Azeroth's new plague, Potion Sickness
by Alex Ziebart 
Jul 29th 2008 at 8:30AM
Bad (good?) news for Alchemists and the people that love (hate?) them. The latest Beta build has introduced something called Potion Sickness. The tooltip reads as follows: "Unable to consume potions until you rest out of combat for a short duration."In other words, you can drink one potion per encounter. The debuff itself has absolutely no duration. It sticks on you until you drop combat. This is largely meaningless to the casual player, but what it will do to raiding will be rejoiced as well as reviled. Alchemists are going to take a huge hit to their income if this goes live. Yeah yeah, I know most Alchemists will say their profit is from Herbalism, but after seeing the insane prices on Haste Potions, Super Mana Potions and Flasks, I beg to differ.
I completely, 100% agree with this change, despite the loss of income to a profession. As someone who raids often, the sheer number of potions a raid burns through at the high end is just not right. Mana Potions, Ironshield Potions, more Mana Potions, Haste Potions, Destruction Potions, et cetera. This change will allow them to design bosses with the players in mind, not the potions the players are using in mind. Those consumables have always been a mandatory part of high-end raiding, and they really shouldn't be.
I think Elixirs or Flasks is pretty good, along with Potions for emergencies, not Potions for keeping myself capable of contributing. In the end, it was a goldsink, and a necessary one simply due to how the items themselves worked. They had to tune with potions in mind in the same way they had to tune encounters expecting you to be buffed with seven different Elixirs and a Flask at the dawn of The Burning Crusade. Sorry Alchemists, needing to do all of that was stupid. Flasks are still going for roughly one hundred gold a pop in BC, and I can't imagine how high they will go in Wrath. Don't worry, you'll still make profit.
Filed under: Alchemy, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Expansions, Making money, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 10)
Kevin Jul 29th 2008 8:45AM
This will be a real mess for hunters unless they fix hunter's mana issues. I use at least 2 fel mana potions a boss in KZ and 3 fel mana potions a boss in ZA.
If I can only use 1 potion in a fight, I have about 3 minutes of dps before going OOM for the rest of the fight.
Sanol Jul 29th 2008 8:47AM
indeed. I remember burning several stacks of fel mana pots in a single night. This really sucks :
SpaceDog Jul 29th 2008 9:03AM
@Sanol:
Your complaint sounds like a reason to welcome this change.
Obviously they will have to balance stuff so that potions are not required to the same degree, but at least you shouldn't have to spend so much on them.
Seajay Jul 29th 2008 9:26AM
ANYONE who believes that this is a bad change is not thinking logically... There I said it, however this is not a random flame or troll post there is somthing that is being overlooked.
Those who're holding up existing BC Boss encounters and are holding them up as examples of why single pot usage is required are overlooking the fact that BC bosses are SUPPOSED to be impossible without chain pots. Chain potting is/was in the game and therefore to design any raid bosses without chain potting in mind would be to make such bosses a joke to those who WOULD chain pot.
The same can be said for Blessing of Salvation incidently, it was in such common usage the bosses were designed based on the idea that dps would be using salv.
Now almost all of us hated the necessity of brining stacks and stacks of pots to raid encounters, the necessity of having to always have BoS cast up before every fight and Blizzard has seen this and decided to do somthing about it, they're stopping the use of Chain Potting and stopping the use of BoS... This frees up more gold on other items and more variety in pally buffs!
Anyone (i'll say that in caps to make sure you pay attention) A.N.Y.O.N.E. Who believes that they'll design encounters requireing chain potting despite these changes needs to get there heads examined.
Blizz could happily remove mana regen entirely from every class and still make it possible to down every boss, they'd simply design them differently. Please PLEASE try to understand this. There is no negative result from these changes, Blizzard will make quite sure that bosses are still able to be taken down at the same difficulty level however going into WotLK they will no longer have to accoutn for a 20% reduction in threat on all DPS and a ~2k +mana per 2 minute boost on all casters / hunters.
Hopefully this will stem the tide of idiotic 'Oh noes WotLK will be impossible cos look at this old encounter' posts, however I will settle for a simple reduction.
/rant over
Omega Jul 29th 2008 10:00AM
WOW - all this QQ for a change that will make raiding easier! Level 80 endgame will be different than Level 70 endgame.
Firstly, raids are tuned under the assumption that raiders are going to chain-pot. In Wrath, encounters will be tuned for just one pot. This is a good thing.
Secondly, based on the gear that is showing up in the beta, everyones mana pool will see a relative increase in size, meaning time til oom will be longer.
Thirdly, many classes are becoming more mana efficient. ex - shadow priests will generally only have to cast pain once, which will be a huge mana savings. In addition shaman totems will be raid wide, so in a 25 man raid everyone will be able to benefit from 3 or 4 mana tide totems(yeah).
Alchemist shouldn't qq yet, we don't know what Blizzard has installed for them. Herbalist will make a killing from the increased demand due to inscription.
Hard core raiders have been complaining that Blizzard has been making raids too easy and accessible. This is part of that trend, rejoice.
dan Jul 29th 2008 1:11PM
Your blind faith that blizz will make other changes (to mana regen, health pools, boss encounters, etc.) to offset this is adorable. It really, really is.
s256 Jul 29th 2008 1:56PM
Have you seen all the talents that restore mana & health to party members? Improved Water Elemental is currently restoring 3% HP per second or something like that. Hunting Party, Blood Knight abilities - they're everywhere. I think Blizz has this taken care of.
Nick S Jul 29th 2008 2:17PM
With the BM spec I've put together for my Hunter in Wrath, mana issues are GONE. There are several ways to get talents back, not the least of which is a pet ability that restores *40%* of your mana.
As long as these talents don't get nerfed too hard (I'm looking at the Hunting Party nerf with trepidation...) Hunters will be the class *without* mana problems, for a change.
Stig Jul 29th 2008 3:42PM
I don't mind about the raid implications - in fact if they start tuning encounters without potions in mind I'm all for it. What I am concerned about is my solo ability on my druid and pally.
A lot of what makes me capable of soloing elite content on those characters is the fact that I can survive long enough to chug several potions during an encounter. Stuff like soloing Ony won't be viable anymore with only one pot per attempt.
This may not be a blow to rogues, warriors, or some caster classes, but it totally skrews up any chance players who rely on pure damage soaking to survive long encounters to do what they do anymore.
aaronomus Jul 30th 2008 6:56AM
Dan, there's nothing 'blind' about our faith in blizz. They're a smart bunch, they know what they're doing.
Farseer Lolotea Aug 3rd 2008 2:42AM
Dan is right, and that's all I have to say.
Al Aug 5th 2008 10:54PM
As a hunter, between AotV and brilliant mana oil on a dual weild set up, and an elixir of major mageblood, i have never gone oom at any boss through KZ. Nightbane can be awkward with mana if we're unlucky and a few too many of the group go down early, but otherwise not.
I welcome the change.
Boldwyn Aug 28th 2008 6:41AM
dan, did you even look at talents and skill changes in beta? Mana is no problem in WotLK.
Clegane Jul 29th 2008 8:46AM
This is stupid. I'm an alchemist so I can fill my bags with Super mana pots, stack +heal and crit, and use consumables as my mp5. Why do they feel the need to do this?
Heilig Jul 29th 2008 12:26PM
If this goes live, we should petition for people to only be able to wear one piece of crafted gear per encounter. or to only have a single enchant on their gear.
Nerfing a profession into near-uselessness is not the answer to encounter design. This isn't a question of chain-chugging mana pots. This means you have to make a choice between that health pot early in the fight when the AoE damage comes and the haste pot at the end when he enrages. There's not a different debuff for each potion type. You get ONE potion per fight. I dare any of you, regardless of gear, to make a bear run in ZA with just one potion per fight.
I bring up ZA specifically because they have said they will be doing more timer stuff in wrath. This debuff makes that virtually impossible.
Physical Original Jul 29th 2008 8:47AM
If they're going to do this perhaps they should split up potions they way the split up elixers. Battle, Guardian, and Restoration (or something like that).
Also, remove the potion cooldown if you're doing this.
Shisho Jul 29th 2008 9:55AM
Maybe they should type them out by utility type.
The no potion cooldown is the worst idea I’ve heard in a while. If you thought about the mechanic you’d introduce you’d realize at the very least you’d have a rogue that’s able to chug a health pot, vanish (to clear combat and the debuff), reopen chug a health pot, blind, run out of combat to health pot, reopen, prep vanish, reopen and chug a health pot.
Also, what would happen when you’re out of combat and the debuff is no longer in effect? Can people just stand around and spam chug potions? You’re at 5% HP and you just use a chain of lowbie pots to get yourself back up to full health?
There’s a reason they came up with the “solution” of cooldowns. What you’re saying has been done before in other games with horrendous results.
Bad idea.
Physical Original Jul 29th 2008 10:06AM
Didn't they fix the "in-and-out of combat" problem with hunters? Why would it be any different for any other class? When hunters could no longer feign death to get out of combat to drink mid-raid they said it was the end of the world. Oddly enough, that end never came. I see no reason they couldn't fix it for any other class.
Why is being able to chain chug pots out-of-combat such a problem? I know of several warriors who would sing Blizzards praises if this was the case as they have to sit down and eat after just about every fight (while soloing). My shaman and druid have never had that problem. Can you give additional reasons why OOC potion use needs to be restricted?
I agree that if certain classes had imbalanced potion use then it could be a problem, but there's no reason why that should be the case.
TS Jul 29th 2008 8:50AM
I dunno ... not saying it is fun to sink all one's gold into pots but I can't help but feel such nerfs are a result of poor game design. I mean, really, you put the pots in the game and then enterprising players figure out how to use it to their advantage and ... oh, nerf it. A little like the drums.
So what happens when you get chained with adds? I think the cooldown on pots was sufficient and could have been retooled if they really felt they were unable to design an encounter to compensate for pots. To have a flat out "one per combat sequence" would need "combat sequence" to be redefined too.
I disagree that this is a good thing. At least not as you have explained it.
Ktok Jul 29th 2008 10:31AM
You're not understanding the intent here...
Chain potting was not "players figuring out a trick", it was how bosses were designed. Blizzard *made* you chain pot... In Wrath, Blizzard is removing that from boss design, and as a result, is putting in this limit to keep them from being trivial fights.
That's all this is. It's not a nerf to some sneaky things players did to get an advantage. It's a straight up reworking of the way Blizzard wants boss fights to go. Period.