Second Pass at Enchanter Balance Changes

[DodoBot]

Wanted to start a thread to get the feedback rolling on the state of Enchanter class changes. Dedicated thread to keep things out of the patch notes and hopefully get this pulled into a balancing discussion. Will get the ball rolling with my thoughts on each of the points from the original patch notes.

GENERAL

• Enchanters now have access to the Group Invisibility spell at level 40.
• Enchanters can purchase three ranks of a new memory blur AA at level 65, Becloud Memories.
• Trickster's Augmentation has had it's levitation component removed.

Cool. I guess... perhaps the Ancient could be made a group cast, or even raid spell as well. Does not seem like this would significantly affect balance.

AVATAR, BOND, BOON
The following spells now have a 1 minute duration, and a 1 minute shared cooldown.

• Incarnate Bond - A new level 44 spell, replacing Boon of the Vulfwere.
• Somatic Bond
• Corporeal Bond I - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond I.
• Corporeal Bond II - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond II.
• Avatar of Destruction - Mimicry has been lowered to 50%.

THIS IS A GUTTING THAT REALLY NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTED - IT HAS CRIPPLED ENC DPS AT ALL TIERS FAR BEYOND WHAT SEEMED INTENDED AT THE TOP. On a raid without complicated mechanics, a single box enchanter could usually hit 3-4 people with Bond / AOD. This reduction is such a significant cut to DPS that it really lowers the incentive to bringing an enchanter except having a body in to keep buffs on the raid. The devs have also indicated that AOD will be brought into the shared cooldown next patch, further reducing the usefulness of the spell. The cut of Bond to one target / one minute effectively renders the Cascading Bond AA (formerly tome) useless, as an enchanter is almost never going to be an ideal target for a spell that will only be active on one person outside of a solo situation.

Further Thoughts and Suggestions on This

• Keep AOD and Bond Cooldowns separate.
• If AOD is going to a 1 minute duration / cooldown, restore AOD mimicry to at least 75% if not 100%.
  • If the intent is to move this to a 1 minute effect at 1 minute cooldown, you're looking at 1/8 the damage potential as before (assuming you could hit 4 people with AOD)
  • 100% AOD + Bond + Buffed Nukes is still a reduction compared to before, but is light-years more bearable than either a single 50% AOD or Bond + Nukes
• Consider making the cooldown for both spell lines shorter than the duration... say, 30-45 seconds with a 1 minute duration (or allow duration increment to boost duration up while keeping the cooldown at one minute). In a sustained raid fight, overlapping ticks would allow a small amount of stacking on the start and end of the buff duration (Increasing the effective number of people with the buff up per raid time, but nowhere close to being able to do 4 people at a time)

MAGIC DIRECT DAMAGE
The following spells all have had their cast time lowered to 1.6s:

• Chaotic Feedback
• Sanity Warp
• Chaos Flux
• Anarchy
• Discordant Mind
• Dementia
• Dementing Vision - 0.001 stun added.
• Insanity - Base damage increased to 990.
• Chaotic Visions - 0.001 stun added, base damage increased to 1360, Recovery time lowered to 2.5s.

This is generally cool and good. +1 here.

MAGIC DAMAGE OVER TIME
The following changes have been made to smooth out the spell line progression:

• Suffocate damage over time increased. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
• Gasping Embrace mana cost and cast time lowered.
• Torment of Gnyrt damage over time and mana cost increased.
• Asphyxiate direct damage and damage over time increased, cast time lowered. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
• Chokehold direct damage and damage over time increased

These spells remain somewhat lackluster, but are decent enough to be played occasionally (in light of the debuff components, especially). However, the Murk Spell was left out of this. I would suggest increased initial damage and damage over time at minimum, if not also increasing some component of the debuff. These spells, while somewhat useful on long fights, are still only used when there are not better damage options available or stacking debuffs is required.

MESMERIZE
The following changes have been made to mesmerize spells:

• Glamour of Astris is a new level 24 Enchanter mesmerize with the additional effect chance to memory blur your target.
• Glamour of Nalia now has an additional effect chance to memory blur your target. Max enemy level increased to 59.
• Minimum duration increased to 4 ticks for Enchanters on all mesmerize spells.
• Overpowering Calm properly reduces enemy mitigation to mesmerize duration rather than adding a flat duration before mitigation.

