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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsZarhym: Soulstone combat resurrections in the works
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Mar 8th 2011 at 3:00PM
Since combat rezzes appear to be considered mandatory by many raid groups, says Zarhym, Blizzard wanted to make the ability available to more classes. Certainly, this would fit with the modus operandi it's long had of granting abilities to multiple classes to allow for more flexibility in raid makeup. Zarhym also answered concerns that spreading battle rezzes would contribute to class homogeneity by noting that he's never felt like his warlock plays exactly like a druid, and giving warlocks a combat resurrection shouldn't change that. In fact, one of the reasons Blizzard gave battle rez to some non-healer classes was to avoid the threat of class homogeny.
While Zarhym says Blizzard hopes to have the change in for patch 4.1, it is still trying to get the code straightened out. Regardless, it looks it's only a matter of time now. As soon as Blizzard works out the kinks, we can expect to see yet another class with the ability to give raids one more chance to down the boss.
WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you. From previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new Valor point mechanics to the new Archaeology items.
Filed under: Warlock, News items, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 4)
Limor Mar 8th 2011 4:53PM
Great for when the druid is the one who dies...
Joerendous Mar 8th 2011 5:10PM
My mage would like Life-giving Lollipops while you're at it. Pretty please ^_^
Hawkyn Mar 8th 2011 5:11PM
ok ... Now change the fire mages Cauterize to "Power of the Phoenix" and allow them to rise from the ashes :-)
Chucky Mar 8th 2011 5:32PM
The first of many little things Blizzard will suddenly be doing as subscriber counts drop due to RIFT. It doesn't mean RIFT is going to take all their players and end WoW, but 500k+ subscriptions lost might not seem like much when you (claim to) have 12mil (which is probably a highly inflated number), but that's still over 7 million a month that's no longer there.
Guessing that RIFT will hover around the 2 million subscriber mark until late summer, and a lot of them will be former WoW players...so guessing we're looking at 25-30 million drop in monthly revenue.
So expect many, many more "wow, really, they're gonna do that?" from Blizz to keep us all chasing that carrot. (Probably too little too late for many however...)
DarkWalker Mar 8th 2011 6:14PM
Would you mind not posting the exact same post every few minutes?
Revynn Mar 8th 2011 8:54PM
This is not a knee-jerk reaction to Rift's launch. This ability was planned for Cataclysm's launch and 4.0, but was reverted shortly after because the code was bugged and trying to use a soulstone on a dead player did nothing but waste the soulstone.
This is simply a fix to something warlocks were promised months ago.
Daedalus Mar 9th 2011 7:35AM
Wow, the exact same comment 3 times?
Tell me: how often do you need to be watered? I like to make sure plants are well cared for.
Seriously, the only thing your post is missing is a coupon.
Utakata Mar 8th 2011 5:51PM
I'm not sure I get this. Soulstones already have a combat rez mechanic which goes to whoever is "Stoned." Thus the player can rez during a boss fight or any combat situation...by clicking the right prompt when they've succumb to an unintended demise. Other perhaps improving the mechanics, I'm not sure how they are giving a class combat rez option when they already have a version of it.
DarkWalker Mar 8th 2011 6:13PM
The idea is that, if the soulstone is going to count against the limit of battle rezzes in a fight, it better not be more limited than the other battle rezzes. Thus the removal of the need to use the stone on a living target.
Utakata Mar 8th 2011 7:49PM
I see DarkWalker. So they're just homogenizing its mechanic. Thought I read this article as giving Locks combat rez....so I was a bit confused.
But thanls for explaining that. :)
cygnus Mar 8th 2011 6:38PM
I belive I'm a bit uninformed. Warlocks were able to give soulstones to anyone in case they died. Did that changed long ago? Whats the difference now? All this noise because is now a spell? Is it a spell? Sorry, warlock is the one class I haven't studied/played, all I know is that if I meet one in a bg/arena I'll be sure to kill him/her fast and that I'll be dead 5 min after that. (And that half my screen will be blocked by 713 debuffs)
Revynn Mar 8th 2011 9:02PM
The difference here is that currently (and up until this point) the soulstone would only be effective if it was placed on the person -before- they died. This required warlocks to have a certain amount of foreight as to who is the most likely to go down mid-fight. With this change we will be able to cast it on someone who has already died, making it effectively identical to a DK or Druid battle rez.
Spellotape Mar 8th 2011 10:10PM
I don't support this change, at all. It's going to be really great for an Affliction warlock to have to go through their ramp up time all over again to res someone - why any pure DPS class should be given this ability seems both odd and extremely unfortunate.
rkaliski Mar 9th 2011 5:35AM
While we are at it, why not just allow ANY class to buy a super combat Gobblin Jumper cable and have the ability to use it for an in combat rez?
It really didn't take more foresight to figure out who needed to be given a soulstone. If anything it was more powerful than a druid battle rez. The druid trying to rez someone had to drop what they were doing, and if it was healing that could be nasty run over to where they could rez the person and both could be vunerable in a lot of boss fights. The lock soulstone as it stands is fire and forget.