Mana cost change to prevent Downranking

[Akasha]

An announcement from Blizzard:

As you may have noticed, in this latest build we have updated spells and abilities using mana. These no longer cost a fixed amount and instead they're a percentage of your base bana, not including any mana increase from Intellect. For the most part this should mean mana-based spells and abilities are costing roughly the same amount as they do in the live game, though there might be some slight changes either up or down. But we have tried to keep them as close as possible to the same mana cost for a level 70 as they are now in the live game.

What will change though is that lower rank spells will lose their appeal. We have made this mana cost change purely to prevent downranking, which is an unintended technique that we were not at ease with. We've previously tried ways to discourage it, but have decided that we'd rather find a solution than continue to find ways to penalise those who choose to downrank. The solution we chose was to make downranking obsolete, encouraging people to always use their highest rank of each spell and nothing else.The highest rank of a mana-based spell or ability will now remain the most powerful effect, but at the same mana cost as earlier ranks.

We're certain that for some people this will cause a period of readjustment. Hopefully removing a few more of the extra buttons you've been pressing will eventually be seen as a good thing; it might also be easier for some people to do their role without having to learn to downrank. We are anticipating such a big change may have some teething problems, perhaps causing balance issues, and we're all set to deal with them as they arise. In the meantime, we appreciate any comments and feedback related to this change.

Source: WoW-Europe.com Forums - Mana cost change to prevent Downranking


** Updated **

"Lesser" heal spells after downranking nerf
If we find that any of the healers is now missing a critical tool from their toolbox (specifically an efficient heal that is good for e.g. topping of a rogue), then that is something we will definitely consider. (Source)

[Theleb]

Ironically, they've chosen to remove one of those hallmarks of "good" healers - to whit, knowing which rank spell to use in each situation (along with which spell itself) rather than mindlessly spamming max rank chain heal (for example).

I have to say it sounds as if Wow is in many ways being reduced to the lowest common denominator...

[Devicus]

Depends, a lot of healers would down rank to control aggro and not mana efficiency, and even when it is efficiency it's preventing overheal rather than healing/mana which blizzard seem to have overlooked. Controlling efficiency with down ranking is a problem blizzard don't want. However the aggro issue (and perhaps lack of ability to adjust efficiency) is one blizzard should address by adding more heals I guess. Any beta testers able to remind blizzard it's about aggro and avoiding overheal too? Give more spells, or cheaper spells and it's fine but otherwise they're asking for trouble. I hope shaman heals end up a lot cheaper.

[Kherien]

I have dwarf-priest who's been retired for 6 months now b/c of overbuffing paladins and shamans and this is final nail to his coffin.
I liked healing and went holy all the way for that single purpose, so down-rank heals were very essential to adjust whatever group and tank combination i got. ( used to help new tanks thru karazhan-gearing)

[snackereen]

Originally Posted by Theleb

I have to say it sounds as if Wow is in many ways being reduced to the lowest common denominator...

It doesn't just sound so....immediately "e-sports" come to my mind *cries*

[Evilums]

If they wanted to fix it this way they could have just done it like they do rouge skills, where all you see is the latest rank skill.

[Sourced]

Kinda makes you wonder why they just don't remove any lower rank spells like they do with warriors and rogues. Also some people noticed that the new ranks where only a small upgrade in damage at a big extra mana cost. Maybe Blizzard tries to prevent people ignoring the new ranks to save mana?

[Darinar]

I almost always downrank Drain Soul to rank 1. I'm just trying to hit them at the very last minute to create that soul shard. I'm not trying to do a whole lot of damage at that point. Rank 1 costs 55 mana vice Rank 5 costing 360 mana. This strategy is fairly mana efficient. Oh well...I guess I'll just have to Tap Life more.

But until Wrath of the Lich King, downranking shall continue!

[Coud]

i think a comment on wowinsider summed up my thoughts nicely

Originally Posted by Cookie McWeaksauce

Son of a bitch. So we healers are going to just have to sit there and wait for our tanks to take enough damage that we're not wasting huge amounts of mana overhealing them. And if we get stunned or they take a big damage spike, then it's wipe time. And this'll be even more dangerous for mages and other classes with small health pools, some of whom will have to drop to a fairly low % of their health before a max-rank heal becomes practical. I guess this means we'll be using our junior heals (lesser wave, flash heal, etc.) more now... so we can still keep people nearly topped-off, but in exchange our overall HpM goes down bigtime.

won't be so bad on trash since we can drink after each pull but god our mana regen better go up or boss fights are going to suck big time.

RIP to:

rank1 Earth Shock for CS duty (shammy)
rank1 (Any AOE) for detecting rogues / killing snake traps
rank1 drain soul to create shards

[Rleab]

So uhh..... what about mana based classes that aren't chain stacking mass amounts of intelligence? Paladin tanks for example...their mana will be very close to base mana comparatively. Are they going to suffer horribly from this change?

Am I going to be penalized for downranking to save aggro on undergeared tanks? World of Meleecraft...