If we are considering tweaks to mesmerize spell lines, I would like to see an additional entry or two for Entrancing Lights (PBAOE Mez) at higher levels. This is something that fills a niche when you need AOE crowd control, but can not use Shout of Agony to do it. I'd also consider increasing the radius on the targeted AOE Mez lines since they often miss mobs on the edges of packs that are not tightly grouped.

CONTROL ENHANCEMENT

• Control Enhancement is now applied to mesmerize spells against all mob levels (previously below level 63 only).
• Control Enhancement now grants a dual effect to charm spells:
  • Adds a flat duration to charm effects on durations less than or equal to 19 ticks.
  • Adds a percentage duration to charm effects on durations greater than or equal to 20 ticks.
• Transfixiating Armlet Control Enhancement focus effect lowered to IV.

JINX
The following changes have been made to the jinx line of spells:

• Hex - A new jinx spell available at level 34. Curses the target's next melee round to miss, diverting a portion (50%) of the potential power back into them.
• Vex - Curses the target's next melee round to miss, diverting a portion (90%) of the potential power back into them.

Decent. Not alot to comment on here. +1

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.

These are potentially very interesting, but I don't think there are that many fights where they come into play... and again, we have very few spell gems as it is. Perhaps, this opens up new avenues for content development though... Edit: How about adding a charm break component to this as well? Assuming it can be made not to break certain scripted events.

CHROMATIC REPERCUSSION
Enchanters now have access to the chromatic repercussion spell line, featuring the new resist type: Chromatic. These spells nuke your target with a chromatic nuke, dealing direct damage against your targets lowest resist. This spell line will also cast a shimmering rune on the target of your target. These spells are learnable at the following levels:

• Chromatic Gleam at level 20.
• Chromatic Burst at level 29.
• Chromatic Barrage at level 39.
• Chromatic Refraction at level 49.
• Chromatic Fusillade at level 58.
• Chromatic Aberration at level 65.

Chromatic focus effects and worn chromatic damage have been implemented and will become available to players in the future.

The damage and rune effects on these spells seem very lackluster. Perhaps, they could be adjusted, and we could consider allowing both the new chromatic and individual elemental focus to work on these spells, giving an incentive to keep more worn foci up (troublesome enough even before the gutting of AOD)

Other Thoughts

• The recent removal of components on Runes has been good. Enchanters never got a third Tome (now AA) idea, and one of my thoughts was to add a Rune Channeling stance. Give the enchanter an exhaustive stance with moderate stamina drain and a 45 min cooldown. While the stance is active, improves the runes cast by the enchanter. Options on ranks for this include chance for increased absorbance, absorption of spell damage., or flat AC on top of the rune effect - or just faster casting or fatter runes. This could be a great oh-shit button, but would need careful balancing.
• Cascading Bond Tome (now AA) needs a revamp with the bond changes. I'd propose either make it an AA hotkey ability, a stance, or passive. As it stands with the way the spells are being redone, it is unusable in all situations I can think of except soloing, and I'd love to get my AAs back.

If the devs want to move the class away from just casting bond or AOD on raids for DPS, they're going to need to do more than just improving one DD spell line and adding a new lackluster DD spell. There are a lot of options here (from tweaking the changes to Bond / AOD lines - easiest), to adding additional spells (more DD or DOT lines, improvements to the pet, etc - probably not the best route due to a lack of spell gems as it is), to adding potentially damaging AAs or Stances (Hard to Balance, but a better route than spells), or adding charmable mobs to more zones (hard to balance, and time consuming). The important thing is solicit feedback from the community, pick a direction, and not go off on too many tangents.

I've seen enough nerfs in the past to know that this will be tweaked, but it will take some time to get it right. Assuming the devs are willing to listen to player feedback, I would love to get people's thoughts here.

 

[Nwaij]

Copying over my ENC-relevant replies fromn patchnotes to have it all in one thread.

WEAPON SQUISH

Nerfed​

• Beguiler's Belittling Barrage - Somatic Surge proc removed.

