Why did they have to take away our ability to solo well?

[buffquinn]

<DIV>Ok i have to relieve my major frustration with all the changes that have taken place against the illusionists lately.  I will start with our near useless root spell line.  I don't know about other people but my root breaks constantly now.  I am even using the master version of terrifing vision and it breaks way too often, if there is any difference at all with the quality of the spell in relation to how frequently it breaks I don't want to even know how people with the adept version deal with it.  They say they nerfed it because it overpowered us to have an unbreakable root.  While I would agree that having it totally unbreakable may not be fair, I do think the chances of it breaking should be very low, much lower then it is now.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sure, prior to the nerf our one real ability was to solo, which we did pretty well, and it was quite enjoyable for those of us who don't always like to be in a group or raid situation.  Now that our solo ability is basically gone, it makes things a whole lot less enjoyable.  As illusionists, we are designed by nature not to take hits.  We can only wear very light armor (which drops a whole lot less then other types in T6 but that is another topic) and therefore can never really obtain a decent mitagation.  Our only hope when soloing higher level mobs, which can one or two shot us to death, is to keep them away from us.  As of now the only ways we can achieve that is by rooting, stunning, and/or our pet.  I've explained our root already, our stun was also nerfed by a second, and our pet is unable to hold aggro well enough to keep the mob from coming after us without being able to root it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My suggestions are this: We either need to have our root made much better so It actually holds most of the time, compared to now when it breaks constantly, or we need the recast cut down quite a bit on it so when it does break quickly we have a chance to recast it, or to get another long term stun spell or increase the duration of the stun we have now, or our pet needs to be made much stronger.  Our pet can not hold aggro very well at all and has a very low dps, which only makes him an extra bonus, but doesn't by any means make him a source for person crowd control or damage, which makes sense since we are not a pet class.  So one of those things has to be fixed so we can at least decently solo again.  Taking away our ability to root well is like cutting in half the mitagation of a guardian, they are designed to take hits and need mitagation, illusionists are designed not to take hits and therefore we need our root.</DIV>

[Impetus]

I see a lot of people saying that our pet doesn't hold aggro well enough to solo. Personally, I've never found that to be the case, if I'm soloing "solo-intended" mobs. Even yellow single-up-arrow mobs aren't a problem for me. And before you think that I have uber raid gear, I don't have any amazing equipment, it's a mix of treasured and handcrafted, mostly. The vast majority of my spells are adept 1, including the pet. (Insight is ad3, and Prismatic Strife is M2, and I think that's it.) I don't have any secret strategy. I just send the pet in, throw on my two dots, occasionally stun or stifle. Then I usually finish it off by casting prismatic on myself, and meleeing long enough for the three procs to go off. If you're talking about heroic stuff, then sure. Those are very hard, and they have to be very very low greens, almost grey before I can kill them. I dunno, I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are plenty of classes worse off than we are for soloing. Sure you've got some classes that are better, no doubt. But personally, solo ability is the least of my concerns for our class. <div></div>

[Zebsen]

<DIV>There are a ton of threads stating that mater 1 root should never break or should rarely break.  The nerf was supposed to fix an exploit involving uber illusionists from soloing/duoing very powerful mobs.  These illusionists probably already have at least adept 3 roots, and probably all master 1 roots.  So a master 1 root has to be semi-unreliable to "fix" this exploit.  Unfortunately, those of us using the master 1 spell to solo non-heroics are also going to see the same unreliability.  We just have to learn to tank like we used to.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The dilemna that I see is that the developers need to make the master root unreliable, but the app IV root reliable enough for a casual gamer to solo a white con solo mob.  To solve this, it is my guess that they made the % chance to break the same for all versions (app I to master 1) of the spell.  I did some actual testing on the first version of the root nerf and found that it broke about 10% of the time on damage.  I didn't test it after they "significantly decreased the chance to break on damage".  Someone else documented it and it seemed to still be right at breaking at 10%.  Both my adept 3 and master 1 roots were roughly equivalent when I tested them.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The bottom line is that some classes do better soloing than others.  I never envisioned illusionists being a class that excelled at soloing.  Those that picked the class for the ability to solo probably should rethink that decision.  For a brief period, we were one of the best soloers in the game (the best apparently if you used the exploit).  Now we're mediocre again.  We still do very well in groups.  Learn to group, and you'll be much happier as an illusionist.  I have yet to put my /lfg flag on and wait more than 5 minutes for an invite.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Raiding is the other issue, but others with more experience than myself have already beat that horse to death.  We trade a lot of damage potential for stun, stiffle, mezz, and power regen.  3 of those 4 abilities don't work on epics, leaving us hurting on epics.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My thoughts,</DIV> <DIV>Zebsen</DIV>

[buffquinn]

<P>I don't want to digress much and turn this topic into a discussion about pets, but i would say from what you have said the reason you don't have a problem with losing pet aggro is because you let him do all the work for you, other then the occasional dot and stun.  To me that is the uberness of boredom to just sit back and let the pet do all the fighting, there is a reason i didn't choose a pet class at launch and that was because i didn't want one, but now that we have one, I'll use it as a bonus, but am not going to let him do all the work.</P> <P><STRONG>buffquinn</STRONG> - 60 Illusionist 60 Jeweler</P> <P> </P>

[Pins]

Because with it, we could solo orange heroics without any issues.Oh wait, we still can do that! W000t. It just slows us down for soloing heroics, honestly. The nerf was meaningless in terms of stopping us from doing heroics. With a high-damage single target nuker I can still duo mobs, just not as fast as I could previously. But meh, not a big deal really.As for how much it sucks for taking solo mobs on, welcome BACK to the land of the stifle/stun tank solo. Or just, wait nm we don't have that kind of dps.

