Miststorm

Chain potting is a boring mechanic. There is no skill in chain potting, just a money drain, (and bag space drain, keeping a whole bag free just for your potting needs is not fun). It is the same with drums, which were changed to prevent a repeat of entire guilds picking up LW just for them.

There is no reason that Alchemy should be better at money making than, say, Blacksmithing. True, with only one pot per fight consumption will go down, and that one pot might only be used when it looks like a good attempt. But with two elixirs often more powerful than a flask, there will be more than enough demand left for Alchemist services.

 

Smurrf

More food for thought for the potion conversation.

Isn't everything about raiding, including raiding itself a tax on raiding? What happens when you get a new weapon? 'Aww, man...now I have to go do dailies tomorrow so I can pay to get Mongoose.' - even worse if the person in question got two upgrades, as does happen frequently. More than just enchants though, there's gems, there's buff food, there's drums, there's nets for very specific encounters, there's farming up the mats to make that new BoP recipe, etc.

Once the potion change goes live, what's next? First it was the Flasks/Elixirs...okay, I can buy that one. I wasn't under a mandate then of fully buffing, but I canvery easily see that change being necessary in light of today's raiding. Then came the Drums, which everyone KNEW was going to get nerfed sooner or later. (LW is unique in that people actually had to change professions to pick it up. 25 LW'rs is extreme, and this is a must-need for a change.) Now that Drums are going, though, Potions are on deck to be made nigh-worthless.

The complaint about mana-pot chugging seems more like a distraction away from what I view as the real reason: the fact that people don't want to do 'X' amount of work prior to engaging in combat, which is understandable - to a point. But let's face it, this is a world where you're supposed to be a Hero. You and 4/9/24 other people are setting out to do war unto something that would quite simply stomp most people into dust, grind their bones to make their bread, or simply view at best as irritating fleas in the bedticking.

Isn't it reasonable to expect that people should actually have to prepare somewhat before setting out on this venture? Your average lvl 12 Warrior, for instance, might be able to absolutely dominate the random bunnies, wolves, and thugs in the Forests of Elwynn, but he needs to be on his game to down Hogger...and he certainly won't find going through Deadmines a cinch - at least, not without a bit better in the way of gear, and some companions who are likewise a good touch above a turnip. That same person, though, successful though he may be in all situations, will find facing the Pirates in Tanaris an absolutely impossible task - unless he prepares. He quests, gains knowledge, skill, and expertise, and along the way, learns something about how things work.

Continue that on up to endgame. There are no more new spells to learn (well, at least until the NEXT expansion.) There are no new skills to pick up (well, in-game at least - there's always the actual skill of the person behind the character.) He's level 80, right? He should be able to walk in and knock Arthas off his throne, toss his mother out on her ear, and generally raise a lot of hell, right? Well, no. He has to get through Naxx first. Then there's a few other raids and bosses to contend with. Only then, once he's proven himself worthy, can he even think about taking on the Lich King himself and surviving to tell the tale and earn his way into some bar wench's knickers.

But...what about his gear? He's wearing Tier 9.5 gear, but he has no enchants, his gem sockets are glaringly empty, and his stomach is rumbling because he's not Well Fed (tm). He has a scroll that would teach him how to craft a supreme helm of power, but since he never made it past Iron Shield Spikes, his skills with a hammer are extremely lacking, to say the least. Oh, and it takes him a bit longer to even ride to the Lich King's abode because he still only has the very first horse he ever earned. It was good enough 40 levels ago, it's good enough now.

Now, this person may be successful in his fight, but the likelihood of that happening is slim. All of those extras make a HUGE difference. But...he didn't want to work for them.


Is it really so much to expect people to prepare for what they face? That people should actually have to get out in the game world and play a bit, instead of skipping directly from one raid to the next? Perhaps get out and stretch their legs in a 5 man to get a bunch of greens for enchants, or go out and do dailies to be able to buy vendor potions, or spend a bit of time training up a new healer?

