Not necessarily. There are a large number of other trade-skill related bonuses that would be expected to function in the arena (eg the passive gathering skill bonuses, blacksmithing sockets, JC only gems, fur linings). This is arguably balancing alchemy against those boni - as mixology will be of no benefit in arena.
Anyone care to guess whether the mat costs on the alchemy potions will change or if that's it?
Because honestly, I can see why the actual returns would have to be beaten into the ground with the nerfbat to avoid making alchemy a neccesity. But... A potion that costs two stacks of a regular healing potion, a new vial above imbued? I don't see why such an enormous cost would be warranted for arena; After all, isn't that why consumables were removed from it in the first place?
Anyone care to guess whether the mat costs on the alchemy potions will change or if that's it?
Because honestly, I can see why the actual returns would have to be beaten into the ground with the nerfbat to avoid making alchemy a neccesity. But... A potion that costs two stacks of a regular healing potion, a new vial above imbued? I don't see why such an enormous cost would be warranted for arena; After all, isn't that why consumables were removed from it in the first place?
The point is that the potion isn't a consumable; it's a reusable inventory item with a clause that allows it to be used in arenas. The name "Endless ____ Potion" and the prohibitive cost of what a single of these potions would otherwise cost can lead us to no other conclusion.
There may very well be an issue with the potency of the Mana potion in arenas, but the healing one probably won't make anyone reroll their profession. As is, it's roughly as good as Wild Growth, which has largely been evaluated as being underwhelming by most everyone.
As for the Cooking stuff, the old world mat requirement on some of the recipes does seem like a potential mistake in the making. However, I have faith that Blizzard learned from the past and that if Mote of Shadow is to remain on a recipe, mobs that drop the new tier of Shadow mat will drop Motes as well. There's a precedent for this with Outland elementals dropping Essences, as well as old world high-level Elementals dropping the Elemental/step above Elemental mat/Essence triad. And hell, Outland spiders still drop Dripping Spider Mandibles.
If I read the tooltip correctly, Alchemists get to use health and mana potions in arena but other professions do not. I would imagine this forces everyone in arena to be an alchemist. Also herbalism has that heal over time. Seems like the combo of these 2 professions together would be very potent for non healing classes in arena, specifically in double dps. Of course mana users would greatly benefit from a mana potion.
Well, the food that requires old-world mats doesn't seem to particularly do anything except make you angry or sad. I suppose angry or sad about using old-world mats in WLK recipes. Since they don't actually do anything, and therefore you don't need to farm them to raid, they don't have to be particularly balanced. It would be nice if they were expansion mats, or possibly even vendor mats, but meh. After all, the current happy-people cupcake takes Kingsblood, which is a basically comparable "WTF?"
Alchemists previously didn't get any arena benefit. Now they get one of the best. Either they overshot the benefit, or they're redesigning all tradeskills to be useful in arenas. I'm leaning towards the latter, simply because Potion Sickness shows they're aware how stupid pot-based mana regen is. They could be counting on arena OOC mechanics to keep pots in line, which would disappoint me.
It's not terribly difficult to get out of combat in any arena bracket and get the potion cooldown going though. You can expect to get 2 potions in during most matches, and obviously during a long outlast match the use will be ridiculous. There is no doubt in my mind that every game won by the "mana war" would go to the team chain chugging potions.
I don't see any possible way to balance potion use in the arena short of such low returns that they come out to 10 mp5 or so. The ones displayed in this thread would be utterly unacceptable, most times when a healer dies it's due to running out of mana and who in their right minds thinks ~80 mp5 is an alright profession perk?
Also I see someone mentioned other possibilites like allowing Engineering grenades to be used, and frankly I cannot think of anything more game breaking, considering how pre-TBC PvP was. If you joined a "professional" premade group for some games, everyone was an engineer. If you matched against another team, they were all engineers also. Iron Grenades were flying everywhere and giving certain classes a ranged, 3 second disorient that can be cast on the run with a 1 minute CD completely broke the game. Never mind the few insane people who actaully tossed around Arcanite grenades!
