Illusionist Class Issues : Sentinel's Fate Edition

[snowli]

raidwide timewarp!!

The proposed changes mean I'm still going to be trying to put timewarp onto a conjurors pet, (vastly more useful than onto the conjuror itself) which is a major PITA, unless raidwide timewarp is implemented.

The extra dps from ALL spell double attacks, from class abilities, class buffs, adornments is pitiful - the portion deriving from timewarp alone is a fraction of pitiful.

raidwide timewarp!!

[Chock]

Showoff@Unrest wrote:

<...>

Changing the immunity timer simply means instead of a wizard, warlock, and illusionist getting time warp... it's wizard wizard wizard.  Again the over all zw dps gains from this change will be minimal.   

 <...>

The change will effectively just [Removed for Content] off a lot of mages imo

<...>

This has ALREADY caused arguments between the mages in the guild and it hasn't even been implemented yet.  The summoners and warlocks know they are going to get slighted in this deal and are [Removed for Content]. 

I hope my sub runs out before this rolls out, so I don't have to listen to them bicker about it...

[snowli]

Seriously, I raid my illy sitting next to my gf who is number 1 mage dps in the raid, this gives us an ability to plan in advance sequencing timewarp that almost no1 has, and yet, the amount all spelldouble attacks adds to her dps is about 5%, most of that coming from other sources of spell double attack - leaving approx 1-2% via timewarp.

It will cause arguments in the proposed illy +1 other only version.

It won't do enough for dps.

Illy's simply don't have spike abilities to make any real use of timewarp anyway.

You could make it raidwide, with no recast timer - but I doubt a dev would be that confidant unfortunately, and maybe settle for making it groupwide until they did some datamining to fully confirm that: yes, making it raidwide wouldn't matter as 90% of people will continually miss the 5second active windows with anything meaningful anyways.

[andreas2901]

Yes, the upcoming tw change wont give us a big dmg boost, but it is a small step in the right direction. This tw change is not meant to be the class balancing of illus and coercers. As Xelgad said they will look into our dps, just be a little more patient guys.

And yes, the wizzy will be the best target for our tw but there is no reason to not use 2 or 3 tw macros, depending on the classes in your group. One time tw the wizzy, one time the summoner and on group encounters tw the warlock. Everyone in the group can get it more often than in the past and thats a good thing.

Im really glad that they are finally taking care of our class. Although many good illus have left the game already. Xelgads post was long overdue but now i know that something is going to happen to our class.

Thanks Xelgad

[andreas2901]

Chock wrote:

This has ALREADY caused arguments between the mages in the guild and it hasn't even been implemented yet.  The summoners and warlocks know they are going to get slighted in this deal and are [Removed for Content]. 

Yea im sure some greedy guys are already bothering you. There are a few classes who really benefit from this buff. No reason to not rotate tw as in the past. And for those guys being left behind: Its the same thing which happens to us illus. You cant always get the buffs you want, get used to it.

[snowli]

It doesn't really address any of the problems going to 1+illy - so now you're supposed to get the wizard to use his spike with it, then the conjy to use their pet output spike with it (putting it on pets is a total rim-ache) and then the warlock to use their best spike with it and so on. It's just a new version of annoying rotation and still costs more dps managing than it adds, just a new bucket of fail. Raidwide timewarp.

It's great and positive that something might finally happen for illy's, however it would be vastly better if something useful happened for them though, no1 can recruit the illy's they need these days.

[Ebarel]

Xelgad wrote:

A) Coercers have the same base crit multiplier, but they are not having DPS problems this expansion, so there has to be a more targetted fix for your DPS issues.  Unfortunately, we need to take the time to really study the class to see what the root cause to the problem is so that we provide the correct targetted fix.  It may be red adornments or something like that, which would be something we could fix before the expansion, but we have not had the time to really study the issue yet.  If you guys have other ideas, it would definitely not hurt to hear them.B) As far as IA goes, this is going to be fixed by the next expansion. It could happen as soon as GU58.  Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to discuss the mechanics changes in play at this time, but we'd like to avoid changing the ability now only to have to change it again in the future. We will look into Arms of Imagination to see if there's something we can do to make it more appealing for single-target fights, but it may end up just being that you only take the advancement if you're planning to play in AE content.C) Yes, making single target buffs persist through death is a huge pain.  We've already spent quite a bit of effort on it but have yet to succeed.  This isn't to say we've given up on it, though.  We can definitely look into making your pet more survivable.  We aren't sure on an ETA but we should be able to get a change in before the expansion, at least.

A) the 2 major issues for illusionists are

- the low base multiplier (and i dont think that coercers are ok with their dps at the moment) so maybe think it over. as we are missing maybe 50% of our dps that would be at least a small step.

- due to our low hitting spells: 1) everything is capped on boe 2) all the %based mods like base, crit bonus etc make the class fall behind as a wizard hitting 50k improves to 100k, an llu from 10 to 20k. yes, its still doubled but only a 10kgain compared to the 50k of the wiz/assassin/dpsclass. 3) before SF Ilus made up part of the low hitting spells with castspeed, both fast spells AND abilities to speed up. Now almost everybody is capped at castspeed, not even Ilus. Unfortunately you cant counter it by uncapping castspeed as lag (esp. on EU servers) would hardly allow it to be benefical - and i dont think i want to hit spells even faster than now (for nothing). 4) lag hits chanters way more than others (again EU) 5) as procs dont scale/crit any more the previous biggest part of room for dps is also limited now - which widens the gap even more 

B) IA is completely useless atm in raids. i dont even cast it except maybe on a healer (so he doesnt have to struggle outdpsing me while healing). TC lost most of its usefulness as people are capped on most speed stats, they only like it for the spell DA part. 

