Talk:Smite
Updates for 4.0.1 & Cata
I'm uncertain that we need every data point between 1 - 80 for the table here on wowpedia. Tables that large are hard to format to be flexible for different screen resolutions, and I feel would be alot of unnecessary information. Wouldn't a table that shows representative scaling of the spell for major data points be more useful? I'm also uncertain as to where some of the current table values are coming from. Based upon the Patch 4.0.1 patch notes Smite was increased to 15% base mana, and while that was directly for the level 80 spell scaling, a quick test in-game creating a new priest placed the cost of a level 1 Smite at 10 mana, which is 9% of a level 1 Priest's base mana versus the 5% currently quoted in the table. --BeliaAD (talk) 14:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
After quite some wrangling, I've updated the page, simplifying the table in ways that hopefully everyone will find to be clearer, simpler and less cluttering to the page. I'm open to debate or discussion on the matter... it seems that no changes or further discussion have taken place since the above comment was posted; therefore I've decided to Be Bold! and do my best to improve the page based on my personal sense of judgement and aesthetics. I guess that's about all any of us can do :)
The previous table was filled with ?s ... only 23 out of 85 rows contained significant data, leaving a table only 27% filled, 73% empty. I would suggest that listing every single level would probably be unnecessary, and was far from being achieved. My own feeling is that we already have more than enough sample levels, and while I personally am unsure just how many people are going to be consulting the information for each of the levels 1-14, as long as the table isn't too long, it's fine by me. I tried adding two levels per row to make the table squarer but again to my eyes it simply made the table less clear. Additionally, the previous version's table was overrunning my screen and obscuring the actual information on the right-hand side of the screen. Whether this was to do with my browser or such I don't know; other pages seem somehow to avoid this effect, but I can't see any differences in the code. Again, simplifying the table has removed this problem, and in my opinion made the page clearer, less cluttered and easier to understand. Hopefully you'll agree :)
On a separate note, I have for the time being changed the cast time to 2.5 sec, as opposed to '1.5-2.5'. I'm unfamiliar with reduced cast time at low levels (seems like a long time ago ^^) - is this effect observed with most spells, or only occasionally? Without knowing the answers, the cast time of '1.5-2.5 sec' seemed somewhat mis-representative of a spell that, from lv 20 onwards, always has a base cast time of 2.5 sec. Causing all tooltips on the site to describe Smite in this way seemed a bit misleading and made the relative speed of other priest spells (eg Holy Fire, Mind Blast) harder to grasp. Otherwise, maybe a special note for the benefit of twinks? Again, comments and suggestions welcome :) -- Taohinton (talk) 00:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, 6 months on, and with no response, I'm reducing the table further. I believe we need at most a few representative levels - anything more than every 10 levels is imo unnecessary and reduces the clarity and functionality of the table. While I'd personally be happy with just numbers for level 85, I'm leaving it as 25/30/40/50/60/70/80/85 (since 20 didn't have damage numbers) - perhaps someone will benefit from these (hopefully still accurate) listings. Since all the remaining levels have the same mana cost and cast time, I've removed those columns. -- Taohinton (talk) 20:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)