I also main changed over this. Losing out on 3 mana every spell cast of a max level spell was too much for me. I must cast about 5 spells per fight. That 15 mana really adds up over time, probably over 1000 mana per hour. I finally decided that was unacceptable and main changed to my rogue.
If the decision has already been made it takes a really tiny amount of time for a Dev to post. If a Dev doesn't post ask around for people to make their best guess.
The Bloodstained shoulders focus will be upgraded to 105 with the launch of TDS. CotF top tier focus effects will also be extended to level 103.
I just want to point out that although melees do get more power from leveling, skills, and new AA it is very very minor and not comparable to t1 spell increases casters should be getting. Casters also get damage increasing AAs unless I am wrong they should be getting more ranks of stuff like nuke crit AA. Anwyays, in my experience the only way to really do more damage as a melee is to get better damage on weapons with good ratios. Everything else is barely noticable.
Why don't they just do that by default? Group and raid top tier scale +3 levels? I only ask, because this isn't the first time this has come up.
Will this include the focus effects on T2 group items (1056 Mark of Valor / Argin & ToR group drops), or is it restricted to slot-8 items?
All foci really should have a few extra levels on the upper end to accommodate acquiring the replacements.
Logical in which way? Really it's logical to extend all of the CotF foci. If that didn't happen, I don't see the argument behind extending group foci but not raid foci.
Higher tiers have naturally higher focii level than lower tiers. So I wouldn't expect CoF tier 1 to be upgraded (not group and not raid). Just group and raid for CoF tier 2. The point of upping the higher tier is to keep that content relevant with a level raise expansion.
They do, they just lose power as you get further and further away. (referenced in here as the foci decay) so your 47-100% raid level damage foci for spell type 'X' at level 100 adds 47-100% damage to all spells up to lv 100. this degrades (decays) ~5% per level over the focused level. as such at level; 101; your foci does 42-95% added damage 102; your foci does 37-90% added damage 103; your foci does 32-85% added damage 104; your foci does 27-80% added damage 105; your foci does 22-75% added damage still works at lv 105, just not as well the reason why t2 group can be seen as not requiring the push to 103 while t2 raid can be is that t2 group is obtainable by doing the t1 group stuff via marks. where as T2 raid level items are not obtainable by doing T1 raid stuff.
Your numbers are off. A 47-100% focus capped at level 100 with a 5% degradation would become thus: 101 = 44-95% 102 = 42-90% 103 = 39-85% 104 = 37-80% 105 = 35-75%
Maybe I'm missing something, but you are getting lessor focus benefit with old gear on new spells which net more damage than the old spells. And with no degradation until 104 level spells with top tier raid gear, the hit isn't going to be that significant on 104 and 105 spells (since the power increase over old spells is going to be a good bump). Just as you gear up, you get an additional benefit of more focus effects on the new 104 and 105 spells. Keep in mind, melee can't buy spells, rank 2s drop in group content, group content weapons will not be replacing prior period raid weapons. Melee focus degradation makes no sense, if a melee character levels up they do less damage with the weapons that were using before? Its not like they can go to a vendor and purchase better weapons than they are using now. Ruven
Wouldn't it be nice if the improvements to the items affected were to appear on them as soon as possible? Wouldn't if have been even better if the items which are now being improved started out with the improvements and noted how they were to work when they were released? This is not a new game, new issue, nor is item creation a new task when producing an expansion. Late changes do not promote an informed and sensible looting strategy. As SOE pointed out when changes were made so disciplines were handled as if they were spells, the changes were a convenience to SOE and would allow for greater variety and easier implementation of disciplines - yet disciplines are not spells. I would imagine distributing them similarly to the way spells are distributed (or more recently identically) falls under that umbrella. The Endurance bar was a new limiting factor in discipline use introduced at the same time. Melee originally did not have that mechanism. One could, I suppose, ask why casters bid on armor as soon as it first drops in new expansions given that melee routinely gets pummeled, casters do their damage at range and in comparative safely, and casters get level 103 armor in level 100 content. But such a question might lack comity.
I suggested a fix during irc chat to increase each classes specific power based off of 1 primary stat... Was told devs weren't able to code this. Woulda fixed itemization a little
