Ellyh

most likely the massive difference in healing we are seeing in these spells is related to down-ranking with massive amounts of + healing. It's getting to the stage where even with the downranking nurf the lower ranks are still hitting for crazy numbers. With my 2200 raid buffed healing my GH2 is landing in the 3300 range for 386 mana. If I wheel out my max rank Gheal it lands for about 5200 for 701 mana. The advantage to the lower ranked spells will continue to become more and more pronounced as the +heal totals continue to become more and more inflated. Even with the downranking nurf if the heal spells continue to only scale up at 10% or so the 100% increase in + healing we can expect after a few months of Wrath will totally skew healing in favour of old low rank spells. This is the reason for the downranking nurf that we saw introduced in TBC but without tightening the formula again there is little they can do to stop downranking running rampant.

Even now the number of times I actually need my max rank greater heal is limited, even in high damage situations I can usually get by with rank 4 or 5 because so much of the power comes from gear and so little from the base spell.

Probably bearing this in mind the higher base values will also give newby healers a chance to be competitive in the L80 5 mans compared to what the extensively geared veterans can do. Otherwise there will be bored veterans or frustrated newbies.

 

Aod_Macabre

This seems like at least part of the reason for sure (stream lining paladins into tank healers being the other one that I am willing to support). If for whatever reason I become totally OOM on a fight, I can spam R1 Flash of Light for 90 mana infinitely... and it crits for almost 1900 on a target with BoL. Combine that with 37% chance to crit with Flash.... Something like a huge buff to top rank HPS would deter me from trying to "exploit" a mechanic such as that.

 

Lamaros

Going off the really long WotLK preview movie that has been up recently it looks like a LOT more time has gone into the zones of the expansion that went into TBC. This can only be a good thing for how much time they should also have spent/are going to spend in the design of the new instances and raid zone.

e: Typos.

 

Cranberry

Bosses would still be 73, so any add-less fight would be manageable. Trash would suck, but trash is almost always exploitable in some sense. Kiting, having multiple CCers focusing on a target, and a pally tank would all help (No tick of Consecrate beyond the first can be resisted)

 

flyingtoastr

Something I noticed while glancing at the wiki today.

Blacksmithing

* Socket One-Handed Weapon - Permanently adds a socket to a one-handed weapon.

Very interesting. If Blacksmiths have the ability to add sockets to items it could finally make the profession worthwhile for making money.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Mekasha

I'd imagine it has something to do with the fact that while heals you do are just flat up [base amount + % coefficient of your +healing], damage for say, a mage is {[base amount + %coefficient of spell damage] * a ton of modifiers/debuffs like CoE, Imp Scorch, Misery}.

Outside of Tree of Life Aura ( or the new bark's blessing?) and the revised Demon Armor, I believe there's really nothing to give healing received on a target a percentage boost in output, which is quite the opposite for dps casters, in which the debuffs on your target literally can add upwards to a 50% dps output.

 

Calgar

You realize that the add socket ability would almost certainly be a BOP ability right? Like, you wouldn't be able to do it to other people's items, as it would essentially just give every weapon in the game 1 more socket.

 

Alcemon

I agree, this is most likely going to be a "Profession Perk" for BS, otherwise it may actually use up the "enchant slot" for the weapon (but of course just one socket is not enough to offset an enchant).

Minimaxers will now have to pickup BS for socketing their gear, then enchanting for enchanting their rings and drop one of the two for Leatherworking to have drums.
And we don't really know what the other professions extra benefits are going to be.

 

Valerian

Isn't that kinda like saying "clearly all enchants will be BoP, otherwise it would essentially give every piece of gear x more stats". I don't see any reason why this would necessarilly be BoP. It would finally give BS a constant source of income (like tailors and LW have with their leg patches).

 

Aod_Macabre

The aforementioned Blessing of Light does as well, but only for Paladin heals. But I do agree that the damage multipliers/modifiers need to be taken into consideration when base damage is figured out. Hell, just look at what a mage (or even worse, warlock) can crit for on a raid debuffed boss.

Hmmmm, on that note....

I just thought of a nice Holy/Resto talent (kinda hoping it becomes a paladin one):

Increases the healing effect of you heals by 25%/50% on targets below 20% health. (Could even go 10/20/30/40/50% if you need to fill in a 5 point talent).

 

flyingtoastr

Why wouldn't it be usable on other people's items?

Right now Blacksmithing has absolutely nothing to sell. Tailors have threads, leatherworkers have armor kits, blacksmithing has... nothing? This would give Blacksmiths something useful and valuable to sell to make the profession at least somewhat profitable and something more than "just there to make some nice BoP armor/weapons".

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Calgar

It just doesn't fit with the other professions stuff. Think of it this way....

JC/lW/BS/Tailor can all make heaps of crumby green/blue starter gear. With some dropped patterns, some decent epic stuff, and all have a couple decent BOP crafted items, that largely get out stripped as you get better raiding gear.

All make "consumable" items; Gems/leg kits/Sharpening stones and shield runes and armor runes/leg healing and damage buffs respectively. Granted, BS is probably the weakest in this category for profit.

Several offer unique BOP/creator only perks. JC has the epic really nice unique gems. LW has drums. Enchanting has ring enchants. Tailoring, AFAIK doesn't really have any unique tailor only awesomeness, neither does BS.

