Reduce Spell Cost Ehancements Not reducing Magicka

Shantu · November 2017

Ok, I have a CP426 Breton Templar Magicka build with 3 War Maiden pieces of jewelry all with "Reduce Magicka cost of spells by 203" on each one. Should that not total a 609 reduction in spell cost? I ran a couple of test, one with Channel Focus (391 Magicka cost) and Vampires Bane (1736 Magicka cost). In each case the reduction in Magicka was not applied. Each spell cost me the exactly magicka listed. Seems to with the enhancements Channel Focus should cost nothing and Vampires Bane should cost 1127, at least that's why I applied the enhancements in the first place. Am I misunderstanding something here in h ow this enhancement is applied?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · November 2017

Read everything in this thread,

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/318595/introduction-to-pve-damage-calculation-homestead/p1,

this thread and this one,

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/279426/damage-mitigation-explanation-updated-for-morrowind-new-calculator/p1,

are the two best sourses of information about the game you can have, read them, live them.

In case you don't, here is the relevant part of the first thread to this topic.

The Base Cost of a spell is the tooltip cost value, without any points in Magician and without any equipment or skills that provide either a percentage or flat cost reduction. Flat Cost Reduction is typically in the form of enchantments on jewellery and % Cost Reduction comes from skills and passives. Note that the 2 piece Molag Kena is a 33% cost increase when activated.

As you can see, the flat cost is removed first then the percentages are applyed, meaning you will never get a zero cost spell out of one that starts with a cost.

So with focus, the spell starts with a cost of 1080 magic, then the 609 is subtracted from it getting 471, then you do the percentages, ie 4% from temp, 3% from breton, 15% from 5 pieces of light, add them up and get 22%, take 471*22% and get 106 and 471-106 is 367. You see how the math works.

Elsterchen · November 2017

Hi there,
I know your troubles understanding this and I've already asked for a change to make this glyphs function more comprehendable for players. Simply spoken: The Difference you see is due to all the skills and/or gear affecting your magica cost. The trick is, that the cost reduction from the glyph is subtracted from the raw value of the spells cost (for vampires bane its 2700 Magica*) and only after this all reductions due to skills/passives/CP/gear are calculated.

This means the effective cost reduction of each glyph is always reduced by the amount (in %) of all reductions from skills/CP/etc. . Simple example: A glyph reduces the magica cost by 203, the player hast 10% magica cost reduction from skills/passives/gear and CP -> the glyph will only reduce the overall cost of the spell (the value shown as spell cost in th players menue) by 203 - 10% = ~ 188 magica.

*(source: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor, thanks to @Berenhir for sharing the link, details for the calculation can be found there as well)

I think this way of introducing values to us players is very unsatisfactory, especially since one does expect the given value of the glyph to reflect as stated (i.e. reduce the spell cost by the stated amount). Adding to it, some glyphs (i.e. block cost reduction) are calculated differently and yield a more comprehendable result, reflecting the given value of the glyph more precisely.

Hope this helps.

Shantu · November 2017

Oh for crying out loud! When an enhancement says a reduction of 203 magicka cost, that's what I expect to see, not some obtuse spell cost formula that mitigates the actual advertised effect. So when I fire off a spell that costs 1736 Magicka and find the 3 jewelry each with a cost reduction enhancement glyph listed as 203 has essentially no effect, you're saying the magicka cost reduction enhancement is basically useless.

I wonder how many other "enhancements" are watered down by this nonsense.

Brutusmax1mus · November 2017

Shantu wrote: »

Oh for crying out loud! When an enhancement says a reduction of 203 magicka cost, that's what I expect to see, not some obtuse spell cost formula that mitigates the actual advertised effect. So when I fire off a spell that costs 1736 Magicka and find the 3 jewelry each with a cost reduction enhancement glyph listed as 203 has essentially no effect, you're saying the magicka cost reduction enhancement is basically useless.

I wonder how many other "enhancements" are watered down by this nonsense.

No, reduce costs are outstanding. They just reduce the effectiveness of your %reduction champion points, character passives, class passives, and armor passives.

Elsterchen · November 2017

@Shantu

Well, I believe the phrase "useless" is arguable, in your case you already have pretty heavy costreduction effects active (remember base/raw cost of the spell is 2700 magica), but:

I agree 100% with:
"When an enhancement says a reduction of 203 magicka cost, that's what I expect to see,..."
and not-getting-what-you-see is not satisfactory at all.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · November 2017

Shantu wrote: »

Oh for crying out loud! When an enhancement says a reduction of 203 magicka cost, that's what I expect to see, not some obtuse spell cost formula that mitigates the actual advertised effect. So when I fire off a spell that costs 1736 Magicka and find the 3 jewelry each with a cost reduction enhancement glyph listed as 203 has essentially no effect, you're saying the magicka cost reduction enhancement is basically useless.

I wonder how many other "enhancements" are watered down by this nonsense.

They have a large impact and I am not sure how you think lowering the base cost of a spell by 22% in the case of reflective light or the basr cost of channeled focus by a wooping 55% is essentially no effect. ZOS has it set up like this to prevent just the thing that you are attempting, zero cost skills from skills that cost resources.

And if you really cared to find out the bold and didn't just want to whine, read the links in my first post, both of those threads provide the base math behind pretty much all the important calculations in the game.

Shantu · November 2017

Ok, I was looking at it wrong. I see the cost reduction, or a % thereof, is applied to the spell BEFORE it is fired. My Vampires Bane is costing me 2241 magicka without the jewelry. With the jewelry enhancements it's costing me 1736 (a 505 reduction), and that's exactly what I'm seeing in my tests. That's still only about 77% of the advertised cost reduction.

Thanks for the feedback.

Ajaxduo · November 2017

I never thought of this, perhaps they could change the values to % based as you no longer get reduction from CP.