Thank god that ridiculous proc is finally gone! Now that it IS gone, can we talk about the atrocious stats on this item that in the past were justified with the now-gone proc, and maybe even change it to a 1hander since the last caster-only 1hander is from about tier 10, not counting single class exclusive 1handers? Healers, on the other hand, get healer-exclusive 1handers on tier 11, tier 13 and tier 14, so all the way to the top.

ENCHANTER - CLASS REFACTOR
Based on player feedback and internal review, the following issues continually creep up and need to be addressed moving forward.

• An enchanter's DPS is too high in the last few tiers of the game.
• The play style of an enchanter is not dynamic/fun in raids.
• The viability of an enchanter diminishes in duo and solo situations.
• Enchanters are impacted the most from spell slot limits.

Agree, disagree, agree, agree so much!

As such, the following changes have been made to the enchanter class.

GENERAL​

• Enchanters now have access to the Group Invisibility spell at level 40.
• Enchanters can purchase three ranks of a new memory blur AA at level 65, Becloud Memories.
• Trickster's Augmentation has had it's levitation component removed.

I do not quite understand why the group invis happens, given that invis is targetable, most everyone can cast invis themself anyways, there are plenty of invis clickies and invis is fragile, but I don't really mind eitherways.

AVATAR, BOND, BOON​

The following spells now have a 1 minute duration, and a 1 minute shared cooldown.​

• Incarnate Bond - A new level 44 spell, replacing Boon of the Vulfwere.
• Somatic Bond
• Corporeal Bond I - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond I.
• Corporeal Bond II - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond II.
• Avatar of Destruction - Mimicry has been lowered to 50%.

MAGIC DIRECT DAMAGE​

So I can now EITHER AoD ONE caster, OR boon/bond one melee? Couldn't that be atleast one of each, as in AoD having its own 1 min cooldown? Turns out AoD doesn't share a cooldown here. Not entirely sure why Corporeal Bond went for invisible man as a model, but it is what it is. Also from just reading this I think it actually hurts pre-CB ENC because can no longer boon/SB a melee. I'll come back to this after I got to do some testing.

The following spells all have had their cast time lowered to 1.6s:​

• Chaotic Feedback
• Sanity Warp
• Chaos Flux
• Anarchy
• Discordant Mind
• Dementia
• Dementing Vision - 0.001 stun added.
• Insanity - Base damage increased to 990.
• Chaotic Visions - 0.001 stun added, base damage increased to 1360, Recovery time lowered to 2.5s.

Oh you mean those nukes noone in his right mind ever bothered casting now cast faster? Great...

MAGIC DAMAGE OVER TIME​

The following changes have been made to smooth out the spell line progression:​

• Suffocate damage over time increased. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
• Gasping Embrace mana cost and cast time lowered.
• Torment of Gnyrt damage over time and mana cost increased.
• Asphyxiate direct damage and damage over time increased, cast time lowered. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
• Chokehold direct damage and damage over time increased

You appear to have forgotten about the last spell in this line, the only one people really cast any more once obtained, Misery of the Swamp.

CONTROL ENHANCEMENT​

• Transfixiating Armlet Control Enhancement focus effect lowered to IV.

Was this really necessary? CE2 can be obtained on BoE gear or tier 7 gear, CE3 comes into play at tier 8, CE4 starts showing up at tier 11, but we can't have CE5 at tier 14? Please revert this, it makes no sense!

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'm not sure if I understand this correctly. Are these beneficial spells cast on group/raid members to remove determinal effects? Also why why WHY would you introduce MORE spells with reagents! You just took a big step in the right direction by removing reagents from the majoroty of spells that required them (with some glaring exceptions), and now you turn around and introduce more reagent requirements? Why?!? (Also if you insist on burdening ENCs with more reagent requirements, please add more reagent conservation options for ENCs. Currently, there is only a single option at t12+.) So this is even worse than I expected. You need Sapphires. So you can not even buy the required components off your local NPC vendor in reliable quantities.

CHROMATIC REPERCUSSION​

Enchanters now have access to the chromatic repercussion spell line, featuring the new resist type: Chromatic. These spells nuke your target with a chromatic nuke, dealing direct damage against your targets lowest resist. This spell line will also cast a shimmering rune on the target of your target. These spells are learnable at the following levels:​

• Chromatic Gleam at level 20.
• Chromatic Burst at level 29.
• Chromatic Barrage at level 39.
• Chromatic Refraction at level 49.
• Chromatic Fusillade at level 58.
• Chromatic Aberration at level 65.

