Illusionist Class Issues : Sentinel's Fate Edition

Cliffnotes

• The class now plays like a buffbot, with many buffs broken or replaced by gear. Of the few remaining useful ones, most are repetitive clicky buffs that are not fun to play, just tedious to constantly keep recasting.
• Mashing spells at a stupid pace to do the same damage as healers is not rewarding.
• There is no active role anymore for the class. By active I mean something that requires actually playing the game during encounters that results in an appreciable effect on the outcome. Our original role of crowd control is non-existent in EQ2 at present.
• Having to rebuff multiple single target buffs after deaths makes illusionists /rage. Time warp is insanely annoying.

Major Issues

a) Class role - What is it you the Devs envisage we are here to do?
If we are here to be old style Enchanters (utility/crowd control) then this needs to be stated to the playerbase and then content needs to be designed with this in mind.
By "content being designed" we mean the game itself being modified to require crowds of mobs being controlled on occasion due to overpulling etc. A few encounters where mezzing is possible but not necessary just doesn't cut the mustard since:
a) players will not form groups or develop strategies along these lines, they will DPS through the problem
b) if there are only one or two encounters in a zone where it is useful, or even scripted to be required, players resent having to drag a chanter along for just that and actually tend to reject the zone itself.
What is needed is general everyday gameplay to at some point require the use of crowd control without scripts and artificial mechanics. To do this you need to modify the encounter system. This will enhance other classes as well since most other classes have subjugation spells that barely get touched.
However, most players have come to accept that meaningful CC in this game will never happen, repeated devs have stated this, so as a "class role" this should probably be discarded.
If we are here to DPS with some buffs (as was the case in RoK/TSO) then the damage nerfing that has been applied to Enchanters in general to be reversed to some extent. Currently Illusionists are struggling to compete with Bards and even healers at times for damage output, at approximately 40-50% of an equivalent Sorcerer. We believe this needs to be restored to somewhere near the level at the end of TSO, approx 70-80%, given the level of buffs and other utility we bring to a group (much less than a bard and a healer!).
Current gameplay requires illusionists to give themselves carpal tunnel syndrome with the cast/recasts of our spells, all for negligible effect on the outcome of the group or raid we are in. This lack of "reward" for a lot of effort is one of the main negative features of the class at present.
If power regeneration is supposed to be a significant part of our role then the way we regenerate power needs to be reviewed and balanced with Coercers and overall made more functional (see below). However, many illusionists have pointed out they did not create their character to be "healers staring at a blue bar instead of a green one" and are not looking for this to become our class definition.
Some possible fixes:

• Increase the base damage of our spells so we see some benefit of the new focus on crit bonus and potency. Currently our spells hit for such relatively small numbers that these effects have much less impact on our performance than other classes. In addition, our traditional advantage of fast casting via AA's like perpetuality has been eradicated by gear, with most mages at or approaching the cast speed cap.
• Increase our base spell crit bonus to 1.5, as with other mages.
• More active methods of buffing that in some way reward actual player skill. Victorious Concerto is an excellent example of this. Another is the perpetuality suggestion below.
• Game mechanics that require the use of crowd control. There is actually zero logic in the terror displayed by the EQ2 design team at this prospect, when you consider that any raid includes at least a couple of Enchanters and most people still look for the class for their power regen when forming groups.

b) The number of mobs that are stun/stifle/mez immune is totally excessive.
It has now reached the point where a great many Ilusionists do not even consider using these effects and certainly noone else in a group is expecting them to be used. Literally an entire hotbar full of spells is left to gather dust, since on easy encounters the effects are not wanted or needed and on the encounters where they would make a difference the spells are more often than not unavailable.

c) Power regeneration
One of the areas we are still wanted for is power regen. However, we are essentially passive at this, we can drip feed power but have nothing that gives a decent chunk back quickly.
In the event of severe drains we have no way of quickly replenishing large chunks in an emergency.
Can we alter one of our other abilities to feed a significant level of power back at once for an emergency hit with a suitable recast.

d) Buff persistence
Please can we have it so that all buffs persist through death. The maintained group buffs was a start but for Enchanters with lots of single target buffs it is tedious having to rebuff constantly when people die. It is also a massive source of friction between players since Enchanters want to just play the game not rebuff all the time and other players want the buffs on them constantly.
In addition, our pet dies at the drop of a hat. Please see the suggestion below that it be made immune to non-direct AoE's. Reducing the amount of recasts would help considerably with this frustration.

