Curse

wankey · Jul 12, 2006, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Guildwars seems to have 5, 10, 15, 25 mana skills, but where are the 20?

Don't understand why Anet didn't put any skills using 20 mana.

Aera · Jul 12, 2006, 10:55 PM // 22:55

1: CALL IT ENERGY, NOT MANA!
2: Does it matter ?

wankey · Jul 12, 2006, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Yes it does matter. you could pop off a 20 mana skill and then another 5 mana skill in the same space of a 25 mana skill.

Drithlan · Jul 12, 2006, 11:49 PM // 23:49

wow he can do math!
but on other note i have wondered that my self.....

Gorebrex · Jul 13, 2006, 12:31 AM // 00:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by wankey

Yes it does matter. you could pop off a 20 mana skill and then another 5 mana skill in the same space of a 25 mana skill.

Depending on casting time of course. Take a look at Chilblains.
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Necroma...uick_reference

volsungxiii · Jul 13, 2006, 12:35 AM // 00:35

Oh for Dwayna's sake stop calling it mana ^_^. No point in having 20 energy skills. Been playing GW forever, and not once I have though "Oh man, I could sure use a 20 energy skill PLUS a 5 energy skill rather than a 25 energy skill". Pointless.

Mercury Angel · Jul 13, 2006, 01:20 AM // 01:20

I've actually wondered it myself, though it seems that the decision was deliberate.

It has nothing to do with 25 energy vs 20 energy by itself. It's a question of whether or not a skill should be higher or lower cost than it should be when it's situated somewhere between 15 and 25 energy effectiveness.

Take Conjure Nightmare, for example. It's a little too good for 15 Energy, but there have been numerous complaints about 25 Energy. You get less than double effectiveness over Conjure Phantasm for over double the cost. That you don't have to take as many degeneration skills is a plus, but you can't spike degeneration, and it's just not really efficient at 25.

People can say, "What's 5 energy difference matter?" until the cows come home, but if Magic the Gathering balance is any indication, even the smallest thing can mean the difference between a competitive skill and a casual skill.

However... There aren't a whole lot of 25 energy cost skills in the game, and most of them are housed in the Elementalist profession, and they have their own issues. So, in the end, despite what I said earlier, I'm going to say while I don't know why Anet decided to limit themselves arbitrarily by refusing to use a step on the energy cost ladder, I don't think it's really that impacting on the game.

Back to the Conjure Nightmare example... Even if it gave 10 degeneration and cost 20 Energy, that wouldn't change a critical problem with it: It's too unwieldy.
Phantasm->Remorse may take up two slots, but not only do they cost less, they're harder to remove being split into two, and cheaper to recast if they're removed. And, they don't have an annoying 1.75 second aftercast which pretty much negates the argument of Nightmare enabling you to spread faster.

But meh, that's just my opinion.

Drithlan · Jul 13, 2006, 09:17 AM // 09:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercury Angel

But meh, that's just my opinion.

YEAH! WHO SAID YOU OPINION MATTERED?!?

The truth itself · Jul 13, 2006, 09:18 AM // 09:18

I concur with Mercury Angel.

bilateralrope · Jul 13, 2006, 10:44 AM // 10:44

What about the skills that cost an energy ammount that isn't a multiple of 5 ?

Or a cast time thats greater than 1 second, but not a whole number of seconds (ignoring fast cast effects) ?

Though the cast times and energy costs are part of a skills balance, so an 8e 2.5 second spell would have to be slightly less powerful than a similar skill of 10 energy, 3 second cast time.

It would just allow ANET to do smaller tweaks when rebalancing the game. So we aren't likely to see it happen unless ANET feels a skill would be best at those untidy energy costs and cast times.

Thom · Jul 13, 2006, 11:30 AM // 11:30

When your tweaking a skill you really don't want to be turning too many knobs. Having 5 energy classes (0,5,10,15,25) allows you to put a skill in a certain catagory and adjusting power, cast time and recharge to fit to the energy cost. That is to say, if Conjure Nightmere was deemed weak they would tinker with power, cast time and recharge.

This allows energy to be exploited more broadly within the game since it really isn't a major balancing tool. While every aspect of the skill can be varied by another skill, energy management plays a key role in all builds. having simple fixed numbers to work from makes energy calculations much easier for players (especially factoring expertise).

Right now the catagories are:
Free
Cheap
Average
Expensive
Very Expensive

Having a gradiant between Expensive and Very Expensive kind of dilutes the impact the "25" has on ones thinking.

Now I would love to see a 50 energy skill that did something entirely insane but within balance. Timmmyyy!!!!

Rieselle · Jul 13, 2006, 11:52 AM // 11:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

Timmmyyy!!!!

You are a kindred spirit!
Where's my all-map radius damage spell dammit!??!

Temeh!!!!

Gorebrex · Jul 13, 2006, 11:58 AM // 11:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

...Now I would love to see a 50 energy skill that did something entirely insane but within balance. Timmmyyy!!!!

Its name is... Leroy Phoenix

Bale_Shadowscar · Jul 13, 2006, 12:15 PM // 12:15

I think it was clever how they did the ritualist skill pain, a 5 energy cost, but a long casting time.

Not sure why they haven't done 20. I'm guessing they didn't do non-multiples of 5 for simplicity's sake, but then the 2 necro elites, Vampiric Spirit and Cultist's fervor increase and decrease energy cost by 3 and 7, respectively.

AquilaI · Jul 13, 2006, 12:17 PM // 12:17

they should make it into a shout

LEEEEEROY JENKINS! :- Gives you -80 armour, but you move 33% faster and inflict double damage

LifeInfusion · Jul 13, 2006, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Well if you want a serious answer only the people at the Skill developing office can give you that.

I have been wondering about this myself. I always thought someone at the skills office couldn't count in 5's and went 5-10-15-25 instead of 5-10-15-20-25...

A more rational answer would be they have some kind of formula that they use for determining energy cost, cast time, and recharge and it involves those 4 values.

Goonter · Jul 13, 2006, 08:32 PM // 20:32

Just a shot in the dark.
5 10 15 and 25 are rounded numbers to the sqaure roots - 2, 3, 4, and 5.
A perfect cost in that case would have been 4, 9, 16 and 25.

gabrial heart · Jul 13, 2006, 08:49 PM // 20:49

Spells are in divisions of ^3x5 for shorter calculations. All damage and healing are also in divisions of .5. It's makes the calculations math simplier at the system level as well as at the development level. A 20 e skill would make the ^4x5 split slightly more complicated.

5,
5+5=10
5+5+5=15
5+5+5+5=20 (is an added calc)
5*5=25

An FPU is going to make the shortest work of calculations possible and 5 is a balance on the tenth scale.

Using all 5'ers could offer direct calcs in under 4 steps (just using #5), lowering programming issues and hardware overhead. This is especially useful when splitting things up with point (.) percentages. You'll also notice that for an rpg, damage and hp points are rather low, which also helps keep floating-point calculations quicker. Which for a global game that may cater to a 100,000+ at a time becomes more a need then just a convenience.

bulletsmile · Jul 13, 2006, 10:19 PM // 22:19

well the we can ask, where's the 30 energy skills? or 27 energy skills or maybe 23,5 energy or 12,39876 energy skills?