So... *WHY* do I have root memmed again? Must be for a sense of nostalgia....

[Nerwen]

Hello everyone!  I haven't posted here much, but I have conjurer.  She could be counted as my "main" as she is my highest level alt at a whopping 35.  Most of her gear is quested (hooray for AQ20 quests) and most upgrades are generally of the "treasured" variety.   Most spells are either at an apprentice II or Adept 1 level - I look often for better quality spells, but haven't found too many replacements that I can afford yet.  As a whole, I would say I am middle-to-low end, gear and spell wise, for a conjurer.  I plan to upgrade as possible in the future, as luck and finances dictate.In my spell bar, I have a spell called "immobilize."  The examination text for this spell reads something like "This spell immobilizes the target.  Damage has a chance of breaking the effect."  I believe that the correct text should read, "Damage has a chance of not breaking the effect."If there is a more worthless, unreliable, useless spell in my spell bar than Immobilize, I don't know what it is.  It remains present in my spell bar through efforts of my husband, who nobly begged that I spare it when it was about to get the axe, so it sits there, wasting a slot, and I glower at it. I have gone from green to dead while chaincasting root.  My record thus far is six chain casts, no successes, 100% to 0% health, with no "immune" or "resisted" messages.    I don't need a spell that I cannot get to work in six chain casts.  Many times it refuses to work at all unless it can be doubled (meaning the mob has two root icons under their debuff bar.)Under what circumstances can immobilize be made to work?  My first plan is to buy an upgrade for the spell, if and when I can find one, but thus far, none have presented themselves.  Is there any particular stat that Root relies on?  Any other suggestions?ThanksJen

[Sanamien]

Root is very situational. I don't use it a lot, but it is very useful when for example taking on two ^^'s or a named with adds. It's not useful if you try and kill the mob with root on, but it has its uses. At least upgrade it to adept 1, since it's a lot more useful when it's not resisted The latest I've used my root for (and the reason for upgrading it to adept 3) is trioing Poet's Palace with another conj and a wizard. With 3 attempts at landing a root on the orange nameds, we usually land at least one

[XtremSummo]

The quality of the spell does have a major effect on the chances of you landing it, so upgrading it is important if you want to use it a lot.

 

How useful it is, is another question really. Roots will break quite readily when the rooted mob takes damage. They are not intended to hold the mob still while you attack it. Their main purpose is to hold the mob at a distance while you do something else - as such it is mostly useful for melee mobs that cannot attack at range. Conjurors struggling to keep roots running are usually suffering because they have DoTs or swarm pets running on the mob when they root it. These will break the root quickly.

 

Classic uses for the root are:

 

1) When trying to kill a group of mobs, you can reduce the difficulty of the group by rooting one of them and then engaging the others away from the rooted mob. Keep in mind both you and some of your pets have AoE effects which may break the root, so you need to pull the other members of the group at least 10 metres away from the rooted mob in order to fight them well without breaking the root on the rooted mob.

 

2) When soloing against difficult singleton mobs, you can engineer it so that when your pet dies, you root the mob and then use the time to cast a new pet. You need to be sure that no DoTs are running on the mob and that swarm pets (Aqueous Hunter type or Pyrotechnic type) are not active. Once you have your new pet ready you start again.

 

3) You can use roots quite effectively to outrun content that you just need to get past or away from. Root the mob, run past/away and use the distance you gain to get far enough away that they don't chase you.

 

Many soloing conjurors use the Air pet when soloing tough mobs. In order to do this they'll tend to use no DoTs or just DoTs that run very quickly (like the shattered earth line). When their pet is just about to die, they tell their pet to back off, root the mob then recast the pet. It can be an effective, if slow, method of soloing difficult mobs.

 

How useful the root is will often depend upon your favoured playstyle as a conjuror. Some tactics and strategies work well when using a root but others see no real benefits from rooting at all except as an emergency measure. It's worth taking the time to learn how to use the root well though, even if it's not something you use a great deal.

 

X

[Loral]

Root is on my hotbars, has it has been situationnally useful in the past. But I can count on my two hands the number of times that it was included in my battle strategies.

And with Frigid Wind at 55 (75% snare + DoT, unbreakable), Root has never seen the daylight since. Conjurors have too many other ways to take down groups of mobs.

I guess I haven't been drilled enough to include it in my battle tactics to use it effectively. But up to now, I haven't missed it. The pet is root enough.

