Our Lvl 90 Talents - Why Incanters Ward is Good!

[zomgDPS]

- snip -

Wuga already brought up this point, and it was already addressed.
The point being, we can use arbitrary time clamps to make anything look good. The '50 second' example I started with was actually intended to be more of an explanation of the math and not necessarily a comparison.

The 'real' comparisons, the 'apples to apples' as you call them, come in the next section, where you compare actually casting Invoc/RoP vs using that time to DPS with IW passive. That is the real meat and potatoes of the situation and will occur many many times during the course of the fight above and beyond the "boss is dead in X seconds" point that both you and Wuga brought up.


Basically, the comparison comes in when we calculate the 'worth' of those 3 seconds you spent casting Invocation when you could have just dpsed with them with IW passive.

The side bonus to the math is actually showing how IW is free of any time clamps, since unlike Inv and RoP it does not have a 'duration' and does not need to be 'activated' to be used.

---------- Post added 2013-03-06 at 02:49 PM ----------

But wouldn't it then also be the same amount of downtime given 60 seconds of IW's passive? Like this: (56/60) * 1.06 = 0.99?

As I explained earlier, you are not accounting for the fact that you actually have inherent 'downtime' for RoP and Inv since you spend time casting them. That downtime offsets the "raid wide downtime" that you are attempting to parse into the calculations.


In simpler terms.

Say you have 60 seconds of DPS time on the boss. Now you spend 3 seconds of the 60 "casting" your Invocation, then 57 seconds of actual DPS time on the boss. Due to your use of Invocation, you actually do not have 100% uptime, however, with IW since you are not casting anything, you will in fact have 100% uptime.


Edit:
I would preface that by saying, yes, if the downtime is in fact independent of "cast time downtime", then the calculation works out as you mention.

Though that is precisely the special edge case Wuga brought up. While the idea holds true, I do not think that edge case is as prolific as to warrant a general statement.

It is applicable for situations such as a boss dying, or some form of boss transition where he will become immune/unattackable after X seconds, where X is known and clamped.

[royals]

It seems to me that a lot of these calculations assume several things that dont really pan out. You need to compare apples to apples.

If you are not doing dps then you are not doing DPS. It does not matter if you have invocation active or not. You need to calculate what IW will be if you do not cast for 10 seconds as well, and I assume only the 6% benefit becasue modeling on usage is more complex.

Invocation: dmult = [ 50 / (60 + 3) ] * 1.15 = 0.9127
IW: dmult = [ 53 / (63) ] * 1.06 = .892
Nothing: dmult = [ 53 / (63) ] = .841

While I agree with this remember you are actually not comparing apples to apples. You are comparing close to optimal use of Invo vs. a sub optimal use of IW. And they are still coming out almost even (within .2 dmult).

I'm not trying to fanboi this new idea but contribute a counter argument. With all of the passive/random dmg going out in this raid tier if you could use your IW close to optimally it should come out with a much higher dmult, as mentioned by Zomgdps above.

[zomgDPS]

I'm not trying to fanboi this new idea but contribute a counter argument.

Actually, IW usage is not new. It has been pretty well documented since beta. I'm quite surprised myself that many mages seem to be somewhat still confused about it.


That being said, I was thinking just last week how RoP and Invocation get all the 'airtime' as far as the level 90 talents go. I just hope people can consider IW as well. It is not a great talent, sure, and for certain things (like Arcane) it doesn't really work. But it is still a level 90 talent and I just don't think people discuss it enough. At least, as much as the other two.

[royals]

Actually, IW usage is not new. It has been pretty well documented since beta. I'm quite surprised myself that many mages seem to be somewhat still confused about it.


That being said, I was thinking just last week how RoP and Invocation get all the 'airtime' as far as the level 90 talents go. I just hope people can consider IW as well. It is not a great talent, sure, and for certain things (like Arcane) it doesn't really work. But it is still a level 90 talent and I just don't think people discuss it enough. At least, as much as the other two.

Interesting... I say "new idea" as it is new to me. I've always been under the assumption it was best to use only under "Garalon" type fights with predictable aoe dmg. I feel well read on the forums and am surprised that I haven't seen such math etc. until now. Consider me enlightened.

