Not sure where you got your aggressive attitude from, but in a 1 v 1 vs halfway competent mages some tend to sheep you, blink/run away and go behind a pillar to drink.

It's just another way of putting pressure on an opponent, which is one of the most important things on higher ratings, where I have seen it being used quite well.
Additionally you don't really seem to have understood the part about a stealthing enemy (!) druid. I was talking about classes that actually have a working OOC combat rez right now (shaman, priest, paladin) and can't make much sense out of your suggestion on "waiting in bear form".

Honestly, yes, I wouldn't mind at all if Priests were able to make food/water. They're the other class that really needs it like an IV Drip (if anything, Priests need food/water more than any class - well, Soloing Shadow Priests or Priests that want to kill anything with any decent speed). I was going through the different classes in my head, and they're really a fine match for it (plus there are plenty of lore reasons to let them conjure holy food/water).

It would also prevent warriors from charging, rogues, druids and night elves from restealthing (except vanish) and mounting.

I think arenas worked this way for at least part of a public test realm session, but blizzard decided they didn't like it.

If blizzard didn't like drinking in arenas, they would have disallowed conjured food and water and never implemented star's tears.

Yeah, Rogues would absolutely love this change, too.

Would essentially kill any viability hunters have going for them without the ability to FD/Drink as well. Dropping in and out of combat is an accepted part of the game and should not change.

Also, rebirth is not "banned" from arena specifically. Spells with a cooldown longer then 10 minutes are banned. Rebirth happens to fall into that category but it is not alone.

I guess you don't have any friends who play Rogues then, because you just removed Sap from their bar with your "easy" fix.

EDIT: Beaten to the punch multiple times.

I suspect that this is part of the point of inscriptions. Talent changes are already extremely cheap. With the next round of inflation, they will be free. Inscriptions then become the next form of specialization for a specific role. Furthermore, this one will continue to scale for many more expansions.

I'd guess that there will be some inscriptions that are useful for both PvE and PvP, too. They might not be optimal for both, though.

Inscriptions will probably not have as large a role as talents. I'd imagine you could do reasonably well in PvP with a PvE set of inscriptions, for example. They have stated that an inscription will be roughly equivalent in power to a talent point. Presumably a cheap inscription will be like a low tier talent and a purple one requiring raid mats will be like a high tier talent.

It would not be fun to lose your expensive inscription because your GM told you you had to be the one to be immune to Boss X's MC. Therefore, Blizzard won't do it.

As a possible solution to this, I'm imagining something like the hunter pet skill UI, with "dormant" inscriptions. Say, if there's an Inscribe Fireball - Knockback (largely useless for PvE) and an Inscribe Fireball - Subtlety (useless for PvP), you could pay the cost for both of them once, but have some UI where you could select one of the two (or any other set of inscriptions, for that matter). Then, when you respec for PvP, you switch your inscriptions and go PvP, without having to go find the materials for Inscribe Fireball - OMG PONIES and an inscriber with the recipe. Having to re-inscribe your spells every time you respec isn't a gold sink, it's a huge pain in the neck.

You could even extend this to inscriptions that are only useful in certain fights if you allowed people to do it on the fly (kind of like extra equipment slots), or you could require a certain NPC (or a certain amount of gold) to "respec" your inscriptions.

On the other hand, this severely limits the amount of repeat business that inscribers would get... unless new inscriptions were constantly being added, once you have a PvP and PvE inscription you probably don't need any more.

For the record, you can haste resurrect and use haste-stacking effects/items with heroism to haste the resurrect even more. (ZG trinket was so sweet pre nerf, stacking 400 haste rating on top of normal haste gear with heroism).

But I don't Arena hardcore to really comment on balance. I will say that balance will -definitely- be different at 80 though, so its semi moot.

I had not thought about that, but it seems to be a very important issue. Blizzard has stated that they want players to access both PvE and PvP content (cloaks for badges, Tier gear -> PvP gear tradeoff etc.) but this seems like it will pidgeon-hole anyone who wants to be at the top of either spectrum.

Perhaps there will be a way to tie inscriptions to different talent specs or some way to easily and/or inexpensively switch between them. I mean, imagine if you had to re-gem and re-enchant all your gear every time you switched specs. It would be awful.

Thing is, we don't know the basic nature of the profession yet. This is all operating so far under a few assumptions.

Confirmed:

1) 4 Major slots, 2 minor per character. The Major Inscriptions have gameplay effects, minor ones are purely cosmetic
2) Will be at least somewhat associated with the Herbalism gathering profession.
3) Inscriptions can be sold. (presumably, there will be a couple of BoP ones to give inscribers incentive)

Assumed:
1) Inscriptions work like Gem sockets, but on the player instead of on gear.
2) Inscriptions are Unique-Equip, to prevent over-stacking a single, powerful buff
3) Top-end inscriptions are going to be very expensive to craft

If assumptions 1 and 3 are correct, then blizzard won't make a specific inscription required for a given boss, that much is true. However, for all we know, the most expensive actual inscription out there will take, say, a couple of Frost Lotus to craft. Or they might just be BoE.

