Enchanter Things

Y

Yally

Dalayan Adventurer
So I get all these thoughts on enchanters, seeing as how that's.. yea.. all I play, and here are a few:

DPS:
* In a group, we can charm if we're brave, and it gives us decent enough dps in combination with nukes, no complaint here
* In a raid, our dps is awful, being out-dpsed by a paladin is really embarrassing when you are chain nuking. Also keep in mind that we are the only pure caster restricted to one magic type which is often a high resist on raid mobs / targets.
---------------------Decrease Casting time of nukes, leave mana cost the same. As it is, we have 6ish casting time spells with 8ish second recasts. I know the casting time isn't awful in comparison to mages or the like, but that recast is harsh and makes for an overall sad dps-less time.
---------------------Significantly upgrade chokehold dps. 70(?) dmg per tick is laffo. Sure the debuff portion is great, and we all use the spell, but that doesn't mean it hurts the mob much at all.
---------------------Add a few high end fast cast high mana spells which would be situational. Not a fan of this, but it's an option.

Mem Blur:
* Testing off and on over the past weeks with a shadow knight tank on mobs in HHK and FR 3-5 casts of mem blur is often not enough to clear agro. I am almost wondering if this is in fact a bug with the spell. I realize high level mobs have a much higher chance of resisting the blur effect, but that many casts makes me skeptical. I would say more than 4/5ths of 3-4 cast blur attempts fail, and, at 300+ mana a cast, that doesn't feel acceptable.
---------------------Give mem blur a better chance of actually clearing agro based on the high mana cost of the spell to begin with, in relation to rooting + praying.

Guardian Animation:
* This aa gives a max 25% chance that if you have a *summoned* enchanter pet out and near you, it will absorb a melee attack. 9 out of 10 raid encounters kill your pet instantly. Also, being meleed by the raid target means that 25% chance of avoidance will not save you anyway. It's probably not meant for raiding intent, so no harm here. HOWEVER, in an exp setting there is a huge issue i have with it: Non-functional with charm pets. You should be charming in 85% of exp groups to be efficient. Also, you would never ever ever use animations for soloing, so again, lost usage.
---------------------In my dream world, I would have this changed to an AA that grants a wizard ultimate blast-esque style. Instead of being 4x dmg like wizards though, have it do 2.3,2.5, 2.7 dmg and drain mana. Something like soandso calls forth a chaotic blast. This would eliminate what I feel is a poor aa and replace it with something that might help our dps a little. Just a thought of course.

Non-Bot Goodness:
* To compensate for the fact that enchanters were perfect buff bots to tag along on raids and ignore in your second client window, we had our boon line changed to fast recast. Great. We also got an update to vex, which is a great spell on raids. Good stuff. However, I still feel pretty less useful as a single-clienting enchanter on raids than many other classes (hi shamans / bards). The fight is pretty much Tash, Chokehold, Nuke, Vex, Giantkin, Nuke, Vex, Giantkin (with other additions based on the fights) I just get this image of having a wizard main and alt tabbing over to my enchanter screen and casting Vex(super quick cast) then hitting a nuke and going back to my wizard to cast 4 amazing nukes, then tabbing back to the enchanter who's nuke is still refreshing. It's like a nightmare which probably isn't possible, but damn it comes to my mind a lot while I'm trying to dps on a raid target (the idea being that we can still be botted as well as a main-ed enchanter.)

I'd really appreciate comments especially from TM and other enchanter players. I could be totally off and we're perfect, but lately is hasn't felt like it to me. So thanks for the feedback / other concerns.


EDIT: I also want to note that I realize that in this fashion everyone could complain about aspects of their class, but balance would get out of hand etc etc. I dont want enchanters to be better dps than necromancers magicians or wizards. I don't want to have more utility than a bard. These are just a few things (dps especially) that I feel should be looked at.
 
Yally said:
* In a raid, our dps is awful, being out-dpsed by a paladin is really embarrassing when you are chain nuking. Also keep in mind that we are the only pure caster restricted to one magic type which is often a high resist on raid mobs / targets.

---------------------Decrease Casting time of nukes, leave mana cost the same. As it is, we have 6ish casting time spells with 8ish second recasts. I know the casting time isn't awful in comparison to mages or the like, but that recast is harsh and makes for an overall sad dps-less time.
---------------------Significantly upgrade chokehold dps. 70(?) dmg per tick is laffo. Sure the debuff portion is great, and we all use the spell, but that doesn't mean it hurts the mob much at all.
---------------------Add a few high end fast cast high mana spells which would be situational. Not a fan of this, but it's an option.
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A measurement of enc dps that ignores giantkin doesn't really mean a whole lot. That said, I don't think the rest of that would really hurt anything--even with faster cast times and more chokehold dps, that mana would still be better spent on giantkin. It just makes the enc a bit more useful in situations where giantkin isn't an option. Not only that, but it gives us a couple more options than just being the giantkin vendor with a couple curses riding sidecar. Consider me tenatively on board.

edit: Not a fan of the "high end fast cast" bit. It's not really very enchanter-y.

