Just a FYI : Illusionists doing much better after the changes!

[Aelore]

The changes on test/best (I'm assuming the changes on test are identical to what's on beta, from a combat revamp standpoint), are absolutely WONDERFUL in my opinion.     I can now easily solo yellow SOLO mobs by sending the construct (which has a really nice fast recast time now), then the doppleganger, and then just being careful about aggro and staggering my stun spells.    The doppleganger makes a pretty good tank honestly, although the construct will steal aggro because the construct actually taunts ..lol.   But, most fights they both survive the entire fight (again, this is against solo mobs one or two levels above me...no arrows).

 

However, if you send in your pets and then nuke/dps like crazy ..you will get aggro and will have a harder time of it.  You have to be patient and let the pets do their work.   The new version of that spell ( I forget the name) that gives three hard hits per casting, is good to cast on the pet every time it comes up.    And, although Dynamism/Intensity is currently busted (I just did an extensive bug posting on this tonight), once it's fixed it should really up our dps.   (It seems to fire off pretty regularly)

 

From a grouping standpoint, we're actually more valuable than before.  Our doppleganger is like having another mage in the group, and his spells and hits (if you give him a proccing weapon) is some nice/decent dps (and he WILL cast things like stifle and stun on the mobs..I've had several times where I couldn't stun a mob because the pet had already cast it).  And, the group breeze is soooo much nicer than having to cast it on everyone all the time individually.  AND, that still leaves you with one concentration slot to cast either a haste or dynamism on someone (or yourself).    Power drains have been un-nerfed slightly recently, and the faster cast time on spells are really REALLY nice.   Finally, I find mezzing just the same as it was before honestly ...sure, one of the spells is a little shorter ..but then again, if you're mezzing .you should be focused on mezzing, not doing a lot at once.  (ie, I don't think mezzing should be a solo tactic).

 

Anyway, I think it's all great, and I'm usually one of the hardest people on SOE and their changes.  However, from what I've seen so far the combat changes have been the 'great equalizer' bringing most of the classes on par with each other.   Everyone is screaming bloody murder; however, even though they were lowered a bit in their abilities...illusionists were raised to meet them.  Frankly, I can't imagine what else we might expect.

 

For those whining about charm, you should stop.   The doppleganger is plenty helpful if you have good gear (since it's just a copy of you), and I personally think is a lot less of a hassle than messing around with charming.   You can be rest assured that SOE will keep an eye on charming and I'm sure it will never be 'uber' compared to anything we can do already...so I don't worry about it being something that makes coercers more powerful than illusionists.

 

[Oghi]

Thank you for the post, Besto. It's good to hear that the sky may not be falling   A couple of specific questions, if you've time and the inclination to answer:

- How often does Capture Mind get resisted, compared to pre-revamp.  Is it noticeably more, about the same?

- How many critters do you feel you can lock down with mezzes, when that becomes necessary?

- Does our Doppelganger make reasonable spell selections?  In particular, it'd be bad if it casts mezz and root spells.

- Given that power regens have been nerfed, but power costs have also changed, how well do we regenerate power in a full group?  Do other folks seem to notice that the difference Insight provides?

Thanks in advance for any reply.  It's frustrating to see these things developing, but get little real information.

[Count_Drakenkor]

Just to answer a few of your questions:

Capture Mind is resisted little to none.

Because of the reduced duration it is  possible to lock down 1 mob with Conv. Reg. and 2 mobs with Capture Mind. Because of the recast/cast time you are just short of being able to get 3 with capture mind alone. So 3 mobs.

When soloing magi shield is straight up unbelievable. It wards, adds defense, hp, etc. It far outweighs our Personae Pet(Doppelganger). With magi shielding and descent gear I am able to chain pull solo encountgers(however i do ahve a lot of hp regen). No food required.

