Changes that effect Illusionists in the forthcomign Combat/spell update

Okay, so I'm back from Fanfaire, and since I seemed to be the only Illusionist there above lvl 30 I made sure to inquire about the state of illusionists in the post Combat change game. bear in mind that while everything I say here is based on what was told to me by Locke ( the guy revamping all the spells) none of this is written or stone or otherwise any kind of promise by SOE devs nor do i have any idea on when this patch will go live. Furthermore I'm sure a good portion of this post will wind up including my interpretations of what was said.

So unto the good news for Illusionists

First and foremost is of course the removal of "Breeze aggro" Also know as "[expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] the mob went for the enchanter when i pulled" syndrome, and other deaths and such caused byt the fact that breeze generates large amounts of hate over time ( steming from it acting toom much like a heal over time only for power).

Secondly is that illusionists will get charm. I believe the exact implementation of it is still in the air. Currently however it seems we cna expect something along the liens of it taking 3 conc, only working on solo mobs ( I didn't get a specifc word on the "advanced" solo mobs or "enraged" variations either so it could go either way), and while it probably won't have a max duration it will have % chance to break over time and on hostile actions and the like. Additionally this spell is intended to be primarily a solo tool for us. additionally our DoT pet will probably remain uneffected by the addition of charm, but on the other hand I couldn't get an answer if the current issues with chamred pets and group buffs would be resolved prior to the Combat update ( obviously they are different areas entirely). If you are unfamiliar with that issue go read the coercer forums.

Also you can expect Scorching Beam to be 2 second cast and 2 second recast.

In regards to the more general and overall changes to the spell system there are lots of changes that should effect Illusionists.

First is that AoE spells will probably improved across the board for almost all classes. Specifically you can expect a mix of shorter cast times, shorter recast times, and better damage/power ratio. and in some cases simply better damage. This will effect figther classes and stuff too, so the overall gain may not be much, plus it makes in-encounter mezing even less useful, but thats nothing new,

Second "Does not work on epic targets" will be a thing of the past. epic mobs will likely remain immune to root, mez, stun, stifle and the like, but the spells with those ancillary effects will still land and do damage just fine.

There's also going to be significant changes to buffs. I don't quite fully grasp the entire scope of the changes but as I understand it we can expect fewer buffs with similiar effects, and instead 1 buff that basically combines the two similiar spells. Also I think you can expect changes to the smaller secondary buffs on many spells. I think this will primarily effect priest classes ( particularly with their heals and stuff) but even stuff like Seal of Comprehension's secondary effect ( small % chance to proc power heal) may change. Even stuff liek insight may lose some or all of its int/wis /arcane resists buff effect ( and likely put on a conc buff). I'm not entirely sure what form or even if these changes will be included in the combat changes, but I will say they are being looked at, but again it is primarily stuff like the 10 second str buffs on templar heals and the like ( and those str buffs many times don't even stack). In short you may see some of your buffs combined to be like 1 super buff. it won't be any stronger, but it will be 1 buff.

Also spell upgrading will no longer increase the power cost of a spell.

related to that is the changes to the spell upgrade system. Its complicated and really boring to explain, but suffice it to say level no longer is a factor for the strength of a buff, and upgrading its quality is. Furthermore stat buffs will be on a different upgrade growth table than say damage effects, so that stat buffs should show more noticable gains when upgrading. particularly when all your stat buffs may be combined to 1 conc buff instead of three or four.

Also there's the changes that make Caster's Int Vs defender's Wis a factor in spell damage. Pretty self explainatory really. Makes int/wis buffs and debuffs useful and also gives you an advantage over lower level and lower tier mobs ( i.e. solo Vs raid). Furthermore Heal spells will be improved by wisdom, and also as part of this change you may see decreased out right resists on raid targets but your actual damage per spell may be weaker,

On the not so good side I got the impression that Illusionists ability to buff int/wis might be nerfed at least slightly. But again thats largely an impresison I got, when I told Locke how high my self buffed int was =\ (377 for those keeping score at home)

Also I only heard this mentioned once and I didn't inquire too closely but it seems Critical hits for spells ( including Dots) may also be on the way,

Just to reiterate none of this is for certain, and its just what I gleaned from the FanFaire. No promises on when if EVER any of this stuff will hit the live servers.

If you need me to clarify soemthing feel free to ask.

Edited for those of you with ADD.
Message Edited by Vurin on 06-13-2005 01:31 AM

Thanks for sharing all this Vurin Sounds very interesting

Interesting. Thanks for all the info.

