Warp Point & Energy Ball Effects?

I creating a couple of effects:

1) A Warp Point
2) Energy Ball

And I was wondering how to go about doing these? Should I use multiple frames of graphics images or particles or both? Anyone have any recommendations?

1) For a warp point you could use 2 or more images and rotating them to different speed/degree
2) for energy ball same thing: 2 or more images and scaling them relating to the 'power' of the energy

Just suggestions...

For the warp point you could use the INVERTBLEND someone posted some time ago, could look good