Wrath of Lich King Stuff (was 'Blizzcon' thread) - Page 290

Copernicus · 09/09/08, 2:27 PM

One of the more annoying things about the mana regen mini-game is figuring out DPS rotations or even talent specs based on the length of the fight.

Mage armor vs molten armor is a good, clear example of this. If mana regeneration is important now and mages are expected to use mage armor, then a shortened fight with molten armor would result in a spike for mage damage. There are more complicated example (Living Bomb rotations, Arcane Blast spam, etc) - but length of the fight shouldn't be as large a factor for mana-using classes and a minor issue for non-mana classes.

Roywyn · 09/09/08, 2:30 PM

Originally Posted by constantius

This is an extremely clear-cut case. Resurgent are almost perfectly itemized for a holy priest (except the lack of a socket, which is almost universal for off-set gear in Naxx10. Don't know why).
1) Unfortunately, they're also close to perfect for any hit-capped caster class.

If you go down the list of the current Naxx drops, there's usually one that's "better" for a healer. Unfortunately, two of them have hit. Why?
2) Because the other option has no spirit, and has Mp5. That's an instant "no" from me, simply because the scaling is so bad.

We have a serious problem with caster itemization. We're going to be sharing a single drop between 7 people in at least half the cases (25-man stuff). I really really hope they end up creating about 4 items for each slot, each armor type, and put 2 of them on the loot tables, and 2 on a token vendor. It's the only way they'll end up being able to make people happy. If we have a situation like the horrible healing cloth shoulder from Sunwell again, where it and its turnin were both terrible, it's a completely wasted slot in a raid where you can't afford to have serious amounts of rotting loot. Too many specs, too many specializations.

1) This can be solved by having an alternative with 2 dps stats (crit/haste/hit)

2) Mp5 has no place on cloth, wands, off-hand frills.
Since these items are aimed at classes which prefer spirit over mp5 (mage/lock/priest/druid).
Someone should make notice of that in the US beta forums as well.

Originally Posted by levk

GC said that they intend for mana management to be a part of caster's game. Shadow priests will not provide you with all you can use mana anymore and neither can you chain chug pots. If you have inside 5SR regen spirit will increase mean times between evocates increasing your overall dps.

I've actually checked the numbers on that, and with JoW, Replenish and Evocation I'll likely get through 6 minute fights without gemming or potting as fire spec.

They'll have to turn a lot of mechanics upside down before I'll consider touching spirit.
Or, well, not fixing Arcane Blast and making level 80 mages run Void Reaver for their tier sets would also make spirit attractive.

erragal · 09/09/08, 2:37 PM

Originally Posted by Lithose

If its looked at in this way..Then the problem isn't with spirit on gear, the problem is the fact that regen is so high, or spell costs so low, that its not needed *or* there isn't an effective way to take advantage of it so that it gives more DPS then alternative damage increases beyond a certain inflection point.

I guess, in a perfect "balance" mages would want to use arcane armor in fights longer than X, where X is any point that the extra regen/casts will out perform damage from Y...For druids, I think the obvious thing they want is intesify to be an attractive enough talent to take, which can either be done through straight buffs to spirit (Ala % spirit=damage) or by simply raising the spell costs on your nukes to the point where intensify is required and spirit, as a stat, is valuable.

Edit: Though, I do agree, spirit should be useful, as a stat, in all situations, it should be made more useful by talents or by changing armors ect. In general, I think the system itself is broken, mp5 ect should be done away with, its such a poor, obtuse and "clunky" band aid on a silly system. Spirit should just be reworked so that it gives a scaling amount of mana regen, with more needed as returns get higher...And spirit regen talents should simply increase the amount gained..Spirit as a stat should be universally useful, but non-regen while casting and mp5 in gear run contrary to that.

Part of the confusion with balance druids is that most of the the talents tell you to stack intellect :Intel to mp5 conversion, 2% total mana on crits, intel to spell damage conversion (This was significantly nerfed). Haste (OoC) and Crit (Moonkin form) are also now potential mana regen stats in addition to DPS. There's exactly one reachable talent that rewards spirit as a stat (And innervate), and it is only moderately better than the intellect based one.

