my take on illies [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Tenoris

06-09-2010, 02:44 AM

ok, so I'm a lvl 90 illy with the myth buff, in mostly treasured gear with the odd fabled, haven't done any SF raiding yet, dunno if I will on this char, but I figured I'd put down how i feel about my illy.Soloing: This is probably the best the illy can do, our root is like glue, we never run out of power.... ever, and our damage, while on the low side, is enough to get the job done. The one issue is that I have is if a mob we are trying to solo does get into melee range i might as well be made of tissue paper for how long it takes for the mob to knock 80% of my life off.PvP: ok, this is just painful. most players have a very high resistance, or outright immunity to stuns and roots, which is fine by itself. Mez's are cured almost immediatly assuming some dot or aoe dosn't break them, so our ability to control a battlefield is basicly 0, by itself, not an issue. I've gone through a standard group dps rotation including all of my temps, unloading 'my wad' as it is, on a ranger who wasn't paying attention to me and done jack all. And there have been times I'm running around, am hit by a stiff breeze and die before i realize the wind was picking up. Straight up, 100%hp, full buffs, to dead in the blink of an eye (oddly enough I actually was blinking at the time so i don't know what happened, i was alive, i blinked, then i was dead). and don't even talk about regening mana for a group during pvp. the only useful thing we have is spellsheild, I once had it reflect a double attacked ice comet and oneshotted a wizard, which was hilarious. That is the only time I have ever gotten a 100% kill in pvp, including when i stumble upon afk or ld people. But Spellsheild is unreliable, if it had a 100% chance of reflecting, and a shorter recast I'd be nicer to it.Grouping: Illies have two jobs: buffing and mana regen. I throw out, no joke, 5-9 buffs, each of which have to be cast after every single death then proceed to set the healer on auto follow, go afk with a little rock on the 'mana flow' button. My usefulness to the group is now at it's max. I've actually found that my autoattacking can do as much dps as my crazy casting spree. I just equip a low delay weapon, put IA and AoI on myself, throw up rapidity and spec for maximum DA and I can do 3k dps from auto attacking and the two combat arts illies can get through aa. In addition, PoM procs off melee attacks so i can get it to go off more times through melee then spells. It's really painful when I perfectly time all my temps... in fact thats another thing, our temp buffs. For the first 10-20 seconds of a fight I'm doing nothing but casting temp buffs, less if the tank was nice enough to count down to the pull. then for another 20ish seconds after that I can do almost 20k dps (and everyone else does an added 15k) then i drop to 5-8k for the remainder of the fight. Its sad when the healer does more damage.Illies are a nice concept, but let down by being more fragile then a 90 story tower constructed from wrapping paper, lower dps then any other class, a spaztic casting rotation that lets one feel overworked and underpaid, and an EXCESSIVE number of temp buffs that benifits everyone elsemore then us, if only because they are already doing more damage then us.The simplest solution i can see is: procs off beam n stuff. Beam is hitting for 5k (less then the average warrior auto attack) but if it had a high chance to double attack, throw a proc of synergism in and you're looking at 13k, which is a respectable number. Maybe give all of our spells a chance to cast a uv beam when it hits. We retain the crazy spaztic casting rotation, but are throwing more spells per second then anyone else, which i feel captures the essence of the illy. While more changes past this would be needed, it's a good, simple, start.untill then, I think I'm going to shelve this character.

Chock

06-09-2010, 05:44 PM

<cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote>We retain the crazy spaztic casting rotation, but are throwing more spells per second then anyone else, which i feel captures the essence of the illy. While more changes past this would be needed, it's a good, simple, start.untill then, I think I'm going to shelve this character.</blockquote>I did read your entire thread but this part made me LOL. I reformed the above quote as this in my head: "retaining crazy spastic casting rotation...captures the essence of the illy"But yes, you are correct about temp buffs, low damage, crazy spastic casting, etc. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

NViDiaFReaK

06-10-2010, 04:28 AM

+1 to the op QFE

Balihai

06-11-2010, 01:14 PM

<cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote> buffs that benifits everyone elsemore then us,</blockquote>Your a support class, thats what you do. In raid settings my illy was never a beast DPSer, thats not what I set him up for. What really got my "maghony" on was when I could have our top two or three mages just going and absolutely full burn for 10 - 15 min without ever running out of power (and longer in some fights). Thats the illies worth, supporting the dps classes to make them freakin urber because not only do they have virtually limitless power, but all of the other DPS goodies & buffs (disclamer, I haven't played SF yet, just coming back after a couple of months break starting right before SF's release. So I'm sure some things have change).

