Illusionist Class Issues : Sentinel's Fate Edition

Allow Prismatic Chaos (Adorment) to proc off a mob instead of a melee class, and let it trigger by melee and spell. Watching the 3 macroed melee classes laying dead at the feet of a HM mob, ninja AFK'ing to get the phone, or just suck in general, directly impacts our largest hitting spell.

Anduri wrote:

A) Coercers have the same base crit multiplier, but they are not having DPS problems this expansion, so there has to be a more targetted fix for your DPS issues. Unfortunately, we need to take the time to really study the class to see what the root cause to the problem is so that we provide the correct targetted fix. It may be red adornments or something like that, which would be something we could fix before the expansion, but we have not had the time to really study the issue yet. If you guys have other ideas, it would definitely not hurt to hear them.

B) As far as IA goes, this is going to be fixed by the next expansion. It could happen as soon as GU58. Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to discuss the mechanics changes in play at this time, but we'd like to avoid changing the ability now only to have to change it again in the future. We will look into Arms of Imagination to see if there's something we can do to make it more appealing for single-target fights, but it may end up just being that you only take the advancement if you're planning to play in AE content.

C) Yes, making single target buffs persist through death is a huge pain. We've already spent quite a bit of effort on it but have yet to succeed. This isn't to say we've given up on it, though. We can definitely look into making your pet more survivable. We aren't sure on an ETA but we should be able to get a change in before the expansion, at least.

Just want to say thanks Xelgad for your comments recently regarding rangers, monks, and illies. Its really appreciated just to know you're looking into us and have plans to fix us. The timing is good too--with all the station cash malarky going about lately trust for SoE has been going down the tubes, and this brought my spirits up at least.

Xelgad, I'm extremely happy to see you post and I'm even more happy to know that many of the issues we were faced with since the last expansion and going to get looked at. THANK YOU! This is very encouraging to me as a long time Illusionist. I only play one other toon, a warden, but it's only 10%, if that, of my Illy's play time so I am an illy through and through.
If I could offer a few more ideas to consider:

1. Please for the love of Queen Antonia allow us to TC ourselves! It kills me that we can't and I don't really understand why not. Troubs can UT themselves so I don't think it would be overpowering to allow us to TC ourselves.
2. Please make mana flow a group spell like Coercers. It's frustrating to have a coercer hit my group from time to time because I have one or two members suffering with a curse or I was ported/stunned/killed/whatever. You said that we should be able to maintain power as well as coercers at the class mechanics forum at FF but they seem to have it a little easier (they can bring power up from zero a lot faster than we can due to group mana flow whereas we have to work hard from the start of the raid to maintain it and I believe this also contributes to our lagging DPS.)
3. As Daeloq mentioned allow Primatic Chaos to be a mob cast and proc on any detrimental hit. Obviously allow this to stack so all illusionists in the raid benefit (which will also help keep more than one illusionist desirable.)
4. Change our DOTs damage component to frontload rather than at the end. It's a pain having to watch those spells to cast the next round as soon as possible after it drops so we can get the full benefit. This means the only thing I see during fights are my hotbars and maintained spell window. A rather sad existence with all the fun killin' to do!
5. Combine the two synergism red adorns. Seems silly to have them seperate like that.
6. A blue AOE spell would be quite nice but I'm torn on that. If we can get that just allow our green spells to frontload some additional damage.

So far so good, I like what I'm hearing! If I could only get three of the items above I would want 1-3, those are rather big to me. I understand we aren't tier 1 DPS but it is fun to be able to parse respectably while also providing some useful utility. Mez isn't really worth much in raid (it's a limited use disrupt really) and a number of other abilities just aren't worth having on the hotbar so additional DPS would be a nice tradeoff, at least for me, heheh.
Again, thank you very much for posting and giving the shrinking illusionist community a breath of life!

Xelgad can we get a yes, no, its something were looking at, bot a snowballs chance answer to if illys are ever going to be able to cast tc on ourselves? being in the scout group a lot I find myself wasting it . Bards can cast theirs on self now so can we? If not can you state why so there's a difinitive answer?

As far as making illusionists more in line with coercers regarding dps:

Coercers have Hostage and Destructive Mind, Illusionists only have Prismatic Chaos.
Coercers Red adorn adds 3 ticks to Hostage, Illusionists adds 2 ticks to Prismatic Chaos.
Coercers two spells proc off damage done to the mob, Illusonists is dependent on player hit rates.

Coercers also have the ability to put five crit bonus on Peaceful Link and Velocity, Illusonists only to Synergism.
-An equivilant dps spell would be nice, as well as 5 crit bonus on Rapidity.