I agree that resource management needs to be made more important, but the balance druid situation is even more frustrating because of the mixed message in the talents not being consistent with the gear. If the gear is being designed with stats only to make a single three-point talent attractive, then it seems likely there's a problem somewhere.

The conflicting situation is elemental shaman: Their tier pieces are itemized with Mp5 in just one slot. Clearly blizzard isn't intending to make shaman use spirit, but they don't seem to get pushed into mana regen on their gear.

levk · 09/09/08, 2:39 PM

About mp5 - it was brought up in the paladin thread - mp5 is plain worse regen per item budget investment compared to int at least for raid holy paladins with current replenishment mechanics returns scaling with total mana. Paladins get 15% int from talents and 10% from kings.

Roywyn - did you see if it would be worth it to stretch spirit enough to not need an evocation for that 6 minute fight? How about 4 minutes? It's a lot of numbers to check which is why I'm not particularly fond of this evocation thing.

sadistic · 09/09/08, 2:44 PM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

<Snipped>

That way, the spirit would still be around (which is what Blizzard seems to want), but it wouldn't replace an effective stat.
Currently, the only effect of spirit is that mages look for off-set pieces without it and another DPS stat instead.

I just wanted to remind you that you are talking about BC wow, with the Wotlk spirit-philosophy.
The entire game will change quite a bit, especially with regards to spirit & mana management.

Valerian · 09/09/08, 2:45 PM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

I've actually checked the numbers on that, and with JoW, Replenish and Evocation I'll likely get through 6 minute fights without gemming or potting as fire spec.

They'll have to turn a lot of mechanics upside down before I'll consider touching spirit.
Or, well, not fixing Arcane Blast and making level 80 mages run Void Reaver for their tier sets would also make spirit attractive.

I suspect they're going to do that mechanic changing so that mana regen will be an issue again (and not one solvable by chain potting as it is now). If mana was meant to be an unlimited (for a fight) resource it would regen like energy does.

Roywyn · 09/09/08, 3:46 PM

Originally Posted by levk

Roywyn - did you see if it would be worth it to stretch spirit enough to not need an evocation for that 6 minute fight? How about 4 minutes? It's a lot of numbers to check which is why I'm not particularly fond of this evocation thing.

Mage Armour vs. Evocation isn't really a question of needing, it's a question of what costs you less damage for the amount of mana gained.
With Mage Armour costing you the crit from Molten, and Evocation costing you the time spent not DPSing.
But I guess that's what you were looking at.

You'd need about 1000 spirit before Evocation is worse than Mage Armour. That's quite a lot, a Naxx-10 caster caster kit with Divine Spirit, Mark of the Wild and Blessing of Kings buffed gets you to 600.
236 spirit is actually on the gear, so we'd need 2.5 times that on gear for Mage Armour to break even.

I'd like to raise the other question - when would I start to use Molten Armour in our current setting?

If I have my calculations right, then with JoW, Replenish, BoW, Mana Spring (unimproved, no Tide) and just chain gemming and evocation (which are both more efficient mana generators than mage armour, including the cast time to make new mana gems mid-fight), it would take about 35-40 minutes before I'd have to switch to mage armour.

Half an hour!
Ouch. I hope nobody ever implements a fight that long ever. You'd have to rebless and renew armours, new soulstones!
On the bright side, that's a lof of combat resurrections!

Actually, with Frostfire Bolt DoT weaving (if rank 2 DoT gets to scale as well), I'd never run out of mana with the buffs mentioned above.

All that changes a lot in party play where no or only few raid buffs are available.
No doubt about that, and spirit may well be useful there. But it currently isn't for killing bosses.

Originally Posted by sadistic

I just wanted to remind you that you are talking about BC wow, with the Wotlk spirit-philosophy.
The entire game will change quite a bit, especially with regards to spirit & mana management.

Unless I'm missing something, I think I am talking about Wrath mechanics *blinks*
http://elitistjerks.com/886190-post1262.html

Mana for casters is kind of a pointless mechanic right now.

