Constantly struggling for mana with Cider

I played a co-op session last night with somebody who was playing Brome. Now Brome is a glass cannon arcana slinging machine, but even when I play solo I find that I have a hard time getting enough mana with Cider to use her arcana effectively. In co-op, I cannot keep up with Brome when playing Cider. He was always getting more combo counts than I could.

There are some rituals on the water tree that drop mana on impact, is it better to focus on mana generation with Cider?