The regen on Insight has been lowered, however its overall affect is much greater. This is due to the overall change in the combat system. People read about the changes and dont realise that all aspects of it have changed. Soloing, I would have to deliberatly try and waste power with master 1 insight on in order to run out. It is a bit overpowered in my opinion. In a group chain pulling it would take some serious work to get rid of all your power.

One thing that has been seriously overlooked by the combat critics is the casting time of our spells. Yes colorshower is 4 seconds.....but!!! We have several one second cast spells. Both dots, Conv Regal, root, Nukes, etc.  This is and extremely powerful aspect that people are overlookign and one of the defining things that make us so powerful. If you are soloing a mob and pull with colorshower...in about 5 more seconds you can have phsyc spectrum, lobot., and wither hope on him. Half the time the mob has not even been able to hit you by then. The long cast time of colorshower is almost always negated soloing due to the fact that I lead off with it. Once your Focus is maxed you can channel through most attacks and cast it anyways.

Anyhow, I hope this info helps. Good luck to all!

 

Message Edited by Count_Drakenkorin on 08-12-2005 01:34 AM

[Malle]

I look forward to these changes more and more. Thank you both for your input. :smileyhappy:

 

[KornRollKid]

Hmm ok ,im glad to get more perspective on this previous posters didnt touch the recast time that much which is big thnx for the posts.

[eland]

Thanks for the feedback from everyone who's tried the changes.

It good to hear our concerns being addressed regarding mez resist rates.  I'm also glad to see two different people playing with the changes who are using completely different solo playing styles, and being pleased with the results.  Meaningful decisions are nice.  :smileywink:

• Could you also tell us what level of upgrade your mezzes are, and whether you've tried other mezzes of different levels to compare the resists?
• If you've played in small groups, is there a substancial difference in your playstyle and in the overall 'feel' of what the class brings in these situations.
• If you've played in larger groups, have you noticed any change in how often mez is needed, or in a tank's ability to handle more than one encounter at a time.
• Over the course of, say, a minute, how many seconds on average would you estimate your doppleganger keeps a mob stunned and stiffled, based on it's typical spell selection?
• How much have you played around with concentration slot management in different situations?

Again, thank you for the feedback.  The more I'm reading the more my feeling's shifting from concern to a desire to try out the changes for myself and establish a new playstyle.

[Count_Drakenkor]

My Convincing Reg is master 1 and my capture mind is adept3. I have used them on mobs ranging from blue solo mobs to yellow ^^^. I cant recall ever having an instance where I had serious problems mezzing. Not to say I have never had a resist, but there has never been a case where I had a mob that I just could not mez. 

The feel of the illusionist is quite different while the role is maintained. We still provide the utility features of cc when it is needed as well as boosted dps and support to grps. Illusionists will be a key class in dps groups where we can give large boosts to intel and wisdom(well over 100) and can also use spells like dynamism(spell proc) and haste to increase dps.  How is the "feel" changed? Well, for starters, the days of buffing and rebuffing(if things stay as they are) are pretty much gone. In place of all that time casting we have(and are in no short supply of) some very high dps spells. Illusionist now provide the support role of the past as well as some pretty incredible dps. Here is a situation which we had the other night to illustrate my point.

A group consisting of myself and four other guild members were killing the other night. Being a man short we came across Saden(a fellow illusionist for those who do not know him) soloing away at mobs. So, we picked him up. WHAT!?!? 2 illusionists in a group? Well, lets just say there were no complaints. Our group now consisted of 2 illusionists, a zerker, a wizard, a dirge, and a mystic. In a situation like this we were each able to haste one of the melee, I kept up insight, one puts dynamism on the wizard, and we can each either put up our pet or magi shield. Now, besides the fact that our spells significantly increase the dps of everyone else in our group, we were providing an enourmous amount of dmg. I cant give the details of what all we killed but our dps numbers were through the roof and we were able to chain pull the entire time.

