Buff Incanter's Flow

Classes Mage
1

I think we & blizzard both know ROP is not a very popular spell among us. Some people are saying get rid of it & buff our base damage. I think the issue is that Incanter’s Flow is such a loss in every scenario you play it in. My character sims 68k dps as fire. With Incanters Flow it sims around 57k. Its a clear loss even if you dont play ROP perfectly. Here is the problem with Incanter’s flow.

  1. When you use Combustion, Arcane Surge, or IV… you get a free Rune. meanwhile those spells do not interact with IF.
  2. Incanter’s Flow is at a minimum a 10% dps loss when ROP is played decently. Having a talent choice in both AOE/ST be that big of a loss is a huge issue regardless of ROP’s difficult nature (risk vs reward).
  3. I personally believe our class is tuned with the concept that mages take ROP & we play it to perfection. Warcraft logs (vault heroic dps statistics) show Arcane, Frost, and Fire all top 10 when you look at 95 percentile (aka top players). Meanwhile at the 25th Percentile. None of our specs are top 10. Clearly Mage is more difficult to play vs other classes. I think that has a lot to do with ROP.
  4. The top 300 parses on Vault of Incarnates does not have 1 single person playing IF.

The Potential solutions:

  1. Make IF more viable by buffing it. Make Combustion/IV/Arcane Surge set IF to max spell power for X seconds & rework its minimum / maxium values to be theoretically 5-3% of ROP damage.
  2. Reduce ROP spell power value. Buff each spec’s spell damage accordingly. We dont need a buff, we need each spec to be less punishing.
  3. Remove IF/ROP completely. Give Mages a buff to base damage.
16 Likes
2

It’s supposed to be a loss. There is never a time it should be equal or even close to RoP.

Heroic logs mean absolutely nothing. Even then 25 percentile should be ignored entirely.

No. IF is too easy to use and therefore should be behind RoP by a fair margin.

No, This kills mage viability in content that matters.

Again this kills mages viability in high end content so no.

3

It does need a buff, but I think people underestimate places that it’s generally better to take it. Yes, RoP will always be better in perfect ideal situations where everything goes your way…but that’s not realistic. For fights like sennarth and primal council I legitimately believe IF is better for the average pulls.

4

I whole-heartedly disagree. Just because Incanters flow is easy does not mean it can’t be viable. Many classes have simple rotations are are still viable. You don’t need to make ROP extremely better. Top 5% of parses will still use ROP. The key is to make the class more enjoyable for the less sweaty population. ROP is extremely punishing and its also extremely bad design to tune a class around a 45 second CD that requires you to stay stationary. Mages should be competitive with Incanter’s flow. Also Heroic logs are a GREAT example of bad play through extremely good play. Only 5% of the wow’s population does mythic content and class/spec representation is not good enough at the moment to be used for data. We dont have much else in terms of data. You should ABSOLUTELY NOT ignore 25th percentile. Look at rogue DPS through the percentiles. Mages CLEARLY drop off as quality of play goes down showing how important it is to optimize ROP for high DPS. ROP should be a top tier talent with risk/reward when taking it over IF. Right now the risk is SOOO minimal that it doesnt matter if you suck because IF is severely undertuned.

6 Likes
5

You are welcome to your opinion.

It already is viable.

Rop is already better.

All good mages will still use RoP.

Its a 40% damage amp it should be punishing to not use it properly.

Yet Arcane and Fire have some of the best damage profiles because of RoP.

Mages should not be competitive with a set it and forget it talent agaisnt a talent that requires fight knowledge and set up.

Heroic logs are a terrible source of information because the fights are so short you cant actually get a true gauge of the specs/classes abilities.

I would love your source for that because its wrong.

Actually you should. People at a 25% percentile are either extremely under geared or not even doing a basic rotation.

IF isnt undertuned, you just dont understand how much Arcane and Fires damage profiles work.

6

Incanter’s flow is perfectly viable the level of content you do.

7

This.

Mage balancing is built around the assumption that EVERY mage takes Rune of Power. This is because the 2 talents aren’t remotely balanced. Rune of Power is vastly stronger in every scenario.

This is bad talent design. The whole point of having a wobbler talent like this is so players have choice. The problem is Rune of Power is so much better there’s no longer real choice. Every mage MUST take Rune of Power to be competitive.

Incanter’s Flow should be buffed to the point where players face a meaningful decision over whether to take it or Rune of Power.

6 Likes
8

I think a minimum of 10% and a max of 25% would fix it almost entirely.

4 Likes
9

I think people putting some minor effort into figuring out how to use RoP would fix this entirely.

10

They should remove IF because its a dead talent. RoP should be baseline…

Then maybe a talent to buff it.

2 choices on 1 node:

  1. Blink/Shimmer moves an existing rune to your destination.
  2. Alter time freezes a rune until AT fades. Freeze = no buff, no duration loss, no cooldown ticking

Both can only happen once per rune.

Would overall be a nice QoL buff to make rune easier to play without buffing mage too much.

AT one especially, in case you use rune at a bad time/get unlucky with mechanics. Some of the RNG can be frustrating.

11

If RoP is made baseline and IF is removed, some Mage specs that can play Incanter’s Flow in PVP (because it is un-nerfed there while RoP is still nerfed, so their ratio is different from PVE) would lose such possibility and that should not happen. Even the suggested Blink relocation of Rune would not help, as to live in PVP against melee Mages need to run constantly and they would run out of relocated Rune in split seconds. Alter freezing its effect would not help as well and would even be harmful for trying to do burst while also getting damaged and using Alter as a defensive.

As for the IF vs RoP debate - IF should definitely be competitive at least in some scenarios. Having a choice node where one of choices is constantly worse is not a good design.

