Future Enchanter Spell Progression Discussion

I'm speaking as a grouping enchanter. It's pretty clear you're a raider so your experience is probably different. I've only done a few raids since coming back to EQ in CTOV and felt raiding wasn't really for me since nothing seemed mezzable.

I notice that the stare mez gets resisted quite a bit in the group game. Granted this is Rk. I because all anyone wants to do is grind HAs so I haven't been able to get glowing dreadmotes for Rk II (and bazaar is ridiculous). I know Rk III has 3x the resist check that Rk I does so I imagine that's why you hardly ever get resists.

Before I would use stare to mez a group of mobs and then Beam of Slumber if I got more than 1 resist. The nice thing about Slackening Glance though is the cast time is short enough that I can cast it on mobs incoming. This means I can aggro them which often causes them to bunch together more as they path toward you making it easier to mez them all. Plus it seems to make for faster pulling since I can park a group of mobs closer to camp. Stare is not a good spell to use on mobs that are moving and if you have to run any distance to camp, you will have to keep returning for the other mobs.

Again this is for the group game I speak of. I don't know if you do group content and if you do you are probably overgeared for it and probably have a guild tank that likes to just tank all the adds for riposte damage. I hate when I get tanks who say not to mez stuff because they want riposte and DS. Seems to happen all too often lately and I think I'm starting to prefer tank mercs to real tanks.

I'm a group Enchanter, so no Rk. III spells. Rk. II works quite well. I'm sure it's a big improvement over Rk. I. If I were you, I'd work on getting the ability to request the Malice, Doom, and Horror mission in RoF. That will consistently get you a 100 spell and is a quick, easy mission with decent XP and a lot of T4 RoF loot. I can duo it with my wife the Monk and a healer and caster DPS merc on Burn as the tank.

I'd sell every piece of armor off my back to get my spells. Spend your Marks to buy armor to sell for plat to buy the spells.

If you're on Bertoxxulous, I can request it for you when I'm available.

We used to use aoe mez's to put ourselves into "stasis" when dealing with very large, difficult to manage mez nets prior to the actual AA. I can mez myself on purpose way more often with Slackening Glance, but I see no real difference on mobs. The only good thing about it is that the mez doesn't last as long as it would you accidentally mez'd yourself with Slackening Wave. Slackening Wave is up to 54 seconds compared to Slackening Glance which is up to 30 seconds, although both may be longer with AAs and so on. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if it had a longer range than 100 which would reduce the chances of accidentally mezing yourself. Mesmerizing Stare is far more useful with twice the range.

A thirty second mez, low resist or not, with a minute and a half recast time is not as useful as other spells we already have. It is not spell-set friendly. I am not about to use this one in a group or raid where I stand a really good chance of mezing myself and being unable to react to other situations or remez if the mob resisted.

As for a wish list, I would very much like to see a longer lasting version of Ward of the Mastermind that didn't have to be recast every twenty minutes or an AA. That would be a lot more useful than the Banishment Rune. Personally, as an enchanter I try very hard to not get hit, but when I do I'd rather have the things mez'd than pushed off and rooted (more or less).

It's such a fast cast, it's easy to use without mezzing yourself, despite the range.

Even Rk. I is unresistable, so this isn't a concern.

This is an honest question Qest - How does the fast cast have anything to do with not mezzing yourself? Are you talking about if you try and mez before mobs are in camp? I usually wait till mobs are as close as possible to camp unless I'm using a tank merc and really need to split them. Maybe that's just a consequence of raid geared tanks or me being lazy. I should join more pick up groups

Yes, I like to mez at max range. Obviously, using it with mobs in, or close to camp can cause you to mez yourself.

In general, I like to park mobs as far from the group as reasonable, but still within spell range. I even go as far as to park mobs at max spell range in one direction, and camp at max spell range in the opposite direction. This allows me to debuff mobs and empower my nukes, while giving the maximum safety/buffer between the adds and the group. I just have to time the mez break so the next mob is within range of the MT when the previous mob is defeated.

If necessary, I'll keep mobs mezzed in camp, but if it's crowded, and I can't quickly target, I can end up having to AE mez, which seems sub-optimal to me.

