Mana cost for AA rez.. really?

Why is DBG adding a mana cost for an AA ability that has been in place for years??

Who knows? Nothing they do recently makes any sense.

they been adding mana cost to alot of aa that had no mana cost for years

Would be nice if they gave us a reason. Those mana free rezzes have been in place since lv 80. Why change them now?

Exactly!!

Perhaps they're struggling for AA ideas in the next expansion. This allows them to add more ranks that reduce the mana cost.

All I see this doing is adding more wait time after a wipe.

Force us to use our 1.0's again after a wipe..

Makes no sense, we need help not pointless nerfs. Seriously, what's the incentive to play a cleric anymore? Can't do by yourself.

As someone who does not play a cleric but raids, I have two questions-

1. On average, how many times per event do you use the rez AA?

2. On average, how much mana do you have left over at the end of an event?

Because if you only cast it three times in an event, that is 1800 mana. And if you have a 130,000 mana pool and end an event with 10% mana left, then that means you have 13,000 mana. In which case, 1800 mana has literally zero bearing on you.

But again I am curious for results of others. And obviously the above numbers are nothing more than illustrated examples....

Whole thing is irrelevant, the mana cost of Res hasn't been a thing for 15 years and it won't start being one now. Raid recovery thing is nonsense. 4k mana when you pop at bind, you rez yourself then pop a modrod for Superior Revivescence just like for the last two years. Actual 0 difference. In-event rezzes can't possibly add up to even one of the many mana flow tools everyone ignores.

There are times when I'm chain casting rezz after a death, during a mana drain. I suppose they want to punish us if we aren't in a guild who can just burn past the raid mechanics. I guess they want to turn near wipes into total wipes. Point is it's a pointless annoyance.

There are a couple problems with this change:

1. Rez eats mana if the player doesn't accept it (already has rez box) or is zoning. Since the AA rez didn't cost mana, it was never a real complaint of ours. Since EQ has a lot of TLP servers etc. now, it would be a really nice quality of life change for all clerics, to see rez code changed:

- Rez spells/AA should refresh, without costing mana, if the player is not rezzed successfully.

Since mana cost is calculted at the time the spell completes, this is probably impossible.

However, I think it is possible to do with our AA rez. If AA rez doesn't succeed (if the player already has a rez box/is zoning), the reuse timer resets.

What needs to happen, then, is the mana cost check should be moved to after the AA refresh check.

EQ spells go through a bunch of checks before succeeding: (just guessing here)

Before rez cast starts:

1. Check if spell is usable (not silenced, DA, greyed-out / AA down)

2. Check if target is valid (within range, is a rezzable corpse)

3. Check if mana is available

Cast begins:

4. Check for spell haste/slow

5. Check for mana pres

Cast finishes:

6. Subtract mana

7. Set AA/spell timer

8. Send rez box to player

If player already had box or is zoning:

- Send message: You were unable to restore the corpse to life, but you may have success with a later attempt.

- Reset AA timer but not spell timer (adding a spell timer reset would be a great change for TLP clerics)

If the "subtract mana" step was moved, and only fires if the rez is accepted, that would solve this problem.
Another solution would be to give the player their mana back upon a rez fail (You were unable to restore the corpse to life, but you may have success with a later attempt. = refund player mana)

2. AA's do not get the same focus effects as spells - the AA costs more mana than the spell due to item mana pres focuses.

The spell version costs on average 340 mana, and the AA version costs 406 mana.

Mana Cost = Base Mana Cost - Specialization - Spell Casting Mastery - Item Focus

= 600 - 600 * ((1 + Spec Alteration / 20) / 100) - 600 * 15% - 600 * (11% Mana Pres Avg)

= 600 - 600 * ((1 + 325 / 20) / 100) - 600 * 0.15 - 600 * 0.11

= 600 - 600 * 0.1725 - 90 - 66

= 600 - 103.5 - 90 - 66

= 340.5 (Spell rez average cost)

Without item mana pres:

= 600 - 103.5 - 90

= 406.5 (AA rez cost)

The AA rez is not affected by item focus because the Blessing of Resurrection spell is level 254.

