Perhaps you meant "flasking" rather than "potting", or left out the "hardcore guild" qualifier. GSA could not do Faerlina, Maexxna, and to a lesser extent Noth without raidwide dps pots. And does Patchwerk even need mentioning? Half the fights in Naxx were dps races, and they all "benefitted from potting the whole raid".


Back on the general topic, who cares if lots of stuff is trivial for those willing to use every possible consumable? How many of us are in that group, and more importantly how much of the total playerbase? If the choice is between encounters that are trivial with pots and challenging without them, and encounters that are challenging with pots and impossible without them, isn't the right choice obvious?

Speaking as a player in one of those "average" guilds, it's nice to have consumables as an option to bridge the gap when your gear/skill is not quite enough. If you take that way and balance all encounters around ideal gear and perfect execution, we'll just hit a brick wall and stop. This happened to us in a slighly different form at Huhuran. We couldn't motivate enough of our rogues and hunters to farm up the needed NR gear so for weeks we just steamrolled through Fankriss and then hearthed. Obviously farming up gear is different than farming up pots but it's still the same "do boring shit to enable interesting shit" mechanic and it really put off a lot of our players. The prospect of meeting an encounter that we just can't do because we're not good enough to beat is very disheartening (though admittedly if we'd ever tried C'Thun or Heigan I'm sure we would have experienced exactly that).

The real problem with your assertion is that Blizzard does not actually test the content the same way players do so how much they use consumables is only part of the problem. Honestly, I think some of the TBC raid encounters illustrate that they do not test at all but even giving them the benefit of the doubt you have to conclude:

They have their choice of gear and classes. This is something that most raids do not have. We are always hurting for some class or another.

They dont have to deal with trash. If they test there is no way in hell they are actually dealing with repops on a 'live' timer over the course of days/weeks. Because if they were, they'd be longer and/or the trash would suck less. Mag's repops on an hour timer that drop no loot just about take the cake from a player-unfriendly perspective.

They also have some inside intel on how the designers 'intend' for the encounter to be beaten. This is probably their biggest edge over the common raid guild.

And finally, they are almost certainly maxxed out on pots. Do you think a raid of Blizzard testers is farming herbs or paying IGE for cash to buy herbs?

They better be fixing the Netherstrike socket bonuses while they're tweaking Primalstrike.

I recall a lot of people mentioning on every world first about the entire raid being flasked. 4H comes to mind, despite random D&T people saying the titans weren't really needed, they were still present and still deemed necessary by who ever is in charge of that sort of thing. C'thun was a full titans run, and I do recall people calling it out. Even on Nef I know a lot of melees used titans to counter fear + shadowflame/cleave combos, back when he was the end.

Of course, I remember and am aware of all of those points...the question being, did anyone -really- care? Or, more specifically, were people clamoring that "omg the bosses need to be buffed, all these pots trivialize raid content?"

I don't remember any such types of comments, and even if they existed they were probably a distinct minority. Most people were aware of what we have found out through experience now: farming week in and week out is time-consuming, totally un-fun in any way, and generally a pain in the ass. So long as that is the case, consumables should be viewed as a crutch, not a balancing point.

If they provide too much benifit? Just nerf them. That's all. Simple solution. I'd prefer that raids return to being something we do on raid nights, rather than something we have to spend time on every other day of the week as well.

No one had to clamor for the changes Jayde. Blizzard didn't like that those guilds were doing it and took steps to keep their encounters from being "Brute Forced" for world firsts. As long as the option remains Blizzard will continue to create encoutners that prevent it from happening. Alchemy MUST be changed so the encounters can be changed, nothing short will suffice.

Suicuique - Yes all the first Nef kill on my sever was with a fully flasked raid. Rag kills tended to involve large amounts of flasking for all but the top 2 guilds. As Gurg said EJ's first Maggy kill was with a flasked tank. This has been going on since the start of raiding. It has just grown over time as more people came to understand the utility of Alchemy buffs. Re-tuning encounters to not require flask and pots is not a viable option anymore. As the saying goes the genie is out of the bottle you can't put it back. Everyone now knows how powerful buffs are they will not stop using it just because they don't need too.