I'm not on the extreme end of raiding, so I don't have that viewpoint to look through, but it really does seem more and more that people are starting to expect to simply never play the game at all outside of raiding. I wonder how much that colors things?

 

Eucharion

Whilst I agree there is a risk of reducing the preparation requirements too far, I don't think the potion change is unwarranted. As a feral druid, it's only been comparatively recently that I've even had the ability to safely use pots in combat, so perhaps my view of potions is how things will be in the post potion-sickness world...of warcraft. That is, they are used when the excrement hits the fan, and you absolutely, positively need to risk using that pot at that precise moment in time. When levelling my other toons, because I prepare my gear upgrades in advance, and enchant them properly, I rarely have to use potions except in those rare "oh shit" moments, which makes choosing when to use them an interesting little metagame, and measurement of player skill.

As an alchemist, I'm not really bothered either; the bulk of my income was always unrelated to my profession; I'd make a tidy bit on the side from elixirs, flasks and transmutes, but made far, far more from either a) grinding, b) dailies, or c) just selling the excess herbs on raid nights. So, I'm in favour of the change. Especially if it encourages players to think about going for more balanced stats on their gear (gearing partially for longevity instead of just raw throughput) - I think the homogenisation of gear to just cramming as much throughput stats as you physically can get on your gear is terribly boring; players should be rewarded for making intelligent choices about their gear, gems, enchants and glyphs, rather than just "slotting for damage". Sure, you can still go down the 2 minute wonder route, and gear for burst damage only, but gearing for reasonable damage with good longevity should also be an option. The potion change should help with this.

 

Jebraltar

Four main issues:
1) Chain-potting is a cost that you assume, no matter what you actually get out of the dungeon. A night of Brutallus wipes uses as many (or, probably, far more) potions as killing him and moving on. Enchants, in particular, are one-time costs for each upgrade. Craftable items are one-time costs for each upgrade. (Besides, if you don't like the notion of paying the cost to get that fancy item, you can wait for the similar drop.) They've already removed a lot of the painful parts of buff food (between cooking and fishing dailies) and stuff like Tinnitus are helping to ditch chain-drums. Nets may or may not still be useful, depends on encounter design.

2) They're moving all of the things you're talking about to a model where raiding can sustain itself between money and materials gathered while raiding. Higher gold drops from bosses, the ability to get sellable items through badges, and badges dropping from bosses, and a constant supply of new badge gear that is slightly worse than raiding stuff eating most of the non-raider badges. Alchemy-wise, there were the TK and Coilfang potions, and the Shattrath flasks.

3) Chain-potting is disproportionately good compared to the majority of these. Even with 100% uptime on drums, for instance, you have 80 haste rating vs 100 mp5. The mp5 is worth far more in the budget, and it's a lot better for the healers/caster DPS that can chain-pot. (Compared to 80 haste rating with 25% uptime?) Also, for some groups, like Paladin tanks and caster DPS, there's less of an option for gradually eliminating potion usage as the group gets gear and gets comfortable with the encounter, like there is with Drums of Battle. Mana usage very rarely goes down, apart from fights getting shorter, with gear, and caster DPS and Hunters get almost no mana regeneration from their gear.

4) Nothing good to say about buff food, but drums are a profession benefit. The biggest issue is probably moreso that drums affect anyone besides just you. (Not that it matters quite so much with Tinnitus, which makes it something where everybody can share cost and benefit.) Potions are just something extra that you use so Alchemists can make money.

So what you're saying is something like: "These are the heroes that murder Gods and Aspects and reshape the world in their image, which is why they should need to take long time-outs to pick flowers and help Ogres with some curiously passive demons encroaching on their territory"? No one has yet written the good adventure novel where the heroes realized they didn't have enough money to buy the Elixir of Dragonslaying from the alchemists of Far-Away, so they decided to leave the cruel dragon tyrannizing the land for a while while they helped people with their odd jobs to raise cash. It doesn't make sense, to be honest. Statistically speaking, raid groups take down demigods, have taken down an Old God, are preparing to slay an aspect: If consumable requirements were a roleplay element, it would make more sense for people to give us the consumables, given that we're, y'know, slaying enormously powerful monsters that are preparing to invade their homelands / destroy the world / commit genocide / smoke in the boy's room.

