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Quote:Blizzard is decreasing the role of constant farming/spamming profession items for raids, while increasing the role of your own particular professions. They're giving main characters reasons to have gathering skills with their own special bonuses.
You want Alchemy to be "worth it"? People will still be using elixirs or flasks on every encounter, and have potions as an "oh crap" button instead of a constant chugging. Don't complain at Blizzard for removing one of the more broken parts of the game. Take whats left and make sure it's still balanced in its own right, or look at what else their adding.
The problem is they are fixing it at the wrong end. As Pete essentially said, they are "cater(ing) to the incomptent, ignorant, casual gamer." The more simple you make the game the less fun it is. Agree? Potions are broken for one reason and one reason only: The cost. The fix for this is stupidly obvious: Adjust supply.
Right now I can fly around on an epic mount for 5 minutes and collect little more than 3 or 4 felweed if I have bad/average luck. THAT is where the problem comes from. If it took me 5 minutes to farm up the mats for something, I'm not going to put it on the auction house for 25 silver. Make it 100% of the time a herb contains a stack of 3 and that can look more like 9 to 12. Supply goes up, price goes down.
The auction house is a great facet of this game and controls these better than a direct nerf ever could. Plus it keeps the profession useful and the game interesting. People pick up a profession because they want to make useful things they can sell and use. Diminishing instead of fixing the game is not a change I welcome.
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Macroing mana potions into my shadow bolt doesn't make the game more interesting/challenging. It just wastes a couple bag slots.
Delgorasha of <The Basin> on Tichondrius Un-re-retired
Delcanan of <First File> on Runetotem
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Quote:I heard the same exact crying when the deserved elixir nerf came. You know what? Encounters should not be balanced upon every mana class hitting a mana potion every 2 minutes, just like they shouldn't be balanced upon everyone having 8 different alchemy buffs up.
Alchemy's self-buff is currently Alchemical Blood -> makes all your products better for yourself.
Blizzard is decreasing the role of constant farming/spamming profession items for raids, while increasing the role of your own particular professions. They're giving main characters reasons to have gathering skills with their own special bonuses.
You want Alchemy to be "worth it"? People will still be using elixirs or flasks on every encounter, and have potions as an "oh crap" button instead of a constant chugging. Don't complain at Blizzard for removing one of the more broken parts of the game. Take whats left and make sure it's still balanced in its own right, or look at what else their adding.
I agree with Quark. It's getting the point where potions in WoW are becoming a bit like potions were in D2 - you just chug them constantly. I'd have absolutely no problems with a debuff like that (you could even conceivably get around the debuff by using the Divine Intervention+Soulstone combo, and a couple other ways, depending on how long it lasts after you exit combat) if they'd make the potions stronger to compensate. If a potion is going to be our "Oh crap, oh crap, oh CRAP" button, they should have an effect relative to that status.
Another option is just letting us buy Super potions via honor, like we can with superiors. I think trading marks for Majors is just ridiculous, considering what a pain it is to get marks in the first place.
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
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"Potion sickness" is a pretty huge change, and makes me a little nervous if they decide to keep it.
Managing mana has always been one of the challenges of playing a healer (unless you played a pally pre-Illumination nerf where it was sometimes possible to spam Flash of Light practically indefinitely). I know there are some encounters where I need to pot every single cooldown (Brutallus), some encounters where I have to pot at strategic intervals (Illidan, Illidari Council), and some encounters where I never have to pot at all.
As my gear progressively improves encounters generally move from the "pot every cooldown" side of the equation to the "rarely pot" side. (Or at least, that's the hope).
I'm a little curious as to how Blizzard plans to balance mana usage around "1 pot per encounter". Will healers get enough new talents/abilities/gear upgrades that only emergency pots will be needed?
Chris
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There are several new ways to regenerate mana coming. For instance Paladins are getting an Evocation variant. I personally am looking forward to having another fee (that's all it is, there is not a lot of thought or planning required to chain chug) removed from raiding.