Another update on the alchemy situation:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...234401&sid=1#0

Here's the highlights, from my perspective:

That last line has me worried. "A future patch" is not necessarily the same as "2.1".

Edit: She made a followup post which suggests that all this is in fact slated for 2.1.

So basically now, since the flask eats up both slots, this makes the farming problem better, but the requirement even worse.

Now, a flask is 3-5 times better than any 2 elixirs you choose to use on a raid. So basically if you need to boost your dmg, you have no choice but to flask because anything else is clearly not comparable. Here's to hoping that we don't need to as often once they retune, cause if we do, it will not be pretty.

I have a feeling she was trying to say that the expansion to alchemy in the way of new recipes, etc., would come in the future.

BAM, encounters will be designed with a fully flasked raid in mind. Woot. =/

So let's see. For a DPS caster, you have a choice of let's say adept + mastery, or flask of supreme power. Obviously the flask is much better. In fact I don't see any situation for any class where the flask wouldn't be better than any combination of elixir. So for raiders, does this change basically mean elixirs are no longer going to be used, but flasks will become the norm?

Of course it's unfortunate that flasks are "required" but this is about a zillion times better than the current system. And let's not kid ourselves - flasks were required before, too. Currently a fully buffed melee is drinking flask + 4 elixirs PER ATTEMPT; 30 elixirs/night is perfectly reasonable, which adds up to well over 100 terocone for raid preparation.

The new price of raiding is much much cheaper, and I'm happy with these changes.

edit: one must also consider that since we are now drinking less elixirs, the prices of herbs will drop.

Yes. which:
a) Does not address the high-end raider issue that flasks far outstrip gear upgrades. Therefore bosses are tuned for flasks, and then implicitly require them.
b) Does not address the stated dev concern that potting was causing undue herbalism tedium.

Definitely better. Although as a caster (shadow priest) I think I'd end up using a mighty restoration flask over a supreme power. Either way, its miles better than it used to be. Good thing I saved up all that dreaming glory, haha.

I still think 200g a night of attempts is a bit much. On my server that is how much FoRA currently go for =/

In other news, Mana Thistle will now be 100g/stack.

Blizzard, still out of touch... The topic of elixirs vs flasks has been beaten to death. Instead, I love this gem: Who has ever thought, "Man I wish I could have 60 more INT!" or "If only this 30 SPI stacked with DS!" Well, you may have back in BWL, but I can't understand why Blizzard would devote any time to this under the new alchemy system. Not even with resistance elixirs.

and Black Lotus at 100g a pop. Unless they want to combine insult with injury and introduce "An exciting new Caster-DPS Flask discovery!" to 2.1

Hope they make the TBC flask recipes available as rep rewards now. Because all those people in less hardcore guilds who were stacking elixirs and not bothering with flasks will now want to bother with flasks instead.

Highly likely, but the drop in the value of terocone and ancient lichen will be equally significant. FoRA is a good example as it's very expensive due to the 20 terocone, which are currently also used in Major Agility, Fel Strength, Mastery (3 per!!). Given 8 attempts at Boss X, thats 20 + (8)(1+2+3)= yep, 100 terocone per raid, reduced to a mere 20.

This change will probably also increase the popularity of the "burst" potions, such as Haste, Heroic, Destruction, etc... which might have a further effect on the value of herbs.

As it stands now, I'd say flasks are a good money-saver for wipe/learning nights, and pots which stack well and reach toward flask power levels are money savers over flask on farm nights. Now I won't have access to stacking elixers for clears, so I'll be turning to flasks for farm bosses.

3 cheers for enrage timers!

Edit: on another note, they don't seem to be touching Well Fed or Wizard Oil. So even with this, its still a relatively trivial change to my tedium time.

I would take 60 more Int or 30 more Spi in a heartbeat. Especially given the static gains from Mind Mastery for us Arcane/x Mages. Also, I'll take all the Spirit I can get. Helps me with Evocation a great deal.

I imagine even Hunters and Shadow Priests would be in the same boat.

While your numbers might have been arbitrary, the gains are not dismissed so quickly by all.