Invocation vs Incanter's Ward

[Mrpink 0]

Hey guys,

I was just wondering what your experiences have been with the lvl 90 talents so far.

In theory Invocation should be the highest DPS increase, but you need to be able to stand still for those seconds of casting it while with the ward you can just slap it on and rely on (raid) dmg to give you your dmg buff.

My guild has started raiding as of last week and i've noticed that alot of movement is required with the bosses so far, so I was wondering if Incanter's ward might be more viable for raiding atm. I've also heard some people using the rune, but that doesn't seem very useful during these encounters. (atleast not from what i've experienced thusfar)

Thoughts anyone?

[Laggytoes 1]

So far I've preferred Invocation which, combined with the Evocation glyph, not only gives me a damage buff but a regular decent heal which takes a little bit of pressure off the healers. Those two things combined makes it superior to my mind. Dead DPS does no DPS as the saying goes.

[Sagetastic 20]

It depends on the fight, and preference. Like for guardians and feng, I run incanter's ward for the extra absorb.

After those two, I swap to rune - which if you can be quick about throwing them down a blink away (5 years of blinking helps) you never have to move during a fight :P

Ok so that is a slight exaggeration.

Essentially though, you want to spend every second possible on that run and if you can't get back to it for some reason then throw a new one down.

After a while you get used to expecting when you'll need to throw a new one down (due to avoiding mechanics or renewing your current rune) and if you practice placing them a blink away: I promise you'll feel like a pro when you throw one down and blink directly onto it during a raid every time some dumb mechanic is about to insta-gib you.

I do love the heal off the channeled evocates, but I'm really feeling like as long as it is played right - it doesn't quite matter which you use.

Also, if you have no tried the ward for guardians, I use it on cooldown and don't think I've ever not had the 30% damage buff from it.

What I love most about the ward is being able to keep my clutch big Evocate heal. Especially on guardians, it has saved my butt a lot.

Any fight with raid damage going out as consistently as guardians will make my go-to talent the ward, for sure.

~Sage

[Belicosa 11]

So far, it has been my experience that there is too much movement for rune to be optimal. And with the glyph, I also get to relieve some of the pressure on the healers.

[Sagetastic 20]

So far, it has been my experience that there is too much movement for rune to be optimal. And with the glyph, I also get to relieve some of the pressure on the healers.

You can place 2 separate runes so you don't have to repeatedly return to the same one.

Invocation requires you to stand still for longer than rune does.

Rune merely confines you to a circle, of which you can choose where it exists.

Oh, and over the course of our Elegon kill last week, Rune did about 1/3 of all the healing I recieved.

~Sage

Edited October 30, 2012 by Sagetastic

[Vladamyr 169]

From a healing standpoint, the bursty nature of the heal from Invocation far outweighs the minor HoT (essentialy) of Rune. If you have good raid communication you can let your healers know that you won't need a big heal and take care of it with the Invocation heal. Once you know the flow of a particular fight, I am finding Invocation to have better results but this is where playstyle preference comes in and you should use what you are most comfortable with. For some that's the Rune for others it's Invocation. I still have not experimented with Incanter's ward enough to come to a conclusion. My dps is better with it on most fights but right now my healers need the reactive help of Invocation. (We are not a progression guild)

[Belicosa 11]

Most of the ground effects you have to move out of are larger than your rune. and while two is nice, you can't predict what will be between you and your secondary rune.

[OnieousKT 2]

TL;DR: It's easy for me to have a bias toward Incanter's Ward because of my play style witch is that I don't like having to do much more than damage and personal damage mitigation over personal healing and fight preparation.

