Enchanter "Fail"

Discussion in 'Casters' started by Jordis, Apr 3, 2013.

  1. Jordis Augur

    I returned to the game recently after a break to finish school and resolve some health issues. Most of the people from my old guild have moved on, and there are way too many on my friends list that may never appear again. The obvious answer is to find new friends. I had spent some time charming and working on anniversary quests and decided to try and meet some new people.

    What surprised me is that in announcing that there was a 93 enchanter looking for a group in the general chat was met with numerous comments and statements to the effect that I didn't know my class if I was LFG and should be charming. When I commented that I have always grouped and found it an effective and fun way of experiencing there were even more pointed statements along those lines. I asked in the channel why it would even matter to them if I wanted to group or charm? Eventually I just plain left the channel.

    As a result I was asked by a group of people with levels from the high seventies to high eighties if I'd join them in Dream Feerrott. Okay, the experience wasn't going to be all that great, but it was a chance to use all my skills as an enchanter, help out and meet some new people. One person felt the need to stop by the group to say, "Enchanter fail! What is a 93 enchanter doing in this zone? Waiting for some 85 spawn?" Along with some other comments. The people in the group were astounded. I wasn't. I'v seen it in beta discussions, I've seen it in the enchanter forums both in the past as well as in present discussions. It was a first that someone felt it necessary to stop by the group and say something.

    I have a good friend who plays an enchanter alt who is awesome at charming, and told me one day that he had nothing to offer a group and was bored in a group. I was surprised, in a group I am ALWAYS busy. That's why I like groups, there's always something I can be doing to improve the game play for myself and the group. I get bored with charming. Yes, I can do it, and do, but it's a real grind. It's the same old thing, over and over. That doesn't mean that I don't know my role.

    The people I was with today had not grouped with an enchanter, they'd come to depend on ranger pulling and using the equivalent to our banish aa, root or other methods of cc. In the future I hope that they'll be more inclined to include an enchanter in their dps group. Many of the friends that I have grouped with in recent years were newbies that I went out to buff or help cc even though the content was well below me. In part that attitude was fostered by the enchanters who would wander by Mammoth Ruins and drop Clarity on a bunch of people trying to experience, and even stick around a bit and pull and control mobs for us. I wanted to do that for other people, and when I started playing it was FUN to go to a lower level zone and participate in buff stations.

    Remember the class changes that were made back in PoP to "encourage" clerics and enchanters" to group? Some of us didn't need the encouragement. Part of the problem with the enchanter class not being as well integrated into the game as we should be is, in my opinion, the people who think that all enchanters should do is charm. I am not happy about the way enchanters have been marginalized in raids, but I think that also has its roots in the charm-not-group attitude. There is no one way to play any role, that's part of the fun of EQ, and I think that it doesn't hurt anyone of any class to group up instead of soloing or moloing. If that's all I wanted to do I'd play another, non-MMORPG game. I will continue to play Everquest, group with people who I don't know, of any level that needs my class and have fun. I suppose that /ignore is a reasonable alternative to trying to explain "fun" and "friends" to people who would rather play by themselves.
  2. Fyrerock Augur

    The game has changed, where in the past very few classes had any ability to pull or CC, now most classes have some type of ability to at least handle one add. People also love BIG numbers, so anything that will increase the dps on a burn is a god sent for many people, and it is the melee classes that get the most bang from some of the nice buffs that other classes can bring to the table, except us.

    Groups do not need us anymore, at least not the way it used to be, if an expansion is made hard then it is better to bring another dps class along to help bring down the names with huge amounts of Hp's fast, and if the expansion is made easy then the tank can just melee multiply adds at a time.
  3. silku Augur

    I think we have kind of been pigeon holed into charming to be honest. Without it we are really almost a waste of a spot. Yeah we can CC, but do we need to? Most higher zones don't need it, though you could argue for it in Breeding Grounds and Chapterhouse. Even those a good puller and smart positioning can prevent the need for CC. I hardly ever join a group and don't charm, except in instances a lot of times. Why instances? Many of the higher instances don't have mobs to charm in them. But if there is something to charm, you find I do, group or not.

