#0 - Feb. 28, 2008, 11:38 p.m.
So I tested it. They didn't forget. But, it did raise an interesting question for me: What rank of Mana Shield is going to be the "best" rank to use? After all, it's a fully spammable spell. The answers are not clear cut, by any means, but see below for some basic conclusions and a table of the data I gathered.
Rank Cost Dmg. Absrbed Total Cost Actual Absrbed Absrb:Mana Coefficient
---- ------ ------------ ---------- --------------- ---------- -----------
1 40 120 280 460 1.64 .264
2 60 210 480 632 1.32 .327
3 80 300 680 805 1.18 .392
4 100 390 880 977 1.10 .409
5 120 480 1080 1150 1.06 .520
6 140 570 1280 1291 1.01 .559
7 155 715 1585 1436 0.91 .559
Some brief conclusions, and things I'd like to draw your attention to:
-- Rank 6 and Rank 7 have the same coefficient -- rank 6 isn't penalized. With that in mind, it's probably always better to use rank 6 over rank 7. Rank 7 will absorb an extra 145 damage (and cost an extra 15 mana on the initial cast) but that entire 145 damage is going to going cost you 2 mana per damage to absorb. Not worth it.
-- Rank 1 is the best bang for your buck. It'll absorb an insane 1.6 damage per mana you spend on it (keep in mind this varies based on your actual +damage, but regardless of how much you have it'll still be the most efficient). Unfortunately, it's total mana absorption In PvP gear will probably be around 400 mana absorbed. This makes it a great companion to Ice barrier, something to use when you already have another shield up sot hat you can get extra shielding at an affordable cost -- and a /castsequence reset=22 Ice Barrier, Mana Shield (Rank 1) macro might well be in order -- however because of it's low damage absorb I doubt it can really stand alone.
Also keep in mind that Rank 1 bears a *hidden* cost that is spent in Global Cooldowns. It's great for stacking with ice barrier simply because it won't leech out all your mana, but if you are actually using mana shield because you need it to stay alive, rank 1 is definitely not the one to use -- 400 mana isn't going to save your life and you're going to want a bigger shield for that.
-- With those 2 previous things in mind, there's no clear "winner". There is, however, a clear loser: Rank 7 -- and a clear gain in utility for rank 1. Perhaps somewhere between rank 1 and 6 is a sweet spot that most mages will eventually come to agree upon, or perhaps rank 1 will be the one you keep up frequently, while rank 6 will be the one you cast when "Holy crap I'm gonna die". I'll leave this up to other mages to debate/argue.
-Faxmonkey
