(Spheres of Power) Mana Sphere Discussion/Advice

[FortuneXVI]

Since I couldn't find much discussion about the new-ish mana sphere online, I thought I'd start this thread. Does anyone have any thoughts on how powerful this sphere is/what are some of the best sphere combos or builds for a specialist in it? The ability to steal spell points and even entire talents seems like a really good concept for a specialist character, maybe an arcanist or something for more versatility?

[StSword]

Well the thing is mana is pretty situational.

For full effect on the offensive end, you need a DM who will send a lot of spherecasters against you, and if the spherecasters have Alien Source the DM might make mana not apply to them.

For full effect support side, you need fellow players who are spherecasters, again, those with Alien Source might not apply.

For offensive side, I can see a few ways so that you aren't at least wasting your time if your target isn't a spherecaster.

Spellshock Admixture feat allows you to use a destructive blast in addition to manipulation or expunge talents, so if you guess wrong you at least shot your opponent with a destructive blast.

The Mind juggle feat allows you to cause targets to lose martial focus instead of spellpoints, so depending on the campaign could greatly increase the number of valid targets for your efforts.

Mana sphere can be included for Champion shenanigans easily enough.

With rituals, you could probably duplicate any spell that manipulates magic.

[Eldaran]

Funny that you mention Arcanist, I had one using the Mana sphere among other things. Since the group had two other sphere casters, I took Magical Conduit and Transfer to fund them with SP and boost their CL. I took the Conservationist drawback since I find burning enemy spellpoints (or spell levels assuming you allow equivalency) to be mostly useless since the average NPC lives about 2 rounds. The best talent by far though was Reactive Shuffle, being able to convert a big nuke spell on your party into positive energy was insane (though that's only at high levels).

Finally, Relinquish Magic proved to be quite useful with Fate sphere Motifs, since you could spread out the spell on multiple targets for free, and let them each discharge it separately. I mostly used it with Empress of Pentacles, to get mega discharges.

Here's the character sheet (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=2136720) if interested, though there's a lot of house rules in effect.