I wanted to drop a quick note and say thank you chanters for the guides and things over the years. Even though I've had my chanter (on our 3rd account) for years and years, I finally got off my behind and tried my first charm. Man were my palms cold and clammy and I had no idea what I was doing ... didn't mez/debuff him first, just hit charm. But it was fun and I learned I could learn new tricks
It also requires a lot of sass and a propensity towards being jaded (mainly brought on by inappropriate mez breaks).
Back in the good old days and even now doing my current grind to 100 (currently 97), sass, bossiness, being jaded...yeah, that is Enchanting 101. The secret all enchanters know is that life would be so much easier for everyone if they would simply do what we say, when we say it. =) But seriously, I was talking about this the other night to guildies. The only gig in the game I can think that would be near as good of a rush as crowd controlling would be big league pulling. Derailing trains, charming as crowd control, locking down overpulls and turning group wipe into easy victory...there's nothing like being the CC in EQ1. No game has anything close imho.
Enchanters are all kinds of awesome. I don't know why more people don't play that class. Even with some clearly OP things added to the class in the last few expansions, there are still too few of them around.
I've actually been asking myself this question for a bit now..Chanters got some DPS these days along with their tricks, I think it's an excellent cross between ADPS and Utility plus decentish DPS ( depending on what you're doing.) Someone hit their IoG I'm feenin!
I think one of the issues is that, historically, mid/upper level guilds kept a minimal number of Enchanter mains on the roster. Because of that, there was little incentive for people to try out an Enchanter (based on erroneous perception). Just look at most of the guild rosters for raiding guilds today: there are only 2 - 3 mains. For those interested in Enchanters, approaching the class can be quite intimidating. There is a steep learning curve since you have new, unique abilities/spells every few levels >Lv. 80ish that you really need to understand and utilize to reach full potential. And then there is the constant fluidity of our role in any given situation. Am I on crowd control? If so, will I/can I use mez (which one?), root, charm, pacify, stun, etc. Am I on DPS? If so, what weave is appropriate? Am I on utility/mitigation? If so, what runes/debuffs/buffs do I need? Of course, the answer often is D. All of the above. Compare this to Rogues for example... what is their role? DPS. Not die. For every single situation in the game. BUT all that aside... there are many veteran/knowledgeable Enchanters and resources full of information to help someone get up to speed. I'd love to see more Enchanters. New blood brings new ideas. What scares me the most is the idea that the longer we go, the established Enchanter population will start to decline disproportionately to other classes leading to a "shortage". Of course, that's just me and my doomsday conspiracy. Compared to many classes, I feel we are well balanced, and like Axxius said, we've been given many beneficial things the past few expansions. We also average an 18-30% rate of raids "absolutely" requiring an Enchanter each expansion. So moral of the story: Roll an Enchanter.
A big part of it too is that "support" classes make excellent bots: -buffs/adps -limited gear/aa reqs -effective with minimal attention I think a lot of guilds have more shaman/bard/enchanter bots than they do mains.
The problem with enchanters is that in an era where WoW has made the solution to every problem = MOAR DPS!!, using a crowd controller + ADPS instead of directly dropping more mana bombs is seen as kinda meh to the average player. I blame DPS meters for the decline of MMOs generally, but certainly for the decline in the pure support classes. The other problem is that in a lot of raid content, enchanters get a big chunk of their toolkit not just nerfed, but outright disabled, as in switched off. Can't charm, can't mezz, can't stun, can't root, etc. So you need a MGB haste and clarity bot, and someone to spam runes on the MT. ENC nukes are pitiful compared to mages and wizards, they clearly can't dot like shaman and necros, they don't slow as well as shaman, and their pets are lulz DPS. Blame the devs for not allowing the toolkit to be useful, which they started in Kael Drakkel in 2001, since charmed giants were never intended to kill the Avatar of War or King Tormax. So the top end raid game, as others have pointed out, needs very few enchanters. Allow charm on raid level mobs, you'd see a HUGE surge in their popularity. But alas, this is not the case. Now outside the raid game (otherwise known as the other 99.5% of EQ), assuming dark blue or lower mobs, ENC are a single group's best pal. Learner's Aura, group haste, clarity and making all pulls single pulls...that's handy stuff. Add in charmed pet DPS, the occasional DD, and some other tasty treats, and having an ENC around just makes life easier. Charm is godly when used properly by a bold enchanter that knows their business, but if all an ENC does is mezz and keep things orderly, that CC slot pays for itself in lots of saved time. I am biased. I just dinged 100 on my enchanter redux. My guild and I know how useful enchanters are. We have a bunch, with the goal being one for every single group we can build. It makes leveling guildies on tough content a lot easier.