I've used Incanter's Ward for a while (currently using Invocation) and one of the things I really like about it is that it shares the same CD with Ice Barrier so obviously shields can be doubled. Secondly, because it only absorbs for 8 seconds the remaining 17 seconds of improved mana regeneration on top of absorption make mana management a kind of "fire and forget" situation as long as you refresh IW for SP boost every 25 seconds. I've found this is beneficial in every spec. I like not having to have an additional thing to remember (Evocation) during combat, but that's just my play style. I find IW especially useful when soloing (questing) because as frost, the intent is obviously to kite, shatter, kite, and with that level of crowd control ability it makes it easy to aggro mobs, throw up the IW, take the absorption before CCing that way by the time I've put some distance between us, I've got that 30% boost and I'm regening mana in preparation for my next series of cc/burst moves (which really isn't an issue in short fights). Additionally, often times in group situations, no matter how hard you try, either by human error or because of the mechanics of the fight, damage is inevitable; in this case I find it beneficial to be able to capitalize on just refreshing IW for 8 seconds every <half minute in order to absorb any ancillary or unavoidable damage since the up time of IW is so short and mana loss during that time is reconciled after 8 seconds over the course of the next <half minute.

The downside I've found to IW, and it's really the only negative aspect I've found in my experience, is if you really know how to avoid damage in group situations then you find that you'll have to put yourself in harms way in order to capitalize on IW absorption in order to proc the IW damage increase. This typically isn't too bad as long as you know what damage to get in the way of and can ease out of it well enough.

Invocation works just as well, however the pros and cons aren't so similar to IW. It can be a bit of a chore to manage the casting if the group is moving very quickly and killing mobs just as fast, in which case you might find (I have) that if not managed well, Evocation can be wasted for a fight. Certainly the reduced CD makes up for this situation, but if your play style is such that you don't want to feel "left behind" when you're still casting and the fight's half over by the time you start DPSing, or if you don't magage channels between fights well enough and you really aren't capitalizing on the full 40 seconds, this may not be for you. Another aspect to consider is, much like Rune of Power, it requires a static position. The moment you're moved by a mechanic such as being blown back, or you have to move out of a mechanic, you've got a <10 second downtime.

For what it's worth, my play style is such that I like to spend more time damaging than worrying about mana, so I've weight the pro's and cons for each spec and here's what I play for each.

Arcane: I use Incanter's Ward. If you can manage your Arcane Charges well, and manage your mana pool well enough, you can really capitalize on this talent's passive traits. In arcane, I've found that while in group activity, I don't have to pop IW very much unless I know I need to (such as "it would be dumb NOT to take absorption since the damage is inevitable). Otherwise, It's a passive mana regen that I don't actively have to think about which will supplement the Mastery necessity . Personally, I've abandoned Rune of Power simply because of my play style. I don't like a lot of prep in my attacks. I'm more of a quick start, get to the point kind of player. Evocation and Rune of Power simply make me feel like I'm taking too much time to fluff things up. Again, just personal opinion. The great thing about the new talent system is that it really allows you to conform it to YOUR play style as well as the situation.

Fire: Simply put, Incanter's Ward for the same reasons as arcane(with the exception of mastery), but additionally, because Inferno Blast provides a crit on demand and when a controlled IW absorption is stacked with a controlled crit demand, the resulting Pyroblast benefits from both in the form of increased SP during that cast. The same may be said for an evocation with the Invocation talent, but channeling an invocation is a bit of a gamble since Hot Streak is somewhat short lived as a proc. The spec almost requires that it be used immediately so there's some risk in trying to stack the two. Sure, IW only procs SP boost after it drops, but at least there's less of a chance that you missed a good Hot Streak because you chose to evocate and more of a chance you get a good crit and subsequent ticks out of a Pyro if your IW dropped at the same time a Hot Streak proc'd.

Frost: I'm currently toying with frost again. I really like it. I'm not sure at the moment, but I'm leaning toward Invocation. The only reason for that is I like haste and it's the priority in that spec and it reduces channeling time thus making it more bearable to perform them every so often which provides much more control in burst. I'm finding that with Invocation I am performing much better in numbers than trying to find reasons to absorb damage. I try to evocate between fights if the mobs are short enough encounters from one to another, however I still find it a tad annoying to stop during a boss fight because I have to evocate because I ran out of mana and can't cast a frozen orb. Again, that's just me and my play style. Many people are great at managing their mana and performing well in damage. In the end, I think <3>2 seconds is worth a guaranteed burst even if it is 5% less than IW. I'm still a bit tossed though and may play around some more with IW and see how it goes.

Some of this or none of this may have made any sense to anyone. Some or none may relate to it, and I'm not sure how much personal experience is worth against raw numbers to some players, but there it is. Hope it helps.

