• Chicken

Having to rebuff a buff that already lasts either thirty minutes or an hour less often really isn't that big a deal. It's a minor benefit on a speed run as it saves some time. It comes down to a minor convenience really, exactly in line with what I'd expect from a Minor Glyph.

If all Minor Glyphs are along the lines of either making things look different, or making buffs which already last long enough that you don't have to rebuff them mid-fight last even longer, everything's fine with them. They won't really impact your characters performance in any meaningful way when that happens, they'll just save you some time, or some money, or they'll make you look different.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Vihermaali

First question that comes into mind is, "does this stack with Alchemists stone"? Tooltip of stone indicates that it wouldn't, but if this does stack total extra gained would be around 54-68% on health and manapotions. That would make 3200 mana Fel mana potion restore 5000-5500 mana, which is quite a lot.

 

Sydane

Healthstones, healing potions, and bandages are all very powerful in a 10 man raid setting if they want to balance encounters around having only two healers. Nerfing those is one way they exercise some control over that. Raid positioning and movement for aoe buffs and heals is going to be huge in WotLK raiding, mark my words. I'm also expecting a lot of 3 to 5 minute enrage timers in 10 mans.

 

Vihermaali

Taking extra consumable usage is one thing, but reducing enrage timers is whole another world. Thanks to how spirit works, reducing enrage timers to 3 to 5 minutes would be a very bad thing for spirit users (druids and priests mainly?). Spirit gains effectiveness only as encounters last longer. If encounters last 3 minutes (how could short encounters like that be ever fun?) then stacking regenerative stats would be mostly useless and you should focus on +spellpower, +haste and +intellect. Then if 25-man versions would have normal 6min, 10min and 15min enrage timers you would have to have whole another gear set for 25-men.

5 minute enrage timer is already very short, making it shorted (for raids) would drastically reduce the fun factor too. It would simply be too easy to last trough for healers. Either that, or encounters would become mindless spam, because that's currently the only way to be completely out of mana in 3 minutes.

Only real difference between 10-25men instances should be the amount of players. 10-men having 3 minute timers should mean 3 minute timers in 25-mans. Can you imagine doing 3-minute M'uru or Kil'jaeden? If anything, I'd like the standard raid enrage timer to be 10 minutes. Let the 3 to 5-minute ones be in 5-mans and heroics.

 

Ja7us

Do keep in mind that spell costs will be scaling up significantly more than mana pools. It may well be possible to run OOM much quicker at 80 than it was at 70.

Does the fun-factor of a fight really scale with its length? That seems like a strange argument. There are some fun fights that are short, and some fun fights that are long. Would Kalecgos be less fun if there was one fewer portal rotation? Would Brutallus be less fun if his enrage timer was balanced at 4 minutes, instead of 6? Would Illidari Council be less "fun" if the fight took 6 minutes for the average first kill, instead of 10?

 

Tacitus

Eh, sometimes a good fight is fast and frentic. Brutallus has only a 6 min enrage and on the other tiers we have Shade of Aran (extremely fun) in T4 and er.. well the warlock lady in Tempest Keep used to be fast but they changed the encounter so much it doesn't apply that much anymore. On T6 we have Shade of Akama and (arguably) Teron Gorefiend.

Short doesn't imply mindless nor boring. I wouldn't call the Illidari Council anything but boring and the encounter lasts 8-15 minutes depending on your gear and execution.

Brotherhood, Peace, Unity

Welcome back, Comrade

 

Vihermaali

Yes, sometimes it's fun to have a short and fast fight. But I was really talking about the norm being reduced from 6 to 3 and 10 to 5, reducing encounter times universally. Sunwell was nicely balanced: 2 short fights (Brutallus, Eredar Twins), 3 medium fights (Kalecgos, felmyst, M'uru) and 1 long fight (Kil'Jaeden).

 

Cabal

Possibly a bug, but the default UI is showing the hp numbers of mobs.

 

Zurgat

It's a known, new feature actually.
Hopefully it'll be possible to configure it to show the % instead if so wished.

-= Random Ravings - RSS Feed =- Rogue and Hunter stuff here. As well as guides to get you trough your spare time.

 

Smurrf

ZA speed runs already see boss fights done in ~3-4 mins. They're not *quite* enrage timers, but there's a definite downside if you take 6 mins on a fight instead of 4. Realistically, while they may not make a hard enrage at 3-4, I'm willing to bet that there'll be a lot of soft enrages, or other drawbacks to taking longer. Gruul's growth mechanics, Vashj's Spore Bat poison, and other various encounters all come to mind as examples. And since Blizz has already said that the spirit of the various encounters will be the same from 10-25 man, while actual mechanics may vary, I don't see any reason why they couldn't make the fights in 25 last longer if they wanted to.