Edit: And thank you for finally looking into Illusionists, its been a long wait

Showoff@Unrest wrote:

This is exactly why there is a disparity of dps between coercer and illy. Hit the nail here.

Best news in a long time that some class balance work is being looked at for rangers monks etc too.

I post on these boards very rarely but since Xelgad finaly found time to post here I am going too
The TW change Xelgad is talking about wont make TW mutch more usefull but at least it would make it less annoying and thats improvement

I have same ideas about what could be done with illusionists, i wont repeat what was already said here exept for: more dps - yes please, TC castable on self - yes please

Spellshield - this spell is so usless in PvE that its sad even thinking about it, could we have it changed to like 10% to reflect any damage or something that would make it worth casting ?

Counterblade (enchanter AA) - same issue as spellshield, could it be changed to personal AE immunity ?

Channeled Focus (enchanter AA) - i am sure there have been writen novels about this spell already in /feedback but i will say it again - could we please have shorter recast on this spell ? its fine , usefull and all just recast is ewww. Lot of chanters dont have it because they go for STA live for AE immunity spell instead (what i proposed about counterblade would make this spell more desirale too)

I am not fan of illusionist actualy doing crowd control, i am mutch happier with just doing good dps. In my opinion doing dps as illu/enchanter would be more interesting and fun if we have been more melle oriented. There have already been done one step in that direction with enchanter AA STR line. Do another step. Give enchanters more CAs, make our CAs hit for more damage, make some of scout high dmg rating weapons wieldable by enchanters, make us able to dualwield ! I think moving some of our dps to melle would make class more fun to play.

there have been more i had on my mind but cant remeber atm

I would like to thank Xelgad for directing some of his attention to us poor illys.
Sorry for my not so perfect english, its not my first language.

Jiskra, Illusionist of Validus

I wasn't really going to bother posting anything about illusionist utility on these forums... since there's so much wrong and so many buffs that have become virtually useless this xpac...


But I've seen a lot of people jumping on the possible Time Warp change and really cheering for it. I DO NOT see the proposed change as a beneficial thing. For a few reasons:

Illusionist zone wide dps from spell double attacks in groups or raid set ups is next to nothing. Even tripling this won't begin to put a dent in the gap between coercers and illusionists.
The change to immunity timer is simply going to buff the wizard class even more and give summoners the shaft yet again. Unless used in group instances... this buff is going to be by and far most useful on wizards. The vast majority of raid mobs being single target effectively rule out its use on warlocks as well.
That being said, it will be more useful when there are not two other mages in group. But a good illusionist would have been cycling timewarp on at least three targets anyways. Changing the immunity timer simply means instead of a wizard, warlock, and illusionist getting time warp... it's wizard wizard wizard. Again the over all zw dps gains from this change will be minimal. The five second duration simply allows too much error for the person to be stunned or knocked back or interrupted to see any real gains from this, other than a once and a while, oh and ah on some random well timed spell order on a trash pull.


The change will effectively just piss off a lot of mages imo
The only real benefit from this is illusionists now will have one time warp macro to press instead of three or four.


I would MUCH rather instead of adding five seconds of time warp to the illusionist... see something like the total duration of time warp extended to ten seconds.

raidwide timewarp!!

The proposed changes mean I'm still going to be trying to put timewarp onto a conjurors pet, (vastly more useful than onto the conjuror itself) which is a major PITA, unless raidwide timewarp is implemented.


The extra dps from ALL spell double attacks, from class abilities, class buffs, adornments is pitiful - the portion deriving from timewarp alone is a fraction of pitiful.

raidwide timewarp!!

Showoff@Unrest wrote:

This has ALREADY caused arguments between the mages in the guild and it hasn't even been implemented yet. The summoners and warlocks know they are going to get slighted in this deal and are pissed.
I hope my sub runs out before this rolls out, so I don't have to listen to them bicker about it...

Seriously, I raid my illy sitting next to my gf who is number 1 mage dps in the raid, this gives us an ability to plan in advance sequencing timewarp that almost no1 has, and yet, the amount all spelldouble attacks adds to her dps is about 5%, most of that coming from other sources of spell double attack - leaving approx 1-2% via timewarp.

It will cause arguments in the proposed illy +1 other only version.
It won't do enough for dps.
Illy's simply don't have spike abilities to make any real use of timewarp anyway.

You could make it raidwide, with no recast timer - but I doubt a dev would be that confidant unfortunately, and maybe settle for making it groupwide until they did some datamining to fully confirm that: yes, making it raidwide wouldn't matter as 90% of people will continually miss the 5second active windows with anything meaningful anyways.