Yea...this is cool. Ironically, what I've seen from this Fan Faire makes it sound a lot cooler than the EQ Live fan faires ..which....always strike me as somewhat...weird.

Good to know that there has been at least one person who has a clue about our class. Thanks for sharing the info. Unfortunately i got the impression we will not see significant upgrades for our class or balance against other classes.
That spells with stifle or stun effect will land on epic mobs just not the sifle and stun itself, is sure an improvement. Doesnt put us at par with fighter classes though whoes stifle, stun and interrupts work fine. Fighter dont seem to have problems to stack their melee skill debuffs on the mobs either, while my dismay gets resisted quite often.
I chose the class mainly for CC. Maybe it was just not mentioned but i cannot find anything about improving our CC skills at higher lvl. Could be interesting though if spells like Color Shower got faster recast and less power cost combined with AE fights becoming even more important. My only concern about this is that tactics in this game gets reduced even further and at the same rate the purpose of being an enchanter.
I dont find anything that we actually will get some interesting "group enhancing abilities" either. So unless it was just forgotten to mention it seems breeze is still valued enough to make up for everything else.
To put Scorching Beam on a 2 sec recast will be nice. But in combination with the changes they put on the spell recently (instead of just fixing it to work as it was intended to do originally) its effectivness will be cut short as the dot will be overwritten. I do not have faith enough that they change the spell back to how it was supposed to work before. (= doing the heat damag portion in one tick instead divided into 3 ticks). These are minor issues but depending how they will be implemented it can be an indicator how far the Devs understand our class or not. Will be interesting to see the actual changes.

This would be very typical for SOE Dev team... having no clue about what classes actually can do or buff or what stats they have or can reach. And when they get one number of an obviously top geared character then try to scale everything around this one info. I will not even be a tiny bit surprised if our ability to buff int will get reduced significantly.
Sorry to be so negative today. But i got the impression they only throw us a bone (look you get charm, now you can solo ! ) fix a bug (breeze agro) and dont bother to put any much more thoughts into fixing the class.
I know though that there are illusionist who like our role in the (end)game atm (i raid with other illusionist who are happy as long as they are allowed to cast breeze and then go hide out of AE) so maybe its all fine as it is, maybe its just me..... :smileyindifferent:

plenty of new info thanks for sharing it with us

Thx nice info but as said already I fear its a bit weak and sure won't make playing an Illusionist more fun. Still no clue why this char is called an Illusionist we cast no illusions at all that are usefull. And seems it will stay this way, pity.....

Windekind (Splitpawn) 46 Illusionist

In regards to how much relative damage we're supposed to do. locke I believe said something along the lines of "roughly on par with bards" who should be moving up somewhat. And I do agree that I really didn't get any information regarding our CC role.

I did get told that our stun lines would have their cast and recast times reduced along with their duration. I personally think he was talking about Coercers there but he claims its for both classes.

Also there's a lot of other things I've not really mentioned. For example warrior stacking hp buffs will be nerfed, Priests nukes will probably be roughly as strong/mana efficent as a mage's nuke ( but limited by longer recasts and fewer nukes to choose from), healing spells in general will give less hate, Rogue classes may be getting the ability to use their hate gaining abilities on another group member ( i.e. the tank), Gaurdians may lose several of their defensive abilities ( and have them given to other fighter types) as well as some of those abilities will have reduced stackability. Also changes to make the Skill Difference between player and mbo useful only up to a maximium point, and also having the relative level play a bigger factor.

Anyway there's a lot of changes being made so don't think my two posts are the entirety of it. I'm focusing on whats in Store for Illusionists.
Message Edited by Vurin on 06-13-2005 01:35 PM

First and foremost thank you for reporting this Vurin much appreciated.
1) 'Fixing' "Breeze aggro" is a nice thing. But it is not that high on my 'wish list'. After all an alert, well played group can keep the mobs off the illusionist 100% of the time. To some extent I don't mind the aggro, keeps me thinking about who to buff instead of just buffing everyone all the time. Also keeps me more alert on pulls, I can after all prevent mobs from hitting me just like a tank can.
2) Getting Charm. Well I never wanted it, never asked for it and don't really care if I get it. If that's what I'm given then I guess I'll have to take a 'wait and see' attitude. Charm is a much harder thing to implement right in a game then it would seem on the surface.
3) Scorching Beam to 2 seconds. Although this is huge both in terms of DPS but also in terms of being able to manipulate the HO wheel. Changing Scorching Beam to 2 seconds isn't the best solution. Its nice, I'll certainly take advantage of it but.... There are a couple reason why this is not the ideal change to help us with high lvl dps and the HO Wheel.