[Wuga]

Funnily enough, that is the ONLY example where what you say works, since it is an edge case where you have, as I mentioned previously, 'clamped time'.
"Boss about to die in X seconds" is a very specific edge case where a lot of rules go out the window since there is no "time" after that, hence, no opportunity to balance things out.

In pretty much all other situations, what I say holds true.

The math is actually pretty general (but yes, sensitive to time frame and in particular being able to evo every 63s), for example any of the following will yield the same basic conclusion:
- 10s of movement (not necessarily contiguous) every 60s
- 10s phase change
- 10s sitting in iceblock soaking something
etc.

I guess in the end it's not that big of a deal since in most cases, the difference is really not that large unless you go full derp and chain evocate or something...

[zomgDPS]

The shield pops if you cough at it now.
I'm trying to think to my PTR testing if there is a boss in the new tier that doesn't have some form of raid damage with which you can take advantage of IW.
None come to mind now.


IW can be very useful this tier. I'd recommend it.

[Sturmcantor]

While I agree with this remember you are actually not comparing apples to apples. You are comparing close to optimal use of Invo vs. a sub optimal use of IW. And they are still coming out almost even (within .2 dmult).

I'm not trying to fanboi this new idea but contribute a counter argument. With all of the passive/random dmg going out in this raid tier if you could use your IW close to optimally it should come out with a much higher dmult, as mentioned by Zomgdps above.

Enlighten me as to why you would have to stop dps for 10 seconds while using Invo outside of recasting Evo but not have to stop dps for 10 seconds while using IW.

That being said, even only being able to use the active part of IW every 75 seconds (3 cds) is better than perfect Invo or RoP. Only fight I can think of where you wouldn't be able to do that I've done so far (first 5 N) is the very end burn phase of Horridon (post Jalak dying.) Most fights can be used more often than that. Will try it out tonight.

[royals]

Enlighten me as to why you would have to stop dps for 10 seconds while using Invo outside of recasting Evo but not have to stop dps for 10 seconds while using IW.

I said I agreed with you talking about down time. But your math was optimally using evo while only considering using IW as a passive and not ever popping it. The .2 dmult for evo coming ahead on your maths is comparing an optimal use evo vs. a sub optimal use IW that is all. Downtime is Downtime I agree with that completely. If during that same time you pop your ward effectively its dmult should come out quite a bit higher.

-------------
I see you edited as I was typing to confirm what I was implying ;p

[ArchitechSK]

The comment also struck a chord with me

The two mitigating factors here are your never really doing zero dps during the "wasted globals" and that the simple math, as pointed out above, assumes that your not castingfir 4 secs while under rune of power and cast at 100% uptime with incanters at 6%.

however there is something to the math of you dig deeper. If you assume 40% of our damage occurs during all globals (such as channeling invocation) you are active 95% of the fight length and cast 1 non damaging global a minutes ( blink or such) i am currently estimating that you need to Spend 16 globals not casting under invocation for the passive on incanters to be superior.

There may be (small) legs to this, but maybe not as big as estimated. I think te biggest value here is if you can ashore a 30% from invests for every combustion. That seems like it might have lots of legs.

[terminaltrip421]

not a math guy but I took incanters ward for the passive with the added bonus of being a tiny damage absorb and found that if casting IW after and while frost bubble is still active the wardw ill absorb first leaving you with the damage bonus and still have your frost bubble active.

[Stingray]

A few people bring up good arguments, but I think I see what Zomg is getting at, he's just not doing a great job of explaining it IMO. Assuming that you're not able to DPS for a certain % of the time, there's going to be a cutoff point at which point the time you spend casting Evocation (for your Invocation) isn't worth it, vs just using IW passive instead and forgetting about the whole thing.

