Enc dispell debuff line needs tweaked

cornelweezy

Dalayan Elder
The enchanter refactor patch gave Enchanters this spell line

DISPELL DETRIMENTAL
Enchanters now have access to the dispel detrimental spell line. These powerful spells allow a chance to dispel a snare, root, fear, and mesmerize from your ally. Stronger spells increase the success of removal but require more expensive reagents.

  • Taper Tethers - Available at level 24. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 44.
  • Cancel Constraints - Available at level 44. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 63.
  • Break Bindings - Available at level 63. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 70.

I usually duo with a druid/cleric when charm fighting. Cleric is particularly useful because you can do bestow DA tricks and more notably, on charm breaks, you can cc mez then charm then use cleric divine unbinding to quickly break the mez and get back to killing. I was thinking of other ways to cc on charm breaks and remembered, oh yeah, enchanters actually got cc dispells in the refactor patch....but the numbers are sad.

The reagent for Break Bindings is a prohibitive 50pp/each Garnet. Even with reagent con that seems pretty crazy for something that should arguably be spammable or at least have a quick refresh. Fortunately, the 44 version tooltip reads that spells up to lvl 63 are in play. For enchanters, of significance, that's

lvl 62: Complacency (mez)
lvl 62: Shackles of Earth (root)
lvl 61: Wave of Enstillment (root)
lvl 59: Rapture (mez)
lvl 58: Fetter (root)

I bought a few stacks of Topaz (the reagent for Cancel Constraints, still over 5pp each w/ decent faction) and toyed around with green con orcs in nwot. I casted the cc, charmed with Word of Command, and casted Cancel Constraints five times on the charmed mob. On each attempt, I had zero successes across five casts. Cancel Constraints has what I consider to be a relatively long recast timer given that it takes a reagent. Something doesn't seem right. I assume this spell is actually working as intended, and I assume that the listed spell levels are what define the "detrimental spell level" and not the level of the caster. Put another way, I'm assuming the "detrimental spell level" was not 65 by virtue of me casting them as a 65.

My suggestions:
(1) Remove the reagent cost. These spells should have 100% success at the cost of a reagent, or less than 100% chance in exchange for more mana costs or other downsides. The spell gem slot + inventory slot are enough to take this spell line out of the equation on most use cases because the alternative is simply powering through. In the state of today's server, 99.5% of folks power through. Folks overheal, burn cds, and don't let pesky things like roots and mezzes hold em up. Given the level caps on this spell line, the most clutch saves would need Break Bindings prepped and ready to go and at 50pp a cast with what appears to be an abundant chance of failure, it's not adding up that is real useful utility. But that takes me to
(2) Lower the recharge time. I don't understand why these spells can't be spammable given they have what appears to be such a high chance of failure. I understand the worry that with no recharge a handful of mez/root heavy mechanics could be absolutely stormed through if a savvy enchanter was committed to break bindings spam, but how is that any different than a number of classes being able to cancel magic damage shields or spam cure poison/disease dots? The alternative is that these spells are so niche at such a relatively steep cost that they won't be used.
(3) Simply up the success rates. Cancel Constraints for example costs 150 mana. Break Bindings costs 275. Why not triple those costs but make the spells 100%? That would be pretty balanced imo. I would love for the dev who designed these spells to explain that the design paradigm was that they could not be used on charmed pets, which is why I did not have a single success in 25 casts. I would seriously question the wisdom of that given how immediately useful they would be as a faux divine unbinding. Seriously, anything to help enchanters reduce charm risk at this point is only a good thing. Not to beat a dead horse and derail, but the only reason dire charm afaik was changed to enhanced control was because the PL bug made dire charm not dire but with the PL bug eradicated why haven't Enchanters gotten it back?

TLDR: make these spells more useful by making them less costly to use. Yes, they would be more powerful. And? Oh no, suddenly everybody is going to box an Enchanter? They're a great idea but looks like numbers need to be tweaked a bit unless my assumptions about these spells are dead wrong.
 
TLDR: make these spells more useful by making them less costly to use. Yes, they would be more powerful. And? Oh no, suddenly everybody is going to box an Enchanter? They're a great idea but looks like numbers need to be tweaked a bit unless my assumptions about these spells are dead wrong.

These spells are completely worthless. I have already said that I won't load them, ever. It's a great concept, but poor implementation. Clerics get it as an AA, 100% success rate. I have had success randomly with the cancel constraints, but that is only in duo situations, haven't tried it with a pet. I would also assume that the charm is excluded from casting, because it would remove the charm (which is one thing that would be detrimental to a tank, etc.) so it wouldn't work on pets. Groups & raids I got so tired of, "Did that work? Screw it, med time while tank/healer/dps is snared, rooted, whatever."

If these could have any kind of "fix", they would be worth loading. As of right now, I won't go broke casting over & over when 2 minutes later the cleric says, "I got it."
 
100% Echo This - the reagent cost and especially the long recast time make these spells problematic at best, even though the potential is there for making compelling fights that utilize this mechanic. Another point to remember is that many fights have scripted effects that will not be removed by this spell, and that they do not remove stuns. I would echo the above, and I'd also like to add that charming a mezed mob should remove the mez automatically if the charm lands - this is not game breaking; it's pure quality of life.
 
Ok, nearly two months later I finally got around to testing this.

Numbers are still problematic, Cole. Similar experiment as before; I used lvl44 Cancel Constraints. I went to NWOT and charmed the orc bruiser at the boxes to PL. I casted lvl 62 complacency then lvl 64 word of command and spammed Cancel Constraints. Zero successes - with a success defined as clearing the Complacency mez on the charmed bruiser - in 15 casts. I thought maybe I was protesting too much by avoiding use of Break Bindings (I'm a plat pincher!) so I loaded up lvl 49 mez Dazzle instead given that it's a lower level spell and repeated. Again, zero successes in 15 casts even with Dazzle.

Dazzle -> Word of Command -> spam Cancel Constraints. No successes across 15 casts, and I had to reapply Dazzle and Word of Command to complete 15 attempts.

Am I not using the spells as intended or are they intended not to be used on charmed pets? They're still useful although insanely situational if only to be used on PCs but I think the reagent cost needs to come down further on Break Bindings or cast needs to be 100% success at current price, or else only a small subset of entry level 65 enchanters are ever going to get use out of them. I'm going to continue to pound the table for a form of dire charm, because the great attractiveness of these spells was as a poor Enchanter's Divine Unbinding. Looks like that isn't reality.

Thank you for reading.
 
If I were to use these spells on any sort of regular basis, I'd want all of the following to be true:

1) Greatly increase success rate - with nearly maxed out gear the chance to fail should be close to zero. If you won't make it 100% or just a copy of the cleric AA, at least offer some scaling with charisma or AAs to improve the success rate. Could add success rate to control enhancement focus as well.
2) Further reduce cooldown to 1 tick. Even 10 seconds is an egregiously long time if this can fail. Breaking 1 binding every six seconds isn't game breaking.
3) Make sure this works 100% of the time on a charmed pet and doesn't break charm. It should break mez and clear root, snare, etc as well. I also believe that if a charm lands on a mezed mob that it should clear the mesmerize effect anyway, but that's another story.
4) See that this works on most scripted encounters (EG when a tank is force-mezed on a raid fight) - Additionally, check to see that this even can remove charm at all - IMO it should be able to cure a charmed player.
 
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