New Cataclysm Changes to evocate

[Töasty]

The changes to evocate are pretty nice. 2 minute cooldown and 15% of your mana back instantly, and then another 45% if you channel it full duration. Must be a bug with arcane still reducing CD on evocate. It's still 4 minutes.

[Snakebonzai!]

Basically you can choose whether you want to use Evocation as an extra mana gem (stopchanneling immediately) or keep channeling for the rest, interesting.
The reduced channeling time (new: 6 seconds base) is the beauty of it all.

[sicness]

I wouldn't be surprised if arcane gets something to enhance evocate in some way since it won't need to reduce the cool down anymore.

But yes, it is starting to look like using it as a extra mana gem to keep your mana up (at least as arcane spec) is how it'll be used instead of for it's full duration.

[Snakebonzai!]

I wouldn't be surprised if arcane gets something to enhance evocate in some way since it won't need to reduce the cool down anymore.

But yes, it is starting to look like using it as a extra mana gem to keep your mana up (at least as arcane spec) is how it'll be used instead of for it's full duration.

Debatable, but of course it depends on the situation. In a raid environment it will most likely be more efficient to use it as a full duration channel. This is quite hard to decide though, especially for arcane:

1. The cooldown is 4 minutes, so if you drop too low on mana before cooldown is back you're fucked over. = Better to channel.
2. Thing is, with self replenishment you won't need a full duration channel as much as arcane. On top of that, if you spec into master of elements your mana conservation will be even more efficient, reducing the need to channel. In addition to that, with the Mana Adept mastery scaling with mana percentage, it might be a bigger DPS boost to use the instant mana gain. Then use evocation first followed by a mana gem when you get lower on mana again. All to max out the mastery, which I think will be much more worthwhile as we get higher stat piles. In this sense, it'd be better to use the evocation instant boost.

I'm not in the beta, and everything is subject to change. But would be nice to get some of your thoughts on this, fellow mages. Hell, why not try to max all the new stuff out already.

[Taalyn]

I'm not sure if RNG will be a factor. Before the 31 pt talents were released there were two changes that removed any RNG. The first was an addition to Arcane Barrage and that addition was Arcane Barrage would not consume your Arcane Blast stacks. The other change was to Missile Barrage and that change was something like Arcane Barrage had a 100% chance to proc Missile Barrage.

I don't know if the addition to Arcane Barrage is still there, but the change to Missile Barrage is not there anymore with the 31 pt talent trees.

[Swizzle]

Remember, Arcane Missiles will only be available via proc (15% chance to activate on any arcane ability), so i imagine mana might not be quite such an issue (as i understand it, it can be an issue if RNG isn't on your side, perhaps someone can elaborate more), moreso if they tweak the mana costs of abilities some more (which will undoubtedly happen with or after the talent tree's next overhaul).

I don't know much about mages in general, but am currently interested in them more than i was. This evocation change in particular looks to not only be a levelling buff, but also a raiding buff.

if arcane missiles is indeed a proc, then mana management will become more annoying than it is now. currently, using a non-mbarr arcane missiles regens more mana and does more damage than clearing your stacks with abarr, all the while being more effective than continued AB spam.

i'll probably still use the full duration evocate, but the whole 15% back at once is to prevent being jewed out of mana due to a poor fight mechanic or fellow raider fucking you over.

[Goliethlol]

The way Arcane Missiles currently works in the beta is that each offensive spell you can cast has a 30% chance of enabling the use of Arcane Missiles. It is only activated on this proc, and unusable without it (think Overpower, Revenge, Riposte, etc).

Hot Streak and Brain Freeze currently completely remove the ability for Arcane Missiles to proc, meaning if you have even 1 point into either talent, you will never be able to cast Arcane Missiles.

As far as the Arcane Spec is concerned however, I am actually quite pleased with how they have dealt with the changes to Arcane Missiles.

Using Arcane Barrage will always proc Arcane Missiles, and it will no longer consume Arcane Blast stacks (the Arcane Barrage). They have significantly increased the damage of Arcane Barrage, however they have also increased it's cooldown to 6 seconds. This essentially makes it an extremely valuable part of the rotation, as it will not only be a very good damaging attack, it will also allow you to throttle your damage, and allow you to control exactly when you can use Arcane Missiles.