Incanter's Absorption really could benefit from its own thread. It was often dismissed as just a gimmicky 'Good for Val'kyr Twins in TotGC' talent by some for a while, but that's changing: We're seeing the talent become extremely powerful and useful in many important Icecrown encounters.

IA been sporadically discussed in several threads, but lets consolidate and flesh out the discussion here: mechanics, theorycrafted DPS values, ways to leverage the proc and encounter-specific tips and tricks. There's lots of raid-wide damage on many Icecrown fights so far:

- Blood-Queen Lana'thel (Shadow Damage Aura)
- Festergut (Shadow Damage Aura)
- Sindragosa (Frost Damage Aura)
- The Lich King (Infest, frequently cast raid-wide Shadow damage)

Some of the things that can proc IA: Could also be summed up as 'anything that absorbs' - But there's a few items easily overlooked or forgotten::

- PW: Shield (Disc Priest)
- PW: Shield (Holy Priest, separate category due to much lower absorb value)
- Sacred Shield (Paladin)
- Frost and Fire Ward (Mage Class)
- Protection of Ancient Kings (Val'anyr proc)
- Divine Aegis (Disc Priest heals, after a crit)
- Mana Shield (Mage)
- Mighty Magic Protection Potions
- What are the other major ones?

A specific concern with IA is: The talent can be great, but a Disc priests PW:S can make it amazing. Just how much value does the talent lose when you don't have a Disc priest around? The endwing bosses (BQL, PP) would ordinarily have Disc priests in most raids - so it shouldn't be too far fetched to assume access to that. Generally Disc Priests like to shield, and are happy to do it - it's their specs niche - so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle/surprise to your Disc priest if you make a shield request.

There's a few key questions:

- How does IA stack, and what are its rolling mechanics?
- Are there any other general mechanic quirks to IA's implementation?
- How much of a DPS upgrade per point is IA? How much does not having a Disc Priest in the raid affect that? What if you had 2 or 3 Val'anyrs in your raid instead of just 1?
- What situations is it worth only putting 1 or 2 points into the talent, instead of all 3?
- What talents from the bloated Arcane tree should be dropped dropped to pickup IA?

If you have encounter-specific IA tips, esoteric ways to maximise leverage of the proc, or have done some theorycraft/WOL investigations on the effectiveness of the talent under specific encounters and situations - consolidate it here with your findings!

Incanter's Absorption does not proc on Putricide, as both Mutated Plague and the abomination's AoE are considered "friendly damage".

Here is a log (not mine, it's one of the top ranked mages on WoL): as you can see, he had Sacred Shield up throughout the encounter, yet had only a single Incanter's proc, presumably when he took a slime pool hit: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis .

It may not be classable as a 'Major Absorption Method' but the Mighty Protection Potions can grant up to 6000 damage absorbed. I'm not sure if absorbs from this proc IA and there aren't any on my server's AH at the moment, I'll try and get hold of some for tonight unless someone else can confirm/deny it.

Edit: Confirmed

You missed Divine Aegis, coming from a disc priest. Not a huge effect but something you will see pretty frequently.

Pre-potting Mighty Absorption pots on Blood-Queen and Sindragosa would work very nicely. Would this mean a pre-potted Mighty Shadow Protection Potion (3/3 IA) is the best way to start the BQL fight? Currently a pre-potter ordinarily uses 15 second Haste / Wild Magic pots: then lose maybe ~2-3 seconds of the relevant buff using them whilst the tank is doing the countdown. A pre-potted Mighty Shadow/Frost Absorb will give more bang for your buck.

Furthermore, what type of absorb is used first - if you have a Disc shield (pre-pull) and a Mighty Absorb Potion Absorb buff? Even if the PW: S lasts ~10-15 seconds before the Protection Potion was eaten into, your trinkets / ring will still be midproc.

Mighty Shadow prot is4200 to 6000 dmg absorbed.

That's 630-900 SP for 10 seconds. I'm not sure how absorbs are prioritized (ie PWS > SS > potions?) but her first 1-2 shroud of sorrow ticks will eat the potion. In terms of stat points * time this is approximately equal to a speed pot, and better than a wild magic.

[Mighty Shadow Protection Potion]

Also, mighty shadow prot lasts 2 min, 1 min cooldown. So if you are able to time it this well, pop mighty shadow prot 1 min before pull. Then prepot with a speed as usual at the pull. You get benefit of both!

Jawesome.

I specced into 3/3 IA today. However we don't run a Disc priest (atleast in 10 player).

On lord marrowgar (10 player), IA can proc really good from Frostward and PWD, however due to that much movement the fight requires IA becomes less effective in this fight.

What i think where IA will really rock, are fights like BQL, Festergut etc, very low movement, and Aura Dmg.