Chock

06-11-2010, 01:34 PM

Balihai

06-11-2010, 02:41 PM

<cite>Chock wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Balihai@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote> buffs that benifits everyone elsemore then us,</blockquote>Your a support class, thats what you do. In raid settings my illy was never a beast DPSer, thats not what I set him up for. What really got my "maghony" on was when I could have our top two or three mages just going and absolutely full burn for 10 - 15 min without ever running out of power (and longer in some fights). Thats the illies worth, supporting the dps classes to make them freakin urber because not only do they have virtually limitless power, but all of the other DPS goodies & buffs (disclamer, I haven't played SF yet, just coming back after a couple of months break starting right before SF's release. So I'm sure some things have change).</blockquote>Our power regen was substantially nerfed in SF. We have about the same amount of power regen as some of the raid proc items. I even wear group power proc items to try to keep everyone afloat.</blockquote>Yeah, not to long after I posted this I started reading allot of the other threads around the boards and have become very despared at what has happened to the illy class. I had been thinking about rolling my inq as my main this time around just for a change in pace, sounds like that may not be such a bad idea.

Chock

06-11-2010, 02:46 PM

<cite>Balihai@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, not to long after I posted this I started reading allot of the other threads around the boards and have become very despared at what has happened to the illy class. I had been thinking about rolling my inq as my main this time around just for a change in pace, sounds like that may not be such a bad idea.</blockquote>Clerics are still pretty beastly and I LOVE my templar. I consider myself having two "mains". My raid main (illyl), and everything else main (Templar). I never play my illy outside of raid and have tremendous fun with my cleric!

Tenoris

06-11-2010, 05:34 PM

<cite>Balihai@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote> buffs that benifits everyone elsemore then us,</blockquote>Your a support class, thats what you do. In raid settings my illy was never a beast DPSer, thats not what I set him up for. What really got my "maghony" on was when I could have our top two or three mages just going and absolutely full burn for 10 - 15 min without ever running out of power (and longer in some fights). Thats the illies worth, supporting the dps classes to make them freakin urber because not only do they have virtually limitless power, but all of the other DPS goodies & buffs (disclamer, I haven't played SF yet, just coming back after a couple of months break starting right before SF's release. So I'm sure some things have change).</blockquote>I can understand being a support class, and illies do have alot of utility, too much as one of my friends tells me. But I've seen people arguing that summoners now have better support for caster groups with toxicity and whatnot, and the only real buff that the illy can provide to a melee group is a bit of haste and dps mod, since everyone now has capped double attack. PoM is good, but since it only effects a target hit by a spell, and not every single other mob in the area like toxicity, with how aoe heavy this exp is it really dosn't help much... and i think it even does less damage then tox, not sure on that one though.On top of that, we work harder to dps then any other class, and don't even TRY to argue that, and still end up pulling only 10k zone wide, on a good day.And that's not even the illy's biggest issue, the biggest issue is that I don't feel like I'm contributing. my 10k dps can be easily made up by a wizard trying a little harder, or the healer chipping in on the dps for once. I don't control the mobs at all, and can only give 10% of a target's mana every minute, not exactly the same feeling as a healer who hits someone with a big heal bringing them from 0 to full inside of a second. The only time when my presance is felt by the group is when I get board and hit one of my mem wipes just to mess with the tank. Of course he just hits rescue or something and the net result is they get mad at me on VC and we move on. As far as i can tell, so long as I'm in the group and hit mana tap and mana flow every now and then the group couldn't care less if I go afk or not.

