Incanters Ward - Is it really viable?

[Deleted]

i tried incanters ward on most fights and its just worse than invocation overall. with more haste its even easier to get your invocation buff and it feels less clunky.

[Redtoxin]

Incanter's ward seems like it would be best played with people who know the fights down pat and there is damage going out at a constant rate to help ensure 100% uptime...

Personally like RoP and Invo better, but I'm a baddy.

[Kiry]

I use IW in fights where damage is nearly consistent. Stone Dogs, Garaj, Vizier to name a few. Innvo for the others. I'm not super fond of RoP, but that' smostly due to my play style. I've always been a highly mobile mage from Vanilla to current, so grounding myself is...."odd".

[Vakna]

I use IW on every fight, I extremely dislike RoP just because you are forced to standstill, and Inv feels really horrible having to stand and not dps for 6 seconds every 40, especially when lots of boss mechanics are unfriendly towards it.

I think (or rather know from experience) even if there is no constant damage going out, the passive 6% from IW is perfectly fine to do great dps assuming you're not on the cutting edge of progression, and by that I mean if your guild is aiming for purple rankings. When there is constant or predictable damage, that 30% burst can give you some really hefty ignites, and by extension - combustions.

[mrgreenthump]

I use IW on every fight, I extremely dislike RoP just because you are forced to standstill, and Inv feels really horrible having to stand and not dps for 6 seconds every 40, especially when lots of boss mechanics are unfriendly towards it.

I think (or rather know from experience) even if there is no constant damage going out, the passive 6% from IW is perfectly fine to do great dps assuming you're not on the cutting edge of progression, and by that I mean if your guild is aiming for purple rankings. When there is constant or predictable damage, that 30% burst can give you some really hefty ignites, and by extension - combustions.

you dont need to be in cutting edge of progression for you to care abt dps.. infact less you raid as a guild, more important your dps is to down bosses in timely manner..

[Vakna]

you dont need to be in cutting edge of progression for you to care abt dps.. infact less you raid as a guild, more important your dps is to down bosses in timely manner..

I didn't say I don't care about dps, I just said that it's not important enough to switch out to a talent you feel less comfortable with for a questionably slight increase in damage done.

And as a reference, I'm usually 1st or 2nd dps in my raid team, using Incanters Ward on every fight. We're progressing heroics and having no issues with enrage timers or killing bosses before our healers run out of mana. So no, unless you're pushing world firsts or such high rankings that it requires you to seriously maximize your raids damage output, you can run with IW and still do some great dps.

[Deleted]

i really like IW and i'd love to use it on every fight but nearly always your first combustion will be significant smaller (because you don't yet have the dmg-buff up). So assuming that the first combustion with pre-pot an all proccs is the most important one, i don't see any way IW can beat invo/rop on most fights.

[Deleted]

I would only use it on Stone guards (if jade is up), will of the emperor hc, and garalon. All other fights I use invocation on.

[FireKenesis]

I've tried all 3, 90 talents on most bosses, and I find I use IW for Spirit Kings, Elegon (ROP is just too buggy), , Imperial Vizier Zor'lok and on Garalon (constant raid wide damage from Pheromones and moving pretty much most of the fight).
I find ROP fine for Guardians, Feng, Spirit Binder and Will of the Emperor. And in HOF for Blade Lord and Wind Lord.

Guess its down to preference, and also if you know the bosses well enough you can tell when unavoidable damage is incoming which will pop IW and give you the spellpower debuff. Just wish the shield lasted longer.

[Therec]

IW is actually pretty useful on 3 of the 4 ToES fights.

Tsulong you're taking constant damage during the night phase, making it pop immediately every time. During the day phase the adds die too fast to make use of any lvl 90 talent (although there's no movement so you could use rune). However the night phase is much more important for your dps.

Lei Shi is annoying for dps, as Hide drops everyone's numbers dramatically. However during Get Away! you're taking constant damage while trying to do the most damage to her (and constantly moving), so IW will proc immediately.

Sha of Fear you are moving too much on the outer platforms (picking up orbs) to use rune, and you do not want to stand around for 5-6 seconds casting an evocate when Death Blossom is looming and the tank has to get back quickly so that Sha doesn't do it's reaching attack. For the main platform I just stand in a shadow crash to proc it, and the outer platform it'll reliably proc due to the add's rotating attacks.

Outside ToES the only fight that I really see a benefit over the other talents is Garalon.