The most important thing is that it was just plain fun. We have plenty of options for different situations, we can easily slide into the dps or utility role, and unless there are some significant nerfs to our current line of spells we will be a very desired class in both raid and group situations.

[Tue]

Sweet, hearing this makes me feel alot better about the upcoming changes, Ty for posting the details. :smileyhappy:

[Andychaves]

Thank you for your input. As I or my group members never really realised the real usefulness of Dynamism and Legerity (they kept saying they didnt notice any difference) I wonder what is the benefit of casting Dynamism on a wizard?

 

Yllyana, level 50 Illusionist

[Neverborn]

Any raid info? Which of our spells/abilities actually land on raid mobs? What is our DPS on raid mobs? What buffs do we use on raid mobs?

 

-Myrid

[Stealth Status]

I have a question regarding mez, if anyone would like to answer it,

 

I see you all talk about Conv Reg and Capture Mind...

 

But I would like to know about the real Mez, which It seems only I use...... TEVALIANS SEIZE EGO (Class Training Adept 2)!!!!

 

Currently on Steamfront this is the main mez for me, and I only use Conv Regalia M1 as a backup.

 

Tev Seiz Ego is way better....... 48 second duration time, every single time you use it, and it also only has 10 second recast time, and also I can run around and it won't interrupt.  Also, it is uninterruptable by dmg or mobs or anything else.

 

So the question is..... not how does Conv Regalia or Capture Mind work in the post-combat changes.... but how does Tevalians Seize Ego work in the post-combat changes??? Since that is the real mez to use anyway.

[Count_Drakenkor]

1

Tev. Seize Ego  was my primary mez as well, however, as I am sure you have read the spec skills have not been balanced and at present time it slightly WORSE than captur mind(duration 4 seconds less). However.....I dont use Tev Seize Ego, Capture Minf, or Conv Reg as my primary mez anymore :smileywink:

[SunT]

I thought it was 54 secs but I may be mistaken.

My understanding is NO Training has been addressed...or changed yet.  Which is why the longer duration training Breeze is still active and targetable outside of group.

[Stealth Status]

yeah that is what I heard to, just wanted to make sure..  So they work, but just aren't fixed??.....

 

We'll judging by Drak's post, it may be irrelevant. or phantasmal Gradeur is the bomb he may be implying.

[SunT]

---

Count_Drakenkorin wrote:
1

Tev. Seize Ego  was my primary mez as well, however, as I am sure you have read the spec skills have not been balanced and at present time it slightly WORSE than captur mind(duration 4 seconds less). However.....I dont use Tev Seize Ego, Capture Minf, or Conv Reg as my primary mez anymore :smileywink:

---

So are you cryptically saying the group mez is good?  Or you are not doing CC or we have another Mez that has not been mentioned? 

Please enlighten us.  I am assuming you like the group mez.  How does it work?

[Count_Drakenkor]

We were told that spells 50+ still fall under the NDA.

[Aelore]

I have to disagree with Draken on the doppleganger vs. Magi's Shielding though.   Now, perhaps he has all fabled gear, but I do have all rare tradeskilled and the prismatic...so I'm not toooo shabby.   However, I just tried using magi's shielding and died to a yellow solo mob ...primarily because they've changed it so you get interrupted a lot more so I had a hard time getting off spells.

With the pet, I rarely even got hit and the mobs seemed to die faster (because my pet ws nuking it as well as I), and after each mob I was usually at around 80% mana.

So yea, I think the doppleganger is the ultimate solo stance personally.   Tanking is just too dangerous, especially given that something else could come along and then you have two things on you instead of just one

[Count_Drakenkor]

Both strategies are viable, but to tank the mobs on you max focus is required.

[Deson]

I assume by giving your pet a proccing weapon you meant equipping one before summoning it?

[Cylanth]

What about the changes to Prismatic Strife?  In its current form, its our best nuke and our best AE nuke. 

According to the posted screenshots, it becomes a buff?!  I dont understand it.

How does that impact things?