Ebarel

06-14-2010, 09:14 AM

<cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Balihai@Nagafen wrote:</cite>On top of that, we work harder to dps then any other class, and don't even TRY to argue that, and still end up pulling only 10k zone wide, on a good day.And that's not even the illy's biggest issue, the biggest issue is that I don't feel like I'm contributing. my 10k dps can be easily made up by a wizard trying a little harder, or the healer chipping in on the dps for once.</blockquote>these 2 points are the main reasons people not liking their illy toons any more - and quitting the game.you have to work like crazy pressing buttons. you have to (re-)buff more than anyone else (even "group" buffs due to bad mechanics design). you are easily replaced by a conjurer pressing "send pet" and "ET" when its up - contributing more to the groups dps than an illy timing stuff. (not to forget that as described, most of our buffs are useless anyway due to caps, except synergism)

Chock

06-14-2010, 01:43 PM

<cite>Ebarel wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Balihai@Nagafen wrote:</cite>On top of that, we work harder to dps then any other class, and don't even TRY to argue that, and still end up pulling only 10k zone wide, on a good day.And that's not even the illy's biggest issue, the biggest issue is that I don't feel like I'm contributing. my 10k dps can be easily made up by a wizard trying a little harder, or the healer chipping in on the dps for once.</blockquote>these 2 points are the main reasons people not liking their illy toons any more - and quitting the game.you have to work like crazy pressing buttons. you have to (re-)buff more than anyone else (even "group" buffs due to bad mechanics design). you are easily replaced by a conjurer pressing "send pet" and "ET" when its up - contributing more to the groups dps than an illy timing stuff. (not to forget that as described, most of our buffs are useless anyway due to caps, except synergism)</blockquote>I hear you all and readily agree. The return for effort is minimal, and like most of you I am at the end of my run on my illy. My patience has run thin, my exasperation level running high. When a game turns into work, it stops being fun. The only consolation raiding my illy is gearing up my beloved templar and given the opportunity to swap to my templar, I wouldn't hesitate.

EvilAstroboy

06-14-2010, 03:41 PM

The problem is that theres no new blood to replace you. Noone else wants to play this horrible horrible class, at least noone capable of playing one properly, so you will never get to play that templar cos your guild will need the Illusionist forever.People keep mentioning our amazing utility... really? I dont see it. Time warp and the 5% spell double attack on TC is nice, but thats about it these days. Everything else is self capped by other players, done better by other classes or just not that great. Sorcerors and summoners actually got better utility than us in Sentinals Fate (Curse of Darkness change, Ice Lash boost for melee, Elemental Toxicity, raidwide pet buff, strikethrough on Fire Seed etc). Meanwhile our relative DPS went down the toilet cos noone cares that we have the lowest return from crit bonus and potency, so our spells remained untouched. While everyone else now reaped the benefits of max cast speed which we had 3 expansions ago.Coercers buff a whole group with 5% crit bonus AND have the single target ones from Link. Seriously our red adornments and new AA are a joke compared to everyone else.The boost to mana skills in the new AA and red adorns after significantly nerfing our mythical was just beating a dead horse.The class is stagnant and needs a complete revamp to match SF mechanics.

Tehom

06-19-2010, 07:05 PM

I think it's exaggerating a little to say that elemental toxicity is better than peace of mind - that's not reflected from parses I've seen, largely due to the shorter duration and lower damage on toxicity, so it only performs very high on large swarm encounters that die nearly instantly anyway. Curse of Darkness -does- perform very well, but frankly is probably a bug that it functions the way it does; there's no note about it in its description that it works that way, and similar abilities in the past that have done the same thing were subsequently nerfed. Ice lash firing on melee is kind of a shrug to me, really - helps the bard in the group for victorious concerto but otherwise not really a big deal.Now I do agree that illusionists need help, but it could be largely solved via our red adornments. They should upgrade and in some cases combine our existing adornments. For example, combining the two synergism adornments, upgrading the Destructive Mind and Peace of Mind adornments to enhance the effects of the buff as well as the duration, add a damage increase as well as triggers to the prismatic adornment red adorn, make the flash of insight adorn also increase crit bonus or the like, etc. Illusionists really don't need an overhaul to be a strong class - they just need to do significantly more personal damage and contribute a little more utility. I think Time Warp is pretty weak aside from timing for wizards with fiery blast, and should be something like 15 or 20 second duration, but upgrading red adorns and so on would be a more directed solution for our raid woes.