C) the really annoying part is the dropping buffs. why dont you just make them regular buff and leave away all that mythical weapon stuff. no ilu would be overpowered lvl 1-80 (during those couple of days) if he could have rapidity as a group buff and a pet with no conc. that would solve the "dropping" (hard to believe that i am thinking about ingame pet droppings....). this probably wont solve synergism drop but maybe you find a creative way for that too

few suggestions: shortterm: adjust base multiplier, remove boe cap  longterm: look for ways that the %based gap in absolute numbers gets adjusted and not wider any more (as it is now)

finally: make spending hours on the game as an Ilu something you can feel proud of. Being an important part of the raid. Like a tank can feel "hey, i never lost aggro in this tough fight", a healer "sweating, but tank/group didnt die during fight" or a dps "woot, 1st/2nd on parse". ATM there is absolutely nothing you can feel as an ilu. "nice key hacking for nothing and not cancelling your buffs" / "only close behind tanks and most healers in dps" unfortunately is not what feels good. as long as you cant answer that question in a reasonable way at least give chanters back their dps from TSO so that there is a least a glimpse of achievement that makes you want to play your char for hours every evening. before SF it made a huge difference between a good and a bad player behind the chanter (just as now for most other classes) - now for Ilus the difference between doing your best and putting your spells into a macro and hit 1 key is FAR from worth the effort. as others have posted here, most ppl wouldnt even notice the difference after a fight.

and btw thx for posting - although i may add that it is a bit late for many good players who already left/cancelled

[Adrann]

Coercers are not having dps problems? why did they leave?

maybe some don't consider it a problem but I have seen the old coercers (that have an alt option) flocking to raid on any class other than a chanter. there are very few of the really good chanters still active. some of them are still playing. they are just playing other classes as mains. the #1 thing to fix chanters is give them the same crit mod as all other mages. #2 would be combine some temp buffs so I don't have so much crap to click on inc. #3 make the single target buffs persist through death. chanters should be doing 85-90% of the dps of a summoner. that should be 70-80% of a sorc. thats where it was at the end of TSO. (I do understand that were were gear gimped in TSO unless you had avatar gear)

I believe that the reason they gave chanters the old crit mod is that they consider us a melee/spell class. bards and crusaders also got stuck with the 1.3 mod. however, they seem to have forgotten that we wear cloth armor and have a bit more to worry about trying to joust. also, they forgot that only 1 of our damage spells can be cast while moving. so, it would seem that they "decided" we are a combo class but neglected to give us the tools to actually be an effective combo class. the way to solve the problem is to either give us real spell crit of 1.5 or give us the tools to combo effectively. those tools would be spells that can be cast while moving, either an AA that greatly enhances mit/avoid or real armor(if you want us to be bards give us our chain), if you want us to be melee, let us dual wield. gimmie 2 sticks to hit them with when I joust.     ......or just give us our 1.5 spell crit. you could patch that in about 15 minutes and put it in the game tomorrow. turning us into bards would be on the far side of stupid.

the raiding mains that I see as chanters these days are mostly people that rolled the class to fill a spot. they are someone's (usually a sorc) friend or girlfriend/boyfriend. they are fully geared in t1 summoner gear and doing 20k on trash fights. they never get to group with a good chanter. most of them don't know they arent very good. I've seen the sad parses where beam is their top dps because adornment is just too confusing. illusionist has become the token idiot class.  most of the good ones are already gone.

and finally, TimeWarp. this buff is probably the most useless spell cast in a raid. 5 seconds is just long enough to see the "timewarp is ready for use" note just as you see "you cannot change targets at this time" of "better beware of what you do". the only place I can notice a difference is when I put it on the lock at the exact perfect time on the huge trash pulls in UD. otherwise, it's not worth the cast time. make it groupwide with 15 seconds. or 10 seconds but uninterruptible, like a little sanctuary with spell DA. even then, as a single target buff, it would still suck. it needs to be group. PoM is a much better temp buff and it's far from OP.

I've been raiding as an illy for a while. I closed my main account last week. I gave all my plat to nubs in DLW. this is a second account that my wife still plays on. I'm trying to talk her into giving up the digital dragon.

[desinence]

Another loud mouthed trouble maker returns from a one week ban. Did you all miss me?

So, seems many felt more comfortable posting after the most critical voices in the illusionist community were out of the way. I do love a good retort/rebuttal to my arguments being made after it is fully aware I cannot respond, and then a residual sorry attempt to lighten the mood, like a few jokes are goona make the frustration and anger felt by the community disappear, not likely. But whatever, to the point.