Chromatic focus effects and worn chromatic damage have been implemented and will become available to players in the future.​

Umbriel'Arkhe memoriel spell focus effects, only One Good Weekend Away. In the meantime, will monochromatic focus effects help, assuming the matching color happens to be worn? How about stacking, will monochromatic effects stack with rainbow focus effects? (Assuming "yes" on the 1st question, "no" on the 2nd, but I'd like some clarification)
Ok got some numbers. Damage per mana is even more horrible than on the never-worth-casting Relic: Chaotic Visions. What gives?

Also all in all I'm at a loss of:

1. what I am supposed to do as an ENC at a raid now. Keeping my raid members AoD'd/LB'd seems out of the window now with the 1 min shared cooldown on any such spells. I fully agree that having 3 wizards AoD'd or 2 wizards AoD'd and 2 monks LB'd at the same time was a bit ridiculous, but I think "slashing the number of targets down by 66-75% AND reducing the mimic chance at the same time" might be a bit too much.
2. how any of this is going to help an ENC in a duo/solo situation. Maybe the rainbow spells are amazing in their own right, hard to know with no numbers provided. But what I got so far is that DPS sources (AoD, propably CB, who knows, again no numbers provided) have been nerfed while squishyness remains unchanged. Spells the opposite of helping really.
3. How any of this is supposed to help with the spell slot limitation. Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, but the way I read this, ENCs are now going to need 1 spell slot less for proc buffs (since they ALL share a CD, something I still disagree with, but see above). I read this wrong, still need to keep both AoD and CB memmed. To compensate for this, they
   1. are apparently supposed to cast their nukes more (except that they still have a HORRIFIC damage-to-mana ratio, even compared to wizards, the kings of terrible damage to mana ratio, who can atleast do ridiculous crits).
   2. get a new spell line to remove certain debuffs off their companions. Oh and they cost reagents, because reagents are such a fun and engaging design choice. Can we please just retire reagents for good instead?
   3. get a new spell line of rainbow nukes. No numbers provided, so who knows where these will fall.
   So 1 0 spell line out, 3 spell lines in. By my count, that is another 2 3 spell gems being requred/nice to have now. On a class that could have filled 2 entire spell bars easily before. How any of this could be considered "helping" is beyond me.

 

[Nwaij]

Adding to that, after some more testing:

• Before nerf, ENCs would usually AoD 3 casters, OR AoD 2 casters and LB 2 melees on a raid. Under really optimal conditions (something like 2 WIZ 2 MNK and no mechanics that make it impossible to DPS at times), ENCs could pull more than 3k dps this way. That was a bit much, and it needed to change, so some tweaking was in order!
• The nerf happened three-fold. Number of targets got reduced (from 3-4 to 1 after next patch if I understand it right), the amount of damage from mimicing got reduced (to 50% in case of casters, to 75% in case of melees) and on top of that, weapons have been streamlined (this one is a justified change!), reducing melee dps and ENC dps by proxy.

This is simply too much. You overdid it! Suggestions:

• Consider keeping AoD on a seperate 1 min timer/1 min duration, and returning it to its full 100% potential. That would still be 66% (previously 3 targets) to 50% (previously 2 targets) less damage from AoD, and make it so that atleast one of the ENC runics would still be worth casting.
• Razadian Spell (CB) being on a 1 min timer/1 min duration seems fine. There is still reason to cast it, and it is impossible to stack on multiple targets now.
• Find something to do for ENCs that is not casting their crappy nuke or melee. Neither is fitting with the ENC theme.
• Revisit Chromatic spell line. The numbers play really really bad. The spell does pathetic damage, and a 400 points rune doesn't even absorb an average phantom strike, not to mention real mob hits.

 

[cornelweezy]

[Sorry, fat fingered buttons on mobile.]

