In the upcoming WoW expansion Shadowlands potions work differently. They have a long cooldown – and will prevent “pre-potting”.
With World of Warcraft Shadowlands Blizzard is making many changes to the game mechanics. One of them affects all potion friends, as they have to deal with new rules. Many potions now have fixed cooldowns. Thus, the time of “pre-potting” is clearly over?
What exactly will change? In the future, most potions will have a cooldown of 5 minutes, which starts ticking immediately after use. This is completely independent of whether the character is in combat or not – the cooldown runs.
Which potions are affected? The change affects all potions that have a strengthening or beneficial effect. These are thus potions that increase intelligence for 20 seconds or grant the character more movement speed or invisibility. These potions all share a new cooldown of 5 minutes, which also runs in combat.
Potions for restoring health points (healing potions) do not fall under this rule. They still have a cooldown of 60 seconds, which only starts running when the current fight is over.
Pre-potting made virtually impossible
What is “pre-potting”? Pre-potting was mainly used in raiding or harder “Mythic+” content. This describes a mechanic where players use a strengthening potion immediately before the start of the fight. In that case, the cooldown of the potion begins to run, but one could take the positive effect of the potion into the first seconds of the fight. Thus, a second potion could still be used later (for example, during the “Battle Frenzy” phase).
Players react rather negatively: The overwhelming feedback to this change seems to be rather negative so far. Many players have little understanding for this adjustment and do not want Blizzard to take away a decision from them – such as whether they can pre-pot or not.
This new rule particularly affects players who have regularly used their potions in trash groups, which often do not last very long. It was previously possible to use a potion in almost every group. This will no longer be possible in Shadowlands – at least with these adjustments.
Please keep in mind that this change is still information from the alpha. It is quite possible that Blizzard will backtrack after player feedback and try something different – perhaps the topic will be addressed in the upcoming livestream.
What do you think about the change to potions? A good change and sensible to save some gold? Or is this a really bad adjustment?
