Casting skills

[Torri]

<p>I try really hard to keep all my casting skills maxed for level, even though I'm melee spec'd, and have a couple of questions for clarification please. </p><p>Disruption and Subjugation are maxed, and I think having them maxed helps with resists if I understand right.</p><p>Ministration is also maxed and is for healing, but what effect does it have? Does it help you hit the higher portion of the heal range?</p><p>Ordination skills up on buffs and portals I think, and this is the one that is lagging. What benefit is there to having it maxed since buffs don't get resisted? </p>

[Lilj]

<cite>Torri@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I try really hard to keep all my casting skills maxed for level, even though I'm melee spec'd, and have a couple of questions for clarification please. </p><p>Disruption and Subjugation are maxed, and I think having them maxed helps with resists if I understand right.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">Yep</span></p><p>Ministration is also maxed and is for healing, but what effect does it have? Does it help you hit the higher portion of the heal range?</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Ministration has influence on the mana cost of the spell. Higher ministration, the less the spell cost.</span></p><p>Ordination skills up on buffs and portals I think, and this is the one that is lagging. What benefit is there to having it maxed since buffs don't get resisted?</p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">Ordination also has effect on debuffs (you can see this by hover your mouse over the skill in the persona window, it is explained there). Offhand I can only think of our group root as an ordination-debuff spell (our other debuff is a disruption spell). We have lots of ordination for buffs though.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">If the spell is agressive, the ordination skill will make it harder to resist (works like disruption then). If the skill is a buff, the ordination skill will make it cheaper (work like Ministration).</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">So to sum up the skills. If the spell is harmful, the skill helps the spell to be harder to resist. If the spell is peaceful, the skill will make it cheaper to cast.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">I hope this helped <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" /></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;"></span></p></blockquote>

[Skivley101]

<p>Some good info Liljna <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> ... I was just looking at how the ordination effects the peacful spells too , and noticed power cost decrease (did they recently remove the pwr cost on our concentration buffs ? or has it always been that way) Seems like it used to cost pwr while filling up the concentration slots ...meh.</p><p>Im thinking  there is a definate diminishing returns though , checked pwr cost difference on a few buffs from 412-392 ordination ,,, was only 1 pt of pwr on vines,spores,primitive, 3 pts on group ward/buff , and 1 pt to cast 1 pt per tick on sandstorm ..... had checked it earlier with diff of 10 ordination and was the same reading. So i needed to lower below 390 i think to see 2 pt difference</p><p>My lvl cap is 350 , so being that far above with having max stormvision , +42 ordination , then adding 20 pts with gear , didnt help the pwr cost much at all .... except the pwr cost diminished per tick on sandstorm is still nice ,but was the only thing i noticed changing with the ordination  ,through spell description.</p>

[Torri]

<cite>Liljna wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Torri@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I try really hard to keep all my casting skills maxed for level, even though I'm melee spec'd, and have a couple of questions for clarification please. </p><p>Disruption and Subjugation are maxed, and I think having them maxed helps with resists if I understand right.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">Yep</span></p><p>Ministration is also maxed and is for healing, but what effect does it have? Does it help you hit the higher portion of the heal range?</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Ministration has influence on the mana cost of the spell. Higher ministration, the less the spell cost.</span></p><p>Ordination skills up on buffs and portals I think, and this is the one that is lagging. What benefit is there to having it maxed since buffs don't get resisted?</p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">Ordination also has effect on debuffs (you can see this by hover your mouse over the skill in the persona window, it is explained there). Offhand I can only think of our group root as an ordination-debuff spell (our other debuff is a disruption spell). We have lots of ordination for buffs though.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">If the spell is agressive, the ordination skill will make it harder to resist (works like disruption then). If the skill is a buff, the ordination skill will make it cheaper (work like Ministration).</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">So to sum up the skills. If the spell is harmful, the skill helps the spell to be harder to resist. If the spell is peaceful, the skill will make it cheaper to cast.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">I hope this helped <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;"></span></p></blockquote></blockquote>Thank you so much! Yes, this was exactly what I was looking for. I sort of expected that higher skill would decrease the power cost, that's how it worked in EQ1 as I recall but I just wasn't sure. I guess I was looking for a justification to spending some quiet time alone spamming buff spells in order to max out Ordination. I remember several hours spent long ago where a Beastlord stood under a bridge in PoK casting Inner Fire over and over to raise a skill so they could invis themself without fizzling away their mana pool completely <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Mwahaha]

<cite>Liljna wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Torri@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I try really hard to keep all my casting skills maxed for level, even though I'm melee spec'd, and have a couple of questions for clarification please. </p><p>Disruption and Subjugation are maxed, and I think having them maxed helps with resists if I understand right.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">Yep</span></p><p>Ministration is also maxed and is for healing, but what effect does it have? Does it help you hit the higher portion of the heal range?</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Ministration has influence on the mana cost of the spell. Higher ministration, the less the spell cost.</span></p><p>Ordination skills up on buffs and portals I think, and this is the one that is lagging. What benefit is there to having it maxed since buffs don't get resisted?</p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">Ordination also has effect on debuffs (you can see this by hover your mouse over the skill in the persona window, it is explained there). Offhand I can only think of our group root as an ordination-debuff spell (our other debuff is a disruption spell). We have lots of ordination for buffs though.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">If the spell is agressive, the ordination skill will make it harder to resist (works like disruption then). If the skill is a buff, the ordination skill will make it cheaper (work like Ministration).</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">So to sum up the skills. If the spell is harmful, the skill helps the spell to be harder to resist. If the spell is peaceful, the skill will make it cheaper to cast.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;">I hope this helped <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9933;"></span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p>I learned something new today <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />  Never knew what ministration did, all I knew is that it relates to healing spells.  Same thing with ordination.  </p>

[Skivley101]

<p>Im finding it odd that a few people have posted latley about their ordination falling behind , Im wondering if they changed something with the skill advance mechanic on that skill , or maybe not all of the buffs do it anymore .... Like im almost positive it used to cost pwr on the ones that cost concentration , seems like i remember getting rezzed with very little pwr , and i had to cast each buff slowly waiting for enough pwr ...hmmm , so maybe those buffs dont advance the skill anymore? IDK ,, i suppose its possible to play a few lvls without recasting any buffs at all though.</p><p>As long as just spamming one buff would do it , I would just use the thorns one , .5 cast with insta recast .... you could put that spell on primary hot bar(hot keys 1-0) Then get one of those drinking birds to keep hitting one key for you ... and walk away .....lol <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p>

[Luthorn]

<p>Ordination also affects the resistability of our group (encounter) root.  Definitely keep ordination max'd to keep the number of resists down on that spell.</p><p>Regarding skill-ups...the other day (after RoK launch) I was rebuffing myself after dying, and got 2 skill-ups in a row after casting 2 buffs back to back.  So, I'd say skill-ups are still functioning, at least for my character.</p>

[Torri]

My ordination is currently 251/320. I think this is because I spent about 85% of my time melee soloing and taking great pains to die as little as possible, so I'd go several levels when in an area with good solo quests like Steamfont without casing anything but SoW or a random portal

[Lilj]

It's good to hear the information was useful, thanks <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Skivley, I haven't heard about diminishing return on skills before, but it sounds very plausible. I mean, we have diminishing returns on everything else, why not on casting skills?Thanks for mentioning this, it's an interesting find. Could be interesting to see if it's a general thing for all skills.