Spiritual Line Duration Increased (Stealth?)

[iamweaver]

Your argument might make sense if all that SA did was regen mana - but it doesn't...

[Kanan]

But the prime purpose & use of it is for mana regen.

How many of your tanks/pure melee/rangers almost always click it off, virtually a half second after you cast it?

Looking at it for mana regen is basically the only consideration I can think of.

Yeah, its got hp regen that stacks with every-bloody-thing.  /shrug.. regen will speed up down time a lil bit, but in general its not that useful mid-fight.  Rather than try to regen hps, I'll just throw heals on myself & then regen the mana.

You can sit & med up mana if you run out.  If you run outa hps, u gotta go to the lobby & summon & rez ;p

[Essant]

I'm not saying those fights arent a joke -- they are a joke, and thats kind of the point.  They are less than an hour from formation to kill, then we move on to the next on and rebuff anyway.

Seriously I dont know why this is so hard to figure out.

1.  Potential bonus - you may not have to recast SA nearly often over the course of a long outing - this has the potential for being a bonus SOME of the time.
2.  Detriment - it now cost 900 mana to cast SA, regardless of whether it is going to be recast often or not independant of the encounters - this is a detriment ALL of the time, regardless of the situation.

Net effect = detriment .. period, end of story - no questions asked.

OK so maybe out of all the fights we do increased duration is a benefit .. Queen Sendaii is one of them.  Don't know about demi-plane yet -- ill tell you later this week.

[Biagdaddy]

I solo and I raid in a Time/Qvic Guild. I absolutely love this duration change. I have experienced no issues with low mana using this spell in either my solo or raid encounters.

[Tastian]

"VoC costs 44% more than SA, however it [initially] gives 122% more mana. SA in it's current form regens mana at half the rate of VoC, but the casting cost is close to 70% of VoC."

The VoC/SA arguement doesn't really fly though because enc have always buffed mana regen better than us.  I mean look at kei verse old SP.  They also get SCRM and we simply don't.  An enc has always buffed better and you haven't shown reason why they shouldn't or why our mana regen buff should be about on par.  This would be akin to me showing our dots verse necro dots and going "see", uhhh yeah the numbers are right, but you still haven't shown them to be relevant.  Also take a look at another mana regen buff, steeloak...

Now the hp/ac/etc some can easily argue are more useful than the +hp, or +mana on enc/bst buff, but look at the ratio of mana to cost.  Base it comes in at 2210 mana for 1h 40m, for 9 mana per tick.  That means it gives back 9k mana base.  Divided by cost is ~4.07 ratio.  Base of SA is 900 mana for 1h 12m at 10mana per tick.  That's 7200 mana at a ratio of ~8.  The ratio on the enc mana buff works out to ~12 base just for the record.

Also could you please explain to me why you skew the durations?  I mean the enc buff naturally lasts longer to begin with, and in most situations a bst would just recast to make up the difference.  Yeah a buff that gives more mana and lasts longer is going to give more mana over it's duration again that's fact that still hasn't been shown to be meaningful to the discussion.

I'm going to say this one more time because it's the focal point of this arguement that everyone againist the change seems to be totally missing...

*THE CHANGE TO SA RAISED THE MANA COST BY 359 MANA AND THE DURATION BY 27 MINUTES*

That is the only change to the spell.  People keep throwing out numbers that were true before the change.  I mean in case no one noticed enc out buffed us on mana regen before the change.  In case no one noticed our pet cost mana before the change.  In case some didn't notice SA originally cost 531 mana *BEFORE THE CHANGE*. 

What people againist this change have to show is that the addition 359 mana(the only thing that changed cost wise) is proving too detrimental to offset the benefits of the increased duration and utility.

Let me help a bit by putting that into perspective.  A totally solo bst without any FT, any mana regen AAs, anything other than sitting down and having SA going will now have to spend ~one extra minute "medding" if they so choose to be caught back up to where they would be before the change.  Yes they might sit for 7 total or 11 total or 3 total, but only one of those minutes is because of the change, everything else would have been there before.

Now for a "raiding" bst that refuses to use a mod rod, doesn't have an SK, doesn't pop perfection, just sits there with buffs/FT/mana regen maxed they have:

~25(sitting) + 4(AA) + 20(FT) + 10(SA) + 20(enc) + 9(dru) + 22(brd) ~110 mana per tick regen, that means they have to sit down for ~20 seconds extra per cast of SA.  Even with a full raid of 12 groups(lots of raids can't even be this large).  You are talking about 4 extra minutes.  This totally ignores mana effects as well and means you are the only bst doing this. 

Also note that a bst still spends less mana than clr/enc/dru when recovering from a wipe in every scenario I've ever seen shy of something obviously skewing things toward one class(such as one class using MGB and one not).

I am still trying to get some changes to SA, and I honestly would kinda like the mana cost to go down some.  I had hoped we'd see a small efficency gain in addition to the duration, but that didn't happen.  However, some people throwing out flawed data and skewed scenarios aren't doing anything except making this community look bad.  If you think 359 extra mana(max, no focus, etc) is crippling then please show it.  Don't show efficency of enc buffs because we lost that before.  Don't show me pet costs because we had to make pets before.  Don't talk to me about thousands of mana spent doing a full infusion/focus/celerity/fero/pet/regrowth/etc cycle because we did all that before *EXCEPT FOR THE 359 EXTRA MANA*.  Some please show that mana being such a wild and crazy nerf verse the duration and I'll copy/paste the arguement to the devs myself because the fact remains even though I'd like the mana cost to go down I still can't offer compelling evidance to support my request.  359 more mana per cast, max, that's what you need to show.