I am glad to hear that our "Buffbot" days are over.  However, I have been bummed by a few things, including the nerfing of our mezz, group invis, breezes, and buffs.

Thats a steep price to pay for an upgrade in DPS. 

Cylanth

50 Illusionist - Crushbone

[zit]

all stat buffs have been nerfed and all power regen abilities as well as resist debuffs of all mage classes. this is a general change and has to be seen in line with all other classes.

enchanter had more or less a monopoly on power regen before, this was not only our strength but also our crux. i dont think i will miss this much, and we are still the best power regen class, just not as unbalanced best as before.

but not only the role of enchanter got rewritten from being breeze-bot to being mage, the role of mages in general got slightly changed also. and our class now feels both changes at once and therefore more intense than the other mage classes. who wizard cares that CC got changed across the classes? if they even notice...

but CC got changed across the classes. mage ability to CC got nerfed while some other classes of different archteypes got a slight boost. seems SOE want spread CC even more among the archetypes and it not be reserved for mages / enchanter only. we are prolly the best CC class still, but we never again will peak in it like we did in our early 30ies.

all our utilities even out now more in comparison with other classes and so does our damage. the concept is to create a mage class with some special flavor of power regen and CC. and not the other way round.

actually there have always been only a few things that did seperate warlock and illusionist: breeze - mez - dps the most important. in everything else we have been pretty much the same and still are. the situation did not really change.

the question still is like its been all the time: how much dps is justified to trade of for mez and breeze?

my personal answer is: as long as my class becomes fun to play and i do not feel useless half the time when in group, it will be ok and i do not care if and how much more dps other mage classes can do. but how it feels to play and if it will be fun i prolly need find out myself first when changes go live. this is nothing i can judge from spell descriptions.

 

ps. the only thing i really hate and cannot understand is the change to group invis.

[Aelore]

The change to single cast invis (the run speed reduction) bothers me more than anything.   It doesn't make any sense from a roleplaying or 'fantasy-reality' standpoint -- it just seems like a nerf for the sake of a nerf.

[Count_Drakenkor]

The reduction in our grp invis run speed was not intended and is being taken out.

[Azamien-Dermorate]

---

Count_Drakenkorin wrote:
The reduction in our grp invis run speed was not intended and is being taken out.

---

How about the duration and recast timers?  Those bothered me more then the runspeed reduction .  Couplled with the runspeed reduction though it made it a worthless skill.

[ToeP]

I second that - keep the runspeed reduction and put the timers back to where they where (like the revamped Fury group-invis) if it's necessary to balance this spell.

Group invis is critical for small group play.

Please *at least* make it long enough for us to invis (and not wipe) if a group member goes LD.

Please *at least* make it long enough to travel at least reasonable distances.

Toepeg

50 Illisionist of Oggok

[Snive]

Let me preface this by saying that I have been looking forward to the 'revamp' for a long time and that I think it is a very good thing for the game.I'm hearing more and more comforting words from people on test that have an Illusionist high enough to see the difference between the before and after. I appreciate the idea of the doppelganger and its possible usefulness in soling and grouping, but the one thing that really bothers me about it is its randomness.On paper it looks like it's just me and the doppelganger spamming spells until it's dead. So is the idea of tactics and strategy out the door other than cast Construct and then send in your evil twin? It also looks like that for the doppelganger to be truly effective you have to have top-notch gear and upgraded spells. This should be a goal of everyone true, but should it be such a 'requirement' as a VLA wearing mage class? Do I now need to worry about getting tank type procs as well as mage type procs? Since our doppelganger is to tank for us, should I worry about boosting all my stats and not just the mage-centric ones?My apprehension also comes from the idea that maybe we are getting a little happy over these changes because they have improved a poorly designed class to begin with and that we are giddy from the idea of being able to solo better. The Illusionist community, myself very much included, may be blinded by these changes and the larger picture is not being evaluated.Yes, these changes are good because we are better off than before. Remember though, we were pretty bad and anything could be deemed and improvement, but can you honestly say that we are anymore desirable in a grouping situation? And if not, has this class truly become better? Are we still there just for breeze again?

