Incapacitate

[Chubaka]

Do you use it?

Corp or Tastian parse if it does anything?

I use it cause in theory it sounds good.

[Tardar]

I always keep it up if for no other reason because it refreshes fast, and pulls agro well, for those times where I want to get agro.  I use it when I solo.  I don't bother on raids, because the Shaman will over ride it anyway.

[Tastian]

Use it for aggro sometimes well tanking, never use on normal mobs I'm fighting.  Could never parse enough of a differance that justified the 150 mana cost for me.  Might run some more tests on bigger mobs I fight, but on the faster kill mobs it just wasn't worth the mana to me.

[Vahaus Warder]

I keep it up all the time in case something goes bad and I need to take agro immediatly or in case I need to off-tank something and need to drag the mob away from the crowd.

[Kromjr]

I dont use it anymore. Dont have the spell gems and it doesnt seem worth it. Of course I havent parsed it so it might be worth it but to the eye it isnt :)

[Kylaz]

I use it all the time whenever I'm soloing or tanking.

When tanking, it is obviously it's "annoying" quality that is the most useful (ie "aggro").

The diminution in AC is difficult to judge.
From Coprolith PC vs PC parse (although I understand Mob fight is a different kind of things), lowering AC by 24 points may mean an increase of 3% in the average damage per hit (AC 834 - 16.17 to AC 819 16.69).

For most beastlords, this 3% is maybe 5 DPS more (Pet damage is changed also) , ie about 300s damage more on the "1 minute mob" I have usually when soloing.

The decrease in STR should mean a decrease in mob's average damage also, by an even bigger factor (STR going down 55 points). But lets suppose mob has 55 less ATK. I know Coprolith parses shouldn't apply there, but I'm trying to find an order of magnitude 745->879 ATK make a change of 25% in the average hit. That would mean incap lowers mob melee output by something around 10%.


Not sure AGI debuff has any effect.

[Aneya]

Didn't someone prove that STR didn't affect pet dps? If so would mobs behave the same way? Or was it that pets STR is already maxed so adding STR buffs didn't raise their attack values and therefore didn't affect pet DPS.

I still use Incapacitate. At the very lease the AC debuff makes a difference but if the STR debuff has an effect so much the better.

[Eatbugs]

I always have it memed for raids - it's handy for taking aggro from Enchanters and Shaman, and for making sure mezzed mobs I think may become a problem come after me and not the chanter when mez breaks.

In groups, it depends on the group makeup.  I use it constantly if I'm tanking, occasionally for aggro/CC if I'm not.

Solo, I just don't see much point, unless I know in advance it's going to be a long, tough fight.  In that case, I'll take every minor advantage I can get.

[Coprolith]

Its pretty hard to parse the effects of Incapacitate on mobs, but i can tell you what it does in PvP.

- The AGI debuff would theoretically increase your hitrate by 1.5%.
- The STR debuff will lower your opponent's dps by 1-5%, depending on what his ATK is. If his/her ATK rating is below 1300, you'll get 4-5%, if its above 1300, the return diminishes with increasing ATK (I believe this is the reason why our warder get so little benefit from STR and ATK buffs, there natural ATK is already quite high)
- The AC debuff depends very much on what your opponents AC is. If its above the soft cap, the debuff will do next to nothing. Below the softcap, it will increase your dps by 2-3%.

I expect similar values when you're fighting mobs; the effect may be anywhere between negligible to 5% to both your dps and your damage reduction. Lets call it an average of 2.5%. Whether thats worth the 150 mana is very situational. Lets do some order-of-magnitude estimates in a few examples:
- Solo'ing, killing mobs in 60s flat, mob does 25 dps on average, you+your pet do ~150 dps.
You do 150dps*60s*2.5% = 225 extra damage
mob does 25dps*60s*2.5% = 37.5 less damage.
Not the most efficient use of mana. If Incapacitate ran at full efficiency (5%) then these numbers would double and then the efficiency would be about equal to our nukes.
- Raid mob, Incapacitate runs full duration, mob does 500 dps, total melee dps of the raid 2000 dps
raid melee damage increases by 2000*390s*2.5% ~ 20k damage
MT takes 500*390s*2.5% ~ 5k damage less.
Extremely efficient of course, but, as has already been pointed out, other classes have better debuffs then ours.
- 6-man group, killing mobs in 40s flat, mob does 100 dps, group melee dps = 400.
group does 400dps*40s*2.5% = 400 more damage
mob does 100dps*40s*2.5% = 100 less damage.
Pretty decent, but you have to start considering the time it takes to even land Incapacitate when fights get this short.

I'll emphasize these are rough figures, ymmv by a factor 2 at least. Still on the whole, its not exactly a waste of mana, and if you have to keep agro anyway then its certainly worth it imo.

/hugs

[JillieMT]

Do you use it?

No.  :)

[Dakat]

Ask a rogue what he thinks of how his hits are before / after you incapacitate a mob.

I use it only on long duration fights. IE, 2 min plus per kill.  LDON, I keep it up if I am pulling, only as a tool to grab agro off the needed classes.

As Cop said concerning PVP, I'd assume that against regular mobs it would be twice as effective against NPCs.  

When I use it in PoTactics, BoT, I've noticed a slight increase in damage delt to said mob thru melee means. Mainly by seeing more frequently the higher average hit.

As far as pet str and changing their damage per hit.  There is a hard cap for each level of pet that each class gets.  Giving your pet a str buff allows your pet to hit for their max more frequently.  Putting on that extra str I see pet constantly hitting for quad 79s frequently than if it was not buffed at all.  Maybe someone can parce their pet against a certain mob, not to see how much damage the pet is doing per fight, but how frequently it max hit with and without str buff.

[Oneiromancer]

Sorry for the old thread bump...

I haven't used Incapacitate in a long time...it just wasn't worth the mana and mobs died too fast.  Then I started soloing in Riwwi, aiming for the hp regen chest piece.  They take around 2 minutes to kill, and of course hit pretty hard, so I finally decided I'd try to land Incapacitate on them and see if I noticed a difference.  And it definitely *seemed* like it was helping.  Before using it, I would be lucky to get through a fight without having to back off and heal myself..maybe 1 in 5 I'd make it all the way through.  After I started using it on every mob, I was able to fight the entire time about every other mob.  Sometimes I had to give up casting SV in order to preserve mana, but it *seemed* like the mobs dropped just as fast if not faster.

So, was I just hoodwinked by the RNG?  It seems like GoD mobs would be less affected by Incapacitate, since it seems like they have high ATK.  But perhaps their ATK isn't affected by that 1300 cap that Coprolith pointed out, in which case Incapacitate is a great spell for them.

Anyway, just thought I'd bring it up.

Game on,

[Choppin]

Would be nice if we would get an OoW upgrade, that replaces the str reduction with a neg 5pct dmg output reduction mod or something useful like that.

If ever I used the spell for aggro so far

[kholan]

Incapacitate (and cripple, i think from my shaman daze) does one other thing -- it will interrupt a spell cast. I use it on gating mobs because of its fast cast time. I have had this happen enough times both soloing and in groups, with pet and without to be reasonably sure of it. I do not know if it is *every* time it lands, but it appears to be.

[Eatbugs]

I suspect that's your imagination or coincidence - although now that you've said that I'm going to try it on casting mobs about 500 times and see.  (That claim has been made for lots of other non-stun debuffs, but it never pans out.)