Guild sponsored "MC Potion packs"

Following our last Magmadar attempt and Miroku's potion thread I woke up this morning with an idea.

 

I have more and more the impression that if everybody used potions (Health and fire prot for melee, Mana for casters, etc) and over the maybe 10 minutes + of a boss fight the overall result would be HUGE.

I think it's up to a point where, by not spending those few golds, one does actually compromise the overall chances of success.

 

As always I think it should be everybody's responsability. We don't go to MC to help buddies get XP, we go there because we are after something. Whether it's a sense of achievement or those purple items.

 

I remember discussing with an Onixia friend who mentionned that each MC run costed him around 20 gold. Well...considering how many Epics he has I guess it's money well spent.

 

Anyway. Now that we have a bank (and soon cash in it) I propose that we launch a "Potions for MC" initiative.

 

My first idea was a "co-pay" system. Like the retirement plans.

You bring one pot to MC ? The guild gives you a second one.

 

But, eventually, I came up with something even more simple.

 

We come up with "potion packages". The Melee one would be "10 Major Health and 2 Fire Prot" for instance. We set a price for this.

Any melee guy coming to a raid would have to buy the pack (and God knows we have time to do it while we gather the raid members...)

 

About the price.

I suggest something around 25% of AH price. Maybe bringing the Major Health pot to 25 silver. No. Not free.

The alchemists in charge of supplying the packs would get the cash from the players, then the Guild bank would pay them the rest. For instance 75 silver for each Health pot sold.

No waste of time farming for the mats here. As it's been demonstrated now, it is way more fun and way more effective to farm cash in a group than to go pick flowers or fish on our own.

(it may be interesting to do some "elemental farming raids though" to get the elemental fire and earth needed for fire pots and Repair bots)

 

what do you think ?

 

Task 1 : come up with the packs on a class per class basis

(one alchemist and one representant of each class. I volunteer for rogues)

 

Task 2 : identify the mats, source the mats (I volunteer to monitor the AH for a subset of those)

 

Task 3 : come up with the price (end-user price and alchemist price) : Alchemists and officers

sounds like a good idea to me. I'm an herbalist, so I could help gather materials.

Would we "force" people to buy the packs? or is this an option thing?

That would be alot of potions to make, Im not saying its a bad idea, just that it would certainly take some work. I do believe it would help doing MC runs.

I like the idea. its quite an origanal one just what FP needs.

I don't necessarily believe in forcing people to buy the packs since I'm an alchemist and I already carry the potions I use the most around with me.

 

However, we could heavily encourage people to stock up on potions.

I'll come back to the "force people or not" question a bit later but about the "I'll gather herbs" or "alchemist time" I'd like again to give my 2 cents.

 

Our guild bank will soon have a comfortable amount of cash and using it to sponsor initiatives on such an important thing for the guild as our progress through MC looks to me as a reasonable use of part of the funds.

 

As pointed out, this would be a lot of pots and quite a lot of herbs/fishes.

If it all comes down to the shoulders of a handful of herbalists and drunk dwarves fishermen we'll never make it work more than 1 week and, furthermore, it's not even fair.

 

Major Health pots are at a record low for instance. I don't think it's even worth making them.

 

If cash runs out we'll do more "FP summer camp" ©

i will definately buy some, im always ninj'ing the health pots from strat because i dont buy them from the AH/ask for them. And i seriously almost always use a health pot in conjunction with last stand. I mean, if im going to have around 9k hp, i might as well keep it up that high. and its usuallly when i start seeing OOM spammed across the board.

 

but yea, ill buy some.

The real question I guess is "do we think that it would significantly increase our chances of success ?".

Then the Guild may wonder if going through Mag asap is worth maybe putting 100 gold on the table from Guild bank.

 

I'm not experienced enough to answer question one but I'd answer yes to question 2.

After a blazing start in MC that got us our first Luci kill in no time we've been stuck there for quite a while now. Not good for morale, not good for alliances.

