Sniddie

Currently on the PTR, there is water/food purchasable for honor which you can consume in the arenas.

Do you think this is just an oversight on Blizzards behalf, or will be able to play the longlasting game without a mage now?

If this is in for sure, do you think its a good idea, or a bad one?

I for one think its an excellent idea, we currently run a setup with Paladin/Priest/Shaman/Warrior/Rogue and its quite hard to try to outlast teams if they have a mage on the team, adding water for all teams would make it alot less "needed" to have a mage in your team if your playing the outlasting game.

 

• Maligne

It's certainly not an oversight, as the flavor text reads "Carefully extracted for warfare use."

I don't really mind the change, but it was nice bringing another unique ability to the team.

What better cc is there for a druid than polymorph?

 

Keline

I really prefer it, I'll use that over conjured water as it's such a hassle to pass out water to 3 people in every single match.

 

Avelle

It seems like most of the stronger teams use a Mage anyways so I guess whatever. It was a hassle passing it out for sure. wtb healthstones! but that's probably going too far.

 

Keline

Since healthstones have the "created by" tagline, they could simply check if the creator was on the team, that way they wouldn't have to disappear

 

MasterDinadan

I guess hypothetically you could create a healthstone with Imp Healthstone, then respec and make another healthstone without the talent, then go into the arena with two healthstones and their talent points somewhere else. Costly? Yes, but some people will do anything to get an advantage.

 

Keline

100g per arena match seems like a good fee for 400 extra hp on the healthstone.
Besides, there are no decent arena specs that don't have at least some Demonology.

 

Grailyn

It's not 400 extra hp, it's more like 3k since your actually getting a second healthstone. Still have to deal with the 2m CD and yeah 100g per match isn't something I'd ever do but who knows how crazy some people are.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...ther&n=Grailyn

 

• Chicken

I'm not sure, but wouldn't that already be possible? Just head into the arena with some free talent points on your warlock, first hand out unspecced healthstones to everyone, put 1 point into the talent, give everyone a healthstone, put another point in it, give everyone their third healthstone.

You can still individually conjure healthstones if this doesn't work well with Ritual of Souls.

Edit: Misread. The intention was to not have to spend the talent points in the first place.

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

 

Keline

The cooldown will usually prevent the second HS from being used, I know my PVP Trinket very rarely refreshes during a match

OTOH, they are fixing Soul Wells so this shouldn't matter anymore anyways

That's even better and it's only 50g per match that way
Plus it would allow for a 2288 healthstone and a 2496, as opposed to 2080 and 2496

 

Targrend

This is exactly what the restriction on consumables in arenas was supposed to prevent - team A having an advantage over team B by spending more money.

 

drole

If you want to gimp yourself by not having full ranks of your talent spells like UA go ahead, i dont mind tbh :P

 

• frmorrison

43/7/11 is the most popular Warlock Arena build, so they could easily get all ranks of UA and Shadowburn but not spec into healthstone until the Lock gets into the match.


The water is a good change, 1g a stack is very cheap (almost 2g a stack at normal vendors) and it can be used everywhere. I didn't see food there, but if it is that is even better.

 

Cel

This is hardly a practical way to gain an advantage. In the rare fights that last long enough for more than 1 healthstone to be useful, sure it's good, but your team would have to have some serious staying power to last long enough to use more than 1, let alone 3.

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

Alpha is recruiting... go go.

 

drole

Point taken, i stand corrected :/

 

Keline

There isn't a single ranked talent in Demonology, so it would work with every spec.

 

• frmorrison

For a Soul Link build you would have to click talent points from 9 to however far you want to go. I would hate to have to add all those talents plus the normal Arena prep (summon imp then do 3 buffs per person, healthstones, summon VW/sac, summon good pet then cast Shadow Protection).

You are right that Demo tree's talented spells have no ranks so it could work.

 

◊ Shadowed

I'm interested in seeing how this changes stuff in the smaller arenas, I don't think 5vs5 will be effected by it as much since you're probably either a burst damage team where if you're drinking you're in trouble, or you'll be outlast and probably have a Mage already.

Join a Mage/Warlock into the roster and make them sit outside to pass out food/HSes for all.

 

• nilme

As if UA's role was dealing dmg by itself ;-)
On topic:this is one of those rare ocassions where blizzard fixes a HUGE class imbalance(you cannot play at top arena without a mage just for water) without actually nerfing the class itself
Now they need to make rogues useful at doing anything on 5on5, if they dont be prepared warriors, DW&enrage nerf was just a small sneak peek of future ;-)

 

Monsanto

It's probably a good thing, as it in theory allows for rogues, hunters and warlocks to compete with mages for the dps//cc slot on a team.

Druid: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...hol&n=Monzanto
Warrior: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...n=Thundershaft
Warlock: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...gos&n=Valdamar

 

◊ Shadowed

Rogues are useful in 5vs5, they just require a player who knows how to play a utility class, not a damage class.

 

PSokar

I kind of felt that the solution to having mage water drinkable in arenas was to remove that utility. All it seemed to do was make games longer than they should of been and was a bit cheesy. I guess that was a mechanic that blizzard liked, and I think that just letting everybody drink is probably the 2nd best solution.

 

• nilme

If blizzard wants to take that path then so be it, but change the mechanics acordingly
With cyclone, fear and frost trap around, rogue 5on5 CC is laughable. But this is not the topic to start moaning about rogues ;-)

So unless blizzard changes something about rogues, with this new arena water mages will be "replaced"(more like the spot will be open again for some diversity) by classes with powerful CC&dmg, mostly warlocks&druids imo.

 

◊ Shadowed

Then you're looking at what they bring wrong


Giving everyone arena water balances the teams that use mana burn, if they removed it completely then you unbalance it towards Priests because the other team has no method to regen mana since things like wisdom gets purged.

 

• sadris

Giving everyone arena water imbalances the teams that use mana burn
Letting teams bring 4 DPS imbalances the teams with heavy caster classes
Etc...

Some teams use burst DPS to win, some teams use mana burn to win, some teams use mass CC to win. Why is one tactic or the other "imbalancing?"

Thats right: Its not. Different strokes for different folks.