Before Frigid Wind thou, it can be an amazingly powerful tool to solo single heroics, like the SS giants. Root mob, buff pet, send pet+all damage you can do. Before pet dies, cancel all DoT, and when pet dies, root mob. Recast pet, wait for the spells to refresh, and resume. Not effctive XP-wise, but gratifying as hell when other players look at you with wide eyes.

[Xalmat]

What the above players said. Root is situational, but when you need it you'll be glad to have it.

[Purg]

ditto,

 

When taking on named with followers, root him, drag away his followers,  set pet off, re root him, and by the time he arrives its 1 on 1, if its get hairy keep him rooted whilst you heal your pet let regen work its magic,

as a low lever soloer i  used it very very often. not used it as much in my 30s-40s as i tend to go all out ape aoe as i have masters 1 aoes and aoe pet, i gain hate but they they die so quick,,, kamakazi conjurer.

Very situational but it does help.

Upgrade it when you get ur next upgrade and see how you fair.

[Gyukst]

Its real important to note here: 

 

It appears she has a problem with root landing, but not sticking.  I would hazard a guess that A) the pet is beating on it, B) A dot is on it, C) combination of the 2.

 

I use root to pull when I have multiple mobs in an encounter.  Root 1, the rest come, pet gets aggro, I keep 1 rerooted as needed.  If I get lucky, I might keep 2 rooted. and let pet beat the rest.  (Former EQ 1 druid at heart I guess)

 

This works when dealing with low level mobs, with adept 3 or better root.

 

Is it efficient, nope.  It works when dealing with heroics though.

 

Key is, never damage the rooted mobs, until your ready to handle em.

 

 

[Nanite]

Well for one thing, you really should be using at least app4 spells. If none are up for sale on broker, send a tell to a sage that's around your level. You may have to shop around a bit, but you should be able to find one that will meet your budget. If not, have yourself or one of your alts go provisioner. People always need drinks, and this will help finance your adventurer's. Also, you will almost have to harvest your own raws, and while your harvesting those shrubs, you can be harvesting the rocks that give the adept3 rares, so you can at least get your key spells upgraded to adept3 (like your pets, your stances, etc). Having a higher level root *will* help it, not a lot but it will help. You just can't expect the root to hold with dots, your pet and you all throwing damage at a mob, even a master1 root won't hold under those circumstances.

[SilkenMaid]

/agree's with purgle ... enjoys the Kamakaze approach (and prays she can keep her pet heals up) It's so much fun at times! :womanwink:

* Silkwind - Runnyeye *

Suffering from...

[Signature-Clueless]

[Jeradim]

I dunno, I just found the lower lvl roots -like immobilize- to be very ineffective compared to their higher lvl counterparts.  I remember I had all kinds of issues getting them to stick too.  First you have to make sure it is at least adept I quality (and that should be sufficient, there's many better spells to upgrade to adept III before this one).  However, don't get too discouraged if you have limited success until you hit 33 and get Quicksand.  Frankly, I don't think I cast root even once (after I learned it sucked) until I got that spell.  Even then I didn't use it that much until I got Quagmire.  As others have mentioned, it's use is really situational anyway.  I mainly use it to separate the big nasty ^^^ from the rest of his cronies while I kill them off.  So unless you're killing heroics/named's all the time you really don't need it for anything.  While in a fight going toe to toe with mobs, you're much better served casting stifles/stuns than root.

[SnowKnight]

Root is an awesome tool. With it, and all my other spells at adept 3, i managed to solo all of the named on IoR including the orc. Without root, that would have been impossible. Other people have outlined how to use it best so I wont go into that. But have no doubts it is a immensly powerful spell when used correctly.

[K'aldar]

sorry, i didn't have time to read any posts past the OP, so i apologize if this was already said..the quality of the spell is important, but even at app I i've never had problems getting a root to land, just not to last full duration sometimes.  some of the things you should check for before you cast root.-DoT's on mob-is pet still attacking it?both of those things will break your root almost instantly, so either cancel your dots and back pet off before casting it, or cast on a mob that you're not currently attacking.hope this helps some.

[Grimme]

The ultimate use of root - when your pet dies. It gives you enough time to get another one up and buff it.

[Tuneee]

Last time i used my root not just for fun was when we tried to do Rahotep. Common tactic is to mez one of the adds, if you ran out of mana, so you can regan before the next wave of mobs arrives. Because we had no chanter or coercer, i pulled one of the mobs away (fairly easy with air pet and a tank two lvl below me) and kept it rooted.

I was also able to root one of the named x2, what surprised me a bit.

 

[Xalmat]

Hrm, I never woulda thought of that technique!

[Doobur]

Nice tactic. Thanks for the tip.