The WotLK profession thread - Page 10

Vasala · 07/30/08, 6:15 AM

Originally Posted by Shakes

Why do we need "economic consequences" for respeccing? All it does is disproportionately hurt hybrid classes, who already have the "economic consequences" of having to gem/enchant multiple gear sets (and in the case of healers or tanks, the "economic consequences" of their farming set lagging behind in quality to those of their DPS peers).

I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation for a healer or tank to want to be able to participate in all aspects of the game as easily as a DPS player. Blizzard seem to be slowly getting it, first with the 1/3 damage on healing gear, now with the unified spell power and the 2 specs. They've almost got it right (I'd argue the only tweak required is adding a third spec, so you could have a PvE/PvP/solo choice for those who want to both PvP and PvE as healers/tanks). Why on earth do people want them to take a big step backwards and make inscription a barrier to it?

I agree that we don't need to take a step back and add in new costs for respecing. For those wondering why this could be a big deal I say look at Sunwell and the way min/maxing for the various fights effect hybrid specs. I can easily see a paladin being ret for Kalecgos and Brutallus, prot for Felmyst, holy for Twins, and then back to prot for M'uru. So this player has to change specs 3 times during the killing of 5 bosses. As it stands now that would take 3 trips to the trainer to handle. If you have 2 specs with permanent glyphs then this player still needs at least one trainer trip and he will also have to buy or use up 3 sets of glyphs for this group of bosses. Yes this is not a perfect example since inscriptions are not in the game but if there were then in a completely min / max setting that is what this player would be forced to do.

I personally hope that raids in Wrath won't have the massive change from fight to fight in raid make up needs that can be seen in Sunwell currently. But if it does happen the last thing you want to be seeing is the hybrid that is making the sacrifice to be able to fill all the needed roles get punished with having to repurchase glyphs for every spec change he makes for the good of the raid.

From the point of storage space saving I would suggest having the glyphs have their own spell book page that they go into when you buy and learn new glyphs. Then you can drag and drop the ones you want active into the appropriate glyph spots. With that the money maker for inscription goes with the stat scrolls and enchanting scrolls after people have all the glyphs they want but I do not see that as being a bad thing.

Ultimately we just have to wait and see how things play out on the beta server since there is not yet enough information to see how inscription will fit into the raiding game or the PVE/PVP side of things.

Ukerric · 07/30/08, 6:19 AM

Originally Posted by odie85

My question for those in beta; How relevant are the outland materials for leveling a profession to max level? Such as, rugged leather went from a 1-2 gold a stack to 15-30 gold a stack days after the release. I can see it happening again, but with inscription which materials might go from worthless to very important?

Almost all professions seem to have an intersection. At least the ones partially implemented do. Starting at 360 or so, you have recipes from Northrend, so you can either level using the outland recipes which use only outland materials, or the northrend recipes which use only northrend materials. There doesn't seem to be an intersection; I haven't seen any northrend recipe that has outland materials.

So, if you're already maxed, there's little need for outland materials stack. In fact, the only profession that can get a leg up before leaving the landing areas and skilling seem to be Alchemy, as you do have a couple easy recipes that are still yellow/orange at 375, whereas all other professions' recipes at that level are horribly expensive.

For inscription, since only the 1st tier (1-75) is in game (you can get the next step, but there's no recipe available, so you cap at around 130, when all your recipes go gray), it's harder to say. We haven't seen glyphs, and notably 300-375 glyphs (if any) which presumably will consume primals, enchanter supplies, ores, or whatever.

Or... they can do a jewelcrafting on us, and all glyphs, lesser to major, are 375+ only, like gems were 300+ only. In which case, for inscription, stock on the cheapest herb of the appropriate levels for milling, and grind your scrolls to 360+.

Shakes · 07/30/08, 6:21 AM

Originally Posted by Fabinas

i find it silly to wish for interchangeable tattoos.

Unless I'm mistaken, you can do this at barber shops.

As for a source for the 2 talent specs, see: WoW Forums -> NEW way to RE-Spec

ZeroWashu · 07/30/08, 6:50 AM

Originally Posted by Cube

This really depends on how Blizzard designs the encounters, though. Blizzard can design the fights to make sure that they're testing more than whether or not the raid has farmed enough mats for consumables.