Yes, the upcoming tw change wont give us a big dmg boost, but it is a small step in the right direction. This tw change is not meant to be the class balancing of illus and coercers. As Xelgad said they will look into our dps, just be a little more patient guys.
And yes, the wizzy will be the best target for our tw but there is no reason to not use 2 or 3 tw macros, depending on the classes in your group. One time tw the wizzy, one time the summoner and on group encounters tw the warlock. Everyone in the group can get it more often than in the past and thats a good thing.
Im really glad that they are finally taking care of our class. Although many good illus have left the game already. Xelgads post was long overdue but now i know that something is going to happen to our class.
Thanks Xelgad

Chock wrote:

Yea im sure some greedy guys are already bothering you. There are a few classes who really benefit from this buff. No reason to not rotate tw as in the past. And for those guys being left behind: Its the same thing which happens to us illus. You cant always get the buffs you want, get used to it.

It doesn't really address any of the problems going to 1+illy - so now you're supposed to get the wizard to use his spike with it, then the conjy to use their pet output spike with it (putting it on pets is a total rim-ache) and then the warlock to use their best spike with it and so on. It's just a new version of annoying rotation and still costs more dps managing than it adds, just a new bucket of fail. Raidwide timewarp.
It's great and positive that something might finally happen for illy's, however it would be vastly better if something useful happened for them though, no1 can recruit the illy's they need these days.

Xelgad wrote:

A) the 2 major issues for illusionists are
- the low base multiplier (and i dont think that coercers are ok with their dps at the moment) so maybe think it over. as we are missing maybe 50% of our dps that would be at least a small step.
- due to our low hitting spells: 1) everything is capped on boe 2) all the %based mods like base, crit bonus etc make the class fall behind as a wizard hitting 50k improves to 100k, an llu from 10 to 20k. yes, its still doubled but only a 10kgain compared to the 50k of the wiz/assassin/dpsclass. 3) before SF Ilus made up part of the low hitting spells with castspeed, both fast spells AND abilities to speed up. Now almost everybody is capped at castspeed, not even Ilus. Unfortunately you cant counter it by uncapping castspeed as lag (esp. on EU servers) would hardly allow it to be benefical - and i dont think i want to hit spells even faster than now (for nothing). 4) lag hits chanters way more than others (again EU) 5) as procs dont scale/crit any more the previous biggest part of room for dps is also limited now - which widens the gap even more
B) IA is completely useless atm in raids. i dont even cast it except maybe on a healer (so he doesnt have to struggle outdpsing me while healing). TC lost most of its usefulness as people are capped on most speed stats, they only like it for the spell DA part.
C) the really annoying part is the dropping buffs. why dont you just make them regular buff and leave away all that mythical weapon stuff. no ilu would be overpowered lvl 1-80 (during those couple of days) if he could have rapidity as a group buff and a pet with no conc. that would solve the "dropping" (hard to believe that i am thinking about ingame pet droppings....). this probably wont solve synergism drop but maybe you find a creative way for that too
few suggestions: shortterm: adjust base multiplier, remove boe cap longterm: look for ways that the %based gap in absolute numbers gets adjusted and not wider any more (as it is now)
finally: make spending hours on the game as an Ilu something you can feel proud of. Being an important part of the raid. Like a tank can feel "hey, i never lost aggro in this tough fight", a healer "sweating, but tank/group didnt die during fight" or a dps "woot, 1st/2nd on parse". ATM there is absolutely nothing you can feel as an ilu. "nice key hacking for nothing and not cancelling your buffs" / "only close behind tanks and most healers in dps" unfortunately is not what feels good. as long as you cant answer that question in a reasonable way at least give chanters back their dps from TSO so that there is a least a glimpse of achievement that makes you want to play your char for hours every evening. before SF it made a huge difference between a good and a bad player behind the chanter (just as now for most other classes) - now for Ilus the difference between doing your best and putting your spells into a macro and hit 1 key is FAR from worth the effort. as others have posted here, most ppl wouldnt even notice the difference after a fight.
and btw thx for posting - although i may add that it is a bit late for many good players who already left/cancelled

Coercers are not having dps problems? why did they leave?