    Do I want to charm all the time? No. I don't want to. I'd like to be able to sit back sometimes and just pull or just nuke, and not worry about extra dps. My groups though usually expect it.
  4. Sinestra Augur

    This is something Necromancers went through years ago and still suffer from now. Soloing for the class is very rewarding, and therefore many uneducated people believe that anyone who wouldn't solo is crazy. It happens with Rangers, SKs, Paladins, and even Bards now. If you can solo, why would you ever want to group?

    You learn to dismiss such people as they are a waste of time and energy to argue with. Necromancers were for years held back from groups because people didn't want them most of the time unless you were playing with friends. We wanted more group synergy since most DoTs at the time were barely touching a mob before it died in a group and our nukes were weak. No one wanted to listen to us then because we were so good at soloing. Luckily some people started to see the truth and a lot of other classes started being able to solo well and that made them see it too. It made me stop playing my Necromancer (my oldest character) and roll another class because I liked being able to solo, but I didn't want to be forced to do it all the time and back then Necromancers couldn't do progression or names by themselves.

    Enchanters I think are a great addition to a group. CC isn't as necessry as it used to be, but you can certainly use it to your advantage. Being able to pull multiple mobs at a time and lock them down to pick off at our leisure is a big bonus. On top of that slowing, adps, experience bonus, mitigation, and other things seem small by themselves, but over time I think they save the group time, mana, hps, and stress. Being able to non-stop fight for hours without having to lose time pulling with an Enchanter without breaks compared to maybe an hour without one can be a huge bonus. Bards are great, and I group with one a lot as she's my real life best friend, but she is the exception rather than the rule. She played an Enchanter first, and now as a Bard she is capable of mezzing pretty much as well as any Enchanter I've ever seen, that is really uncommon in my experience.
  5. Ludiz New Member

    I think I understand where the Dev's are coming from making groups not be too reliant on certain classes. I mean the player base is nowhere near what it used to be. However, we should get some compensation I think.
  6. Kurayami Augur

    I too find it sad that enchanters aren't thought of as useful as they used to be. I have never mained as one, but alted/boxed one plenty. I will never have a problem with an enchanter in my group, as long as they understand the phrase, 'not worth mezzing'. I make a real habit of pulling 3-6 mobs at a time, with or without a chanter, but if I have one, I'll likely request they only mezz if more than 3 mobs or such, oh and the mob count might go up to 5 to 10 a pull since I want to give the enchanter something to do :) Wouldn't want you guys getting bored now.

    Granted, my opinion is a little biased as I have a tendency to AE hate all the time, so it isn't an issue at all to find a new mob/build agro once my first one is down. It is incredibly sad how people only want dps now though rather than greater control over any situation. That is the main reason I see enchanter's demand being in such great decline, people want everything faster, when an enchanter's primary niche has always been the ability to slow things down. And with most pulls only being 1-3 mobs tops, is easy to forget w/ all the roots and snares out there. It is very possible to pull 3 mobs, snaring 2, and have the first mob dead before the first 2 even arrive. This is the problem, enchanters have the same great stuff they always had. People just too impatient to use it any more with the current setup.
  7. Jordis Augur

    I think that your phrase, "not worth mezzing" is a good indication of what has happened to the class. I have been along on lesson burns with paladin and SK friends where they just basically walked through the area with dozens of mobs being literally riposted to death. I was warned, "Don't mezz, just nuke, play like you're a wizard." (I can't tell you how many times I've heard that phrase either), or they tell the snare class, "Root it, snare it, whatever, we won't have to mez it."

    Even those friends would admit though that it was nice having someone along that could occasionally control that aoe mob mess when things went wrong which they usually do. I personally think that the banishment/fade distribution among all the classes was another nail in the lid for both bards and enchanters.