@Saizul, isn't IA refreshing until you absorb nothing anymore? So with having PWD and Absorb Pot at pull + taking absorb pot u can "roll" the IA for atleast 20 sec. Which would be huge on fights where you start with with 4t10 and BL

I think answering the question about specifically how it "Rolls" is an important part to this thread. I constantly see IA refreshing but I am always curious if its overwriting with the newest absorb, even if that absorb might generate less spell power, or if they are "stacking" that is adding the amount until the buff falls off, or if it simply overwrites every time you absorb regardless of the scale of the damage absorbed.

I'm quite interested in knowing which best talents to drop from the tree for IA. I run with 2/3 (undecided if it would be better to max out or if it might get wasted) already, would have placed it in Magic Absorption myself for progression if I wasn't taking IA. Arcane Meditation, maybe? I've seen builds that also drop Arcane Barrage, but as there are few ICC fights where you spend most of your time just standing still, I'm reluctant to let this go.

(I've already specced out of Arcane Stability and Student of the Mind, which seems to be likely candidates. Or I guess keep [some] Arcane Stability but give up threat reduction or hit+reduced mana cost to keep first tier in tree at a minimum.)

"Rolling":

IA does not roll in the sense that ignites used to, or corruption does. Each time you absorb you gain a separate 10 second SP buff for the appropriate amount. When these overlap, they stack. Each falls off individually at the appropriate time. In other words, there is no disproportionate advantage to always keeping the buff up.

Example -
0:00 you absorb 100 damage. Total +15 SP
0:05 you absorb 200 damage. Total +45 SP
0:10 first IA falls off. Total +30 SP
0:15 second IA falls off. Total +0 SP

Spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is what I use. IMO no pushback protection is needed on the fights that matter, at least so far. This could change in the future. The flexibility of 36 yards is worth having. Arcane mind is a very weak DPS talent and I am willing to drop 1 point from it to get Arcane Barrage, which I simply find too useful too often to not take.

The max. of spelldamage (5% of your health) coult be reached by a Discpriest spamming Greater Heals (15-18k crit), a PW:S (5-6k) and Penance (4-5k/tick).
Divine Aegis grants you a shield absorbing 30% of the ammount healed.
If we assume a mage in raid envriornment has about 25k hp (correct me if I am wrong) the max. Spelldamage bonus is 1250. The damage that has to be absorbed to get this maximum is 8333.3
If you can find a cooperative Disc Priest, you can get hurt on purpose to increase your damage significantly.

Sorry for spelling mistakes and leaking maths.
(It´s late and I will check the thesises tomorrow in ICC 25)
So gn8 guys^^

Based on 25,000 HP

Incanter's Absorbtion 3/3 SP:

5% of 25,000 = 1250 Max SP HP wise.

1250 has to equal 15% of absorbtion from a shield.

One shield has to equal: 8,333 Damage Absorbtion.

Incanter's Absorbtion 2/3 SP:

5% of 25,000 = 1250 Max SP HP wise.

1250 has to equal 10% of absorbtion from a shield.

One shield has to equal: 12,500 Damage Absorbtion.

Based on 22,000 HP

5% of 22,000 = 1100 Max SP HP wise.

Incanter's Absorbtion 2/3 SP:

1100 SP requires a 11,000 HP Shield.

Incanter's Absorbtion 3/3 SP:

1100 SP requires a 7333 HP Shield.




I wonder how much priests are shielding atm and the scaling of Fire and Frost ward. As far as talents for IA 3/3 seems the best choice since you need a smaller shield, BUT is the extra talent in it worth more there than in another talent like magic attunement?

There's also been some talk about the Frost Warding talent proc counting as a free absorb. Assuming that is correct (and given a frost tick smaller than the ward amount), each Frost Ward cast should give you a ~50% chance of getting 2 absorbs instead of 1. That would bring the Frost Ward contribution closer to 20k dps, or an average dps increase of ~3.5% dps over 30 seconds.

On Sindragosa, that value should also go up if air phases eat into the Frost Ward cooldown.

My personal Experience from 10 Player Icc today:


Lord Marrowgar:

Got some shields, and played with frost ward, however due to that much movement i did, (eg. air Phase marrowgar whirles to you, or DPS a Bone spike out of range) i couldnt really benefit of the +Spelldmg most times.
--> Not that good on this fight

Lady Deathwhisper

You can use frost ward for frost volley and shields for Death and Decay. Pretty static fight.
--> It's ok, but for real dps increase you need the priest/pal shield

Saurfang
You will get shielded rarely, but wont take dmg in other ways

Festergut

Edit:
Sindragosa
IA is absolutely goodlike on this fight. I start with Frost ward and Frostpot. Maintain Frostward, and use another Frostpot + Frostward when P3 starts. It's definetely an insane dps increase and you won't go oom, and if, you can still use Evo in the Airface.

This is the only fight, i really enjoyed IA. You can start with a Shadow Pot, Pal Shield, Priest Shield, and your heals will have time to reshield you.