Chock

06-19-2010, 08:05 PM

<cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think it's exaggerating a little to say that elemental toxicity is better than peace of mind - that's not reflected from parses I've seen, largely due to the shorter duration and lower damage on toxicity, so it only performs very high on large swarm encounters that die nearly instantly anyway. Curse of Darkness -does- perform very well, but frankly is probably a bug that it functions the way it does; there's no note about it in its description that it works that way, and similar abilities in the past that have done the same thing were subsequently nerfed. Ice lash firing on melee is kind of a shrug to me, really - helps the bard in the group for victorious concerto but otherwise not really a big deal.Now I do agree that illusionists need help, but it could be largely solved via our red adornments. They should upgrade and in some cases combine our existing adornments. For example, combining the two synergism adornments, upgrading the Destructive Mind and Peace of Mind adornments to enhance the effects of the buff as well as the duration, add a damage increase as well as triggers to the prismatic adornment red adorn, make the flash of insight adorn also increase crit bonus or the like, etc. Illusionists really don't need an overhaul to be a strong class - they just need to do significantly more personal damage and contribute a little more utility. I think Time Warp is pretty weak aside from timing for wizards with fiery blast, and should be something like 15 or 20 second duration, but upgrading red adorns and so on would be a more directed solution for our raid woes.</blockquote>Yep, yep. Changes to Red Adorns would make me quite happy but unfortunately wont help the poor saps who don't raid.Red adorns I would like to see get changed:-Synergism. Combine both Red Adorn Synergism adorns into 1 red adorn.-DR and POM. Combine this into a single red adorn, extending the duration for both instead of individually.-Prismatic Adornment. Add additional triggers beyond the 2 (make 4 triggers), allow it to be triggered off of melee or spell attack.-Flash of Brilliance. Add +potency to the spell itself, and +Crit Bonus to the red adornment.Red Adorns I would add:-Time Warp. Needs to extend this to 20 seconds.-Add +15 base damage to UV Beam (Like Conjy's crystal blast)-Red adorn for AOE immunitie or double our auto-attack range.-Epiphany: include 15% casting hasteSpell changes:-Change Prismatic adornment to proc off both melee and/or spell attack-Savante: raid-wide-Illuminiate: Make this raid-wide.-Flash of Brilliance: Add group potency to this.-Time compression: Self-cast.

Tenoris

06-20-2010, 05:11 PM

<cite>Chock wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think it's exaggerating a little to say that elemental toxicity is better than peace of mind - that's not reflected from parses I've seen, largely due to the shorter duration and lower damage on toxicity, so it only performs very high on large swarm encounters that die nearly instantly anyway. Curse of Darkness -does- perform very well, but frankly is probably a bug that it functions the way it does; there's no note about it in its description that it works that way, and similar abilities in the past that have done the same thing were subsequently nerfed. Ice lash firing on melee is kind of a shrug to me, really - helps the bard in the group for victorious concerto but otherwise not really a big deal.Now I do agree that illusionists need help, but it could be largely solved via our red adornments. They should upgrade and in some cases combine our existing adornments. For example, combining the two synergism adornments, upgrading the Destructive Mind and Peace of Mind adornments to enhance the effects of the buff as well as the duration, add a damage increase as well as triggers to the prismatic adornment red adorn, make the flash of insight adorn also increase crit bonus or the like, etc. Illusionists really don't need an overhaul to be a strong class - they just need to do significantly more personal damage and contribute a little more utility. I think Time Warp is pretty weak aside from timing for wizards with fiery blast, and should be something like 15 or 20 second duration, but upgrading red adorns and so on would be a more directed solution for our raid woes.</blockquote>Yep, yep. Changes to Red Adorns would make me quite happy but unfortunately wont help the poor saps who don't raid.Red adorns I would like to see get changed:-Synergism. Combine both Red Adorn Synergism adorns into 1 red adorn.-DR and POM. Combine this into a single red adorn, extending the duration for both instead of individually.-Prismatic Adornment. Add additional triggers beyond the 2 (make 4 triggers), allow it to be triggered off of melee or spell attack.-Flash of Brilliance. Add +potency to the spell itself, and +Crit Bonus to the red adornment.Red Adorns I would add:-Time Warp. Needs to extend this to 20 seconds.-Add +15 base damage to UV Beam (Like Conjy's crystal blast)-Red adorn for AOE immunitie or double our auto-attack range.-Epiphany: include 15% casting hasteSpell changes:-Change Prismatic adornment to proc off both melee and/or spell attack-Savante: raid-wide-Illuminiate: Make this raid-wide.-Flash of Brilliance: Add group potency to this.-Time compression: Self-cast.</blockquote>I agree here, with everything. While I can understand that our dps last exp was making wizards feel redundant, we have been slightly over nerfed, mainly through lack of bonuses. In a perfect group, in my mostly legandary gear, I'm finding that I can pull from 11-16k. Which puts me about even with the fury who casts thunderbolt and ring of fire every so often in a non perfect group.The most obvious change that really should be a duh is making TC castable on self. While everyone loves reuse speed, just face the fact that TC is best cast on casters. And with most casters reaching casting cap the casting speed, which used to be the illy strong point, is no longer enough. I've found that having a troub in the group to cast UT on me can litteraly double my dps depending on the group makeup. And normaly people don't realize that illies become halfway decent dps classes with a trouby an UT so they put UT on the warlock who's cranking out 11k and tell me to TC the healer. I then end up putting TC on my pet, and denying the trouby any buffs, and settle for pulling 6 or 7k zone wide. Having a buff in our arsenal that is so vital to our dps that we can't cast on ourselves is not just taunting, it's agrivating.