The requirement that is in place regardless is that you almost always have to do the five-man dungeons, conquering lesser foes in preparation for vanquishing Arthas/Illidan/Hogger 2, which is something that a lot of people overlook simply because the game doesn't make you do nearly as much of it, so it's always just seemed like an appropriate and natural thing to do. (Which makes a lot more sense from a roleplaying perspective, and from a player's perspective. Difficulty ramps up, as does reward, and you don't just suddenly start your fight against Illidan by storming his inner sanctuary - you make all of his plans blow up in his face, kill his most trusted lieutenants, and then you storm his keep.)

There's nothing epic about some arbitrary logistical requirement. The biggest reason I support enchantments, gems, etc, is that they're theoretically ways to customize your character. (In practice, of course, everyone uses the ideal ones, but oh well.) Even so, if I ever wanted to switch my Rogue to soloing, maybe I'd want Lifestealing instead of Mongoose or whatever, so that I had regen. (Unlikely, but it's the idea.) Alchemy, especially chain-use of mana potions, always seemed to me to boil down to a way to add expensive buttons for me to press.

I'll outright say that I don't expect to need to play the game much outside of raiding unless I really want to. I don't see how that's outrageous compared to, say, an Arena PvP'er who could say much the same thing. (Both share respecs, repairs, gems, and enchantments to some extent, but raiding makes some money and has to pay for expensive alchemy-related bonuses.)

I also find your example to be a teeny bit ridiculous.

 

Denogran

The problem with this is that raiding is sooo bloody time-consuming already that adding "just" another hour a day isn't exactly welcome for those of us who can't afford those hours for our real lives.

Additionally, it's just not fun to play the same character, doing the same things, for me for that much time a week. There's only so many times I can grind out ore nodes or kill supplicants before it gets old. The allure of raiding is that I get to see new stuff, experience new encounters.

Hell, isn't grinding out lower tiers of gear enough preparation? Why can't the guild "farming" be enough farming for the next tier of raiding?

As for the moneymaking arguments, I can't say I agree. I've leveled every profession but leatherworking and engineering to max( while leveling), and alchemy is the only crafting profession where it didn't cost me significant sums of gold to max out. And not one of my other crafting professions has made me money outside of the pseudo-gathering( prospecting and disenchanting), and blacksmithing (only one with rare recipes). So ya, the painless to level, cashmaking cow of alchemy is no longer going to be a cashmaking cow, similar to every other crafting profession. I don't think that's an unreasonable nerf.

 

rhen

The problem with removing potion requirements from raiding is that they tune encounters a little tighter to players gear. This means its even less affordable to bring undergeared people to the raid because they can't use things like potions to catch up. We don't all play in guilds that have 100% attendance from all raiders; the guild I'm in has alts in 1-2 piece T6 healing on Brutallus and felmyst this week to fill gaps.

I actually think this change will slow progression of your average casual-serious guild if they tune it too tightly, and if they don't things will be easy for top guilds when appropriately geared.

 

Sabyn

When everyone is using potions, under-geared people cannot "catch up" by using potions. Chain chugging pots gives 100mp5 to a person in greens, and 100mp5 to a person in T6. That 100mp5 is probably even worse for the person in greens because the spells he casts with it are that much weaker than the T6's.

 

• Maestroquark

What makes you think they weren't already tuning for gear and potions together?

 

ZeroWashu

From my perspective I can see pots being left out of the tuning process. What they do is provide some breathing room for the developer while they fine tune an encounter. I have read numerous examples of them tuning down encounters and perhaps it is simply from parsing so many logs and looking specifically for pot chaining? I can see accounting for elixirs, flasks, food buffs, and enchants.

