About the imbuements of vampirism and mana leech: Is it better single target or AoE to recover the most?

Question

So I have been doing some tests on my own, because I always thought that AoE was better even with not that many creatures around. Seems like I have been wrong all these years.

I did my tests on my RP using normal bow and normal crossbow, and 1 powerful vampirism and 1 powerful void imbuement. 

First I tested the difference when I attack a wyrm, which I don't Hs, and a cave rat, which I do hs, with crossbow:

	Crossbow and spectral bolts
1 Wyrm (3 hits)	600 hp = 150 life + 48 mana
	596 hp = 149 life + 48 mana
	840 hp = 210 life + 68 mana
1 Cave Rat	30 hp = 227 life +73 mana
	30 hp = 203 life +60 mana
	30 hp = 142 life +46 mana

So, what I see, and I hope someone correct me if I'm wrong, is that you steal hp and mana according to the hit that you would be dealing to the creature if it had more hit points.

Next I checked the differences on cave rats but using bow and crossbow, single and multiple target:

	Crossbow and spectral bolts	Bow and diamond arrows	Total life and mana gain
1 cave rat (single target)	30 hp = 227 life +73 mana	30 hp = 85 life +30 mana
	30 hp = 203 life +60 mana
	30 hp = 142 life +46 mana
3 cave rats at the same time		30 hp = 40 life +13 mana (to each one)	120 hp  39 mana
5 cave rats at the same time		30 hp = 25 life +9 mana (to each one)	125 hp 45 mana
8 cave rats at the same time		30 hp = 25 life +8 mana (to each one)	200 hp 64 mana

So according to this, it depends on the amount of creatures/players hit by you, would be better to use diamond/bolts.

Someone, better on maths than me, know when the use of each one is better, to maximize the steal of mana/hp?

Comments

im still trying to develop a better answer due the formula used rn isn't being as helpful for me as it should but so far i can half answer this (and take into account this dilemma is only for paladin):

Your leech will be better in aoe as long as your total damage were higher than your target damage, since paladin is the only vocation that have an ammo that reduce its total damage but increase its area damage significantly then you should take into account how much damage you will do with your target attack and compare it to the damage done with aoe attack, so far a close approximate is that an spectral bolt shoots equals the damage of a diamond arrow that lands in 3 enemies, so is almost safe to say that as long as you deal damage to 3 targets you will end leeching almost the same (slightly more, slightly less) per turn than with target attacks, more than 3 is almost always more leech (based on the resistances of the foe).

Answer 1

When you attack with aoe attack You will get maximum mana/hp for single damaged target. Basically the higher dmg You will deal to the monster more hp/mana You will get no matter how You will deal it (single target or aoe).

Answer 2

I think i finally can answer completely this, with a friend some months ago we started calculating ourselves the formula of mana leech (since the actual one being used is really difficult to be put in practice), we tested damage over several mobs, specially using different kinds of mobs since in a hunting ground we would mostly face at least 2 kind of enemies which mostly have different resistances, all this lead us to think about a formula that could be used without us knowing which would be the average damage on different mobs, so after some struggling we found a constant that allowed us to develop a "base" formula useful in every scenario with mana leech:

Out of a powerful Void imbuement we will leech 8% of our damage dealt +1% per each extra creature divided between the quantity of creatures, which would end like this: (leech%+ (creatures-1)%)/Creatures:

 

Quantity of creatures	Leech per creature (based in the damage dealt to each)	Total Leech (based in your total damage dealt)
1	8%	8%
2	4.5%	9%
3	3.333%	10%
4	2.750%	11%
5	2.400%	12%
6	2.167%	13%
7	2.000%	14%
8	1.875%	15%
9	1.778%	16%
10	1.700%	17%
11	1.636%	18%
12	1.583%	19%

That said, the answer to the question is: the lesser ammount of creatures the higher the leech per individual, the higher the ammount of creatures the higher the total leech in a single turn, but all this is based in the total damage that dealt. So:
 

1. The leech is based in the damage that you were supposed to do to each creature based on their resistances but not taking into account their actual/max hp (so would leech the same out of a creature with 5 hp than with a creature with 2000 if these have the same resistance).
2. Paladin is the only vocation that must choose between target or aoe damage of the same nature completely, so their damage is reducted if we compared diamond arrows against spectral bolts, for a diamond arrow to leech more in a single turn than an spectral bolt it would need to deal higher total damage, roughly after landing in 3 targets with similar resistance a diamond arrow will be doing similar or higher total damage than an spectral bolt, so in paladins case if there is less than 2 creatures, a spectral bolt will leech more than a diamond arrow, higher than that and a diamond arrow will be outperforming the spectral bolt due the similar damage + extra leech bonus.
3. In mages case, The higher the ammount of targets hit with an aoe damage, the higher the leech obtained, while their damage with sudden death rune depends on the different resistances but will most likely follow the same pattern than auto attacks from paladin (creatures > 2 = higher damage from aoe).
4. In knights case, they dont have to choose at all, their target attacks wouldn't have reduced damage even if using cleave, and their rotation is more likely based on aoe spells so the higher the ammount of enemies they attack with the same spell, the higher the leech for them, annihilation being used only when there are lesser than 3 enemies.

TL;DR: Leech is based in your damage dealt per creature, as long as the sum of your damage dealt per creature were higher or equal than your single-target damage you will be leeching more from aoe in a single turn; however will be lower leech per individual creature.
Source: 
Test made personally (Special Thanks to Gred from TibiaWiki team for helping me creating and testing the formula)