I'm playing a Pastamancer (level 8 at the moment), and I found that MP seems to be the limiting factor for me. If I fight enemies that require me to use my most damaging spell, I run out of MP pretty quickly.
All options to regenerate MP that I found so far are rather limited. I can eat pasta, but that doesn't bring me very far. I have a hat that regenerates 2-6 MP per adventure, but that is just enough for the obligatory entangling noodles.
Items to regenerate MP don't seem very cost-effective to me at the moment, regenerating my entire MP pool with magical mystery juice is something I can't afford regularly.
What are some cost-effective ways to regenerate my MP in the early game?
Best Answer
I'm going to approach this from the standpoint of a budget minded ascender. You can achieve most of your MP Regen dreams without fancy Mr Store items, exotic buffs, or access to a wealthy clan's VIP room. A lot of MP regeneration advise is, in the long run, built around inefficient play (from a speed running perspective). But that's ok; when it's finally time to start thinking about such things you will only have very occasional mana regen problems. And that's with fueling lots of buffs.
Familiars/The Star Starfish
The biggest thing you can do to boost your mp-regen is the Star-Starfish Trick. Put simply, this involves deliberately drawing out combat to allow a Star-Starfish to attack the enemy over and over. When it hits, it will convert some of the damage into MP regen for the player. Using the trick is sub-optimal - much of the time in a run you want to be running a Volleyball (+stat gains) or Fairy (+item drops) type familiar. A benefit to his method, however, is that you can get a lot out of it just running the Starfish a combat here, a combat there. You need to be thinking about the following things when setting up to go Starfishing (as it were), for MP:
Damage mitigation: the entire strategy simply won't work if you get killed while doing it. Because you are deliberately prolonging combat, other things equal you are at greater risk. You need to use some combination of bolstered defenses or staggers/stuns (staggers are stuns that only affect the current combat round; stuns last more than one round). Having a higher moxie than the monster level of creatures in the current area will solve the majority of your problems, but isn't always easy. Entangling Noodles - a low level Pastamancer spell you are familiar with) is a major contributor to this combat strategy (in fact, it's a central part of most combat strategies). You won't be able to keep an opponent stunned for most of a longer combat, but it's still nice to keep him from acting as much as possible. Further more, you can intentionally starfish in such a way that you don't draw out combat as long as possible. This reduces your overall mp gains, but can be safer.
The ability to stall. You need to take an action each round but you want to do as little damage as possible, because the more damage you do the less MP there is to gain. An item like a Baby Seal Tooth is a great option (re-usable, does 1 damage per use, available for a clover in run, or a pull). A combat macro will have you doing this most of the time.
A heavy familiar - the more familiars weigh, the more effective they are. Skills that boost familiar weight are high priority for perming for this reason. Amphibian Sympathy - which is passive and always on - is among the highest priority of skills in the game for this reason. On average, a Star-Starfish will generate MP equal to 25% of it's weight per round of combat. Which means that given the right conditions, a cast of Empathy of the Newt or Leash of the Linguini will quickly pay for itself (giving 5 to 10 turns of the buff for 10 or 12 MP in cost). A single combat can often pay for the cost of the buff. That leaves the rest of the turns to be put to more mana regen, or stats/items/whatever you need. Always a benefit. You can always pull familiar equipment if you like, though this is not efficient in a speed run.
Robust foes! This generally is not an option early in the life of a character (both due to lack of resources and lack of ability to handle it), but eventually you will be able to run +Monster Level buffs/items. They make monsters harder but the reward is more stats after combat. A second reward, when fishing, is the potential to get even more mana. At some point in your characters ascension career this starts becoming very relevant. Just be aware of it. Starting with your second ascension, you'll have the option of running +10 Monster Level whenever you want (in Softcore and Hardcore, anyway). You probably won't be able to handle it yet, though.
The extremely elegant combat macro system can easily allow you to do the things you need to do to go Starfishing (as it were). Remember that combats stalemate if you go past 30 rounds. This only wastes an adventure (you still get whatever mana you gained), but those are stats you just lost. Don't let that happen.
A Cocoabo type familiar can be used instead of a Starfish. It's something of a matter of taste. A Cocoabo acts less often, and only has a 1/4 chance to regen mana when it acts. But it regens a much larger amount when it does act. A Ghoul Whelp can give MP (and HP) regen after combat but is otherwise inferior. There is no gaurantee it will act, whereas assuming you aren't 1 shotting monsters you will always be getting some MP from your starfish.
Starfishing is by far the best available option. Where possible, you should supplement occasionally breaking out the Starfish with mp regen equipment that makes sense given your current adventuring needs. You can buy a Starfish hatchling at the mall for cheap, or wait until you have to farm one in your first ascension (the Starfish is an Ascension critical item).