• It's a dot, so issues with CC if you get into that need
• It's a dot, so the recast time will over write the existing dot effect
• It's not a very good direct damage spell (even with the timers changed to 2 seconds). This spell would need more up front damage (not a lot)

Id rather have a new spell at upper 40's that does up to 600ish direct damage, no dot, with 2 second timers and leave scorching beam as is but up it's dot damage.
4) AoE spells will improve, that's fine with me but I'm already a pretty darn good AoE caster, doesn't really get me to excited. I think this is Code Talk for 'Wizards will get better AoE' and Illusionist are ok already. After all we do AoE (within a group encounter) better then nearly any class in the game.
5) 'does not work on epic target', this one makes me mad. very mad. SoE tossing us a bone here at best. I want my spell effects to work on all targets, I don't want to be a mere shadow of myself in terms of effectiveness on only certain mob types. At minimum I should not be worse then other classes for stiffles, stuns, roots and power drains. Perhaps that means enabling us to do these things on epics but at a reduced effect and drastically (gulp) nerfing the other classes.
6) what your saying about int buffs makes me nervous. very nervous. I've built my character around the fact that a Int score over 200 is fairly useless and I've equiped myself with this and the fact that I can Int-buff myself to over 200 in mind. If they where to change the amount of Int I can add to myself by a lot it would devastate my character when they put in the "Int effects damage" change. Others would have much higher Int and better damage then me. I could swap out a lot of gear with a good amount of effort but I'd also need to redo all the skill/buff/race selections I got as I leveled up or I'll be way behind on Int.

My over all impression is that they really are not addressing what I see as the core reasons I played an Illusionist. I wanted great CC, I wanted great Utility, I wanted great defensive spells, I want great augmentation spells, I want to be the worst DPS mage but better DPS then a plate tank. The changes they are making don't address those for me very much.
Where are the innovative ideas like the following;

• "Mirror Image" spell
• Haste that effects Combat arts and SPELL arts
• Mages getting a steady damage like a tanks auto attack but we do slow steady magical damage seeing we can't hit in melee
• a very long recast 'backfire' spell that can be cast on mobs
• what about the fact that other classes, stun/stiffle/powerdrain and in some cases CC better then us.
• How about improving the length of time DoT work for and scaling their damage better
• what about the Epic mobs new Super Duper Power regen rates being an issue
• What about scaling the effects of our debuffs better
• Giving us a strait DPS debuff or Blind spell on a long recast timer.
• how about addressing spell upgrades not doing any upgrade
• how about addressing the fact that our lower level stuns/roots/stiffles work better then our high level ones.

These are the types and scale of changes I expect from the combat system change.
Message Edited by KaltenAlThor on 06-13-2005 08:47 AM

Thanks for summing that up! Now if only they had that kind of communication with those who couldn't go the Fan Faire...

I don't neccessarily agree with all the things they're talking about, but it's nice to hear that we are actually being looked at.

Thanks for the info Vurin. Very good to know that there was at least 1 high-level Illusionist at this major event of Sony's.
My take on this:
Removal of Breeze Agro

Definitely a good thing. Chanters across the board will love and welcome this change. Definitely a fix to one of our many fundamental problems.
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Illusionists will get Charm

Huh? Where did this come from? Did we ever ask for this? Sure, I'll take it and use it sometimes (maybe) but are we simply getting this because Coercers have it and it would be easy to copy/paste code to give it to Illusionists?
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Scorching Beam - 2s cast, 2s recast

I will definitely appreciate this change. This means we really do get an upgrade to our lvl29 nuke! This makes me happy on the DPS front in groups (though I don't know about solo, I'd like more dps for solo instances and perhaps the charm will provide that but we'll have to see).
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AoE Spell upgrades

I really have no clue what to expect here. Lower cast/recast timers will be nice but like somebody else mentioned, I see this as code for "Wizards will be better at AoE".
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"Does not work on epic targets"

I will be very glad to see this go away so I can use things such as Color Shower on raid mobs. Though I'm disappointed that all of our class-defining abilities cannot be used in raids except for power regen and haste.
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Significant change to buffs

