The argument for conjuration vs. alteration is essentially whether it is better to save more mana over time (alteration) by reducing the cost of most spells, or to save mana in do-or-die situations where you are casting mez (conjuration).
I very rarely go from fm to oom casting nothing but mezzes. In a group, having that many mobs in camp means that your group is probably doomed anyway and the best that you can do is hope for an evac if you brought a porter. Generally, if there are enough mobs in camp that you have to lock them down long enough to run out of mana from full mana, you or your group will wipe before you can mez them all (assuming your mana pool doesn't just suck). On the other hand, I can recall several times where I was somewhat low on mana (30-40%) after rebuffing and then went lom or oom trying to crowd control shortly after.
An enchanter who specs alteration will save more mana over the course of a group/raid and will have more available to mez when shit hits the fan if they aren't normally fm. If they are, your spec won't matter much for the above reasons. Basically, situations where speccing alteration would save a group are much more common than those where speccing conjuration would. I'm sure some bro has a cool story about the time where they mezzed an entire train for 4 minutes or something and only pulled it off because they specced conjuration, but that's the exception, not the rule.
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06-23-2011, 01:56 AM
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