This article is a summary of my VN posting asking for everyone's knowledge of exactly what benefits a spellcaster receives when over-spec'ing their spell-lines beyond 50.

My question posted:

I have a few questions regarding over-spec'ing spell lines that I was hoping my fellow spellcasters might be able to help me with? Generally speaking, I'm wondering if over-spec'ing a spell line by 1 or more points is worthwhile.

General questions:
1. What benefits, exactly, does over-spec'ing spell lines provide?
2. Does over-spec'ing by 2 provide any benefit beyond over-spec'ing by just 1 point?

Specific questions:
3. Do the Sight lifetaps (both spec and baseline) do more damage with 51 Sight vs 50 Sight? Or 62 Sight vs 51 Sight?
4. Same as question #1 except referring to the Servant spec DD, ___ Cackle, at specs 8 vs 7 and 19 vs 8?
5. Do the Sight AF debuffs (both spec and baseline) give greater debuffs with 51 Sight vs 50 Sight? Or 62 Sight vs 51 Sight?

Notes:
1. By over-spec'ing, I refer to having +spec gear and/or realm rank (RR) bonuses that boost a spell line beyond what it's spec'd at. (E.g. I'm 19 Pain, so over-spec'ing would be 20+ Pain.)
2. I'm a 50/19/7 Sight/Pain/Servant necromancer (62/31/19, adjust with RR and gear).

According to the 3/15/2002 Grab Bag: (http://www.camelotherald.com/more/264.php)

"Q: How does an increase or bonus in spec points affect support class spell lines?

"A: Warning, jargon ahead. I got this straight from the spell designer. Basically, any spec points that take you over the level of the spell will make it hit/effect for the maximum. Mez/stun/roots aren’t affected, but healing for example will do +25% every time if your spec is artificially boosted over the level of the spell. Buffs are affected the same way. DD spells will start at +25% if the spec is artificially boosted, but the actual damage will of course be moderated by resistances, etc.

"So if you have a natural 50 in your spec line, bonus spec will not help much. But if you can get up to 50 with items, you can save points for other things and still get full spec bonuses. Remember that there are extra bonuses for realm ranks as well."

Summary of everyone's replies:

Avecrien:

If you intend to PvE alot against higher con enemies, especially against purples, then yes it helps.
In the tests Palesius and I ran on Pendragon a few months back it did raise the damage I was doing against players by an extremely marginal amount. If I remember correctly, it seemed like Int was vastly more beneficial in terms of raising damage.
Its been a while since I looked at it so I cant be too specific. Sorry

Once your adjusted spec is one or two higher than the level of the target, you'll always hit for the same max damage with that spell. The more you lower from there, the more variance in damage you get.

So if you want to be the best against other players, you don't need more than a 51/52 adjusted spec to always do max damage. And the difference between having a 50 or 52 adjust spec is miniscule as far as damage variance goes, but its still there.

Actually spec over 50 definitely does help in RvR.

Up to 65 continued to increase damage at a relatively constant amount.

I don't have the numbers handy, but I think on a point by point basis each point of skill was worth maybe 3 points of int. That's about 1/5 the cost in terms of UV for int, vs. skill. Although under 50 you will see a much more dramatic change due to variance.

Regarding damage spells, matching your spec to your target's level creates zero variance. If your spec is above your target's level, you'll receive a .05% increase in damage per spec point.

Basically, if you have 62 Sight (amplified from 50 base) and you're attacking a level 50 player, you'll do .6% more damage than you would've done with exactly 50 Sight. If your damage on a nuke with 50 Sight was 400, you'd do 402 damage with 62 Sight. Not much of an improvement.

Where +skill over your level really shines is PvE, since that's where you'll encounter targets over your level. If you had 50 Sight and attacked a level 62 target (yeah right, like we can hit a 62 ), you'd get a fair amount of variance in your damage. However, if you had 62 Sight, you'd do the same damage every time.

As I've stated before though, with mobs higher than 55, the matter is not damage variance; it's just being able to land spells in the first place. Therefore, you'd only really want your modified spec level to equal 55.

That's all for damage spells though. Duration effects (debuffs, DOTs, etc.) do not benefit from having a modified spec greater than your target's level. They do, however, suffer from variance if your spec is lower than your target's level. As proven recently, for example, the baseline level 46 CON debuff will debuff for a lot more when cast by a 46+ Pain Necro than when cast by a Necro with low Pain.