WOD Evocation Question

[gaymer77]

Was evocation on the cut list of spells for WOD? I only ask because I noticed that every other active mana regen from both healers and priests were removed but didn't remember seeing anything about evocation being removed.

[Deleted]

i am not sure but i think that it is arcane only spell and it has 2-3m CD

[Polarthief]

Was evocation on the cut list of spells for WOD?

Pruned from Fire/Frost. Still remains on Arcane as a 2m cooldown (1m 30s cooldown with the perk

I only ask because I noticed that every other active mana regen from both healers and priests were removed but didn't remember seeing anything about evocation being removed.

That was a healer only section. Mana for DPS except for Arcane hasn't been a thing for awhile, and Evocation is still very much here. 90s cooldown once you get the perk (which I assume the perk was made because of the removal of Mana Gem)

[Deleted]

By the way this is actually very interesting question.
I was always looking foward to the new expansions, because they were bringing diffrent way of playing giving spec... the hell with it even each tier and his 2p and 4p were gamebreaking, but now if Evocation has 90 second cooldown, Mana gem removed, RoP&co. mana regeneration rate boost gone, how the hell are we gonna keep our mana at high levels for 90 seconds?
I really really hope arcane rotation isn't going back to Cata burn/conserve gameplay. From my point of view this is a big concern, because i don't want to go back to old gameplay style, especially the one from 2 expansions ago. Now don't get me wrong. Burn phases were fun 3 (three!) years years ago and i'm not gonna be happy if i have to repeat an old play style, even the easy dumb one from WotLK where we were the 2 button spec.

[mrgreenthump]

How the hell are we gonna keep our mana at high levels for 90 seconds?

Just increase our passive mana regen to a point where it was comparable to what RoP gave at 90.

I really really hope arcane rotation isn't going back to Cata burn/conserve gameplay.

From all I've seen it sort of is going back to it. Ofc modified somewhat.

[Shangalar]

Evocation is staying, the burn/conserve phase is still in question, we will have to see the full numbers pass before we know if it is available and it might be constructed differently. I have a text on this prepared and will post it in a separate thread because this will be something that will be discussed a lot as the expansion approaches.

[Deleted]

Well from today's point of view the good old Evocation doesn't make sense.
What i mean - due arcane mastery, as we all know, a proper mage will always want to stay at high % mana level to maximize the benefit from mastery. Nowdays burn phase can't really exist. Reason is simple - since they made secondary stat gems to give double the amount than primary stat and since 2 points of secondary stat weight more than 1 point of primary stat, dps wise, this led to stacking a high amount of our best secondary stat, aka mastery. So the game play changed from burn/conserve to permanent conserve.
Back in Cata burn/conserve phases had a meaning, because back then we were geming pure intellect and we weren't so dependent of our mastery as we are now.

If they want to go back to that arcane style it will be way more reasonable to transform Evocation as a semidps cooldown. What i mean is that instead of channeling Evocation for 2-4 seconds it might be better idea to be reworked in the way that glyphed mana gem work now - something like 6 second buff that give fixed amount of mana for the duration or like a mana tide totem - to increase mana regeneration for a fixed time.
For me that way will fit more in the curent playstyle and bringing back burn/conserve phases, but just the other way around - instead of trying to burn down your mana, we will try to burn as much mana as possible to not cap (something like in the hunter case where capping focus mean dps loss)

And for clarification - yeah i know Blizzard what to get rid of as many dps cooldowns as possible and adding another one does not fit in the current philosophy for WoD, but realistically looked it is not really a dps cooldown in the maner of pure damage increase or something like that, it will just "force" you to spam more spells more aggressively.
Well maybe it will have good synergy with Prismatic Crystal, but it will have bad synergy with Overpowered and average synergy with arcane orb. Same with level 90 tallents - strong synergy with our old friend RoP, average synergy with Incanter Flow and none with Mirror Image.
But overall i don't think it will have that big impact to change Evocation. Thoughts?

[Ryken]

Evocation also interacts with Arcane Charges in WoD, it consumes charges for higher mana regen.

[Deleted]

Mages will be the only class with zero self-healing capability in WoD since the healing part of Evocation gets removed. Don't bother mentioning Ice Block, a heal on a 5 minute cd is unviable, if not downright useless.
Amplify Magic? Completely useless for the Mage in the most literal way. That shitty ability ought to be replaced with a selfheal, besides Mages already have enough raid utility as it is.
It is an atrocity how even more unbalanced classes will become.

[Frost1129]

Mages will be the only class with zero self-healing capability in WoD since the healing part of Evocation gets removed. Don't bother mentioning Ice Block, a heal on a 5 minute cd is unviable, if not downright useless.
Amplify Magic? Completely useless for the Mage in the most literal way. That shitty ability ought to be replaced with a selfheal, besides Mages already have enough raid utility as it is.
It is an atrocity how even more unbalanced classes will become.

We also have some of the best personal cooldowns to prevent ever taking that damage, and retain a lot of mobile spell casting (which almost every other class had axed / heavily reduced). if you're not taking damage, you don't need to heal it.