Is a VLA tanking randomly casting mage that big fix we needed or is it itself just an illusion? Is our combined utility and damage in proportion to the rest of the mage archetypes? Or are we now just a bandaged average of all the mage subclasses?

This is a great community, probably the best here. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the effort in those who have spoken of their experiences and shared their thoughts and ideas. Like I said fantastic community, so I hate being negative, but the cynic in me always slaps away the optimist and I have to play devil’s advocate.

[zeek]

thing is right now both servers with the combat changes on them have such a low population that its hard to judge how effective we will be in group enviroments. Right now its solo or nothing. Testing this even for experienced testers is going to be tough. Heck its gonna take a while to figure out in a group whats our best spell lineup in the average group? Pet or buffs? Soloing its a no brainer.

[Ly]

How about the duration and recast timers?  Those bothered me more then the runspeed reduction .  Couplled with the runspeed reduction though it made it a worthless skill.

---

 

Grp invis duration is 2.5mins

 

Recast is 15s

 

No (or very minimal) slowdown on runspeed.

 

Much better!

 

(Beta)

[Slay Min]

Encouraging feedback.  Thank you.  Firstm I will give my input from limmited experience on test, and reading the feedback on da forums.

It's not in the ballpark, it's a whole new game.

First and foremost, we are no longer buff 'female dogs'.

Second, we can whoop some 'donkey'.

Third, we are still paper puppets waiting to be felled by the slightest wind.

Fourth, there is never enough concentration to go around!

OK, I will stop counting.  I enjoyed my character on test.  In and of itself that is a HUGE improvement.  Chanters previously have not been fun to play.  From 3 minute crack, to 15 minute crack, and now to indefinate crack, it would seem things are looking up.  Indeed they are!  My experience on test has been a set up your buffs then go play... versus a buff always and fit in some spells while waiting for insight to refresh type of game.  I am happy.  What I am not happy about is the 5 concentration cap.  You have to make choices.  Decisions must be made.  Previously our decisions were:  Who do I buff first?  Do I mez or do I AE?  Powerdrain or contribute our minscule DPS.   We have new dicisions to make.  Some are interesting some are not.  I'll break down the decisions.

Magi Sheild, Dopple, Charm, or none of the above.

This is an easier decision than it would seem.  From my experience, Dopple>Charm in most situations, and Dopple>magi shield in most situations.  The one exception I have not explored is raids.  In that situation I would assume that the extra spells to fill concentration would be best served with group buffs instead of Dopple.  It would make sense since I don't think any self buff we could possibly cast could save our 'donkey' against agro of a raid mob.  So buff your group to the teeth.

OK, I dont mean to let you down, but I said you would have to make decisions.  You just made them.  After you make your 3 concentration spell decision the rest is just what comes natural.  CC if you can, and kill the rest.  We do kill pretty well now.

P.S. Get used to it... our group invis now blows.  Hopefully that will change.  Other than that, enjoy your role as the less irritated crack dealer that has a big gun hidden under that tissue paper robe.

Cheers!

Hermit

1st illusionist and 9th 50 on Tox

[Azamien-Dermorate]

---

Lynx wrote:

How about the duration and recast timers?  Those bothered me more then the runspeed reduction .  Couplled with the runspeed reduction though it made it a worthless skill.

---

 

Grp invis duration is 2.5mins

 

Recast is 15s

 

No (or very minimal) slowdown on runspeed.

 

Much better!

 

(Beta)

---

Thanks, that is better.  Still not great but better then what I heard at first. It still isnt very long duration but atleast the recast timer is a bit more resonalble.  Still not going to be used for much because 2.5 isnt much duration for runing thru places like Sol Eye..