Changes for Alchemy Recipes & Herb Nodes

[Vikare]

The subject of alchemy recipes, herb nodes, and end-game consumables has been discussed frequently and at length on the discord of late. There's two major topics: prohibitive amounts of time/gold spent to get them for raiding, as well as new consumables that should be added and old ones that should be changed.

Firstly, the node respawn time on this server needs to be reduced significantly. Gromsblood, for example, can only really be farmed in Felwood or Blasted Lands. Felwood has a high number of nodes, Blasted Lands has around 20. At any given time you will only see a handful of Gromsblood up at once in Blasted Lands, and when picked it takes a half hour for them to respawn. That's one of the two major sources barren for half an hour because you pick six nodes.



These are the four uses for Gromsblood. It's not much, but titan flasks and rage potions are mass-produced at high volumes for AQ and Naxxramas. There simply are too few nodes with too high of a respawn timer to satisfy the needs of the server. Gromsblood was merely the first example, as this continues to more important herb: Dreamfoil.



12 of the 14 alchemy recipes Dreamfoil goes into are created countless times a day for dozens of raid teams. Almost every single end-game raiding consumable uses 1-4 dreamfoil, with both the caster and healer flasks requiring 30 each. Dreamfoil is in every zone, yet the price has tripled in the past couple months because not even the vast number of nodes can keep up with it. Ridiculously high consumable costs / time spent grinding for them is how you burn out your raiding population and make them stop playing the server. There are a couple of ways to go about remedying this, though. Some of the simple fixes are just to (again) shorten the respawn time of herb nodes. In Gromsblood's case, it would help to also add additional nodes in the Blasted Lands so it's a legitimate alternative to Felwood's 40-some nodes. Those two methods alone would have an immediate soothing effect on the grind; however, there's several forgotten herbs sitting in the corner that we haven't touched on.

1. Icecap
2. Arthas' Tears
3. Sungrass
4. Golden Sansam

These 4 herbs are extremely prevalent in the end-game zones, yet see almost zero usage in any meaningful recipes. Icecap is especially painful, with over a hundred nodes in Winterspring and in Alterac Valley. We can put them to use simply and elegantly by having them as the required material (instead of Dreamfoil) for things like the Greater Protection Potions, and swapping around herb quantities in existing flasks or elixirs. Arthas' Tears for Shadow, Icecap for Frost, Golden Sansam for Nature, et cetera. Use these unwanted and worthless herbs (which value on the AH between 50 copper and 20 silver) in existing recipes and new ones alike.

Some quick examples for existing recipes:

• Greater Arcane Protection Potion: 1 Dream Dust, 1 Dreamfoil
• Greater Fire Protection Potion: 1 Elemental Fire, 1 Firebloom
• Greater Frost Protection Potion: 1 Elemental Water, 1 Icecap
• Greater Holy Protection Potion: 1 Elemental Air, 1 Sungrass
• Greater Nature Protection Potion: 1 Elemental Earth, 1 Golden Sansam
• Greater Shadow Protection Potion: 1 Shadow Oil, 1 Arthas' Tears

• Major Mana Potion: 3 Dreamfoil, 2 Icecap ==> 3 Icecap, 2 Dreamfoil
• Greater Arcane Elixir: 3 Dreamfoil, 1 Silversage ==> 2 Dreamfoil, 2 Silversage
• Mighty Rage Potion: 3 Gromsblood ==> 2 Gromsblood, 1 Sungrass (or Firebloom)

As for new recipes there are some readily apparent avenues that can supplement existing consumables with heavy grinds. E'ko jujus, blasted lands animal gummies, and firewater. People can easily still grind for these at their leisure, but what harm is there in creating a player profession alternative?

None of these would stack with blasted lands consumables, merely acting as an alternative method to create them and have more than 1. Perhaps obtainable from the Timbermaw, since these are tonics derived from beast materials:

• Tonic of Rage-- 25 STR for 1 hour. 2 Firebloom, 3 Snickerfang Jowls, 1 Crystal Vial
• Tonic of Alacrity--25 AGI for 1 hour. 2 Arthas' Tears, 3 Scorpok Pincers, 1 Crystal Vial
• Tonic of Mind-- 25 INT for 1 hour. 2 Icecap, 3 Basilisk Brains, 1 Crystal Vial
• Tonic of Spirit-- 25 SPI for 1 hour. 2 Golden Sansam, 3 Vulture Gizzards, 1 Crystal Vial
• Tonic of Stamina-- 25 STA for 1 hour. 2 Sungrass, 3 Blasted Boar Lungs, 1 Crystal Vial

For an alternative to grinding furbolgs for hours, maybe from the Argent Dawn (example from Balake):

• Blessed Firewater-- 30 AP & size increase for 20 mins. 2 Golden Sansam, 1 Sungrass, 1 Crystal Vial

And then there's also the missing spellpower elixirs for various schools of magic, which are a significant part of the consumable power gap for specs like Boomkin, Elemental Shaman, and Arcane Mage vs other casters who have Firepower/Shadow elixirs.