Blizzard has shown that they are quite willing to make players go through major expense for a boss fight, but only once (Resist fights, anyone?). However, you are correct in saying that they won't force players to spend endless amounts of gold for a single style of content (repair bills and reagents aside). The Alchemy changes are basic proof of that.

This sounds like a feasible/good idea. They could even include some sort of disposable item (crafted by inscriptors, of course) that will activate and de-activate inscriptions and place them on a 12 hour or so cooldown. This would insure that inscriptors can continue to make money after everyone is all decked out and allow for the player base to not become to specialized in any one aspect of the game.

The game has a fair number of unique powerful combat abilities, but one important distinction is that very few of them are essential in 5mans.

These include spell reflect, bubbles, grounding totem, tranq shot, earth elemental, spellsteal, amp/dampen magic, BoSanctuary, CoRecklessness, etc. They're powerful, unique, situational abilities that can be useful in combat-- and (pointing back to the consolidating raid utility thread) that means no 5 or 10-man can rely on the raid having any of these capabilities.

As for the inscription thing, Blizzard has already committed to including itemrack in WOTLK, maybe inscriptions can be freely switched out of combat in the same manner? We just don't know enough to come to any conclusions yet. It would make a great deal of sense to treat inscriptions as separate item slots to be upgraded each tier rather than gems to be re-socketed.

If this is considered to much of a "not previously disclosed leak" please delete

Originally Posted by Elywienn in the holy priest raiding thread. http://elitistjerks.com/768378-post821.html
It isn't so much the healing gear that pisses people off now as the 4th boomkin or elemental belt drop that causes problems. Most people understand the desirability of non healers grabbing a passable healing set for emergencies, Twins and 5 man content.

I remain unconvinced that this will be viable to the differing stat desires of casters vs healers.

Priest healer wants spirit and mana/5 and haste (maybe a touch of crit if deep disc). Shadow priest wants Haste, Hit and Crit

Druid healer wants Spirit mana/5 and haste, boomkin wants Hit, haste and crit. Crit sucks ass for trees

Shammy healer wants haste and regen, elemental wants Crit, Hit and haste.

Pally healer wants Crit and Haste and mana/5, non healing pally, (Shockadin?) wants ummm, I dunno what but it won't be viable tank gear without defence.

This will still require making specialist gear or there will be massive whining from one side of the fence or the other. Also from a social perspective healers should avoid pugs under the new system or expect to be deafened by ignorant casters whining that you are "stealing their gear, and should only go for +healing" and expect you to pass damage gear to them.

As to the changes to the spell coefficients they had to do this to retain the relative value of heals to damage or retune every fight in the game to date. Also it would have totally unset PvP balance.

I had already assumed that the downranking penalty would be tightened as with more and more power coming from gear not base spell it becomes more and more trivial to keep going without running out of mana as the higher ranks just don't give enough extra oomph for the mana spent. Heck on my 2200 healing gear my gh1 lands for more than my ungeared Gh7 already and there is almost no situation where going above gh 4 or 5 makes a difference

I was under the impression that all the Healer <-> DPS gear is only for 'unimportant' content, where itemisation does not need to be perfectly tuned. This would be things like levelling 71-80 instances, lvl 80 normal-mode instance bosses who drop blues etc.

I would have thought that important instances, like 25 mans (sunwell being the best example), high-end heroics etc - they will start to itemise separate again to help stop the problems the previous poster referenced.

That doesn't end up working too well when Casters and Healers have the same basic stat. Instead, I'm guessing we're going to see much more use out of socketing, as has been mentioned before. Malygos drops Cloth_Generic_Caster_3, which has a bunch of damage, spirit, haste, possibly a touch of MP5, and 3 or 4 slots. Casters socket Hit and Crit, Healers socket more MP5, Spirit, etc. Socket bonuses do something possibly beneficial to both.

Given that they're looking to make massive changes to the basics mechanics between healing and damage, I don't see why they wouldn't make changes to the expected itemization for a spec. By appearances, they are already starting the process; Boomkin and Resto Druids are being obviously changed to share itemization in this alpha.

Its a minor issue until your realize your not scaling as well as other specs in the endgame, as your not getting as much out of Crit.

Ask any Sunwell Raiding Affliciton lock about this. Oh, you can find one? Ah thats right..

(Its up to the developers to tweak your spec to have you viable and scaling properly if your spec is in such a situation. This was sadly missed in TBC for warlocks, and thus almost all high end raiding locks are 0/21/40 because of scaling.)

Very well, said, a big quote for Truth also.. it is beginning to annoy me this tit-4-tat attitude. If one class gets something then, as one player puts it.." another should get a bone" ... can we refrain from such conclusions till the other abilities are posted.