Yally said:
Mem Blur:
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This may have something to do with the change a while back. Iirc, memblur was switched to "has a chance to work on anything, but that chance gets worse based on the level of the mob". Having no personal experience with the new memblur, I can't really comment further on the new version, but I will say that memblur was always pretty niche and if it was made to work less often on stuff then it would be basically worthless. It used to be slow, expensive (comparitively), and overkill--not *super* useful, but a nice "in case of emergency break glass" tool for a very few applications.

Yally said:
Guardian Animation:
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This AA is and has always been dogshit. You could change it to just about anything and I'd be happy to see it. I'm not sure a UB thingy is the best idea, thematically speaking, but really it doesn't matter to me what you do with it.

Yally said:
Non-Bot Goodness:
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Amen to all of this. Aside from the occasional crowd-control fight, encs are basically perfect bots. Everything they cast has a handy recast that's basically tailor-made for alt-tabbing. There's no timing or nuance to any of it. Even something as simple as upping the damage on chokehold/asphyxiate and removing the cripple effect from chokehold (so that they stack), coupled with removing the recast on the Relic nuke (but not on any of the earlier nukes), would at the very least make a mained enc better than a botted one. On the other hand, that's a sort of ghetto fix that doesn't mesh well with the concept of playing an enchanter.

A better, but harder to implement, solution would be to add some ability for charm classes to spawn modest charmable pets via some tradeskill consumable item. Say, some level 50 mobs for dru/enc/nec folk to direcharm and some level 54 mobs for regular charm. That would allow a mained enc to wrangle a decent dps pet and outperform a botted enc that would have a harder time keeping a leash on the level 54 mob, but by the same token a level 54 mob isn't going to threaten the raid with a wipe.

I'm really just thinking aloud. I haven't actually played my enchanter for quite some time, and not at all in 2.0, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
 
I personally hate giantkin almost as much as I hate my raid trying to make me chain rune through an entire boss fight, but that's just me and has very little to do with the suggestion lol. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that Wiz has said before that he wont add DCable mobs to raid zones or more exp zones, so I'm guessing this goes along with regularly charmable DPS mobs also. (but your intensely difficult to implement spawn-a-pet idea would be so hot TM)
 
I do not have an enchanter is SoD, but have played one in end-raid game on live (low end raid tier). It is my opinion that DPS of enchanters has always been indirect DPS. If we are counting the DPS output of any class, I would say enchanters are nearly the best, if not the best, due to the bonus DPS they give to casters through KEI and melee through haste. Other than a buff bot though, I would say enchanters are designed so that they don't out-dps a paladin, but that they change the state of the battle through CC / debuffs.

Yes, Guardian Animation sucks, but hey, you've still got 'innate invisibility'-for clerics beaten hands down. I don't wanna change the topic into a debate on which is better, but I would like to just note that every class has some useless abilities, and on the whole, enchanters have pretty good all-around AA's.

I would say that enchanters are nearly the most important class to have in a raid or even group for that matter. And even though there often is very few things enchanters have to do during raids on high end raiding, there is so much versatility in what that ends up being that I don't feel there really is much that needs improvement on. ie (chain rune, giantkin, CC / debuffs, turning MT into female mid-battle, Buffing, Stunning...)

I would agree completely with the ability to spawn a mob for DC'ing during a raid, or even just give the enchanter a better pet, enchanter pets end-game end up being used about as often as a clerics (a lot of people dont even realize a cleric has a pet).
 
Haste, mana regen, etc can all be put into the perfect-buff-bot section. I would even strongly argue that giantkin (perfect alt tabbing design) fits there strongly. I know we are supposed to be the worst direct dps of the pure int casters (or assume so) but the main point is that I feel the gap is too large and that we are too bot-perfect still.
 
Buff-bot yes, but the DPS gap is so large because of the buffs ench's are capable of. Warriors dont do a whole ton of DPS because they were designed to tank, rogues do basically only DPS, Necros DOT, Clerics heal. I think its just inherent to all classes, you get better and better as you get bigger, but as the difficulty of the raid increases, almost all classes get more specialized, to the point where you do 1 or 2 things repetitively. Wizards only nuke, enchanters only buff, clerics only heal, tanks only tank. Everyone does their part, everyone keeps busy doing their part, and if anyone doesn't do their part someone usually dies. I wouldn't say that an enchanter is any less-busy during a raid than any other class, and I would say that the ench's job is just as important as anyone elses.