Regarding heroics vs raiding from my perspective (Healer, previously Tank) even the easy ones are harder than Karazhan. That's speaking in terms of my share of the incoming damage or the number of mobs to hold, the techincal requirements are low. If your group is in Tier, PVP or Badge gear they'll be trivial since they don't have difficult coordination checks and are designed to be done by people in blues. Give them a try with a 10k HP/Armour tank, a 1k +heal healer and equivalently geared DPS for a better idea of how they felt at release.
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07-31-2008, 09:19 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-31-2008, 09:19 AM by Taelas.)
The earlier part (i.e. pre-Curator) of KZ, yes. Aran, Netherspite, Prince, Nightbane? I've not met anything in a Heroic that were on par with them (though for different reasons).
That's not to say that gear does not make a difference. As an example of how much gear changes, I healed Heroic Ramparts on my paladin in quest blues and greens at level 68 with less than 800 +healing with basically no problems.
It was possible because I had a Shadow priest and a well-geared (~T4) Feral tank.
I had just as much fun with the instance yesterday, healing it once again. This time the tank was a 11k health, 13k armor warrior, and no Shadow priest, and I had a mix of quest blues and epics, around ~1.3k healing. It was mostly the same.
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July 31 News
~~~
The CM Ghostcrawler has just made a lot of hunters day better!
~Not all who wander are lost...~
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Quote:July 31 News
~~~
The CM Ghostcrawler has just made a lot of hunters day better!
Perfect. Wolf, cat, bird of prey, devilsaur (whom shall be named George, like probably every other devilsaur in the game) and a fifth pet on which I can decide later. Probably another exotic.
This is quite possibly the best news for hunters in the WotLK development stage so far.
When in mortal danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.
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Quote:The problem is they are fixing it at the wrong end. As Pete essentially said, they are "cater(ing) to the incomptent, ignorant, casual gamer." The more simple you make the game the less fun it is. Agree? Potions are broken for one reason and one reason only: The cost. The fix for this is stupidly obvious: Adjust supply.
Right now I can fly around on an epic mount for 5 minutes and collect little more than 3 or 4 felweed if I have bad/average luck. THAT is where the problem comes from. If it took me 5 minutes to farm up the mats for something, I'm not going to put it on the auction house for 25 silver. Make it 100% of the time a herb contains a stack of 3 and that can look more like 9 to 12. Supply goes up, price goes down.
The auction house is a great facet of this game and controls these better than a direct nerf ever could. Plus it keeps the profession useful and the game interesting. People pick up a profession because they want to make useful things they can sell and use. Diminishing instead of fixing the game is not a change I welcome.
While it appears that we agree that there is a problem, I don't think we agree no the problem. I see the problem as three things:
1. It is possible to chain-chug potions in raid encounters, so Blizzard has balanced around the assumption that people will do that.
2. It costs time/gold to farm up the materials to chain-chug potions during raid encounters, providing an unneeded time tax on raiding.
3. Just clicking the potion button every time it is available is boring, dumb and requires no strategic thought whatsoever.
In that light, Blizzard's decision to limit potions to a one-time-use in a given encounter makes a lot of sense. This change reduces the time needed to farm up materials since you know you're only going to go through 1 potion per attempt. It also makes using your potion more of a strategic decision. Do you use it to help out your mana supply, do you save it for a health potion in case it can save you from death, or do you save it for the appropriate armor, attack power or spell damage potion? This certainly involves more thought than the "Oh, the icon lit up, it's time to click it again" thought process that is used right now.
Add in the fact that alchemists will now get more benefit from their flasks and elixirs in addition to their potions and I think a pretty good system is in place that will ensure that you want to stay an alchemist. :)
-TheDragoon
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Quote:I heard the same exact crying when the deserved elixir nerf came. You know what? Encounters should not be balanced upon every mana class hitting a mana potion every 2 minutes, just like they shouldn't be balanced upon everyone having 8 different alchemy buffs up.
