Incoming human nerf in 4.0.1.Follow

Cannibalize works exactly like a self bandage that requires standing on a humanoid/undead corpse. I find it useful as a quick free regen after killing someone in PvP, and because of the humor value of cannibalizing someone after you own him, not quite as great as the flag of ownership, but it works.

This isn't something you're going to use during combat in the way you describe. There's a self-sleep potion that puts you in self sleep and does a large mana+hp regen, nobody uses it.

You only use this during combat if your enemies are CC'd. For example with my warlock I have sometimes used cannibalize to regen after killing one enemy while the succubus is holding the other enemy. Works like having an extra bandage, it's better than the bandage in that it heals more.

Uh, that shared CD with Super Mana Potion, which was almost as much mana without the 12 second stun.

Sounded to me, with mana being regenerated through spamming dps spells, that they were intending to construct things so there was significant non healing time during encounters.

But you are still looking at it in the Wrath system, where you had to spam heal. Tanks aren't going to be gibbed in 2 attacks anymore, so it isn't like you have to be using every single GCD.

And the mana/health return on the Wrath sleep potion is a joke. That's why I would never use it. The loss of motility isn't made up for by the return.

Does it have the highest return potential per potion for health and mana? Yes. But the Runic Rejuv potion is only like 1.3k less of a return with no wait.

But what you are missing here is that cannibalize doesn't share a CD. You don't have to give up your Rejuv/Mana/Health pot to use it. Even if you only get 2 seconds of eating in, that's 7% of your max mana/health back, which is quite a few spells. And you get that mana back on top of whatever potion you decide to use that minute.

Yes, you're also not looking at the Cata system completely.

The only healing class getting this racial would be priests.

Looking at priests talents, it's not that Cannibalize would be a bad source of mana regen, but priests would probably have a higher priority for using offensive spells to trigger powerups.

It's a good regen to use between pulls, it can be used in combat in very situational ways, like when you CC your enemies or something similar. But I think it's DPS who would be more likely to use this during combat.

You could try it, and it could work, I just doubt it would work "more than" sticking to the standard healing rotation.

Note: Sadly this ability doesn't work on teammate corpses.

Edited, Sep 18th 2010 8:36pm by xorq

If you're fighting alone against 2 guys and kill one you can CC the other while you cannibalize. Or it could be if you're the last man standing at a point in a BG and another single enemy comes while you're low on HP, you CC him and cannibalize to regen and then fight. As I said this works much like a free bandage with different requirements, and it scales with your hp pool.

It could be used in Arena but I haven't seen a single time where a situation happens inside Arena that favors using Cannibalize. You can't use it if you have a DoT on you, or if you're taking damage from any source. As healer you almost always have a pet attacking you or you're being watched closely and get hit immediately if you try to drink. And using this ability in arena would require a corpse of one of the enemy team. So I really don't see it being used in Arena matches. It doesn't matter for undead anyway, you make plenty of use of Will of the Forsaken in Arena.

So, uhm, yeah, if you're on the boat of switching your human chars to a different race, the undead racials are good. But if you're melee you'll probably want Escape Artist instead.

As for it being effective in a PvE encounter as you describe, I don't think that would be a bad thing. For one thing, priests of all races already get mana regen abilities, I say this in the sense that the racial wouldn't be giving priests something they don't already have, it would just be giving an extra option.

And then if you were going to pick a race for a PvE healer for a racial that would be useful to you in PvE you'd probably go with Goblin or Troll, since casting speed is probably going to be the biggest thing in mana saving. You may even go Gnome but I doubt it.

I think I would pick troll for that because it will let you cast your cheap heals 20% faster which is close to doing the expensive spells at the cost of the cheap ones.


Edited, Sep 19th 2010 5:10am by xorq

It would take a pretty special set of circumstances for the new Cannibalize to be considered OP. It's unlikely it will lead to undead priests, locks, or mages being in higher demand than other races. As mentioned, even one tic here or there is nice, but the 10 second channel time all but ensures that you won't have an opportunity to reap the full effects of the spell any time you're in combat. Still, a nice tool to add to the box.

The changes to human racials seems extreme. When Cataclysm hits there will be little incentive to level a Human as any class.

Making it some % less than 100% with an independent CD makes it only moderately useful for PvE but could make it very strong for PvP. However, I feel like arena matches might swing one way or the other based on your luck with EMFH and people would complain. It could give Humans a huge advantage because you wouldn't know when it was safe to time your switches/bursts. It seems like a dicey mechanic that they wouldn't want to mess with.

Also, given the changes to INT/spell power and gnomes being able to play priest, the class humans will be most suited to play will be Paladin (though it's unclear whether the spirit or intelligence will be more useful come Cata). Seems fitting I suppose.

Edited, Sep 19th 2010 4:19pm by CatPredator

It's still useful in PvE. A 3-minute cooldown that removes all kinds of things. Hell yes.

It just means all you leet Arena players will have to, zomg, choose another race depending on preferences, instead of just rolling a Human Whatever because the racial is the FOTM (or year, whatever).

How dare Blizzard give you options!

I'm just messing around, I wouldn't like to be nerfed either, but let's face it, you can't really nerf a Tauren at this point.

Does PW:S interruption immunity apply to Cannibalize as well?

Yeah, priest would be tough because the other team would keep them in combat so they can't rez.

If they got the distance though, it wouldn't be a problem.

Balancing all those gains is the loss of Inner Will. -30% duration to all stuns, fears and silences was an incredible PVP talent that all priests had access to, it being on the first tier of discipline. Whenever I jumped into a BG without swapping out of my PVE spec, the difference was just agonizing.

I’d trade Evangelism, Trinity, Holy World: Chastise, faster Shadowfiend and Soul Mending for Inner Will back, without any hesitation or regret.

Are we talking rated Battlegrounds?

Did some poking around in Warhammer Online and I've come to the conclusion that making resurrection spells a 3-second cast and usable in combat would do great things to Battlegrounds. Terrible, yes... but great.