I do see that Enchanters take it in the rear probably more than most other classes when this happens though, because there is so much that an enchanter can do, but nothing that's really signature of the class. When you begin specializing on a specific task, like chain rune or giantkin, enchanters weren't necessarily made to do that over and over again and they run into issues with manna or reagents.

I would say that if enchanters were to get an overhaul though, I would do something that would give them a distinct signature, something that they would be more beneficial to a raid, perhaps even at the expense of something else. Like a trade-off, perhaps making an enchanters rune much more solid, while decreasing overall hp's of their pet. That way enchanters aren't completely screwed thanks to charming for solo or group play, while having more of a focused and benefitial job during high end-raids. That way people would see enchanters as more playable and perhaps less of a boted class.

If I'm beginning to talk nonsense and have no clue, which I suspect may be the case, lemme know and I'll stfu.
 
rapidghost said:
enchanters should be happy buffing and doing little else of consequence
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nah

most of what you're saying is missing the point, which is that enc are optimal bots--a mained enc isn't really any better than a botted one on a raid atm.

Yally said:
I personally hate giantkin almost as much as I hate my raid trying to make me chain rune through an entire boss fight, but that's just me and has very little to do with the suggestion lol. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that Wiz has said before that he wont add DCable mobs to raid zones or more exp zones, so I'm guessing this goes along with regularly charmable DPS mobs also. (but your intensely difficult to implement spawn-a-pet idea would be so hot TM)
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He said that? Me and wold have been trying to make sure our zones have something handy to DC, but if that's against policy then oops :X

Also, I don't think the "caged foo" line of ts items would be SUPER hard to do, but I don't know for sure. It really depends how tmaps are coded, if that makes sense.
 
To follow up on yally's post, I've noticed that the codex doesn't really have anything to offer to an Enchanter from the stuff Yally previously posted.

So i was wondering if codex's could be made more desirable for enchanters once they have maxed or have come close to maxing aa's. The Codex says pet damage will increase with each tome. does that effect charmed pets also? if so that's cool, some what useful. but for nukes and heals not really. So i was wondering if maybe a mod for increase runes or make mez last longer? 5,10,15,20% longer?


Just my thoughts.

Mikeathom 65 Enchanter Max AA's.
 
Mikeathom said:
To follow up on yally's post, I've noticed that the codex doesn't really have anything to offer to an Enchanter from the stuff Yally previously posted.

So i was wondering if codex's could be made more desirable for enchanters once they have maxed or have come close to maxing aa's. The Codex says pet damage will increase with each tome. does that effect charmed pets also? if so that's cool, some what useful. but for nukes and heals not really. So i was wondering if maybe a mod for increase runes or make mez last longer? 5,10,15,20% longer?


Just my thoughts.

Mikeathom 65 Enchanter Max AA's.
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The Codex of Power doesn't offer something for everyone. It offers more DPS and heals sure, but that's not everyones forte. Later, more specialized tomes can be added, that aren't as painful to max, and could offer things more tailored to certain classes.
 
Whats another class that doesn't get much benefit from codex though? All other classes have better dps or heals, so I feel that, while i am not doing codex yet, enchanters could use something small (rune focus?) on it at least. Since it is the Codex of POWAH.
 
Yally said:
Whats another class that doesn't get much benefit from codex though? All other classes have better dps or heals, so I feel that, while i am not doing codex yet, enchanters could use something small (rune focus?) on it at least. Since it is the Codex of POWAH.
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Shadowknights. We're hardly a DPS class like Paladins, and our agro isn't dependant on our DPS like a Warrior. Sure, the Codex of Power upgrades our already weak DPS, but the same can be said of an Enchanter.

edit: Anyway, this isn't about Shadowknights, or the Codex. I agree that Enchanters need something, since they are still botted at the high end, and you don't really see much of a difference between a botted chanter and a mained one.
 
Thinkmeats said:
A better, but harder to implement, solution would be to add some ability for charm classes to spawn modest charmable pets via some tradeskill consumable item. Say, some level 50 mobs for dru/enc/nec folk to direcharm and some level 54 mobs for regular charm. That would allow a mained enc to wrangle a decent dps pet and outperform a botted enc that would have a harder time keeping a leash on the level 54 mob, but by the same token a level 54 mob isn't going to threaten the raid with a wipe.
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Quoting this because I'm still absolutely in love with the idea.