Alchemy's self-buff is currently Alchemical Blood -> makes all your products better for yourself.
Blizzard is decreasing the role of constant farming/spamming profession items for raids, while increasing the role of your own particular professions. They're giving main characters reasons to have gathering skills with their own special bonuses.
You want Alchemy to be "worth it"? People will still be using elixirs or flasks on every encounter, and have potions as an "oh crap" button instead of a constant chugging. Don't complain at Blizzard for removing one of the more broken parts of the game. Take whats left and make sure it's still balanced in its own right, or look at what else their adding.
I'm cheering the fact that I won't be going through a 10+ Ironshield Potions a night.
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Quote:July 31 News
~~~
The CM Ghostcrawler has just made a lot of hunters day better!
That is good news. So now I get to keep my wolf (who tanked our first Hakkar kill), my cat that I've had forever, my PvP scorpion, and I can get 2 of the 10 or so other pets I want. :) At least I'll have a slot to get some of the new pets that show up in WotLK, unlike with TBC where I didn't have a free slot. We should have gone to 5 in TBC and WotLK should be at least 6. But it is good news. And if they put the stable in the UI and let me change pets semi on the fly so that I can have that AoE gorilla on trash and my DPS on bosses, or so that if I'm moved from a caster group to a melee group I can change to the wolf instead of the cat.
5 does allow a PvP pet, a pure DPS pet, a raid/group utility pet, a tank pet, and one pet to play with. So I can deal with it, but as I've said before I still want, and always have wanted, more. :)
---
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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Quote:While it appears that we agree that there is a problem, I don't think we agree no the problem. I see the problem as three things:
1. It is possible to chain-chug potions in raid encounters, so Blizzard has balanced around the assumption that people will do that.
2. It costs time/gold to farm up the materials to chain-chug potions during raid encounters, providing an unneeded time tax on raiding.
3. Just clicking the potion button every time it is available is boring, dumb and requires no strategic thought whatsoever.
In that light, Blizzard's decision to limit potions to a one-time-use in a given encounter makes a lot of sense. This change reduces the time needed to farm up materials since you know you're only going to go through 1 potion per attempt. It also makes using your potion more of a strategic decision. Do you use it to help out your mana supply, do you save it for a health potion in case it can save you from death, or do you save it for the appropriate armor, attack power or spell damage potion? This certainly involves more thought than the "Oh, the icon lit up, it's time to click it again" thought process that is used right now.
Add in the fact that alchemists will now get more benefit from their flasks and elixirs in addition to their potions and I think a pretty good system is in place that will ensure that you want to stay an alchemist. :)
I just wish Blizzard found a better solution.<_<While I fully agree that there's no point to having a system where you simply keep potions on cooldown, not everyone does that. Hard core raiders, maybe -- but personally I am much more conservative with regards to my consumables. For me personally, this is going to be a negative change. I fully understand why it's being done, and I understand that it's necessary, but it's still going to be frustrating for me.
Ah well. I guess you just gotta roll with the punches.
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Quote:July 31 News
~~~
The CM Ghostcrawler has just made a lot of hunters day better!
Wow (note lower case 'w')!
This is the best recent news that I have heard. My main is a paladin, but hunter was always my favorite class to solo (and I have more hunters than any other class). I wanted my first character to be a hunter but I was sad to find hunters were not yet in the game. In the past every bit of hunter news was bad, with the exception perhaps of getting rid of the dead zone, although I never saw the dead zone as a problem.
I stopped playing my hunters much when Blizzard normalized our hunter pets. Twenty four hours I spent over several days for Woad to get Broken Tooth. Broken Tooth still has five active skills that Blizzard will be taking away from what I have read. It was also fun to bring my baby Blood Elf hunter into Darkshore to get Clutchmother, Tichondrius being PvP. My hunters are not great at PvP or PvE, but they love their pets.