Xelgad, i began to think you a myth... Seriously it took this long to acknowledge the class most screwed by this expansion? Oh trust me, I've heard some of the ridiculous answers that occurred during fanfare, well, alright, some of the questions were just as ridiculous but still... Seriously though, lot of talk in your post of by the expansion, maybe this, and hopefully that, maybe if we get lucky, before the expansion... Really curious to how many illusionist vets you're thinking will buy the expansion? I mean lets face it, the game is headed in a new direction, most of us suspect is in an effort to grab the debris coming from WoW, and this alone is leaving a horrible taste in the mouth of the Veteran EQ players... Many of us have viewed SF as one of the sorriest EQ expansions ever... I mean, do you really believe that "by the expansion," you'll have more than a handful of serious players playing this class. Many are playing for raid slots right now only, and that will last only so long as raid leaders are incapable of acknowledging the present, but slowly guilds are coming around and deciding 3 group mana flows > two single target mana flow and outdated buffs. I have to agree, too little too late... Luckily I have switched mains, but you might want to mention to your buddies who are WoWifying EQ2 that if people wanted to play WoW, they would've played WoW... From almost every long term and serious subscriber I've talked to, they are about ready to move on and ditch their loyalty to this title due to this direction. Even with my main change, I'd have to agree... Retention of 100 loyal accounts < Acquisition of new accounts, most of which wont stick around? seems like a good way to bomb a game to me... Anyway, no point in bothering anymore, its your product, producers and developers can trash it as they see fit, this is my goodbye to these forums i do believe. Looks like the future battle will be Bioware vs. Square Enix, with Blizzard's upcoming title to be an added contender, but I don't believe anyone really thinks SOE has the vision to be added to the numbers. /end rant.

[Jeepned2]

As a long time Coercer I have to say... I don't care. As far as my Coercer is concerned, I log on, I raid, I log off. Tired of begging for fixes that make sense and getting stupid stuff instead. Tired of the promises that never happened. Just tired of the class now. Enchanters in general are no longer fun. I deleted my Illusionist for a new Halas toon. Would delete my Coercer too if it wouldn't get me kicked from my guild. Basically just waiting around for EQ3 or EQNext or whatever it will be or a complete burn out where I quit completely.

As for the Illusionist, good luck. There are so many things now wrong with your class it will be interesting to see what they fix, what they try to fix and screw up instead and what they don't even bother with. Either way, don't think most of you will be all that happy with what comes your way.

[Croakan]

All good points imho and i dearly hope that they implement something to help us out before we lose most of the chanters. As it is, i am only raiding with my illy and doing the occasional groups. Playing my alts is more fun atm i'm sad to say than the illy when im not needed in the raids.

But i'll stick it out for awhile till we all see what the next expansion/updates have in store.

As an aside, what i'd like to see, (But with a snowball's chance in heck of ever happening..lol) is to have an ability to enchant items or the raid. We're enchanters so it would stand to reason we should be able to buff items temporarily, or at the extreme levels, permanently to a degree. (Or has this been asked before?)

Technically it would be like adorning, but enchanters only. Say maybe a 5% flurry, DA, or nox boost, ect for like 5-10 minutes with a 20-30 minute cooldown or so for the raid or person or item. We're already pretty much buffbots atm and while this would make us more of the same, it could add some more utility to the class since except for a few areas i haven't really had a chance to mezz anything or to make a contribution to the group other than mana regen and some dps.

And yes, i know it's probably a dumb idea but it's what i always envisioned the chanter class as a long time ago.

[Supav]

Showoff@Unrest wrote:

As far as making illusionists more in line with coercers regarding dps:

Coercers have Hostage and Destructive Mind, Illusionists only have Prismatic Chaos.

Coercers Red adorn adds 3 ticks to Hostage, Illusionists adds 2 ticks to Prismatic Chaos.

Coercers two spells proc off damage done to the mob, Illusonists is dependent on player hit rates.

Coercers also have the ability to put five crit bonus on Peaceful Link and Velocity, Illusonists only to Synergism.

-An equivilant dps spell would be nice, as well as 5 crit bonus on Rapidity.

Edit: And thank you for finally looking into Illusionists, its been a long wait

Don't forget Spell Lash lol.  The top dps from most Coercers are going to be primarily from Convulsions, Despotic Mind and Lash (aside from Hemorrhage of course depending on playstyle).  Illy's just have Prismatic Chaos, and its max 5 triggers w/ red adorn, which doesn't compete at all. 

My idea; however, from a dps standpoint would be to change the Illusionsist's to a more 'AOE' focused class to match the Conjuror and Warlock.  Give them a Blue aoe dot or, even more fun, maybe a toggle-able proc (or temp buff w/ timers comparable to Spell Lash that is applicable to either the mob, or another player) that procs a blue aoe on either outgoing or incoming hostile spell damage.  Then instead of giving them a burst of damage at the end of Chromatic Shower and Chromatic Storm (b/c honestly... who is gonna check and make sure their initial dot ran out before reapplying?) make those 2 AA's increased damage over time instead.  If the damage of each additional tick matches or exceeds the initial tick then the illy SHOULD be able to do a lot more damage vs linked encounters than the coercer while maintaining balance as the coercer will still edge the illusionist vs single mobs due to the slower casting time of the illy's green aoe's vs the coercer's multiple triggers.  Furthermore, adding a degree of survivability to the Personae Reflection so that it will stay up during raid encounters will further increase the Illy dps and since they would have the same changes to the Chromatic aoe's, they will further improve on the Illy's dps capacity, particularly vs linked aoe encounters (the pet would not of course cast unbound blue aoe's).