To expand on it: Pottery-based consumable "A Terra Cotta ____" items that click to spawn "a terra cotta ____" mobs. Level 50 dire-charm flavors and level 54 charm flavors for dru / enc / nec. Maybe--*maybe*--a level 56-58 one for enc. Depending how the coding works, it could even incorporate a little variety (perhaps a wizard option for WW fights, so that if you micromanage it you can keep it from dying and still do some pet dps?). At any rate, the pottery item spawns the kos mob, which immediately starts to attack whatever's near it. It can then be charmed as normal. The terra cotta mobs would be worth 0 xp and have 0 loot.

I'm not certain exactly how much the pottery item ought to cost, but I'm thinking each terra cotta item would probably have around 5 charges, a 10 second cast time, and cost probably a couple hundred plat. And again, this might not even be doable, but hot damn it sounds swanky to me. It would fix dire charm, help pottery, and give mained encs an edge over botted ones all at once.
 
Thinkmeats said:
It would fix dire charm, help pottery, and give mained encs an edge over botted ones all at once.
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How on earth would a dire charmed pet be more beneficial to a mained enchanter over a botted one? Dire Charm is click and forget, so unless you HAD to micromanage it by constantly sending it back and forth (in which case no one would bother really), a botted enchanter would have no penalty at all.
 
Mythryn said:
How on earth would a dire charmed pet be more beneficial to a mained enchanter over a botted one? Dire Charm is click and forget, so unless you HAD to micromanage it by constantly sending it back and forth (in which case no one would bother really), a botted enchanter would have no penalty at all.
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Thinkmeats said:
A better, but harder to implement, solution would be to add some ability for charm classes to spawn modest charmable pets via some tradeskill consumable item. Say, some level 50 mobs for dru/enc/nec folk to direcharm and some level 54 mobs for regular charm. That would allow a mained enc to wrangle a decent dps pet and outperform a botted enc that would have a harder time keeping a leash on the level 54 mob, but by the same token a level 54 mob isn't going to threaten the raid with a wipe.
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Reading is fun :toot:
 
Monster vendor for Direcharm? Sounds like something Magicians summon monster spell would be good at if it were slightly tweaked.
 
Thinkmeats said:
Reading is fun :toot:
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But again, the difference between a dire charmed lvl 50 mob run by botted ench and a lvl 54 mob maintained by a mained ench isn't going to give them much of an edge, when you figure in dps lost, heals used, enchanters dead while keeping a leash on it, and the variability it can throw in if it breaks at the wrong time. MAYBE the lvl 56-58 mob for ench would make it somewhat worthwhile, but otherwise I'd expect even mained enchanters to opt for the direcharmed version.
 
Yea, I like the idea of being able to spawn a charmable mob A LOT. However, I can see where raid leaders wouldn't want pets charmed on a raid for the 'omg oops' factor alone :mad: It is really hard to think of an 'enchanter-ey' way to make non-bot chanters better. I don't want to sound like i'm in love with nukes or whatever, but theoretically you could cut the casting time of nukes down to 1 or 2 seconds and make a damage reduction proportional to that reduction. So like, take a 6 second casting time and reduce it to 2 seconds. Then reduce the damage (1100 for relic or something) by 2/3 also. Seems very un-enchantery but that would mean that if you were 2 boxing you would probably not want to be tabbed onto your enchanter to be chaining your low dmg nuke over and over. Ugh i just don't know, it sounds like a very dumb fix and I would love for TM to just fix this issue for my little brain! :psyduck:

If the pottery-spawned charmable mobs go into play, I'd like it to be well done, perhaps with upgradability through deities. Just a spurr-fo-the-moment idea would be the implimentation of a vendor in each plane that would sell, among other things, a reagent that could be added to the pottery (or whatever) combine and so summon a mob slightly better( like a small Cold DS and a cold DD proc for shojar, DR debuff and DoT for gradalsh, blah blah -insert creativity here-)

That would be nifty. I also like this idea, though still dubious about how raid leaders would handle it, for the fact that it would allow charming in some exp zones where there aren' too many decent charming options available.

I think it's good that we've at least found a consent that non-bot chanters still do not get to stand out
 
there are more classes that work botted aswell as non-botted even more so then enchanters.

And as a raid leader i would let an enchanter dire charm a pet np but normal charm is not something i would like to see them do. (excluding pulls on wich 1 of a bunch get charmed for the duration of that fight)

On the other hand enchanters dps is pretty great if you consider that curses, 15% more haste and giantkin could aswell be counted for enchanters dps and not the dealer of the dps.
 
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