I have leveled my enchanter to 115 and am now working on AA, and I am shocked at the number of abilities that just stop working once you use a 111 or higher spell. The impact is so severe that you are better off using your old spells until you have bought all the AA (and the adps people you group with have also bought their AA). Here is the current list of spells/AA for an enc that stop working once 111 or higher spells come into play: mesmerization (and similar AA affects) charm pacify Chromatic Haze gift of mana bite of tashani/Proclamation of Tashan tashan's lingering cry (which seems to be capped at 110, a bug) Focus of Arcanum Gracious Gift of Mana Synergy All spell focus AA The first 3 in the list is a game balance decision that I accept, but everything else in the list has no reason to stop working on higher level spells. The worst are the spell focus AA, and affect at least all spell casters. At least for an enc, I am giving up 20% increase on damage until I learn the next rank that includes the 111+ spell. In addition, many of the AA above affect my group. So if they are level 115 max AA, and I haven't bought the above AA, their spells don't benefit from my AA either. This level capping of abilities has gone overboard. And there really is no reason to do so. Usually the next rank is better, even without the level cap. Let's take the most extreme example, synergy. First 10 ranks increase the chance you will proc rank 1 synergy. The next rank procs synergy 2, and the new rank procs synergy 3. Each rank benefits you, regardless of the level of spell cast. However they are level capped. So 1-10 affects 105 and lower spells, 11 affects 110 and lower, and rank 12 affects 115 and lower spells. So the end result is if you get to 115 as a new char, your new spells won't ever proc synergy before you spend a total of 1400AA. Requiring a player to spend 1400 before they ever see a benefit, is REALLY BAD DESIGN. Hopefully, DBC sees this and changes how the AA work both for current release, as well as future level increases.
While this isn't a long-term issue, it makes for a very poor/awkward leveling experience. Keeping track of each level capped AA given how many there are is annoying, and it heavily incentivizes rushing to 115 and grinding out all of those AAs before using any new spells. It becomes even more problematic when considering other group members, as many ADPS abilities are also level capped. At the very least, I think ADPS should work up to level cap + 5. Ideally self abilities and Focus AA would be looked at too, although I know Focus AA were originally intended to slow down caster power gains.
The decision to make some AAs (Focuses being the most egregious) apply to very specific spells while others apply to entire lines as a blanket effect is very confusing and non-intuitive. Especially when the AA rank required to make an AA line apply to a newly acquired spell unlocks at a higher level than the spell itself (looking at you, Knight's Synergy and Thwart).
I ignored spells and AAs until i hit 115 for this exact reason. It was kind of a let down to beat all the hard content before i could use the gear or had a good reason to mem the spells. I wouldn't mind 115 being the cap for 4+ expansions. Level increases like the ones in ToV is like filing taxes.
Agreed, with the way the game has evolved it’s made leveling awkward. There’s so many more class dynamics and synergies than 10 years ago, when you got a level and memmed the new spell. Now, it’s not worthwhile until you have the associated AAs.
This would be a good rule of thumb. If a player is better off not using the new spells they get for a level increase, then the AA design needs to change. AA should be increasing the power even further for a player, not just restoring what they already had.
This has been made even worse than usual with no slot 3 augs being available to increase new spells. At the moment for casters old spells are better than new.
Level increase expansions almost never actually increase the power of the player. E.g. Player gains 5 levels, gets copy&paste spells and AAs that add 0.0000001% to existing stats, HME, DPS, etc. Mobs gain 5 levels, get new abilities that neutralize all player gains, add several million HME. So, basically, every 5 level 'increase' puts players further behind the mobs.
This could all easily be fixed if they just adjusted the focus AAs to work with spell lines and not individual spells (like they were set up oridinally before new spells were added). Having a focus AA work with one set of spells for so many ranks, and then switching and working with only a specific spell is moronic to say the least.
