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I didn't realize Battery was so limited.
Still, the PP cost reduction does reduce costs a little and make your PP charge run out that much slower. 1-5 points of PP saved per spell adds up fast if you're casting that spell every turn, like my Acid Balls in a greater undead vault.
I was worried about my Mana stat, so I tried to avoid HP casting. I had like 1200 PP by the time I got to the Mana Temple, so both there and on D:48 it was quite effective to pray for power.
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Casting from HP in the endgame is so popular since the Mana score stops mattering. You don't need to preserve it anymore since the game is soon to be over anyway.
The easy answer is that mana battery is great if you don't have wands. The reason it's a poor answer is that most characters have wands, and all want to both use them and keep them (mana battery doesn't completely lock you out of wand use after all). But if you, let's say, play corruption trap lottery with a spellcaster such as an elementalist, you could probably make use of the extra PP. That is the contrived circumstance under which it is useful. It's much less contrived than it would have to be for stiff muscles.
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My views on mana battery: it's one of the corruptions that makes me go "oh, f*** you, RNG" when I receive it. And I play wizards!
Also, I never cast from HP, that's one of my quirks. I guess I don't want to ruin the beautiful Mana score I built over the game, even if we're at its end. Moving my finger from the Escape key to press Y is also a small nuisance :p
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If you cast from HP consistently from the ToEF to the end of the game, you shouldn't lose more than 1 or 2 points of Mana.
HP casting is ridiculously overpowered.