What's brewing in Northrend
There's nothing stunning, I'm afraid; more like some nice upgrades to current favorites. But I certainly expect be popping flasks and pots in Naxx at least as much as I currently am in Zul'Aman. Anyway, let's see what we've got. I'll compare to the BC or old-world versions where appropriate.
Flasks first, since that's what I'm most interested in (and I'll bet that holds for many of you as well).
- Flask of Endless Rage: Increases attack power by 180 for two hours (50% more than Relentless Assault). 7 Lichbloom, 3 Fire Leaf, 1 Frost Lotus, 1 Enchanted Vial
- Flask of Pure Mojo: Increases mana regeneration by 38 mp5 for two hours (52% more than Mighty Restoration). 7 Pygmy Oil, 3 Icethorn, 1 Frost Lotus, 1 Enchanted Vial.
- Flask of Stoneblood: Increases the player's maximum health by 650 for two hours (20% more than Fortification, but doesn't have the defense rating bonus). 7 Talandra's Rose, 3 Crystallized Earth, 1 Frost Lotus, 1 Enchanted Vial.
- Flask of the Frost Wyrm: Increases spell power by 125 for two hours (56% more than Blinding Light/Pure Death, and works on all schools as well as healing). 7 Icethorn, 3 Lichbloom, 1 Frost Lotus, 1 Enchanted Vial.
So we've got our physical DPS flask, our magic DPS flask (and healing?), our mana regen flask, and our tanking flask. Neat and tidy, and I don't expect to see anyone using old flasks like some people do nowadays (Distilled Wisdom is my standard holy priest flask). I still want to know where this Pygmy Oil comes from. It looks like Frost Lotus is going to be an herb of its own, like Black Lotus, and not a rare drop from other herbs like Fel Lotus, based on the fact that it has its own model in the game files. I'm not sure as a healer whether I'd be more likely to use Pure Mojo or Frost Wyrm; I guess it depends how the spells and talents shake out, as well as the encounters themselves. It's nice to have options.
How about the elixirs?
- Battle:
- Spell Power Elixir: Increases spell power by 58 for one hour (compare to Adept's Elixir). 2 Goldclover, 1 Talandra's Rose, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Elixir of Mighty Agility: Increases your Agility by 45 for one hour (compare to Elixir of Major Agility). 2 Goldclover, 2 Adder's Tongue, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Elixir of Mighty Strength: Increases your Strength by 50 for one hour (43% better than Elixir of Major Strength). 2 Goldclover, 2 Deadknettle, 1 Imbued Vial
- Guru's Elixir: Increases all stats by 20 for one hour (33% better than Elixir of Mastery). 1 Pygmy Oil, 1 Adder's Tongue, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Wrath Elixir: Increases attack power by 90 for one hour (50% better than Onslaught Elixir). 2 Goldclover, 1 Deadknettle, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Guardian:
- Elixir of Mighty Defense: Increases your armor by 800 for one hour (60% better than Major Defense). 2 Icethorn, 1 Crystallized Earth, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Elixir of Mighty Fortitude: Increases maximum health by 350 and restores 20 health per 5 seconds for one hour (40% more health, 100% more hp5 than Major Fortitude). 4 Goldclover, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Elixir of Spirit: Increases spirit by 50 for one hour (66% more spirit than Draenic Wisdom, but no Int). 2 Talandra's Rose, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Elixir of Toughness: Increases resilience rating by 50 for one hour (66% better than Ironskin). 3 Deadknettle, 1 Imbued Vial.
I assume there are more elixirs to be seen, as this selection seems incomplete; there were 19 new elixirs added in BC. As it stands, I could definitely see some people using Draenic Wisdom over Spirit.
And last up, what have we got to look forward to in the way of new potions? There are quite a few of them, so I'll split them into two parts.
- Crazy Alchemist's Potion: Causes a random effect, which may or may not be helpful (compare Mad Alchemist's Potion, which is never unhelpful). 2 Goldclover, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Indestructible Potion: Increases armor by 3500 for two minutes (40% more armor than Ironshield). 1 Goldclover, 1 Crystallized Earth, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Potion of Wild Magic: Increases spell critical rating by 60 and spell power by 180 for 15 sec (I'm not sure of the conversion between crit rating and crit chance at 80, but 50% more spell power than Destruction Potion). 2 Lichbloom, 1 Pygmy Oil, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Potion of Speed: Increases haste rating by 500 for 15 sec (25% better than Haste Potion). Adder's Tongue, 2 Pygmy Oil, 1 Imbued Vial.