Spell Issues

Illusory Arm
Once one of the illusionists mainstay buffs, it is now rendered useless in most groups and raids by virtue of everyone being capped on double attack. Many illusionists are reporting having to put it on themselves or even the mystic's dog since there are no viable targets in the group.
Possible solution: add a percentage flurry chance to it or base melee damage increase.

Destructive Rampage
Again, this was one of the main tools in the Illy armory. However, despite its description, it adds potency to the group. Most raid geared toons are either capped or rapidly approaching the potency cap rendering this buff worthless.
Solution: make it go over the potency cap, as timetravelling indicated was the case for some other abilities.
Fixed with removal of potency cap. [04/10]

Time Compression
Noone can find a valid reason for bards to be able to self-cast their equivalent spells to this (e.g Upbeat Tempo) but illusionists cannot, given that bards can do more damage now.

Time Warp
a) The tiny duration and recast seems to have absolutely no purpose other than to drive the illusionist mad. It also suffers from terrible mechanics requiring multiple macros or buttons on the hotbar. The feedback from it is terrible, leaving the illy unaware who is immune and the recipient unaware they have it until too late.
Increasing the spell duration and balancing with recast is needed. Losing the whole immunity mechanic would also help (i'm sure other classes would like this as well - JC etc.)
It was stated by devs previously that they understood how repetitive short term clicky buffs were not fun and that they were seeking to remove them. This is a classic example of what at the time they were trying to avoid.
Possible solution: increase duration, reduce recast or extend immunity to balance.
b) [BUG] The immunity period is extended by a Troubadour's harmonization AA which is clearly not what was intended. [fixed 04/10]

Personae Reflection
[BUG] The pet is currently dropping on zoning when combined with the new mythical spell.

Spellshield
Not a bug specifically, but since this was changed to only work on profession spells it is now useless as next to no mobs cast them. Still extremely useful in PvP so its current function should be maintained while something is added to allow it to reflect other types of effects.
Solution: make into a 3-trigger magical only stoneskin with a direct power cost and a recast that starts right away and increase the recast to 2 minutes, while dropping duration to 30s. Possibly make it groupwide with appropriate adjustment to duration/recast.

Paranoia
[BUG] The damage component is not working properly on epic mobs.
Solution: have it land the damage upfront as with our stifle.
Fixed to land upfront [04/10]

Blink
The deagro portion of the spell is so low it completely negates the "risk/reward" the spell description suggests casting it should represent. All it does now is either port you a few metres and then nothing, or port you into a group of other mobs. Either way, the position of the caster on the hate list is never altered.
Solution: change the deagro to an actual decrease in the threat priority. Possibly make it work on a group of mobs in order that it offers some alternative to bewilderment.

Illusory Group
In its current form it serves no purpose at all, other than getting the illusionist killed. Devs have already stated that abilities like Amnesia are too powerful, so can this spell be changed to a different kind of useful effect.
Possible solutions: Buff the illusory allies hp's and have them hold agro for a short duration. Upon their death there is no hate transfer. Or have the allies just act as a dumbfire pet with enough DPS to make it worth the time it takes to cast it.

Phase
Casting it in its current form is like playing Russian roulette as you are just as likely to cast it on the tank when they regain agro during its casting time. Therefore, it is rarely used.
Possible solution: change it to work similarly to Sever Hate. Target a Person and whatever target they have has their hate position and threat reduced by a certain amount based on your level and quality of spell.

Synergism
As a tool to reduce hate it is worthless as the damage component of it completely negates or often exceeds the deagro component. This is similar to the problem identified during the fighter revamp whereby damage inflation has exceeded dehate numbers.
Possible solution: greatly increase the deagro component of the spell.

Doppleganger
The amount of damage that the doppleganger can absorb is so low most people don't even notice it up before it drops, especially in raids. As a consequence it serves very little purpose.
Possible solution: increase the damage the doppleganger can absorb, with a suitable increase to recast to balance.