I wonder what special ability spiders will be given? Maybe a stun or a healing debuff?
"I may be old, but I'm not dead."
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Quote:While it appears that we agree that there is a problem, I don't think we agree no the problem. I see the problem as three things:
1. It is possible to chain-chug potions in raid encounters, so Blizzard has balanced around the assumption that people will do that.
2. It costs time/gold to farm up the materials to chain-chug potions during raid encounters, providing an unneeded time tax on raiding.
3. Just clicking the potion button every time it is available is boring, dumb and requires no strategic thought whatsoever.
1. AH! But this too is a flaw in Blizzard's design. Right now there is really no option for a mana user for potions except mana potions. They are such a clear winner. What if they introduced other viable options? Then it stops becoming a mana chain chug and you might use a spell haste potion for fast heals/burn situations or maybe a dreamless sleep for fights with a downtime. Use your imagination you can design some interesting fights without making buff potions obsolete and not worth the effort.
2. Yes it costs money. Every class has their money sink, that some put it in arrows some in repairs and some in potions doesn't hurt my feelings a bit.
3. If that's how you handle your potions I don't know what to tell you. There is still some strategy as to which potion to use and when you should use those. Bosses on farm are one thing, but the proper use of the right potion can make a huge difference on first kills.:)
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Quote:July 31 News
~~~
The CM Ghostcrawler has just made a lot of hunters day better!
I wonder how many slots one of these will fill... :P
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Quote:I wonder what special ability spiders will be given? Maybe a stun or a healing debuff?
Mercilessly ripped from Petopia's WotLK Pet Skills page:
Spiders: Web - Encases the target in sticky webs, preventing movement for 4 sec.
80 Focus, Instant, 20 yd range, 2 min cooldown
~Not all who wander are lost...~
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Quote:While it appears that we agree that there is a problem, I don't think we agree no the problem. I see the problem as three things:
1. It is possible to chain-chug potions in raid encounters, so Blizzard has balanced around the assumption that people will do that.
2. It costs time/gold to farm up the materials to chain-chug potions during raid encounters, providing an unneeded time tax on raiding.
3. Just clicking the potion button every time it is available is boring, dumb and requires no strategic thought whatsoever.
4. Non-mana using classes are exempt from this tax. Somehow, I see it a little unfair that as an enhancement shaman, I can spend 30g/night on consumables... While our paladin healers spend over 100g.
(Of course, you've also got that AWFUL "Circle of healing" priest who does nothing but spam T5 2pc Greater Heal. On the tank. All fight long. When he's assigned to raid healing. And overheals for 5k/cast. And complains about not getting Innervates.
He uses about... 3 potions per raid. Regardless of whether or not he has a shadow priest.
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There are other potions to chain-chug than mana -- haste, iron shield, etc.
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08-04-2008, 06:28 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-04-2008, 06:30 AM by Swiss Mercenary.)
Quote:There are other potions to chain-chug than mana -- haste, iron shield, etc.
Yeah, I'd love to pop 200g/night of haste pots in BT. They are 8g each on my server. May as well go back to flask stacking, at that rate.
Wouldn't be raiding if my guild expected DPS to be chain-chugging them on anything outside "Close" Sunwell attempts.
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I didn't say it was cheap. There ARE people who do it.
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Taelas -- 60 Human Protection Warrior; Shaleen -- 52 Human Retribution Paladin; Raethal -- 51 Worgen Guardian Druid; Szar -- 50 Human Fire Mage; Caethan -- 60 Human Blood Death Knight; Danee -- 41 Human Outlaw Rogue; Ainsleigh -- 52 Dark Iron Dwarf Fury Warrior; Mihena -- 44 Void Elf Affliction Warlock; Chiyan -- 41 Pandaren Brewmaster Monk; Threkk -- 40 Orc Fury Warrior; Alliera -- 41 Night Elf Havoc Demon Hunter;
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