• Nisu

That's not what Blizzard is trying to do. The entire point of the potion sickness debuff is to make Mana potions reactive like Health potions are. The idea is not to drink them asap so you have the cooldown free, but rather an extra leg up on mana if you run dry and have exhausted other regen options.

 

Jebraltar

Without potions, Alchemy will only be able to sell Elixirs and Flasks, which is apparently not enough for alchemists to make money. (Worse still, elixirs and flasks might be available through other channels in somewhat-below-needed levels, meaning that there will be a reduction in people's use of elixirs.)

The problem seems to be that the "money-maker" for Alchemy worked primarily by making other players leap through hoops to manufacture money so that it could be given to Alchemists, because otherwise it wasn't possible to do things they actually do. Increasing raiding's money flow and reduces its money drains make raiding a mostly self-sustainable lifestyle. End result is that, like PvP, raiding ends up not requiring that you level an alt to go pick flowers or that you do dailies for an hour or two a day. I don't really see how a reduction in Alchemy's money-making viability is going to do anything but bring it closer to other professions. (Making other professions as profitable means that people need to do more work, because even considering that everyone will have improved income, everyone will also have at least 2-3 times the spending to get the Blacksmith-only service, the Tailor-only service, etc.)

Of course, I also don't really believe the hype about other crafting professions not making money, either. Selling nethers at a measly 50g-100g a pop fairly early on was enough to more than pay for the cost of leveling Blacksmithing, my Enchanting pre-BC was usually good for 10g tips on any pattern it had taken me longer than ten seconds to rustle up, and overall, the worst part was that I had to advertise both occasionally and actually find/buy patterns. (I AH'ed most of the patterns I acquired, and most paid for themselves and then some. The most extreme example was a Felsteel Reaper pattern that led to my getting paid a 2700g crafting fee from somebody, but the rest was all just normal exchanges. "You can make Bracers of Awesome?" "Yeah." "How much?" "100g for the nether/craft, you bring the other mats." "That's steep." "Darn." "Okay, meet in Shatt?")

In the end, the worst that happens is you decide Alchemy is not a viable money-maker because you can only provide Elixirs now, and you switch to another profession (or dailies) for your money-making instead.

 

rhen

What do you think would happen to alchemy if they remove potions from raids? Keep in mind that they are already removed from arenas, and flasks can be attained free from raid drops meaning the use of crafted flasks and elixirs are already reduced?

I think we need to, instead of criticising, come up with some constructive ideas that are balanced and will help Blizzard out with the obvious problem they have with alchemy.

Why not change potion sickness to a debuff that "reduces the effects of potions by 50%, stacks 2 times. Lasts 5 minutes"? That way you can use a potion every 5 minutes with full effect, or a second potion 2 minutes after the first with half effect. Will this make such a difference that you will be *required* to use a 50% pot every 5 minutes? I wouldn't have thought so. 50% of a potion is quite a small buff, but it might be enough if used in a clutch moment. It also gives a strategy to using potions instead of chugging them every 2 minutes

 

• Nisu

No, it really doesn't. It means you chug every 5 minutes instead of every two if the fight is 6 minutes or more, or chug every two if it isn't. All you've done is situationally modified the cooldown. It's still a dumb mechanic.

Hell, they're still not clever with the potion sickness debuff, but that's acceptable because they're an "oh crap" button.

 

Jebraltar

Using current numbers: A 100% effectiveness pot on a two-minute cooldown provides 100 mp5. So, burning two pots give you the same amount of mana as two minutes of 100 mp5 (between the first and second pot) and 50 mp5 for the next two minutes. A flask gives 25 mp5. That's a big effect for those last four minutes. (And if the fight is exceptionally long, you use one potion, wait five minutes, then use the next two.)

They want potions to be "OH SNAP!" buttons. It makes encounter balancing a lot less painful and cuts down a lot on people's costs. If you can chain-chug mana potions, even at somewhat reduced effectiveness, they either expect you to do so or you do it and make the encounter easier, then complain because raiding is too easy and too expensive. (I'd consider the equivalent of four minutes of 87.5 mp5 is pretty strong for a short fight, and the timer could be exploited for longer fights as well.)

Now, to address the first thing you said:

It will become somewhat less profitable, although Marks don't come close to providing the entirety of most raid groups' flask/elixir needs anyway. (Not to mention that Elixirs are often more powerful than flasks, consumed in greater quantities, and only available through Alchemists.) This will cause people to leave the profession for "more profitable" ones, until eventually the profession makes money again. It may turn out differently, but that's pretty much what I think.

