New changes today

[Ly]

As an illusionist, and as of right now, every mesmerize spell on beta is BETTER than its live version. Reuse timers and durations. Yippee! As a coercer, there are also some charm changes ---

 

 

Stun, Mesmerize, Stifle, and Charm improvements:
  - Stun and Mesmerize spells and arts now have shorter recast timers.
  - Mesmerize spells and arts should now have considerably better durations.
  - Charms now affect up to triple-up conned opponents (Heroic), have a chance of periodically being resisted by the target (roughly every 30s), and last between 8 minutes to 15 minutes depending on the charm spell (Troubador charm spells do not last as long).
  - Stifles now have shorter reuse times.

 

Mage changes:
- Magi's Shielding no longer uses concentration.

[Dystr]

!! changes to stuns, stifles, and mezzes = sweet. changes to charm: hmm.....how can they make such a fundamental change to charm one week before releasing the combat revamp?  additionally, if a ^^^ heroic mob has a chance to break charm every 30 seconds, why in god's name would i ever use a ^^^ mob??? i am not sure how i feel about the charm changes....

[Ly]

You can see screenshots of the Illusionist spells here --

 

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=26&message.id=6916

 

If I wasn't as lazy as I am, I'd make a coercer and post the screenies for your charms.... but I'm sure someone else will lol

[PigLick]

Wow, I'm eager to see how our spells look now. This is a pretty great change, but it seems like we may have lost major ground in the CC department to illus. They appear to get 2 separate single-target mezzes, the encounter mez, the nuke mez, and at 50+, the epic mez. That's 5 mezzes, all of which have durations and recasts such that they can be kept up indefinitely (with power as a limiting factor, of course). Not to mention any nukes, stuns, etc they get. As far as I know, we only have one single-target mez and one encounter mez. I'm not sure what's happened to our root spell. Until recently it was basically another mini-mez, but with the recent changes to root spells I'm not sure how it was affected. We also have a nuke-root (which again, not sure if/how it may have been changed). I don't mind if Illu's have a slight advantage in crowd control (as long as we're better in some other area to compensate), but this seems like a pretty huge gap between us. Can't wait for all  these changes to hit test so I can see and try them for myself, hehe. PigLick

[Arithion]

Any coercer actually have screenies of these spells? I'd be very interested to see the actual timers and durations on these, since this has been my main problem with the changes all along.

 

Thanks to anyone who can help.

[Hurdoc]

I think this is a FANTASTIC change to charm. Remember, mobs become NON-arrow after charming. So essentially this should broaden our choice of mobs, and yet balance them by reducing them from, for example, Heroic status to normal once they are charmed. Perfect, neither over- or under-powered. If their resistance rates drop to those of normal mobs, then 3 arrow up mobs should be ok to keep charmed as well. Even in instances, we can charm mobs present there.

[Xalibur]

as an illusionist i have to say: grats to your 2nd CC-Spell besides mez.

Finally your charm will be a viable way for cc and may be even more usefull than our 2nd mez as you can now charm heroics .

 

Today is a good day for the enchanter classes, lets hope they dont throw the nerf stick on us again

 

 

 

 

[AdiX__Styxx__]

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Xalibur wrote:

as an illusionist i have to say: grats to your 2nd CC-Spell besides mez.

Finally your charm will be a viable way for cc and may be even more usefull than our 2nd mez as you can now charm heroics .

 

Today is a good day for the enchanter classes, lets hope they dont throw the nerf stick on us again

 

 

 

 

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Dammit DONT JINX US!!!!!! Altough i wont believe these changes till i see them!!!!

----Doing a lil happy dance! plz let it be so!----

[zit]

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PigLickJF wrote:
Wow, I'm eager to see how our spells look now. This is a pretty great change, but it seems like we may have lost major ground in the CC department to illus. They appear to get 2 separate single-target mezzes, the encounter mez, the nuke mez, and at 50+, the epic mez. That's 5 mezzes, all of which have durations and recasts such that they can be kept up indefinitely (with power as a limiting factor, of course). Not to mention any nukes, stuns, etc they get.

As far as I know, we only have one single-target mez and one encounter mez. I'm not sure what's happened to our root spell. Until recently it was basically another mini-mez, but with the recent changes to root spells I'm not sure how it was affected. We also have a nuke-root (which again, not sure if/how it may have been changed). I don't mind if Illu's have a slight advantage in crowd control (as long as we're better in some other area to compensate), but this seems like a pretty huge gap between us. Can't wait for all  these changes to hit test so I can see and try them for myself, hehe.

