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Old 08-15-2008, 10:08 AM   #1
Ghryphen
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No more downranking spells

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In the latest WotLK beta push, we made a large change to the mana cost of spells. All player spells now cost a percentage of base mana rather than a fixed cost. Base mana is a special value determined by the player’s level and class, regardless of any effects or items that increase intellect. It is the size of a player’s mana pool if the player has zero intellect.

This change was made primarily to prevent downranking, as it's a technique that was never quite intended. Rather than continue to find ways to penalize players for casting low-rank spells, we decided to essentially make doing so obsolete. If rank 5 and rank 6 of a spell cost the same amount of mana, but rank 6 does more damage/healing, then there is no reason to consider casting rank 5.

So, each spell line (eg. Frostbolt, Shadowbolt, Greater Heal, Rejuvenation, etc.) has a fixed percentage of base mana that it costs for most of its ranks. That means each time a player gains a level the cost will go up some. The percentages were picked to attempt to keep the costs relatively similar to what they are currently in World of Warcraft. For most spells, that percentage will drop some when the player receives their highest-rank spell in existing Burning Crusade content. This was done to better fit the existing cost curve, and to keep the mana cost for level 70 players as close as possible to existing costs. Level 70 characters will see most of their maximum rank spells change in cost slightly up or down, but not by significant amounts.

We anticipate there being some balance concerns due to this change, and our development staff will be ready to implement new spells, abilities, or talents to resolve those issues as the testing process continues.
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Old 08-15-2008, 11:26 AM   #2
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Re: No more downranking spells

Umm - Who in their right mind would want to cast a less effective spell just to save mana? If they wanted to prevent people from doing that, why not 'lock' the lower ranking spells? That seems to make the most sense...
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Old 08-15-2008, 12:18 PM   #3
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Re: No more downranking spells

edit: never mind
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Old 08-15-2008, 12:51 PM   #4
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Re: No more downranking spells

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Originally Posted by Spinning Hat View Post
Umm - Who in their right mind would want to cast a less effective spell just to save mana?
When it comes to high-end raiding, the global cool-down plays a big role, as does the length of the fights. Each of your roles wants to maximize their mana/rage/energy so that they are getting the most bang for the buck.

With downranking, it was possible to get a roughly comparable heal (within a couple hundred) to the max rank heal for significantly less mana, which while lowering your short-term healing maximized the overall amount. For example, Tylista at one point could get an extra 5-6 casts of the lower rank of lesser healing wave, which translated to a "free" 10k healing from the same mana pool.

For DPSers, it's quite common to downrank AoE abilities to root out stealthers (mages and rank 1 arcane explosion, for instance). Rank 1 Serpent Sting was also popular with hunters for mana-efficient kiting.

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If they wanted to prevent people from doing that, why not 'lock' the lower ranking spells? That seems to make the most sense...
An interesting question. The real issue I see is that this destroys half the usefulness of Intellect, it used to give you more mana and more crit, now the only one that matters is the latter. In fact, with the way regen works, healers might be better off to minimize their intellect and focus solely on spirit/mp5. The rationale being that if I regen 300 mana per 5, and my mana pool is 6000 then I regain 5% of my mana versus if my pool was 10,000 I'm only getting back 3%. Assuming a heal that takes 2% of the mana to cast, I'm better off from a longevity standpoint maxing out my regen and ignoring intellect.

A very puzzling change to make at this point in the game's development, as it really does completely alter a few equations.
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Old 08-15-2008, 01:05 PM   #5
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Re: No more downranking spells

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Originally Posted by SilverTalon View Post
I regen 300 mana per 5, and my mana pool is 6000 then I regain 5% of my mana versus if my pool was 10,000 I'm only getting back 3%. Assuming a heal that takes 2% of the mana to cast.......
too much math.
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Old 08-15-2008, 01:23 PM   #6
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Re: No more downranking spells

Just for you Stokey:

Assume Shadowbolt costs 1% of your total mana to cast. Now assume that per Life Tap, Stike gets 600 mana. At 6000 mana, you get 10 shadowbolts per Life Tap. If you have 10,000 mana, you'll get 6 shadow bolts.

So...why would you pick up gear with Intellect (i.e. - more mana) if it's going to make it so you get fewer shadowbolts over time? Sure, you might crit more, but you'd have to have a crit percentage around 66% to make up that difference.

This tells me that there are many more changes in store to balance things out, and it just seems kind of dumb to be introducing such a change at this point (as that's a core mechanic they're changing) just to take care of downranking. SpinningHat hit the nail on the head, just remove the lower ranks entirely like they do for melees.
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Old 08-15-2008, 02:39 PM   #7
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Re: No more downranking spells

The spell costs are derived from Base (nekkid) mana. Wearing +int items will not increase spell cost.
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Old 08-15-2008, 06:45 PM   #9
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Re: No more downranking spells

I used rank 1 moonfire to kill totems and to general piss people off in pvp. In the arcane mage talents there are some talents points that can be used to increase spirit and then damage/healing plus by a percent of spirit. I kinda though it was weird but maybe spirit will be re-worked in the next xpac.
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