I'd agree, and it's odd, given what all three bring to any single group, and raiding is only one of many daily activities for even uber guilds. Again, I blame DPS meters. ADPS and making everything better in the background isn't as sexy as big DPS numbers and leading the DPS charts.
I just had to pipe up and disagree with everything I quoted above. Now I know Enchanters are a diverse class, and different Enchanters can play very differently from one another, but I believe that all of the above quote is just wrong, and not just a playstyle decision.
Would be nice if you decide it's all wrong, to actually give data and information about why you think he's wrong? I dunno about the raid stuff, but I agree with him about the enchanter being a groups (in the group game) best friend.
By all means then, explain it to me. In normal groups, I know how valuable enchanters are. Essentially, the class can make even tough group content seem trivial to downright boring. They're that useful. On raids, unless there's DPS spells I am not aware of, enchanters are not being piled up for DPS casting. I understand the rune/aura/other utility thing, but that can be done by 2 ENC at most. And I haven't done recent raids, but if you tell me that charm and mezz are now viable in the current high end raid game and are necessary raid tools, then I a) happily stand corrected and b) look forward to raiding with my enchanter like a boss. Not sure why you disagree with the claim that for 99.5% of the game's content, enchanters rule, but I'll say again...explain it to me.
I haven't raided TDS, but as recently as CotF, mez, and stun were incredibly useful tools in raids, and I remember charming as recently as RoF, as I didn't go far in raiding CotF either. I would be surprised to hear that that changed. I imagine if it had changed, there would be at least one thread about it here. How do you figure? After the standard 50% slow mitigation, the difference in slow is only 1% and, while I haven't parsed it, it seems quite obvious to me that the other debuffs Enchanters have available more than make up the tiny difference. From the very beginning of raiding, there were immune mobs, and people were using charmed mobs to tank raid bosses long after Velious. Do the math. 54 players on a raid. 16 classes. 3-4 of each class is therefore balanced. I don't remember a raid where you'd want fewer than 3 Enchanters, though I admittedly haven't done most of them. And for the most part, 4-5 Enchanters would not be a drag on the raid. Why only for dark blue and lower mobs? I think the opposite. You want an Enchanter when it gets tough, not necessarily when you're grinding easy XP mobs. Here's a thread on why Learner's Aura is almost always sub-optimal: https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...actually-work-on-more-current-content.205869/ Finally, I disagree that simply mezzing is enough in today's game is enough for an Enchanter to earn their keep.
Be honest, it was driving you crazy that the thread title uses the acceptable alternate term for Enchanter and you had to chime in!
Actually I hadn't noticed the error. It's such a common mistake, I usually pass right by it. Chanter = one who chants = Shaman
Exactly, i have been playing my enchanter over my wizards on many of our TDS raids and have been having a blast. Wait until you get gift of hazy thoughts AA and then you will be expected to nuke in between debuffing, mezzing, charming and possibly stunning, which as stated above are viable and almost mandatory for TDS raids.
OK, I stand corrected. Enchanters are the single most necessary class in a raid anymore. Got it. Color me happy as a lark that I have one at 100 grinding AAXP, given their now godlike raid status.
