First, you dismiss higher damage for higher mana as NOT an improvement. If the dps/mana ratio stays the same (or, as it does sometimes, improves) this surely IS an improvement, and a significant one. Especially for wizards, since they're all about dps, but for ANY nuker as well. The 105 wizard ethereal nuke does 11% more damage than the level 104, an extra 3,195 damage off a base of 28,548. An 11% improvement in firepower---you don't see that as full justification for paying more for the glowing over the greater? Boy, I sure do. And that doesn't even begin to consider the impact of crits and damage-enhancements. My wizard rarely casts without amplification of her spells. Whenever I am leveling my toons during a new xpac with level increases I ALWAYS notice killing the same mobs becomes significantly easier once my group all hits 105. By significant I mean 105 >
>> 104, whereas 104 > 103 and 103 >102, etc.
A lot of times, with very tough mobs (group nameds and the like) how FAST you can kill it is critical, especially with short-duration damage enhancement buffs and important AA's like SILENT CASTING. When SC is running (at least before it's recent semi-nerf) you can dish out unlimited damage without taking agro away from the tank. That named dinosaur on Thuliasaur Island, back when I fought him for the first time, the ONLY way I could win was to BURN, BABY, BURN, pulling out all the stops in terms of max high speed damage output. Mana preservation was irrelevant because there's no point in having mana on a corpse.
You also conveniently ignore the non-damage spells. Clearly the acquisition of spells like HP, AC, crack, focus buffs IN GROUP-CASTABLE FORM, is a BIG improvement. Sure, the single-cast skin, crack, symbol and various HP/AC/castspeed buffs come in the lowest level spell group usually. But it's disingenuous for anyone to say "well, I can always cast the single target buff on everybody so who cares about the group?" Tell that to any cleric, druid, shaman, ranger, paladin, enchanter, beastlord, whatever (that's half of the classes right there) who participates in raids and is asked to buff the entire raid of 40-60 players. Mass Group Buff doesn't work for single-cast buffs, don't you know. Not everyone raids, of course, but enough do that FOR THIS REASON ALONE, there will always be a marked premium for quest spell turn-in items of the "Glowing" sort.
And, I agree this doesn't apply to every spell, such as you point out with the three Claw line wizard spells. It also may not apply to stuns, mage pets, a lot of utility spells, etc. Although when I do use stuns I do note that spell level often relates to how high a mob they work on, and that's a HUGE deal. In fact, this is ALWAYS a problem for enchanters. The "entry-level" mezzes often don't work on all the mobs in the expansion and a higher level version is practically essential to work the progression. Rank II's of mezzes invariably are less resisted by mobs. I can recall this being a big deal when my group broke into Arx Mentis for the first time. I actually had to leave and come back later when my enchanter had acquired copies of the Rank II's of the higher mezzes.
There's room to argue here, for sure, which makes it interesting. But your closing statement,
Quote:
Maybe some classes get their "best" spells at only the highest level, but from what I've seen it looks like all the spells are equally good, and all of them are spread across the level range, so there's no reason for the later ones to cost more.
just isn't true. It's even self-contradictory! If "some classes" get their 'best' spells at only the highest level", how is it you conclude "all the spells are equally good"? And even you make the case against your claim that "there's no reason for the later ones to cost more."
I've also explained that at least on my server, FV, the price "gradient" between Rank II turn-in quest items isn't always rising. It depends a lot of supply and demand and whether the initial wave of raiders have acquired their raid-essential spell Rank II's.
Interesting dialogue, however. It's always intriguing to see how two people can examine an elephant and one sees a tree and the other sees a snake. I just hope neither of us is BLIND!
Edited, Jan 27th 2016 8:46am by Sippin