I remember when I had to mix poisons using reagents, buy different reagents depending on which level of poison I wanted to create, they had charges as well as duration, and they were wiped every time I zoned into or out of an instance... Uphill, in the snow, beset by amorous troggs, both ways. I think that when we apply poisons (or cast any buff, really) it makes us feel more connected to our characters and what they're about. It would be marginally more convenient to simply cast a buff once (or never cast it at all) and forever benefit from the buff in question, but that's not very interesting or involving. It would also remove a lot of context; your character should be more than just a collection of pixels. What you do in-game should have some meaning; even if it's as simple as tipping a bottle and poisoning a dagger. Of course, things have become more convenient over time as well, and there may be a time when it makes sense to remove a buff duration. I just wanted to point out that it's not totally pointless, and even the slightly "inconvenient" things play a role in how it feels to play a class. |
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I wasn't speaking of the past fondly. I think the current system balances a sense of involvement with convenience pretty well. I'd rather be fighting mobs or PvPing than sitting in Ironforge buying bagfuls of reagents to fill my poison bag, but I feel that it's good that I still need to pay a visit to the Shady Dealer now and then. |
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The same thing that would happen to any other class that stopped casting its self buffs, presumably. |
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*shudder* |
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Different classes are different. Those classes can't pick locks, or pickpocket, or stealth. "Consistency" has nothing to do with it, except for a construct you've invented for yourself regarding how weapon buffs should behave. That construct isn't the one we're using. What I meant was, that any class which stopped casting its self buffs would suffer a performance hit. The scale of the performance hit would of course vary from buff to buff, but the scale doesn't particularly matter. |
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http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2592649193?page=2#21 |
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http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2592649193?page=2#21 |
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If I've forgotten to buy enough poisons to see me through a raid or dungeon, or failed to pay attention to poison durations and seize the occasional moment to re-apply my poisons, then those are issues I can easily resolve by being slightly more mindful. At worst, glyphed poisons apply very quickly, and it's possible to re-apply them in a non-clutch fight if you have them in your bags. It's not even close to ideal, but it's possible. |
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Well, maybe I can shed some light on the mystery then, or at least, our thought process. Poisons are important to the rogue class and there's no doubt of that. There's still little or no comparison to be made between the use of poison (which amounts to an important buff) vs. ammunition, without which the hunter class was almost totally ineffective. Running out of poisons means a performance hit, but it doesn't mean that performance stops. Running out of ammo meant that a hunter could no longer use most class abilities or perform at anything resembling a meaningful level. It's relatively easy to remain well stocked with a selection of poisons. It required slot after slot of inventory filled to the brim with ammo to keep a hunter running consistently. Ultimately, ammunition wasn't a mechanic that we felt was particularly interesting. Whereas a rogue sometimes has interesting choices to make regarding which poisons to use, the only real choice a hunter had was to use slightly more or less expensive ammo, which wasn't much of a choice at all. |