If it's not restrictive, then its kind of meaningless. Like outlined above. Or like now in BC.
If you make it too restrictive, you are less usefull than a non-mana limited class (Hunters/Warlocks with the new AotV/LT).
They can have unlimited mana, but at a time/DPS cost.
4 other classes are limited to mana cooldowns. Raid buffs, raid encounter and playstyle to an extent dictate whether you'll last or whether you won't.
When the blue bar is empty and you're out of cooldowns, it's game over.

[Edit]: Whoa, that's quite a bit more than I actually wanted to write, you people are asking too many interesting questions!

zoombini · 09/09/08, 4:05 PM

Originally Posted by erragal

The conflicting situation is elemental shaman: Their tier pieces are itemized with Mp5 in just one slot. Clearly blizzard isn't intending to make shaman use spirit, but they don't seem to get pushed into mana regen on their gear.

This is the part that worries me when I hear "every caster is going to need spirit". There's at least 3 specs of casters (4 if you count enh shamans, who blizzard definitely wants to cast more spells) who have absolutely no spirit on their gear. Is Blizzard really assuming managing spirit = mp5 + shaman talents?

Macblade · 09/09/08, 4:15 PM

Originally Posted by Valerian

I suspect they're going to do that mechanic changing so that mana regen will be an issue again (and not one solvable by chain potting as it is now). If mana was meant to be an unlimited (for a fight) resource it would regen like energy does.

This was exactly the point that I was going to make. One of the main defining features of classes in WOW is the mechanic behind each class's energy/mana/rage regen. See the DK, the first thing they did when developing the first new class in 2 years was come up with a new energy/mana/rage system. All through BC, with Spriests and chain chugging mana pots all the mana users have gotten to act like rogue (albeit ones that might have to pay gold for their energy regen). To me this is a totally broken mechanic. What's the point of talking about a mana pool if everyone treats it like its an energy pool that's just going to be regen-ed.

I recently switched from raiding as a rogue to raiding as an ele sham. Yes I find it frustrating when I go OOM on mother because of the mana burn aspect or going oom when I don't have a Spriest or having to drop CL from my rotation because I'm getting low. But at the same time I'm enjoying playing a shammy because it is different than playing my rogue and one of the main differences are all the mana issues.

I think that's its funny that we have people complaining about all the classes become homogenized because of stupid buffs that come in the form of totems that are dropped once every 2 minutes or an aura you get from walking around as a lazer turkey, while at the same time people are talking are arguing for the fact that they basically want there to be no trade off what-so-ever for mana regen stats, so all the casters can have a play style that's essentially the same as a rogue's. If you think that class diversity is a good thing, then having play styles differ based on whether you are a rage or energy or mana class seems like a fundamental part of that. Certainly more fundamental, in terms of play style, than whether you get crit from an aura for from a totem or whether you get a physical debuff from an arms warriors crit or a rogue's poison.

erragal · 09/09/08, 5:16 PM

There are just as many problems with designing casters that run out of mana in every fight no matter how much mana regen they get. It reverses things and makes mana regen stats matter more than anything else.

Additionally, you want mana using classes to be able to output similar DPS to the energy/rage classes over the course of an entire encounter. If you make it so they all run out of mana very easily, the damage done with that mana is going to have to go up significantly. That presents issues in PVP by giving mana users much more burst damage than energy/rage users. It also makes the mana using classes too powerful if you want to use an encounter mechanic that requires burst damage.

Blizzard already doesn't itemize for mana regen on pvp gear, and mana is a valid resource in PVP situations. It's a slippery slope when they try and balance between too much and not enough regen, particularly in raid situations.

levk · 09/09/08, 5:40 PM

They've opted to make mana a meaningful game mechanic. They've said that much and things are moving in that direction. I don't know how productive it is to question their call on this, to me mana feels like an outdated game mechanic which doesn't produce enjoyable gameplay, but this is what they've decided. Alternatively they could've moved further into spriest territory with most classes getting a way to get massive amounts of mana back to raid/party on abilities providing a soft route to mana free gameplay. But they opted not to even though the early beta was going that way.