 

Anedris

I reiterate: I do not care what happens to alchemy.

I have been an alchemist, and I made 50g or more every day simply by pressing a button in Org and then going to the AH, listing my earthstorm diamond, and buying a few primals and gems to get my mats back so I could do it again tomorrow. I never sold a single potion or flask and did quite well out of the profession - obviously your economy may vary, but transmutes should always be a steady low volume (almost passive) money maker.

However, even if all the transmutes are useless, I will still not care what happens to alchemy, because alchemy is not more important than raiding. I will wholeheartedly support any measure that makes raiding more fun if the only cost is to make alchemy less profitable/viable. Swapping professions is easy. There is no option to swap to a raid game without consumables.

All that alchemy needs is to give it 5-6 best-in-slot, upgradeable BoP trinkets (come up with clever names and give them interesting but-not-consumable-dependent effects) and voila, mains will be alchemists.

 

rhen

I did the math for my proposition a few posts back, and it hovers between 50-60mp/5 if you chug current mana potions as often as possible, as opposed to the current 100mp/5 with only a 2min cooldown. I was going to post it, but then I re-read most of the thread and realised I'm arguing against what most people want. Most people want raiding changed to not require or allow multiple potions to be drunk.

I personally like that it requires quite a bit of preparation to raid (in a kind of Role-play way I guess). Makes it feel more epic. I am an alchemist purely for my own benefit and I farm all my own consumables. I used to run BM tribute, hand in zg heart and get every known consumable for loatheb tanking back in the day. I guess these days of requiring raid preparation are passing...

 

Sabyn

There was nothing epic about farming 50 stacks of dreamfoil 3-5 times a week. That level of preparation several times a week gets old incredibly fast, and looses all meaning. If such things do add to the "epic" feel of some raids it is perfectly possible to do them without the millstone of consumables around our necks. I am sure there must be a few good ideas for prep beyond resist gear and consumables.

The idea of ZG heart / ony / nef heads is kinda cool. Hard to work the current mechanic into the actual preparation that makes sense for a raid.

 

Zurgat

I recall Wailing Caverns had a NPC druid at the start of the instance who would buff you when talked to.
So does slave pens at the end actually.

I'm hoping that mechanic would get used more often, as it does save a lot of buffing worries.

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

 

• Daboran

I can easily see that being developed along with timed events; "Beat X bosses in Y time and you get an npc spawn to buff you for Z boss"

 

timski

I have started to put together a guide to Inscription, based on features available to characters within the beta. No random data file extracts, or meaningless UI screenshots: Things that can actually be done in-game. There are still a few holes in the research, but it should be fairly robust:

El's Inscription - WoW Inscribing Guide

Obviously it comes with a big "Not Yet Implemented" caveat, but I think it is useful to see what the designers are thinking at this early stage. The guide explores some new approaches to areas like profession-specific gear (Tarot cards), gives some initial numbers that allow an assessment of herb volumes required (for anyone that really wants to "jump the starting gun" - I don't advise stocking up just yet), and hopefully resolves any confusion about basic mechanics (Milling, Pomaces, etc).

I'd welcome any feedback, corrections, additional information, or general discussion.

 

Fondren

Agreed.

As much as I hate losing the income, it will be nice to see consumables take a smaller role in serious raiding.

Success in raiding should be more about skill and less about farming herbs / gold for potion spamming.

The auction house is my favorite form of PvP.

 

Ukerric

Notice:
... it appears that you can't cast a "requires a level 35+" enchant on those items. So they are strictly for vanilla lower-levels enchants. Presumably, Parchments and Vellums suitable for higher level enchants appear later.

 

Lgs

For that matter, let's bring back the Flaskotaur they have on PTR's! hmm, no. Unless the buff is exotic, having stuff handed to you just seems so boring.

Gnomes are creatures of destruction.

 

• Chicken

It depends really. While I would disagree with it on the basis of buffs you can procure without having someone who can provide it in your group or raid (Or in other words, flasks and elixirs), if buffs are powerful enough it could be valuable to provide alternative means to them as it means encounters can truly always be balanced around the buffs being there without needing the class there as well; at least in 10 mans that'd be a good thing, for 25 mans it's very reasonable to expect at least one person of each class being present.