If you think the current situation where many top players feel forced to get Jewelcrafting and Enchanting is bad, the Engineering/Alchemy combination, with grenades and potions, would be several orders of magnitude worse.
Pff, it would be easy enough for them to set the cooldown to one potion per match, or some such. Why not wait to see how it works before launching a rant?
It's not terribly difficult to get out of combat in any arena bracket and get the potion cooldown going though. You can expect to get 2 potions in during most matches, and obviously during a long outlast match the use will be ridiculous. There is no doubt in my mind that every game won by the "mana war" would go to the team chain chugging potions.
I don't see any possible way to balance potion use in the arena short of such low returns that they come out to 10 mp5 or so. The ones displayed in this thread would be utterly unacceptable, most times when a healer dies it's due to running out of mana and who in their right minds thinks ~80 mp5 is an alright profession perk?
Also I see someone mentioned other possibilites like allowing Engineering grenades to be used, and frankly I cannot think of anything more game breaking, considering how pre-TBC PvP was. If you joined a "professional" premade group for some games, everyone was an engineer. If you matched against another team, they were all engineers also. Iron Grenades were flying everywhere and giving certain classes a ranged, 3 second disorient that can be cast on the run with a 1 minute CD completely broke the game. Never mind the few insane people who actaully tossed around Arcanite grenades!
If you think the current situation where many top players feel forced to get Jewelcrafting and Enchanting is bad, the Engineering/Alchemy combination, with grenades and potions, would be several orders of magnitude worse.
How is it "several orders of magnitude worse"? Current hardcore PvPers grind out Jewelcrafting and Enchanting to 375. Engineering requires less or equivalent amount of ores to level to 375 as compared to JC (and is much less RNG dependent, considering Prospecting). Enchanting is awful to level, ridiculously expensive (ever try making an enchanting rod? They cost an arm and a leg, and then your firstborn). Alchemy is relatively cheap to level, and has terrific bonuses (Alchemist's Stone).
How is it "several orders of magnitude worse"? Current hardcore PvPers grind out Jewelcrafting and Enchanting to 375. Engineering requires less or equivalent amount of ores to level to 375 as compared to JC (and is much less RNG dependent, considering Prospecting). Enchanting is awful to level, ridiculously expensive (ever try making an enchanting rod? They cost an arm and a leg, and then your firstborn). Alchemy is relatively cheap to level, and has terrific bonuses (Alchemist's Stone).
He meant in power, not in leveling issues. Alch/engy power beats JC/Ench. Now I don't know if that is how it will be, but if there will be free usage of those potions and bombs, then I actually think he might be right.
I actually wouldn't mind seeing the Arena potions go to Bind on Use, and let everyone use them. (Perhaps letting Alchemists have a Rejuvenation Arena pot that's BoP)
How is it "several orders of magnitude worse"? Current hardcore PvPers grind out Jewelcrafting and Enchanting to 375. Engineering requires less or equivalent amount of ores to level to 375 as compared to JC (and is much less RNG dependent, considering Prospecting). Enchanting is awful to level, ridiculously expensive (ever try making an enchanting rod? They cost an arm and a leg, and then your firstborn). Alchemy is relatively cheap to level, and has terrific bonuses (Alchemist's Stone).
KraxisSingular's post was correct about my meaning, the power of grenades and potions is several orders of magnitude higher than the 40 stat points or whatever JC and Enchanting work out to be.
I know grenade use was only something commented on by another poster and not at all mentioned officially, but I think it's important to point out that Blizzard got things right the first time and allowing (useful) potions and/or grenades would make them mandatory.
The mana regen from chain potting vs. non-chain potting (even with these subpar potions) is quite out of line compared to other profession bonuses, and of course if grenades were brought back it would be like giving everyone on an arena team a slightly more difficult to use Repentance, and needless to say no other profession perk with their stat point increases compares to that.
