Consumables and Raiding

[Quark]

Felt this topic deserved to be spread far and wide. A discussion started by Praetorian, Elitist Jerks' Raid Leader, on consumables in the end game.

It's something Avarice has felt lately on the C'thun push and early Naxx, and though I put up with it for now to be part of the crowd that can say "I did it before 2.0" on some kills, I can honestly say I won't be around for TBC raiding if it's anything like Naxx.

[Icebird]

I remember the good old days when the only consumables you had to worry about were fire pots for Ragnaros - and even then they weren't strictly necessary.

Naxxramas on the other hand appears to have an insatiable appetitite for potions. When one fight becomes controllable enough that DPS consumables are no longer needed, the next fight looms which does. I have one alt herbalist permenently hearthed to Cenarion Hold for picking dreamfoil and mountail silversage for a supreme power flask each week (she also makes trips to Maraudon for ghost mushrooms), and another herbalist based in the Eastern Kingdoms picking herbs to sell.

Flasks of the Titans for tanks went from expensive luxury to expensive necessity. For us Patchwerk is almost absurd in the number of consumables we currently need.

Chris

[Zarathustra]

It's entirely possible Naxxramas was balanced with the thought that 60s SHOULD need all those consumeables, but 70s would not.

Kind of a built-in longevity factor, perhaps?

[Kevin]

So I haven't read all the EJ thread but I'm starting to wonder if the difficulty slider is simply set up to be "tuned for no consumables" to "tuned for max consumables".

Part of my decision (and there were many parts to this decision) to not raid anymore on Stormrage was because we were up at the you have to constantly farm to just be able to raid stage. We had killed the twin emps, the consumable grinds were just looming over the horizon. I looked at reward vs time invested and that, with other factors, simply wasn't worth it for me.

But if the tuning is set up that way, it could allow you to gear progress most of the instances. You can hit the hardest instance on normal then go back to the easier instances on the harder setting since having farmed that top gear closed the gap. You could have done that easier instance with consumables before and gotten the better gear that happens on the harder difficulties faster. But now it could simply be going back through those older instances on a harder difficulty to gear up for the next gap. You'll never be able to be on the very cutting edge this way, because you will always need to be one or two instances back (at least when set to the highest difficulty) but you will be able to see all the content on the normal setting, you just won't be getting the same rewards.

I'm not sure that is such a bad solution. There are people that enjoy the hardest stuff as soon as they can get to it and don't mind the grind so much, those folks will stay in guilds. There are those people who like the really hard stuff but simply don't have the time to do the consumable grinding. They will still be able to work up to it without the consumable farming. They still have to farm, they will just have to do the instance farming but this time it's old content on a harder setting.

I don't know. I'm not sure it solves the problems. I'd need to think about it more. The issue will still be there that you know that you can beat it with consumables now and get the top rewards now. Perhaps you do that once or twice for the thrill, but instead of soloing farming herbs all the time to do it again, you group farm older instances on harder difficulty since you've got a few pieces of that uber gear and the gap of need consumables vs don't are smaller. Dunno if that is better or not.

[Monkey]

It's entirely possible Naxxramas was balanced with the thought that 60s SHOULD need all those consumeables, but 70s would not.

Kind of a built-in longevity factor, perhaps?

I'm not a Naxx raider, but I have always thought Naxx was designed/balanced to be a massive and difficult timesink to occupy hardcore raiders until the expansion was released. They even provided obscenely overpowered gear that steps immediately into the next endgame as a reward. It specifically targets (and rewards) the "hole" of the doughnut/hole problem. Further, it's not even balanced for the edges of the hole to kill KT before TBC. Instead, it's meant to be an elite reward for the dead center where people are willing to farm world buffs and consumables obsessively to min/max their characters.

[Lissa]

It's entirely possible Naxxramas was balanced with the thought that 60s SHOULD need all those consumeables, but 70s would not.

Kind of a built-in longevity factor, perhaps?

Not if Blizzard keeps the boss mechanics as they are right now. It means that all pre-tBC raid instances will not be worth it as bosses will scale to always be 3 levels higher than the people in the raid. Imagine Rags being 73 and hitting like a level 73 raid boss. Is it really worth the time to go fight him then?

Unless Blizzard caps Boss levels for each of the pre-tBC raids, they will be never touched by the level 70 crowd, even the casuals. The time and effort will not be worth it in anyway. The only way I can see Blizzard making these instances still viable to be run in the 70 level range is if they set the bosses to still scale to +3 except that there is a maximum level bosses can be in each instance (my thought is maximum top boss for MC and Z'G would be 63, BWL and AQ20 65, AQ40 67, and Naxx at 69 with some bosses being lower below these caps in each instance). If Blizzard does as I suggest above, we'll see people still hitting the pre-tBC instances, if not, they'll be ghost towns never used again by the raiding populace.

[oldmandennis]

So I haven't read all the EJ thread but I'm starting to wonder if the difficulty slider is simply set up to be "tuned for no consumables" to "tuned for max consumables".

All reports are that the current difficulty slider is not like this at all. For one thing, I believe it can only be used on the 5 man dungeons.

[Artega]

I like things the way they are. I can make a mint in a matter of minutes by making and selling Mageblood and Major Mana Potions, along with other goodies like Stonescale Eels, Dreamfoil, and such.

Bad for PvE, good for PvP, since the money I make from selling raiding consumables (or their components, whichever happens to sell better at the time) allows me to afford solid rares and epics to equip my pre-60 characters with:)

[Artega]

It only works for the new 5-man instances and aditionnally you need to obtain specific keys first to be able to unlock heroic mode.

No changes to old instances/encounters.

WTB Heroic Scarlet Monastery and Shadowfang Keep. PST.

/sigh

[Arnulf]

WTB Heroic Scarlet Monastery and Shadowfang Keep. PST.

/sigh

Build up your reputation with the Scarlet Crusade and the Worgen up to exalted before you even think about that. Otherwise you'll just step into the void and fall to your death..