Blizzard seems to be covering this though. With the various buff scrolls being brought up to the level of what the comparable buff provides prior to talents; and of course, these scrolls being craftable through Inscription now.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Mideci

I'm sorry it bugs some people that there is alchemy and you have to spend a few gold to raid. I'm curious whether it also bugs the same people that there are now daily quests that require absolutely no skill or though to put gigantic amounts of golds in people's banks or that bosses now drop 10g apiece instead of 2-3g. Is it really unreasonable to require some modicum of consumable spending to push the content envelope? As it stands, the vast majority of what alchemy produces is entirely useless (admittedly, also true of other crafting professions). And while it's nice that an earthstorm transmute is valuable today, it was -- like all the big transmute -- worth less than the materials early on in TBC.

I hate the free flasks to be honests, would not like to see elixirs go away, and am cautiously skeptical of the potion sickness. I mean excessive potion consumption is silly. But requiring the use of some amount of potions to >>first<< down a new boss is what separates those willing to commit from those unwilling to commit in a small way. There's a difference between arguing against "chain chugging" and arguing against alchemy being a valued buff. It's the buff you get that you have to renew. It's expensive. Yes. We get that. It's a lot less expensive than it used to be, both in the sense that there is no rare recipes anymore really and that relatively speaking people have tons more gold and tons more alts with which to gather mats.

Already, there is serious question as to whether it's a profession worth having. Potion sickness is going to further call into question. Enough nerfs.

 

Sydane

Blizzard will have to balance the game now around no chain-chugging of mana pots. They should have done that in the first place. They don't really even need potion sickness if the game is balanced as if it existed. People won't chain chug mana pots if they don't have to, it's that simple. It isn't just a matter of competitive advantage (like Ironshield Pots), there have been times and classes where it has been flat out required. Mana pots have always been overpowered compared to all the others.

If Mana pots become a non-requirement, then the potion cooldown becomes something you can either use to maximize dps, or save as an emergency option. If they keep potion sickness, then they need to make potions actually worth using as that emergency, something like shield wall in a bottle, lay on hands in a bottle, and so forth. Because a health potion that gives you 20% of your max hp back isn't worth much of anything. It's also impossible to balance a class around one mana pot in a fight, so all classes will have to be balanced to not need mana pots at all, or you're still in the situation where it is required, even if just one.

Also, at no time during the development of this game has Blizzard balanced professions around the idea of people profiting from them. In reality, the profitability of a profession is largely outside of their control. So I don't expect them to start caring now that alchemists won't be able to make money, because you can already make a strong argument that virtually all the profit now is eaten up by the herbalists anyway.

 

Smurrf

I'm still concerned over the benefits of potions being varying based on encounter length.

Part of what also sticks in my mind is the fact that there are an absolute ton of specialized potions in varying spots; CE had them for Coilfang Armaments (CE use only), TK instances all dropped them (TK use only), Ogrila has some, the Spirit Shard vendor has them, there's some for BG's...the list goes on.

I have two alternate scenarios for potion use that do not involve Potion Sickness:

#1 - All WotLK mobs have a chance at dropping a token that allows you to purchase a potion equivalent to one Alchemy can make, at a somewhat decent rate. In other words, if you go out and do a full day's worth of dailies, you could expect to get not only your normal mana & healing pot drops at their normally rare rate, but also enough tokens that it will make a decent impact on the amount of potions you'd have to get through other means. This just takes the idea of the Apothecaries and extends it to potions, on a broader basis. These potions would be usable anywhere potions would normally be allowed. (If you really want it to require a bit more work, you can have it linked to whatever faction Dalaran belongs to - but not as onerous as the Apothecaries were, say Honored, *maybe* Revered - not Exalted in three different ones.)

#2 - Each WotLK raid instance has its own faction, if for no other purpose than to allow consumable purchases (potions, reagents, ammo, and perhaps food/water) for a small amount of gold outright. Your reputation with that faction allows you to buy potions (for that raid instance only) that are of a reduced efficacy than that of Alchemy potions, but the better your faction reputation, the more beneficial the potions are. (So if Runic Mana Potion remains at 3240-5400, you would be able to purchase a Naxx Mana Potion that would only do 60% of that at Friendly, but go up to 70% at Honored, 80% at Revered, and 95% at Exalted.) This still allows those who want to get every last drop to go to Alchemists. This, however, will also allow those who don't want to spend huge amounts of time to farm mats to still get their consumables at a reduced cost, for the price of reduced benefit.

For both scenarios, potion purchases would apply to all potions able to be made from WotLK level Alchemy - so not just mana/healing, but haste, destruction, stoneshield, etc.