    There are a lot of frustrations, but I do feel that SOE has made some effort to re-balance the class, of course they could do more, and I think they might if we even agreed among ourselves what it is we are supposed to be doing.

    Frankly, I would feel that a lot of our class ability diffusion would be made up by giving us a few of the abilities from the other classes. Some level of snare would be nice, and I doubt that it would make any enchanter in the game "over-powered." Yes, I know I can throw a snare potion. I've tried it, and do use it occasionally, but I've also been invited along for the company with a shaman (necro, etc) who just rooted and rotted a mob down with no real effort. I don't blame people for choosing a shaman or even a beastlord over an enchanter for most groups these days. They have a lot more to offer the melee class.

    But back to my main point, I don't think that any one in our class should expect that we do nothing but charm. It should be a choice, and I'd like to see charm be more useful and acceptable again in the sense of having a group or a raid find it valuable. It used to be a great cc ability and addition to a group. It has become a "solo only" ability, not because it was over-powered, but because it was exploited beyond reason. At the first SONY conventions in LV I heard one developer, and a supposed class representative who had stood up to ask a class-related question) agree that the class was over-powered, because they BOTH had exploited the abilities related to charm, but they hadn't played the class in years. I left not long after that, since there wasn't much point in asking anything enchanter related, and I was very bitter about the situation for a number of years.

    I don't think that the Vxed" have an enchanter charm the mob and run everyone through the trial thing" was great either. It was ridiculous, and if I could pick out a time or single thing that split the class into the "I can charm anything and you're a failure if you dont" and "I can, but also choose to work within group dynamic" factions that would be it. Most of the players I went with did not want the enchanter to escort them through a trial. In my opinion it was a border-line exploit in the first place. It was not that I couldn't, it just wasn't that much fun for any of us. It was a choice, and I think that the group side was more in the spirit of the game as a whole. Many melee players were not happy about being out-dps'd in the game, the story going that we got the big nerf on charm damage in Omens because one enchanter found just the right pet and pretty much solo'd their way through Walls of Slaughter.

    Bottom line, people complained about us as a class based on the perception that we were overpowered. They didn't complain when the paladin had people die at the entrance to one of the Sewers of Dranik quests and then dragged the corpses while soloing through to the end where the quest mob was. Melee classes are apparently supposed to be able to do that and save the rest of us. But where are the groups when there is no tank? That used to be solved with a mage, or a enchanter with a charmed pet, or a necro with pets and high damage spells going along and occasionally tanking a mob when a high level, raid equipped tank was unavailable. The enchanter line of spells is designed, in my opinion only, to enhance the abilities of literally any other class in the game, especially in a group...even without charm. I can literally duo with any class in the game effectively, some better than others, but there's no class that I can't help; make better. There are two ways to win, do a lot of damage, or keep the mob from doing a lot of damage. I remember my surprise and that of my group way back in a Crystal Caverns geonid camp when we had no healer and none were available and we made it all the way through the run with stunning. In groups I've been in the tanks start congratulating themselves on how well they're doing, then suddenly die when they pull when I'm on a brief AFK and I'm not stunning the mob as a method of slowing it.

    I leveled up with the small group(s) in Dream Feerrott yesterday. I met a total of twenty new people working their way up into the high level game. People who were well informed about their class and about half had other higher level alts. The one constant comment throughout the experience was, "Wow, I didn't know an enchanter could do that." And even one, "Wow, I play an enchanter, and I didn't know that was what you could do with that spell." Most of those people are going to end up in the high end game, and now they know what an enchanter can do to enhance the experience even with a bard and/or necros in a group. They'll be there to group with in the future with more ideas about how an enchanter could help them in a particular circumstance. I don't see that as a "fail"for not charming my way to level 100, and I had a lot of fun.