As far as PUGs, they are often fun. You can meet new people, help people out, and it can be fun, for instance, shocking a tank or healer that thought they couldn't possibly deal with a particular encounter by debuffing it severely, and/or adding in runes.

P.S. Chromatic Percussion is a fun way of PLing lowbies. Wait 'till their mob is low on life so they get XP, hit it with Chromatic Percussion, and the tank is unkillable for the duration of the recourse!

I'm a returning Enchanter after a lengthy hiatus (the last time I played, the level cap was 90). But I always felt Shiny Bob's progression was handled wrong. It seems (or at least it did when I was playing) that Bob was the most powerful of all pets after the big three (Magicians, Beastlords and Necromancers).

I viewed Bob as not to be a help with DPS (since he does not obey commands without the Animation Empathy AAs), but a distraction to allow the Enchanter to handle CC. Enchanter casts mezz, mob resists, mob goes for Enchanter and starts beating on him. Bob is activated by the attack on his owner, and attacks the mob and taunts. This allow the Enchanter to step back and attempt the mezz again, without being interrupted. If the mezz lands, Bob, of course, stops attacking and resumes his guard duty.

I never felt that Bob should have been given increased DPS (or at least not much of it), but he should have grown hugely in HPs and defenses against damage.

If he's a HP powerhouse, but not big on DPS, this would allow him to continue to function as intended. Instead, he's just an annoying fly to be swatted down if he ever successfully taunts and a nominal amount of damage if he manages to stay alive.

On the subject of pets that have massive health and not a lot of damage, I think it's a shame that Phantasmal Opponent never got additional ranks to give him even greater health. Perhaps that something our liaison can request? (If we have one, that is.)

It took me a couple of minutes to work out a possible connection between speed and range.
It would have to be that the targeted mob you picked to mez was hit and mez'd before it reached the point where the AoE would include you.

I'm not really good with the mechanics but I do go test my spells. I think it is sort of odd that they put this on a different timer than the other mez spells,

I used Slackening Glance III to mez a bunch of low-level kos mobs (Icy orcs in EF because they are in a stationary formation that gives me some idea of the spread of a targeted aoe and they'll aggro regardless of the difference in levels).. Cast .4 seconds at maximum range they mez'd fine. But they remained on the extended target and came running after me, but hate reduction isn't a mem-wipe as one of the guild members pointed out when I was trying it out on the orcs.

I resist Slackening Wave, I don't resist Slackening Glance. For heavy CC mezing myself is just not an option unless I'm hoping that it will land and wipe their memories and they'll walk away. The problem is that I'm not seeing much in the way of mind-wipe on the mobs.

For one thing, it's not irresistible. It has a low resist.

[Sat Jul 12 00:24:37 2014] You begin casting Slackening Glance Rk. III.
[Sat Jul 12 00:24:38 2014] Redwind is confused by a sudden flash of colored light.
[Sat Jul 12 00:24:38 2014] An icy orc is confused by a sudden flash of colored light.
[Sat Jul 12 00:24:38 2014] You resist the Slackening Glance Rk. III spell!
[Sat Jul 12 00:24:38 2014] Your target resisted the Slackening Glance Rk. III spell.
The Target was Redwind, level 27.


Balancing the better than average chance that I might get mez'd with it, I don't think that it's worth a spell slot which is needed for other things. I would much rather have an AoE slow.

Question: Is this thread strictly for spells, or can we discuss AAs?
Also, do we have a community liaison now, or are we without a rep for our class? (Not that I'm interested in becoming one, just curious.)

But for the sake of discussing spells, I'd like to see our summoned animation grow very much in health and mitigation, but not so much in damage.

He should be able to taunt a mob off the Enchanter (if the Enchanter steps back out of melee range), long enough for the Enchanter to step back and attempt a mezz. And Bob should be able to survive doing this.

I have no complaints about the spell line as is. Nice to see that a suggestion I submitted just before I left is still working. The Devs had started a slow spell with certain debuffs on it, but nothing significant. I suggested instead that they combine the slow with the Cripple line, so we can use the slow when we're the group's slower, but still use the Cripple when the group has a Shaman slower.

Glad to see the Devs liked my idea, and kept with it.