From a buffing standpoint... its clear that the idea of the Illusionist class is to buff other dps'ers primarily, as opposed to the Coercer's tank/healer buffs.  The easiest way to do that is to just add on current coveted stats to the existing buffs via either red adorns, AA's or just change the spell line itself to include these bonuses (i.e. 5%flurry or ~1500hp damage proc on IA comparable to Synergism, and Crit Bonus/Potency added to other buffs).  Other class buffs are equally as useless aside from the addition to these updated stats making them useful. TC w/ %5 Spell Double Attack is still the preferred buff for Wizards while UT is mostly valuable for other classes its additional trigger/tick function; however, neither is coveted at the current end game for its spell speed buffs as much anymore.  Battle Cry was the anti-IA, but BC has flurry on it... so.. just put the same Flurry on IA and it'll be a coveted buff once again.  Synergism adds %5 CB w/ red adorn so thats fine and is in line w/ Peaceful Link.  Also, 5% potency or crit bonus added to Rapidity would bring it in line w/ the Coercer's Velocity buff.  The suggested changes Xelgad made to Time Warp are hot and should be awesome when brought into the game.

As far as Mana-Regen... you could just give Illy's back their mythical triggers which were taken away for what reason? B/c Coercer's Channel + Group-Wide ManaFlow + group 10% less manacost proc isn't crazy powerful or anything right? Lolz silly persons... OR, just increase the mana-regen over time of the Illy's Manatap spell by like double to make it in line w/ Coercers' mana-regen capabilities.

As far as crowd control... I see no issues w/ the crowd control as it currently is.  Most groups and all raids require enchanters for mana-regen, buffing and dps.  As far as crowd control and mezzing goes tho, isn't the illy superior to the coercer in that department anyhow from a mez/stun standpoint?  I don't normally have issues mezzing mobs when needed which is sparingly anyhow.

Anyhow, thats my 2 cp on how to make Illy's awesome again while keeping the balance.  Changes definately need to be made soon as this is a dying class.  The class isn't useless by any means, but several guilds at least on my server are recruiting Illy's simply b/c there just aren't many people wanting to play the class anymore.

[Showoff]

Supavog@Permafrost wrote:

Don't forget Spell Lash lol.  The top dps from most Coercers are going to be primarily from Convulsions, Despotic Mind and Lash (aside from Hemorrhage of course depending on playstyle).  Illy's just have Prismatic Chaos, and its max 5 triggers w/ red adorn, which doesn't compete at all. 

The suggested changes Xelgad made to Time Warp are hot and should be awesome when brought into the game.

I didn't forget it, I'm assuming spell lash is the equivilant of our chromatic shower.  While the spell is obviously much better damage wise, I find that acceptable.  Coercers inevitably will be placed in tank groups more often than not, while illies are throw in with the mages and troubs.  Coercers deserve this one up to stay on par dps wise. 

However the problem as I see it is that they simply have one more very good dps spell than us.  The rest are pretty balanced.  Giving illusionists an additional dps spell to match the extra they have, as well as making prismatic proc of the mob instead of a player would be two big steps in the right direction.

Buffs are just completely out of hand and I won't even go there.

No the changes to time warp are not hot or awesome.  Tbh I doubt there's any way to salvage that ability.  The whole jcap like nature is just annoying.  We're not like troubs with just potm to cast.  With 9ish buffs to recast upon death and 7 temp buffs, adding a cycling buff is just a little overkill.  Not to mention the whole principle is all but worthless.  DPS gained from timewarp is laughably bad.  Should just ditch it all together.

Either way its irrelevant.  Xelgad popping in did exactly what it was suppose to do.  Give the mods a break and cool down the illy masses.  They have no intention of listening to our feedback.

[vexrm]

Yes, a mod popping in cooled us down.

So did three major voices quiting over it all. So did many others just not caring any more. The class is still in bad shape and needs more work. Timewarp is an "okay" change, but won't save the class. It still don't solve many of the problems. It may or may not have an impact on our DPS (I'm guessing not really). The buffs need reworked. Still, it's not silence. That's a plus.

We'll see what happens after all the guard changes.

[Chock]

vexrm wrote:

Yes, a mod popping in cooled us down.

So did three major voices quiting over it all.

Yes, I am quitting due to multiple factors.  1. A new job in (software) research which will bleed into my existing raid times.  2. Disgruntled illy.  3. Dislike the direction of EQ2. 

Yes, I could move to a guild that could accommodate my new work schedule but I feel it is not worth it. The class will not get attention and I also see live on the decline.  My subscription will hopefully expire coinciding with my fade from the raid force due to lack of attendance (65% is where I am no longer a looting member).  I suspect it will take 22 days before I will officially retire from EQ2.  If I actually saw progress and thoughtful work happen on the illy class I might reconsider however taking note of the Coercer plight I suspect I would be setting myself up for disappointment if I stayed.

TW proposed changes suck.  Already arguments have broken out as the Wizard knows he will only be the recipient of the buff since he gets the "most" out of it, which has thrown the others in a tizzy.  I am hopeful to miss all the drama as the roll out happen (if it does) after my departure.

I will keep poking my head in every once in a while to remark on the lack of progress on the class.