Kalecgos is a great example of this: What if the Revitalize restored say, 30% of your total mana over 9 seconds rather than the 450/3 it does currently? While the fight is already a 1-2 potion fight for druids and priests, a slight change like that would lessen the chainpotting requirement for Shaman and Pallies have. It also wouldn't make the encounter that much more difficult.

Well moving affects of each class to affect the entire raid could mitigate it as well. No longer would it require specific sub groupings. The issue I always see is a healer down on mana. With raid wide totems; mana totems stack; shadow priest VT/VE; can't better group composition lessen the need for pots?

urotas · 07/30/08, 6:53 AM

Originally Posted by Fabinas

In essence, glyph inscriptions are TATTOOS on your character. The word "Glyph" has greek origins and means "something that is carved". I understand the WISH of all of you to have a fully customisable character (especially the 3-role hybrids), but i find it silly to wish for interchangeable tattoos. While it has no logic behind it, think about :

The tattoo metaphor only goes so far, as inscriptions are going to be sellable and presumably usable by everyone. In effect you are not asking an inscriber to make a tattoo for yourself, but asking them to give you a inscription kit which can be used to give yourself an inscription. If they want to make changing inscriptions easier, there is nothing stopping them from giving each "kit" more than one charge. So instead of

Major glyph of Fear
(1 charge)
Empowers a major glyph to increase the range of your fear by 5 yards

you could have
Major glyph of Fear
Binds on use
(5 charges) Could be 10 or 20 depending on what is a reasonable cost
Empowers a major glyph to increase the range of your fear by 5 yards

This would allow inscribers to make a profit, while still keeping the cost of switching roles balanced by tweaking the number of charges as necessary. Respeccing is not an issue for only hybrids either. From what we've seen of the inscriptions, you're going to need completely different inscriptions for pve and pvp, so anyone who enjoys more than one aspect of WoW would need to respec often. Blizzard has usually tried to encourage people to enjoy more than one aspect of the game, so making it too difficult to switch between them wouldn't be logical.

ZeroWashu · 07/30/08, 7:11 AM

Originally Posted by Ukerric

So, if you're already maxed, there's little need for outland materials stack. In fact, the only profession that can get a leg up before leaving the landing areas and skilling seem to be Alchemy, as you do have a couple easy recipes that are still yellow/orange at 375, whereas all other professions' recipes at that level are horribly expensive.

One question concerning TBC max skill professions. When gathering in TBC at 375 skill you cannot fail. How is that handled in Northrend? Does increasing your skill cap now result in failures in Outlands? An example would be Khorium mining which is orange at 375.

Smurrf · 07/30/08, 8:11 AM

Originally Posted by ZeroWashu

Well moving affects of each class to affect the entire raid could mitigate it as well. No longer would it require specific sub groupings. The issue I always see is a healer down on mana. With raid wide totems; mana totems stack; shadow priest VT/VE; can't better group composition lessen the need for pots?

Not all buffs are going raidwide; there will still be a certain amount that are group-only. Shadow Priest buffs are, I believe, one of those.

Building Groups in WoTLK has more information on this, I haven't dug all the way through yet.

Tacitus · 07/30/08, 8:46 AM

Originally Posted by Shakes

Unless I'm mistaken, you can do this at barber shops.

As for a source for the 2 talent specs, see: WoW Forums -> NEW way to RE-Spec

You can change NE tattoos, remold UD faces, remodel draenei tentacles, tauren & draenei horns and troll tusks. Oh and human (female) piercings.

Malleus · 07/30/08, 9:49 AM

Originally Posted by Fabinas

In essence, glyph inscriptions are TATTOOS on your character. The word "Glyph" has greek origins and means "something that is carved". I understand the WISH of all of you to have a fully customisable character (especially the 3-role hybrids), but i find it silly to wish for interchangeable tattoos.

This is a game where you travel backwards through time to kill an 80-foot demon from outer space. I submit that absolute realism was not the designer's first concern.

If glyphs are not items, or are one-shots like gems, I think they are best thought of in terms of Enchant Player, or perhaps Enchant Spec. I suspect this is the case, as otherwise glyphs would just be six or seven extra trinket slots.

virtuzoso · 07/30/08, 9:59 AM

Originally Posted by Sabyn

You are comparing apples to oranges. When a war switches from arms to prot his gear doesn't disappear, but it would still need their own gems / enchants. When you switch specs your gear doesn't disappear either, and you may not even need to re-enchant / regrem. Now say you both respec, you both may end up needing to reglyph. Blizzard is making it easier to do an actual repsec in WLK, but that doesn't mean they want switching specs to be trivial / painless. Tying enchanting / JC / Inscription to specs would tie in to that. I am not saying that this is a good or bad thing, but I think its important to try and understand their motives.

