Aether

Description
Gain Defense equal to your current Mana.

Strategy and Synergy
One of the weaker boosting artifacts. It's inconsistent. That's the problem Aether has. It can't keep up with the amount of Defense granted by and  and relies on the player having a high amount of, making it sometimes weaker than.

Early in the run where matters, since the player doesn't have a good source of  to reduce the amount of damage the player takes, nobody finds Aether, since it's an epic artifact. Other artifacts like and  are more common. Even if the player finds Aether, it's probably not that strong early in the run, giving only small amounts of, since the player doesn't have a lot of and.

Later in the run, the player most likely has higher and, letting Aether give more. But doesn't matter later in the run, since then the player most likely has a good source of, making  pretty much useless. can affect only when the player has. Getting both of those artifacts in the same run is possible, but Aether is especially hard to find in normal runs.