Rest:

The same you could say about Sindragosa and Arthas...
However you won't get shielded in such fights in 10 player atleast due to the stress of the encounters


My personal conclusion is, that IA is not good enough to compare against the 130 DPS you loose from other talents when you have no DISC Priest or Aura static DPS Fight.
IA is not good if you just use your own wards and have to move pretty much. (e.g. Marrowgar)

IA is good when you have a disc priest in your raid
IA is good an static fights containing BL Pull and/or Aura Spell-Dmg (festergut, arthas, sindragosa)


Tomorrow testing on sindragosa and arthas will follow, including some combat log analyses. This i think, will be the best way to show if the raidsituation IA fits in, or not.

As a side note, frost/fire ward's are particularly useful for proccing IA for those specced into Frost Warding. "Negated" damage is treated as an absorb by IA. Given the relatively small amount of damage most shields absorb relative to how much absorption you need to cap the spell power bonus, negated attacks are probably the only way to cap out on the SP bonus.

Also, for fights with regular (every ~23-38 seconds) raid fire or frost damage, you can try timing your wards so that they'll be off CD while IA is still up. Since ward's benefit from spell power, doing so allows your next ward to absorb slightly more damage.

An addon I have found very helpful indeed when using IA is Shield Monitor. This shows the amount of protection and time left in your shield as a progress bar, and works for Fire/Frost wards, Mana shield, Ice Barrier, PW:S and so on. I have found it very handy to know how much absorb is left in the shield, for example before I go stand in a fire with only a few hundred points of Fire Ward left. The author notes that it is potentially inaccurate for shields others cast on you (since their spellpower isn't available to the API).

On another note, it is possible that "out-of" mana shield might actually be useful in the late stage of some fights as a damage cooldown. Since with 2T10 the best DPS rotation isn't a horrible mana hog like ABspam was, it is possible to end up with a fair bit of mana nearing the end. So it might just be worth popping MS along with other remaining cooldowns for a final burn.

I don't have a log, but I was using Frost Ward on Toravon earlier and I'm pretty sure it fully negated the hit from a Whiteout. My SP spiked to the maximum (~4k) and frost ward stayed on me. Frost Warding certainly seems like an incredibly worthwhile talent even setting aside the immense value of a potentially very large chunk of your mana pool.

EDIT: I'd also like to call attention to potential uses of the Corroded Skeleton Key. It's a 6400hp absorb clicky on a 2M CD, so that's a +960 spell power use stackable with CDs in any fight with raid damage. Obviously not optimal on its own, but on top of that, it provides 228 stam = 2280 health = 2508 health with Kings = 125.4 additional cap on your IA. So in a fight with sufficient damage to ensure consumption of the shield and keep you IA absorb-capped (requires, per a previous post, around 8k absorbed every 10s = only 800 damage absorbed per second [easily met on fights like Sindragosa with a V'A healer]), we get a trinket that effectively gives 125 spell power with a 2-min CD Use: for 960sp for 10s. Add into this the extra survivability on a fight we're already assuming to have substantial raid damage, and the Skeleton Key may end up being rather spectacularly good for us.

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So you assume the fight itself already ensures IA being stacked fully for the whole fight (otherwise Stamina wouldn't grant passive SP) while also assuming you can use the 2min CD shield to grant you a 960 SP IA you wouldn't have gotten otherwise? Either of them is not going to be the case making the trinket subpar for damage purposes.

The Lich King is also shaping up to be a friendly IA fight. Arthas is pumping out a bunch of spells that will give free damage, but the most reliable and consistent one for IA uptime is Infest: Infest - Spell - World of Warcraft . Unavoidable raid damage every ~25 seconds, thus IA can get significant uptime from that spell spell alone. Not as good as Sindragosa or BQL due to their constant auras, but still impressive. During phase 2, Pain and Suffering - Spell - World of Warcraft is also cast often enough to have a good uptime. But the majority of the fight will be IA procs from Infest.

There aren't 3 better spare talents points to place in the Arcane tree currently. Fleshing out 5/5 Arcane Mind, Slow, (and arguably Magic Absorption) is unnecessary - when the opportunity cost is foregoing IA's ability to gain impressive uptime of anywhere between 40-100% for such important encounters.

A lot of us still have 2 points in IA and I see more people have started putting 3 points in it. The last point has to be taken from one of the useful talents and seems like people do it differently. So far I've seen people take that last point from Magic Attunment, Arcane Meditation, Arcane Mind, and Arcane Barrage. It would be nice to see a discussion on which is better.

I was thinking alot about this too, i removed 1 point in Slow and one in Arcane Subtlety, AS is OK, but I don't really have threat problems.

Edit:

What I'm rolling with >> The World of Warcraft Armory - Lynzh @ Kazzak - Talents