**I understand that potions are supposed to be push-on-demand buttons, not pop-on-cooldown buttons, but I really dislike seeing my options for potions reduced to next to nothing. I don't typically have a huge potion use currently, but I like options, blast it all - not 'welp, you popped your mana pot 45 secs in after your tank got hosed, you're screwed now.'

___

Edit: I see two arguments against the current TBC usage of pots - not wanting to farm for hours pre-raid, and the idea that pot usage should be more reactive. I can't say anything about the second, but regarding the first...look to the left. See 'Warlock' under my name? Think 'Soul Shards'. Now, not all, but a lot of arguments I've seen against the Soul Shard mechanic are very similar...with the added deficit that if there's no trash, a bag gets depleted fairly quickly. And what I've seen many times is 'if they'd just put it on a vendor, it'd be perfectly fine.'

This is what I'm trying to suggest. Balance around pot usage, then make it cheap to obtain - either through normal play + 30 secs to turn in tokens, OR through normal play, then cough up a bit of gold at a vendor (which, by the way, would make a shallow gold sink that would last the whole length of the expansion.)

Oh yeah, one last thing...I do not play an Alchemist. I simply don't like the whole concept of PS.

 

• Adoriele

No, you don't understand, and here's an example:

As a Balance Druid, I have two major DPS spells: Wrath and Starfire. For simplicity, Wrath costs more mana, but has higher DPS. Taking as a given that blizzard wants my choice of what to do with my mana to be meaningful, i.e. my mana is not effectively infinite. With this in mind, they balance my class such that I can, without chain-potting, sustain 1000 DPS at a certain gear level. This is what you suggest they do.

I, being an elitist jerk, see that, if I gain 100MP5 by chain potting, I can sustain 1200 DPS by using Wrath instead of Starfire as my main nuke. There is nothing to stop me from doing this and, by doing it, encounters are all trivialized. I've gained 20% DPS simply by chain-potting, why would I not? I blow through content, defeating Kil'Jaeden an hour after the gate goes down because he's laughably easy. I cancel my subscription, Blizzard loses money, WoW dies.

All of that because Blizzard developers decided to balance classes and encounters with the assumption that, given the option, players will NOT chain-pot.

But that didn't happen, because Blizzard is not a bunch of idiots. They balance encounters and classes on the assumption that, given the choice between not pushing the envelope, and pushing the envelope, raiders will ALWAYS choose to push it. They tuned encounters around chain-potting, around people having every elixir up at once, around everyone being flasked. Because if they didn't, people who chose to go that route would laugh at content because it was easy. That led to people hating how much farming was necessary, so they made impossible for people to buff to the teeth by limiting flasks and elixirs. This is just the final step of that (or maybe not the final). They HAVE to do this, or people will continue needing to chain-pot to beat encounters.

 

Anedris

Yes, it bothers me that I have to spend "a few gold" to raid. It is not because gold is hard to get - I probably have enough money to never have to farm for gold in Wrath, even if they next gold sink is 10k. I simply dislike the principle.

If raiding requires more gold than it produces (i.e., the combination of required consumables plus repairs costs more than the gold dropped by trash and bosses) I simply see that as a meaningless time-sink. I play to raid. I do not think that clicking on an elixir before every pull or clicking on flask before each raid makes raiding more fun. And I certainly do not think that requiring me to find an income outside of raiding makes raiding more fun.

I don't give a fig about proving that I'm "willing to commit." I play this game to enjoy myself, not to prove to someone else that I'm "hardcore enough" or "committed enough" to "deserve" success.

Yes, the situation is far better than it used to be. In my eyes that makes it less bad. It doesn't make it good.

I very much like the direction they are moving with first the consumable nerfs and now the potion sickness debuff. Consumables as a reactive tool (one more option that a skilled player can make use of) is what I enjoy, rather than as a mindless buff (nothing more than a raiding tax).

As I said above, all that they have to do to make alchemy worth having as a profession is to give it a BoP best-in-slot trinket for a few class/roles - not hard at all. That's about all the other professions offer. You seem to disagree and believe that it must be a good money-maker to be viable, but this is, I suspect, a disagreement on principles that we are not likely to ever resolve.