[Sapphy]

Hey! since I've been mostly focusing on pvp lately I figured I would say some of the pvp issues I think are coming up for illusionist lately

Illusionist Sentinel's Fate Issues: PVP Related

DPS

Ok so its pretty common knowledge now that Illy pve dps is pretty bad.  From estimates I've heard we peg that somewhere near Warden and Inquisitor dps when they care enough to dps.  But there are drastic changes between pvp and pve mechanics that change where classes stand that need to be taken into account.  Unfortunately, for avg illy dps in bgs this means its even WORSE.  I've seen avg illy dps get to about the lvl of Defiler when they spec for offense due to several factors:

-We have to trade off a large portion of offensive gear and red adorns for toughness and pvp crit mit in order to be able to gain enough survivability in order to compete (and moreso than other classes). 

-Furthermore illys will sometimes trade gear for other factors such as gaining mutilation procs, or strength in order to avoid or lessen the ridiculous 1+ minute long strength debuffs causing burdening that several classes have currently that have no immunities and are easily reappliable.

-We have no dmg aoes and only two group target dmg spells making our non single target dps much lower than other classes.  Oh yea we have a self buff that gives our weapon a chance of aoe autoattack, which seems good until you consider- 1) Our weapons do crap dmg, and 2) In order to use it we have to get into melee range where we will be beaten to a pulp by any melee class because we have one of the worst class survivabilities.  In pvp group dmg mechanics end up determining dps much more.

-Our hardest hitting spell, prismatic chaos, loses much of its viability:  1) depending on your gear setup the red adorn is lost and thus the two additional hits, 2) If we self cast it the rate at which we hit is slow and takes way too long for us to benefit from it, 3) It puts us into the opponent's melee pummeling range for an extended period of time while we have it fire off, 4) its melee range also means that we have to close in 15m ish before we can use it solo, which destroys our ability to kite and hurts its dps even more because we could be casting other spells in the time it takes to close in that gap (it essentially acts like an addon to cast time if you close in for the purpose of using it), 5) its very difficult to incorporate into most bg matches by putting it onto other people, because a) its hard to find people that actually stay in range or with your group to put it on, b) don't attack dumb targets and be worth putting it on, and c) its very hard to target those ppl and get it off in time and consistently due to broken taunt mechanics, and also other cc, interrupts, and detargets.

-PVP has a larger focus on burst dmg than overtime dmg from variuos sources that builds.  While illy has a slight burst dmg effect from Time warp, our main spells are low dmg dealing and dot spells and most get mitigated away to almost nonexistant levels. And even if not mitigated out dot still has a natural disadvantage against burst dmg because of healing over time, and health regens that negatively impact the overall effectiveness of longer spell durations. Plus the risk of incoming dmg from longer durations

-DOTS are almost all immediately cured in group settings leaving only really the initial hits worth of dmg.

-Due to our lack of survivability we are unable to take on too many targets at a time without extreme risk of death without healer and tank support.  Whereas healers and tanks can jump right into 3+ ppl and start dpsing all of them.

-2h, dual hand and bow dmg increases lately leave spell dmg comparatively behind.

-Illy lacks debuff options other classes like coercer have.

-And finally our dps is achieved mainly by constantly and frantically being attentive to our spell orders and dmg casting. When we need to break for crowd control or dispels or detargets or ports etc.. which play a much more prominent role in bgs, it directly effects our ability to dps, whereas other classes can achieve much higher rates of dps while still maintaining other roles due to their high dmg spells being from fewer and more accessible sources.

Crowd Control

The use of crowd control as a survivability measure for illusionist as well has been negatively impacted in many ways this expansion, a small part of which may have been warranted at the time, but as of now in solo or small group combat is at best useful but not a consistently reliable means of survivability and at worst obsolete.  This is obviously a major concern because our crowd control is our core benefit over other classes, and unlike other classes our core moves are now both easily bypassable and we lack almost any other comparative benefits to reconcile any reasonable chance of success once they are bypassed (if they get past we are left with comparatively bottom tier dps and survivability).The reasons for this drop in cc pvp usefulness stem from several factors:

-Post expansion there was a large influx of pvp items offering cc dispels (which if done right is basically an immunity due to the immunity caused by cc) and immunities.  As well as there being the already various attainable options and class spells (both individual and groupwide) that limit any usefulness they might bring.  Most healers, crusaders, and brawlers for example already had intrinsic advantages over our class from their aa line immunities, but the new items allowed almost any class to have major advantages over enchanter if equipped properly.  Zerkers, for example, just love the old tso items that proc 15 second spell immunities on incoming dmg, which, given the dmg they need to take and the fact that since enchanters rely on smaller fast casting spells means we proc it more often than other classes, means the zerker is essentially permanently immune in group settings.  Predators, by contrast, only need the freedom of mind pots really because after they dispel the stun or root they can easily kill the illy in the time it grants them, not that they need to dispel the root since they can pretty much autoattack dmg at more range and more dps than illy.  Essentially, crowd control options have put most any class that utilizes them properly at a drastic advantage over illy and which has nothing to do with the skill of the players involved.

-The dispel options, immunities, and class traits that prevent cc aren't the only things that block proper use of cc though:  wards while they don't directly stop cc destroy our ability to do any dmg to our opponent while they are incapacitated, tanks which are mostly cc immune constantly taunt us off of vulnerable targets, abilities like shadowstep port out of root making it obsolete, defensive classes have high resist rates against some cc, but most of all:

-The recent increases to bg defense including the toughness and pvp crit mit changes in conjunction with our very very low dps and in relation to the around expansion changes to cc including lowering of cc durations and longer immunities, means that even if we do get off cc our ability to capitalize on that disability period is very very small.  For each 4-5 second stun for example we really are only able to get off maybe 2 spells before we need to buffer the next control effect (usually stifle imo).  And those two spells just aren't going to do much comparatively to other classes, and comparatively to what they usto do since pvp is so defensive heavy now.

