monster is dealing against you.
Example: You have a total of 20 Mana Syphon, and a monster attacks you with a Lightning XII - You have 20% chance to recover 2 to 93 Mana. (93 is Mana Cost of Tier XII Charms)
(Of course I have no idea if this is true, maybe X Mana Syphon translates to a X/2 chance. Some testing needs to be done in PvP perhaps to see.)

To answer the OP's question; as stated before, not all monsters attack you through casting with a Charm. It shouldn't matter though, which Equipment your Mana Syphon is coming from either.

This post was edited by Skitty on Jan 14 2010 09:07pm

bump

bumpie bumpie.... iso more info...

you probally vs'd melee monsters which used zero mana to attack

even if mana syphon was a success it would give zero mana

i was on my pally hybrid with my 22%syphon ee axe with empty mana in cata's

with about 50% exp after i was basically full mana again

but ofc this was with a plate armor which have very low magic defense and i received a lot of attacks from different monsters

This post was edited by Djsem on Jan 15 2010 02:36pm

still not clearing this up for me... i want to do arena/wells only

I get mana back from my chain
so it works on armors....