I'm really curious what the effects are from Crazy Alchemist's. Presumably, it will be cheap and BoP like Mad Alchemist's. I'm also a little intrigued at the increase on Speed - they'd have to improve it to make anyone want to craft it over Haste, but haste rating seems like the one stat that would scale all through the game.
- Powerful Rejuvenation Potion: Restores 2475 to 4125 mana and health (50% better than Super Rejuvenation). 2 Talendra's Rose, 2 Lichbloom, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Potion of Nightmares: Puts the imbiber in a slumber where they face and defeat their darkest fears. During that time the imbiber restores 5400 health and mana, but they are extremely vulnerable (50% better than Major Dreamless Sleep; 200% scarier). 1 Goldclover, 1 Talendra's Rose, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Resurgent Healing Potion: Restores 1500 to 2500 health (requires level 55; same effect as Super Healing). 3 Goldclover, 1 Imbued Vial
- Runic Healing Potion: restores 2700 to 4500 health (requires level 65; 80% better than Super Healing). 1 Goldclover, 2 Icethorn, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Icy Mana Potion: restores 1800 to 3000 mana (requires level 60; same effect as Super Mana). 2 Goldclover, 1 Tiger Lily, 1 Imbued Vial.
- Runic Mana Potion: Restores 3240 to 5400 mana (requires level 65; 80% better than Super Mana). 1 Goldclover, 2 Lichbloom, 1 Imbued Vial.
Making new versions of the Super Healing and Super Mana Potions is an interesting move. Is it to help alchemists level up? Will they be cheaper than the Super potions? From what I can tell, those mats don't look super-low. I guess we'll just have to see. And while Dreamless Sleep saw some use in 40-man raids in the old world, I don't hear about it being used much in BC - anyone a fan?
Finally, there are Mighty Protection Potions for arcane, fire, frost, nautre, and shadow; they each absorb 4200 to 6000 damage of their respective elements, which is 50% better than the current Major Protection Potions. There doesn't seem to be a Mighty Holy Protection potion. The reagents for all of these are: two of the corresponding Crystallized element (I think Crystallized elements take the place of Motes) and one imbued vial, except for Arcane, which uses 3 Lichbloom and the vial.
Well, that's a lot to digest. Or wait a minute - are potions, elixirs, and flasks digested? We need to know more about Azerothian metabolism. At any rate, Alchemists will have plenty of bubbly new products to sell on the icy tundra. What will you be bringing to your first Naxx run?
Filed under: Alchemy, Wrath of the Lich King







Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dotixi Jul 22nd 2008 9:14AM
Tiger Lily or red Peacebloom? Lol...reskinning FTW.
William Jul 22nd 2008 10:07AM
Icethorn is Briarthorn reskinned.. lol
Procris Jul 22nd 2008 11:10AM
And more or less every mineral vein in the game is just a different colour. Honestly i don't think it matters to much.
Zexion Jul 22nd 2008 7:17PM
Pygmy Oil is a return to the old world Blackmouth/Firefin/Stonescale Oils:)
It is gotten by fishing up a Pygmy Puckerfish (I would imagine it being caught in the Sholazar Basin) and using alchemy to make it into the oil. And glad they didn't go with the Fel Lotus, but instead the Black Lotus, way for WotLK. Hard to farm stuff that is completely random:/
ninjasuperspy Jul 22nd 2008 9:25AM
The Resurgent Healing potion refills itself every 2 minutes, so that's worth every penny. (speaking as a person who just ran out of potions during the Wyrmcult quests in BEM)
jrb Jul 22nd 2008 9:26AM
Ice Thorn or light blue Briarthorn? Lol...reskinning FTW.
innajunglestylee Jul 22nd 2008 9:30AM
Pygmy oil requires a reagent obtained via fishing, according to MMO-Champion.com.
veovis Jul 22nd 2008 9:34AM
"And while Dreamless Sleep saw some use in 40-man raids in the old world, I don't hear about it being used much in BC - anyone a fan?"
I remember a few months ago my raid leader randomly handed me a dreamless sleep potion just before prince.
I haven't needed to use a mana pot for prince in about 6months so I decided to be a smartarse about it. I used the potion and the MT died. It was all the raid leaders fault ofcouse.
dotorion Jul 22nd 2008 9:41AM
>> Elixir of Mighty Agility: Increases your Agility by 45 >> for one hour (compare to Elixir of Mighty Agility)
That should be compared to Major Agility.
The tooltip link is correct, though.