-The range of Illusionist cc has a base of around 25m which is very small in comparison to spell range and bow range both of which usually extend on to 35-50m base.  This means its really easy for some classes to not even have to approach within cc range of us and win, especially when predators also have stuff like better in combat run speed, higher ranged dps, and stuff like snares and str debuffs that make it very unlikely that we will be able to close in range.  Fortunately, 95% of rangers in bgs for some reason don't know how to back up.

-Finally for being a crowd control class illusionist is surprisingly not that good at it.  Tank taunts easily have better utility in group settings for keeping dmg off of key targets (i.e. crowd control) because they are spammable, reappliable, have low recasts and no immunities.  Scouts also have better crowd control in many ways, snares and debuffs last unnaturally long times and again don't have immunities, are easily reappliable and have less immunity options, and scout stifles/stuns generally have much longer durations and less immunities.  Tanks and scouts are both surprisingly well at it considering they also get massive dps and survivability.  It seems enchanter cc is one of the most restricted types of cc both in terms of usage and opponent options over all other cc.  Of course this is still a definite step up from illy pve crowd control usefulness... but still, I really love being able to work around cc in pvp its one of my favorite aspects so I hope it becomes more balanced in high level play.

Survivability

As its pretty straightforward, I won't spend too much time discussing this, especially when most of it has already been brought up previously.  Its not hard to see that enchanter ability to take dmg is one of the worst in the game in comparison to other classes on a similar gear level.  This is brought out more than it should be due to the ability to bypass crowd control, but is also a major factor because illusionist has a higher percentage of combat arts, and low and melee range spell dmg in comparison to other classes that force illusionist to have to approach more than usual in order to attack.  Another issue with survivability is that in the absence of cc or against multiple targets there really isn't that much we can do defensively, not just in our comparative dmg taking abilities, but our other defensive options basically come down to short range ports and temporary targeting distractions that are both easy to get around.  The one good thing about enchanter survivability though is that smaller fast spells allow us to proc healing adorns more, but it still doesn't bring us to the levels we should be at in order to compete.

Pet

Finally I figure our personae reflection deserves its own category:

-It is one of the few pets that are dispellable (and one of the first illy spells that will be too)

-Has near negligible dps

-Can interfere with mezzes

-In open world pvp lags visibly behind you and makes it difficult to stealth/invisible

Not that the its entirely bad its still useful especially to do some range or out of line of sight dmg/cc and in order to attack while you are disabled. 

Mana Drains

Specifically the manatap and absorb magic spells almost never ever work, it takes a really really long time to drain any classes mana if they have mana procs or items, and even when the classes' mana is low and you start spamming it chances are they will just get someone to feed them, hit their mana feed/drain/item spell to restore it, or just slow casting or run off for a bit to regain it.  Mana drains only really start benefitting you when the player's mana is totally out, and its very hard for that to happen and last.

In conclusion, I think there is a lot of factors right now that are pvp specific that make it difficult for illusionist to fairly compete with other classes in high level play that I hope are balanced out in the future.  It would be nice if crowd control for example was balanced out and immunity options were reduced so its usefulness comes down to something other than luck in having dispel items etc...  and illy dps was raised to account for decreased usefulness in pvp (except if you are rolling a premade I guess).  Illusionist needs some love

[LivelyHound]

The current problems I see for illusionists are: (incoming wall o text)

Crit Multiplier

The 1.30 crit multiplier enchanters get as standard. With the current state of illy dps, that nerf should be revisited and changed back to 1.50 like all the other mages. There is now no reason for it to be so low.

 

Spells

CC I will cover later.