So, i just find it significantly more likely that the ability to add a socket to an item is more likely to be a BS only perk, then it being another "consumable" buff/enchant.

It seems like Blizzard wants to add a profession only perk to all professions...and this is a good one to add to BS.

 

Tyrian

Has there been any sort of confirmation that inscription is a primarily herbalism based profession yet? (Aside from the one 'wow, the first item created uses peacebloom!' example)

 

Malleus

Unless you count the specialist tailoring sets like Frozen Shadoweave. Which I for one do, as they're all good. Some would say the specialist plans for BSs also count, but they are not so good.

Being able to socket a weapon would be very handy. I'm assuming that we could only add a socket to an unsocketed weapon, though.

 

Havok

Blacksmithing already has nice BS-only perks in the form of weapons/armors that you can craft (think Stormherald, etc.). What BS lacks is the other end of the spectrum, the high end enhancement items you can sell.

I think a socket kit that you could sell in the AH or in person (that doesn't eat up the enchant slot) would be a very nice way of enhancing BS profitability/usefulness.

 

Copernicus

Inscription is not currently implemented and there's very little to indicate how it will be implemented. I've seen a few spells that look like they'll be directly applied to single spells, but I feel that it's still being worked on.

 

Addled

I would hope it is, either that or skinning. Mining already supports 3 crafting professions (Engineering, Blacksmithing, and Jewelcrafting), and ores/stones are extremely expensive. Having Herbalism support Inscription would help boost prices on herbs.

 

Alcemon

Thats is not a fair comparison, the MAIN focus of Enchanting is to add enchants to current gear. Blacksmithing focus is, on the other hand, to create their own items.
Lot of people complained that BS was one of the most expensive professions to level and yet offered little or no special perks (they claimed the weapons got quickly replaced by arena).

I really don't have anything else to back up my belief, but Blizzard is already introducing a whole new level of customization and slotting with Inscription so having us adding gem slots to each piece of gear on the same expansion does seem like a lot to me.

Edit: a hybrid approach where all slotting to, lets say, belts are BoP while all slotting to, lets say, weapons is BoE is also feasible. And it should make everyone happy too :P

I am going to risk it and say that Blizzard's preview of Inscription was a deliberate one to showcase Herbalism as a major linked profession to Inscription.
If Blizzard was introducing Alchemy in this expansion, it wouldn't be smart(or nice) of them to, lets say, preview it with [Fire Oil] to make us all think that fishing is its companion profession.

 

Axanor

The problem with the BS-created weapons is that just like Frozen Shadowweave, they eventually get obsoleted.

Being able to give your weapons another slot is a great perk that levels the profession out with JC/Enchanting.

 

rhea

A "BoE" weapon socket would only be a boost to jewelcrafters and essentially is a single gem for double the price. I find it unlikely they'd want that.

 

Malleus

That's true, but also disingenuous. FSW isn't obsoleted until late Black Temple, and the Stage 3 BS weapons last nearly as long. On top of the specialist gear, crafters also get access to BOE plans for BOP items, such as [Dawnsteel Shoulders] and [Sunblessed Breastplate]. Many of these items are also excellent in slot - Sunblessed is second only to a M'uru drop that less than one in a hundred raiding Holy Palis will ever wear.

In short: the vast majority of players can craft items that are as good as anything they're ever going to see.

 

flyingtoastr

Well, both the M'uru and Sunblessed chests are quite meh when you take into account losing your 4-piece bonus, but we'll skip that for now since this isn't the place.

The point remains that even though Blacksmithing can make some very nice BoP crap so can every other profession. All of the crafting professions have high level patterns from Sunwell and BT, so using it as an example as to why BS is "ok" is borderline retarded. All the other crafting professions make some sort of major desirable item (not too sure about Engineering but my guildies assure me they make decent profits from injectors) except Blacksmithing. The only thing that I personally have that people actually look for are [Elemental Sharpening Stone]s, and its pretty much just a couple Fury Warriors who need them. Giving Blacksmiths the option of adding Sockets to a couple item slots (belt maybe?) would give them a sellable item just like the leg enhancements the other professions have.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Tanoshii

I have a feeling drums will not be as powerful at 80 as they are at 70. I don't think casters being leatherworkers was really intended.

 

• Playered

Why the concern over a single socket on a Weapon? it will fall below Enchanting (12 Spell damage per ring = 2 sockets, 20 Healing per ring = 1.8 sockets~) like most other statistical benefits for raiding.

 

Prinsesa

I don't think this will be a Blacksmith-specific ability.

An enchanter's enchants are useful until the very end, as you always want to put it on any new piece of gear
A jewelcrafter's gems are useful until the very end, as you always want to put them on any new piece of gear
And so on for ...
... a leatherworker's leg armors (albeit only half the population)
... a tailor's spell threads (the other half)

However, Blacksmithing does not have this kind of consistently selling item. Their BOE belts market can either be obsoleted or saturated (not to mention it only services 2/9th's of the population), and what was supposed to be their niche selling point: Sharpening Stones, turns out to be useless in the face of Windfury, Rogue poisons and the like.

In any case, we only know that it's for a single socket in a weapon. There's no indication that EVERY slot of a character can get a socket from a BS, and one socket in one slot seems like a fair bonus to be shared among everyone.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler