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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsProfession News: Potion Sickness gone, Herbalists get new ability
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Aug 9th 2008 at 6:00PM
It was perhaps one of the most unexpected and controversial changes to hit Wrath Beta: Potion Sickness, the debuff that spelled the end of chain-chugging by allowing only one potion to be quaffed per combat and no more. Some people loved, since it would cut down on pre-raid farming and perhaps allow for bosses to be balanced more around classes and roles and less around Haste, Ironshield, and Destruction potions. Some saw it as a major nerf to Alchemists and to casters who were used to chaining mana pots to stay in the blue.
The debate, for the moment, seems to have ended in favor of the latter camp, as Potion Sickness has disappeared from the Beta servers in the latest build. As of this writing, there is no word on whether the removal was intended, and if so, whether or not Blizzard intends to return it or a similar mechanic to the Beta servers at a later date.
For now, though, it looks like chain chugging is back. As a member of the former of the aforementioned camps, I'm a bit concerned, and I hope they continue to work on limiting chain chugging. Farming for potions as a mandatory part of 10 or 25-man raiding really isn't fun and doesn't, in my mind, add much value to the encounters, and I'd much rather see a limitation of potion use combined with class buffs and boss balancing to remove the need to chug altogether.
In other profession news, Herbalists got their own version of the buffs recently given to Skinners and Miners in the form of Wild Growth, which heals you for an amount of health over 5 seconds. The healing amount (2000 at the highest rank) does not appear to be affected by spell power, nor does it scale with HP in any noticeable way, so that may make it a bit weak as HP pools grow. However, it does not appear to share a cool down with other healing abilities, and it is usable in Feral forms, so it still may have a bit of utility after all if you can spare the global cooldown.
Filed under: Herbalism, Alchemy, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Expansions, Raiding, Making money, Wrath of the Lich King, WoW TCG
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Cookie McWeaksauce Aug 10th 2008 3:26AM
That herbalist heal would be very nice for a warrior leveling up.
As for pot sickness... that's a bummer, man.
(/theDude)
I liked the idea of them removing chain potting. Oh well. Doesn't really make a huge difference to me. I've only ever raided Kara, only on 3 toons (hunter, tree druid, healadin), and the only one I've ever had to chain pot on is the pally. You have to assume that it was an accidental removal, though, considering the big buffs to mana regen that we've seen in Imp. Water Elemental and Blessing of Wisdom.
Or on the other hand, maybe they still intend to tune boss fights without chain-potting in mind, but they're stopping short of ruling it out altogether. Maybe they figured that fully prohibiting chain-potting would exclude undergeared/newly-respecced healers with small mana pools/regen, or 5-mans with usual compositions that leave them lacking all these new mana-regen options.
Cookie McWeaksauce Aug 10th 2008 4:53AM
D'oh on the double-post. And that was supposed to say "UNusual compositions."
zebra Aug 10th 2008 8:23AM
Blizzard should take a look at the pot cooldowns instead of making sickness mebbe?
Brian Aug 10th 2008 4:45AM
I've seen a lot of 'casual' stories here so from a casual raider point of view:
Dailies are there for gold. 30 mins in Sunwell = 150g easily. Do that a couple of nights a week and I get a very comfortable raid night even with flasks which are the real money sinks in raiding.
With season 2 Arena gear available from BGs Kara should be very doable. There is even a full blue PvP set from vendors available at 70 to help you in the BGs, this set even has resilience on it which is now a major part of PvP.
Next comes crafting - engineers can make headgear that can't be upgraded until the Sunwell. Then there are the various cloth sets that are craftable. How nuts is that?
Anyway back to the topic: It's a sensible change as potions are of then the help that gets people over the gear bump when they first go to a new level of content. How else are you going to kill the likes of Illidan for the first time?
dannemmar Aug 10th 2008 6:33AM
as an arcane spec'ed mage (2xt5) i need 2/3 mana potion for the average boss (gem-potion-gem-potion every minute) or the spec is useless
the whole point is how mana regen will work in wotlk; my impression is that mana regen will be a central point in 25 men raids
Amenadar Aug 10th 2008 8:55AM
As a holy priest and an alchemist I couldn't be happier. On the alchemy side: I don't want my shiny redeemer's alchemist stone to be trash only a month after I got it.
As far as earning money is concerned, the mats on my server are more expensive than the potions, and as an alchemist/tailor that means that the only profit I can make is my daily transmute (20-30g profit if I'm lucky, but I farm primal water by fishing and make ~80g).
The way I see it, potion sickness could work one of a few ways:
1) They increase mana regen and make mana a non-issue. This would be boring.
2) Give us piles of other regen abilities. (This would be OK, except that the priest's shadowfiend is unreliable at times, wandering off target, and getting insta-killed, stunned or feared by bosses if you're unlucky)
3) Make life a 5SR nightmare for spirit/regen classes (*not* fun). I don't want to have to calculate who I should let die so that I have enough mana in case someone important needs my healing.