When it comes to gathering the mats needed and such for pots I don't usually have a problem. Either I have alts, someone else has the alts, or I can just pluck them off of AH. Its not like there is a shortage, the items are infinite in availability.

 

Tel

Brutallus, Kalegos, Twins, Muru (pre-nerf), are all fights that wouldn't be done without healers (and in some cases DPS) chain potting. If you think these are tuned without chain potting taken into consideration, go and try them without.

 

Tyrian

Alchemy tuning in WOTLK will still be tuned around using potions, just perhaps different ones at different times. Look out for EOS P3 type enrages where the raid will want Destro/Haste pots - and Kalec 10% type enrages where ironshield pots will become invaluable.

Although they might not have to tune around chain mana pots, they will simply create mechanics (through enrages/burn downs is the most obvious one) where you WILL be compelled to use your single potion timer still. Remember they want us to use alchemy as a profession - and raid encounters will be designed to enforce this.

Lets say a tank can use only one potion on the entire Kalec fight. Ironshields at 10% enrage? This is a great thing, in all your learning/wipes you likely won't hit the enrage much and have to use too many of them. However when you do, your in the real guts of the attempt and it doesnt feel like a 'wasted' pot. How many of us love to pot at Brutallus 20 seconds in - only to wipe a few seconds later? Thats not good - nor fun - design.

Now If I had to use my single destruction potion at the -20% zerg, its probably going to be a kill anyway. But its a conscious choice to pot at the most opportune moment, rather than pot for no other reason than "I need to use the cooldown". I just can't see how any of these changes are a bad thing.

Potting on encounters will now be done because you get to a specific point where its most advantageous to do so - they just need to make sure raid fights actually have a said point in each encounter to preserve alchemy's desirability. However, with enrages commen place in almost every encounter this shouldnt be a problem. The sort of fights that do NOT suit this alchemy change are ones like Supremus. There is no single moment thats different in the encounter from start to finish that compels (or requires) the use of a one-off potion - aside from an unacceptable 'hes stationary, I should dps him now before he starts moving". Kalec enrage, EOS P2/3 are prime examples of the sort of design they need to stick with.

 

Zurgat

When we're limited to a single potion per fight, health stones will obviously become a lot more valuable as well.
Previously you could stack up 1 of each talent level, and 1 of each type beyond that. Generally you'd have 3 different ones and perhaps the depleted crystal focus as backup.
Now though, they're making the health stones unique across all types.

So, one health potion, one health stone.
It's not certain whether the depleted crystal focus will also count as a health stone, otherwise people may consider taking those in.

I also wonder whether they plan to give health stones a number of charges like [Mana Emerald] currently has for mages.

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

 

Negg

As several people said before me, encounters are of course tuned for a raid that uses pots (and other things), if this wasn't the case then everything would have been as easy as BT/MH were when released. Removing pots as must use can only be a good thing for raiding. Tuning will become easier and more focussed on raid setup (which could become a negative thing also) and personal performance.

A problem with the one healthstone could be that there are several other consumables on the same cooldown, like nightmare seeds, in TBC they (luckily) haven't been used that much becuase of the 3 HSs that people could get from locks, but in WotLK such consumables could become a must have item quite rapidly. Only solution would be to put Healthstones on the same mechanic as potions, debuff till OOC.

 

dukes

Pots are not a part of character progression, while properly gemming (putting in the effort required to get epic gems), properly enchanting (having an enchanter who can do it and using materials from properly high level sources to get the materials), and many other things are. New gear in itself is character progression. Drums are a specific piece of gear available to a single profession, part of the buff part of a profession similar to ring enchants or other gains (effectively a part of character progression once Tinnitus comes in).

Chain potting is not a progression part of Alchemy/Herbalism, because anyone can do it regardless of profession. It also does not "progress" your character permanently in any way, while all the above listed things do.

The only thing I'll agree with you on is buff food, but even that is limited by Cooking skill (although it is a secondary profession). Generally food buffs are not a significant factor though, as you can have just one at a time and don't provide the (rather ridiculous) gain that chain-potting does currently.