The point is that the potion isn't a consumable; it's a reusable inventory item with a clause that allows it to be used in arenas. The name "Endless ____ Potion" and the prohibitive cost of what a single of these potions would otherwise cost can lead us to no other conclusion.
Oh how obvious it seems now... You're absolutely right, the logical conclusion is that they're permanent items.
That aside though, I doubt they wouldn't design them in a fashion that makes them one-per-arena-match. The mana return is still debatable, but I really don't see them making them chain-chuggable. Worst case, it'll be a two minute total OOC time before that happends, and in "real time" that'll probably be a fair bit closer to at least 4 for most brackets.
Nerub - From what I can see, the newly added glyphs (warrior, etc) aren't actually in the beta yet - just in the data files. Likewise, there is still no 7th glyph slot. Every glyph available to players in beta is still categorised major. There are minor slots on the interface, but no mention of lesser glyphs.
Hmm last I checked the potions were listed as unique, meaning an alchemist can only have one at a time. Not sure about the mechanics of making pots during an arena match though. The mana endurance aspect is overrated. You can get OOC to drink. With higher-level water, several ticks will be more than the pot.
I suppose, Currylaksa, that having the potion would allow you to focus on getting the other team killed, rather than focusing on keeping your team alive. Being able to do the former more often will of course lead to more chances in winning the match.
The potion change for arenas is fine. At lvl 80, 1xxx mana doesn't seem like very much, and with the 2 min OOC timer one potion per match seems right. If you're able to get OOC for 2+ minutes to get another pot cooldown you would be drinking most of that time anyway making the pot irrelevant.
To me, it's well balanced as is. I plan on ditching alch for inscription even with this change. The extra 2 glyphs appear more powerful, at least for a resto shaman in pvp. More earthliving procs, more lhw and hw healing, etc... add far more than one extra small mana pot over the course of a match.
Can anyone confirm how potion cooldowns actaully work in WotLK now? I understand that the CD does not begin ticking untl you leave combat. If you leave combat for 20 seconds and re-enter combat, does the CD freeze at 1:40?
That seems overly complicated, my understanding was that leaving combat ended the invisible potion sickness and your potions began cooling down, and re-entering combat would not affect this. If I missed a post detailing this I'm sorry, but all I can find is conjecture one way and another with a quick search and it's pretty key to whether or not I'm against potions in arena, heh.
Hmm last I checked the potions were listed as unique, meaning an alchemist can only have one at a time. Not sure about the mechanics of making pots during an arena match though. The mana endurance aspect is overrated. You can get OOC to drink. With higher-level water, several ticks will be more than the pot.
It has unlimited charges, on a 3 minute cooldown. You make one, you keep it forever.
Anyone care to guess whether the mat costs on the alchemy potions will change or if that's it?
Because honestly, I can see why the actual returns would have to be beaten into the ground with the nerfbat to avoid making alchemy a neccesity. But... A potion that costs two stacks of a regular healing potion, a new vial above imbued? I don't see why such an enormous cost would be warranted for arena; After all, isn't that why consumables were removed from it in the first place?
You wouldnt think that Blizz would make the poor Arena players use consumables for which they have to pay all the time do you ? Arena obviously has to stay free and easy, so it's a one time investment.
You wouldnt think that Blizz would make the poor Arena players use consumables for which they have to pay all the time do you ? Arena obviously has to stay free and easy, so it's a one time investment.
That's a caveat of playing a hunter and little to no impact on arenas. Locks use shards when doing arenas and rogues use vanishing powder and poisons. Hunter ammo is admittedly more expensive but you knew it would be a cost when you rolled it.
Boo! As a prot pally I was already getting close to 500 health out of the stam with 16% from talents and 10% from kings, but we also benefited from the stam->spell damage conversion. I understand its more health for bassically everyone else, but why didn't they just make it 50 stam so it could scale with kings?
09/06/08, 7:36 AM
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