1. BrainburstThe on termination damage needs to be frontloaded, as the spell never terminates, it is constantly refreshed. And / or the mob dies prematurely, or th mob clears dots, etc… too much damage is wasted on what is now a class that struggles to find evey last little bit of damage.
2. Chromatic StormThe on termination interrupt needs to be a frontload interrupt. I mean seriously you want people to pre-empt a mob spell/ca by 9 seconds, not that a mob takes that long to go through its casting animation.
3. Prismatic ChaosHaving this cast on a person as opposed to the mob or group really diminishes the use. Would be nice to always get all triggers used by not having it cast on a person who may be dead, stunned, dazed, stifled , cursed, teleported etc.
4. PhaseOutside of PvP this has virtually no use. It has no solo use as a 5m teleport has the mob still in range, so you cant use it to port and re-root for example. In group the memwipe is a sure way to get yourself or any dot class killed. Epics are immune so it has no raid use. Please change the distance to 35m so the tank can re-taunt on the memwipe during the mob run back in group play, and in solo play you can port and root, port and mes, port and run etc. Have it do something, anything in raid.
5. Illusory AlliesThis has the same memwipe issues that Phase has. It is only useful in PvP for the detarget. In solo play the mob you create doesn’t last long and you may buy yourself 2 spell casts max before you get agro back if the other you survives that long. In group see Phase, in raid the last thing you want is to memwipe the mob on purpose!I have suggested this be made into the Illy Nuke. This could be done by making it into a version of a bard Rythmic Overture, Victorious Concherto chain, just in reverse. The reason being this is one of our ancient teachings and it is currently worthless and this class is in desperat need of a true nuke. To reiterate here:Illusory Allies: For 20 seconds the group damage and heals are accumulated and on termination X% of group damage is applied to the target, and Y% of the group heals are applied to the group. Example: You cast Illusory Allies in a trio and you trio over the 20 seconds does 5K dps, totalling 100K damage. The healer in group heals for 20K total and after the 20 seconds the mob is hit for 5% damage accrued: 5K damage and the group is healed for 10% of the healer total: 2K heals.Upgrades to the spell could change the % returned. 2%dmg, 3%heal app, 4% & 6% Journeyman, 6% & 9% Adept, 8% & 12% Expert 10% & 15% Master. Feel free to choose other values
6. RapidityThe attack speed is often wasted as most melee cap it and nobody else benefits much from it. More on this later, see regarding buffs.
7. SpellshieldAnother ancient teaching we have that should be something special but is currently a waste of hotbar space outside of PvP. I like the current idea at the thread start to make it a X triggers magic only stoneskin, 2min recast, 30seconds duration. Higher level versions providing more X.I also liked the idea of: Raid / Group friend, persistant buff for X% chance to stone skin non-physical. Higher quality spells providing greate values of X.
8. DoppelgangerThis is another special spell that is currently wasted. The amount of time the doppelganger can survive in raid is minimal, you can’t cast it on yourself or your pet or any other illusionist so its useless in solo. It has limited use in group play with a weak tank or weak heals. The base recast of 2 seconds means that to cast it as an oh no button is pretty hit and miss. You couple all that with a 5minute recast and to be honest it rarely gets used.Current solutions to this seem to be just to up the amount of damaged absorbed, however I don’t like this idea. Firstly it would remain an endgame spell you can’t use in solo play and secondly it would overpower it in group play, where the doppelganger currently works ok.The other option is to turn it into an X trigger stoneskin which I prefer.However whatever is done to it remove the non-illusionist tag please. 
9. PersonaeMake the pet aoe immune somehow, just straight up immune or an aa ability to make it so. At present its more of a annoyance than anything.
10. Mana CloakAt the very best you get 2000 power back groupwide for a base 3min recast. Can you say drop in the ocean, not to mention its untargetted random regen. This spell just hasn’t scaled.

Regarding spells, there are currently just too many spells that are either unusable in certain arenas, or have an effect that is unusable, or are just plain useless.

 

Achievements

Anything regarding CC I will cover later.

Enchanter

1.    Perpetual MotionThe effect is often lost. I like the OP idea:It's been suggested that Perpetuality could be used to make a group buff that illusionists actively have to keep up - which would be far more fun than the usual passive buffs. It could be changed to give a reuse, potency or crit bonus buff to the entire group, tied to the level of perpetuality the illusionist is on (e.g. 10% crit bonus at Perpetuality 5).

2.    Channeled FocusThis is a nice idea but the recast is insane, the 2nd rank effects are also often already capped, making it of marginal use. 10 minutes is just too much, please reduce it to 5mins or keep the recast and make it better. The addition of the heroic 10 points are a band aid and the base reuse of CF should have been reduced to 5mins and the new 10 points given somethign else.

Illusionist

1. Time CompressionThis needs to be self-castable now. There is no reason for it not to be. It is also now hardly wanted as most people can reach the caps already. The ony use it has now is for the 5% spell double attack and in order to get that you have to spend extra aa. So for that particular endline you essentially spend 6 aa points compared to any other class's 1. Please allow TC to go overcap on its base effects or alter its base effects to be more desirable. These problems may dissapear, see regading buffs later.
2. Split PersonalityHas anybody in the history of the game ever specced for this? The whole illusions line is not very worthwhile outside of pvp due to the innate problems with the spells involved. See above. Should those spells become desirable again then this endline would be a bit bad as a reward for going that route. I would have to test it to see if the pet was any good, but basically I can see its not going to be aoe immune and it’ll do no real damage making it: worthless, I imagine.  Fixed on test.
3. Illusory ArmCurrently worthless thank to gearflation, but hopefully the incoming multiattack changes make it live and it becomes wanted again.  Fixed due to MA changes.
4. Enhance: Illusory AlliesCurrently useless as the spell is useless. Changes to the spell would make this desirable.
5. Enhance: PhaseCurrently useless as the spell is useless. Changes to the spell would make this desirable.
6. Enhance: NightmareOn termination damage needs to be frontloaded. See brainburst above.
7. Enhance: Chromatic StormOn termination damage needs to be frontloaded. See brainburst above.
8. Enhance: Chromatic ShowerOn termination damage needs to be frontloaded. See brainburst above.
9. Arms of ImaginationUseless a lot of the time due to single mobs. However, it’s a nice buff, just please make it persist through death somehow.
10. Mental AwarenessThe effect is nice its just completely handicapped by being attached to a spell that has 3 triggers and thus never lasts the complete 30 seconds. Please uncouple this effect from the triggers so that the 15% power reduction is up the whole time. (If this is the current case, disregard, I have to check later)
11. TimewarpOMG! Where to start on this travesty of an endgame, endline, special ability. Please just abolish the current dynamic and pick something better. The current ideas I have seen all seem to continue with the spell double attack theme:A single target persitant buff, 5% permanent spell double, for example.An on hostile spell, proc 15 secs 20% spell double, 2 x min, for eg. Leave as is but make groupwide.Leave as is but make raidwide.My idea: An ability that takes 10% of casting spd greater than 100% and make it spell double attack as casting speed has always been the illy flavour. Change Timewarp to a passive single target self castable buff that takes does: +Spell Dbl AttK = (Cast Haste - 100) / 10. This gives illies incentives on gearing and it gives us incentives to utilise the AGI line to the max. An alternative idea: Or alternatively you place a group of norrathians into a state of being that accelerates their metabolisms. The effect being 20 secs of 200% mana regen and heath regen, tagged Other Group, 2min recast. This effect would have to be able to go over normal regen caps, and effects any regens that are running on them, like sigil of heroism for paladin hate. Thus stacking bard mana songs and this effect would be beneficial for example. Something that keeps the idea of a timewarping effect but becomes useful as we struggle in raid to provide cross group mana.Whatever is done here make it a "Wow! I got Timewarp!" moment please as this is a class defining endline ability supposedly.  Fixed.
12. Enhance: Personae ReflectionBeing able to cast it quicker is nice as the pet dies so very often. You know what would be nicer? If this aa ability were changes to provide the personae with indirect damage mitigation of 20% per rank, making the pet immune to aoe damage with 5 points. Indirect damage only else you could make the pet invincible for solo.

