We were having an interesting thought line about mass charm, where a chanter could charm up to 4 targets at once. Would make for some interesting swarm kiting, and definitely a new form of CC. (Likely not an idea that would be implemented, but we do have mobs that have viral charms (mage epic 2.0) and mobs that charm mob than one group so would be in line with some of the things creatures in the game are already capable of).
When mobs charm, their "PC Pet" generally attacks whoever is highest on the mob's aggro list (don't slam me with encounter X where it isn't)- so if we were able to do this, how exactly would the pets be controlled? I see this as being the major roadblock. There would be no way to control multiple actual pets- unless by some miracle they were all linked but I'll guess that probably is not possible. We'd be back to the stone age where we had to get hit to get Shiny to do anything. I think it's a cool idea but would require massive amounts of tweaking. Of course, I could be completely wrong. Since you opened that door, I'd like to see the viral mez we got in PoR return. If we need a separate thread for that fine, I don't want to derail the charm idea. I just dunno if anyone else actually used/liked viral spells.
I am thinking that if it were implemented, you'd have to think it would be kind of similar. I don't imagine it would be able to control as well as our normal pets/charm pets. But it could be that this would be additional pets, almost enchanter swarm pets. For instance, you have Mob A charmed and you have 8 mobs on it. You cast "mass hysteria" and 4 of those a (random amounts 4-8 or whatever) turn into swarm pets for a short amount of time (extended by AA). These could even be mezzed mobs, that swarm your current target. Thought - Where as necros get swarm pets based on corpses... maybe these could even be considered swarm pets based on how many are mezzed. (dunno if they even want to do swarm pets). I like the thought of being able to CC while turning them into some sort of dps.
^I instantly thought of this as I came back to this post. A swarm pet based on how many mobs are mezzed or something would be pretty epic. We already have phantasmal, so just reverse it. I would find it much more likely to get something that generates a "fixed" swarm pet based on mezzed/aggro'd mobs rather than actually having a group of mobs act as the swarm. Honestly, in a group/raid setting that could be disasterous when it breaks/fades. There are ways around that but it's difficult. By fixed I mean a mirror of the base mob but with a specific number of HP, attack, etc.
Obviously, this would be balanced somehow so that Enchanters don't suddenly do 5x anyone else's burst DPS with no risk thanks to Self Stasis. What if we had a channeled ability to control a mob, so the Enchanter would be busy channeling this charm and not able to do anything else, and we could take over a 2nd (or first) mob. The danger would be that if you charmed a mob first and then started channel-charming, if the first one broke, you'd have to release the 2nd to deal with it! Again, the trouble would be balancing it as we shouldn't have twice the burst DPS of a DPS class. It could also work as "Charm 4 mobs and make them into swarm pets doing swarm pet DPS." I suppose casting it could be a cone AE to get 4 mobs in the cone, which would attack only the target at the time of casting. Would we want the charms to break all at the same time? I can't say I'm a big fan of charming, even though I do it a lot because I feel I need to. This would make that worse, but I have to admit that it is novel, and Enchanter-like which puts this idea over the others I'm aware of.
In the everfrost LDON missions there were mobs you could charm that would charm other mobs, and soon you'd have like 8 pets. Charm would break and you would just get massacred, but it was still really exciting the first time it happened. What if it was a free target charm that had a minute or more repop and lasted 15 seconds? You would want to time any mez you do very carefully so as not to waste dps. Even if it was great dps it would be a bit of a risk every time you did it, and for it to truly work you would have to plan your group around it. With my normal playstyle I would never mem that spell, but if a group wanted to try something harder I might try to get creative with it.
After reading Reval's post it just gave me the vision of seeing a pull coming in 4-5 mobs, the enchanter instead of using AE mez throws out AE charm, the mobs fall under his spell, now he can't cast it for a long time. For 15 seconds they attack whatever the Enchanter attacks. Then they break. (Very high burst for 15-30 seconds). The enchanter then gets hit by all 5 mobs and has to then CC them. Very interesting thought.
