01-24-2007, 10:03 PM
I can see why mages are upset over this, since it clearly means some amount of less damage, but I can agree with the change in spirit.
Improved Fireball/Frostbolt are so low in their respective trees, that you can probably assume that if you are casting the spell, you have the talent. So effectively the "base" mage spells are the improved versions. If encounters need to be tuned against fireball spam, they need to be tuned against improved fireballs, etc...
By that mindset, previously mages were actually getting a bonus to damage, since their damage coefficients were calculated using artificially longer spell cast times (since no one uses unimproved fireball etc). So now things are more consistent with the assumption that all mages have the improved versions of these spells.
Of course if they are going in that direction, perhaps they should just make the improved version of these spells into the base versions, and give mages new talents to replace the old ones. They did it for AE, and they could do the same thing for Corruption.
Improved Fireball/Frostbolt are so low in their respective trees, that you can probably assume that if you are casting the spell, you have the talent. So effectively the "base" mage spells are the improved versions. If encounters need to be tuned against fireball spam, they need to be tuned against improved fireballs, etc...
By that mindset, previously mages were actually getting a bonus to damage, since their damage coefficients were calculated using artificially longer spell cast times (since no one uses unimproved fireball etc). So now things are more consistent with the assumption that all mages have the improved versions of these spells.
Of course if they are going in that direction, perhaps they should just make the improved version of these spells into the base versions, and give mages new talents to replace the old ones. They did it for AE, and they could do the same thing for Corruption.