Other Suggestions

a) Perpetual Motion
It's been suggested that Perpetuality could be used to make a group buff that illusionists actively have to keep up - which would be far more fun than the usual passive buffs. Currently, Perpetual Motion is fairly lacklustre and rarely used. It could be changed to give a reuse, potency or crit bonus buff to the entire group, tied to the level of perpetuality the illusionist is on (e.g. 10% crit bonus at Perpetuality 5).

b) Personae Reflection
Our pet gives only a small portion of damage but it is still useful. However, it dies if anything sneezes on it. As it is an illusion anyway, why not allow it to be immune to indirect AoE's in PvE. It would have little impact on the performance of an illusionist but would just make rebuffing a little less tedious if we didn't have to keep recasting it after every fight.

c) Brain Clot
Brain clot is rarely activated as an illusionist due to the recast of our DoT's far outstripping our spell duration. It could be made to apply when the spell is reapplied as well as when it expires to make it more useful.

d) Illusions
Illusionists don’t get enough illusions considering our name. Most of them are also just fluff. Would it not be possible for them to have faction effects, in the same way as the Rime illusion?

Please can everyone add their comments suggestions. I'm not pretending I know the class as well as a lot of people out there, I'm just someone volunteering to keep the post at the top up-to-date in the hope that the Devs will read it.

I dont think we should be able to charm, nothing about an illusionist says charm to me, that should be left to the coercers. I totalyy agree that our illusions should have a much more useful mechanic in game play. Even if its just allowing the illy's group to get positioning for a raid mob without getting aggro and then it breaks once combat has started would be something.
The mezzing part of our class is extremely useful from 1-79, but once u hit 80 forget about it, I dont even keep the mezzes on my hotbar anymore, i'd have to scroll to them if i want them.
The other change I would like to see is an actuall useful version of Doppleganger. Make the reuse timer longer and make it absorb more damage if that is what it takes to balance it out.
Gotta get back to work, will try and addd more later......

Personally I completely agree about charm. It was on the old list though and had a little support so I kept it.
I guess if noone wants it there any more I'd be more than happy to ditch it

Blink
I agree that Blink is a largely worthless spell, especially given the functionality of the TSO Bewilderment spell. However, trying to address a problem with Blink by citing Risk / Reward is unlikely to have any great weight. What's the risk? Practically nothing. What's the reward? About the same, practically nothing. Therefore, Risk / Reward is in balance.
Obviously, that still leaves Blink as a largely worthless spell. It would be "nice" if it were not useless. I'd love it if it were simply made a green, 1 position de-aggro. That would make it situationally useful. I can take or leave the short range teleport. Not sure why that is even there. I can see perhaps why it might be useful in PvP.

Illusory Allies
You know what would rock? Make Illusory Allies the spell that Doppleganger never was. So, you cast IA and it lands, creating duplicates of each member of your group. These duplicates begin attacking the target, dealing damage and increasing hate position by 1 with each successful attack. Additionally, all hate that the "real" player generates is absorbed by the corresponding duplicate. When the duplicate reaches the top of the hate list, gets whacked, in effect becoming a 1 hit stoneskin for each duplicate that makes it to the top of the hate list before the spell expires.

Spellshield
Also useless, would love to see it fixed. However, make it something more useful. I cast Spellshield, and I get the recurrent power cost. Instead of simply protecting one target, it's a 3 hit stoneskin for every member of my group, magic effects only, but NOT profession only. Anything not classified as Trauma. Duration 60 seconds, recast 90 seconds, recast starts when I cast the spell. I'd cast that.

Phase
It is awful. I've tried to use it, but it's just complete luck whether you de-aggro that Scout who desparately needs it or hit the tank who JUST cracked Rescue. Make Fighters immune to Phase and you have a winner.

Tandem / Synergism
I would love to see a little bit of an upgrade to the de-aggro component. Right now, the de-aggro component just BARELY offsets the damage dealt, even with the TSO upgrade. Two or three times the current value seems about right. Additionally, I'd like to see an added component to the spell that will give a 1 position de-aggro when Synergism procs "If caster is at top of the hate list". That would make it a much closer cousin to Peaceful Link, while still being a unique and useful spell.

