New Spells in Cataclysm!

[ryan1mcq]

Another thread asking the same pointless questions.
Until some concrete evidence comes out from something like a beta then it is all guesswork.

[Insno]

I know you didn't want our own, made up abilities, but I've been throwin a warrior ability around in my head ever since the burning crusade came out.

Chaos (sounds cool imo), would "upgrade" your next move used in a unique way that depends completely on the move that you used; like a chaos mortal strike would do something differently than a chaos bloodthirst. I've never really thought about how it would change the moves until about 5 minutes ago, but the ideas I came up with didn't seem too overpowered and the move you would use is entirely situational.

But before I get to the actual moves, I imagine that when you use chaos, your weapon, weapons, or weapon and shield gets nice green/yellow fire (http://stapledheadman.tripod.com/sit.../doomguard.gif) applied to them to let everyone know what you're doing, similar to cold blood for rogues (even if it's just for an instant).

Like, for instance, a chaos mortal strike could cause the next heal on the target to damage them for a small percentage of the heal, 10 to 20%, rather than healing them. Now whether the next heal is a rejuvenation tick or a lay on hands could be either pure luck or careful timing.

A chaos slam could have a knockback effect.

A chaos shield slam could apply some sort of immolate debuff that would could do decent damage and give you a little more threat.


I'm sure I could think up a couple other effects as well, but I'm really not a very creative person :-\ Those just happened to pop into my mind.

[Psychadous]

Personally, I'd like to see the original Chaosbolt reimplemented. They kinda made it shitty when it couldn't touch immunity effects. So now I can use it against what? Mages and priests? *Unenthusiastic wewt* It's really not that overpowered that I can see, just makes certain classes think about when they can use immunity abilities in pvp and when they can't. I don't arena much (read: at all) so I can't really say how OP it would become. I would just like a final talent to be a little more useful than an upgraded nuke for pve.

[DwarfDomination]

Hunter- Turret- Sets up a Stand for its range weapon to increase auto shot speed by 45%. While on the turret you cannot move at all unless you disassemble it (.5 disassemble cast time). 15sec cast time (to set it up)

Or....The hunter sets up a turret and attaches it'self to a plate wearer , Just thought a bit more teamwork in PvP would be nice

[Thyce]

A Sinister Strike like attack for Paladins that will be out-dated in the mid-50s, considering Paladins don't really have a leveling attack other than Judgement with its 10 second (8 Talented) cooldown.

[HardlyWaken]

A Sinister Strike like attack for Paladins that will be out-dated in the mid-50s, considering Paladins don't really have a leveling attack other than Judgement with its 10 second (8 Talented) cooldown.

I tend to agree paladins need a Crusader strike miniform (much like claw -> mangle)

[LoftyTheMetroid]

Sorry, I'm pretty wordy too... XP

1. Of course I realize the benefit gained by the hypothetical spell would have to be % based to be fair as to allow. However, since spell cost is based on % base mana, which is a static cost. On one hand, Mages desire intellect for both spell power and longevity (mana pool), but on the other hand, a mechanic that rewards low % mana encourages lower Intellect because then % base mana becomes more significant. Your idea would have worked fantastically were Intellect and SP decoupled like it is right now, and Arcane itemization would have been made more interesting. But alas, with Intellect directly tied to SP and MP, the spell detracts from an otherwise simple, easy to understand itemization convention. Blizzard wanted to make itemization simpler in Cataclysm, and probably would rather tell the players straight up "more Intellect is better!" instead of "well, for Arcane, you'd want 1367 Intellect. After crossing that threshold each additional Intellect causes a net DPS loss." It's all handwaving right now, of course.

I'm not quite sure I understand (maybe there's a miscommunication...?). Let me try to figure this out:

Your concern is that, because the spell results in higher DPS at lower mana levels, that players will desire smaller pools of mana. This is because spell A will now consume a larger percentage of mana, meaning a lower percentage of mana can be reached more quickly, thus resulting in higher DPS.

If that's what you're saying, then I don't think there's a problem.

It's a simple matter to design the spell/cooldown to scale with Intellect. For example, let's say player A has 1000 mana, and player B has 2000 mana. When player A has passed the 5% mana (50 mana or less) threshold, his DPS is increased by X%. Similarly, player B will have his DPS increased by Y% after passing the 5% (100 mana or less) threshold. However, since player B's maximum mana is twice as much as player A's, Y > X. (This could/would be a built-in mechanic of the spell, that the % DPS increase is relative to maximum mana.)

