Xelgad interview on EQ2 Wire

[RobF]

<p>Heres a link for anyone that hasn't seen it</p><p><a href="http://eq2wire.feldoncentral.com/2010/06/28/eleven-questions-for-xelgad-eq2wire-exclusive/" target="_blank">LINK</a></p><p>There is a comment on Enchanter and Ranger issues and a bunch of other stuff. Its not detailed or expansive but it does raise some points.</p><p>Fine - I'm happy these issues are discussed, delighted even. However I'm intrigued that after months and months of posts on these forums that its not been discussed here.</p><p>I have my own personal view on these issues and I'd love to respond directly on them - if only I was given that opportunity. Id love to point out the the discrepancy between what a Dev thinks is a 'powerful' buff and what my impressions are and engage directly on the issue - but I cant. I'm sure Rangers would like to engage in dialogue on the issues raised, but they cant either.</p><p>Before anyone talks about Enchanters and raid spots blah blah blah that's not the point of this comment - nor is it a personal comment about anyone involved. Its about the principle that we have been asking for feedback and dialogue on class issues (and that could be any class not just chanters).  Kindof makes you suspect its because the Devs don't actually want to engage in dialogue about class issues with <strong>their</strong> players on <strong>their</strong> forums. </p><p>I don't think this a negative flame but rather a reasonable point concerning the lack of engagement from the Devs on class issues here. Before anyone criticises me preventing any further comment on sites such as EQ2Wire I think there should be room for both - certainly for the players who play those classes to engage with the Devs on the issues raised.</p><p>Finally, I certainly don't expect Devs to respond to every thread in the class forums - but there must be room for substantive issues to be discussed openly.</p>

[Chock]

<p>I read this as well and its the first time anyone has commented on the Enchanter class.  I noted he played a Coercer who has a very competitive dps for a "support" class.  I would very much for him to betray and see how much he loves the illusionist.</p><p>I am fairly exasperated with the outright neglect of the people in this forum.  If we are going to be the red-headed stepchild and least have the guts to stand up and beat us publically instead of hidden in the woodshed.</p>

[Sapphy]

<p>Yea totally! it would be nice to see illy problems become more recognized, we def need the boost <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />  I'm actually really excited they are thinking of bringing back crowd control more though <3<3</p><p>but at the same time.. I can kinda see how this is not a priority issue atm as well, given some of the other issues they are dealing with. :/  That doesn't mean we should keep trying to get our concerns out there though, it would definitely help if more illys were active in giving recognition to these concerns (and hopefully in a respectful way too).</p>

[Encantador]

<p><cite>Chock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I read this as well and its the first time anyone has commented on the Enchanter class.  I noted he played a Coercer who has a very competitive dps for a "support" class.  I would very much for him to betray and see how much he loves the illusionist.</p><p>I am fairly exasperated with the outright neglect of the people in this forum.  If we are going to be the red-headed stepchild and least have the guts to stand up and beat us publically instead of hidden in the woodshed.</p></blockquote><p>Sigh ... grass is always greener huh ?</p><p>Go look at the 'Top End Guild Parses' thread. Coercer and Illusionist DPS is even. On one parse, one coercer is significantly higher. On another parse, one illusionist is significantly higher. On the rest they are all about the same.</p><p>Both enchanters do around 50% of the top DPSers.</p>

[Sapphy]

<p>I don't think its just exaggeration or wishful thinking (lol) that coercers are dpsing significantly higher than illys atm all other factors the same.....  I think coercers have proven to do fairly better dps in even circumstances, at least, in a significant majority of cases.</p>

[RobF]

<p>I really dont think thats the point here - in any given situation and given a particular set of gear or raidsetup any Illy might outparse a coercer and vice versa.</p><p>The whole dps issue is a serious one but its not the only one. There are a host of issues Im sure wed like to discuss - but we cant. The whole thing is a one sided discussion which isnt a discussion at all. We talk but they dont reply.</p><p>Why is it that both coercers and Illys aren't able to talks the devs on their class concerns? Why wont they engage with their own players? At all? On any level?</p>