 

[cornelweezy]

Everything said above is 100% on point, emphasis on more bleh situational nukes does not equal more dynamism. Devs really need to think about what makes enc dps unique and niche in sod and lean into that: mages and pets and rains (and correlated tomes/AAs); necros have dots and pets (and correlated tomes/AAs); wizards have big bangs (and correlated tomes/AAs). The bond nerf to enchanters just seems like bad manners because they arent supposed to be caster bards, theyre supposed to have their own niche dps too. They arent anymore stackable now in raids because the nerf is so hard enc dps is too lackluster to want to bring more than one. Class is already underplayed.

That being said, this is a great idea:
If we are considering tweaks to mesmerize spell lines, I would like to see an additional entry or two for Entrancing Lights (PBAOE Mez) at higher levels. This is something that fills a niche when you need AOE crowd control, but can not use Shout of Agony to do it. I'd also consider increasing the radius on the targeted AOE Mez lines since they often miss mobs on the edges of packs that are not tightly grouped.

A blue gem mez that works up to lvl63 or dare I say lvl65 mobs would be waaaaay better than more memblurs and I really like memblurs. Should be an AA tho.

 

[Iliangur]

Copying my comments from the patch notes.

Chromatic nuke is ~1/2 the dps of relic nukes, and the rune from it mostly bounced off full buff tanks. After having them click a slot for testing, it didn't noticably affect healer mana / fight flow. So our 2-3 enc just went to trying the modified relic - it's still bad dps/mana ratio, and the stun triggered certain bad fight mechanics as well as pushing mobs around/into walls. We just stopped nuking. Also, new focus to chase but not added to any existing gear (yet?). Full worn focus (vs swapping) optimization is already pretty tough.

Only able to moonchimp one target left a lot of stand around time.... the raid experience felt pretty tedious - it's gone from busy/active with aod/LB (spamming 2 macros on cd, or doing 4-5 manually for lunatics) to spamming vex on cool down (1 button) and then standing there, dampening / curse as needed. A couple hours of that got really monotonous. I ended up just spamming relic rune on the tank, since by then they'd cleared a buff to test chromatic. That helped out healers that didn't need helping since their mana was fine, probably blocked other buffs/procs/regens though. It used a lot of mana so I was empty by mid fight, but not a big deal since I didn't have any other use for it.

Placid focus isn't useful with recovery changes.

Gurok nerf I don't get - it's only usable by clr/dru/shm/enc. Maybe I could see reducing the +offense I guess, but we're talking healers/casters. As for enc using it, melee enc is pretty high risk anyway since casters don't tank well. Even the 210/60 ratio didn't seem OP, given what classes can use it. Especially now that CB is only 1 target if there's ANY other melee class in the group/raid it's not worth the enc blowing CB on themselves. The giantkin tome/aa line should be made passive, or a toggle like the illusion one.

Still really difficult in solo/duo, acknowledged by patch but unaddressed. Overall current changes / state of enchanter feels really, really bad for an already not well rounded class.

I appreciate the time and attention devs are giving to Enc, so whoever efforts have gone into this please don't feel put out. I know it was said these changes are only part 1 - if part 2 just builds on these changes, please also be open to the feedback here and reconsider some of these changes.

 

[Ceto]

just my personal opinions as a response:

Adding to that, after some more testing:

• Before nerf, ENCs would usually AoD 3 casters, OR AoD 2 casters and LB 2 melees on a raid. Under really optimal conditions (something like 2 WIZ 2 MNK and no mechanics that make it impossible to DPS at times), ENCs could pull more than 3k dps this way. That was a bit much, and it needed to change, so some tweaking was in order!

yes especially factoring in the passive buffs you already gain from having an enchanter (extra haste/mana regen & +crit chance)

• The nerf happened three-fold. Number of targets got reduced (from 3-4 to 1 after next patch if I understand it right), the amount of damage from mimicing got reduced (to 50% in case of casters, to 75% in case of melees) and on top of that, weapons have been streamlined (this one is a justified change!), reducing melee dps and ENC dps by proxy.

yes. if rogues get nerfed, enchanters get nerfed too.

This is simply too much. You overdid it! Suggestions:

• Consider keeping AoD on a seperate 1 min timer/1 min duration, and returning it to its full 100% potential. That would still be 66% (previously 3 targets) to 50% (previously 2 targets) less damage from AoD, and make it so that atleast one of the ENC runics would still be worth casting.

so, one AoD target, 1 bond target, and AoD is normal again. i like this. should definitely be like this.