[hakaaba]

I'd still like to see them make it 11 per tick or reduce the mana cost because in my opinion, the spiritual line's progression didnt make sense either before or after the change.

[Nusa]

Tacyttik, you seem to be under the impression that there are 6 ticks per minute. It's always been 10 ticks per minute, so far as I can recall. Your numbers skew the math by under-reporting the total benefit while keeping the cost the same.

As for bonuses, I consider the Prayer Shawl readily available...that's a 20% focus for SA. Of course, you have to be willing to do velious-era quests.

[Tastian]

hak -  11 would be nice and I bring it up from time to still.  The thing some people miss is SA's progression was always poor.  I mean a static +2 return on an upgrade is still a % downgrade each time.  Going from 3/3 to 5/5 is ~67% boost, then going to 7/7 is only a 40%, 9/9 makes it ~29, 10/10 puts you at ~11%, 11/11 would still only be ~22%.  Still the worst gain yet.  Of course, we have to also keep in mind that sony did feel mana regen was very high.  Other classes saw smaller gains in their mana regen too.  Of course, you've got the AA's and stuff that raised it so some ponder just what sony had in mind hehe.  I fear that this is just one of those cases where it's now where they want it and we'll have to wait for an upgrade or some content changes to really see a boost to it again.  *shrugs*  Still worth a shot though hehe.

[Kanan]

I feel that we can make a good case for increasing SA's mana regen.  They have given all true casters Gift of Mana, that at level 3 fires with great regularity.

Introducing this has shown to me that mana regen is not the dire concern that it previously was, because this is permitting massive conservation of mana.  A decently focused core fire landing for over 10k for the mere cost of 1 point of mana.  And if you look at the new one.. there's a reason why the wizard rune disc for warriors (wizard gets summoned & eaten, saving the warrior a hit for a round or 2 ;p) is getting a lot more use now than it had been... and why i amazingly saw a wizard get rid of his ele pants, since concussion doesn't seem to have sufficient impact now.

[Shieara]

Actually, I'd rather see them leave the mana cost and mana regen the same, but add endurance regen to the mix.  Afaik that would be something unique that we could have.  But of course that has been shot down in the past so...

[tacyttik]

Doh, I did goof up and put wrong #s, fixed those. (VoC does 222% more than SA.) And yes Tast, I had realized that comparing us to enchanters was a flawed arguement, because they're supposed to be better with mana buffs. But there's no other class that has a buff quite like SA, one that buffs mana without a HP buff, or is a song. And never did I say I wanted us to be as efficient as enchanters, that would be unfair to them.
If we wanted to make an arguement about casting cost needing an adjustment, or better, the spell itself, we could just simply say that the previous upgrades were 100 mana more per cast, and 2/tick upgraded. SA however was still 100 mana more, but only 1/tick upgraded. Therefore the spell needs to be adjusted to 11/tick, or decreased in mana cost.

[rdahl]

As for bonuses, I consider the Prayer Shawl readily available...that's a 20% focus for SA. Of course, you have to be willing to do velious-era quests

Prayer shawl is a up to lvl 65 focus (IV) -10% per lvl above 65, SA is a lvl 69 spell, focus bonus is 12% which is 3% less than the DoN purchased EE V focus aug available.  Casters have EE foci (under different names) available up to 30%, I don't believe Beasts have one over 15% available but would love to be proved wrong.

[Sharrien]

Actually, Zephyr of Brell is 20%

[tacyttik]

Yes, zephyr is 20%, as rdahl said (its the focus on the prayer shawl).

Increase Spell Duration by 20%
Limit: Max Level(65) (lose 10% per level over cap)

66, 67, 68, 69, that's 4 levels, 20 * 10% = 2%, 2% * 4 = 8%, so at level 69 it is a 12% extension, exactly as rdahl said.

[Dummkopf]

Well, if youre into tradeskill armor you could get 30% buff extension:

MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE AUGMENTATION
Augmentation type: 12
Slot: HEAD ARMS WRIST HANDS CHEST LEGS FEET
AC: 45
STR: +7 DEX: +7 STA: +7 CHA: +7 WIS: +7 INT: +7 AGI: +7 HP: +210 MANA: +210 ENDUR: +210
SV FIRE: +16 SV DISEASE: +16 SV COLD: +15 SV MAGIC: +15 SV POISON: +15
Spell Shield: +2% Avoidance: +9 Stun Resist: +2% DoT Shielding: +2% Regeneration: +2 Mana Regeneration: +1 Damage Shield: +1
Required level of 70.
Focus: Bulwark of the Dragorn
WT: 0.1 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: ALL

Item Information:
You must use the solvent Class XVIII Augmentation Distiller to remove this augment safely.

Focus is

Increase Spell Duration by 30%
2:  Limit: Max Level(70) (lose 10% per level over cap)
3:  Limit: Spell Type(Beneficial only)
4:  Limit: Effect(Complete Heal (with duration) excluded)
5:  Limit: Effect(Invunerability excluded)
6:  Limit: Min Duration(24.00 sec)
7:  Limit: Effect(Reaction Radius excluded)
8:  Limit: Combat Skills Not Allowed