Wrath of the Lich King made a number of fundamental changes to the game, many of which went through so many iterations that it can be difficult to get the facts. You can find a summary of these changes as related to the Restoration Druid in this extensive FAQ!
As a Druid, I’ve written a lot about Innervate in the past, including two iterations of How to Get the Most out of Innervate and even an article on sharing your Innervate with an Arcane Mage. In these articles, I’ve detailed the thought process behind performing a weapon swap, either to a high Spirit weapon (in the case where an Innervate doesn’t completely fill your mana bar) or to a high Intellect weapon (so that you get the most mana back). It’s important to note that this logic is the same for anyone who receives an Innervate. If you don’t perform this sort of a weapon swap, you’re doing yourself (and the Druid who gave you the Innervate) a disservice.
I feel this is a topic worth reiterating because of a recent post by another blogger where she advocates not swapping weapons because:
You will get no benefit from switching, so don’t waste the money, the mats, or the bag space on keeping another enchanted weapon with you just for innervates.
The author goes on to give an example of a newly-minted 70 Priest in greens and dungeon blues who has 407 Intellect and 493 Spirit. She assumes this Priest won’t activate her Bangle of Endless Blessings and finds that the Priest gets back 9.3k mana — 800 more than the 8.5k mana she has. Her thought is that, after a certain gear level, Innervate refills your mana pool completely, making a weapon swap irrelevant. Even in this low level test case, the Priest is likely to spend the 800 “excess” of mana during the 20 seconds that she’s under the effects of Innervate. When you take into account the number of spells she’s likely to cast, this character actually won’t see a full mana bar at the end of her Innervate.
This assumes the player doesn’t activate her [Bangle of Endless Blessings], despite having it equipped. Were she to do so, she would get back 12k mana instead of the 9.3k she’s getting. Blowing through 3k mana is more difficult than 800, but even if we assume that she uses 2k of it, there’s still a 1k mana surplus that’s just going to poof into the Nether. But what if she were to consider an Intellect-based weapon swap? This is probably more relevant at a higher gear level than the test case above. The character’s gear is mostly blues and greens, so she likely wouldn’t have access to an alternate, high-Intellect weapon (or she’d need to use it for her main weapon).
To make this example more practical, let’s assume that the character can at least run Heroic Magister’s Terrace (prior to that, I can’t imagine she’d be likely to find herself in a situation where she might receive an Innervate). Let’s further assume that the character has two [Rod of the Blazing Light], a non-unique staff that drops from Vexallus. If she gems and enchants the first as her main weapon and the second to make it an Intellect weapon, she stands to gain 59.4 Intellect from swapping (with Blessing of Kings). If she’s gemmed for pure +Healing, this would be at a loss of 135 +Healing. During an Innervate, this 59.4 additional Intellect would expand her mana pool by 891 mana. This is approximately a 10% increase over the mana pool in the test case, even if we factor in the improved weapon. The 135 +Healing lost equates to the loss of 127 HP on a Rank 7 Greater Heal which, assuming a weapon swap, is free to cast.
Were she to use an addon like Caster Weapon Swapper to set the Intellect weapon as her “High Mana” option, she’d probably only expect to be swapped to that weapon for 5 seconds or so. Thus the comparison is a simple 891 MP5 vs. 135 +Healing. The additional mana afforded becomes more pronounced the better selection of weapons you have access to, though at a 15k mana pool, you’re more likely to see a return more along the lines of 5-7%.
Finally, I’d like to share a quote from well known Priest blogger Matticus from his article, Caster Weapon Swapper: An Essential Addon for Spellsurge Users:
High Mana Set
Weapon you have equipped coming into an encounter of some sort. If you want to seriously push yourself and excel, this is a kind of weapon which has a ton of intellect on it. Higher intellect means larger initial mana pool.
Essentially, if it’s a good idea to start a fight with a high Intellect weapon — for the temporary boost to your mana pool — then it must be true that you would do the same if you’re getting a new mana bar (as you do with Innervate).
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I am excited that BRK is back, though!
/cry I love you, ty for everything.
Oh noes, I’m being quoted! <3 Phae!
So what’s the highest possible amount of intellect that can be obtained from a weapon? (I’m assuming a staff with sockets and a +30 Int enchant applied).
@Matticus: I think the highest Intellect weapon is the [Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei] from Kil’jaeden in Sunwell Plateau, though I’d have to kill you if you got it and didn’t use it as your main weapon!