There are several points to take into account. First, in order for player B to match player A's DPS increase, player B may only need to have less than, say, 20% (400 mana) of his mana, since his DPS increase scales better than A's due to his having a larger mana pool. As such, even though it's more difficult for B to blow through 95% of his mana like A can, it might be slightly more comparable for B to blow through 80%.

In addition, since Intellect IS tied to Spellpower, player B is going to have a higher multiplier even at the same DPS increase threshold (5% and 20% for A and B, respectively).

Not only that, but having a larger "mini-mana pool" past the threshold (A's 50 compared to B's 400) means player B can cast a great deal more spells with his damage buff than A can, thus taking far more advantage of the effect.

Finally, since the DPS buff isn't always active or viable to maintain below the threshold, both players A and B will inevitably need to return to a higher, more stable level of mana to maintain effective DPS, at which point player B will have the same advantages Arcane Mages today have over other Arcane Mages with smaller mana pools.

2. I classified the spell as situational because it is tied to the situation of % maximum MP, a condition that could be (and in some cases, needs to be in order to maximize DPS) induced.

I don't think there's a problem with that at all. I think it's good that it's situational.

A tank doesn't blow Last Stand unless the situation calls for it. The Priest talent "Renewed Hope" only benefits targets that have the "Weakened Soul" debuff, a "negative" condition that is (typically) induced by the casting Priest. A Mage doesn't cast Blizzard when there aren't multiple mobs. A Mage doesn't cast certain spells unless they are procs. An Arcane Mage can't achieve maximum DPS (Arcane Blast over and over) without going oom.

This spell is just another gameplay element to increase depth, as its optimal use requires great knowledge and timing on the player's part, and it's not something that can be "solved" and broken down into a rotation.

3. Icy Veins is a straight DPS increase. Cool! Arcane Power is a straight DPS increase. Rockin'! The benefit of your proposed spell would have to be greater than IV or AP, because unless the payoff is great, the added risk of running out of mana and getting yelled at is not that appealing. Blizzard has already mentioned that TtW and Eclipse cause too great of a fluctuation in DPS numbers, and that they do not like situational buffs and procs to make that huge of a difference.

Several points:

First, TtW causes DPS fluctuations because (disregarding Slow) Mages must rely on other players to provide the debuffs necessary for TtW to activate. This is out of the players hands. With this spell/cooldown, the player has full control over when to activate it, and any DPS loss is the fault of the player.

Eclipse causes fluctuations because it's so RNG dependent. Again, there is nothing random about choosing when to use a spell that has a definite effect. A player's DPS would not fluctuate due to luck, but due to skill.

Icy Veins and Arcane Power don't require much thought to pop, as they really are just straight DPS increases. This spell was intended to still result in a DPS increase, but one that is skill indexed, which I think is more interesting.

Really, the spell doesn't do anything more than the standard Arcane "rotation" used to. Skilled players knew how to push their mana to the limits to maximize DPS, while unskilled players would either be too conservative or push themselves oom (and still get yelled at). This is just another element to emphasize that.

(As an aside, I didn't mention this before, but I really like the synergy this spell would have with Arcane Power. Arcane Power gives you a DPS increase at the cost of more mana per spell, but the player can take advantage of that to push towards getting below a particular mana threshold so that he can pop this particular spell/cooldown. Adding to the mix of interesting decisions, perhaps the player would want to save Arcane Power, to be popped alongside this spell/cooldown (I really need to give it a name...) for even more DPS. However, that comes with its own risks since the player is already pushing his mana pretty hard by that point, and increased mana costs aren't going to make things easier.)

Pardon the overabundance of word. It's nice to see someone who's all for raising the skill cap of the game.

Oh, thank you.

I'm all about extreme accessibility with extreme depth. I like it when games allow anyone to play them successfully and have fun doing so, but that have the depth to allow talented players to stand out. I'd like to see "rotations" as they are broken, as rotations aren't scaled relative to skill and don't provide interesting decisions. "Good" players shouldn't be separated from "bad" players on the sole basis of gear (i.e. time investment) and whatnot, like they typically are now.

At least, IMO...