If you're looking at a 1-minute timespan, that cutoff point is that if you're only able to "DPS" for 38 seconds out of every 60, then just using the IW passive would have been better: (note that for the Invocation scenario, "DPS"'ing counts in time to cast Evocation of course)

IW: (38 / 60) * 1.06 = 0.67133
Invocation: ((38-3) / 60) * 1.15 = 0.670833

[FmK]

Say you only managed to spend 50 out of the 60 seconds of the Invocation buff DPSing the boss, your final damage multiplier (dmult) would be (assuming no haste):


dmult = [ 50 / (60 + 3) ] * 1.15 = 0.9127

So you will actually loose 8.8% damage multiplier!! Meaning it was not even worth casting Invocation in the first place!

you are comparing a bit wrong in here i believe.. let me try to explain

if you dont do anything and dps the boss for 60 seconds the math will be this:
(60/60)*1= 1.000

now if you have invocation:
(60/60+3)*1.15 = 1.09

but you are saying you only dpsed the boss for 50 seconds right? well during those 50 seconds with or without evocation you dps time would be 50sec.

no buffs at all your damage would be this:
(50/60)*1=0.833

now with invocation:
(50/63)*1.15=0.913
(47/60)*1.15=0.900

so it is actually better to cast invocation than do nothing

now lets assume just useing the passive from IW:
(50/60)*1.06=0.883

you have to compare the time you dpsed from both cases to see which one is better..

[royals]

you are comparing a bit wrong in here i believe.. let me try to explain

-mathsnip-
..

Again, I fully agree and see that both are quite close in those comparisons and IW falls slightly behind over that minute. But This is comparing optimal use of invo w/ only using the passive portion of IW (Sub Optimal). If you used the on use bonus of popping your IW, which should be easily doable on most every fight in this raid tier, you should come out on top with IW.

[Stingray]

Again, I fully agree and see that both are quite close in those comparisons and IW falls slightly behind over that minute.

2-3% behind, that's not actually very close, for the purposes of what's being discussed here.

[Deleted]

IW passive is a constant 1.06 modifier no matter how long you dps for.
Invo is a constant 1.0952 assuming dps'ing for the full duration, which is 63 secs (pre-cast not allowed). In a 60s period, the modifier is 1.0925.
RoP is a constant 1.1220 assuming dps'ing for the full duration, which is 61.5 secs (pre-cast not allowed). In a 60s period, the modifier is 1.1213.

The effective point at which RoP and Invo are equal to IW can be calculated ((x-1.5)/x)*1.15=1.06 for RoP and ((x-3)/x)*1.15=1.06 for Invo. This is assuming precasting RoP/Invo is not allowed.

The point at which Invo reaches 1.06 effectivity is 38.3 seconds.
The point at which RoP reaches 1.06 effectivity is 19.2 seconds

BOTTOMLINE:
If you can ONLY dps in time fragments shorter than 38.3 seconds AND can't pre-cast Invo, only then will IW passive be better.
If you can ONLY dps in time fragments shorter than 19.2 seconds AND can't pre-cast RoP, only then will IW passive be better.

EDIT: These values are with 0 haste and no pre-cast allowed.

[FmK]

2-3% behind, that's not actually very close, for the purposes of what's being discussed here.

Yeah but this is comparing agaisnt only useing the passive.. things may be dif. with fully usage of the buff

[Proakryt]

Assuming that you're not able to DPS for a certain % of the time, there's going to be a cutoff point at which point the time you spend casting Evocation (for your Invocation) isn't worth it, vs just using IW passive instead and forgetting about the whole thing.

This is a very good point and I agree that the idea overall has merit. Having more variety in talent choices is good for us and considering that IW can also be popped for on demand burst adds to its appeal. Each talent will do better in different situations because of how boss mechanics work. We can discuss generalities all we want but each boss will be a bit of unique situation with adds/phases and burst so understanding the trade-off you discuss becomes very important in choosing optimal talents per boss.

Edit:

This

says it best with math included. Although IW activation will make comparisons much more complex

[Tickspoon]

In addition to the original point being wrong, I'll add that any math which assume 0 DPS during Evocation is wrong.

[Proakryt]

So if I've always been good at rune of power, how big of a dps loss will the passive of IW be for me? I play frost.
Also, could someone give a list of when IWcan be activated on fights this tier? Much appreciated.

Better to use invocation for frost TBH. More Mobile, More forgiving and performs better with haste stacking that is frost

[royals]

I would but I hate invocation with a fiery burning passion. Is the cast time reduction making it more fun? If I want to not use invocation still, which is the best alternative? I'm sick of planting my feet constantly.

Well if you don't want to plant your feet IW would be the only option. I think the Invo changes make it feel much better, especially for frost considering haste effects bring the cast time down even lower. RoP is going to make you plant your feet far more than Invo that is for certain.