[thec0b]

<DIV>Not to sound like im bashing or anything but if you are having a hard time soloing then you are obivioulsy not doing something right. I have adept3 terrifying visions and while its not perfect it does the job pretty well imo. I am 59 and can solo most heroics up to around 55^^^ easily enough. Granted it takes a lot of time but its very doable, wouldnt suggest using it for xp'ing but for getting quest updates here and there. Have pet attack and get some agro, send in construct and illusory ally, chain root and stun and mez if it gets too hard to handle. Rinse and repeat. Like I said definately not for xp'ing but can make questing a lot smoother at times.</DIV>

[zit]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> ZebsenChanter wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The bottom line is that some classes do better soloing than others.  I never envisioned illusionists being a class that excelled at soloing.  Those that picked the class for the ability to solo probably should rethink that decision.  For a brief period, we were one of the best soloers in the game (the best apparently if you used the exploit).  Now we're mediocre again.  ...</DIV> <DIV><BR> </DIV> <DIV> <HR> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>and by what logic should enchanter be worse soloer than sorcerer and summoner? cause we can kill stuff so much faster? or cause we are a so much more valueable asset to groups?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>for a short period of time we have experienced that it doesnt lie within the enchanter class itself if we do not come close to solo abilities of the other mage classes. its solely lies within fine tuning of spells. and this is something SOE has proven over and over again that they are not capable of. our root was too strong. so what they do? tweak a bit and make it slightly less relyable? Of course not, they come with the big hammer and destroy the use of the spell for every situation, not only for the exploits. and while they are at it nerf 10 of our others spells all in one go. makes me wonder what they are afraid of so much.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[jun]

<P>Interestingly, I don't have many problems solo'n mobs.  Is it the best xp I have ever gotten in the game?  Certainly not.  But I 'am' capable of doing it effectively with the spell abilities I have.  I don't really care what the other mage classes can/cannot achieve solo.  My concern is for my chosen class.</P> <P>Sorry, I don't really miss the 'unbreakable' root.  I have other means of keeping a target away from me.  Thankfully, most of the other means do not share cast timers with roots and can be rotated effectively into an almost constant state of paralysis.  So, not much sympathy here for a continous root spell effect.</P> <P>Pets, constructs and allies are not meant to be replacements for a 4 person group.  But used effectively, they can allow a solo illusionist to pull off some pretty remarkable wins.  No, our Personae cannot tank like a mage pet... who cares.  I treat them exactly as they were intended... 100% expendable assets.  I don't need a heal spell for them.  Personally, I don't want to have to waste my power keeping it alive while trying to control the event.  If it dies, I will chain stun/mez/root or whatever is need to buy me the time to cast another.</P> <P>I don't think they took away our ability to solo well... perhaps they added new dimensions of strategy and ability usage that you were not used to.  Perhaps they took away your one means of 'assured' victory with an unbreakable root... but that is only ONE method of fighting.</P> <P>Nope, I don't have stellar gear either... nor do I have Master spells 'other than those given at levels'.  I do spend a great deal of resources and currency to obtain Adept III's and TS crafted T6 gear.  Other than that, I would consider myself an ordinary Illusionist with a strange sense of adventure <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>VR,</P> <P>Kailen - 59 Illusionist Faydark</P> <P> </P> <P>Message Edited by junzu on <SPAN class=date_text>11-30-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>12:51 PM</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by junzu on <span class=date_text>11-30-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:52 PM</span>

[zit]

<P>I do not understand why Templar are that upset about their solo abilities also. They should just stop compare themselves to other classes and dont care what others can achieve.</P> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Same for illusionist. Dont look what others can do and be happy with what you got. Dont care what others can achieve, others dont care about you either (as long as you do not outperform them).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Problem solved.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>:smileyindifferent:</DIV>

[buffquinn]

I never compared illusionists to any other classes in any of my posts.  I am concerned with us and us alone for these issues.  Just to note I'd like to mention I have every spell I use at adept 3 or higher.  I also said that having it unbreakable was probably too powerful also, but it should certainly be less breakable then it is now.  Personally I tend to think that too many changes are made all at one time.  Like someone else said, they thought our root was overpowered, so what did they do, nerf our root, stun, mez, and stifle all in one day.  Sure there are other techniques of soloing that could possibly be done without root, but why should we have to deal without having a viable root spell.  Even for those that think our root is just fine, what harm would be done in lower our recast time on it, so at the very least we can recast it when it breaks after 1 second of casting it?