Somatic Bond and Avatar of Destruction

[Moraelintz]

I agree no one class should e required for raids. I think each type of class needs to be represented ie tank priest melee caster, but not one of each class. Otherwise why not give beast lords necros or rangers a mechanics in which ever raid encounter needs 1 of those classes.

 

[Rorne]

Why? Maybe for a CC-based fight, but on a normal fight with no mezzing or anything, I don't feel like enchanters should be required. No one class should be required for most fights, just like how druids are hopefully going to be able to fill the group healer role for raids.

Is it still a rule that your raid can't have buffs from out-of-raid characters? That would pretty much require enchanters to be in raids regardless.

Druids can already fill a group healing role for a majority of raid fights in the game and raid fights that require CC are in the minority. Wanting to scale their contribution down is one thing but not wanting to take them at all is just reverting things back to how they used to be in the old days.

 

[Draeos]

Some fuzzy math numbers from a few different things all kinda mushed into one:
GoGing Me and Fell
AoDing Nwaij Sint and Shuks
500-600dps from the enchanter not even an on tier dps number

 

[Dinadass]

Druids can already fill a group healing role for a majority of raid fights in the game and raid fights that require CC are in the minority. Wanting to scale their contribution down is one thing but not wanting to take them at all is just reverting things back to how they used to be in the old days.

When I think "old days" I think bards being 100% required, and clerics, and melee dps. That's kind of the complete opposite of what I'm talking about.

Enchanters should be worth taking if you have one available, but should not be required. Just like every class. Ideally you should have a raid with all 15 classes in it but that's not realistic most of the time. Obviously you shouldn't be able to fill a raid with 18 DPSers, so there is some sort of balance to be achieved, but any class being required for every fight is not a good thing.

 

[Rorne]

Enchanters are in their own archetype. If you are fine with a raid requiring "healers", "dps", and "tanks" then you should be fine with it requiring an enchanter because they are unique in being the only true "support" that makes almost their entire contribution through others.

 

[Dinadass]

Except that each of those three archetypes have 3+ classes that can fill them in most cases. Requiring "a tank" is fine, requiring a warrior generally is not. Enchanters should be the same.

Also, I'd bet if you compare the number of "active main" enchanters to other classes, enchanters are easily one of the least played. Requiring them for raids is an even larger issue as a result.

 

[Rorne]

Except that each of those three archetypes have 3+ classes that can fill them in most cases. Requiring "a tank" is fine, requiring a warrior generally is not. Enchanters should be the same.

Why not if they are only representative of an archetype? I mean ignoring the unrealistic parts of your point about a perfect world where each class in a subset is interchangeable what would you have done? How much (little) should an enchanter add to a fight? Is it one DPS's contribution worth? Is it two? Three?

 

[Silosobi]

Except that each of those three archetypes have 3+ classes that can fill them in most cases. Requiring "a tank" is fine, requiring a warrior generally is not. Enchanters should be the same.

Yes please.

If this "enchanter archetype" had as many players filling it as "healer" or "tank" or "dps", then it would be fine, because it would be pretty reasonable that guilds could find an active enchanter to fill that roll.

The way the game is now, you either have an enchanter in your raid or you are not killing progression content. The issue got a lot worse with AoD, and as a wizard i love AoD, but as a guild officer, I absolutely HATE making real, mained characters sit out so that we can bring along a box enchanter.

How to fix this?
Up blademasters haste to goe level.
Give other classes some non-stacking version of dampening that does 10% instead of 15%.
Nerf (or maybe just keep the new versions) of AoD and GoG, and redistribute some of that dps to actual dps classes.

I'm okay with mez intensive encounters requiring enchanters. Sometimes a bard/necro can get by, sometimes not. There are select encounters that require X class, and maybe its not ideal, but its so much better than requiring X class for every encounter.