This has me pretty concerned on several fronts but happy on one front. If I have a new buff that takes 4 conc and allows me to have all of my buffs that I have now for my group with a single cast, the lazy side of me (and the dangerous side that likes to "taunt" sometimes to make sure the tank/healers are awake) is happy. However, I'll be unhappy with the int/wis buffs as well as the arcane mitigation being dropped from our power regen buffs. These were VERY useful in that we could give all raid members a wis/int boost and the tanks much more resistance to arcane attacks. I'm sure we're not the only one being significantly affected here either and overall this will hurt raids a lot. Additionally, if we lose our ability to buff int/wis as we currently do (which I don't think is extreme as it's only like +60 or so int/wis that we can buff non-stop with another 20ish (forget exact number) from our 10-min buff), then I will be quite disappointed. Vurin, you probably shouldn't have bragged about your 300+ int to these guys - bad idea! Personally I'm at 198 self-buffed as a 50 illusionist. I have all of my gear setup to maximize STA and AGI, not INT. And nerfing our int buffing ability will affect those like you (who try to maximize INT) hardly at all and those like me (who try to maximize HP) a LOT even though it's those like you who they will be targetting.

Overall, I'm scared about this area until I know more.
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Spell upgrading will no longer increase power cost

Reasonable change though I don't see it making much of a difference.
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Buff spells don't scale with level

I can see this one going either way. Either this will help a lot and make you better or SOE will realize that and nerf the buff so when you're out-leveling your buffs before you get upgrades (or hit 50) then the buffs are really cruddy. I'm a bit scared here until I know more.
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Buff spells upgrade when spell is upgraded

OMG FINALLY! <3
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Int matters for damage

Non-chanter mages will love this. I doubt this will matter much for us.
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Critical hits for spells (including DOTs)

Would be nice but not too major for us probably. This will be more for wizards/warlocks trying to get the highest hits and stuff - nothing we care about.
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Again, thanks for all of the info Vurin! Greatly appreciated!!!

Regarding the Insight int/wis thing I should be clear that I didn't get any firm word on it. But judging by the other buff changes and stuff going around I would expect the int/wis arcane resists of that to be put on a conc buff like Seal of Comprehension, and in the process we might lose the ability to buff int/wis by something like 10-20 points overall ( of 56 + 25 + 20 currently). I can't promise these sort of changes for certain nor do I have any real basis for how much if any our int/wis buffing ability will be reduced, but these are the conclusion I drew from the event. I'm not infalliable and I certainly don't have any real input into the changes to be made. I really just want to prepare folks for the worst so there's outside chance we can be pleasently surprised, and people have to take the good with the bad. these changes aren't designed to make the players stronger overall, really they are designed to make the mobs stronger.

Also while the AoE thing is very widespread and yes, likely to be a boon to wizards. Its still a good thing. I think Fighters and wizards will see the biggest improvements to their aoes ( cast times, recast times and dmg/power efficenyimproved), but AoE is currently one of the ebst ways for illusionists to do dmg, so having it improved doesn't hurt.

As for the lukewarm reaction to charm. I kind of agree. basically it makes us Ghetto conjurors for soloing. I'll have to play with how often it breaks and how well mobs tank before I condemn it, but likely it won't be anythign great.

Also it seems every class can expect several new spells, but given that the spell revamp is still seemingly a long ways off I don't have any specifics.

I'm also of mixed feelings on the does not work on epic things. particularly with Regards to mind Drain vs Speechless.

Also you may find that the int Vs Wis changes are not really a boon. Rather they are a mixed bag designed for balance, not for a damage boost. I.e. Soloing a mage's high int will improve his dmg vs a solo mob, but he'll do less to a group, and far less to a raid mob ( which can be debuffed to more normal levels of course). So overall it just encourages you to fight the appropriate targets so you have the buffs/debuffs you need to deal normal damage. As for those of you worried about hwo they didn't pick int skills and stuff hoenstly there will probably be a respec, and worse case you're an enchanter who does less damage, but its not like you won't still have extra hp and such.
Message Edited by Vurin on 06-13-2005 01:26 PM

[/QUOTE]I have a strong feeling that this also will apply to Coercers.

Besides, they'll go ballistic if we get charm and they still have less AoE than we do. Hopefully charm is fixed so that it will be at least somewhat useful for the entire enchanter class.

I also read a post just now on the coercer forum saying that Group Breeze might be implemented. Any comment on that, Vurin? (Here's the link that the other post mentioned.)

I think the post you link to says Elemenatlists and group power regen. you'll also notice it was brought up by a player not a dev. At any rate I think the reporting being done here is suspect.

Not being a dev I can't say "breeze will never be group only" or "enchanters will get a group breeze line , in addition to their raid wide ones." Frankly if any changes like this are coming its the first I've heard of them. I will say if they do implement anything like this I HOPE it is akin to Mind's Eye for Coercer's pre-nerf, only not stacking with clarity/insight.