 

• Haphnet

Somewhere in the original WotLK thread there was a post of 3 such consumables but it looks like they are moving towards an herbalist only perk. This gives herbalists a nice additional option during fights without making them must have items.

Deadnettle - Item - World of Warcraft being one, though I cannot recall the other 2 at the moment.

 

Negg

The other 2 are 400 AP or 200 SP for 10 sec, both at a 1min CD.

While they're consumables they're quite harmless I think, they offer no bigger BoP gain from having a profession then any other one (around 40 stats per prof).

But there might be other items, like Nightmare seed, and if you can only have one Healthstone, then having those items will become an issue, maybe even having Nightmare seeds will become one.

 

Vasala

Or even worse might see people heading back to felwood for the whipper roots, etc just for something else to use once the healthstone is gone. Or those weak mana potion like fish might become in demand if they are not part of the potion sickness. Hard to tell until we see what the raid game is like and what all is available to use.

 

dinesh

Shifting gears a little...

I will agree with everyone else that the drum problem was one that needed fixing, but does anyone else see the problem with the Tinnitus mechanic as a fix?

Lots of rogues, druids, and shaman are going to be Leatherworkers still even after the drum nerf, because the profession makes BoP endgame gear better than many drops. But now, to separately get the benefit of our profession buff, we're going to have to be spread out in different groups. I know lots of other buffs are going raidwide, but I hadn't envisioned a complete dismantling of the melee group and dispersion of it spread out over all 5 groups. I don't think any other profession ability affects group comp decisions in this way.

Not only will all but one Leatherworker in a group lose out on using "their" group buff, but you won't even be able to time its use to maximize your own effectiveness. Say you have two rogues, one with much higher burst DPS. The other might pop his drums 5 seconds into the fight, causing the first to have to check up on his damage in order to avoid pulling aggro, and adding insult to injury it will lock him out from using his own drums later in the fight.

Or what if someone else in your raid (or, perhaps more apt, your PuG) decides to drop a Drum of War instead? Now you can't even overwrite it with your superior Drum.

I'm not really too familiar with the other profession abilities. Do any of them have a group buff component? Do any of them suffer with a debuff similar to Tinnitus?

It just seems to me like this mechanic for fixing the drum problem is very poorly implemented from the point of view of a plaer who plays a class that plans to actually use Leatherworking as more than just a drum buff pre-requisite.

 

Jebraltar

If you're in a raid, you have communication tools to help you out. (Much like Bloodlust, you can call out when you're going to use drums, and there should be some basic schedule in mind.) If you're in a pug, I don't think it particularly matters if somebody doesn't quite get drums at the optimal time, or they get Drums of War instead.

The only thing that's a bit of a bummer is that Leatherworking is, as you pointed out, not an evenly distributed profession by nature, so you may want some odd groups. (There generally isn't a Rogue or a Druid in every group.) Even so, though, it's not all that bad, especially given that pulling a melee DPS out of the melee group no longer cuts his DPS by somewhere around 20%, depending on class and composition.

 

Smurrf

Given the feedback from my previous post, all I can say is that I respectfully disagree with the idea that the current Potion Sickness is a good thing. I believe that there are other ways (some I've suggested, some others have) to balance things. I also believe that it kills the use of anything (in a raid setting) that isn't an armor, mana, or situationally a healing potion, because those now NEED to be held in reserve for true panic buttons. For more actual DPS-intended potions, in short fights they might be worthwhile; however, in long fights they're now going to be pointless. I'm also curious to see if Dark Runes and the alternate version of them will also count as potions for this now, given their utility.