Tam Jul 22nd 2008 10:00AM
They added new versions of the Major Healing and Mana Potions for the Burning Crusade. Volatile Healing and Mana Potions are the same as the Old World Majors, just a lighter color. It did make leveling alchemy easier (and originally the Major Mana Potion Recipe was only available from completing a quest line) because they used the New World herbs and you didn't have to return to Azeroth to farm the materials.
zappo Jul 22nd 2008 10:23AM
I'm not sure what you mean about the mad alchemist's potion not being useful. I actually use it quite often for emergencies. Instead of two bag slots for health and mana potions, I just have two stacks of mad alchemist's potions. The side effect has never been all that great for me (added attack power doesn't do much for those staff crits on my priest), but usually you can just ignore those.
Hopefully the crazy potion will have some fun weird effects. Sad to say that the cool stuff like Noggenfogger and Deviate Delights never really got equivalents in the expansion.
Tara Jul 22nd 2008 12:54PM
But the side effects are *random*. It can proc any of the elixirs, I've gotten strength, agility, int/spi, spell damage, resilience even. That's why it's "mad". Sometimes it'll proc something useful to your class, sometimes not.
And it's not bop, it's just only useable by alchemists.
Shadowfury Jul 22nd 2008 10:26AM
any ideia of the effect of drinking a pigmy oil? (The tooltip is tempting.)
Cassandra Jul 22nd 2008 10:28AM
"And while Dreamless Sleep saw some use in 40-man raids in the old world, I don't hear about it being used much in BC - anyone a fan?"
Mostly horrible for use as a healer, but great for use as a DPS (though it was dispellable at one point, I am not sure if it still is, and you risked it being cleansed or dispelled from you) -- I had a handful of these on my hunter after levelling alch to 375 and they saved my backside a couple times solo and were useful a couple times in instances. Specifically in situations where I could not Feign/drink (usually because of FD cooldown). Not as useful for classes liable to take direct damage solo though obviously. I can see it being almost as useful to DPS casters in raids; if I was on my mage and too close to top of threat, and nearly oom, I could use this instead of a Super Mana Potion and get more mana back to save evocate for later, which I usually do just before or just after invisibility in raid boss fights. Not always possible in fights that require a lot of movement in particular phases, but worth looking for the opportunity.
As far as healing goes I have only ever used them on my priest in Gruul's Lair over a year ago, after throwing Renew on the tank right before the Silence effect. It was definitely better than a normal mana pot, but I was also raid healing and not tank healing, which could have gone horribly if I was asleep at a crucial moment.
In short, they're more useful than people think.
But I tend to use the mats for other valuable things.
Bootsanator Jul 22nd 2008 3:40PM
Major Dreamless Sleeps are amazing for shadowpreists. While shadowpriests are pumping out mana for everybody else, they're sucking down the mana pots still, and since healing and regening mana And doing dps causes a lot of threat, that time for a dreamless sleep helps their threat And gives them more mana back.
juicyjuice Jul 22nd 2008 10:37AM
Sounds like theres a lot more variety in new brewing ingredients when WOTLK goes live then in BC. I could be wrong but thats my hunch.
Also who's Talandra and why does she deserve an herb?
Timothy Jaxon Jul 22nd 2008 2:38PM
Talandra is the first name of one of the battlemasters in Stormwind - the Lady Hoteshem. Happens to be modeled after my wife, who used to date one of the game designers.
juicyjuice Jul 22nd 2008 2:48PM
what are you basing this off of? Shes listed as
http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=15008
it doesnt say anything about her being named Talandra, though grats on your hawt if somewhat short wife :P
Talandra Jul 31st 2008 1:35AM
Yup, thank you to a dear friend I have my own rose now. I run a whole briarpatch of characters horde side and I used all the old herb names plus Talandra for character names. So when Liche was coming out the kind folks at Blizz helped me shore up my naming theme by using Talandra in the herb list.
If you want to track me down find the guild with the most herbs in it and send me a tell some time. Till then Happy Hunting.
Dave Jul 22nd 2008 10:39AM
I think the most important thing to note, is that the spellpower flask is now a HEALING flask too!
Before, healers didn't have anything great It was chug elixirs to get a straight heal bonus or a weak bonus from a flask.
Now it looks like that +spellpower is going to affect healing and get coefficients so in essence it's a +375 healing flask, if related in current-game terms. That beats the pants off the +healing elixirs by a long long long way. You sacrifice some regen by not having a +spirit elixir I suppose (which will be awesome for a tree, I dunno about others) but that +healing is amazing.