 

• Nisu

No. That's not what bothers us. I'm sitting on 6000g simply by clicking buyout, create all, relist before raids. I don't do any dailies beyond cooking and the occasional heroic, I don't farm, and I know I'm at the low end of the spectrum for sitting on piles of gold. I wouldn't care if potion materials trippled in WotLK - costs would average out to about the same, but it'd still be an emergency button. What the whiny alchemist faction doesn't get is that most people objecting to chain pots are objecting to the concept, not the cost. Having to pot for mana you may or may not need in the fight just so your cooldown is ready later is dumb.

 

Sydane

I should have been more clear, but when I say "have to," I mean in the context of this community, not in the general sense of the term. Even now, most people playing this game don't chain pot, or they use cheap pots, or whatever. For someone to "not have to" chain pot, it means there's no benefit to them, in the EJ sense. It means your druid who chain potted ended up with 7k extra mana. It means you can choose to use a haste pot, or save your pot cooldown for an emergency, which is what the case will be with potion sickness. For potion sickness to exist, the game has to be balanced so that mana pots are basically not needed.

The broken part is two fold. One, if a class has to chain pot to be at all viable. This is bad and is a class design problem, not a potion problem. Two, if chain potting trivializes content. Personally, I think the power of potting in regards to content is overblown. For most dps classes chain potting hardly means 20% increase in dps. There are some specific exceptions, but that's the general rule. The idea that the content in Sunwell is so perfectly tuned that everyone has to chain pot to beat it, and each encounter would be broken and easy if chain potting wasn't taken into account, I just don't believe. It's certainly a factor, but it's hardly on the same level that the massive amounts of world buffs, or insane elixir stacking, was. The biggest thing chain potting will do is allow an undergeared healer to perform at a higher level than his gear allows.

The biggest effect potting can have is to allow people to defeat encounters at a lower gear level than intended. For this to be possible, potions have to be exceptionally powerful in relation to people's gear. The only potion that comes close to meeting that requirement is the Mana Pot. Now, in WotLK, if they want to balance 10 man encounters around having 2 healers, health pots and healthstones start having the potential to be the same way. I believe that, more than anything, is why they introduced potion sickness.

In the end, I think the ultimate effect of potion sickness will be creating a required slot for a mana battery class in all 10 mans. Especially early on, if the mana management minigame plays a significant role in the gear checks for raiding, groups that can slot mana batteries will have a substantial advantage over groups that do not.

 

timski

Thanks Ukerric. The game doesn't decide that the parchment cannot be enchanted until the cast-bar has run out... NYI indeed.

So logically, low-level Inscribers won't be able to produce items that are useful to those at or near level 80, but will still gain access to the twink market, where those vanilla enchants remain popular. If so, that's a nice compromise: It will improve the first 400-odd skill points of practically-worthless stuff that tend to characterise some other manufacturing professions; yet still give a reason to train the profession up to 450.

 

• Adoriele

First, adding the potion sickness allows them to tune with no-chain-potting in mind. Your idyllic world where people don't chain pot in order to squeak out that extra inch doesn't exist. If Mana potions didn't give me any real benefit because my mana was effectively infinite, I would stop using them and start using haste potions which will ALWAYS give benefit. Haste/Damage is always better than no haste/damage. Ask any guild working on Brutallus how much consumable cost they blow through in a given day of attempts. Assuming they're past the phase of making sure they survive to enrage, how many guild leaders do you think would look at a wipe with less than 10k health left on Brutallus and NOT see it as a failure if every person who had a pot cooldown up failed to use it?

Second, you're vastly underrating the value of potions. Chain-chugging super mana pots is worth 100 MP5, which is 100 MP5 that i, all things being equal, do not have to put on my gear, allowing me to spend that item budget elsewhere. That's the equivalent of 450 Spell Damage, or 400 of a random rating. One of the top three healer trinkets in the game, the alchemist's stone, gives 40 MP5 (yes, I'm aware that's only because chain-potting is itself 100 MP5, but if 40 MP5 weren't as powerful as it is, no one would use the trinket), and 119 Healing, and it's the 40 MP5 which draws people to it. Chain potting is worth about 1 and a half of these trinkets alone. 1 and a half BEST-IN-SLOT trinkets, without having to give up a trinket slot. For DPS, the power is only greater.

 

Copernicus

I hope that they're moving away from BoP best-in-slot items. The main problem with those is that the profession feels worthless if the item gets replaced by an upgrade, or even worse, the replacement item exists but is a super-rare drop.

The new model of a profession giving a bonus (enchanting rings, leatherworking patches) feels much better. The profession's bonus is constant throughout the end-game, as opposed to having insane spikes depending on your raid's progression and luck.