Mage's evocation: working as intended?
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jul 5th 2007 at 1:05PM
We feel evocate is working as it is intended: it's simply highly dependent on how much spirit the mage has. Unfortunately, many mages seem not to like spirit that much and would rather spend their gem slots and enchants on other stats. This is fine, everyone has the freedom to choose what stats they want to focus on. Whereas in the past we forced a lot of spirit onto the mage's tier sets so that they would have good mana regen, to leave more room for flexibility and choice we have replaced a lot of that spirit with gem slots in recent gear.
Mages, on the other hand, say that to maximize their DPS and justify their use in a raid, they're required to stack gear and gems that eschew spirit and add to their spell damage, thereby rendering Evocation useless. But if they want decent returns from Evocation, and enough mana regeneration to keep them going in long fights, they have to sacrifice their spot on the damage charts in order to equip more spirit gear. To this Aeus responds:
No one's asking anyone to gimp themselves; just making it clear that choices have to be made when it comes to certain aspects.
So, Mages, what do you think? Is Evocation working as intended -- or does it just not give Mages these days enough staying power if they're trying to keep to the top of the DPS charts?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Quoi Jul 5th 2007 1:21PM
Get a green staff "of Spirit" and a like wand. Download Outfitter. Set it to swap to these when you evocate. Problem solved. Be thankful it's not still a 2nd tier talent in the arcane tree.
entendu Jul 5th 2007 1:11PM
I'm going to say that it all depends on what you want.
Do you want to stay near the top for long fights? Stack +spirit . . . you're not doing any damage when you're OOM.
Ok, so it gimps you ever-so-slightly on trash mobs. Welcome to my world as a raiding Warlock.
Sustained dps and burst dps are two different animals and two ends of a continuum. You can always have two sets of gear, a max-pew-pew set and an endurance dps set.
Joshua Ochs Jul 5th 2007 1:18PM
No, you can't be mini-gods. Everyone has to make choices and tradeoffs.
I mean, if we want to go nuts, I want a Warlock with stealth, pally bubbles, and plate armor. Sneak up on you, throw a bunch of DoTs, and bubble hearth. :-)
Squishy Jul 5th 2007 1:21PM
Better. Fater. Cheaper. Choose any two.
Better damage. Better regen. Choose any one.
I'm really surprised at the blue response. He gave a stupid answer. I don't know any mage that is going to waste gem slots with +spirit/+mana regen.
Evocation + pots + mana gems FTW.
Oh, and be sure to have one of those weapon combinations with high spirit and swap weapons during the evocation.
And when that fails? Pally judge wisdom and wand the sucker.
Mats Jul 5th 2007 1:22PM
stupid mages, get some "staff of the Imba spirit" enchant it with a +30 spirit enchant, and macro it with Evocate, you will with ease get yourself 100 spirit more during evocate then normal.
Mages are dolts: Confirmed
Lizardking63 Jul 5th 2007 2:23PM
The cooldown is already ridiculous enough. So, let's make it even worse. Now, you wait 8 minutes to be able to use it and it doesn't even give you enough mana to cast a spell. Woot for spells that suck.
Jaz Jul 5th 2007 1:24PM
I don't really have a problem as a mage running out of mana since i use mage armor for endurance fights.
I get about 4500 mana with an evocate. Theres many things i do to help my mana stay high like properly burning my mana gems when i am down the max amount of the gem so the cool down would be gone by the time i can burn another one.
It also helps that i am an alchemist with the sweet sweet alchemists stone that gives me just as much mana as an evocate with a super mana pot.
Cosu Jul 8th 2007 3:39AM
I currently have a lvl 45 mage with about 4k mana more or less. And evocation, althought it has 1500% mana regen, DOESN'T fill my mana up. So imho evocation SHOULD be buffed.
john Jul 19th 2007 4:20PM
lol @#2.
but really with mana jades and pots and demonic runes and shadow priest and pally blessings that give mp5 if you can't keep your mana up it's time to quit.
for me every boss fight is 2-5 super mana pots depending on how long it is.
last curator fight i had 80% mana at the end but i did drink 2 pots during it.
CVJ Jul 7th 2007 12:51PM
Problem is mages go "zomguberdps" in raids that they have level 50 hit points and barely survive in 25 man raids when they make a mistake.
