I've been poking people about magic in general lately, and no one seems to have much good to say about battle spells; the shorter prep duration isn't that much shorter, even with feats, but the 10 minute cap on duration really ruins them when compared to normal spells.

Would anyone really mind if we moved them all to normal spells?

Paladins are the poster children for "why is this a battle spell?" Anti-Stun, Crusader's Challenge, and Soldier's Prayer all come to mind.

Stun's PvP application is significantly limited by stun hiders, so I'd personally be quite fine lowering the efficacy of AS if it meant we could turn it into a normal set-and-forget combat spell primarily to help prevent critters from stunning.

A Tactics buff seems right in the Paladin wheelhouse, but it's attached to this weird engagement manipulation function I hardly ever use, so it becomes a battle spell I have to refresh every few minutes. I'd much rather we get a vanilla 1-slot Tactics buff and save CC's engagement function for a new glyph I can pull out when/if I need it.

Soldier's Prayer confuses me. I know magic wards aren't the Paladin calling card, but it triggers on your own spells like Shear/Aether Cloak/Ghost Shroud, only its power level is way below those. To make matters worse, it loses duration every time it contests a spell. I usually just use Lay Ward instead as a result.

>>Righteousfury: Is there certain spells in particular that you feel should be shifted over to the normal spell format?

Any spell that is a buff.

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I think there's a time and place for battle spell buffs, but battle spells that are not TM or debilitation need to be designed with being a battle spell as a large downside, because it is. Crusader's Challenge is a good example: the point/taunt functionality to prevent retreating makes sense as a battle spell since it should be situational, but it's a bit of a sour note that Paladins do not have a Tactics buff outside of it.

Battle spells would make more sense if their costs and prep times better reflected their durations.

The idea of a spell being something you quickly toss up makes sense, but if you need it fast, it shouldn't require 10 seconds/100 mana to get the maximum out of it. It would make more sense to have it be something like a 3-5 second spell that caps at 30 mana.

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>>What good is making anti-stun last longer, or even less expensive to cast, if it becomes ablative and is gone in a few pulses?

I don't think there's an explicit connection between the two. You can theoretically have non-ablative/non-battle spells.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>I don't think there's an explicit connection between the two. You can theoretically have non-ablative/non-battle spells.

You absolutely can, and there are plenty. I feel like the existence of a lot of these spells as battle spells, however, is used as a drawback for balancing to reduce duration, not as an advantage for a few seconds faster prep time. I could be mistaken, but I feel like this was talked about in the past. If you were to take away that negative-impacting balance feature, something else would have to take it's place, or the strength or efficacy of the spells as a whole reduced to compensate. I was just pointing out that sometimes people don't realize the ramifications of what they request.

Armifer killing it with comments this month.