Okay found a smoking gun on Everlore with a Gordon quote from November 15th 2000, the day of patch #1:
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Even more evening posts from Gordon
Catalyst [11/15/2000-6:32:42 PM]
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Yet another shaman nerf!!
Word from test is that VI has nerfed Torpor even more. For those of you that dont know this spell it is one of our level 60 spells and is a healing/regen type spell... in 24 seconds it does 1200 points heal BUT it slows the targets attack rate by 30%, roots them, and takes away 50 mana from target. It costs 200 mana to cast. Now it cant be cast on any class that doesnt have mana and it cant be cast on pets.
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Some of this sounds unintentional. Let me corner some people today and see what the deal is.
Can you give a quick explanation in how it differs from what it was doing as well? Thanks.
-Gordon
https://web.archive.org/web/20001117...om/default.asp
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The thread on the EQ forums wasn't saved by Wayback but I think this is enough.
The mana drain introduced in April was unintentional. It was only caught because Gordon happened to read a comment by a guy who flagged up yet another restriction added on Test, that it couldn't be cast on targets without mana pools.
Verant reviewed the change and reverted the new Torpor restrictions on Test, and also undid the Mana Drain component they'd introduced back in April.
Mystery solved.