And of course, I'm thrilled to death to see that we are getting our illusions back. A pox upon LoN and how it took illusions from us. We all complained bitterly that LoN had taken away our illusions, since illusions are a huge appeal for Enchanters. Finally, the Tradeskill Dev (I can't remember his name), responded to an illusion request with "There's been enough tromping on Enchanters and their illusions." And that he wanted to create an NPC that would allow an Enchanter to turn a clicky and get a spell of that illusion for their spell books. (Finally, a Dev was on our side.)

I'm also grateful for the two-tick mezz that allows us to recast the mezz to keep the mobs locked down. It's nice that it's two ticks, because it gives us a reasonable length of time to cast our PB AoE Tash on the mobs.

Finally, a charm spell with built in Haste???? What could be better?

The only problem I have with the spell line is that it's repeating itself. I mean, they're good spells, but I'd like to see something different. Otherwise, we'll quickly get bored.

What about combat innate illusions? But I'd like to see a few changes to them. First, a longer duration with no lengthy recast time. In other words, no dedicated spell gems.

If the Devs don't want us casting it on every member of the group, then perhaps they could flag it in someway, so that only one member of the group at a time can have it.

Also, if we want a combat innate illusion, it should a large sized illusion so as not to interfere with Ogre slam. That was the complaint about previous combat innates; it took away Ogre slam.

So, here are my suggestions, in sum:

1) Shiny Bob should grow exponentially in HP and mitigation, but should only have linear growth in DPS.

2) A combat innate illusion that does not interfere with Ogre slam and with a lengthy duration so as not to require a dedicated spell gem.

Narye and Filatal are our Enchanter representatives. Narye was talking about quitting, but I don't think she actually did.

You'll get an argument from Enchanters who use Shiny Bob as a "mana-free DoT" if you want to put the emphasis on tanking. Personally, I see it as a disadvantage, and rightfully so, that our summoned pet is a mediocre all-arounder in comparison to Mages and Necromancer's choice of archetype. I do agree it needs a buff. As it stands, I feel it's not worth the time to summon and buff it compared to the benefit it can provide. I use it in old content and to take out NPC pets that we otherwise can't handle.

The combined slow spell is now obsolete. It's better to use AA slow and Cripple.

The ability to turn in items for illusion spells has not been extended into modernity either.

I think large race Slam is almost obsolete. I certainly wouldn't worry about it.

As far as derails into AA discussion, short derails are perfectly fine with me; a complete hijack could make me frown, but me frowning has no bearing on anything, so have at it! That said, you might get more positive attention with a new thread.

I second the motion for a new combat illusion.

Another suggestion. Rangers might complain that we're stepping on their toes with this one, but if they do, I have one word for them: Flusterbolt.

A dispel that removes only beneficial buffs, but doesn't remove our own magic based debuffs and the cripple line. (Rangers might feel that it should be theirs and theirs alone, but I disagree. As the class with the most powerful dispels and a purecaster, it should have been ours before it was theirs.)

Curious as to why you think the AA slow and the cripple is better than our upgraded slow. The only thing I can think of is that it has a fast cast time or a high resist mod. It is true that AAs don't trigger the GCD, but I can't imagine how it would be better to use the AA and the cripple instead of the combined slow.

The AA that I was thinking of was the brainchild of Yakk, an Enchanter who frequented The Runes, but never posted on the EQ forums. He called it Absor's Transformation. SELF-ONLY. Illusion: Ogre. Silence, increased HP, avoidance, melee damage, hit, mitigation, AC and aggro generation. Basically, it would turn an Enchanter into a non-caster tank for a short duration with a hellaciously long reuse timer. Absor SMASH!

I'd also like an illusion with more benefits, like they used to have. Isn't it time, with Run 3, that Illusion: Scaled Wolf got an upgrade? How about a fast illusion with levitation, too?

I'll have to look at the AA list again, but I'd like to see some of our AAs get a decent upgrade.

I like the idea (and used to argue for) our hard cap on our mezzes being replaced with a soft cap. But to address your points as to how the soft cap would take effect, "easier to resist" comes by virtue of the mob's level. If it's above you, it's already going to have an easier time resisting. "A chance to break early"? No, no, a thousand times, no! The beauty of mezz is that it's reliable. Unlike root and charm, mezz consistently lasts for the duration.