    .
    Leerah and moogs like this.
  8. Fyrerock Augur



    Yes they are trying to pigeon hole us into charming, but really what percentage of the enchanter population charm for anything but names. I created my enchanter to CC, and even pull in the old days, and I only charmed when everyone would beg me to create a charm group, but once the nerf hit I stopped charming because it was something I never enjoyed doing. Many times I have asked random enchanters which types of mobs make good pets, to help me bring down a name and almost always the answer I get is I do not know, which means to me, more enchanter do not like charming then the ones that enjoy it.

    As for pulling, most of the other classes do not consider us as a pulling class and if that is something that soe wants us to do more often they really need to give us a faster run speed and a much shorter statis that does not freeze us. But again pulling is something I stopped doing on my enchanter, once monks were given the ability to mez, because I find it that much easier to just pull with my monk then my enchanter.
  9. EverChanter Augur

    If someone tries to tell you your "supposed to be charming all day every day or your not worthy of the group", gladly charm a mob and insta invis right next to them. Let them get close to death then mez it and remind them it was your MEZ that saved them, not the charm.
    Sinestra likes this.
  10. Qest T. Silverclaw Augur

    So, you're a Wizard?
  11. Kurayami Augur

    Nope, worse, ShadowKnight. Of course if being an SK ever stops working out for me, I will always have a place as a train conductor.
  12. Jordis Augur

    I did get a comment in the game last night that surprised me and might be something to consider in the over-all balance of the game. While the PC might be able to get away with riposte kills, rooting, snaring and so on, the people who have to depend on the mercs are the ones that are likely to get the most out of our in-group participation. I was in a small group that sent me a tell saying, "You're welcome to join us, but we're not doing too well." Two players and mercs, I added my melee merc to the mix. It took a bit to sort out, but with the hate-rune on the tank, stuns, spell casting enhancements people and mercs stopped dying and started gaining experience as well.
    Panache likes this.
  13. moogs Augur

    My enchanter is 99 with over 3k AAs. I won't claim or even pretend to be a good enchanter. I don't ever charm for XP...I always have a group (because I box). The big nukes that they added at 90 or so (Mindblade?) really increased DPS and my enchanter is fairly respectable in that department with regular crit nukes of over 50k damage (group geared). The pet is quite decent after loading up on his AAs and using summoned mage pet gear.

    Tash, Slow with built-in Cripple, Haste with built-in stats, runes for both melee and spell damage, two auras always up (usually Learner's Aura and Twincast). Never mind pulling like you invented the concept, plus the ability to lock down a dozen mobs at a time...

    Enchanter #2 has no real role on most raids and I hope that sees more development focus. Otherwise, what's not to like about having one in a group? People are friggin' dumb.
    Leerah and Mintalie like this.
  14. Tragicsong New Member

    Just play how u want. Cry about being pigeon holed if you want. Play your class with reckless abandon and you might find yourself becoming friends with a grp of elite raid-geared grinders. Keep mobs in camp, dps, charm and people will notice. They will take you over a random dps slot for sure. That got me to a point were my consistent grps LOL'd because there only problem was "not enough mobs". You get where I'm going with this. I'm a bard and with everyone and their mom having a alt bard in tow I had to make my play style my resume, not just my class. What I'm saying is don't wait.for soe to make your class valuable, that's your job.
  15. lagkills Slain by Fippy while guards stood and watched.

    w t f are you talking about, if you're in a fellowship with raid geared people with max aa who burn glyphs for kicks and giggles and where tank fights named and adds at the same time, the enchanter borders on becoming a waste of rendering cycles. This class gets worse the more you surround yourself with competent people. See raid/max aa fellowship, or raids themselves.
  16. Tragicsong New Member

    Ok Dr. Glasshalfempty. I'll admit 1 thing. Yes during raids chanters see this problem. But Id be fairly sure most casters would love soe to give them a bigger adps role or more events where they are needed. But in any scenario like you described almost any 6th person regardless of class is almsot a waste. My main is a max aa raid geared mage burning glyphs for giggles always with grps like you described. Do I need a grp? Fk no. Do I like grps, hell yea. As long as you play hard and don't just slow but max YOUR characters output, you would be welcome anytime. That's my point. And isn't that what this is about? Time to evolve me thinks
  17. silku Augur