Chock

06-21-2010, 12:58 PM

Oh and give us a 1.5 critical multiplyer like everyone else. That is just plain silly....

Tasmai

06-22-2010, 05:26 AM

Tis true. I see no reason why Time Compression can't be cast on ourselves when troubs and dirges can cast Upbeat Tempo and Battle Cry on themselves.Other then that, I still find Illusionist fun to play and 20-30k dps is respectable for a support class.

Chock

06-22-2010, 01:34 PM

<cite>Tasmai wrote:</cite><blockquote>Other then that, I still find Illusionist fun to play and 20-30k dps is respectable for a support class.</blockquote>I find it insufficient when your top DPS is doing 90k, your fury is beating you while solo healing at 30k, and you find yourself clearly at the bottom of the parse below some healers as you crank out your 28k. Thats when it stings a bit.... Its about relational dps, not actual.

Tenoris

06-29-2010, 11:55 PM

Got a parse i wanna put down here, if you don't like that, tough!Wizard | 23842Coercer | 10861Shadow knight| 8919Illusionist | 8873Troubador | 4587Fury | 3399Ok, here's the story, zone wide dps of research halls. Wizard is raid geared so I don't expect to beat him... ever. The Coercer, however, was worse geared then myself and still easily beat me. The shadow knight was probably about as geared as myself, mostly in legandaries and the odd fabled, and, to add insult to injury, was in defencive stance. The trouby wasn't yet mythicaled, and the fury was auto attacking.I still won the power regen parse, but the coercer wasn't trying and... quite frankly I wasn't either, I think I threw out a couple of mana flows on the fury but past that...can i have actuall dps now? atleast to bring me up to the coercer?edit: oh and buffs. TC was on the wizard, and UT was on myself. then everyone who mattered had synergism

iceriven2

07-03-2010, 01:13 PM

As someone who plays a wizard, Warlock, Coercer and illusionist, I think the illy's main dps concerns should be the coercers. Coercer's dps is higher and easier to attian. Illy should at least be standing dps wize with the coercer's but thats it. BUff's? I raid the most with my Wizard and not having you in grp my dps falls by the thousands. TC and all your temp buffs provide a huge increase to a grps dps, The raid knows when my illy ninja afks. Crowd control. Whats lacking is the content not the ability. Grps fights are too short, but raiding where its needed its unusable, i think soe should add more encounters where crowd control can help win the fight. One idea: raid fights with some kind of dps check. Allow the fail condition to be CC'd