I'm okay with reducing the duration of the mezz by one tick per level above the soft cap, but I believe that mezzes should consistently last for their allotted duration. (It would also make Mesmerisation Mastery somewhat useful, now that it's been nerfed into pointlessness since it no longer affects our AoE mezzes.) The only problem is, our PB AoE mezzes are already one tick long. So, they would be essentially pointless above the soft cap.

I think shortening the duration and increasing the mob's chance to resist are sufficient. You might try adding also an increased mana cost.

I too have been asking for this. When I'm in PoWar, I'm hoping the Monk or Necromancer is old school enough to have a Nerf Bat so they can dispell since it's a beneficial-only dispell. Enchanters should be masters of enchantments, and removing enchantments (buffs) should be our bailiwick.

One of the advantages of having a rancorous, diverse Enchanter community is that when someone makes a bold statement like that, and nobody disagrees, you can be pretty well assured it's so.

This is another great idea whose time has long past by. Enchanters were recently nerfed because we tanked too well. We are still quite tank-y. A buff like that would probably put us way over the top, and we'd get picked over the real tank classes.

Another good idea, but I'd be against lev. I have a Flying Carpet mount that doesn't fly (lev). After I got over my initial disappointment, I came to understand that since I have perma-lev AA, it's nicer to have the option of not levitating, and just use perma-lev as desired.

This ability isn't ranger-only. The Abashi staff from Vulak (Radvar, from new Vulak) has been doing it since Velious, it's usable by necro/monk/beastlord/berserker. Monk shirts in OoW & TSS clicked bene-only dispel. Wizard AA Dispel is bene-only.

Also, since our Cripple line and DoTs are magic-bases, our dispels would remove them (and indeed I have removed them unwittingly with dispels). You'd think that a class that is know for our ability to incapacitate mobs would have the ability to avoid removing their own debuffs.

Let me respectfully ask for a better argument.

A long reuse timer would preclude us from ever replacing a tank. But I suppose our Illusory Ally could fit the bill.

Oh, were we nerfed again? I'm glad the Devs got around to it. Their day is so full of their myriad duties of nerfing Enchanters, nerfing Enchanters, and nerfing Enchanters, while hoping to find some time to nerf Enchanters and nerf Enchanters. It's amazing that they found the time to nerf Enchanters after all that.

You have a point with the perfected levitation AA. But I still feel that as a puller class, we should have an illusion that would allow us to move fast, fast, fast...Bards and Monks have Run 8. How about an illusion that gives us something similar? Illusion: Mongoose!

Of course, the problem is that, as far as I can tell, the Devs have no way of making an illusion that Enchanters can't project. I remember when I was playing my old Enchanter (R.I.P. Lockdown) and we were arguing for allowing our clickies to be converted into spells for us to scribe in our spell books, but the Devs objected on the grounds that they didn't want us to project certain illusions. Unmei (the Enchanter liaison back then) and I were quite staggered by this statement. We had to explain that we've ALWAYS been able to project illusions off of clickies, a situation which the Devs apparently didn't feel they had the time or resources to fix.

But it was just one of many incidents that made us realize how EverQuest is such a vast beast that even our talented Devs aren't always sure what players can and can't do. One of my personally favorite quirks is the lack of a specific range on Project Illusion. If someone's in your group, and in your zone, you can put illusions on them, doesn't matter how far away they are. I've messed with some people that way. Not sure why they suddenly turn into air pets or scaled wolves. It's occasionally useful, too. I've projected Illusion: Imp on someone who needed a levitation to get to me, but was too far away to cast a levitation on.

Then let me amend my statement. Rangers are the only ones that get it as a spell. As opposed to a clickie or an AA. I think we should have such an ability, too. Either as a spell or an AA.

It takes about the same time to do the separate debuffs if you're casting Tash first, and when you do them separately, the slow lands sooner (which is the important part) and it's 73% slow instead of 70%.

Which would mean that when we finally fought our way to the big, bad boss, the real tank would swap to DPS-lite mode, and the Enchanter would step up to do the important job of tanking the hard stuff.

We've been asking for faster run speed. We're already the best pullers for XP trash. I imagine they don't give it to us so we don't step so much on Bard toes, but I don't really know.