I use Outfitter to handle my weapon swaps. There’s an outfitter bar, which I’ve filled up with various sets. Of interest are PvP Resto, PvE Resto +heal, and PvE Resto mp5. The PvP set is what I use when I need stamina, PvE +heal for shorter fights, and PvE mp5 for long fights like Void Reaver (though sometimes, like for Hex Lord, I mix and match pieces on the spot).
I also have Outfitter set to not automatically change outfits. When I’m about to pop an Innervate, I click on the icon on the Outfitter bar for my set with the best +int weapon (which right now is PvE +heal). Since you can only change weapons in combat, it only changes the weapon, but will change everything else once you leave combat (the afterthought concept here is the winner for me). Once innervate is up, I click on the original set again.
Outfitter even has a scripting mechanism with it, so if you wanted, you could customize it to automatically cast Innervate on yourself when you switch to a given set.
Weapon swapping seems like common sense, but this is akin Fury Warriors switching to a pair of ultra-fast daggers for their “Recksecute” phase. There’s certainly something to be gained for doing it, but in terms of effort versus gain it’s not worthwhile for a lot of people.
You need to be very hardcore for this to be an option, and not just because it means spending time and energy to obtain, gem and enchant an additional piece of gear. There’s a level of knowledge and attention to detail required that tries the limits of even hardcore players.
The bottom line is if you can make use of weapon swapping it’s nifty, but for the most part this kind of extreme min/maxing is unnecessary.
@Meanderingmind: With an addon like Caster Weapon Swapper, making this swap is incredibly hands-off. It will handle making sure you have your “mana” weapon equipped at the start of the fight and then re-equip it as soon as you’re about to top off (as you might during an Innervate). With as easy as it to obtain a 3-slot weapon like the Rod of the Blazing light, the only prohibitive factor is the cost of the gems (Blue are fine for most people) and the enchant. At MOST, that’s going to run 250 gold which is 2-3 days worth of Daily Quests with the Shattered Sun. In my mind, there’s no reason not to make this optimization if you’re raiding. If you’re a Resto Druid, you’ll save that much money on Super Mana Potions over time anywho!
Can you do a post (or just answer here) on how to set up casterweaponswapper, mainly the percents at which to switch. I often turn it off because there are points where it just goes nuts and starts swapping back and forth quickly, which tells me I have something wrong, like the two %s are too close together or something, but cant seem to find a good balance for where to switch it.
For example, if when equipping my +healing weapon I have 80% of the mana pool that I do when I equip my high mana weapon then what should be the % to switch to the healing set, and what % to switch back.
Am I the only one that can’t seem to get it configured right?
I just have to tinker with everything and then break it.
I often just switch manually dragging the weapons to a bar. I used to use ItemRack to make up sets too. And I also agree that it’s not “hardcore” or even min maxing. I even used this strategy for 5-man bosses back in “vanilla” WoW when it was advocated on worldofwar.net forums. It’s great to have a huge healing pool then have some +heal for breathing room, rather than being forced to choose. Why vendor a weapon that’s still useful, carrying 2or3 is no big deal.
@Yunk: It sounds to me like you may have managed to create a “dead zone” by reversing your Casting Set and High Mana Set. Essentially, if you tell the addon “at 95% I want you to switch me from my High Mana set back to my Casting Set” and simultaneously tell it “at 94%, I want you to switch me from my Casting Set to my High Mana set”, you’ll bounce back and forth. You’ll want the percentage of mana at which to switch from High Mana to Casting to be lower than the percentage of mana at which to switch from Casting to High Mana. Matticus has a tutorial on the use of CWS .
@Phae
All of that is really easy for a hardcore player to do, but for middle of the road player or casuals it’s a taller task. There’s an implicit assumption of prior know-how. Someone who already has a deep, innate knowledge of the game mechanics involved can easily understand the concept, the benefits, and the steps required. For everyone else, you’re talking mystic mumbo jumbo for some intangible result. That you’re also asking them to shell out time and effort (including downloading another addon, which is a big turn off for some people) doesn’t help the matter.
It’s a different perspective, but it’s an important one for anyone leading a guild or a class to keep in mind when they bring up these kinds of finer min/maxing points to players who aren’t already heavily invested in the mysterious inner workings of the game.
@MeanderingMind: You make a good point. I think I have a natural tendency to assume that people who go out of their way to read blogs, particularly those within their class/spec niche, are doing so for the purposes of learning to optimize their play. But there are plenty of articles here at R4L that aren’t focused on optimization, so I can easily see that such might not be the case for everyone.