Specifically in response to Jebraltar, no, you're right - there's very little in the way of novels out there that show someone needing to gather up herbs, except perhaps in very specific circumstances. However, those novels also don't show the other buffs that an Azerothian receives, either. You very rarely see gems as part of someone's equipment - they're more OH/Trinket kinds of things - and legendary at that. You don't see people going out and getting additional enchants on already good gear, because hey! The gear's already that damn good. They don't need additional edges. Bottom line, any metaphor breaks down...I was simply putting mine into the world as it's been given to me. If my example seems a trifle ridiculous, well, blame the game mechanics as they stand and the fact that Blizz chose not to follow the traditional storylines. (Still kind of curious...how can we kill Mags, while wearing the same ring that you only get by turning in his head?)

As far as not expecting to do anything at all outside of raiding? That...concerns me. Again, all I can say is that I disagree with the notion. (Arenas are their own separate universe, as is just about all organized PvP. I can't really say too much more about their end, but I don't think it's quite apples & apples, here.)

I don't doubt that Blizzard can balance around single *reactive* potion use. I don't disagree with the fact that current methods of obtaining potions can be burdensome for those who raid hard-core. I just wish that other avenues had been explored first - whether it be diminishing returns or lockouts on same-style potions, cheaper NPC potions, introduction of other consumables that share potion cooldown, making potions be Unique (10) or something like that, having a Potion give off a spike of energy, hp, or haste 10 out of every 40 secs throughout a fight and have them wear off when combat is dropped, or any of a whole myriad of other things that could have been explored first.

Or, just take every single in-combat consumable, Potions, Dark Runes, Nightmare Seeds, all of them, and get rid of them completely. Then balance around that. Current PS just seems like worst of both worlds to me.

 

dinesh

Partial agreement.

Communication might help with timing your single party drum, but it doesn't solve the problem that 5 players with Leatherworking/drums will do and allow more raid damage when separated into 5 different groups than they will in one group, causing a profession related composition constraint which will, other things being equal, make leatherworkers less desirable than characters with other professions without such constraints. And I will eat my hat the day a rogue can reasonably compete for a slot in the mana battery group.

 

Negg

I have 3 stacks of Demon runes in my bank, so that ship sailed long ago.

 

Copernicus

Other classes are natural leatherworkers (Hunter and Shaman).

Leatherworking also gives a bonus beyond the drums consumable - leatherworkers can BoP create leg armor kits that are better than the best BoE epic ones. And those kits are cheaper than the epic versions.

About the only change I would make would be to move the caster armor kits to leatherworking, or at least give leatherworkers an equivalent to the eventual tailoring kit. Leatherworking should be a viable end-game option for caster Shaman and Druids - as it is now they'll either waste the agility or attack power bonus.

 

Bibdy

The biggest impact will be in the economy. Alchemy and Herbalism certainly won't be as appealing anymore. Exactly how it affects it will remain to be seen. Will we see 600 stacks of Frostplant and Icethingie sitting on the AH for 50 silver a stack?

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

Katria

What if they split up potions like they have elixirs? So give a person guardian or battle potion sickness. Drinking a haste or destruction pot gives you battle potion sickness, but you can still pop an armor, healing or mana pot. Yeah, I agree the debuff needs a better name, but you get the idea.

Now you can pop a DPS pot at a key moment in a fight, without having to worry about losing your panic button.

And I don't think that DPS pots will be pointless, people will just save them for good moments. If the boss has a vulnerable moment (Curator evocation) or any boss that enrages. Or to burn through a particularly dangerous phase more quickly...all your DPS hitting a DPS pot during a particular phase will get you through it that much faster. It becomes more of a tactical buff that way.

As others have pointed out, flasks and elixirs will still be in demand, and the herbs needed for them. The herbalist-only buff plants will likely be on the AH cheap, as there are lots of herbalists who don't raid and likely won't use them, and their only market is other herbalists. I see this as a buff to raiding herbalists, who can cheaply take advantage of their profession perk without being forced to farm.

Honestly, alchemy is by far the easiest/cheapest profession to level up, and you'll still make money through elixirs/flasks/transmutes, so there's no room for complaint there. Herbalism will take a hit through less pot consumption, but will in turn likely get a big buff through demand for inscription mats, so I think it's far too early to worry about it yet.