Another thing specifically about AoD/GoG: I think these spells are part of what make the class less fun to play. When 90% of your raid role is to click hotkeys that cast these two spells on other players it gets sort of boring. I've boxed/playey an enchanter a lot across the tiers, and it was a lot more fun to vex/catationa/mez/charm/patch rune/debuff than aod/gog hotkeys are. They also hugely reduce the viability of True Giant since the enchanter has to spend so much time targeting/casting buffs on others.

 

[Silosobi]

Why not if they are only representative of an archetype? I mean ignoring the unrealistic parts of your point about a perfect world where each class in a subset is interchangeable what would you have done? How much (little) should an enchanter add to a fight? Is it one DPS's contribution worth? Is it two? Three?

Why not is because there are going to be less enchanters since its only one class, and IME SoD players/devs try to encourage less boxing. Especially less boxing IN THE PLACE OF a real player simply because X class is required.

An enchanter should add all their utility, buffs, debuffs, etc. Beyond that, I'm fine with them doing decent dps, up to maybe 2/3 of a top tier dps.

Old AoD/GoG had enchanters adding more dps to a raid than any other class, on top of everything else they do.

 

[Zaela]

So just want to throw this out there, Aishii GoGing me in abyss atm, Is giving her about 150dps from me, and i could swear (by swear i mean i am almost totaly and completely postive) That gog added atleast 300-400dps to me before this change

For reasons I can't begin to comprehend, whoever changed GoG to Somatic Bond took off all the 699 ATK. As in, the entire point of the spell. So right now Somatic Bond is doing basically nothing and the damage attribution is completely inaccurate.

Someone fucked up bad. I'm pretty pissed.

In other news it's really disappointing to see players being all against the role enchanters have had for years so suddenly (oh man we can see what we're worth now? better change what they do). And it's kind of hard to see how mimicking other people's spells is explicitly not fun but there we go, I guess.

 

[Waldoff]

Looks like there was some miscommunication between the person doing the coding and the person changing the spell. The 699 attack going off was an honest mistake. We will put it back next patch (most likely tonight) which should put things back to where DPS it used to be.

As of right now this means the spell is doing very little efficacy. In fact most of the damage shown for the enchanter is being stolen from the melee it is cast on.

Really am sorry about this - Had to rechange the spell after having an entire night fighting with our host over the downtime a couple days ago. Sleep deprivation got the best of us, this time.

 

[Silosobi]

In other news it's really disappointing to see players being all against the role enchanters have had for years so suddenly (oh man we can see what we're worth now? better change what they do). And it's kind of hard to see how mimicking other people's spells is explicitly not fun but there we go, I guess.

I dont know, I dont think its as much of an issue until AoD+super endgame.

AoD/GoG basically boost dps by a % instead of a flat amount. A mid tier enchanter can boost two players for the duration of a raid fight, adding 60% of the dps that a rogue/monk is doing.

A super endgame enchanter has lots of mana, more mana regen, more mana con, etc. They can keep four players GoG/AoD'd for the duration of a raid fight, adding 120-160%(AoD added ~50% dps to wizards) of what other dps are doing.

Also, the addition of dampening curse is a very recent thing... Of course the old way just made bards required for AE intensive fights, but it was quite a big addition to an already very powerful class.

So... I dont think that I suddenly changed my mind about enchanters. I think that they scale better than any other class in the game does, and they just gained dampening which raid content gets balanced around, giving the end result that for end game progression enchanters are required.

Sucks to be the guy that camps out your main so that a box enchanter can be in the raid.

 

[Zaela]

Okay, so when we change it so there's absolutely no reason to bring an Enchanter to any fight that doesn't require mezzing (that can't be done by a necro and a bard), what do we do then? Should we just take the class out of the game? Make them into mage-level nukers? They can't just do nothing.

 

[Dinadass]

Okay, so when we change it so there's absolutely no reason to bring an Enchanter to any fight that doesn't require mezzing (that can't be done by a necro and a bard), what do we do then? Should we just take the class out of the game? Make them into mage-level nukers? They can't just do nothing.