[Sagetastic 20]

I don't like having to do much more than damage and personal damage mitigation over personal healing and fight preparation.

This play style is not fair to your healers.

I should know, I loved playing this way before I learned to use invocation/RoP at the start of the xpack.

iWard is very useful in some situations, but facilitating the situations yourself at the cost of your healer's mana only hurts the rest of the raid.

Be kind to your healers.

~Sage

[Mit213 20]

In regards to the 90 talents, it is completely spec and fight reliant on which one is the best. I'll try explain what can help you make your choices below.

Frost: Invocation is going to be your main talent choice, but can be interchanged with Incanter's Ward on specific fights that bring reliable damage.

Fire: What applies to frost applies to fire in the exact same way.

Arcane: Arcane depends on keeping your mana at a high level, so the constant regen of Ring of Power is optimal, but again, Incanter's Ward will be great on specific fights that have reliable damage.

Here are my suggestions for each fight (I won't say if it is different on every heroic fight because I've only experienced roughly 1/2 of the heroic fights).

(As a disclaimer, I rank next to never, so I am definitely not a #1 know-all mage, this is just my opinion.)

MSV:

Stone Guardians - RoP as arcane is my favorite because it takes very little time to reposition your rune, but if you want an easier time IW is definitely viable for this fight. (In heroic mode, if you are for whatever reason needed to paint tiles you should use IW.)

Feng - I would only use RoP/Invocation on this fight because if your tanks are doing their job correctly there will be very few times where it is possible to use IW to the same degree of usefulness.

Gara'jal - If there was ever a stationary fight so far in MoP, it'd be this fight for sure. Use RoP/Invocation.

Elegon - The damage here isn't frequent enough for great use of IW in my opinion, so use RoP/Invocation.

Will - The damage in Will isn't frequent enough throughout the entire fight for IW to be very useful (although in heroic mode, IW is freaking amazing with an on demand damage increase whenever you want while you're all over the place blink soaking a good portion of the sparks).

HoF:

Zor'lak - RoP/Invocation here is best IMO, IW could probably be used nearly on CD on this fight but I find it less effective.

Ta'yak - I can only promote the use of RoP/Invocation here.

Garalon - I would definitely recommend IW for this fight, though any would work.

Wind Lord - I would use RoP/Invocation on this fight unless you really feel like jumping in puddles when the need arises, and even then you would run out of acceptable IW breakers after the adds die.

Amber Shaper - There is no reason not to pick your stationary talent here (RoP/Invocation), but if you really love your IW you can always stand on a puddle for a second and break it when it comes off CD.

Shek'zeer - I would definitely choose RoP/Invocation, but for the good majority of the fight you can break your IW on purpose, it just doesn't require you to be all that mobile so I see no need for that.

ToES:

Protectors - I would definitely choose your RoP/Invocation this fight as well, it requires very little movement (and next to none if you are doing elite mode).

Tsulong - I personally use RoP/Invocation atm, but I can see IW being viable, you will just lose damage while in day phase (Alter TIme resets your stacks and blink allows you to take very little time to do so).

Lei Shi - Again, I use RoP/Invocation and see no reason to use IW.

Sha - And again, I use RoP/Invocation and see no reason to use IW.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Mit213

[OnieousKT 2]

This play style is not fair to your healers.

I should know, I loved playing this way before I learned to use invocation/RoP at the start of the xpack.

iWard is very useful in some situations, but facilitating the situations yourself at the cost of your healer's mana only hurts the rest of the raid.

Be kind to your healers.

~Sage

I usually do pretty well to avoid damage, and in cases where damage is unavoidable I'm decent enough at mitigating it. I actually take Cold Snap over Cauterize because it gives me control on the front end being able to regenerate health before I get too low where with cauterize I feel that it's more unfair to the healer because if it procs, it's more demanding I think. With Cold Snap I can regen every 3 minutes (sure it's one extra minute over Cauterize) any time I lose 1/3 health and I get more Ice Blocks out of it. So in necessary situations I IB and Cold Snap interchangeably (and of course I carry pots) and double up on my IW and Ice Barrier every CD. So I really think I do my part to keep healers from working overtime. What I like about how I do this is that damage mitigation (for me at least) feels very quick. There's instant gratification from a lot of the mitigating spells and Cold Snap, where as, again imo, I think cauterize is a disservice to healers. It's just the way I think about it though, doesn't mean I'm absolutely right.