They had to put their foot down somewhere to start balancing everything else. Arenas, bgs, raiding, solo, etc. is consequential.

Totemtoter · 09/09/08, 6:07 PM

If all dps classes do approximately the same dps, those that run out of mana will do higher dps on short fights and lower dps on long fights. That seems to encourage raid stacking, and the buff changes should make that even easier to do.

I also imagine dps may now need to maintain a haste set for short fights and a regen set for long fights. Since casual players rarely optimize gear per encounter, I am curious what impact using optimal gear for each fight will have on how Blizzard tunes future encounters.

I do find it odd that Blizzard is going down this road as it seems contrary to the casual mentality, but I am glad to finally see a change that isn't just dumbing down the game.

Maledict · 09/09/08, 6:25 PM

If all dps classes do approximately the same dps, those that run out of mana will do higher dps on short fights and lower dps on long fights

Erm, where do you get that from? Blizzard have never said that, and it's never been the case (unless we're taking 45 seconds or so of AB spamming in TBC). Balancing like that is how EQ balanced their DPS classes, and it never worked out well - either your burn dps was too good on short fights, or they ran out of mana and were useless compared to the melee. In the end, they had to scrap that model.

Currently, mana users are balanced around the idea of infinite mana. The only class whose DPS goes up as they get more mana are warlocks are arcane mages, but even they have a cap at which point more mana doesn't do anything for them.

Fundamentally, when Blizzard are suggesting that spirit might be useful because stopping casting and getting outisde of the 5 second rule is a skill to be learnt, then I think something is fundamentally wrong. When has not playing your character been fun?

sadistic · 09/09/08, 6:34 PM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

Unless I'm missing something, I think I am talking about Wrath mechanics *blinks*
http://elitistjerks.com/886190-post1262.html

Mana for casters is kind of a pointless mechanic right now.

If it's not restrictive, then its kind of meaningless. Like outlined above. Or like now in BC.
If you make it too restrictive, you are less usefull than a non-mana limited class (Hunters/Warlocks with the new AotV/LT).
They can have unlimited mana, but at a time/DPS cost.
4 other classes are limited to mana cooldowns. Raid buffs, raid encounter and playstyle to an extent dictate whether you'll last or whether you won't.
When the blue bar is empty and you're out of cooldowns, it's game over.

[Edit]: Whoa, that's quite a bit more than I actually wanted to write, you people are asking too many interesting questions!

Well it seemed to me like you were talking BC, where manamanagement really wasnt all that, and thus spirit was bad for dpscasters in general.
With wotlk, all we really know is that devs want manamanagement to play a bigger part. That in and of itself increases the worth of spirit as a stat by very much. So I'd take a (not very) educated guess and say that spirit will most likely be pretty important for dps casters in wotlk. And not, as you did in the post I quoted (if I got you right) say that spirit is just stealing your itembudgetpoints. (which is true for BC, for wotlk we wont know until we're closer to release and they are done tweaking)
That said, the last part of your post has very good points, but like you alluded to yourself, its just a question of tweaking the dps cost of "unlimited" mana for the casters aswell.

Totemtoter · 09/09/08, 6:45 PM

Originally Posted by Maledict

Fundamentally, when Blizzard are suggesting that spirit might be useful because stopping casting and getting outisde of the 5 second rule is a skill to be learnt, then I think something is fundamentally wrong. When has not playing your character been fun?

Here's a blue response to someone questioning increased spirit on oomkin gear. There have been quite a few comments recently by blues saying that casters should be concerned about mana.

Maledict · 09/09/08, 7:20 PM

Again, that's not what I said though. There's a difference betwen "mana regen as an interesting pacing mechanic" and "Stick spirit on all your set gear, if you run out of mana you have to stop casting for 10 seconds".

If Blizzard wants to make mana regen and spirit count for casters, then they need to actually think about balance and the mechanics, not just rely on sticking spirit on everything and hoping that's enough. The Blizzard motto has always been, make it fun. Right now, the current set-up on test isn't fun, and it's quite dumb in many ways.

ildon · 09/09/08, 7:47 PM

Originally Posted by Maledict

Fundamentally, when Blizzard are suggesting that spirit might be useful because stopping casting and getting outisde of the 5 second rule is a skill to be learnt, then I think something is fundamentally wrong. When has not playing your character been fun?