 

No need to get into theoritical discussions about forcing people or not. If it's decided that we should do it I have troubles imagining someone saying "no, sorry, I don't want to spend 5 gold to go to MC"

i like the idea and it is not a question of force for me, but a question of being prepared. i know when i have run onyxia or mc that my performance was greatly increased if i had spare pots to burn to keep up fulfilling my role. so in a sense, we shouldn't have to force everyone since they should be wanting to "do their best" as it is. maybe they don't have a lot of gold so they don't buy the pots, guild subsidies can help get around that. and this is all beyond what i spend on reagents for GoTW, people spend for AB, Fort or the repair bots for goodness sake. Those things are all a part of why we are there, to contribute to success. 7g in supplies for my cenarion boots were well worth the price, we all just have to think about the cost benefit.

 

great point FG

Thanks for your feedback.

I have the impression that everybody is somehow interested but that noone really wants to officially say "we do it". I've also heard concerns that it may need a lot of paper work.

 

Well. I don't think it does and here's what I propose.

 

Until I hear from other classes I'll stick to melee ones and propose that the pack is made of 10 Major Health pots and 2 Fire Protection pots (not the big expensive one for the time being. The regular ones)

 

The market for Major Health pots has reached an old time low. You find loads of them at 4g per 5.

I've sent enough mats to Miroku to make almost 30 fireprotection pots. It was for my personal use but we can use those to get started.

Hard to come up with a price on those because of this bloody Small Flame Sac ingredient. It's not that it's so expensive, it's just that it's very rare.

Anyway. Let's shoot for 50 silver each.

 

We end up with 10 Health + 2 fire at 9 gold. Supplier price

End user price : 3 gold.

Guild subsidy : 6 gold

 

Here is how it works. Since the bank cannot source them for the time being I buy the health pots at the AH. I don't want to buy too much at the same time so that the market stays low

 

Before an MC run I sell packs either to "end users" or to "resellers" because I won't have enough bag space to carry them all.

Each person, whether end user or reseller gives me 3 gold per pack

Each time I sell one I take note of it (that's the only paper work needed)

 

Let's say that I sell 12. I send an email to Parsimone (Heilel's bank alias) to tell him he owes me 12x6 gold.

 

That's it. And this way, even if I'm not at the run it still works. All I need to do is to send the packs to the resellers (dealers. lol) in advance. My only job is to make sure that the packs are ready before hand.

 

Now do we have volunteers to covers other classes ?

 

What we really need is a designated person responsible for the sourcing of each pot. Whether we buy it directly at the AH or buy the mats

 

Note : speciality pots such as rage or Mana potions don't need to be in a pack. They can be dealt with individually.

Since you're a councilor now, I think this is an excellent way for you to get your feet wet in administrative duties.

LOL, you just said duty

 

/aside <No time to laugh about it now, I must find the man who deflowered my little girl>

 

i just noticed Kopi's forum status, that rocks

Im still not too sure about this idea. I dont think its a bad idea, just don' think itll be reliable. Itll take alot of gold/work too get the stuff we need. Than you are talking about supplying some 40 people. Right now the market might not be bad for herbs and potions, but itll adjust, so what do we do when prices go nuts again? Than we rely on the herbilists to get the herbs. Well for one Major healing potion its 2xGolden Sansam + 1x Mountain Silversage + 1x crustal vial= Major healing potion. Crystall vials arent hard to get, and the shops never run out, but the Mountain Silversage isnt too easy to get, and gets used in other good potions.

 

Figure, one person gets 10 Major healing potions thats, 20xGolden Sansam + 10x Mountain Silversage .

Now figure that the cloth wearers can use a lesser healing potion to make things a bit easier, but that be what, 15+ people who need 10 Major healing potions each? So we are already talking about 150 Major healing potions, not too mention the potions for the rest of the people, and not too mention whatever other potions need to be made.Right now a stack of Golden Sansam is about 5.5g , a stack of Mountain Silversage is about 10g

so you figure need one stack of Golden Sansam and half a stack of Mountain Silversage ( 5.5g + 5g ) and thats 10.5g just for one person (Im leaving out the price of crystal vials, because well.. it just isnt much, but just for those that dont know its, 25s for 5 vials), Thats completely leaving out the price of the regents for any other potions.