There's just some things you can get away with implementing in 25's that you won't in 10's, and vice versa.

 

Sydane

Also, stacking healers has a much larger effect in 10 mans than in 25 mans. Going from 2 healers to 3 is a huge increase, much more so than from 6 to 7. If Blizzard wants the norm to be 2 healers, then there needs to be enrage checks in place to force that. Of course I don't expect every single fight to be that way, but I can see the 10 man Patchwerk having a 3 minute Berserk, with the 25 man still having a 7 minute. Remember, though the 10 mans get outgeared faster, they can be much harder execution fights and much tighter gear checks initially. Think about how you can do a ZA bear run at lower gear levels with 2 healers than with 3 for example.

 

Freki

nice change - one more mod obsolete.

 

Kumar

That is awesome.

Also, Looks like the opt-in emails are being sent out already.

 

Tacitus

Remember the BM hunter talent that allows extraordinary creatures to be tamed?

Well, I just found a SS on NeoGAF (where they found it on PA) that shows a tameable Devilsaur.

I'm considering leveling a hunter just for this.

E: and after a bit of searching, it's on the hunter thread too WotLK Talents & Abilities Discussion

Brotherhood, Peace, Unity

Welcome back, Comrade

 

• sordee

Yes, druids and priests will still be about the timing game, while Shaman now move into the Paladin camp of having high Crit rates, to magically consume water shield orbs.

Side note, quick run down of all mana regen changes for Wrath:

* Survival Hunters generate mana/energy et Al on Criticals.
* Resto Druids generate mana/energy et Al on Rejuv/Nourish.
* Ret Paladin generate mana to nearby by using a Judgement.

* Moonkin Druids self-generate mana on Criticals.
* Resto Shaman get free orb on spell crit.
* Disc Priest generate 2.5% mana based on their heals.
* Holy priest get discounts for overhealing with FH/GH (Tier 5x3)
* Holy Paladin get evocate as well as easier long range Judgements of Wisdom/Light
* (minor) Warlock Imp increase int/spirit by 3%
* BM Hunters can generate mana from Pet Criticals (Invigoration) and greatly enhanced by (Cobra Strikes)


Old Mechanisms:
Shadow Priests
Mana Tide
Innervate
Holy Paladin - 60% refund on criticals

Have I missed anything?

EDIT: Added BM and Ret stuff
Edit2: Added Innerevate and Holy Pally Crit

 

Pyros

Resto drums, even on 2mins debuff cooldown thingie, still provide group mana regen every 2mins.

 

flyingtoastr

Ret pallys restore mana to 3 nearby friendlies based on damage done (Judgements of the Wise - Spell - World of Warcraft), though it is bugged at the moment on the actual beta.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Mikari

BM Hunters can spec to gain mana from pet crits.

 

• sordee

... Waiting for other shoe to drop.
"Tone Deaf" - "Unable to listen to drums until you rest out of combat for a short duration"

 

• Chicken

They beat you to it by a couple of patches actually. [Tinnitus].

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Emeraude

There's a bug right now there has turned cities like Undercity/Ironforge extremely dark, even though it's probably not intended, it looks extremely cool(And is actually fitting for places Underground/In a Mountain). I'm hoping they salvage the effect for at least night time in these cities, but I doubt it.

ImageShack - Hosting :: wowscrnshot072908000533dd6.jpg
ImageShack - Hosting :: wowscrnshot072908000538mo1.jpg
ImageShack - Hosting :: wowscrnshot072908000556yf7.jpg

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CX81UJZ8
For the lurking Phoenix Wright faithful.
What is the most important thing to you? Won't you grant me the pleasure of taking it away.

 

• sordee

Ah yes, bad memory.

 

mils

I think by nerfing potion chugging into oblivion, they can now balance all those aspects of raiding. I dislike having to constantly chug stuff for encounters, thus this change removed that and I'm all for it.

The guild organiser was amusing to see especially as its almost a screengrab of the Warhammer one.

 

• Falk

This made me laugh... a more apt description for "Tone Deaf" would be "Only able to play drums and not other musical instruments for duration of debuff". Don't hurt me.

 

Copernicus

I think this was known information, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

WoW Forums -> Maim does not stop auto-attacks

Does anyone have the complete list of CC abilities that break on fixed damage? I'm pretty sure Frost Nova/Frostbite is as well.