They *should* be "oh shit" buttons. That's what this change is intended to resolve, the fact that they're currently "just another consumable cost", and not at all oriented towards intelligent timing or usage patterns.

You're *supposed* to have to think about it. The fact that you're mindlessly chugging potions every two minutes is a bad thing.

I don't know what point you're trying to make here regarding healers using potions. With a *very* small exception for skills like Innervate, there's basically no difference between using a mana potion at minute 9 vs. minute 3, because you almost never find yourself at full mana after the encounter starts. If you're referring to other types of potions that might interest healers, well then, I doubt they're powerful enough to be a make-or-break difference, and it's wholly reasonable for Blizzard to expect players to put some thought into when to use their potion.

Once again, this is rooted in the idea that Blizzard doesn't want potions to be "just another consumable". They don't want rogues popping a haste potion every two minutes; they want them picking the moment where its benefit is maximized: when the boss is vulnerable, when Bloodlust is up, when the enrage timer is looming large on the horizon, etc. If this creates a situation where players often don't use a potion for the average encounter because they couldn't find a "clutch moment" to use it, then that's great, and it's probably what Blizzard intends. They've already put the money down for their flask, food, etc.

If it offers some slightly disproportionate benefit to very short fights (i.e. 1-2 minutes), then who cares? I doubt there are going to be that many cases where those present a massive challenge. And if people do feel compelled to use a potion on short fights, then it's still better than the situation we have now where people are chain-chugging them on *all* fights.

Believe me, I understand the problem...I'm just not sure what a solution is.

I had initially come up with the same solution you have here, making potables more potent. The problem there is tuning. Either potions still are only useful in lower-length fights, or useful in longer fights but insanely powerful in shorter.

The absolute only other option I can see at the moment other than leaving potion usage unchanged is making another variety of potions that have a reduced effect, but lasting 2mins or until fight's end, whichever is longer. Something like a single 500 mana point tick every 30 secs, 1.5 k additional armor, 5 rage every 25 secs, or something equivalent to 0.5% haste rating over the course of a fight. On one hand, you can hold a pot for a good gulp of 'x' resource, on the other, you get more sustained resource, but it only helps over the course of a long fight. Finding a proper balance for every potion would be a right beast though, especially given that you also have to balance for lower ranks of potions as well.

Whatever the answer is, this is something that has a lot of consequences if they don't get it right on the money.


Edit to Nezralix: I'm not going to argue the point of the intent. I completely understand what they're shooting for, and I agree with the logic behind it. I guess what worries me is twofold. Firstly, that, especially in longer fights, the potential for multiple 'oh sh**' moments increases, and once you use that button once, it's over. You can't use it again, regardless of fight length, until the fight is over. That's for reactive survival potions (direct or indirect). For other potions (thinking of haste/destruction and the like here), they lose almost any benefit at all over a longer fight. Even at optimal usage, they don't provide all *that* much extra DPS on single use, and if all of a sudden something happens and the benefit is wasted (see my 'Get out of the Fire' moment from earlier), then they can't even be assuaged by knowing that at least they can use it again in just a few minutes on the same fight, and regain a little of that lost power.

Bottom line, it's not as simple and clear cut as the flask/elixir change was, by any means.

That is a good point, another thing to consider is how this will affect other professions. I think another major reason for this change is a hidden change to how much money herbalism will be worth. Herbalism is already a major money maker, mostly because of potions, and people buying stacks and stacks of herbs for their raiding week. How many mana pots do healers burn through in a week of raiding? 200ish? 100 Destro/Haste pots a week, 200 Ironshield pots? Limit that number down to 20 a week, more while wiping on a new boss of course, but like 1 pot per boss attempt(if that, and only at low percentages probably, for DPS), and you see a substantial decrease in the number of herbs sold due to alchemy. At the same time Inscription is being put into the game, which will be an automatic increase to the cost of herbs. So This really is balancing out the cost of herbs, then the much much higher cost they would be at if this change didn't go through.

Not really; the only way to royally screw it up would be to make them overly powerful while still being terribly uninteresting and inconvenient. Going the other direction just results in people not bothering to use them unless they're solo grinding, and that's not really that terrible of a consequence.

They've taken the wise move of not thinking to themselves "well, how can we shoehorn this into raiding in a way that people still have to blow a ton of money on them?" That seems to be the direction you're approaching the problem from.

I tested out the Alchemical Blood with Adepts/Healing Power elixirs.

Adepts elixir (24 spell power/24 spell crit)

I potted with it 3 times for 30 spell bonus/29 healing bonus, on each attempt. This indicates a ~25% increase for elixirs. I'm a rogue and for some reason I showed no increase in spell crit/ melee crit, whatsoever.

Healing power (24 spell power/24 spirit)

I potted twice gaining 24 spell bonus/30 healing bonus/29 spirit


I can't make Flasks of Relentless Assualts or Haste Pots and as the tool tip indicates, I received no bonus effect from taking them.

Now that's not a fair representation of my views at all...I've said nothing about cost. My concern is more of 'how can the benefit from a potion be made equal, no matter the fight length?' If the solution were to have potions be deleted from the game entirely, I'd be all for it, so long as content was balanced around that fact. If potion usage was, at time of release, converted back to current levels, I'd agree with that as well...because once again, benefit would be balanced regardless of fight length. The problem is that unless every fight is the exact same length, the benefit from a one-time-only use varies, and drastically so, solely dependent on fight length. *That* is the direction I'm coming from.

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.

What, all zero of them? Assuming you're talking about boss fights, which is the only time this will actually matter due to the 2 minute potion cooldown.

I believe they were referring to hunters (feign death) rogues (vanish) and mages (invisibility). Although a patch or two ago I believe they changed it so those don't actually put you out of combat during boss fights.


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?

I've not been able to drop out of combat long enough to swap gear since they made that change during boss fights.

PvP or non-boss PvE sure a hunter could easily drop out to potion while the pet holds the mob, but not that often that anyone needs two potions for non-boss PvE or most PvP encounters.

Well, without getting into a lengthy discussion about what exactly classifies as a gathering skill, the important bit is that a jewelcrafter prospecting is still sharing parts of his profits with a miner via inter-dependancy. You take a tailor or an enchanter, put him down infront of an auctionhouse, and tell him to start making money the norm will not involve someone else's profession. You take a jewelcrafter and do the same, and it will involve someone elses profession most of the time. I know I said I wasn't going to turn this into a discussion on gathering professions, but taking goods from another profession and using to create a new piece of goods does not really fit the bill in my opinion.

Second of all, though this might just be my server, most of the gems on the AH that are sold by jewelcrafters are already cut. It's a lot easier to get a cut gem - even an epic gem nowadays - than it is to get a complete uncut gem you bring to a jewelcrafter. Costs more, certainly, but considering how easy some of the dailies are you're still going come out on top if you listen the the goblin maxim "Time is money, friend". Anyway, point is, money is made by that specific jewelcrafter who has the recipe, not by someone's lvl 55 alt like enchanting.


On another note; It will be very interesting to see how they balance all the non-mana potions around one-potion-per-fight.