Basically, if they want potion chugging to be reduced, rather than completely changing a core game mechanic they could:
1) Increase the cooldown of potions
2) Make the mats easier to farm, lowing the price
3) Give every class a mana gem with charges somehow, that works like potions, uses the potion cooldown.
4) Reduce the cooldown of existing regen abilities
or a combination of those 4 ideas
Also, could Kara raiders please stop complaining about chain chugging. I don't like to pull the "you don't really know what raiding is like" argument out, but please listen to the T5/T6 healers like myself that think the mechanic is fine as it is, and that the real problem is the price of Dreaming Glory.
Menalaous Aug 10th 2008 10:06AM
Wow you can tell the people who actually run content and the people who dont and try and push their guilds through raids to get to Sunwell etc. Potions were never ment to be the end all be all of the game. Potion sickness was a great thing for many reasons. It would balance bosses/raids. TBH the raids I see chugging endless pots are the ones that are based around guilds who have maybe a dozen "key" raiders, ge them geared and then move on and forget their other members. Then when they push on to the next level of content everyone else has to chug like a drunken frat boy just to keep up because they lack the gear. Plus removing potions wasnt the only way they were balancing that out. Look at most of the WOTLK talent trees. They all have ways to enhance your dependency. Warriors have way to gain rage and health increases through talents. Shamies have ways to bring their mana pools up even higher as well as restore them, in the same tree, as well as their health. So do palies in the ret tree now, heal three targets and increase mana to 3 targets with lowest health/mana. If I remember those skills are based on crit. Lets look at this shall we?
1) Ret paladins have a nessasity in raids now to replace pots.
2)The effect may be minimal but I am sure after a patch or two it will be stacked/% based not static.
2)Pallies may rely on white dmg but ret palies are coming back to the days of critadins, these skills are based on crits and I have already seen a good amount of crit gear in WOTLK.
AND NOT TO MENTION THEY ARE THROWING IN PASSIVE BUFFS EVERYWHERE ELSE!
Potion sickness would have also blanced the market for potions, reducing overall demand, meaning the market wouldnt have always stayed emptied of them and less people would be required to have alchemy, just like the new "drum nerf" for leather working, allowing for more variety in the game play and style.
Mediator Aug 10th 2008 10:40AM
Apparently worldofraids says that the potion sickness is still in effect, they just removed the debuff icon.
Greg Aug 10th 2008 11:25AM
I'm currently raiding Hyjal and BT on a holy paladin and I've also talked to a shaman friend of mine. Never am I chain chugging mana pots with the exception of specific bosses, Naj'entus and Khaz'rogal come to mind. I go through maybe 3 a night when not learning an encounter. I would rather have the option to chain chug than have blizzard nerf encounters by reducing tank damage, raid damage etc. It's just not as fun when it's easy.
Tuhljin Aug 10th 2008 1:09PM
Why would it necessarily be easier when chain-drinking potion isn't possible? Why can't it be relatively the same difficulty? You don't think it's possible to tune encounters with the same level of difficulty in mind while also keeping Potion Sickness's existence in mind?
ScorchHellfire Aug 10th 2008 3:48PM
yay for a free healing spell!
Shilkanni Aug 11th 2008 12:27AM
I'm pro-"Potion sickness". I'm kind of amazed at how worked up people are getting over their potions.
2400 Mana per 120sec = 100MP5, it's a bigger buff than any elixir, and it would be even bigger with new potions.
It won't:
* Make raiding cheap. There will still be flasks, other buffs and repair costs.
* Make new fights impossible. If fights are impossible they will be changed.
* Screw up all mana using classes. We're already seeing more mana regen talents.
* Significantly effect old content balanced for Level 70s. If it's really too hard, level up, get OP gear, try again.
* Significantly effect 'leveling' dungeons. If you can't do SM:Cath, Underbog, etc at the appropriate level without MULTIPLE POTS IN ONE FIGHT, maybe pull less than 10 at a time?
Rastas Aug 11th 2008 5:18AM
I don't know whatever it is you guys do with your time, but I've never in my gaming time had to farm anything (except some primals to get my professions maxed, but that I didn't do for money)... I have bought an epic flyer, though, and my guild used to raid on consistent basis (and we weren't even imba, and never died), so I had to take care of consumables.
I haven't used that many elixirs though, outside of ZA. Mana potions I do have to drink on consistent basis in boss fights. Even as a paladin I'm not mana-efficient enough to go through boss-fights with 12k mana on my disposal (unless it's something as ridiculously easy as first bosses in Kara or something), so I wouldn't even want to imagine what it's like for some less mana-efficient class, or what it's like in BT or Sunwell...
That's why I was rather worried when I first heard of Potion Sickness. Were they going to make boss fights so short you couldn't even tell them from the trash, or what? I'd have supported pushing the cd of potions upwards a notch or two, that wouldn't make them absolutely useless, just a bit less so (joke).
I do hate buying mana potions at the price 14-16g/5, though... So I do hope they come up with some great mp5 stuff or something... Or maybe they'll just give us back the original Illumination :o
Boon Aug 11th 2008 11:29AM
Removing this hits the casual the hardest.