Magic Point Regeneration
The most important thing to realize is that all forms of MP regen stack additively. If you have 3 items equipped that each grant 2-6 mp regen, you get 6-18 per combat, which can quickly add up. There are gear options that are easily available to budget-minded ascenders. Worth emphasizing are Chefstaves (see below), the Collander (which you already have) and other class-specific equipment, Vampire Pearl Jewelry, Witch Wart, and Super-Strong Air Freshener. The latter items are not difficult to obtain if you are doing normal/"Softcore" ascending, as they can likely be purchased in the player mall for cheap and pulled in the last half of day 1 or on day 2 (when you have enough mainstat to equip them). The same goes with Chefstaves; once you perm the skill needed to use them and then you farm them up, you can just pull them in-run as needed. The items I mentioned probably aren't expensive in the mall but I'm not 100% certain about that.
The Mist Cloak gives very small amount of MP regen but you'll get it in run as a Pastamancer. And it takes up the back slot, where it doesn't have a lot of competition. It's a higher level item, though.
As a Pastamancer, you can also summon a thrall. The Vermincelli regens level - 2*level it's level) mana ever every combat. It's not the best thrall in most situations. But for new ascenders he can be a big help.
The Pastamancer skill Transcendent Al Dente gives 18-20 mp regen per adventure for 10 adventures. Amazing, but it costs 1 adventure to use. 1 adventure may not seem like much, but I wouldn't use it personally. Granted, I have dozens and dozens of skills permed and quite a few luxury items. But I think you can get your MP needs seen to without this. Still, this skill is there, in a pinch. There are certainly other buffs and items that can grant MP regen. They tend to be exotic or well off the beaten path, and not worth your time.
Magical Mystery Juice
As a Myst class, you can access this in your guild store. It's 100 gold per item, but the MP gains it gives you scale with your level (1.5 * level + 4-6). I do not recommend purchasing any other form of Mana Regen (soda water, or Doc Galatik). Judicious use of MMJs in-run can be extremely helpful. Galaktick is 17 meat per mp. Soda water averages 17.5 per mp. At level 2, an MMJ averages 12.5 meat per mp gained, and it just gets better after that. A given run will net you somewhere in the low teens thousands of Meat just from rewards and whatnot. Plan on spending a portion of this on MMJs if you have to. I still use them.
Smarter Mana Use
Pastamancers have access to one of the greatest skills in the game: Flavor of Magic. Flavor of Magic allows you to set the elemental damage type of your Pastamancer spells. Most areas in game have a sort of "elemental theme), where most enemies are vulernable to certain elements. Flavor of Magic will boost your damage more than any single other thing. It's generally not a high priority for perming skills, unless you plan on doing spell slinging as your basic combat. In which case, I would get it quickly. It will super-charge your Pastamancer spell-slinging. It does require you to power level to 15 to get access to it, and obviously you need to perm it to easily take advantage of it.
With Flavor of Magic, you can often destroy enemies on the cheap. Two Ravioli Shurkiens costs 8 mp (4 each). With Flavor, and possibly some additional bonus spell damage from equipment, you can often dispatch enemies easily. Without flavor, it might take several casts of Cannelloni Cannon (8mp). Or a Cannon + a Shurkiens suffices where several Cannons + a Mortar Shell, or a Weapon of the Pastalord (35 mp!) are needed. Flavor of Magic + Cannelloni Cannon can easily carry you through an entire ascension.
Increasing your spell damage helps. The easiest ways to do it are: flavor of magic against vulnerable enemies, chefstaves, ascension reward equipment like the Stainless Steel Scarf, and items you can obtain in run or buy at the mall and pull, like the Ankh of Badankh (which randomly comes from jars dropped by mummies in the Pyramid). There are skill which boost magic damage, but they are much lower priority on the perm-list and should not be key part of your combat strategy.
Items that reduce spell casting cost are nice, and it's important to remember that they affect all spell casts. You'll have to judge whether they offer better savings versus the gain from something like a Vampire Pearl Ring. Can you win combat in less than 5 casts? The Vampire Pearl Ring will be better on average. With Flavor and smart combat skill usage, you should be able to. You can always slip cost reduction items on to do summons and the like.
Chefstaves
Chefstaves are a great option to really super-charge your MP regen and also boost your spell damage. However, there are caveats. Chefstaves require a skill to be equipped, and it's generally not a high priority for perming. Also, you need to make the individual staves. In Softcore, this is a non issue; you can farm several of them post-ascension and then just allocate pulls. It's not the best usage of a pull, perhaps, but you only care about this for bleeding-edge speed runs and once you are ready to try to speed run like that you're gameplay experience is going to be very different (we're talking dozens of permed skills + some mr store items being available). In Hardcore, farming up the parts to make a Chefstaff is generally very a inefficient use of your time.
There is no question, though, that a Chefstaff is a very potent item. They boost Mana Regen, spell damage, and each has a unique "once per combat" use. The Mid Tier staves like the Staff of the Black Kettle can make your combats mana neutral when combined with just one other form of regen. The higher tier staves are even better.