Speaking of Stacking one of the larger item changes comign down the pipes will be the fixing of Fortitude of the Body, and Battlement of the Mind Items to no longer stack when you have multiple items with the effect of the same name. Furthermore an overall cap on incombat power regen from items may be forthcoming.
Message Edited by Vurin on 06-13-2005 01:36 PM

I was at the fan faire also and got to hear their plans for the Illusionist class in person as well. It sounds like you guys are getting a lot of the changes you feel you are overdue to receive :smileyhappy:
On thing that still kind of bothers me is what spells the Illusionist gets or doesn't get in relation to my expectations based on the class name. I heard someone mentioning something about illusion spells (that turn you into another race etc.) but I can't remember exactly what her point to the question was, so I'll just ask.
I'm not familiar with all of the illusion type spells that you get - so what all can you cast illusion wise? I've seen the gnoll one, group human one, and a couple others, but the list seems incomplete. Do the ones you have work properly? I realize that giving you spells that change you into every possible race along with some world creatures would equate to quite a few spells, but this is something I figured you guys would want to do. Do you think it's fair that anyone can get the petrified eye of any race and change into those races at will, so long as a racial bone is present in inventory or bank? Personally I think the devs went too far with the eye thing, and would like to see their functionality be transferred to Enchanters. What are your opinions on the lack of exclusivity involving illusion spells?

double post sorry :smileymad:

Message Edited by Eloora on 06-13-2005 10:58 AM

Thanks to all the above for talking about these things, big thanks to the OP

Gonna go laugh at some "why is my mez breaking?" thread now.

Our list is:
Half-Elf, Human, Dwarf, Barbarian, Gnoll(for caster(meaning us) only)
Half-Elf, Human, Gnoll(for group)

Most of us don't really care about the lack of exclusivity of the racial ones. However we would rather prefer more unique non-racial ones.

Anyway for the rest of the changes.

Breeze aggro gone, good good.

Charm, useless fluff crap.

Scorching Beam, not so good change. Unless the DoT is getting changed as well, because as of right now, the recast time is the only thing making the DoT actually be "useful." I would much prefer a seperate spell to get the 2s cast/2s recast, than to have Scorching Beam changed.

AoE Spells improved? Wait a second, that means if our AoEs aren't increased at the same rate as everybody elses, we're effectively getting a nerf. Yes we have really good AoEs, but that doesn't make up for much else.

So the Epic-Check is being changed, does that mean Speechless won't have the Lv48 Cap? Or does that mean Mind Drain is being changed into a true upgrade of speechless. If not, then I see this change is basically useless to us. The only "good" thing about this is Color Shower will work on raid mobs for a bit more damage. Other than that, this won't help us at all. I'm betting this will also mean ANY stifle/stun/etc. that used to work on raid mobs previously will no longer work. Anyway, this more or less won't really affect us except for Color Shower, unless Mind Drain is "magically" upgraded.

Buffs, well if they make Seal of Comprhension an upgrade for Rune of Understanding, then whatever. But if they are to change Scint Aura/Insight, we move further down the table of usefulness, because that +47int/wis is about to become even better anyway for tanks, healers, and mages.

Power doesn't increase as spell gets upgraded from App1->Adp1. Not a big deal.

Wooo, So Adp1->Mas1 will be useful for group buffs, but confusing because of what is said above.

Int/Wis usefulness, okay. However 377 Int, maybe they should also look at Sorcerers who can get nearly as high as that self-buffed, before looking at us.

Critical Hits, interesting.

Soo, is recast on Breeze getting changed? Will we become more effective at our "class" defining skills?

I remember the question you are refering to Eloora.

It was in reference to petrified eyes, and someone wanted a kind of "master eye" so they wouldn't have to carry around multiple eyes. I believe the" no, you're not an Illusionist" answer given was mostly in reference to the fact that we do get 3-4 race illusions with no inventory slots and such used. Not because we have any large number of Illusions available to us. We have Dwarf, half Elf, human, gnoll, barbarian as our self only ones, and Human, half elf, and gnoll available in group form. So yes there are quite a few races we don't have illusions for.

Anyway I'd rather not get this thread derailed on a campaign for more illusions, but I will state that yes it is a point on which many Illusionists feel they should be thrown an additional bone.

Awesome write up vurin. I just realized that I used to bug you all the time about illusionist questions on the kithikor server. I never knew you were Recca lol.

- Relm