[Sagetastic 20]

Sir, please do not be offended when I say, "Sit down so I can learn ya somefin r quik."

I usually do pretty well to avoid damage, and in cases where damage is unavoidable I'm decent enough at mitigating it.

According to what I've read so far, you use iWard to get your big damage % buff. This means that if you want to maximize uptime, you must be standing in fire as much as possible.

I actually take Cold Snap over Cauterize because it gives me control on the front end being able to regenerate health before I get too low where with cauterize I feel that it's more unfair to the healer because if it procs, it's more demanding I think.

Cauterize will save your life. It literally makes you COMPLETELY AVOID DEATH 100% OF THE TIME EVERY 2 MINUTES!

It's like having 2 lives to live... Come on...

Cold snap is a 20% self heal with minor utility CD resets.

You should absolutely be taking Cauterize, or at the least greater invis for the 90% DR (which you would then use the same way you currently use cold snap).

When using Cauterize: Make sure that you have an addon that spams raid chat and yell that you are cauterizing, as well you should call this out in Ventrilo/Mumble/Teamspeak/Skype/Whatever so you can get a quick heal. The ability for you to take a killing blow without dying once every 2 minutes FAR outweighs a 20% self heal. It is your healer's job to keep you alive, but even the best of us die every now and then. Trust me when I say your healers would rather heal you as you cauterize than watch you die.

If, for some reason, you do not want to use cauterize:

Make sure you use Greater Invis when you are about to take a lot of damage or happen to be standing right where C'thun is looking (about to be instagibbed). Your other option with G.Invis is to learn to time it with certain high damage raid-wide damage mechanics.

For Example! When I was learning Elegon, the damage in his final phase is intense. So intense I think some of our healers poo'd themselves a little the first time we saw it. So to help with their ever-growing anxiety issues, I would take Greater Invis over Cauterize. This allowed me to stay alive a little longer on that phase, along with taking a minuscule amount of pressure off my lovable healer buddies. They didn't really notice during all the chaos, but I made sure to mention it afterwords to force acknowledgement of my good deed out of those suckers.

With Cold Snap I can regen every 3 minutes (sure it's one extra minute over Cauterize)

This has been addressed.

any time I lose 1/3 health and I get more Ice Blocks out of it.So in necessary situations I IB and Cold Snap interchangeably

There are very few situations where multiple IB is helpful. So few, that I feel you should refer to the above... um... rant - no, paragraph above on Cold Snap.

(and of course I carry pots)

Health pots? The ONLY acceptable pot for a mage to use during an encounter is as follows:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=76093

Let me put it this way, your healers heal you with the exceptions of 2 things:

• Warlock Cookies
• Glyphed Innervate

If you find it necessary to heal yourself via any other means, then your healers are having a problem.

and double up on my IW and Ice Barrier every CD. So I really think I do my part to keep healers from working overtime. What I like about how I do this is that damage mitigation (for me at least) feels very quick. There's instant gratification from a lot of the mitigating spells and Cold Snap, where as, again imo, I think cauterize is a disservice to healers. It's just the way I think about it though, doesn't mean I'm absolutely right.

Ice Barrier is a good choice. I'm really afraid I'm coming off harsh here, and I can't stress enough how much I am trying to help you here.

...Tough Love?

I really enjoy helping other mages. If this post comes off as rude or harsh then just message me and I'll try my best to just help you one on one.

This was simply intended to be a breakdown of how I feel you could be doing better.

Sincerely,

~Sage

[OnieousKT 2]

Hey, thanks a bunch Sage! I really got a lot out of your breakdown so thanks for sharing all of that. I don't think it was harsh at all. I appreciate the passion you brought with your message.

After reading all of this I am going to swap over to Invoction and learn to manage that. It makes way more sense than looking for trouble to capitalize on up time for IW.

