Consumables have become a bigger part of the game since Shadowlands launched and added 2 extra items you need to use to get “full buffed”; these being the armor kits and weapon oil/sharpening stone. On top of these two new additions we have our usual consumables such as: flask, food, augment rune, vantus runes, dps potion, and healing potion. I do like having these items in the game as it adds that RPG feeling of using all your cool consumables to buff yourself before you engage a boss or brave a new dungeon. They also offer an avenue for a player’s professions to give them a steady gold income. However, I do have some issues with their current implementation. In this post ill cover some of the pain points and rough edges, and explain how I would go about trying to solve them.
TLDR
- Make all consumables persist through death, like flasks do.
- Increase how much gold consumables cost, to account for using less of them.
- Make consumables usable in rated PvP.
- Move weapon oils from alchemy and to inscription.
Now I will go more in depth on each point.
- The biggest pain point of using these consumables is reapplying them every time you die. This isn’t so bad if you are standing in front of a raid boss, while your team discusses strategies; but its more noticeable when you die in a mythic+ and you don’t want to spend 10 seconds eating while the rest of your team runs ahead to kill trash or a boss. Not to mention every time you die in a battleground. By making all consumables persist through death you remove the pain of having to reapply, while also maintaining the cool fun RPG aspect of buffing up before battle. Dying should be enough punishment in itself, we don’t need to pile.
- Increase the cost of these items to account for using less of them. Pretty self explanatory, as I said one of the cool things about consumables is the economic side. If you don’t increase the cost to account for the first change then you lose that aspect of it.
- You know how I talked about all the cool and fun aspects consumables add to the game? That power boost you get when you dps pot? That sick feeling of saving yourself at the last second with a health potion? Yeah well PvP doesn’t care about any of it. Yes consumables work in unrated battlegrounds, but in rated PvP consumables are disabled. I want to make consumables usable in rated PvP. This would increase parity across the game, and bring some new gameplay to PvP. Maybe PvP players have a reason to level their alchemy now.
- Why does alchemy craft weapon oils? They have dps poitons, healing potions, and flasks. Did they need another consumable to add to their list of gold making options? Inscription only has tomes and vantus. Vantus are less useful of a craft because they are only used in raids and last a week. Inscription can still make sense thematically (they make ink). I think moving weapon oils from alchemy to inscription would take power from an over represented profession, and move it to a lower represented one. Professions are a subject I could make a whole other post about so ill just stop here.
Conclusion
Consumables are items that have been a part of RPGs since the dawn of gaming. Name an RPG and I can almost guarantee it has a health potion. They are fun powerful items that the player uses to tackle especially challenging foes. Consumables add gold making opportunities, while also giving the player that “Oh yeah I’m juiced” feeling before battle. I believe that by making the changes I have listed above, we could remove pain points from the system and make it feel more impactful.
As a side note why don’t enemies and chests drop potions anymore? In any other RPG if you loot a chest you can get consumables out of it. I feel like the only thing we get out of chests now is AP or a toy/pet. And I honestly can’t remember the last time a world quest or daily mob gave me a potion that wasn’t some zone specific thing. None of these enemies are carrying health potions?