They slipped in a GAME CHANGER!

[Annesh]

Im sure the extra ticks will tick for less, rather than provide more than a total 60% mana.

Really? You're sure of that?

[harky]

Honestly it looks like all they're doing is bringing back more stable rotations. The helter skelter rotations in Wrath haven't been well-received at all. DoTs will now scale with haste, but have their full duration, same with channeled abilities. Who knows how else they're changing things. It's way too early to worry about it. We don't even know if Mind Flay will be 3 seconds anymore. Blizz has converted set bonuses to being the norm several times now (did it with both BC and Wrath). So... I'm actually expecting 2.5 second base cast on Mind Flay. Who knows though. For all we know we won't even have an auto-refresh on SW:P anymore, which was implied.

[Asgard]

I'll have to admit, even if I don't often play my shadow priest, I'm not really happy of this change.

Why ? Game "feeling" I'd say. I like having priest's MF, mage's AM or warlock's drains go off quick. I like having a lot of haste because I "hit more buttons". I don't think I'll like standing still chanelling for 3 sec anymore... However, we'll see

[Deleted]

So evocation gives even more mana?

[xyGotN]

oh shit now ppl will be 3-shotted with chaneled spells too... let's hope blizz doesn't make pvp even more easy for the geared ppl like in vanilla and WotLK

[Leetbeartank]

Seems to me, like it won't change game play? Shadow Priests will now be a 5 button class, instead of a 4 button class? Sounds hard, right?

[emni]

Class Mechanics
Q: How will haste affect channeled spells. Will it be similar to DoTs and HoTs?
A: They will channel faster but their duration will remain unchanged. You will get more ticks on the same cast.


If I am not mistaken this will mean our main filler Mind flay will now have a full 3 sec duration but have extra ticks due to haste. That is huge for game play and giving much more viability to Mind spike the new nuke when it will do about the same damage but only "root" you for 1.5 sec. This means when we can't afford to be stuck channeling a spell in one spot the alternative filler may be the new mind spike which we will now be able to cast 2 or more in the same time it will take to cast 1 mind flay. What do you guys think this will do to our rotations or game play?

Mind Spike will only do same damage as MF+SW:P when spammed because it will buff itself kind of like Arcane Blast. Look up the quote. This means that using the spell at its maximum damage for extended periods of time is going to be very mana-heavy and thus not sustainable in Cataclysm where mana is an issue. Not to mention that we know nothing of the duration of the buff and if it's too short, you might not have time to even refresh your DoTs before it wears off and you have to start stacking it all over again.

Ultimately though, I think it's a bit too early to complain about something that hasn't even seen the public test realms yet.

[Izichial]

If they call ArP "too mathy", I'd be interested to hear what they make of the new haste mechanics in regards to DoT and channeled spells.

The new mechanic as we currently understand it would've worked better if all such spells ticked 10-100 times faster at a 10-100th of the current damage because being stuck with haste just under getting another tick wouldn't have been such a breaker, but frankly that example just illustrates how flawed the it is (and for bandwidth reasons alone it probably isn't even a viable solution). Especially when considering spells with few ticks, such as Mind Flay.

Obviously Blizzard can change it further to compensate for such scenarios but that likely makes it even more complex to calculate damage on, even if they introduce some quirk to make a suboptimal amount of haste become less of a dps loss.

[Abuelo]

They could make it so casting another MF causes the duration to increase, they could also just leave it as it is, allowing for skilled priests to clip MF after the final tick to get max dps.

That's not skill, that's latency. Good luck being consistently within a .2/.4 second window on any connection that isn't forged by Zeus himself.

[Yon]

I'm expecting MF to work similarly to DoTs; i.e. if you recast it before it runs out it will continue ticking at the same pace without interruption, but if it doesn't work that way it's not a big deal to clip it appropriately either. Just get a castbar addon that shows when each tick happens and clip it after the last tick; personally I use Gnosis.

Even if we will have to work around "haste plateaus" I doubt haste will be anywhere close to a bad stat for us. Seems like by removing the only downside to haste (increased mana expenditure) it's becoming an even better stat compared to crit. Considering the 2nd SP Mastery bonus is crit, I do hope crit will get buffed a bit so it's comparable to haste in terms of dps output.

[Brokolice]

Who knows though. For all we know we won't even have an auto-refresh on SW:P anymore, which was implied.

Interesting, do you have a quote for that? I somehow missed them mentioning it.

[Juicebox]

Where did they say Mind Flay would still have 3 ticks at default haste?
For all we know they can make it 6 ticks at .5 seconds instead. This would make the haste scaling less of an issue (although it would remain one).

[angael]

NO complaint just a new look at our understated new mechanics lol 8)

[fabian]

That's not skill, that's latency. Good luck being consistently within a .2/.4 second window on any connection that isn't forged by Zeus himself.

We're both correct, the ability to clip MF is based on one's ability and one's latency.

[Simbert]

Where did they say Mind Flay would still have 3 ticks at default haste?
For all we know they can make it 6 ticks at .5 seconds instead. This would make the haste scaling less of an issue (although it would remain one).

This is actually a good solution for the problem.

The only other i can imagine that would not feel totally clumsy is something like saving the time channeled to your character, so that, using the example mentioned above, you channel the 0.6 seconds without a tick, and whenever you cast your next mindflay, the first tick will appear after 0.2 seconds, instead of 0.8 seconds. Any other solution would lead to the feeling of having to clip at the exact right spot in the cast, which, in my opinion, is a really annoying mechanic.

[Tinno]

So evocation gives even more mana?

No it would most like give the same amount of mana, just in smaller ticks, as it's 60% mana and not a set amount per second.

[Griemak]

This post is filled with people trying to squeeze Cata mechanics into today's constants. Nothing has been verified to continue on as is.

They could change the event length as a function of event rate. Haste could determine how many ticks and the "channel length" is a function of ticks * tick length. The resulting channel length will average 3 seconds, but fluctuate depending on haste and how close to adding another tick the level is, as you reach the "next tick added level", the channel time will decrease as more haste is acquired until another tick is added (thanks to Althor). Linear DPS scaling from haste results.

They could have ticks become capacitors. The charge rate is determined by haste. At the end of the channel, the last capacitor fires with how much charge it has (partial +1 tick). Linear DPS scaling from haste results.

I doubt they will be using stepping, creating dead time at the end. Not only does this not scale linearly, it has caps, steps, etc. that will make balancing very difficult. Cata's goal is to make class/spec development simple, not more complex. It is also to lower the amount of client-server communication, server execution time for procs/damage/healing, and DB calls. Today's functions won't be there, which is why "nerfs", "more difficult", "horrible change" to every little comment by Bliz results: stop using today's hammer complaining it doesn't work with Cata's screws.

[AetherMcLoud]

We didn't explain this very well in the chat.

The answer we were trying to give was that "channels won't just get shorter and shorter the more haste you get." But a more complete answer is that hasted channels will get shorter until you get a whole additional tick, at which point the duration will go back up again. We don't want to do partial ticks or things like that because they encourage you to just recast the spell.

Sweet. The best of both worlds!

[beforememory]

should make things interesting.

[rimmer]

I'd assume this means we get a 3 sec mf with 4 ticks at the same point that a 4 sec cast would become a 3 second cast so ~33% haste?