   Shadows

1. Distracted MindUseless until Phase is fixed. Either fix phase or give us something totally different here.
2. Hastened ManaflowUseless as the reuse of manafow remains unchanged.

[LivelyHound]

Regarding BuffsThe incoming changes to double attack to make it multiattack have given me hope. This will make the aa on rapidity and the illusory arm achievements worthwhile again. However I am hopefull for more. I would like confirmation from the dev team that this is going ot be the first of many buffs that is being linked to a secondary buff, becasuse if that is the case then all the current problems with our unwanted buffs go away. Now on test. Sort of.

The current test change is : Double Attack -> Triple Attack if you have greater than 100% Double Attack. It is being renamed Multi Attack and the more of it you have the more chance you have at a triple attack , then a qaudruple attack etc.

The question I would ask is: will this also happen on haste for example:100%+ Haste -> Flurry % Chance.The idea being that is you are so fast that your haste is over 100% then you can do extra attacks via the flurry mechanism.Could Spell Cast Haste -> Spell Multi Attack ?And so on.

If so releasing that news now would benefit people greatly with gear selection prior to the changes, which is a good thing. Secondly it would calm our community here, at least regarding our buffs. If, however, this is not to be the case then a lot of work needs to be done on this class. Why? Because we currently are a utility class that has no real utility thanks to all our utility being put onto gear effects. I'll stop there until, hopefully, we get an answer on this point.Crowd ControlOk so in solo play our cc is actually pretty useful. Both for disabling incoming damage and for dealing with adds and when used correctly can let you do some amazing things. So that's the good bit out the way Finding a ^ blue con in the Sundered Fronteir that was immune to almost all cc [Removed for Content] however.

In group the mezzes will 99% of the time get you yelled at. The stuns and stifles and such are still useful, well on some trash at least.

In raid the immunities are so long as to disable the effects on most of our spells all the time such as aneurysm, speechless and so on, which then just become low damage DD spells. As to the mezzes in raid, the longest you can hit an epic for is 17.5 seconds., which I guess can by an off-tank a bit of time to grab a wandering roamer no one expected. However, the last time this ever happened was... erm... anyone ever done it?

In all situations there are no just far too many mobs that are permanently immune to all cc effects in such a way that you cant dispel the immunity and you just have to listen to the repeated immune dings. I know this is being looked at supposedly so I just wanted to mention CC and will wait with baited breath for Velious...BattleGroundsOk so my illy was shelved 2 days after SF launched because I saw the changes that had been made, saw the nerf bat that had swung and could see the future of illies for this expac and I shuddered in terror. Thus I alt hopped for the first time in almost 3 years. However, I like the BG's and recently decided to see how cc did in there, so I took my dusty, trusty old illy of the shelf and went in. My dps [Removed for Content], my resistance to other players is truly terrible and I die continuously if someone sneezes on me. I'm having a blast! Why? Well cc works again. You can take the most twinked level locked 89, fully mastered with the BG gear and make them suffer At level 81 I went in and caused mayhem, now I've a bit of practise I cause even more, and when I get my full BG set and some survivability is gonna be awesome!

Yeah I know, it's different in the 90s due to all the items to make you cc immune but in 80-89 its nowhere near that bad and fair enough our dps is dismal but if you can occupy the enemy twinked rangers etc for a good portion of the game, your dps doesn't matter because you have negated theirs. Mostly, though, its just plain fun to be able to utilise our crowd control again. It's what the class should be all about. I have no problem with no dps, useless utility, if I can do what I thought the class was meant to. That to me is:Mess with the heads and abilities of the opposition, be it npc or pc.My 2 200c

 

Edit because the text went black... sigh I hate word sometimes

[avez]

I just want to thank you Lively for putting that together. That was increduibly well written and thought out.

That being said

I still /agree with most of it(a year later) and hopethat the devs look at this.