They try and maximize dps and always forget that you can do better dps when you have mana and are alive.
Quoi Jul 5th 2007 1:27PM
@4
You are the dolt. 30 spirit enchant? Doesn't exist.
Sweeping generalizations are FTL.
CVJ Jul 5th 2007 1:27PM
Problem is mages go "zomguberdps" in raids that they have level 50 hit points and barely survive in 25 man raids when they make a mistake.
They try and maximize dps and always forget that you can do better dps when you have mana and are alive.
Tridus Jul 5th 2007 1:28PM
Meanwhile, Priests would do anything to get something as powerful as Evocation. You want to talk about crappy mana regen? Try Shadowfiend out as a Holy Priest sometime.
What these complainers seem to be saying is that they want mana to be infinite even when stacking gear that doesn't aid mana regen. Mages already have the best casting regen (Mage Armor) and the best activate regen (Evocation) in the game.
Just get some Spirit, folks. Its not difficult.
Mats Jul 5th 2007 1:37PM
@7
True, that should be +20, my typo there.
Scruffy Jul 5th 2007 1:47PM
@9
That's what feral druids are for. They're not going to need that innervate. :D
Seper Jul 5th 2007 2:18PM
Like every class (as people have already commented and same as the GM). Every class has to give up certain things for others.
In my case I just recently switched from a resto druid to a feral tank bear. I spent 2 days finding all the gear ill need. And another week picking enchants and gems. I would probably say.. 3-4 hours for picking the gear.. and then 7-10 hours picking gems and enchants.
Every class has to do that. It is possible to balance and have spirit and dmg. Just like every class.. instead of trying to better yourself.. its easier to complain to the GM's and hope they change it.
When I was resto I concentrated on Int and Healing on my gear. Then I fixed my low stam by throwin stam chants and stam gems into slots.
So mages should suck it up and L2P.
AvidCasualGamer Jul 5th 2007 1:56PM
What's the purpose of the spell? The point is to restore the mages mana pool. The spell doesn't do that, it only restores "most". So the spell "mostly" works.
Tridus Jul 5th 2007 2:38PM
@11
True, I heart my bears. :D
MarioBro Jul 5th 2007 1:59PM
As already said, weapon swap with "of spirit" staff/wand FTW. I get back about 5K mana from evocation.
Mages get a lot from spirit. A talent and mage armor both give regen while casting. Several ways arround the five second rule (clearcasting, pyro gives a tick of regen because of long cast time as well as being very efficient). Evocation. For long fights there's good reason to swap out a few pieces of gear that have extra spirit. An oom mage deals no damage.
Halicante Jul 5th 2007 2:01PM
eh evocation mechanic is dudu. It should scale with something useful to mages, like int. It's retarded that I have to equip Nightstaff of the Everliving and a green of spirit wand to evocate. Doing that restores most of my mana pool (about 8k mana iirc), but it's just a dumb mechanic and the weapon swaps use up some global cooldowns that could be better utilized elsewhere. It would also be nice if it had a shorter cooldown, like 4 or 5 min as opposed to 8 min.
Mana gems are a problem as well. The highest rank one restores 1136-1364 mana...that's not much in the great scheme of things.
I would laugh hard at a mage stacking spirit gear. That's just....bad. Mages are for dps. Standing around regenerating mana with the 5 second rule is laughable. That's the time to cast 2 fireballs. Learning to manage mana pools is part of being a mage. We don't have the envious lifetap ability, so it is necessary to think and plan ahead. People who can't manage their mana pools with any semblance of intelligence usually end up frost (not all frosties...just the ones who go "I'm frost because the I won't go oom and I'll have a half full mana bar at the end of the fight!" So bad.) or deep arcane because of the intellect expanding talent of arcane mind which lets them pay less attention to their mana pools.
Mana gems, evocate, pots, and if you're lucky, a shadow priest, will keep even a deep fire mage with a more than adequate mana pool to do any fight in the game as long as you think about when and where to correctly use these tools.
@CVJ: Mages who don't survive in 25 man raids usually overnuke and need to stop sucking. An extra bit of stamina won't help them when they get hit for 25k crushing blows....same for priests really. We're just squishy. An extra bit of stam isn't worth the tradeoff in dps and is unlikely to save an overnuker.