 

Im not trying to kill this idea, but lets be logical and try it out first. Lets do a UBRS , or Scholo run with less people than the max (so the potions should need to come into play) and do it too a smaller scale, 3 major healing potions per person + a few specialties. I would hate for the guild to go through so much trouble to get it together, have it look great on paper, but fail when executed (Not saying it will). Even if you are against what im saying, you've got to agree that trying it out first , in a small scale, would be a good idea.

 

I dont believe people will say, I dont want to spend 5g to go to MC. What I'd think of is the repair cost, last time I went was about 10g + ( I don't really see the potion packs only costing 5g but what the hey Ill go with it) 5g=15g . I right now only have 19g, so Im looking at majority of my money gone, for a slim chance of getting... well... anything. I didnt get anything last time I went (and Im not talking about epics here, I mean nothing) . What people might say is, I can't afford the potion packs, and the repair costs.

 

Another thing I was just thinking of, would all the packs cost the same? Probably not, magic users need mana and health potions, and could use the fire elemental ones too, I guess the melee people (talking about basics here) could use healing and the fire protection. So by looking at that mages have to spend more (health + mana+ protection , compared too health + protection), than not too mention regents on top of that for mass splls, like AI, DI and so on.

 

Before we start delving into the guild bank for this, I'd like to see a vote from the councilers (if they already have and agree, than thats cool.).

 

I know FG said that Major healing potions are at an all time low right now, but once we start buying them the whole supply and demand thing kicks in and the price will rise alot. Especially when we are buying the a large bulk like we are talking about, But Im sure you guys know this.

Another option on healing and mana pots are guild baron runs. I know the pots are not as good but it is something and it is not really out of our way. I am sure there is plent of guildies who still need their pants from baron plus other drops. I still need 1 or 2 from there it make my toon perfect. I think we can easily leave there with about 15-20 health and mana pots plus a couple of grey items that can be vendored for around a gold a piece and sent to the bank. I know this is not much but it is simple and not really out of the way.

 

I will also say that for the most part, hunters will not need any of these pots. Between bandages and the great distance hunters have to attack and the FD so we can eat and drink anytime we need to, I think we do not need potions.

 

Gar

Btw, a tribute run will net you around 5 major potions...distributed between health and mana. I started giving out potions to whoever would take them during my tribute rush for my staff.

Alternate ways of getting potions are a great idea. Especially since we will be doing other raids/runs we can easily stock up on some potions than. Also don't forget, when you reach a certain reputation with Argent Dawn you can buy Major Mana potions, and Major Health potions for a good price, but they are in limited numbers.

Ok...

 

All this was about injecting a good HUNDRED of potions into our raids. Not about grabbing a couple of them for cheap here and there.

 

Case closed. I don't do it.

It certainly doesnt hurt to find as many alternate ways to get these potions for free or for cheaper. We can set up guild runs to get potions from Strat or so on, also to sell the greys/greens and crappy blues to get money for the bank.

 

About the Argent Dawn thing, people can buy them and than get reimbersed (sp) by the guild bank, now I don't think the price will change no matter what you rep is, so if someone says a different price we know there's funny stuff going on.

 

Maybe (just as a thought), people can sell the needed potions to the bank, like 2g for a stack of Major Healing Potions (which we'd sell for the same amount to a guild member, so no gold loss, but no real gain, so maybe sell at 3g). That way as alchemists are making potions they can sell their excess (sp?) to the guild bank, and make a little money, and help out the guild. Where as say cloth wearers who pick up some Major Healing Potions (yes they are usefull to a cloth wearer, but a lesser potion is still very useful do to their low HP) can also sell them too the guild bank, for a little bit of profit. Thus we are helping the character, the guild bank, and the guild, I think thats as much of a win win situation as you can ask for, but I could be seeing it through rose colored glasses (because I look so good in them) because its my idea , so thorw me some input on it.

 

Once again, I don't want anyone thinking that Im saying the potion packs are a bad idea, anything that can give us an edge even a little bit will be a huge help in MC.

I just read your last post FG. Please keep in mind Im not saying we just grab a couple, Im trying to come up with ways to help your idea. I like the idea in general, and i think its something to be looked into , but we will need more than just guild alchemists, and buying potions on AH to fulfill an order of a good hundred potions.

 

Lets keep working and brainstorming on this, see what more we can come up with. Also if it sounds like Im trying to crush this , Im truly not, just looking at it criticaly.