A single dual-wielding charmed pet in VoA was very roughly equal to a DPS class. Presumably, the same is roughly true of RoF? If that's true, how do you justify an Enchanter doing burst damage 4-5 times that of a Wizard, even for just 15 seconds? Considering Self Stasis and more than 100k hp in runes and self-buffs that stun or mez, does the "risk" justify the reward?
Unfortunately charm pets in RoF have been found to very rarely duel wield. Thus they tend to do less dps than charm pets from some HoT zones
My thoughts about why having that burst would be acceptable r vs r.: If you have multiple mobs charmed- so in both Silku's version and Qest's, if it was short duration which is the only way I see this ever happening, you get a few seconds of epic DPS and would then have 2 - 5 mobs aggro'd on your or your group. If we are "generous" and each mob only lands 10k damage in a round, that is still a very rapid drop in all of our defensives when you have 2 - 5. The reason why self stasis is not helpful is because if you drop out, either your group is now dead, or whatever you were trying to kill solo has lost aggro and regened. It is also risky when you think about it from a CC aspect because if you mistime your (PB)AE mez/whatever it's likely going to be bad news. From a balance standpoint, as a long recast spell, it takes a spell gem permanently or if it's an AA it would probably be very long reuse or something as well. Another reason why I see this (more Silku's version than Qest) as being bad is if you have 5 mobs inc to camp and you try to use this charm, if anything in that pull is immune to charm you now have a free mob. Given how they spew immunity for everything randomly, it would be so situational I don't know if I'd use it. I think swarm pets based on how many mobs are mezzed OR possibly based on our *current* charmed pet would be feasible to add DPS. Of course the risk there drops significantly so we are not going to get as much burst damage I'd imagine. Sidebar- did we ever get some kindof official response on the DW issue? Fransisco's post made me think of it.
Not practical for current content, but would be a useful option as a longer duration 1-2min ae charm for lower level content. Would make up for what we lack, when we go back and do old content.
Haven't seen any official response to the question at all. Not even "we will look into it." Our charm pets are no where near a dps class in this expansion.
I'll preface this by saying it was just an idea, and I'm not bought into it to the extent where I'll push it forever. I'm fine with other ideas and options, but here goes. "A single dual-wielding charmed pet in VoA was very roughly equal to a DPS class. Presumably, the same is roughly true of RoF? If that's true, how do you justify an Enchanter doing burst damage 4-5 times that of a Wizard, even for just 15 seconds? Considering Self Stasis and more than 100k hp in runes and self-buffs that stun or mez, does the "risk" justify the reward?" -Qest. Let's see... if an enchanter were using this to its maximum capacity, they would be constantly pulling 4 or 5 mobs, and then when the charm breaks they would have to control those mobs over and over. Do you know how many times that happens in most groups? Unless the content is outright trivial (and in which case 5 mobs would not equal the dps of a dps class), it isn't all that often. If the content is difficult, this is incredible risk. Let's look at other classes that can do something similar to this: sk's can swarm kite very well. Are they a dps class? Rogues aren't wizards, berserkers aren't wizards, rangers aren't wizards and arguably shouldn't have the dps of a wizard due to their higher utility (only arguing that point for rangers I don't know how to size up berserkers and rogues with wizards so I won't touch it). but they can all do swarm kill things or assassination/headshot abilities that absolutely destroy the best wizard's dps. The thing I'm suggesting actually involves constant and extremely high levels of risk if you want the levels of dps you're proporting. I can't remember the last time I saw a ranger dead from headshotting the temple area in Feerott2. I also can't remember the last time I was in Feerott2 and there wasn't a ranger headshotting the temple area. So it sounds to me like I'm suggesting better mechanics for this sort of power than are already in the game. Do you honestly think 100k in runes vs 5 mobs in a top end zone is going to save you? If you live, it's going to be because you used self stasis, friendly stasis, or if you're raid geared maybe mind over matter in addition to that, and now you're down more utility which you may need later (and potentially all of your mana). I would say it's classic risk vs reward in a reasonable sense. You get tempted into using these abilities to do this and maybe kill a mob fast, and then what do you have? You die because you made a mistake or overestimated yourself, and the group you are in loses more time than the good it did. Or maybe you were solo instead of in a group, and you charm outside of this but die because you blew too many cooldowns. The at most one mob worth that you might gain from this in an ideal situation isn't going to be worth that risk. On the other hand, if you have enough skill to pull it off, then great. How do I justify it? With absolute confidence that it is justified.