desinence

07-11-2010, 04:24 PM

<cite>iceriven2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>As someone who plays a wizard, Warlock, Coercer and illusionist, I think the illy's main dps concerns should be the coercers. Coercer's dps is higher and easier to attian. Illy should at least be standing dps wize with the coercer's but thats it. As someone who has raided as both illy and coercer, agreed. We should also be concerned that tanks and healers are beating us, this is ridiculous, especially for the work it takes to parse anything with a illy.BUff's? I raid the most with my Wizard and not having you in grp my dps falls by the thousands. TC and all your temp buffs provide a huge increase to a grps dps, The raid knows when my illy ninja afks. What this says the most to me is that the class has become only viable for its buffs, meaning skill matters little now, which has always been an issue as the class maintains one of the lowest populations in the game as a main. most raids will settle for a lesser player just to get the regen, buffs be damned, because, for the most part, if power stays up, a mob will eventually die.Crowd control. Whats lacking is the content not the ability. Grps fights are too short, but raiding where its needed its unusable, i think soe should add more encounters where crowd control can help win the fight. One idea: raid fights with some kind of dps check. Allow the fail condition to be CC'dill give you points on a fail condition concept, however, with all the other effort to fill your roles, running away from your group to keep something mezzed ie. nexona is nothing short of lame. you would ask your healer that is solo healing to run off to the other side of the room and stay out of range, but yet the illy ends up having to do this with nexona. group runs out of power, means healers cant heal, means dps'rs cant dps, and if your having trouble following along, it means because they are dead. point is, unless adds are made annoying enough that they need to be kept away from group, the off tanks will take them and hold them. CC seems like nothing more than a forgotten gimick in this game that gets revived on a rare occasion here and there, totally situational and lame in the end. Next, the resist rate to crowd control in the new expansion is nothing short of ridiculous, i feel unable to rely on it at all. to others that have posted here, please, if you haven't played the expansion content yet, don't run your mouth about the state of the illusionist, because quite frankly, you know nothing. Yes there were a lot of Sorc's and Summoners being out parsed by chanters in TSO prior to the proc nerf, it was not our fault that most of those who played those classes sucked, because i knew several players of equal skill who i could never touch... ok, maybe not summoners, they were pretty hosed still in TSO, but life was slowly getting better. This is a utility class, however, with all the utility other classes have now, the different spectrums they get a piece of, the concept of full utility is gone, and trying to return our class to such, while not removing the utility from the other classes is nothing short of a fools errand, quickly making this class nothing more than a power plant, and with power regen the way it is, ie. not taking excessive focus like healing or something of that nature, players are going to be bored filling that sole role, and quit... And when i say quit, i mean those couple of illy's on each server who have been playing the class for years and still struggle to maintain. So where this new class balance guy whose supposedly reading the forums every day? Bet thats the forums behind his Facebook, ready to pull up in case the boss walks in. Tell me i'm wrong, prove it. I'm betting on nothing but continued silence.</blockquote>