Nobody has advocated anything like that. See:

Enchanters should be worth taking if you have one available, but should not be required. Just like every class. Ideally you should have a raid with all 15 classes in it but that's not realistic most of the time. Obviously you shouldn't be able to fill a raid with 18 DPSers, so there is some sort of balance to be achieved, but any class being required for every fight is not a good thing.

I've got no problem with an ench doing the most DPS if they chaincast GoG/AoD, but if they do that plus dampening curse plus striking/rending plus shared mind, and your raid essentially NEEDS dampening and the huge burst of dps to beat a progression target, I don't like that.

 

[Rorne]

I can understand thinking enchanters are too powerful in the microcosm of the highend but first off the skew is not the fault of the enchanter alone and secondly I do not think it is such a crime to devote 1 slot to an enchanter when you have 3 healing classes split between roughly 3-5 slots and 3 tank classes between 1-3 and the rest can be generic dps

 

[Zaela]

Nobody has advocated anything like that.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. As I was understanding it, the problem was that they are worth more than 1 DPS (more or less) and nobody mains them. You should be able to substitute them for any one DPS class without losing anything. An Enchanter, specifically, should not be required (unless there's a ton of mezzing to do). You know, like how you can totally replace a Bard.

 

[Silosobi]

Okay, so when we change it so there's absolutely no reason to bring an Enchanter to any fight that doesn't require mezzing (that can't be done by a necro and a bard), what do we do then? Should we just take the class out of the game? Make them into mage-level nukers? They can't just do nothing.

Enchanters should Buff, Mez, Charm, Rune, Debuff, and provide 2/3 the dps of a normal dps class.

This is enough that any guild/raid that had a main enchanter would want to bring them along all the time. I just dont think we should be required to bring a box if we want to beat progression content. NO class should be required.

Right now clerics are arguably required as well, but thats a much older, much more core issue to the game. Enchanters being so powerful/required is exclusive to them getting dampening curse and them having the manapool/regen/mc to keep more people aod/gog'd for the duration of raid fights.

I think it could be fixed by giving other classes mini-dampening spells and giving aod/gog recast so they can only be on one person at a time.

 

[Silosobi]

I can understand thinking enchanters are too powerful in the microcosm of the highend but first off the skew is not the fault of the enchanter alone and secondly I do not think it is such a crime to devote 1 slot to an enchanter when you have 3 healing classes split between roughly 3-5 slots and 3 tank classes between 1-3 and the rest can be generic dps

When that enchanter is a box, and I have to make mained characters sit for them, that is a problem IMO.

I don't see the issue in the healer/tank things you suggested. FWF brings whatever main characters show up, except that we replace one of them with a boxed enchanter.

 

[Zaela]

giving aod/gog recast so they can only be on one person at a time.

GoG used to have a recast time such that it could only be kept up on 2 people. I can tell you from experience that staring at a spell gem to make sure you click it as soon as possible is really, really dreary. And at least at the time it made it so there was no way to burn and really no way to use up your mana at all as an Enchanter. It was pretty sucky.

 

[Silosobi]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. As I was understanding it, the problem was that they are worth more than 1 DPS (more or less) and nobody mains them. You should be able to substitute them for any one DPS class without losing anything. An Enchanter, specifically, should not be required (unless there's a ton of mezzing to do). You know, like how you can totally replace a Bard.

You have identified the problem.

I don't think you should be able to replace your enchanter with a random dps and not lose anything.

Enchanters are worth bringing on a raid for their utility alone. Then they start adding better dps than real dps classes. This make them required.

Im suggesting we make them amazing utility + do ~60% of a dps class. This will allow them to remain really powerful, and anyone would be crazy to not bring an enchanter along if they have one, but you wouldn't be so massively punished for not having an enchanter that it becomes impossible to defeat an on tier encounter.