maybe some don't consider it a problem but I have seen the old coercers (that have an alt option) flocking to raid on any class other than a chanter. there are very few of the really good chanters still active. some of them are still playing. they are just playing other classes as mains. the #1 thing to fix chanters is give them the same crit mod as all other mages. #2 would be combine some temp buffs so I don't have so much crap to click on inc. #3 make the single target buffs persist through death. chanters should be doing 85-90% of the dps of a summoner. that should be 70-80% of a sorc. thats where it was at the end of TSO. (I do understand that were were gear gimped in TSO unless you had avatar gear)
I believe that the reason they gave chanters the old crit mod is that they consider us a melee/spell class. bards and crusaders also got stuck with the 1.3 mod. however, they seem to have forgotten that we wear cloth armor and have a bit more to worry about trying to joust. also, they forgot that only 1 of our damage spells can be cast while moving. so, it would seem that they "decided" we are a combo class but neglected to give us the tools to actually be an effective combo class. the way to solve the problem is to either give us real spell crit of 1.5 or give us the tools to combo effectively. those tools would be spells that can be cast while moving, either an AA that greatly enhances mit/avoid or real armor(if you want us to be bards give us our chain), if you want us to be melee, let us dual wield. gimmie 2 sticks to hit them with when I joust. ......or just give us our 1.5 spell crit. you could patch that in about 15 minutes and put it in the game tomorrow. turning us into bards would be on the far side of stupid.
the raiding mains that I see as chanters these days are mostly people that rolled the class to fill a spot. they are someone's (usually a sorc) friend or girlfriend/boyfriend. they are fully geared in t1 summoner gear and doing 20k on trash fights. they never get to group with a good chanter. most of them don't know they arent very good. I've seen the sad parses where beam is their top dps because adornment is just too confusing. illusionist has become the token idiot class. most of the good ones are already gone.
and finally, TimeWarp. this buff is probably the most useless spell cast in a raid. 5 seconds is just long enough to see the "timewarp is ready for use" note just as you see "you cannot change targets at this time" of "better beware of what you do". the only place I can notice a difference is when I put it on the lock at the exact perfect time on the huge trash pulls in UD. otherwise, it's not worth the cast time. make it groupwide with 15 seconds. or 10 seconds but uninterruptible, like a little sanctuary with spell DA. even then, as a single target buff, it would still suck. it needs to be group. PoM is a much better temp buff and it's far from OP.
I've been raiding as an illy for a while. I closed my main account last week. I gave all my plat to nubs in DLW. this is a second account that my wife still plays on. I'm trying to talk her into giving up the digital dragon.

Another loud mouthed trouble maker returns from a one week ban. Did you all miss me?

So, seems many felt more comfortable posting after the most critical voices in the illusionist community were out of the way. I do love a good retort/rebuttal to my arguments being made after it is fully aware I cannot respond, and then a residual sorry attempt to lighten the mood, like a few jokes are goona make the frustration and anger felt by the community disappear, not likely. But whatever, to the point.

Xelgad, i began to think you a myth... Seriously it took this long to acknowledge the class most screwed by this expansion? Oh trust me, I've heard some of the ridiculous answers that occurred during fanfare, well, alright, some of the questions were just as ridiculous but still... Seriously though, lot of talk in your post of by the expansion, maybe this, and hopefully that, maybe if we get lucky, before the expansion... Really curious to how many illusionist vets you're thinking will buy the expansion? I mean lets face it, the game is headed in a new direction, most of us suspect is in an effort to grab the debris coming from WoW, and this alone is leaving a horrible taste in the mouth of the Veteran EQ players... Many of us have viewed SF as one of the sorriest EQ expansions ever... I mean, do you really believe that "by the expansion," you'll have more than a handful of serious players playing this class. Many are playing for raid slots right now only, and that will last only so long as raid leaders are incapable of acknowledging the present, but slowly guilds are coming around and deciding 3 group mana flows > two single target mana flow and outdated buffs. I have to agree, too little too late... Luckily I have switched mains, but you might want to mention to your buddies who are WoWifying EQ2 that if people wanted to play WoW, they would've played WoW... From almost every long term and serious subscriber I've talked to, they are about ready to move on and ditch their loyalty to this title due to this direction. Even with my main change, I'd have to agree... Retention of 100 loyal accounts < Acquisition of new accounts, most of which wont stick around? seems like a good way to bomb a game to me... Anyway, no point in bothering anymore, its your product, producers and developers can trash it as they see fit, this is my goodbye to these forums i do believe. Looks like the future battle will be Bioware vs. Square Enix, with Blizzard's upcoming title to be an added contender, but I don't believe anyone really thinks SOE has the vision to be added to the numbers. /end rant.

As a long time Coercer I have to say... I don't care. As far as my Coercer is concerned, I log on, I raid, I log off. Tired of begging for fixes that make sense and getting stupid stuff instead. Tired of the promises that never happened. Just tired of the class now. Enchanters in general are no longer fun. I deleted my Illusionist for a new Halas toon. Would delete my Coercer too if it wouldn't get me kicked from my guild. Basically just waiting around for EQ3 or EQNext or whatever it will be or a complete burn out where I quit completely.
As for the Illusionist, good luck. There are so many things now wrong with your class it will be interesting to see what they fix, what they try to fix and screw up instead and what they don't even bother with. Either way, don't think most of you will be all that happy with what comes your way.