I've been wondering this for a while, but with the War Sledge being previewed it's even more curious to me now, but HOW are the costs worked our for spells? I'm assuming there's some kind of formula behind the scenes, but I can't for the life of me figure it out
Let's compare War Sledge to Galvitar, Force Blade. There's 1 mana in it, both are the same level, both do 4 dice of damage. The sledge takes up both hand slots whereas the force blade only uses one (a HUGE plus as this enables wand use, or a shield, or whatever one handed stuff we might see in the future). Both have a quick attack (4 dice on the sledge vs 4 dice plus piercing +2 on the blade), and both have a full round attack (4 dice plus sweeping and a 7+ daze on sledge, 4 dice plus double strike OR sweeping on blade). As an additional bonus, the force blade also has 'Cantrip' too, meaning only one copy in the spell book is needed, as it'll keep returning to it if it's destroyed.
Now my first thought is that the force blade is quite a bit better than the sledge, but there is only one mana difference so this implies there isn't that big a difference after all.
Is it that I am not considering 1 mana point that significant whereas I should be. Or is it that the designers are considering a 50/50 chance of a daze on a full attack as significantly more potent than I do? Or perhaps there are other factors at work here, like how 'good' the Forcemaster is compared to the Warlord (it's channeling, it's base melee attack, it's life etc etc). Or perhaps it's all three plus a few others....