Supposedly, good balance between them would be if Incanter’s Flow average dps gain would be better at movement heavy fights and RoP dps gain would be better at more stationary / boss-vulnerability-phases etc fights. Something like:
IF is 1-5% better dps in heavy mobility fights
RoP is 1-5% better dps in all other cases (if properly managed)
This would at least give IF its niche and also allow to play it in fights with RNG mechanics, where running out of Rune could be a larger dps loss than just speccing IF anyway.

Though, I’m not opposed to just removing both and compensating with increase to baseline damage or other burst CDs.

3 Likes
12

All three mage specs take rop in pvp currently.

It is competitive for what it is. A set it and forget it take t.

A passive talent should always be behind a talent that requires setup.

You clearly don’t have any idea how mage damage profiles work.

Yet I and many mages who understand how mage damage profiles work are opposed.

13

All three mage specs take rop in pvp currently.

Watch Venruki, Aeghis and some other top PVP Mages. They play with Incanter’s Flow.

It is competitive for what it is. A set it and forget it take t.
A passive talent should always be behind a talent that requires setup.

A talent that is in a choice node should have its use case. If it is just worse and the choice is “play RoP or lose dps in any competitive PVE environment”, it is not a real choice.

You clearly don’t have any idea how mage damage profiles work.

I’m aware of burst profile for most specs, but that does not contradict what I wrote. They can make IF competitive and reach the suggested values no mater what profile Mages would use, one of the options is suggested in this thread - IF can be overcharged to max stacks during burst CDs to be more compatible with burst profile.

Yet I and many mages who understand how mage damage profiles work are opposed.

From what I see, there are only you and several other people who support Rune and most other Mages are neutral / against it. People who post on forums in general have different parcing percentages, so claiming that “skilled mages want to play with Rune” is an overstatement.

1 Like
14

You can’t say IF is competitive & say that all 3 mage specs take ROP in PVP. Its dead not competitive. A talent tree with choices that are never used because its never better is a bad tree. You have to make options viable. AOE talents are dead for ST but they’re viable for M+ or AOE fights. That is good design. Creating choice with scenarios where one could be better than others.

Incanter’s Flow needs to be viable in some sort of situations. Its currently unused & dead.

3 Likes
15

Yet in awc they were playing rop. If some are using it it just proves my point that it is competitive.

IF is there for world content or for people that aren’t good enough to use rop. Mages are balanced around taking rop.

But it does. What you wrote literally would make mages unplayable in higher end content.

You’re trying to reward bad play and that’s not a good thing.

And the majority of the mages complaining about rop are flat out bad. They complain about it because they don’t known how to bait mechanics or timings if fights.

It’s 100% a learn to play issue.

1 Like
16

I can and I did. Competitive doesn’t mean it’s better.

It’s competitive for what it is. A flat damage increase passive that takes zero brainpower to use.

There is a choice. You either play the east talent which takes zero setup or you play the harder talent and do better damage.

It is viable. It’s viable in world content. Pvp, and any fight a mage is terrible and can’t manage rop

17

Yet in awc they were playing rop. If some are using it it just proves my point that it is competitive.

Setup based comp Mages play RoP and sustained damage Mages like Frost play Incanter’s Flow. That contradicts your point of

All three mage specs take rop in pvp currently

and does not make Incanter’s Flow competitive in PVE (which is the topic about).

IF is there for world content or for people that aren’t good enough to use rop. Mages are balanced around taking rop.

As far as I remember, Incanter’s Flow was introduced as a replacement to Incanter’s Ward as a competitive option for all game modes, not just open-world PVE. The reason why it is currently behind is Blizzard continuously buffing RoP (from 15 to 40% plus auto-drop on major CD in Shadowlands plus switch to burst oriented profiles) while forgetting that Incanter’s Flow exists (no changes at all). So, they should recall that and make them competitive again.

But it does. What you wrote literally would make mages unplayable in higher end content.
You’re trying to reward bad play and that’s not a good thing.

It does not, because I wrote the goal itself, not the way. How that can be achieved with Mage’s burst oriented profile is a different question, but solutions are definitely possible. When IF is 1-5% dps gain on mobility fights (where you might lose uptime of Rune anyway) and 1-5% behind in other cases, they are decently balanced between each other:
You play RoP perfectly? You get 3-5% more dps than with Incanter’s Flow.
You play RoP at mediocre level? You get 0-2% more dps than with Incanter’s Flow.
Fight has lots of mobility / RNG mechanics and you lose RoP uptime even if you play at best level? You get 1-5% more dps via using Incanter’s Flow.

Such distribution allows both to give Incanter’s Flow its niche in competitive PVE play (heavy mobility fights) and makes it a viable replacement to Rune, but still rewards playing Rune of Power properly with bigger dps.

Giving supposedly mobile spec possibility to play the way it was intended =/= rewarding bad play. If you do not believe me, read Mage’s class description here:

And the majority of the mages complaining about rop are flat out bad. They complain about it because they don’t known how to bait mechanics or timings if fights.
It’s 100% a learn to play issue.

Many Mages who complain about it want to play Mage as a mobile glass cannon it was intended to play, not because of RoP difficulties. See description above.

3 Likes
18

If the discussion is about If in pve why are you bringing up pvp?

It is competitive. It’s a viable option for people that aren’t good enough to use rop. Aside from frost both specs need to be planted to maximize damage anyways.

So no they should not reward bad play by buffing IF

IFs niche is for bad players not high mobility fights.

Mages are a high mobile class. RoP doesn’t change that. Every class minus bm hunters stands still during their CDs

That’s an assumption. Please post your mage.

19

not even slightly true lol.

20

It was in SL.

Even then this is apparently a pve discussion.