With less playtime, they rely on the boosts from pots in general to speed up their progression.
Pots are only chugged when learning new fights, once the boss has been on farm status - the need to chug disappears.
Just play a lock and steal your healers mana!!!!
kilae Aug 11th 2008 12:30PM
^^ This.
I was in an Illidan-killing guild, burned out, retired from raiding. Eight months later, I'm back with a much more casual guild that is (undergeared and) working on Archi. Watching the priests pot up or pull out their shadowfiends when he's still at 90% is frightening.
Yes, farming for health/mana pots sucks. But at the same time, being able to chain-chug them is incredibly helpful for people who don't have the gear or the (mana-conservation) skills to survive. I'm sure Bliz will tune fights around the lack of potting, but I'm concerned that it's going to be one more obstacle for my casual (& sometimes crappy) guild to have to get past.
seamusmc Aug 11th 2008 9:32AM
I just don't understand the folks saying that Blizzard can't possibly balance raid content without potion chugging.
I played EQ for several years, in a progression guild during POP. Guess what folks, raids with up to 72 peeps and raid content much more complex and difficult then most of WOW's and, OMG, no potions.
Potion chugging has trivialized raiding to the point that Blizzard has to design the encounters around potion chugging. This is a good change and it is still in beta, just not as a debuff.
Rainhio Aug 14th 2008 8:36AM
OK
I see the problem. People who a not alchemists a happy coz they don't hafto buy more potions. Alchemists (me) a not happy coz potions (I'm a potion master) a the only way of making money. SO u'r a raider. U a doing BT and whadever els raid u can get in. U wold be happy just poping 1 potion a night. Reason: U'r proke. U honestly have no money. Now look into u'r skills. Do u see any profesions there? No? Well thad is why u a proke!
U have a profesion? Use it to make money. Even as an engineer I make money. Thad wold save u from daily Q. So yeah as a potion master alchemist I'm glad they took it out. Thad is my money. I hate dailys as much as u do just have found a way to work around it.
U say u make no money whit u'r profesion?
Go pick up alcemy. Clearly u'r enchanting and leatherworking skills a not helping u.
U say u'r a casual player who only logs on to do raids 30 min a day? ..... I realy have no idea what do u mean under raiding tahd can be done whit 30min.
Anyway, as a alcemist (and herbalist) I am against removing my profesion from the game. I don't care about elixires and trans..... whadever (oviosly not a person here whit english as a first language). Thay make they'r ofn little thing. Elixires still sell (flasks go under elixires) but if we all go elixires mastery and start making those we all wold be proke like the rest of the guys here. And will be after some other good profesion asking bliz to nerf it coz they have more money tahd we do and go after they'r hard earned money. And yes I am conserd about my pocets. Not the bosses (they will go down anyway) or any of u here. I like gold in MY pocet.
bigjonno Aug 16th 2008 12:49PM
Can someone actually explain why chain chugging is a good thing? The only arguements I've seen for it are:
A)Alchemists/herbalists like having an easy way to make money.
B)It's a crutch for people who are under/poorly geared or can't use their mana efficiently.
C)It's required to keep mana up on bosses.
My answers would be:
A)Tough luck, try being a leatherworker.
B)Tough luck, learn to play better or stop trying content you're not ready for.
C)Blizzard are aware of this and rebalancing things accordingly. We've already seen increases in mana regenerating abilities for lots of classes. Blizzard are far from stupid, they're not going to leave use with two minute raid boss fights.
Does anyone really like chain chugging? Does it add anything to the game? Does it require skill or seperate good players from bad ones? Is there a single mana user out there who wouldn't like to be able to do the same encounters without having to spend a small fortune on potions?
As far as I can see, the only people benefitting from the current state of affairs are alchemists and herbalists and posts here have shown this isn't universal. I don't know if potion sickness as it was is a perfect solution, but something should be done.
Rainhio Aug 21st 2008 7:44AM
A) Why a u LW
B) Potions a part of the game so why not use them. I even take potions as a healing pally. It makes it easyer even if I don't need it BUT if something happes I hafto have mana to do duble the healing.
C) Look at B
U say learn to play? People a as good as yhey a. Not all of us got a spot in T guild going after the hardest raids in the game.
So u do. Fine. U whant to do it completly free? U whant to raid whidout even a minimum amount of grinding? Get of U'r horsy and look around. No way. Not all of us a playing like u from a year 1982 and a T6.
And again. I don't cear if I'm taking all U'r money for potions. Thad means u a not using U'r LW the right way to get the money. And I don't see anybody threathening to remove u'r primary profeshion from the game.
Squirrelbot Oct 15th 2008 1:36PM
You must be very confused. Alchemy is not being removed from the game, far from it. Potions are still in the game, you're just limited to 1 per fight. Transmutes are still in the game, flasks are still in the game, elixirs are still in the game. I'm an alchemist and I still say thank god (blizz) for potion sickness. Chain chugging was absolutely retarded.