Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Incanter's Flow

Incanter's Flow
Requires Mage
Requires level 90

Magical energy flows through you while in combat, building up to 20% increased damage and then diminishing down to 4% increased damage, cycling every 10 sec.

Spell Details

Duration

n/a

School

Arcane

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

n/a

Cost

None

Range

0 yards (Self)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

0 seconds

Effect

Apply Aura: Periodic Dummy
Interval: 1 second

Flags

Guides

Mage DPS Guide

Raid and Class
cooldown list.

Warlords of Draenor
Mage Changes

[Outdated] Arcane Mage
PvE Guide 5.4

Comments

Comment by Rigors

This is most useful against warriors because damage absorbed prevents their gaining any rage from hitting you, and no rage = no special attacks to kill you with.

Comment by apeiron

I'm loving this spell more and more every day. It's saved my hide so many times and I only just got 20 a day or two ago. I use it to run away, ignore mobs, give my healers some extra time in instances, and even laugh at poisons. Makes fighting things like Lightning Bolt / Frost Bolt (until 22 when you get Frost Ward) mobs much, much easier. With Mana Shield, you trade mana for health. Considering the Mage's vast mana pool and pitiful health pool, that's almost always a viable trade. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whether you survive the fight. If you eat up all your mana, who cares? You're a Mage, make some water (or drink what you made when you logged in) and move onto the next mob. :)

Comment by mommyclz

At lvl 36, I finally started using this -- I never solo, I always quest w hubby's palidan, so I'm rarely in any danger. however, the basilisks in Stranglethorn would stun him and turn on me . .. bubble, i'm safe as a priest! Cool!

Comment by postaljester

horrible spell, not worth using except as a last ditch effort to run away.

Comment by Pyrot

New in 2.4
Mana Shield: This spell will now get a percentage of the Mage’s bonus to spell damage as an additional effect.

Comment by manareaver

reducing the cost to 0 would save my mage a mere 155 as opposed to the 636 I would save with the current talent.

But that bit of nit-pickery aside I completely agree that the talent needs a buff. Merely improving it to 15/30% would make it more attractive, something on the odds of 25/50% would make it damned near vital. Personally I'd like to see a sort of damage-reflection or damage-on-dispell component to it to help give mages a bit more oomph in arenas.

As it stands, it's very easy to ignore. I still use Mana Shield more often since 2.4 because it actually helps keep my mage alive now. But rather than waste 2 talent points, I'd rather just look for ways to add more mana to my bar.

Comment by Nichoo

Alrighty! Iam inside my bubble.. now I just have to find a way to get that chips bag inside with me!

Comment by Novawolf

I just despise this ability in general. I don't feel like spending 1585 Mana for a mere 715 points of absorption (I may be off by one or two hundred, I don't use it to tell).

But I went Frost, I only spend 465 mana on 1075 points of absorption (+ Spell damage, of course). Naturally, if you're Frost, take this... 'thing' off your action bar and replace it with Ice Barrier.

If not... Well... I'm sorry. I hope you specced into it, or have a LOT of extra mana to spare.

Comment by XodoK

Unless WotLK cloth gear has substantial increase in Intellect, this spell will stay very iffy even with all Arcane talents to help it. Heavy mana drain can render a mage with no way to defeat his/her foe.

Comment by bataa976

Mana shield's amount of damage absorb gets 50% bonus from your spell damage bonus.

Comment by Wildhorn

229 mana to cast + 1330 mana from the base absorbtion + 50% of your spell power (bonus to absorbtion).

So with 2k spell power (and all the talents), this will drain you a total of 2559 mana for 384 damage bonus for 10 seconds. You will need 1280 mp5 to overcome the lose of mana.

With talent and glyph allowing 80% of your mana regen while casting, if you have 300 mp5, this give 240 mp5. So down to 1040 mp5.

With a paladin BoW (91mp5) this get us to 949 mp5
With 1 shaman totem (85 mp5) this get us to 864 mp5

So it still a lose of 1728 mana for 384 damage for 10sec + 2330 hp saved.

Comment by simioni

Mana shield has a 80.53% coefficient from spell power, so at 2k spell power it will absorb 2940 damage.

I'm testing it for some time now, and it seems that every single point of damage absorbed is consumed as mana.

I'm not 100% sure of that because Arcane Meditation, but when my shield is one-shoted, i certainly loose way more than 1330 mana. (And I have 2/2 Arcane Shielding).

If someone can confirm it whit a more accurate test it will be appreciated.

Comment by dylan257

if your spamming this during duels get intel/spirit armor/enchants. i personally find that the mana lost isnt as much of a hassle since you can use the conjured mana gems.

Comment by Morkai

The fact that you consider it nice as a debuff... I wonder if other classes could say something like that for any of their spells... Like a lock casting life tap repeatedly on an enemy or something... Oh well :P

Comment by draygourn

I wonder if I have both Mana Shield and Ice Barrier, which will go down first?