I also think you raise a good point about Cauterize that appeals to me. One, it's a more frequent life saver every two minutes. Two... it's a lot more hands off. What I've done in the past for Cauterize is macro Ice Block and Healthstone together. Should that be a last resort if I'm ticking down and not getting heals?

I do have a separate question about the trinket Light of the Cosmos. http://www.wowhead.com/item=86133

It seems obvious that this restricts me to either Nether Tempest or Living Bomb. Glyph of Fire Blast has been removed as of patch so I can't spread LB easy anymore (which was super awesome) so in reality it seems LB and NT are equal in application. How have you dealt with this? I still think LB is the larger burst and a better DoT, but they are both on the same 12.23 seconds for me (22.70) haste so the ticks are the same, but the end result is larger for LB isn't it?

I guess since its a matter of having to manually select each target to apply it onto, I'm wondering if it should be applied to more than one target or if that's a waste of time now.

[Sagetastic 20]

I appreciate the passion you brought with your message.

I have a deep passion for frost mage, my friend.

It seems obvious that this restricts me to either Nether Tempest or Living Bomb

It was a deeply satisfying moment for me when I found out that Frost Bomb's damage counts as a DoT. Because of this, your trinket is viable for any of the 3 Bombs.

It may not tick as often, but the trinket has a 15% proc chance every time Frost Bomb goes off, with a 45s ICD.

I use Frost Bomb a lot, as I prefer the consistent brain freeze procs.

If you're still concerned for your DPS and proc consistency on the trinket, then just hit a dummy for 3 minutes using a standard rotation with each of the bombs and compare the overall.

I suggest using a Stopwatch addon on a 3min timer, then using an invis+/petpassive macro to ensure the combat ends as abruptly as possible for more accurate data when combat dummy testing.

Also, remember to reset your pet's stance after the combat ends so you don't do your next test without our Water Elemental's Water Bolts.

Here, I'll even through in the invis/petpassive macro and my own personal water ele macro that will make sure even if you forget to switch the stance back it won't hurt your dps.

Combat Breaker:

• #showtooltip
• /stopcasting
• /use Invisibility
• /petpassive

Water Elemental All-in-One Macro:

• #showtooltip
• /use [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
• /use Freeze
• /petattack

Keep in mind you could also just use simcraft too, if you know how to use it.

The method of testing your dps this way can be a little tedious, but if you want your data from it to be as accurate as possible: then try to break combat as close to the 3min (or whatever time you prefer) and repeat it a few times, then just check your overall average DPS.

I like this method, as it has a tendency to sim my "skill" a little better than simcraft. <.<

For added realism, run like hell every 5-15 seconds while attacking the dummy. :>

If you simply wish to disregard this information altogether ( I would still recommend using the WE All-in-One macro), then the best I can tell you is to simply use the bomb that is most effective for the encounter. Both should keep it on its ICD as often as possible with a 15% proc chance on tick.

Edit: This is unrelated to the rest of my post, but I needed to just say something on the following:

What I've done in the past for Cauterize is macro Ice Block and Healthstone together.

I hope you don't still use this macro. It can be quite wise, indeed, to eat a Cookie or if need be, cast IB - however, a macro to use both simultaneously just seems wasteful. You could've, in lieu of eating the cookie, held the IB for a few moments while your healers got your hp to a healthy level.

This does give me an idea for an Evo+Cookie self heal macro. I doubt it would be worth using it with a normal (non-invocation) Evocate cast time. It seems useful with the Invocate's quicker cast+Glyph considering Invocate only heals 10% now when done.

So, if you think this might come in handy, here is the clutch cookie+invoc self healer macro.

• #showtooltip Healthstone
• /use Healthstone
• /cast !Evocation

If you try out this macro, please let me know if it was helpful or not. I would try it, myself, but my account is frozen currently

If any generous souls out there would be willing to give a poor man a month of his drug of choice, that would be more awesome than watching an avalanche of mastodon gonads on fire wipe out a village of naga.

~Sage

Edited March 11, 2013 by Sagetastic

[OnieousKT 2]

I will definitely try out the new macro and revert to a normal Ice Block. I don't always get a lot of time to raid, so a lot of my macros revolve around solo dailies and stuff like that.