Flasks, oils, and… potion bombs? All the new consumables we know about in The War Within

Flasks are back, baby! Like always, The War Within promises to bring a whole array of flasks, potions, oils, and more to folks looking to maximize their effectiveness in raids or dungeons. Some of the ones we’re used to in Dragonflight — like the half-duration phials or animal-themed fauna runes — appear to have been left out this time around, while old favorites like flasks and weapon oils are back. There’s even an exciting new one for Engineers that isn’t quite implemented yet: the “potion bomb.”

Here’s a rundown of all of the new consumables coming in The War Within.

Flasks and potions in The War Within

As usual, Alchemy has a whole range of flasks and potions for your dungeon or raiding pleasure. Folks might be very happy to see the hour-long flasks returning; interestingly, they have now taken on the “duration doubling” feature that phials had — you can drink two flasks back-to-back and get two full hours out of them. There are also both potion and flask cauldrons, and — at least in the alpha — the materials don’t seem outrageously bad, unlike the last two expansions where they were practically a loss of materials to craft.

• Healing and mana potions: we’ve got the fairly normal Algarian Healing Potion, Algarian Mana Potion, and the half-and-half Cavedweller’s Delight. For healers who need a little nap to maximize their mana gain, we have the Slumbering Soul Serum. Finally, in a very interesting twist, there’s the Agonizing Potion, which lets you pay for your next six mana-consuming spells or abilities with your health instead.
• Performance-enhancing potions: right now there’s only a couple of these, the Potion of Unwavering Focus (which strictly enhances damage to a single target) and the Frontline Potion (which is for tanking). There’s also the extremely interesting Tempered Potion, which gives you all the secondary stats you’re not getting from a Tempered Flask. If you need a lot of potions, you’ll probably want to use the Algarian Potion Cauldron, which lets you choose your potion from among those known by anyone in the Warband of the person who placed the cauldron.
• Utility potions: get stealthy with the Draught of Silent Footfalls, find sneaky rogues with the Draught of Shocking Revelations, or run really fast (and get dazed if hit, unlocking a core memory for Hunters) with the Potion of the Reborn Cheetah.
• Flasks: Four of the available flasks are very straightforward: Tempered Aggression for Critical Strike, Tempered Mastery for Mastery, Tempered Swiftness for Haste, and Tempered Versatility for Versatility. There’s also the Flask of Alchemical Chaos, which gives you a big chunk of a random secondary stat in exchange for losing a little bit from two others (and the effects randomize every 30 seconds, as well). Healers also have the option of the Flask of Saving Graces, which causes healing on very low health players to increase your healing done. The Algarian Flask Cauldron, much like the Potion Cauldron, lets anyone who uses it choose their flask from among those that can be made by the alchemist who placed the cauldron.
• Crafting and gathering phials: unlike flasks, these only last for 30 minutes. That’s probably fine, given that crafting and gathering don’t generally last as long as combat. Phial of Truesight increases your Perception while also allowing you to see special camouflaged gathering nodes, Phial of Bountiful Seasons increases Finesse or Resourcefulness depending on what the in-game season is, and the Phial of Enhanced Ambidextry — their spelling, not mine — increases Crafting Speed and Deftness. There’s also a Phial of Focused Inspiration, which is due to be reworked with the removal of Inspiration from TWW crafting — likely it will grant Ingenuity, the stat that interacts with the new Concentration mechanic, instead.
• PVP flasks: Last but not least, there are two flasks that seem geared for PVP, as they increase your Honor gains by 15% on top of their other effects. Vicious Flask of the Wrecking Ball lets you snowball player kills into, hopefully, further player kills; Vicious Flask of Manifested Fury, on the other hand, turns you into a frenzied elemental for 10 seconds when you die.

Also, there’s the possibility Engineering will make everything better — right now they have items for Potion Bombs of Power, Recovery, and Speed, but they’re not fully implemented yet. Perhaps they’ll be able to bundle up potions into something that can be applied in an area — a very interesting idea if true, as Engineering doesn’t usually offer direct raid power in that way.

Weapon stones and oils in The War Within

Blacksmithing and Enchanting can produce a range of temporary weapon enhancements; while alchemists last made weapon oils in Shadowlands, they have returned to being a product of enchanting in The War Within. There’s also a single weapon enhancing stone for melee users, but those don’t seem to be complete yet.

• Weapon oils: there are three, and they’re fairly straightforward — Algarian Mana Oil increases your Critical Strike and Haste, Oil of Beladar’s Grace has a chance to proc extra healing when you heal, and Oil of Deepening Shadows gives you a small Shadow damage proc when you deal damage. All weapon oils last for two hours, to boot!
• Weapon stones: rather then the usual pairing of sharpening stones (for bladed weapons) and weightstones (for blunt weapons), The War Within has a single Blacksmithing-produced weapon stone — the Ironclaw Weapon Stone. Its tooltip doesn’t give any indication of what it does yet, so it may not quite be ready for primetime.

While Hunters have sometimes had to use something different, like Completely Safe Rockets, there’s nothing in the tooltip of the oils that indicates hunters can’t use them this time around.

Drums and runes in The War Within

Last but not least, Leatherworking will still be able to make a brand new drum — the Thunderous Drums — so that groups that ordinarily would be without Bloodlust or Heroism don’t have to do without it; meanwhile, Inscription can still make Vantus Runes for the new raid, even if they’re off the hook for stat-producing consumables in The War Within. Expect a new tier of those for each raid, as well.