How does magic work?

[Cyren]

I'd like to take a minute to share some things I have picked up from various posts and also 'field research'. If you have anything to add or amend, let me know. For our purposes we are going to use shaman examples because I know them the best.

Mana Regeneration:
This is pretty simple, it works using your spirit value. The formula is 17 + Your spirit/5. So if you have 200 spirit, that is 17 +200/5 or 57 mana/tick. The mana regenerates in and out of combat as long as you do not cast any spells. When you start to cast a spell, mana regen ceases for 5 sec after the spell is complete. Therefore if you are spamming spells you will have no innate mana regeneration.

Mana Pool: Very simple, you have a base mana pool that you can increase at each level. You also get 15 points of mana for every 1 point of intelligence.

+Damage/Healing: There are items you can get that increase the damage effect of your spells. An example of this would be a cloak that has +20 damage/healing effect on it. But if you read closely you see that it says "UP TO 20 damage/healing". So how much of that will you actually get? Lets say our shaman has +100 damage/healing spells. The amount of the effect recieved is dependent on Casting time only. Its not random it scales with casting time. If your spell takes 3 seconds to cast, you will recieve 81% of the effect, or +81 damage/healing in this case. Instant cast spells are treated as having a 1.5 sec casting time (40% of the effect), and talents that reduce casting time do not change the effect from damage/healing. An example of this is Lightning Mastery, which reduces the casting time of Lightning Bolt from 3 sec to 2, you still get the +81 damage as if the casting time was still 3 sec.

Also things like lightning sheild and other effects that cause damage or healing can be increased with these same stats.

Critical Spell chance: Spell crits are determined by a simple formula. You have a 5% base chance to crit. You get 1% crit per 100 intel. And you get crit % from talents and equipment.

Example- A shaman with Call of Thunder (6% lightning crit) and ..... (5% on nature spells) with 300 intel and eye of the beast (2% crit) and skyfury helm (2% crit) would have- base + talents + intel + equips
5 + 11 + 3 + 4 = 23% chance to crit with lightning spells.


What would be better, spell crit or +dmg? Well johnny, thats a good question. Lets look at the effect of spell crit and +dmg on your DPS.

Spamming LB with 10% crit chance, averaging 450 dmg every 2 sec...
[450 + 450(1/2)(1/10)]/2 = 236.25 DPS
With improved crit talent...
[450 +450(1/10)]/2 = 247.5 DPS
With +50 spell damage
[{450+(50*.81)}1+(1/10)]/2 = 269.775 DPS
And now finally with 20% crit chance
[{450 + (50*.81)}1+ (1/5)]/2 = 294.3 DPS

So yeah the calculations can get PRETTY involved. But you could calculate this for any spell. If you want me to crunch some numbers for you I can, or you can figure out the math yourself (its just algebra). The calculation is dependent on casting speed, crit %, average damage, and +dmg equips that you have. So the answer to the above question is, you have to crunch the numbers to figure out your maximum DPS.

Thats all I can think of for now, stay tuned for more!

[Buzzkill]

Appriciate that . Ive always wondered how the spell crits worked.

[Kordolin]

Mana Pool: Very simple, you have a base mana pool that you can increase at each level. You also get 15 points of mana for every 1 point of intelligence.

I think mages only get 10 mana for every point of intel, and this varies depending on your class.

Thanks for the info., the 23% crit potential for shaman lightning bolt is pretty cool.

[86er]

[Wasted]

[Wasted]

5 + 11 + 3 + 4 = 23%

[86er]

[Wasted]