[Ksaun]

<p>I don't think dps or lack of is the issue the OP was bringing up, I saw it as more of something I have often wondered about myself.</p><p>Why do we have to go off-site to find out answers on where our classes stand in the big scheme of things when we have a SOE sponsored board right here asking for the same thing?</p><p>Why are our issues not discussed right here by the dev's?</p><p>Its nothing against ZaM, or EQ2wire, or any of the other fan-sites, its more of a we asked a question here but have to go looking for answers elsewhere on the web because we can not get a comment that even says they are looking into making an adjustment, or even tell us to screw off its working as intended.</p>

[razor247]

<p> Enchanters still have powerful buffs and power regeneration, along with the crowd control you’ve brought up. rofl there is no crowd control needed in 98% of the game</p><p>In a perfect world, we’d be bringing some more of their crowd control into raids and are looking into ways to do that. when???? 2020</p><p>An enchanter is primarily a supporting class and it is unlikely that an enchanter will be able to compete with a Sorcerer or a Summoner for the damage parse. How stupid is this guy?? Try a healer's parse</p><p>This guy has no clue the current state of anything...don't worry you'll be unemployed shortly</p>

[Ebarel]

<p><cite>RobF wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Fine - I'm happy these issues are discussed, delighted even. However I'm intrigued that after months and months of posts on these forums that its not been discussed here.</p><p>Finally, I certainly don't expect Devs to respond to every thread in the class forums - but there must be room for substantive issues to be discussed openly.</p></blockquote><p>The reason why it doesnt happen is, that everone has given up and/or quit the game or his chanter. At least ppl lost their fun playing illusionist class. The feedback on exactly the issues we have now have been there since beta. They still are in this forum, well analysed, changes suggested without a single dev response for half a year.</p><p>In short:</p><p> our buffs are mostly useless now, as caps are easy to reach with the actual gear. castspeed, haste, even recast are capped for most ppl who need it. so what remains is synergism which is nice but still far from comparable to stuff "non-supporters" or healers have.</p><p>Our dps is around half of T1 if they know what they are doing which places our dps in between healers. This not justified by anything else we have (nothing) to compensate</p><p>crowd control has been removed completely from raiding and even 1 or 2 future encounters where you maybe can mezz wont make up for the deficiencies in 99% of raid content.</p><p>and the most important issue: chanters have to hit buttons far more often than anyone else - for nothing now. even to get your meagre dps you have to hack into the keyboard like a crazy monkey and you still feel like not bringing any benefit to you raid - or even group. yes we can manareg, but that can be done by gear as well or /afk all the time.</p>

[Terrius]

<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><em>"Enchanters still have powerful buffs and power regeneration, along with the crowd control you’ve brought up. In a perfect world, we’d be bringing some more of their crowd control into raids and are looking into ways to do that. An enchanter is primarily a supporting class and it is unlikely that an enchanter will be able to compete with a Sorcerer or a Summoner for the damage parse."</em></span><span style="color: #e2e0ff;">Err... Okay Powerful buffs? From an Illy stance what do you considered Powerful buffs?Rapidity? Most people are capped on haste/daTandem? Sure it's nice, an aggro free hit and 5CB if you have the red slot adorn.TC?? aside from the 5 Spell DA on TC from the new AAs UT is a better buff.IA? Completely useless now-a-days since everyone is capped on DATime warp? yay 5 seconds to get interupted by an AoE and waste it? maybe if it was 10 it'd be nice.Aside from PoM Iluminate and Destructive rampage, we have no "powerful" buffs IMO, and for Temp buffs they're not all that great either.Power regen? Well okay, but you'd be better off trading an illy for a coercer troub combo. Coercers do more DPS and a heck of a lot more Power regen alot easier than illies.So I'm supposed to sit there spamming buttons in hopes of beating bards on the parse, and that is the intended direction for my Illy? Wow. I mean, I'm fine with not beating Summoners and Sorcerers, but as an Illy I'm out DPSed by a Coercer with equal gear who sits spamming a single mega macro the entire time. Maybe I just completely suck, but I dont think I suck so much that I should be outparsed by a Coercer spaming a single button...Guess I just miss my Illy being fun like back in RoK.</span></p>

