Are Things Any Better?

[Geldo]

<DIV>Hello fellow Illusionists, I have been playing basicaly since launch and am thinking of logging in again and playing my Illusionist a little. I have not played in 3 or 4 months and am interested in what has changed. The basic fear of SOE developers that Illusionists (or enchanters) would be too necessary if they were deemed as useful by the general public has always been my main gripe and I do not expect this to be any different now, or anytime in the future as it is one of the core development principles of the game design (why they even kept the class has always been a mystery to me), but what is the situation regarding playing an enchanter today, is it any fun, do you still need a group of experts to even begin to play the class, are we viewed as necessary for anything (above or underground), can we have any effect on epics, etc etc etc.</DIV>

[Barobra]

<DIV>Quick reading of recent threads will bring you up to speed. I would recommend starting with posts about LU24. This update changed all our cc spells including other classes ability to perform cc.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As far as personal experience I have noticed a couple things. Recently I did a full labs and a partial lyceum run (up to mr playful).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Still have not seen a dev response on alot of the lab mobs (if not all) not being affected by any of our new spells. AKA stuns/daze do not work at all on any mob in there. That is my biggest issue. I really would hope a dev reads about this problem...I will just keep posting over and over until it gets read.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So in short as far as labs is concerned - New changes don't work at all?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now when we CAN use stun/daze/stifle/mez mez is pretty much useless unless they are heroic. Some of the mobs in lyc say epic yet are heroic...can be very confusing but helpful.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Stun/daze/stifle can keep you very busy though, with alot of those encounters you have multiple mobs that all do pretty decent damage. So you can stun/daze/stifle...then cast color shower and stifle them all...then cast your ae stun to stun them all...etc. You can come up with some very creative ways to affect epics in a multi-mob encounter.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>When encountering a single epic boss that is alone you really do help in a way (if you can actually use your spells). You may notice the tank spiking badly...throw in stun....then daze....then add a stifle and healers get caught up. All in all that disrupts that mob for about 9 seconds or so...for 5 seconds really nullifying his auto-attack dmg. On the stun/daze/stifle the immunities aren't that bad.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For instance...your stun has a recast of 30 seconds or so and the immunity is 27 seconds...so it doesn't really matter anyway.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now alot of people will argue well what if you have more then 1 enchanter. This is a very valid point....but I was trying to coordinate with the other illusionist in the raid to not cast the AE stun. That way we both use the single stun. I would say that I would always stun the MA mob and he would pick random mobs in the groups. With teamwork you can really be helpful in raid situations.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I like the direction they are going from the perspective of a raiding illusionist. But I think that the grouping/soloing illusionist did suffer unfortunatley. Personally I like using strategy in a raid instead of dps and buff. That to me is very interesting.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Disclamer: Yes to each point I have made there is a alternate solution and or comment that may make it invalid. But this is true for anything in EQ2.</DIV>

[Geldo]

<P>Thanks for the insight. I cannot decide whether to logon and try this game again or just end it altogether. I will most likely login to see what has changed but I do not really see anything regarding the group dynamic of the game that would make an enchanter once again fun to play (like it was in EQ).</P> <P>I will give it a shot and see what happens.</P>

[Dufre]

<P>There is more social aggro now.  The way the aoe mez is now makes it difficult to keep an add encounter locked down anyway.  I think I would prefer the old aoe mez. </P> <P>If we had our old aoe mez then I think we would have a very good croud control.  The other really powerful spell is phase.  Phase went from totally useless to one of my favorite spells.</P>

[Sillililygirl]

What line of spells is phase?It's not that blink line of spells that ports you a short distance away is it?<div></div>

[Pins]

<blockquote><hr>Sillililygirl wrote:What line of spells is phase?It's not that blink line of spells that ports you a short distance away is it?<div></div><hr></blockquote>It's Phase, it's its own line.