• Elixir of Arcane Power-- Increases spell arcane damage by up to 40 for 1 hour. 3 Purple Lotus, 1 Crystal Vial
• Elixir of Natural Power-- Increases spell nature damage by up to 40 for 1 hour. 3 Golden Sansam, 1 Crystal Vial

That should keep them similar to Fire and Shadow power elixirs (3 firebloom, 3 mushrooms, respectively). Lastly, since there's the 25-30 STR and 25 agi/2% crit elixirs for physical damage, perhaps a caster consumable for INT and/or spell crit:

• Elixir of the Occultist: Increases Intellect by 25, and a chance to get a spell critical hit by 2% for 1 hour. 3 Arthas' Tears, 1 Plaguebloom, 1 Crystal Vial

As for flask recipes, the change to Black Lotus a few months ago was perfect and dropped lotus prices from 60g to 12-16g ever since. If flask recipes are to be changed, I'm not quite sure how to go about it besides reducing the Gromsblood & Dreamfoil requirement from 30 to 15-20 or lower. Something to think on!

All the reagents listed for various recipes are up for debate, but in general they seem apt to me. They're mostly in-line with lore based on elements and the type of herb vs what they're creating. If anyone else has suggestions to add on, or change, feel free.

[Dogfight]

Very constructive post, I like it. +1

I think I heard/read somewhere that one of the goals with Turtle WoW is to have a Vanilla server with a slow pace to avoid burnout. Farming consumes for raids is a known source for burnout.
By doing these simple changes you suggest here, it will make use of more of the resources available and hopefully drop the prices a bit.

[Geojak]

+1 totally agree. I vendor golden sansam from the ah that wa listed below vendor price on a daily basis in masses.
The problem isn't there is too little herbs around, the problem is that useless herbs exist at, endgame.

Totally disagree with those, suggestion in other topics of Changing herbing spawns or getting more herbs at once.

I hope devs can take your post and think about it

[Balake]

Great post. This is the Blessed firewater suggestion that was posted by me in discord, presented in an easy to understand tooltip https://media.discordapp.net/attachment ... height=266

Ironically elixir of nature power is coming next patch with the emerald dream raid https://database.turtle-wow.org/?item=61218
I hope they think carefully about the recipe this time and don't repeat the "15 min food uses 6g essence of air" blunder.

About the tonics though, yeah the blasted lands buffs are kinda annoying to get and an alternative is needed, so I thought about the scrolls that drop randomly from mobs and how nobody ever uses them because they don't stack with basic class buffs. I think it can be changed so that all the stat scrolls are put on the same buff category as blasted lands buffs.

For example instead of roids you can use strength IV as a cheap weaker alternative and it would not interfere with any of your other consumables. The IV tier scrolls should all be buffed from 15-17 to 20 for this to be worth it.

[Vikare]

Ah, that database elixir is a nice catch!

Hopefully they just copy my reagent requirements haha. The Fire & Shadow elixirs use 3 of mid-tier herbs each, so Nature using 3 Sansam and Arcane using 3 Purple Lotus seems the perfect answer.

I agree that the Tel'Abim food recipes are egregiously expensive for a 15 minute consumable, I just didn't touch on them since I was focusing on Alchemy.

The thing about having scrolls compensate for blasted lands consumables instead is that they have 0 method of reliable farming. They're just completely random items (which already sell between 2-3g for STR/AGI IV scrolls at least). I like putting the power to have alternatives in the hands of players willing to craft them. But, hey, could also just have all three. :p

I'll add the firewater image to the main post. How'd you make it?

[Geojak]

There are unused recipes for scrolls on the dB. If they, just added that to survive.

[Viva]

Great post. This would make raiding at 60 less of a time-sink for those of us who are already using these pots, as well as encouraging those who don't to consume. Buffs for less meta specs is great always great as well, as this is just giving them the tools that other spec/classes already have.

[Crimsonlotus]

+1 to this suggestion! As a hardcore herbalist in Classic (and now a casual one in Turtle), there has been 0 reason for me to go after these high-level 'poop' herbs, and it would be lovely to see them have some practical use in endgame alchemy that helps alleviate a lot of the consumable struggles - especially as the population (and endgame player pool) increases.

I also really like the ideas for new consumables that you've suggested. Casters need love too!

[Xudo]

Okay. If we are going to make consumables better, then we should take into account difference made in TBC and later patches.

Most notable change in TBC was elixir classification to Guardian and Battle ones. With the restriction of 1 elixir per type.
Flasks was greatly nerfed. Classic flask of titans in TBC give 400 hp and new flask give only 500 hp.
Materials needed to craft TBC flasks were reduced too. They also count as both battle and guardian elixir.

Why it was done? To prevent raiders to gather every possible consumable in the game for their raid.
People can't prevent their own burnout themselves. So Blizz helped them by limiting consumables power.

[Tawneyturtle]

I'm a big fan of making consumes more accesible for casual players.