It's pretty obvious Wryxian doesn't speak for the design team, so I don't think it's helpful to refer to his statement.

Coincidentally, as a shadow priest, during deep breath on Felmyst I just try to kill one skeleton to proc spirit tap and then I put my spirit staff on and stop casting until he lands. I also would occasionally put the spirit staff on during Illidan phase transitions where he's untargetable. This could be the type of thing he was referring to, rather than like, trying to wait 3 seconds between starfires to get a single spirit tick or something dumb like that.

Karoo · 09/09/08, 8:19 PM

Originally Posted by Ugato

This is not a sound nor valid reason to have major bind to account items. In fact, it would be incessantly stupid to have people even tempted to roll/bid on items "because my 20 mage would really pwn with that." There are very few items that would transfer effectively across classes anyway. If you were able to get any function out of the BtA items, then you would in essence be rerolling the same or at least a very similar character.

There is no doubt it would tempt people to roll on items because "it would pwn on my level 20 mage" but it also makes content more re-usable. It's more of a wish list fancy than something I would deem worthy to propose to a dev if I had the chance.

That said, as it stands right now normal runs through level 70 dungeons almost don't exist. It kind of hurts if you're a new character trying to gear up to be desirable on Kara/heroic runs but hate PvP and don't want to honor grind.

You run into idiots who roll on offset gear even when another class who is specced correctly can use the item. There is no doubt people will do the same thing for alts in this scenario, however people will be able to put together runs for much longer into the life of the expansion because there will be overgeared characters who want to gear up alts and twinks. There are pros even with the evident cons.

If I ever had the chance to pitch this idea to Blizzard I'd pitch it as, make a few non-instanced (5-man) sprawling dungeons with high respawn rates and a higher than normal level of difficulty (perhaps heroic difficulty) with rewards that are exactly the same as non-heroic, instanced level 70 5-mans (instanced dungeons still drop BoP gear). The only reason to dungeon crawl in these places is for the experience (I used to love dungeon crawling chardok and sebilis in Kunark) and the drops which would be non binding and have no (or drastically lower) level requirements.

There would still be plenty of instanced content with all the same rep rewards and drops for the playerbase but one or two non-instanced dungeon crawls available for people who want more of a challenge and re-usable/twink items.

I would expect it to be big enough to house 4-5 groups and make the respawn rate high enough that it would be hard to hold more than one camp even after you moderately outgear it. These dungeons would, of course, inevitably also serve as gold mines for bleeding edge raiders.

I just hate that every new game is takes such a harsh anti-twink stance these days.

Starfire · 09/09/08, 9:48 PM

So you think the Priest that specced healing because you couldn't find a healer, but really desires and wants to be shadow, should be punished by not rolling on a dps upgrade?

I don't get that mentality. I am pretty upfront about things I want on my alt, but I also realize that some roles (tanking, healing) are more desireable. And I am perfectly willing to tank a 5 man in order to get a dps upgrade. I see it as me doing everyone a favor, however.

But honestly, as is, I don't think the issue affects new alts. Alts will get into Karazahn and get towed. The issue is how to make the game easier for new people. And I don't see account items being a solution. I cede that your idea of un-instanced content would greatly help that, as long as people weren't jerks and willing to help some new guys out.

Auororam · 09/09/08, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by Starfire

The issue is how to make the game easier for new people. And I don't see account items being a solution. I cede that your idea of un-instanced content would greatly help that, as long as people weren't jerks and willing to help some new guys out.

How exactly would a large, non-instanced, fast respawn, high level, twink-item-dropping cave help a new person play WoW?

I recently restarted with some new players. Overall they move slowly through content and play many alts. I'd guess it will take over 6 months to a year before any of them eventually advance to 70 and run anything but a 5 man. I think the game is very new player friendly, with the only current problem finding groups for lower level instances.

