Increased MP costs

Currently I can't help but feel abilities cost too little MP, as they were initially designed in a system without an MP regeneration feature. To keep this feature balanced I think it would be necessary to make it so running out of MP in a battle could be a distinct possibility. The MP restoring abilities are pretty much a waste of action points at this time.

Even with a MP pool of 1000, I still run out of MP sometimes on NMs if I can't find enough mobs to Siphon.

I'd rather have the devs implement more skills that make MP more useful so you'd have more ways of using it. For example:

Guildmark skill that gives you a new normal attack that is stronger, or has a nice debuff proc, but costs a small amount of MP to use.

Ability that increases the MP cost of your next spell 50% and increases the damage of your next spell by 25%.

Ability that converts 15% of the damage you take and subtracts it from your MP pool.

I will admit that I am far from the high-level content. But from what I have been hearing the spells themselves are a bit impotent. If that is the case they should also adjust the spells to be more powerful and more worth the cost of MP. I have always envisioned magic users as powerhouses that are leashed by their dependence on MP. Also, abilities that would allow for MP regeneration in battle (Refresh, Ballad, etc...) could help mend the poverty of MP in the endgame environments.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Even with a MP pool of 1000, I still run out of MP sometimes on NMs if I can't find enough mobs to Siphon.

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^^ This. Shadowsear costs 88 MP too! And it is not a matter of "better MP management"; when fighting NM's the battles are long and I pretty much do nothing but cast, since phantom dart does a paltry amount of damage compared to DoT spells. And a lot of of healing is needed too which can drain MP quickly at 22 or 32 MP per cast.

Outside of NM's, I agree that MP management is very easy, but I certainly don't want to see increased MP costs -- NM's are hard enough without running out of MP, which is something that DoW's don't have to worry about (well, except for that when the mages run out of MP for healing they will probably be dying shortly, lol).

The MP costs are fine. Part of the reason they are so low compared to what you might expect is that other classes can have easy access to magic to complete the Armory System without making them overpowered.

It was also stated above, MP pools drain fast on NMs, and with party sizes going down to 8 soon, I can see a max of two mages to make room for extra damage to pick up the slack of 7 missing members and the absense of 8 person regimen - I doubt the tank will be able to participate without taking some serious damage, and at least one of the mages needs to stay on healing duty.

Raising MP costs would already push the difficulty limits of what NMs would be with 8 people, assuming they stay as they are. Uraeus will remain fairly easy, but the others might become problematic.

I don't think they should increase MP costs of the spells, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to make them more useful. As it's been said, nukes are pretty much useless on most NM fights as they do such a tiny amount of damage. You literally dart for more than you nuke for most the time... And your nukes can be resisted pretty easily.

As far as NM's go though, I don't honestly see MP management being much of a problem. My shell has killed all of the NM's with 5-8 people with little problems (Most notable was my shell's 5 man Great Buffalo kill, sadly I wasnt there for that!), and as one of the main healers in the shell I can vouch pretty well that it is rather easy to keep MP up, especially after the MP regen update. I actually made a macro that casts sacrifice 3, then puts my weapon away automatically to help with my mp conservation, cuz the second the weapon is down you start regaining mp. This pretty much negates all the mp cost of the cure, and usually gains some extra MP back beyond the cost before i have to heal again. Of course i also toss up poison 2, dia 2, and bio 2 at every chance I get. You can also now siphon all NM's, until they run out of MP... Making it even easier.

So yea, MP management in this game is a breeze under any condition, but I don't think they should raise the MP cost of spells at all. If anything, they should introduce tier 3 nukes that cost more mp, but are actually useful. Currently, the only thing that uses up a sizable amount of MP for my thaumaturge is the application and reapplication of poison II. But even casting poison once every 10 seconds, exaltation is still always completely ready to use before i'm even at 50% of my max mana.

I think increasing MP costs for AoE skills should be in effect, something like an extra 50-100% MP cost to use AoE. Perhaps then we would have more interesting party formations.

Yep. Being able to -ga (AOE) everything for the same stamina, MP and hate "cost" is just ridiculous.
Draws the level of brains needed as a healer all the way down to pre-school.