Another agrument against "keeping" old glyphs is that over time people will be buying less and less glyphs as their accumulate them. Forcing people to repurchase glyphs (or just anything, such as parchments) keeps the profession alive. Think of it as being able to take out gems from old gear. That would absolutely kill JCing.

Ok, more precisely, your gems and enchants from your gear doesnt dissapear when you respec, why should glyphs be any different?

Freelier · 07/30/08, 10:46 AM

It should be noted that, if glyphs were reusable, and each class had 21 potential glyphs, then you would need to use 15 bank slots to hold your glyph stash. (Some might be useless, but a lot of people would want all of them.)

Blizzard appears to be going against this type of bank space use. They're going to clear out a lot of the things that I stored in my bank. I don't think they want to fill it back up with a bunch of unused glyphs.

Prinsesa · 07/30/08, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by virtuzoso

Ok, more precisely, your gems and enchants from your gear doesnt dissapear when you respec, why should glyphs be any different?

The only reason gems and enchants don't "disappear" is because we have a second set of gear that carries the other spec's gems and enchants.

I'm pretty sure that if Gladiator's Plate Battlegear could fulfill and was the be-all-end-all for both Warrior roles, Warriors would either have 2 sets, enchanted and gemmed differently, or the really would regem and re-enchant every time they switched.

Zifna · 07/30/08, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Sydane

Basically, the problem is as much the players as it is the game design. Anyone who thinks that enchanters are going to make more money listing enchants on the open market is deluding themselves, people will just undercut each other, not to mention the 20g or more mat cost of the scroll to put the enchant on. It will be just like every other craftable item. People dump thousands of gold into patterns just to be able to do them for their guilds and treat it like an expense, keeping those prices so high that you'll rarely make money back on buying one.

I think there's definitely truth to what you say here, but almost all your points apply equally to Jewelcrafting, and I know people who've made a bundle doing that regularly.

I think your average Enchanter might be a little leery of gathering hundreds of gold worth of mats together for an enchant, and then to muck around "trying" to sell it. On the other hand, your average buyer is more likely to check the AH and grab something if they can rather than go farm all the mats themselves, find an enchanter, and meet up with them.

I think profit will be possible, at least.

Maax · 07/30/08, 3:37 PM

I would like to see some tradeskills able to craft some of the item slots that aren't crafted now:

Staves - Enchanting
Off Hands - Insciption (tomes), Alchemy (orbs? trying to find somethign for alchemy)
Relics - hmm librams could be inscription, idols jewelcrafing, totems enchanting or leatherworking, sigils blacksmithing?
Trinkets - jewelcrafting/engineering obviously, but make some BoE sellable ones
Bows - Leatherworking
Crossbows - Blacksmithing
Fishing Poles - Engineering
Shields - Blacksmithing

Sydane · 07/30/08, 3:56 PM

As discussed in the original WotLK thread, there are several possibilities for inscriptions:

1) Exchangeable permanent items - This would mean you could take an inscription out of your slot and bank it to be used later. This in effect creates 6 new trinket slots. This is exceptionally unlikely.

2) Learned permanent abilities - Similar to the new mount system. Once you learned an inscription, you would always have the ability to equip it and could exchange them (possibly only at a specific place). This seems possible but not really in the spirit of crafting skills. It would mean that no one would ever buy more than one of an inscription.

3) Semi-permanent expensive - This would mean they were basically like gems, you'd equip them and very rarely change them out, and changing one would destroy the old one. This would completely hose hybrid classes, as well as pvp vs pve inscriptions. This seems possible but would be very unpopular.

4) Semi-permanent inexpensive - This would make them basically like flasks, only you wouldn't have to exchange them as often. They become a consumable expense, but one done less often. This is the most likely approach.

5) Non-permanent inexpensive - All inscriptions would have a duration and expire. This makes them even more like flasks. This seems fairly unlikely except for certain things like holiday related inscriptions.

I think option 2 would probably make the most people happy except the people with inscription as a crafting skill. I think option 4 is what will happen.