I agree. However, I think this is the last thing Enchanters need right now- predominantly solo tools. New additions should benefit group/raid Enchanters the most yet still provide a one-up for solo-Ench. At least that's where I feel resources should be allocated/balanced. Of course, who can really define what that is aside from a dev? Enchanters have never had issues with soloing. Upgrades/tuning to the solo class component only hinders our desirability in other settings. When you evaluate the ways Ench efficiently solo, it is often unfeasible in a group/raid setting. That is a major reason why I'm vehemently resistant to purely self-enhancing/very restricted ideas. Seriously... given everything we currently have what more do you want for soloing? We are still completely capable of soloing for good exp without a merc. That does not hold true for as many classes. Our debuffs/buffs hold their own for raids- asking for CC advances here seems foolish. If they want CC to be an integral raid mechanism they will utilize components we already have. It's hard to think of a time when Enchanters were ever tuned around raids (outside the trifecta era). However, comparing CC now to classic is apples to oranges. A group setting is really where we are falling short. Even grouping w/ close guildies, good players- great players, some are still clueless to what we are actually capable of in group settings. Often I wish I was playing my Druid or Mage so I felt like I was significantly contributing. Slightly an overstatement and I won't to have a pity party- we ARE a good ADPS contribution(caster), have good debuffs (especially with AA abilities), a vast degree of utility, personal DPS (provided you've maxxed DD and DoT AA paths), and sustained DPS via charm. However, the current tools we have - which are many - do not excel in one specific area. It really is unfair to discount us due to class envy when our own offspring, Bards, completely outcompete us. Caster ADPS should never have been given to bards or at least not in a sense where it was more desireable than ours. I suppose I've derailed from AE charm/swarm a tad but I emplore Enchanters (or anyone) to really keep the big picture in mind. Making contact/communicating with "The Vision" often yields better results when the given feedback/ideas are identical/similar/like current or past abilities. As always, that is just my view. I do like the multi-charm idea a lot and think it would be a nice burst DPS ability. However, I would rate it low on my own need/want list.
The issue is that we as a class have let those ignorant in class abilities begin to mold the structure of the class. It has undermined the ability to get the group aspect working together again, as solo agendas of said people has pushed through. I remember when this class had a backbone, but it appears there's a "new sheriff" in town. Prominent solo skills, while not popular for the class itself, has become the whose-whose of EverQuest players. The damage done from HS and MC have really bled out into every class to either inflate aa's across the game, or to the point where players actually re-rolled a main class for said abilities. Every class that was unable to get these kind of bonus' wanted/want them, so we can't blame them for trying I guess. CC has - changed. Nothing to say about it really. The need changed as the game evolved. Who do we blame for this, I don't have that answer...ourselves? CRTs? Producers? Just like HS and MC, Mez Mastery was yanked away but the damage was already done. It's like taking away an addicted persons "stash" away to see if they can change...some will, many won't. At this point, taking it away may have done more damage then good because their was no real feedback on it; no communication on how to adapt. Skill changed, raids done...nothing more nothing less. There's two sides of us, and with it that way nothing will get done for the class. It doesn't matter who is a CRT as that doesn't promise any change other then what they want. I can tell you this; the class and the game as a whole are at a serious turning point. There is one side who is aiming to push the veterans away from the class...and is succeeding. When all that is left is "noobs" to mold the skill set, everything shall be "noobified". The other side needs to seriously consider if the fight is worth it to keep pushing the Enchanter class outside of the box even though the box is shrinking. Classes and people were able to leverage their dislike for the class direction in the past, are all those people now gone?
