Downranking gone in WotLK

Elwood

Elwood

New Member
Per Zarhym:

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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I can still see certain instances of downranking occurring until they take out the option to even do it.

One example is any spell with a shorter casting time at lower ranks. frostbolt rank1 still slows as effectively as frostbolt rank 12, but takes only ~1/3 the cast time. Healadins have similar positve effects from chain-casting rank1 heals to keep a buff on the target.

I suspect that alone will retain the viability of downranking in PvP and BG. Only time will tell, I suppose.
 
As a healadin, you will not be chain-casting rank 1 holy lights as they will cost as much if not more mana then the highest rank and will only heal for a fraction of the max rank holy light. So will just be wasting mana at that point.

Holy Light Rank 13 costs 29% of base mana and heals for 4888 - 5444 in contrast Holy Light Rank 1 costs 34% of base mana and heals for 50-60. Given the cost, which one are you going to spam?
 
ok, I submit to pally knowledge on that. I've never played a healadin...just listened in the raid/healer channel. I still maintain the frostbolt effect :) it's the difference between your target getting away before the frostbolt is cast and slowing them long enough to nuke them.
 
You are most likely right about Frostbolt being reason #1. There are two spells I consistantly down rank as a Pally, lvl 1 Consecrate (to try and catch stealthing rogues/druids) and Holy Light to keep Lights Grace up during boss fights in PVE so that when I need to throw a big heal it is ready. Holy Light, Flash of Light, FoL, FoL, FoL, FoL, FoL, HL...
 
Consecrate is instant-cast, so you will probably stop downranking it. Downranking will now be only sensible for cast times, provided they don't normalize cast times (not beyond the realm of possibility). The frost bolt example is a good one. Getting off a lower ranked heal that you know will keep a player from dying would be another possibility if you really knew your numbers and that you could beat the opponent's (pve or pvp) cast. I'm sure there are other examples.
 
When I was a hardcore raider on Stonemaul, almost all of the healers used down-ranked heals to keep the raid going. Higher end gear meant people's abilities did more damage or healing. So naturally, people downranked to get the same effect for less mana.

I think Blizz should work with the downranking system, instead of trying to control it.
 
One of the things that blizzard is doing with the new "no downranking" is that they are trying to work with the new inscribing profession or simply adding new spells that will make up for some of the useful downranks. Examples:

A glyph will allow Frost Nova to be cast for 25% of its normal cost but deal no damage.
A glyph will allow Healing Touch to be cast for 50% of its normal cost, 50% of its cast time, but 50% of its normal effect.
Blizzard is planning to add a Shock spell (tentatively, Wind Shock) that deals no damage but interrupts casting and does a minor knockback, in order to replace the old habit of casting rank 1 Earth Shock to interupt spells.

Edit: I should also mention that there is a glyph that turns Flash of Light into a HoT that heals for 25% of the total effect every 1/2 second for 2 seconds. This would sort of help with the no-downranking aspect, making it much harder to overheal with FoL.
 
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Back before the penalty for down-ranking, it was possible with moderately end level gear to cast down ranked spells which would cost the same as your mana regen and still do pretty awesome healing. Its how I did a lot of things while specced mostly feral with decent healing gear while healing on my druid. No one would really ever notice the spec, as the healing was still sufficient. The main difference between resto and feral for me at the time (pre-TBC of course) was that feral had much worse mana regen. Down-ranking solved that by providing MUCH cheaper spells, with almost all of the benefit.
 
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