Why not more run speed? We can cast haste to make arms much faster but we can't cast a haste on our legs? I wouldn't worry about stepping on any other classes toes. Look at how many enchanter abilities were farmed out. No other class can say anything if stuff gets farmed to us. Bards got an AE mez, that was stepping on Enchanter toes big time. We should get the pick of what abilities we want from bards, monks, and rangers.

I'll start with some ideas. Give us a fade on a 10 second timer. Give us a combo Invis and IVU. Give us run 8. Give us overhaste. Hell, originally enchanters got the best haste, bards were only given v2 haste so they had something they could stack with enchanter haste so they had something to contribute. With haste items + chanter haste capping player haste, they came out with v3 for bards. However since the advent of haste pots and other class spells being able to reach haste cap, enchanters as originally intended to have the best haste should have been given an overcap haste of some kind.

To be honest I don't know what the class vision is anymore for enchanters. Most of our woes seem to be content related rather than with our spells and AAs. Content needs to be much harder where two or more mobs is a death sentence unless one is CCed in some way. Mobs should hit very hard which will tax healer mana unless mobs are debuffed/stunned. Also take a lesson from PoP and put some charm bait in each zone. Say when the level cap is 105 there should be a level 104 mob in every zone capable of equipping weapons. No more charm pets that don't dual wield! Instances should have a few mobs at the zone in for enchanters to use. Also mez immune mobs should be super rare. I don't see any zones where other class main abilities are turned off. Let's try disabling healing or tanking in a zone. No? Then don't disable enchanter main ability which is mez. It's unfair and stupid.

Wow. Ask and ye shall receive. I asked for a better argument, and you came through. I had no idea that it was a 73% slow. Thanks for that information. That fact, by itself, is a better reason to use it. Beastlord pets, the last time I played, at least, could proc a 70% slow. Consequently, they kept overwriting ours.

True. Unless, of course, the Chanter digs in and says "NO!" to this arrangement.

Bards have an AA that allows them to cast a 30 second AoE mezz, which surpasses anything we can do, thanks to the nerf to Mesmerisation mastery. They have also, in the past, felt entitled (and gotten) Tash clickies that are normally reserved for casters only. To say nothing of illusion abilities, despite the fact that their illusions (prior to the addition of Minor Illusion to their repertoire) was dependent entirely upon itemization, so calling Bards an illusion class is like calling Warriors a healing class.

I'll worry about the Bards' delicate toes when they start worrying about ours, which will be never.

Besides, we're not asking to be able to speed up an entire group. Just self-only. (Although giving it to us as an illusion would, in effect, allow us to speed up an entire group. But so what? So can Druids with their group illusions.)

Regarding our Tankiness, isn't that what we're supposed to be? Since it's virtually impossible for us to use up our mana on burn down events, making our gear choices more HP oriented rather than Mana, and with the addition of AAs like Mind Over Matter and Color Shock, the best self-only runes in the game, I always thought we were intended to be tanky, tanky very much.

Hear! Hear! (I wish I had read your post before I posted my reply.)

Regarding our haste, I'm told that with the crit mod, our haste alone still allows greater DPS than Bard haste alone. (I have no idea if that's still true. I've been on hiatus for over two years.)

Regarding charmed pets that don't dual wield, actually, I learned the last time I played that the Devs never intended charmed pets to dual wield in the first place, and that charmed mobs did they damage that they intended without the weapons.

This came with an announcement that they were going to remove the drop of Napaea daggers (a fast dagger that is farmed in Goraku Mesa, which conveniently stack up to 20), with the addendum that the stacking daggers would not be removed if it broke a quest. (Evidently, it would have, since they end up in my Tradeskill items only bag, and the drop still exists.)

You raise a valid point about neutralizing our abilities in certain zones. I've only seen one "melee immune" mob (and that occurred only under a particular set of circumstances), but the highly magic resistant mobs are a dime a dozen.

I only know of one mob that might be described as tank-immune. There's a named in Wall of Slaughter that keeps clearing its hate list, but I don't know of any others like that.

But those are extremely rare exceptions. Why are the magic-resistant mobs as common as dirt, but melee/tank immune mobs almost unheard of?