Personally I support these changes but I think there is such a thing as too many alternatives and I usually hate using this argument but it would be extremely confusing for new players if there were not only the current mountain of consumables BUT also an alternative for quite a few, so while it would be nice to have an alternative to Firewater I'd much rather just make Firewater drop way more from mobs over putting yet another item on the AH/into people's lists of consumables, especially things like 5 AP difference can just flat out make the players feel bad for going for it, much like why you never see people with +3 stats on chest over +4, its a very small difference but it still makes people feel bad for being cheap.

I'd start with making the 4 suggested Herbs replace Dreamfoil/Gromsblood in your suggested recipes. But I'd rather have them buff Firewater and E'ko droprate over creating alternatives, if for nothing else but making the game simpler, for the sake of new players (I had to teach quite a lot of players what Tea with Sugar was and how it was an absolute gamechanger in raiding).

Also PLEASE make Tea with sugar stack to 20 not 3

[Lexiebean]

There's two major topics: prohibitive amounts of time/gold spent to get them for raiding

But we have so much more free time each week for farming to get consumes now that world buffs are gone!
Isn't this what we all voted for???

-----------------

An Elixir of Holy Power should also be added. Increases holy damage by up to 40 for 1 hour.

[Healingrain]

But we have so much more free time each week for farming to get consumes now that world buffs are gone!
Isn't this what we all voted for???

Yes and no. While its true you dont spend time getting buffs or having characters in buff jail, it's also true were spending more time to clear the raids and consuming more than we otherwise would as a result.

Excellent original post. Running past and simply not even wanting to pick up the glut of truly useless herbs in high level zones is an individual feels-bad moment for the gatherer and bad for the in game economy on a macro level as well.

[Balake]

But we have so much more free time each week for farming to get consumes now that world buffs are gone!
Isn't this what we all voted for???

-----------------

An Elixir of Holy Power should also be added. Increases holy damage by up to 40 for 1 hour.

I personally didn't vote for it, and the purpose of world buff removal according to them was so they can eventually do some class changes (why the two weren't done at the same patch, who knows)

World buffs were saving more gold and time than they were costing so we've lost in that regard.

"Elixir of holy power": increase holy power by 12 for 15 minutes, cost 1 giant telabim banana, 3 dream dust, 1 righteous orb.

[Oolaatris]

+1 love this idea. It's always frustrating to find a zone full of end game herbs that are used in nothing, would be great to see them them have good use.

[Vikare]

Okay. If we are going to make consumables better, then we should take into account difference made in TBC and later patches.

Most notable change in TBC was elixir classification to Guardian and Battle ones. With the restriction of 1 elixir per type.
Flasks was greatly nerfed. Classic flask of titans in TBC give 400 hp and new flask give only 500 hp.
Materials needed to craft TBC flasks were reduced too. They also count as both battle and guardian elixir.

Why it was done? To prevent raiders to gather every possible consumable in the game for their raid.
People can't prevent their own burnout themselves. So Blizz helped them by limiting consumables power.

TBC's consumable system was certainly much simpler. Unfortunately, I don't know if that's really possible here. Naxx and some other specific encounters were made with consumables in mind. We're intended to enter the dread citadel with as many buffs as possible, and some encounters require chugging protection potions just to stay alive. Having only 2 would nuke the player power level right now. The database holds a number of brand new alchemy recipes, we're definitely headed in the direction of more options vs fewer.

[Xudo]

Okay. If we are going to make consumables better, then we should take into account difference made in TBC and later patches.

Most notable change in TBC was elixir classification to Guardian and Battle ones. With the restriction of 1 elixir per type.
Flasks was greatly nerfed. Classic flask of titans in TBC give 400 hp and new flask give only 500 hp.
Materials needed to craft TBC flasks were reduced too. They also count as both battle and guardian elixir.

Why it was done? To prevent raiders to gather every possible consumable in the game for their raid.
People can't prevent their own burnout themselves. So Blizz helped them by limiting consumables power.

TBC's consumable system was certainly much simpler. Unfortunately, I don't know if that's really possible here. Naxx and some other specific encounters were made with consumables in mind. We're intended to enter the dread citadel with as many buffs as possible, and some encounters require chugging protection potions just to stay alive. Having only 2 would nuke the player power level right now. The database holds a number of brand new alchemy recipes, we're definitely headed in the direction of more options vs fewer.

Various protection potions are not elixirs.
https://www.wowhead.com/tbc/item=13458/ ... ion-potion - don't marked as guardian or battle
https://www.wowhead.com/tbc/item=13512/ ... reme-power - counts as guardian and battle

Limiting amount of "buff" consumables to 2 will also balance situation when some classes should drink a lot of various elixirs, while others only few ones. Everyone will drink only 2 and they should choose which one is the best for character.

[Ibux]

+1 lots of good ideas. "persist through death" for more consumables would be great. if you spent a ton of time and gold gathering consumables only to lose them because of other guild members failing on 20 year old bosses. it just sucks. progressing with a less experienced guild can often be painful expensive.