Class Role
Yes, we certainly have an identity crisis. Our crowd control abilities are so ridiculously overpowered that they've been scripted right out of the game. That's fine, as long as we have another *active* role to fulfill.
Right now, Illusionists work very, very hard for their DPS. I'm not saying that should change. I have no problem working for my DPS, but right now, I'm working harder than I ever have, for *less* damage. All of the ridiculous damage shields on mobs hit Illusionists (and Coercers!) harder than most other Mages. It does stand to reason, we land more hits per minute than other classes and therefore have more chance to proc the stun/stifle/power drain/etc damage shield.
Stop punishing us for doing our job the way we are (apparently) intended to do it.
Some ideas:
Allow us to buff our group better as we are more active. I would love to see a portion of Perpetuality passed to the group based upon MY use of it. The higher my level of Perpetuality, the more cast haste the group gets. Perhaps have their cast haste build up the longer I stay at Perpetuality 5. Make it so that my group can TELL when they have a hard working Illusionist in the group!
Apply the same sort of concept to Rapidity. The longer I stay at Perpetuality 5, the better Rapidity is.

Charm
I would love a charm. I can live without one. The major issue I see here is that Coercers have a great deal of "control" over what sort of pet they have. Whether they use Charm or Possess Essence, they can bring to the table a wide variety of pets and the abilities of those pets can change.
You know what would be "neat"? If Personae could be cast against any member of my group (or raid). If I wanted a Fighter Personae for added surviveability against nasty AE's, I target a Fighter and cast the spell. The Personae would get spells appropriate to the class of the person I cast it on. That would make Personae very cool, flexible, and unique.

Gear
My complaint with gear is that we seem to be repeatedly punished and nerfed via itemization. Stop trying to balance my class by giving us crap for gear. It feels like we are a big square peg being repeatedly banged into a small round hole and getting nowhere. Why do we need ANYTHING Subjugation related on our gear? I mean, I have an entire branch of my Illusionist tree dedicated to making many of my Subjugation based abilities less resistable. I have an end ability in that branch to make everything less resistable. I have a temp buff to make things less resistable. I don't need any more help! Stop it!

Just a few thoughts... - Blink/Phase/Spellshield: Kinda all in the same boat to me. They are close to useless in pve, but wonderful survivability tools in pvp (esp spellshield). So while I would like to see them improved/changed in pve, please be very careful with what you do to these spells in pvp and don't make them worthless in that context. - Class Role: agreed ofc. TBH I'm fine as a fast casting wizard, provided they don't go crazy with the DSRs in the next xpac, and we don't see our dps nerfed further. Let's be realistic here, in today's SOE's lazymode, restoring chanters as CC classes in end game raiding will most likely translate in a few "Nexona" like scripts, with a handful of adds to keep mezzed. Thanks but no thanks. - Charm: If you want charm go coercer imo. On the other hand I really like the idea of choosing the class for the Personae. Having a fighter personae that would mini-tank for me, a dps mage personae, a healer personae ... Maybe it's walking too much on summoner's grounds though, and it breaks the concept of the Personae being a duplicate of the illy, so I'm not really sure... - Gear: Agreed again ofc. Nerfing classes with gear is stupid, especially when you give players alternative ways to achieve high dps through other non set pieces... And current illy set is not only poor from a dps perspective, it is also quite bad when it comes to power replenishment (one of our class defining abilities, you remember?), compared to the VP robe for instance. When I still have to wear my VP robe on power heavy fights something is wrong... On a side note, after several xpacs providing armor sets, I dislike the whole concept of set gear, as it forces everyone into the same gear path due to the set bonuses synergy effect.

Banditman wrote:

Blink: I've read the description. The Risk vs Reward on this spell is perfectly balanced. No Risk, no Reward. As to what this spell is "supposed" to be, I believe it was intended to be somewhat akin to what TSO Bewilderment is now, but working on an entire group. Thus, I proposed that. Green AE, positional de-aggro instead of minus threat.
Spellshield: You have a single target spell, I am proposing a GROUP spell.
Illusory Allies: You made no mention of a hate bleed for the group members. That's important. It makes it worth casting. If this is nothing but a DPS spell, there is nothing that will make it worth casting. Dumbfire pets are terrible as DPS tools, just too many things that can kill them. On the other hand, if I /g No aggro for 15 seconds, go crazy! . . . people would like that.
Charm: I realize it's controversial, I don't care. The point is that we have only ONE option for a pet. Coercers have . . . well, a lot, lot more. I don't have a Charm now, and I'm fine without it. I simply think that we should have some options when we cast a pet. Being able to Personae a group member would be fine, so would a Charm. I'm not terribly worried about stepping on Summoner toes, our pets are so weak by comparison that only a really uninformed Summoner would be concerned.

