When leveling in from 1-60 in classic wow we know that it can be a bit of suffering right before you get the next level of your main ability and once you get that ability everything goes smoother. The abilities are usually spaced out so that each of the three specs main abilities are bought at different levels from trainers on a rotation where you get a new level of your main ability every 6 levels or so.
In SoD we have an artificial stop at lvl 25 though and that makes it a bit of a problem for some specs that have their main abilities bought at lvl 26.
Here are some examples:
Shadow priests:
Shadow word pain at lvl 26
Balance druids:
Starfire at lvl 26
Elemental shamans:
Lightning bolt at lvl 26
Frost Mages:
Frost bolt at lvl 26
Cone of Cold at lvl 26
All of these specs are currently quite bad due to this.
Would it be a good solution to for balance purposes put those spells as buyable from trainers at lvl 25 instead of lvl 26?
Lets take the example of Frostbolt. The DPS increase of a raw frostbolt increases with 40% from rank 4 to rank 6. That is more or less exactly how far behind fire and arcane mages they are in DPS currently. (If you look at the statistics from logs)
This will be a problem every phase of SoD, so it would have to be looked at before every new phase to not make some specs get left behind.
Phases are temporary and the content isn’t that sweaty to matter. Priests need way more talents than a new rank of SW:P at 26. A new rank of frostbolt is also more mana… it never ends.
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Yes its temporary, but the core problem of missing the next rank for some classes will still be there every phase. It should be looked at from a balance perspective imo. If a class is lacking DPS due to missing that spell, moving it from learnable on 26 to learnable at lvl 26 wont change much long term, but it will help things being balanced during that phase.
I mean the same thing will happen if they put the next phase at a cap of 40 for example, then it will be Fire mages instead of frost, but balance druids, and shadow priests will once again be left on the wrong side with their main abilities learnt at lvl 42.
This will never end. There will always be something that is missing. There is no one good solution. You give a higher rank, but then no mana, no spell hit, or something else, and if you give it to one class then not to the other?
What do you mean if you give it to one class and not the other?
Only sone specs have their lower rank spells still. Those exact specs are the ones at the bottom of the DPS currently.
Example: Fire mages got fireball rank 5 while frost mages got frost bolt rank 4 due to them getting rank 5 from trainer at lvl 26 instead of 24.
This is about different specs having different ranks of their main spells due to the artificial cutoff at lvl 25. This is not a problem on for example lvl 60 since all specs have the same rank spells then.
Its not about things “missing” like hit, mana or whatever. Its about just not getting the same rank spells because of the staggering system for spells that work when you are lvling because you are always moving forward but doesnt when you stay at a lvl for a long time. You cant just lvl one more lvl.