[Polarthief]

We also have some of the best personal cooldowns to prevent ever taking that damage

I'd argue Ice Block to not be THAT great. They also axed Temporal Shield, and Alter Time is no longer baseline, so we have IBl on a 5m cooldown (or Evanesce on a 45s cooldown, but losing IF), and IB on a 30s cooldown. Not that great tbh.

and retain a lot of mobile spell casting

Excluding IF which is 1 spell every 15s/3 spells every 45s, Fire is the only mobile spec we have. Frost can only use FoF and FO on the move, and Arcane, ABarr. Other than that, some talents.

if you're not taking damage, you don't need to heal it.

This only applies if we have the means to not take it. Evanesce won't block everything and even if it does, that means no IF for mobility (unless you're Fire, in which case, you don't need IF). IB pops from one attack in raids, or very quickly from DoT/AoE stuff. I think you're overestimating how good our cooldowns actually are.

- - - Updated - - -

besides Mages already have enough raid utility as it is.

We have some level of self-utility, a LARGE chunk of which we're losing in WoD (AT no longer baseline, MI no longer baseline, TS gone, etc). We have ZERO raid utility outside of Amp (and you could argue Time Warp, but that's fake utility when it can't be stacked).

I would argue that Amp should be swapped with another class because it gives us literally nothing. Every other raidwide cooldown for every other class at least gives them some level of use outside of grouping. Amp gives us nothing.

[Deleted]

at least we should have some % hp regen like Spirit bond or Ysera's gift

[Polarthief]

at least we should have some % hp regen like Spirit bond or Ysera's gift

Would be nice. Could tie it to IF and keep the 1%HP1 for Rune. For MI, I have no idea; a 20% heal or something?

[Imnick]

Really, nobody takes a DPS class to a raid because of its self healing.
We already are and will continue to be a very strong DPS option, and we already are and will continue to be one of the best classes for solo-absorbing troublesome encounter effects. Neither of those things are changing, and will continue to bring us raid spots.

[Deleted]

Really, nobody takes a DPS class to a raid because of its self healing.
We already are and will continue to be a very strong DPS option, and we already are and will continue to be one of the best classes for solo-absorbing troublesome encounter effects. Neither of those things are changing, and will continue to bring us raid spots.

it is not problem in raids/5m dungeons where you have healing class saving your ass but on solo play we need some help (even something easy like HCSC is just terrible experience with 3 mages )

[Imnick]

Do we? Like... Timeless Isle, levelling, I've never had any kind of a problem with as a mage. Why would they suddenly become an issue now?

[Deleted]

Timeless Isle... ok if this is your only solo gameplay experience try 3 mage HCSC - i had a lot of fun sitting and eating

truth is that without IJ tank trinket/Evocation glyph we wouldn't be able to solo most of older content - if you think that we can solo older content on same level as other clases than you should try it (only rogues are the same crap as us)

[Imnick]

But the game's not balanced around being able to solo older content and never has been, there are always classes that are inordinately better at doing it than others because it is not a developer concern
If that's your key complaint then you're not going to get any dev action

[Mormolyce]

God does the Mage talent tree ever look better in WoD. Goodbye Evo! Can't say I'll miss you!

Really, nobody takes a DPS class to a raid because of its self healing.

That's the sound of thousands of Rogues' hearts breaking

[Frost1129]

I'd argue Ice Block to not be THAT great. They also axed Temporal Shield, and Alter Time is no longer baseline, so we have IBl on a 5m cooldown (or Evanesce on a 45s cooldown, but losing IF), and IB on a 30s cooldown. Not that great tbh.

Excluding IF which is 1 spell every 15s/3 spells every 45s, Fire is the only mobile spec we have. Frost can only use FoF and FO on the move, and Arcane, ABarr. Other than that, some talents.

This only applies if we have the means to not take it. Evanesce won't block everything and even if it does, that means no IF for mobility (unless you're Fire, in which case, you don't need IF). IB pops from one attack in raids, or very quickly from DoT/AoE stuff. I think you're overestimating how good our cooldowns actually are.

We have some level of self-utility, a LARGE chunk of which we're losing in WoD (AT no longer baseline, MI no longer baseline, TS gone, etc). We have ZERO raid utility outside of Amp (and you could argue Time Warp, but that's fake utility when it can't be stacked).

I would argue that Amp should be swapped with another class because it gives us literally nothing. Every other raidwide cooldown for every other class at least gives them some level of use outside of grouping. Amp gives us nothing.

Are you intentionally being dense or something for the sake of arguing? AT and MI are not self utility in raids - they are both DPS cooldowns. Losing TS hurts, but it's not like we have no alternative (We have two, actually). Ice Barrier, G.Invis, and then Ice Block for the odd damage event where Ibarr/Ginvis are down, can be rotated through to ensure we have almost always have a personal CD up. Ice Barrier is actually a bit easier to use for non-predictable damage than TS was - you can pop it, let the CD start, and it just sits on you until you take damage. There are not very many exceptions to this rule - maybe except a Thok style fight where we are constantly getting hammered with damage, but those are going away. When did we go from "some of the best, if not the best, personal defensives" to "we don't have the means to block damage"? Because we lost TS?

Why would you ever exclude IF? It's there for a reason - to make you more mobile, and it does it's job well. FoF charges (which are basically on demand with water jet) and IF make Frost highly mobile, Arcane still has some mobility but not the best. Compared to other classes, we still have it quite good.