WoW Forever Downranking Spell Nerf: Which Ranks to Cast

The WoW Forever downranking spell nerf makes spells cast at ranks vastly below your level receive less benefit from your Spell Damage and Spell Healing and have a reduced chance to activate your class abilities and talents. Healers should keep the last three or four ranks of each heal and cast the one that does not overheal, while damage dealers should cast their top rank for maximum DPS. Low ranks are now only worth casting for their effect, such as a rank 1 Frostbolt to slow.

What the nerf actually changed

When you mouse over Spell Damage and Spell Healing on the character sheet, the tooltip now explains that spells cast using spell ranks vastly below your current level receive less benefit from your Spell Damage and Spell Healing and have a reduced chance to activate your class abilities and talents. Blizzard's own example is that using a Rank 1 Frostbolt at level 60 results in a 0% chance to get a Frostbite activation, so you now choose between getting a slow off quickly or using a spell that can potentially get a Frostbite activation.

Downranking was common with healers to prevent overhealing and lower mana spending, and a reduction in Spell Healing is a significant deterrent to wanting to downrank heals.

Which ranks to keep as a healer

Up to level 30 in the beta, downranking pays: with 200 Spell Healing, Healing Wave rank 3 heals 30% more than rank 5 from the same mana. At level 60, if the rule measured up to 30 holds, your top three or four ranks all keep most of their bonus, so casting the one that does not overheal still pays. What is gone is healing with ranks learned 30 levels or more earlier.

The best rank of each main heal at level 30 with 200 Spell Healing, ranked by healing per mana against the top rank:

At level 60, two priest heals fall behind: Lesser Heal keeps none of its bonus and Heal keeps 55% at most. Keeping only the top rank costs you little, about 2% of your healing per second in DoubleZug's simulation. In a level 60 shaman simulation casting Chain Heal nonstop, the top rank heals 932 per second over the fight and rank 2 heals 955.

Which ranks to cast as a damage dealer

Cast your top rank: it deals the most damage per second at every level. A low rank is only worth casting for its effect, like a rank 1 Frostbolt to slow, and in Forever it triggers your talents less and less once you are far past it. Rank 1 Frostbolt slows by the same 40% as rank 5, for 5 seconds instead of 7, casts in 1.5 seconds instead of 3, and costs 25 mana instead of 100.

Cooldowns go on your top rank

Nature's Swiftness makes your next Nature spell instant, Inner Focus your next spell free, and Divine Favor your next Holy Light or Flash of Light a sure critical. They give more on a bigger heal, so spend them on your top rank.

How the penalty scales

Once you are 18 levels past a rank, it loses 5% of its full bonus from your spell power at each level. Your top rank moves up by itself when you train the next one, but a lower rank you put on your bars yourself stays, so swap it for a newer one. At level 30, a rank learned at level 13 or later keeps its full bonus from your spell power; one learned at 12 keeps 95%, and each level earlier takes 5% more.

The share of its coefficient a rank keeps in WoW Forever follows 1 − (L − 17 − T) × 0.05, between 0 and 1, where L is your level and T the level the rank is learned at. Forever also lowered what most ranks heal before spell power: 83 of the 94 healing ranks heal less than in Classic Era, with most direct heals losing 5 to 15% and heals over time, Flash of Light and the group heals up to 43%.

How to put a lower rank on your bars

In your spellbook, open the menu next to the search box and tick "Show All Spell Ranks". Drag the rank you want to an action bar, or write a macro such as /cast Healing Wave(Rank 3). A button with your top rank moves up by itself when you train the next rank, but a lower rank you placed yourself stays, so once your ranks table shows it fading, swap it for the next rank up.

If you would rather not spend the hours testing ranks and leveling to 30 yourself, an WoW Forever Leveling Boost can take your character to the cap so you can test the ranks that matter at that level.