PigLick

---

if changes go live like his, illu will be ahead in mezing no doubt. coercer did raise concern that their better power regen abilities might be of not much use as even less regen is sufficient in most cases. same applies here. illu will have 5 mez spells, cool. how often did you have to lock down 5 or more single mobs? i doubt that DoF is going to change much about the need of mez. it will be nice to play around with different mez spells - if the group allows you to, but not really of that much benefit.

 

i guess coercer spell change to their mez will be similar as the illu spell. which means 45 sec duration, 6 sec recast. How many mobs can we lock down with the change to faster cast / faster recast time alone? Even if figuring in an occasional resist 4-5 mobs shouldnt be a problem. One more mob can keep with charm (bit more risky though), another 4 or so mobs within an encounter can perma mez with the new cast time / recast on AE mez. Thats 10 mobs. Eventually nuke+root for back up spell and stuns with faster recast of course. This should be more than sufficient in the majority of situations. The main factor that will limit CC abilities will much more be: for one the lack of mobs to mez, and for second how fast we can target them.

 

btw seems illu pay hard for their mezes with cut down on their dps.

 

and grats on getting charm on heroic mobs, was about time !

[WuphonsReach]

The times that the current 24s duration 10s recast has gotten me and my group killed:1) Trio group (warden, monk, coercer) hunting even-con ^^^ giants in Thundering Steppes. That was a case where I really needed to be stifling, stunning, and DPS'ing the current target before it killed the monk. A second giant was simply too much to deal with using such a short-duration mez. With the old mez (pre-combat change), that would've been a situtation that would've been handled, although a bit hairy.2) Medium group (warden, monk, swash, coercer) hunting in Splitpaw's Crawler's Nest zone. Where the spiders come in groups of 6-9 spiders. if you got 2 groups at once, you were looking at 12-18 mobs, where you really need to lock down at least 8 of them.I think the devs are finally getting it into their heads that mez <> faster XP. In fact, mez tends to slow down XP due to the tank having to be more careful with their target. And a coercer who is mezzing, is not contributing to the DPS of the group.Where mez makes a difference is that it allows marginal groups to tackle content that would normally get them killed, although it takes them longer to work through that content. It also allows groups that are evenly matched for a section of content to survive the numerous bugs in EQ2. (Such as mobs that aggro through walls due to poor zone design or pathing issues.)I still have a fundamental disagreement that charm should randomly break early. I think the charm timer should be simply randomized when you charm the mob, where sometimes you get an 8min charm, other times you get a 15min charm. The early break is still not casual-friendly to me in a game that was marketed as "casual friendly". (IOW, being able to handle unplanned AFKs while soloing without having to worry about coming back to a dead coercer.)

[Impetus]

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WuphonsReach wrote:I think the devs are finally getting it into their heads that mez <> faster XP. In fact, mez tends to slow down XP due to the tank having to be more careful with their target. And a coercer who is mezzing, is not contributing to the DPS of the group.Where mez makes a difference is that it allows marginal groups to tackle content that would normally get them killed, although it takes them longer to work through that content.

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Excellent point, and a very important one for those of us who are often in small groups or groups without the perfect tank/healer/dps setup. I think you could even add stifles/stuns/powerdrains in with that argument.

[Arithion]

I still have a fundamental disagreement that charm should randomly break early. I think the charm timer should be simply randomized when you charm the mob, where sometimes you get an 8min charm, other times you get a 15min charm. The early break is still not casual-friendly to me in a game that was marketed as "casual friendly". (IOW, being able to handle unplanned AFKs while soloing without having to worry about coming back to a dead coercer.)

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We are an enchanter class. If you wanted a reliable pet, you should have chosen a summoner. Charm, by its very nature, is a chance thing. It shouldn't say: 'Oh, here, have a 10 minute pet and here's a countdown timer just so there is no danger involved for you.'

Charm is one way we coerce a mob. The idea isn't that it willingly comes along and lets you use it to kill all of its friends - the idea is that the mob isn't a willing participant and will rebel against you controlling it. The duration is over exaggerated as far as I can see. 8 minutes is a hell of a long time, but each to their own. 

 Afk? Do it between charming mobs. I'm sure you can either time your afk's to land between charm or, how about cancelling the buff and running until it breaks, or mezing it even, while you make your escape. This isn't a makeshift, hand us xp as easy as possible way, this is a test of the Coercer. How well you can charm a pet has always been the test of a psionic/enchanter class.

There is a difference between casual friendly gaming and simply giving a class something they shouldn't, by their very definition, have. We are coercers - if you want a permanent pet, or a safe pet, go roll a summoner. If you want to stick with our mind over mob chancey control - stay here.

Simple as that.

Message Edited by Arithion on 09-06-2005 03:30 PM