Things that would actually help a new player would be retuning the old world. Redoing clunky, confusing quests. Taking their new idea of "quest hubs" and applying it to places like Darkshire. Putting in more current lore developements so that they are all caught up on the storylines. Using their new technologies like the markered accounts where people experience different NPCs could make for fantastic 1-60 changes.

Jagiya · 09/09/08, 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by Starfire

So you think the Priest that specced healing because you couldn't find a healer, but really desires and wants to be shadow, should be punished by not rolling on a dps upgrade?

I don't get that mentality. I am pretty upfront about things I want on my alt, but I also realize that some roles (tanking, healing) are more desireable. And I am perfectly willing to tank a 5 man in order to get a dps upgrade. I see it as me doing everyone a favor, however.

I like this approach, I wish it were more common. Far too often I see Ret Pallies/MS Warriors/Feral Druids whinging and crying because no-one wants to tank an instance for them. I'm so freakin' tired of finding 5+ Warriors in the LFG panel and all of them refusing to tank because they're DPS. If some guy is willing to put in the effort to tank HMGT so he can get his Shard of Contempt, then who's to say he's not entitled to it!

Axanor · 09/09/08, 11:01 PM

The problem is that currently, it's near impossible to tank a 5-man as a DPS warrior, and paying 100g just for a pug run isn't worth it.

That should not be the case-post-WOTLK.

• fox · 09/09/08, 11:09 PM

Originally Posted by Axanor

The problem is that currently, it's near impossible to tank a 5-man as a DPS warrior, and paying 100g just for a pug run isn't worth it.

That should not be the case-post-WOTLK.

I don't entirely agree with that statement -- I have tanked some normal 5-mans as a Holy paladin in BC, however it will become much easier in Wrath.

Heroics are not possible however and I don't believe that is changing in Wrath. (The previous post to yours reference Heroic MgT)

Axanor · 09/09/08, 11:13 PM

Originally Posted by fox

I don't entirely agree with that statement -- I have tanked some normal 5-mans as a Holy paladin in BC, however it will become much easier in Wrath.

Heroics are not possible however and I don't believe that is changing in Wrath. (The previous post to yours reference Heroic MgT)

That's because you're playing a paladin.

Tanking the levelling instances on my Fury warrior was an absolute nightmare levelling to 70 (holding aggro was next-to-impossible), and was one of many reasons I switched over to a caster for TBC.

Starfire · 09/09/08, 11:33 PM

Originally Posted by Auororam

How exactly would a large, non-instanced, fast respawn, high level, twink-item-dropping cave help a new person play WoW?

I recently restarted with some new players. Overall they move slowly through content and play many alts. I'd guess it will take over 6 months to a year before any of them eventually advance to 70 and run anything but a 5 man. I think the game is very new player friendly, with the only current problem finding groups for lower level instances.

Things that would actually help a new player would be retuning the old world. Redoing clunky, confusing quests. Taking their new idea of "quest hubs" and applying it to places like Darkshire. Putting in more current lore developements so that they are all caught up on the storylines. Using their new technologies like the markered accounts where people experience different NPCs could make for fantastic 1-60 changes.

Partially. There were seperate issues in the original post I was replying too.

One issue is that there is no one doing regular instances. New people are usually undergeared to do heroic instances. Being able to gear them up fast allows them to go to places where other people are actually going. True. I cede it doesn't teach them how to play, but then they will learn how to play in the heroics.

You want new people to be able to get to where other people are. You don't want them isolated. You want to speed them up. The more they're isolated, the more likely they are to NOT play. As a whole, we shouldn't want that.

As to your comment about alts/newbies... that's a gross generalization. There are all-types of people. There are certainly a plethora of new people who will become regulars at Elitist Jerks given some time. And there are people who have been playing for 3 years who STILL don't have a 70 (or even a 60), and I know a couple of folks like that.

I've taken a newbie priest under my wing lately, and I can see the hard time she has with groups. I think she's a fine healer, but there just aren't people running regulars. And she needed more +heal, +stamina and +spirit/regen to do heroics. She learned quickly, but there's a time when it comes down to numbers.