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.

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?

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).

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)

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.

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.

yes, certainly. you will get more taunt from mobs

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.

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.