Tenoris

07-11-2010, 06:48 PM

Ok, so I'm bored today and have nothing else to do so I'm gonna go through and categorize illy spells into 3 types: Useful, in that they are about where they should be. Useless, which should be doing a job, but don't, also, they can be annoying in the extreme. And Waste, spells that have no use, should never be pressed, and probably taken off your hotbar.Disclaimer: this is all based upon my experience in pve raiding SF content, mostly easy mode, if you disagree with anything said here, feel free to post a wordy explanation, or just flame me, dosn't matter to me.Useful:-UV beam, while I'd like it to hit for more then 10k, in raids, with full buffs and a debuffed mob, it gets the job done.-Prismatic chaos, highest hitting spell at ~35k per spell cast. The biggest issue is in order to get the most dps out of it, it has to proc 5 times every 9 seconds, which might not happen depending on your tank. And i refuse to macro it to a scout, that seams excessive for a 35k spell.-Nightmare/Nullifying staff, hits for next to nothing, but what's useful here is the 3k/2k arcane debuffs.-Bewilderment, Our hardest single hit spell at 13-15k, the detaunt is nice, but if you ever pull agro anyways something is horribly wrong with your tank.-Speechless, the recast is a bit long, the stifle is worthless and the cast time is longer then most of my spells, but it hits for 10k so I won't complain.- Peace of mind, Destructive Rampage, two temp buffs, both do sizable dps increases for short term, in the long term you might get 4-8% increase group dps zone wide... but they can easily double my dps for the first 20-30 seconds of a fight.-Incinerate, ok, not technical an illy spell, but with how squishy we are, if you can time it right I've gotten a 120k crit that double attacked for another 100k, not too shabby for a support class. But it's more for my ego then actuall dps, considering wizards are critting for that much every 20 seconds or so.-Mana flow, 10% after 15 seconds, useful for keeping a healer up... i guess.-Synergism, ya ya ya, it does damage, all the casters in the raid like it, what more do you want?-Chromatic shower, 3-4k damage on hit and another 2-3k every so often and another 3k on termination on an entire encounter, would prefer more damage for it's recast but I still use it so can't complain.Useless:-Personal reflection, in groups it's fine, but in raids, I don't bother keeping it up, it dies almost instantly on the first aoe, if it did respectable dps that would be almost useful, but it dosn't so... -Order of Construct, see above-Rapidity, I normaly have it up for personal dps, on trash i can melee more melee hits = more PoM procs, but past that, it's just an excuse for me to not throw out another synergism.-Time Compression, I know, you wizards love to fight over this thing, but it's not self castable, and until it is, I will never put those 5 points into the 5% spell Dbl Atk, and if you have an issue with that, tough.-Flash of Brilliance, Ok, it's not terrible, I can throw it up before a pull and never bother with it again, but other then pulling my int above 2k the dps increase is minimal.-Chromatic Storm, I cast it to proc item effects and synergism, but unless you're dealing with a massive encounter it's basicly worthless.-Illustory arm, if the melee guys arn't already dbl atk capped, they are doing it wrong, this is a free 25% dbl atk for me.Waste of Time:-All mezes, Stuns, roots, ect. They have no place or use in a raid.-Illustory allies, the illusions die instantly and then so do you because you just mem wiped the mob and unless the tank is fast on rescue so does the raid.-Phase, a random memwipe... seams usefull.. if you wanna be guild kicked.-Time Warp, the dps increase is minimal ZW, yet it increases wizard egos by so much that they are bound to fight over it and annoy you to death about 'why did you cast it then not in 10 seconds like I asked?' or 'comet was down! You should of been paying attention!' so I only cast it on myself for the purpose of doubling with an incinerate.-Dismay, if it reduced the melee stuff enough to matter, or did some damage to I might cast it, but now, I don't bother.-Blink, minor detaunt and forces you to reposition disrupting perpetuality, don't bother hitting, easier to just die and eat some chips while waiting for a rez, not that blink will ever save you anyways.

desinence

07-11-2010, 08:08 PM

<cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote>Useless:-Time Compression, I know, you wizards love to fight over this thing, but it's not self castable, and until it is, I will never put those 5 points into the 5% spell Dbl Atk, and if you have an issue with that, tough.</blockquote>Seriously? Do you even know anything about your class? I read through your post and found a lot to pick a part, a few things i agree with, but this stood out over all.Cast it on yourself, for what, its mediocre deminished returns? Are you kidding me? With how little utility we have left, and you want to wast this spell on yourself with how little it will do for you? really? 5% double not worth it? Do you have any idea what your class' role is and how to up your raids dps at all? 5% spell double attack is huge, go see how much spell double attack can be gained from other sources and look at how much dps mage classes spells hit for... See, here the problem, some of us have viable complaints about the class, but then people like you come in an muck it all up by running your mouth when you havent a clue how to play your class well. BTW, you gave permission for me to flame you, and if you have read the flames at all, you should have known i would call you out. go reroll, you already failed the class.