May I remind you that abilities are not given on a tit for tat basis, if you don't believe all you need do is compare how many abilities warlock and shaman have, then how many rogues do. One class will not be given a battle rez if druid's got an OOC re, in a tit for tat. Each class has issues that blizzard will give the necessary additions to as they are bought up and requested for a good reason. Wait till you see what the other classes not yet revealed. If druids get an ooc
it would likely be because 5-man groups shun druids without them, however since you can get a pala/sham/priest this will be versus the stealth through respawns..however remember ppl with soulstones and self rez can also do this, but with restrictions, one way to solve it is to make the Druid OOC require you to consume a seed that prevents you from stealthing for while it's up and gets a 30 min cooldown when it is removed.

I think I can explain why certain druid features are finally appearing: Roots indoors, I can see no issue balancing wise having it indoors, it is already in the game and whines about CC losing spots because of it are unfounded as every outdoor instance proves. (unlike OOC rez, why it could not be used indoors, and balance druid's needed the extra appeal being very unattractive for 5-mans, roots in outdoor instances proved that. I could go on about the other druid buffs, like AoE in balance, but do i need to justify every buff that blizzard gives my class? And take it as standard when another class is buffed?

Shadow priests want damage first and haste second. So do holy priests.
Crit for shadow is nice to get after the change, but still terrible enough not to get excited about it. Similar for holy priests, inspiriration is a nice side effect to get, but not a primary gear target.

Shaman - restos and elemental stack damage and haste for pure throughput.
Elementals also want to meet some crit threshold because crit = mana and it increases DPS (it's pretty bad for pure DPS/budget though) but it depends on outside/pottable mana sources how much is needed. Restos want mp5 instead for the same reason, the additional ancestral fortitude and throughput from crit is generally pretty minor.

Druids - restos want healing (I guess the 1.0s GCD on LB/Rejuv makes haste mostly uneffecive?) and whichever amount of spirit they need to cover their mana. Balance wants damage, then haste, then crit from what it looks like at the moment.


With the massive increase in mana costs, reduction of Vampiric Touch and a mentioned further downranking penalty, it is very possible that DPS casters will want and need some regeneration on gear (warlocks get a 30% spirit regen armour as well). We'll have to see how the numbers turn out at 80.

As for spell hit, it really isn't that hard to cap it now, and it certainly won't be with 2 abilities granting up to 5% more hit
as mob debuff. 6-7 out of my 17 worn items have hit at all, and in BT/Hyjal were drowning in too much hit.


If you consider all this, it certainly brings gear closer together.
That item with high spirit and little to no haste/crit won't appeal to casters, and the other way around to healers.
But it still might be better than the item you have from the last tier, or certainly from 2 tiers ago.

One can make cloth that works both ways, for damage and healing. Mail works okay as well if you don't overload it on mp5 or crit.
Leather is a bit worse, but trees might do more soon that just spamming HoTs so crit/haste have some effect on regrowth/nourish (will it work in tree from, will it be changed, it's alpha) and other cast spells.


It's not for making all gear the same, that would be boring. But it can make a top-notch healing item a very good caster item and the other way around.
The elemental shaman that respecs can end up using most of his normal gear and just swap 3 crit/hit pieces for mp5 heavy pieces, turning from a T8 caster to a T7.7 healer. Or that one priest going shadow. Or that other healer grinding motes.


An example that already works is [Shroud of the Highborne], best cloak for pure healing throughput and best caster cloak pre-sunwell (unless you overload on haste). And it will become even better

This is such an inelegant solution though.

Even if they retune all the classes such that Mages, Warlocks, Priests and Shadow Priests all fully benefit from Caster_Chestpiece_01 (and so no one is being forced into gimping themselves) why not just make it a Token_of_Caster_Chestpiece_01 and let us pick our own, unique item?

Do we really want everyone wearing the same damn item anyway?

This is just such a ridiculous change when we all know the real problem is that the caster drop frequency. Turning the 4 healer items into Spriest, Ele Shaman, Moonkin and useless gear (honestly, what pally spec uses pure caster stats, Port Pallies need survivability stats and Ret has been reworked to use physical stats) is a drop in the bucket and doesn't address the main problem at all: Cloth caster gear drops too infrequently given the large percentage of Mages, Warlocks, Spriests in a raid and Moonkin, Ele Shaman gear drops too frequently given their typically solo representation.

Healing itemization changes are huge, without doubt. As Roywyn pointed out some classes can use this hybrid gear quite succesfully (priest) when others are a bit lacking (shamans and especially druids). All these thee classes have a primary spell nukes, namely Smite/Mind blast+mind flay, Lightning Bolt and Wrath. Paladins don't have any.

Paladin is a prime example of a "cooldown class" that has almost all its damage abilities tied on cooldowns. Current paladins are not succesfull spellcasters in any sense. Even if I have well over 1000 spelldmg buffed now in my healing gear I have no use for it.

Waiting eagerly for the paladin changes...