Raiders cried out that the Replenishment effect is a necessary, required raid buff. The crab responded that the devs balance raids with Replenishment in mind, assuming that all raids will have it. To date, only 3 specific talent specs can provide this "necessary" raid buff: shadow priests, survival hunters, and ret paladins.
If the whelpling's preview becomes reality, we can add another one to that list: demonology warlocks.
Improved Soul Leech – this talent now provides Replenishment (similar to shadowI'm not comfortable with this.
priests)
Granted, this is just a preview, not a "we're patching this in tomorrow" sort of thing. I wonder why the devs targeted warlocks with this change, though. To me, warlocks have always been a "me me me" sort of class, with most of their spells and abilities focused on themselves and even garnering additional outside attention to them (Life Tap -> Heal me!). The Replenishment effect is a very outwardly-focused effect. It doesn't fit, in my eyes. I'd think it an elemental/restoration shaman ability much quicker than a warlock ability.
With that said, if Blizzard considers Replenishment an integral part of raiding, why not just fold the increased mana regen into all classes and not even bother with the ability? Buff in-combat mana regeneration by 0.25% of max mana per second for all mana-users, take Replenishment out of the hands of players, wipe your hands, and walk away. It seems silly to start handing the effect out to everyone and then having to "balance" the replenishers' damage down slightly to account for the increased utility.
I don't know if Replenishment is Blizzard's way of encouraging people to bring "underutilized" or "underpowered" specs to raids, but this seems like a round-about way to go about that.
Unless Replenishment gets given to everyone, raiders are still going to bemoan the fact that there is a special seat at the raiding table that needs to be accounted for. There's the tank seats, the healer seats, the DPS seats, and some of those DPS seats have a "reserved" sign on them for V.I.P. Replenishment-providers.
Giving Replenishment to additional specs does not change the fact that a raid is required to bring one or more of those specs to a progression raid.
I'm not trying to create a value judgment here, so don't take the above the wrong way. I don't care if 3 more classes can bring Replenishment. What I do care about is band-aids over problems. If Replenishment's presence (or absence) in the raid is presenting a problem, fold it into baseline combat regen and stop dicking around!
EDIT:
And to add to the fun, Bornakk chimed in on mana regen! Here's the paladin highlights:
- Divine Plea healing penalty increased from 20% to 50%
- Spiritual Attunement changing "somehow"
- More classes getting access to Replenishment (aside from warlocks, I assume - waiting on part 3 of the class preview)
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8 comments:
What's interesting to me about Replenishment is how it violates the "bring the player, not the class" mantra we've been hearing - as does requiring priests for MC on certain fights.
Granted we are probably closer to fulfilling that mantra than ever, but progression raids will still want Replenishment, specific classes that have encounters build around them (like the priest example), and at least one of every buff out there.
It's like they can't decide whether they want the rule to be "bring the player not the class" or "you must have a diverse raiding corps to operate at full capacity".
Btw very clever post title. ;)
Fedaykin98
"I don't know if Replenishment is Blizzard's way of encouraging people to bring "underutilized" or "underpowered" specs to raids, but this seems like a round-about way to go about that."
I think this neatly encapsulates their thinking. It wouldn't surprise me if they view Demo as a strong Warlock PvP spec and want to provide them with something in a Raid setting, but I agree that Replenishment is becoming something of a catch-all solution for a tree's inadequecies.
I don't think they'll move it towards being a baseling combat machanic for all mana-using classes. Passive Mana regen has gotten out of hand but at least by linking it to the performance and [alive/dead] status of a character individual player performance can be seen to be significant.
... bleh, I've not put that as well as I wanted. Can't think :/
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I too am apprehensive towards mumblings of a change to SA. My thought would be that Illumination could change to also reduce the effectiveness of SA by 20/40/60/80/100% per point except whilst RFury is up, but as usual there are a number of ways to implement a change which impacts little on non-Holy specs. I wouldn't however put screwing up Ret Mana in search of a 'fix' for Holy past them.
As a tank, who already only have whopping 5k of mana, just what do they think they'll accomplish by further nerfing my build?
@Fedaykin98
I do like the post title :) I was worried people wouldn't pick up on it.
@Zebra
Reduced effectiveness while Righteous Fury is up? Methinks you have some skills crossed. There are only certain times when a Holy Paladin would heal with RF up, this would be a very encounter-specific targeted change. I think they're aiming for a more sweeping nerf to Holy Paladin mana. Regardless, the mana we (Ret Paladins) get from SA by hurting ourselves with SoB/SotM is noticeable, I'm a bit worried about it. Need the PTR's up, pronto!
@BigFire
Nerfing your build? Are you referring to Zebra's comment about SA effectiveness reduction? Because he did say he'd couple that onto Illumination, which would leave your mana untouched. However, I'm not sure that's what Blizzard had in mind...
Warlocks giving replenishment doesn't make much sense, I agree. Perhaps a buff to mana spring would fill the gap. Dalaran Brilliance could have a chance on cast for regen added to it also. It wouldn't be exactly a copy-paste of replenishment, so harder to balance, but I'd guess it would be tuned to a PPM.
Replenishment is a bit of a violation of the bringing the player not the class, but really, what isn't? Healing, you bring five specs, tanking is six specs, replenishment is 3, eventually 4. As long as enough classes can bring it, I see little problem. There are many semi-specific buffs which would be significant to go without: kings, 10% AP, replenishment. I think they're good, they allow some variety without making everyone perfectly interchangeable, which would be a bit boring.
@BigFire: What's the nerf? Prot doesn't heal anyway, so the stronger debuff doesn't do anything to you. Are you referring to some other change? The SA change is highly unlikely to hurt prot, seeing as it was created specifically for tanking.
Reduced effectiveness while Righteous Fury is up? Methinks you have some skills crossed. There are only certain times when a Holy Paladin would heal with RF up, this would be a very encounter-specific targeted change. I think they're aiming for a more sweeping nerf to Holy Paladin mana. Regardless, the mana we (Ret Paladins) get from SA by hurting ourselves with SoB/SotM is noticeable, I'm a bit worried about it. Need the PTR's up, pronto!
Read it again ;).
In the same way that Fanaticism reduces threat except whilst RF is up, I'm proposing that Illumination can reduce the mana returned via SA except whilst Righteous Fury is up. Holy Paladins wanting to benefit from SA would have to self-buff with RF and swallow the corresponding threat increase, but those Holy Paladins who spend time tanking aren't penalised in the tanking role.
If you are confused by the numbers I've used, 20% effectiveness reduction = SA returns 8% rather than 10%. 100% reduction means that SA would reduce zero mana.
Additional Note: Frost Mages are getting Replenishment in 3.1 too.
@Bigfire
Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.
This in essence should still assist the prot pally so i really don't see an issue with mana at all
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