Tenoris

07-11-2010, 09:50 PM

<cite>desinence wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote>Useless:-Time Compression, I know, you wizards love to fight over this thing, but it's not self castable, and until it is, I will never put those 5 points into the 5% spell Dbl Atk, and if you have an issue with that, tough.</blockquote>Seriously? Do you even know anything about your class? I read through your post and found a lot to pick a part, a few things i agree with, but this stood out over all.Cast it on yourself, for what, its mediocre deminished returns? Are you kidding me? With how little utility we have left, and you want to wast this spell on yourself with how little it will do for you? really? 5% double not worth it? Do you have any idea what your class' role is and how to up your raids dps at all? 5% spell double attack is huge, go see how much spell double attack can be gained from other sources and look at how much dps mage classes spells hit for... See, here the problem, some of us have viable complaints about the class, but then people like you come in an muck it all up by running your mouth when you havent a clue how to play your class well. BTW, you gave permission for me to flame you, and if you have read the flames at all, you should have known i would call you out. go reroll, you already failed the class.</blockquote>The reason I put TC down as useless, aside from my hatred of buffs that arn't self castable (while other similar buffs are -pointed stare ate UT-) is similar to what you mentioned, the diminishing returns from cast/reuse/recovery speed. Last before SF illies were one of the few classes to make casting speed cap, atleast easily. Where as now, with all the casting speed on gear, TC is mainly used for the reuse speed which everyone still wants. Yes, TC is still better put on wizard or warlock (summoners tend to prefer UT for whatever reason) instead of myself, especially in raids. But in groups when the only other caster is a conjy who is pulling 2k dps WITH TC and Synergism I feel I'm well within my rights to deny them TC rights and cast it on myself, as I tend to pull 10k dps. But now, all I can do is cast it on the healer, and lets face it, they don't really need it so long as they can keep the group up, or my pet. Granted, the pet is probably a bigger insult, but still. And ya, I know the 5% spell dbl atk is Cerius Buiznus but this is about the principle damnit.

desinence

07-12-2010, 01:50 AM

<cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>desinence wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tenoris wrote:</cite><blockquote>Useless:-Time Compression, I know, you wizards love to fight over this thing, but it's not self castable, and until it is, I will never put those 5 points into the 5% spell Dbl Atk, and if you have an issue with that, tough.</blockquote>Seriously? Do you even know anything about your class? I read through your post and found a lot to pick a part, a few things i agree with, but this stood out over all.Cast it on yourself, for what, its mediocre deminished returns? Are you kidding me? With how little utility we have left, and you want to wast this spell on yourself with how little it will do for you? really? 5% double not worth it? Do you have any idea what your class' role is and how to up your raids dps at all? 5% spell double attack is huge, go see how much spell double attack can be gained from other sources and look at how much dps mage classes spells hit for... See, here the problem, some of us have viable complaints about the class, but then people like you come in an muck it all up by running your mouth when you havent a clue how to play your class well. BTW, you gave permission for me to flame you, and if you have read the flames at all, you should have known i would call you out. go reroll, you already failed the class.</blockquote>The reason I put TC down as useless, aside from my hatred of buffs that arn't self castable (while other similar buffs are -pointed stare ate UT-) is similar to what you mentioned, the diminishing returns from cast/reuse/recovery speed. Last before SF illies were one of the few classes to make casting speed cap, atleast easily. Where as now, with all the casting speed on gear, TC is mainly used for the reuse speed which everyone still wants. Yes, TC is still better put on wizard or warlock (summoners tend to prefer UT for whatever reason) instead of myself, especially in raids. But in groups when the only other caster is a conjy who is pulling 2k dps WITH TC and Synergism I feel I'm well within my rights to deny them TC rights and cast it on myself, as I tend to pull 10k dps. But now, all I can do is cast it on the healer, and lets face it, they don't really need it so long as they can keep the group up, or my pet. Granted, the pet is probably a bigger insult, but still. And ya, I know the 5% spell dbl atk is Cerius Buiznus but this is about the principle damnit. </blockquote>UT is prefered due to the fact it makes dots tick faster, summoners and warlocks will gain more from that. Yes i am rather perturbed that UT became a great desire to most mages, but TC is still a good buff and with 5% spell double attack, it puts it back on par with UT...The split dps of summoners also makes them a less prefered choice, however with current hook ups they have, it is also quite beneficial.As for casting it on self, i fear to many craptastic illies would cast it on themselves instead of trying to up overall dps. Its not as easy as you think to hit casting speed cap, but that aside, the reuse remains heavily important.i can agree the spell may be slightly outdated, however, to consider it useless is way too far. Again I think the biggest point illies are dealing with right now is that they want us to be full utility with no utility abilities that really set us apart anymore. Alot of our so called utility has an equivalent useful in some other class, and in the end we remain simple mana refuelers. Perhaps they feel this is enough to nerf the hell out of our dps, but i do not agree. They'll eventually realize things suck when its like kunark again, and seeing an illy is like seeing an endangered species, or perhaps even worse... pre-sky... which seems to be the definition of the class they are trying to return to.