[39794] Beneficial Mana Pres 22 L105
Target: Self
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Focusable: Yes
Casting: 0s
Duration: 3.3h (1950 ticks), Extendable: Yes, Dispelable: Yes
1: Decrease Spell Mana Cost by 1% to 22%
2: Limit Max Level: 105 (lose 5% per level)
3: Limit Spell: Exclude Complete Heal
4: Limit Effect: Exclude Current HP Percent
5: Limit Type: Exclude Combat Skills
6: Limit Type: Beneficial

[12786/12786] Blessing of Resurrection
Classes: CLR/254
Skill: Alteration
Mana: 600
Target: Corpse
Range: 200'
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Focusable: Yes
Casting: 3s
1: Resurrect with 96% XP

Blessing of Resurrection AA has an actual mana cost of 406 (from the 600 base mentioned in the patch notes). Here are the Blessing of Resurrection cast counts (in combat) on a TBM clear a few months ago when we botched an event and every cleric except 1 died 2 times:

Blessing of Resurrection Casts (amount of mana it would have cost now)

Cleric A: 27 (10962)
Cleric B: 19 (7714)
Cleric C: 15 (6090)
Cleric D: 7 (2842)
Cleric E: 6 (2436)

Keep in mind that this is atypical for my guild because we usually don't wipe on anything outside of progression. Personally, my rez cast counts during farming months are probably under 10 most nights because unless a bunch of people around me die or the person dies in my group, a druid, shaman, or paladin armed with a rez stick and in that person's group can rez him before I even know he is dead.

A cleric in a guild that is struggling through content and has fewer druids, shamans, and paladins would have higher rez cast counts. Still, the mana usage wouldn't be too much.

For comparison's sake, here are the Undying Life cast counts for that same clear. Undying Life has an average mana cost (for me) of 4148 (from 8168 base). It's our most expensive heal (though it's better for the max HP buff than the actual healing it provides):

Undying Life Casts (amount of mana it cost)

Cleric A: 20 (82960)
Cleric B: 14 (58072)
Cleric C: 60 (248880)
Cleric D: 29 (120292)
Cleric E: 31 (128588)

Cleric A used more mana in 3 Undying Life casts than it would have taken to rez 27 people (half of a full raid).

I realize that analyzing these mana costs out of context might be misleading (spending mana is a lot easier when you are near full and aren't freshly rezzed with no mana), but we have so many mana recovery tools (VP, QM, Mage Rods, Chandrok's Robe of Darkness, those bottled mana potions, and more) that casting even 10 rezzes with the rez AA after being freshly rezzed wouldn't be too much of a struggle.

The only issue I can see would be during a raid event with mass deaths and a strong, persistent zone wide mana drain effect, as otherwise we have enough mana recovery tools to make rezzing after we die a non-issue. Even in that scenario, we can still use the Staff of Forbidden Rites (Rez Stick) and Call of the Herald AA (though it has a much longer recast time) to get 2 clerics up, then those clerics can use the same tools to get another 2 clerics up, and so on, so all it really does is slow the rez rate slightly.

If it's the beginning of mana costs being added to more AA abilities, that might be more of a concern, but if their goal is simply to increase mana usage (which I am not sure it is) then they will have to go much further than that since most of our abilities are on long recast timers. As a friend mentioned, adding a mana cost might just be a way to make the ability work better in the code or to add new effects to it.

Take your usual raid force.
Chop it in half.
Enjoy.

It's not about the mana cost, 1 or 1000 would make no difference.

I don't understand, what does this mean?

Thats the reality a lot of us live in, trying to do these raids with 1/2 a raid force. You find yourself chain rezzing with zero mana quite commonly. If I was in the top raid guild, casting a Rez once or twice a raid, I wouldn't give a rats about Rez with mana cost. There are times when there are only 4 clerics and I'm 3 of them. Is this change a big deal? No. We will adjust, life will go on, I'm just sick of the reoccurring theme of nerfs. I've been patiently awaiting for them to throw us a bone, maybe some more dps, maybe more survivability, I'd settle for pacify working up to 108.

Half my usual raid force would be 19 players and one alt. Two clerics. ... the clerics aren't boxed, I guess. Are we on the same page here, is that what you're tackling TBM raids with?

That's not too far off, our average is about 35, 3 unboxed clerics, 4 boxed, no wizzies , no chanters

So I shouldn't chop my raid force in half? And this nerf is nigh irrelevant to clericking? NEXT