Can we summarize this with:

- Mana regen is broken (most clearly illustrated by shadow priests)
- If this change goes live (and given how dimly thought out it seems to be I doubt it will) mana regen will be broken for warlocks too
- Spirit is broken (i.e., useless) for most class/specs (but we already knew that)
- Blizzard is prone to itemizing badly (knew that too)

Ultimately, it doesn't matter whose gear is better itemized, or who gets how much benefit from what. What matters is whether any one class or combination of classes out-DPSes other comparable classes to the point that a raid leader would reasonably exclude one or more classes from a raid. (Or one class requires so much babysitting to do decent DPS that it isn't worth bringing them.) This is in general a possibility only among the very very high end (who actually have skilled players of all classes to choose from) and the ignorant (who are copy-catting the high end and don't understand that skill > class for 99% of raiders).

So far to date we seem to have:

- Warlocks have been horribly and clumsily nerfed
- Mage gear is inferior to warlock gear

So we'll see where the numbers fall. The point of concern is arguably that the melee classes (and hunters?) will outscale/outperform both caster classes, but the viability of stacking melee depends heavily on whether the encounter will allow it. Indeed, Blizzard could do something like nerf the primary caster classes while simultaneously giving Sunwell bosses more armour than usual and the end result would be a wash.

(Scaling-wise everything goes out the window with WotLK so the six bosses of Sunwell should be our sole concern. Well, and PvP, if that's your area of interest.)

Those figures will go significantly down once you input the sunwell gear. I made a quick check and from the gear currently known, the best firemage set would have 366 passive spell haste rating (> 23%). That would further lower our sustenance, although I do agree that it is possible to use mage armor and spec clearcasting should you need more mana regen options. The problem with this is that clearcasting is effectively lost under all cases where I don't need better DPM (read: majority of times?). My general rule of thumb is that using the current BT gear, < 4 min is fine with a resto shaman. A bit over 4 min I need JOW too. Before 5 min I am garanteed to go fully OOM. I can play around the numbers by changing spec, and using different spell rotation, but once I get at that point there is a severe DPS loss without a shadow priest.

How does recieving an innervate affect those numbers?

I'm noticing that each Lifetap I do on life compared to what I do on test server gives me 370 mana less, for more stamina. While the stamina cost increase is bad (and strange) enough the 370 mana lost each lifetap will have some very noticable impacts.

Also a fully consumable buffed lock will now not increase the mana gained by lifetap making this even more noticable Flask, oils and food all buffed Lifetap and now have no effect.

Edit
The numbers are 1212 mana on PTR and 1582 mana on live with fel armor.

A demand when stated in this fashion does not necessarily mean an ultimatum. For example, when investing you might look at a projected 6% return and say "I demand more return for my money" to yourself and look for somewhere else to invest your money.

With the changes they have made and continue to make to mana regen, I am fully expecting VT to get the nerfbat in WotLK. But not until they have mana regen options available to most /all classes who need it.

If I had to guess, I am going to say that they are probably just splitting up the cooldown on transmutes. That's why there are three transmute categories in the datamine stuff.

As it is, from a purely economic standpoint, its unprofitable to transmute Arcanite unless you netted somewhere between 15-40g, because that's roughly how much a transmute is worth per AH values.

And let's not even talk about all the other transmutes... like truesilver. Solution to make them viable is to split the cooldown like tailoring.

Edit:
To the poster below: Yes, I know. That's what led me to this conclusion.

Regarding mana regen, one of the problems Blizzard faced when tweaking it is that while DPS increases with gear, mana consumption for the most part remains completely flat. With the introduction of spellhaste as an easily available and stackable stat I believe Blizzard intends to introduce mana consumption increase as a common ocurrence in caster scaling. That way they can introduce more mana regen options without risking trivializing mana management (pun).

From the official patch notes:
Transmute Arcanite no longer has a cooldown.

I wonder if they might add the arguably missing transmutes of Fel Iron to Khorium and Adamantite to Eternium. Perhaps along with making those metals useful.

Prospecting them isn't useful enough as it is?

A few of the item's requiring it might actually get made now. Hopefully, since they've done this for arcanite, they also remember the much longer cooldown on the salt shaker to make refined deeprock salt. It doesn't seem to make any sense to have a three day cooldown on making a reagent for curing hides that are only used in old world patterns.

What gem transmutes are you talking about?

Back on page 100 people brought up the fact that NPC's hinted at a transmute for gems existing. I was wondering if anymore information regarding that has opened up with more people doing dailies and the like in the harbor?

Last I noticed, before the PTR came down for de-exploiting, the daily in question was at ~5%.

Most likely it'll be unlocked by the developers sometime this coming week, as the progress from dailies has slowed to a crawl.

http://elitistjerks.com/650363-post2478.html
http://elitistjerks.com/650369-post2479.html
I just really hope something it's something like seaspray to crimson spinel, considering everyone needs them.

Because of that quote from the NPC, I'm now worried that all this means is that you can now buy the Hyjal/BT JC designs from that NPC and nothing more.

http://www.worldofraids.com/2008/ptr/24/jc-sso.jpg

I do hold out hope that they will add gem transmutes though.

The more that I think about those words... the more I think you are correct. 'Lost in time,' i.e. Caverns of Time which is the only place you can get the recipes pre 2.4. But, she does reference alchemy and transmuting so here's hoping.

Well the Gem Recipies are coming for everyone through SSO Rep, that's what has been seen.

The question is, where do the uncut gems come from ? Presently, both the epic gems and recipies can only be obtained in BT and Hyjal. With 2.4, they give the recipies to "everyone". However that is pretty much useless if there is no source of uncut gems. So while they might be added to heroic dungeons' loot table or so, they could also allow for Gem Transmutes, that require blue gems plus something else and produces epic gems. If so, then this would give Alchemy a bit more value. At the moment, many players are dropping it from their main chars due to the lack of usefulness. So this would make sense.

It is all speculation though. I don't think anyone has found anything more than those new spellIDs and the PTRs are down right now.

Certainly though, Blizzard want's to open up the availability of those gems, as the quest reward for MT normal is a cut Crimson Spinel already.

Given that Blizzard is adding gems to Magtheridon's loot table, as well as opening up BT/Hyjal to more raiders, it seems logical that the gems will come from the additional people acquiring them. For those who aren't at the 25-man scene yet, there's always the AH, where we can expect to see more gems showing up post-patch.

But then you wouldn't need to move the recipes to SSO rep. And those new groups entering T6 raidinstances aren't going to give their gems away, they will need it for themselves, too.

But at least it seems a given amidst all these speculations, that the one global alchemy transmute cooldown is going to be removed/split at least in a few different cooldowns.

Another possibility is that the added transmute is blue gem -> epic gem. instead of epic color A -> epic color B.