Comment by VegaSec

Wait so they change mana shield properties again? Cause before it absorbs 1330dmg (draining 1330 mana) and with more spell power lets say its modified to 2k it would still only drain 1330 mana...

So now its changed to draining mana equal to its new modified form of 2k dmg (so 2k mana)?

If so then BOO Blizz BOO! Way to bring back a spell and shut it down again xD

If not then nevermind the latter :P

Comment by Spiderkeg

Without "Arcane Shielding" as a viable talent to compliment Mana Shield, I still see no reason to even use this spell in PvE or PvP, considering that mana is the mage's lifeblood. Mana Shield might be fine to stay off a debuff until the healers can get to you, but in the long run, this is still no substitute (untalented) to rely on Mana Shield as any level of defense.

Now that Mana Shield has a 12 second cooldown on top, with Cataclysm, this spell even becomes more pointless to use.

Comment by jjuurriijj

Can anyone please tell me if its even worth using as an arcane mage in PvP? Because it doesnt seem to absorb much and it takes a keybind to be useful and Im running out of good spaces...

Comment by Justice1337

Ok, consider the following in Fire Mage PvP:

Improved Scorch makes it cost no Mana. Hot Streak Pyros cost no mana. I mean, what's left in the rotation that actually costs mana? Living Bomb, Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath, all of which are quite situational in the first place, and can only be cast every 15s or so in the second place. A fire mage whose used his mana as health would still be able to keep up 80% of his DPS (all mobile btw), and passive regeneration would still probably allow one of these spells every cooldown. The only real loss to a mage in casting this is the GCD.

I can only imagine the nerf cries that would ensue if this spell were still spammable. It would probably rise to the level of a hotfix.

Comment by aerion

I'm not even sure if this spell even deserves a place on a cast bar anymore. It scales with spell power, which means that to be useful a mage would need over 10k spell power to be able to absorb a single hit from a normal 85 mob.

As of this post, a fire mage with 6k SP will have a mana shield that absorbs.... 6.3k damage.

In short, this is absolutely useless.

Comment by Darkspartan1992

This really isn't completely useless if your an arcane Mage. If you are speced for incantor's absorption, it will give you 1260 additional spellpower as a 6.3k sp Mage whenever you lose your shield due to damage, making this spell quite usefull, expecially in the raiding environment.

Comment by xpuntar

Considering the CD (12 sec!), damage absorb (6k - 7k!) and total hp of players (mages) (well over 100k) this spell is a complete garbage!

Almost useless in both PvE and PvE. Still I use it quite a lot in PvE as I have nothing else to protect my hp.

To me this spell just show us how incompetent are WoW developers about designing actual useful mage defensive skills. (not Frost specific!)

Spell should absorb around 15% of total health!

Comment by iamleejn

Simple analysis of Incanter's Flow:
Offers improved defense and total mobility but requires the most micromanagement to get maximum benefit. Should interact well with frost and arcane and moderately with fire mechanics. Use effect increases spell damage by up to 15% on average depending on effectiveness of the absorb.

Careful timing of the active bonus can benefit the different procs frost mages use.

The passive regen will aid in pooling mana, improving the effectiveness of the arcane mastery. Additionally, careful timing of the use effect can help offset increased mana usage during Arcane Power as well as increasing overall damage with the spell power bonus.

Comment by Rykhard

Does anyone know for sure when the +6% spell damage bonus is being applied? Is it always, except when Incanter's Ward is on CD? Or, are there other conditions that have to be met first?

Comment by boworr

People are downvoting this based on the absorbtion instead of looking at it as a spell boost.

When this effect ends, you gain up to 30% increased spell damage for 15 sec, based on the absorption used.

Comment by Salazans

Has priority over Ice Barrier.

Meaning if you have both spells active, Incanter's Ward will get eaten up first and give the bonuses, even if Ice Barrier still holds.

Edit: clarification.

Comment by Salazans

If you strike me down... I shall become a little bit more powerful for a few seconds.

Comment by Gotnov

You got that get good flow.

Comment by Alnair

Incanter's Flow holds for two seconds at its zenith and nadir.

(...-1-2-3-4-5-5-4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4-5-5-4-3-2-1-1-...)

This means you have ~four seconds to cast all your strongest spells during the peak, and ~four seconds to kill casting your weakest spells during the trough

FYI Nether Tempest/Living Bomb/Frost Bomb snapshot this effect so cast them at 5-stacks, if you chose that talent... and Meteor snapshots this effect, but NOT at the time of spell cast and NOT at the time it hit, but rather just as the animation appears (which is about 2 seconds after you cast and 1 second before it hits).

Incanter's Flow

Buff

Spell Details

Guides

Related

Contribute