[Tehom]

<p><cite>Encantador wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Chock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I read this as well and its the first time anyone has commented on the Enchanter class.  I noted he played a Coercer who has a very competitive dps for a "support" class.  I would very much for him to betray and see how much he loves the illusionist.</p><p>I am fairly exasperated with the outright neglect of the people in this forum.  If we are going to be the red-headed stepchild and least have the guts to stand up and beat us publically instead of hidden in the woodshed.</p></blockquote><p>Sigh ... grass is always greener huh ?</p><p>Go look at the 'Top End Guild Parses' thread. Coercer and Illusionist DPS is even. On one parse, one coercer is significantly higher. On another parse, one illusionist is significantly higher. On the rest they are all about the same.</p><p>Both enchanters do around 50% of the top DPSers.</p></blockquote><p>In that thread there was a lot of coercers outdamaging illusionists when the illusionists had troubs and the coercers were with tanks. I'm not sure that supports your claim that they're doing equal damage. Individual parses can be affected by too many factors to use with much reliability because of the curses and so on, bu the pattern seemed pretty clear to me, and definitely resembles what I've seen of illusionists and coercers in normal raid settings.</p><p>It's not difficult to see that coercers should do more damage than illusionists given the dps potential of their reactives as their reuse climbs. Illusionists don't receive a comparable benefit to improving their reuse and their dps doesn't climb at the same rate.</p>

[desinence]