    Here is the question: Assuming that both characters are putting out max of their potential in a raid geared group.. which one will be most useful? A chanter or another dps? Cause I mean in a raid geared group in group content, you could add two clerics if you wanted and still do fine. But not all of us are raid geared either.
  18. Deckerd Smeckerd Augur

    My answer is formed by reading what other enchanters have said and by my own experience with the class. It largely depends on what the group wants to do. If they are camping and can pull safely then another DPS might speed things up. If the group wants to stay on the move and reach a certain named then an enchanter can make the journey safer because the classes CC abilities. I'm not high enough level to comment on high level enchanter spells. I am only level 76. I think something that could improve the desirability of an enchanter is to greatly increase the mana regen of the enchanter's aura. I think the highest aura grants 32 per tick while the highest mana regen spell grants 100 per tick. Perhaps if they were to give an enormous boost to the aura and bring it up to 100 per tick also (and boost previous auras), they could make an enchanter known for its ability to keep a group on its feet for longer periods of time.
    Leerah likes this.
  19. Silv Augur

    The way that things are setup now... Enchanters could be considered two different classes. I won't say either is wrong, but the whole pro- and anti-charm camps have been raging on FOREVER. You don't see clerics saying- I will only heal with HoTs vs. direct heals. To me, it's part of what Enchanters should do... I charm when I'm 3-boxing, I charm in an exp group with other players, and there are many situations where we charm on raids in my guild. I love it. Funny observation I've made- it seems the Enchanters who hate charming buy Edict of Command whereas regular charmers didn't/don't use it. Now, let me follow that with making it clear that I don't think Enchanters who do not charm are bad players at all. Honestly, I will never be in a group with another Enchanter so I don't care what they do. I support changes/improvements that will benefit both group and raid Ench but I do not support changes based on charm vs. non-charm Ench.

    However, telling us "It's up to you to make your class valuable" is a bit of a fantasy. We can only work with the tools we are given in the world we play in (the latter of which we really have no influence). We were flat out devalued as a class due to their decisions with content. Yes, we can make the most of it but it only goes so far.

    Perception is everything these days. Things are so cookie-cutter overall that I don't focus on "MUST maximize DPS for X content" but rather... who can get the job done, is enjoyable to group with, and at least can play their class to make a meaningful contribution. Unfortunately, part of it is dependent on you to associate with people who want you and are educated on what the class can do, and more specifically, what YOU do as an Enchanter. Screw them if they have X expectation of you just because your class tag is Enchanter. That's ignorant on their part. Yeah, it places a high burden of proof on Enchanters but an enjoyable Enchanter is much more memorable than other classes, even if they are good players.

    Always remember- EQ is so cliquey now some people have 0 desire to glance at other players regardless of their class. It isn't always a matter of "you're a worthless class" but "you're a worthless person to me".

    After all that optimism though what I really want to know is why someone would willingly pick an Enchanter as an alt these days over whatever other class.
    Sinestra and silku like this.
  20. Kriska Journeyman

    Other item to keep in mind -

    Its not how we feel about ourselves - its how the other classes feel about our class that determine the selection process. Unless your guild raid leader happens to be an enchanter, they are going to build and and manage the raid in a manner that emphasizes the classes they feel they need to win the event. Pillars needed 2 enchanters (or an amazing couple of bards), Sep 5 needed a couple (or yet again reasonably skilled bards). Charming on raids isn't happening if its not a required raid mechanic and you don't want your raid leader to go berserk. Still a touch of stuff to add a bit to melee dps groups on raids would be nice (to change Raid-leader perceptions). We put bards in melee dps groups and we put bards in caster dps groups (in addition to chanters).

    Grouping or soloing is clearly different, I box so I don't solo these days and its pretty rare that when I am in a group that they want the charm mob dps (together with the aperiodic charm breaks) but again I usually group with guildies and those are all raiders.
    [IMG]
    Silv likes this.