Noted and changes made.

Fwiw (since I don't believe any dev read the previous versions and if they did completely ignored it) I have made a start at updating this for SF. Can you all add any comments or changes.
Hopefully this time someone will take some of it on board.

The class role things really needs addressed. Half the problem is the Devs don't know what they want us to do and the other half of the problem is we don't know what we want us to do.
As for the stun stuff, I'm shocked. Much of the SOLO content in SF is immune to crowdcontrol. Completely immune. Much of the group content is not and some of the group content encourages it.
Though, there can be a problem with that in groups. I'm in a group last night, in full T3. The tank wants to do a boss differently than I've done before, but sure, what ever. What he doesn't say at the time of pull is this requires him to move the mob around. Between me, my pet, and my T3 boots proc the mob can't be moved thanks to all the stuns. Of course I get screamed at for daring to stun the mob.
It feels like I'm going to have to take my gear off to do zones. There's more bosses you do have to move around, which means making sure they don't stun. This makes my pet who is doing 800 DPS even more worthless, as it does full crowd control.
So Pet 1 hit dies in raids. Pet can't help me solo. Pet is undesirable in groups. Yay.
Really, the whole class needs a major reworking and be molded into a role. Right now we are too spread out over too many roles.

Anduri wrote:

Frankly cc in this game will never come back. Its easier to change a class than it is to redesign Norrath. Change us to be real mages with utility (utility = power, not more temp buffs). My asks:
1. Add one more power proc back to our mythical/mythical buff.
2. Put us back to 80% of mage dps (either make our spells hit harder, aa line for potency, I don't care how they go about it).
3. Allow us to self-buff TC, or remove bard self-buff of BC/UT. If they are going to treat us like bards, treat us all equally.
4. Make all of our buffs persistent through death! Let us cancel and change based on group changes/need.

Noted and I've added items to cover the stuff not already raised (buff persistance etc.)

+1! Everything here is an accurate representation of our issues right now. Other classes are noticing our reduced utility too; I never see 'Group LF Chanter' any more, it's always 'Group LF Coercer.' This desperately needs to be changed, illusionists are leaving the class (and the game!) in droves.
All I have to add is a minor fluff issue: I'd like to see our fun spells persist through death. I'm trying to stay undercover as a human but it's kind of tough when after every death people see me back in dark elf form. It's blowing my disguise =O

Tons of good stuff here. Thanks for putting this all together in one place. Somone also posted in another forum somewere about giving us a AA that let our proc's to crit again. That would jump our dps back into were it should be. Just thought I would add that was a good idea

Raveen@Permafrost wrote:

This

To the OP...

I could not agree more, I am SO SO SO disapointed with my Illy in this expansion, I cant hurt people, I can hardly get my grp power and the only thing I feel useful with is TC, which i cant even put on myself.

In a Raid, I am ourparsed by the warden... THE WARDEN!!!!

Raveen@Permafrost wrote:

I agree its a good idea from an illusionist perspective and I'd love it to happen. Give me reason to go out and finish getting my AA apart from anything.
However, I really cannot see the devs going anywhere near this. The proc nerf was put in place so they could put procs into the game while understanding the effects of them long term. Fixing a class by giving it an AA ability to "break" procs again just isn't going to be something they would do. Lets face it, the proc fix was put in place primarily because of what we were able to do with them given our fast cast speed in the first place.
There is zero evidence that the devs have even read any of this, even though they promise its the first place on a board they go to look, and I really don't want them to find any excuse or reason to overlook what is written.
Of course, I've posted this for everyone so if I'm in the minority with this viewpoint then I'll add it.

I'm surprised I don't see Rapidity on the list. Most are capped on attack speed and giving double attack to the group was the fix in TSO but as Illusionary Arm shows it's not a fix now.

Thank you for posting this and maintaining the issues list.
Hopefully something will come of at least a few of these items...