<p>I wonder if this guy ever bothers reading the flames... he'd see that a great deal of illusionists that play the class well have either quit, or are about ready to. Heres some fact to consider if he hasn't;</p><p>enchanter class balance; yes, coercers are hooked up in comparison, two proc casts (hostage and spell curse) as opposed to our one (prismatic chaos). Now prismatic and spell curse are equal in concept, however hostage can be cast at the last moment in a fight and still hit all its triggers due to the way the spell works.</p><p>crowd control in raid; ok, we got to deal with the script like everyone else(curing, moving, jumpings, doing a jig, etc.), while keeping power up(even with full power drains), while casting rebuffs constantly because we buff squishies primarily in the groups that get less healers, while dps'ing etc. now they want to bring crowd control back in, anyone remember how annoying it was to fight Nexona, remember where your enchanter couldn't feed you power cause he was across the room mezzing, his dps was gone, and he had to stay away cause if a mob broke or some piece of gear proc and woke the mob, they then ensued in bouncing everyone all over the place... The fight went from being brilliant strategically to an annoyance at the end. Let face it too, the coercers arent going to be the one's sent to do this, they too important for the tanks, so guess who's getting screwed here.</p><p>crowd control period; Subjugation seems like a joke, i have not seen it improve anything crowd control related. in fact, crowd control has grown so unreliable when soloing that i have come to fear casting it in place of dps. Another example, BG, works on mages, everyone else shrugs it off about 90% of the time.</p><p>Battle Grounds; ok, we can annoy, and destroy mages... Scouts, Tanks, Healers, unless under geared or completely stupid, its game over for us. My best acts are busting my temps(ie PoM, Dest. Rampage, Illuminate, flash of brilliance) hoping i can actually get them off before a scout comes over, erases my target, interupts every attempt to cast anything, ignores crowd control, and leaves me dead in a matter of seconds. Phasing the healer will accomplish about the same.</p><p>Time Warp; Gravitas, Jester Cap... nice spells, but take a little finesse to work out. Time Warp... ever notice how no one cries out for this spell, I've noticed, went through a raid zone here and there with casting it, saw no difference in the ZW that would matter, nor did i hear a peep from anyone about my failure to use it. This spell, if its goona be such a hassle, needs to matter more. Bards can deal with the concept of such a spell generally easy, playing a bard also, I can tell you why... bard debuffs, and the ca's are such garbage that anthing between the auto attack is just a filler, and they aren't managing aggro, they are not managing heals, and they are not managing power. This ability in its current form is a fail.</p><p>utility; defilers for one, can fully power themselves with no need of a enchanter from class abilities alone. Mystics can bring power up from zero... not sure about other healers at this time, so ill leave it at that. power regen gear/items also are common. All classes have buffs and debuffs, we have more than normal.... however, please explain to me how enchanters are to remain utility when with every expansion, other classes are recieving more utility... let me guess, the good old fall back of crowd control, the old reliable gimick, which is all it really is at this point.</p><p>pet; im about done casting this. you can't beef it up like summoners do theres, you can cut off on some of your own dps and grab items like the uplifter control rod and such, but its still not enough to keep this things alive, and it is not like it is even adding that much to the dps anyway. but yet its there, and Summoners keep wanting to give me advice on gear because i have a pet. heres the thing, between two almost exact items, if there is barely a stat loss for adding pet stats, then i will grab it, and i mean barely... otherwise i'm taking the Sorc. one cause no need to have stats for something that a) doesn't survive even trash mobs half the time, and b) takes way to long to recast. The pets either need to be bulked up or done away with.</p><p>gear; quite clearly, the effort on gear has always sucked. This time we got summoner and sorcerer gear, time to mix and match once again, just like every other tier. this has never ceases to be excessively lame.</p><p>i'm sure i could list more, but at this point it seems pointless. I am again wondering what value their is to this class and the thought of raid crowd control makes me ill. It seems like still, the developers are not in tune with their player base but i guess we just dont cry as loud as the tanks do, or we arent a big enough piece of the population to that our loss in the game matters. The right concept would be to move forward, not attempt to back track the choices you've made in the past. This is like giving a kid a candy bar, letting their teath sink into it, and then nabbing it away saying oh wait, thats bad for you. I'm remind of those bank commercials; "you didn't say i could have a real pony." ... "you didn't ask."</p><p>Acknowledge this as well, those types who get all excited about being more utility based are usually the type of people who want to be carried through a zone, can't parse, and want more excuse why they can't keep their power up. These are lazy casual players who generally arent concerned with tweaking out the toon, and they usually can not be relied upon to keep open accounts... That is my rant, i expect nothing, but atleast now i have a clear conscious when i quit because the class has become such a nuisance, its nolonger worth my slot in a raid force. With all the effort people put into their main chosen class, do you think you going to keep many subscriptions when there is no joy in playing it anymore.</p>

[LivelyHound]

<p><cite>Sapphyra wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>That doesn't mean we should keep trying to get our concerns out there though, it would definitely help if more illys were active in giving recognition to these concerns (and hopefully in a respectful way too).</p></blockquote><p>For that to happen there would need to be people playing illies and there arnt many left. Most shelved their toons or betrayed. I come here to this forum once a month or so to see if any dev has responded to anything. Non have and so my illy remains shelved at 81 and I continue playing my pally, warlock and warden. You know the fun classes.</p><p>My illy was my main and a helluva lot of fun and then overnight it became meh when SF released and I saw what was new for illies aa wise. So I checked out gear which was meh also and then looked at what had been done to our myth buff and so on and that very first day I could see that we were totally messed up. So I lvld to 81, checked the boards here, watched the outcry and hoped for some dev feedback. Nothing. A few days later hopped to an alt to check out what had changed for that toon and I've never hopped back. Most of the illies I knew have done the same, and I now know of just one who is still with the class.</p><p>Finally a dev has commented on the issue, (not on this the home forum /sigh) and he seems to be completely out of touch with respect to illies. With coercers maybe not so much but for us, his comment smacks of ignorance or willful disregard. That,  coupled with zero comments since SF launch on the state of illies by the dev team and you just have to weep for the class and move on, which is a shame because the class used to be such fun.</p>