• Razadian Spell (CB) being on a 1 min timer/1 min duration seems fine. There is still reason to cast it, and it is impossible to stack on multiple targets now.

this seems fine & good, although the overhaste being gone might have gutted the spell a lot already. reason being, you'd cast it on a rogue in particular, and the rogue's DPS would go up significantly - and the enchanter would mimic that increase. of course, once this proposed "rogue rework" comes to play, maybe this won't matter. have to wait & see.

• Find something to do for ENCs that is not casting their crappy nuke or melee. Neither is fitting with the ENC theme.

i am not an enchanter. with that being said, i like the concept of enchanters nuking/dotting on the side a bit personally, but enchanters spending both mana & time to nuke for (at high tiers at least) around as much as some wizard's spellsurge ... well, it really sucks. if you were going to make enchanters pseudo-nukers, should at least give them access to spellsurge like druids, because right now these nukes & DoTs just feel super bad to use on their own (the enchanter murk DoT didn't even receive a buff, which is really saddening since it was already very rarely used).

• Revisit Chromatic spell line. The numbers play really really bad. The spell does pathetic damage, and a 400 points rune doesn't even absorb an average phantom strike, not to mention real mob hits.

agree 100%. my take: rune from Chromatic spell line should scale based off target's max hit points (7% on 65 spell?) plus that 400 point base rune. if this seems like a bit much, okay - raise the mana cost on the spell appropriately rather than leaving the spell to be underpowered. enchanters don't have as much to spend their mana on anymore anyway since they're not casting boon/bond/AoD off global cooldown. give them a reason to use that gather mana button.


all in all, if you think that a class should deal extremely low dps because of the utility they bring, well .. beastlords. necromancers. enough said?

 

[Iliangur]

Just a couple other thoughts - there are some fights (e.g. IM) where enc couldn't dps nearly as much while doing enc things, whereas a wizard gonna wizard. Our dps was always a bandaid for not having enc mechanics. So just putting out there that while totally busted sometimes, enc dps didn't always roast - especially if the encounter had some more enc-friendly mechanics. Most encounters seem to be just dps checks or tank and spanks, albeit often with other mechanics like moving, debuff management, etc. - but usually nothing that an enc would need to do (in which bard or necro could fill in for mes, etc.). Enc are being gutted for being dps when most of the encounters are just dps with extra steps. Some have brief enc portions which otherwise may as well not be there (rujik, earth trio). Doesn't mean everything has to be Abyss level enc specific, but it would be nice to see encounters play to our existing strengths rather than retooling us to be bad wizards (e.g. Old thaz only giant mes, fotf illusion faction changing, BS/abyss charming, mesing, meaningful rune use, etc.)

Even outside raids we often don't get to use our abilities like mes with the proliferation of ae weapons, ae procing boots, tank superiority to just tank a bunch of mobs, dps superiority of pbaoe/rains/cata etc. Some really tough, single-fight multi-pull, good xp/cash (high risk but actually high reward, to justify doing over kaesora/factory/FR, etc.) grind spots would be nice (e.g. Loio fort, but with enc friendly mechanics and not a total pita to enter lol).

As for dps cut, we did magma just after the patch and our enc did about 900dps, down from 1900-3000, depending on the raid. 50-70% dps cut, and just pretty boring. The T11/12 enc parsed just behind a T8 monk (who also died during the fight, so behind a dead T8 monk), using only CB on our primary monk (who is more dps than a lot of other CB options, or uber nerfed AOD, probably boosting the parse).

And can we finally address enc pets? The loio one is pretty cool, but not everyone has it, and it has limited uses (it poofs at con yellow or above). Maybe we could make the animations actually semi useful. We should also be able to heal any animation w our on tier runes, like Loio pet. For the loio pet, can we remove the poofing? The thing lasts 20 min and messes with targeting anyway. Other pet classes get the Mielech's Fury pet buff which is really good, so I would argue letting enc use Loio on bosses wouldn't be unbalanced. At least could we make it refuse to engage rather than poofing, so we wouldn't have to resummon it (losing weapons, bits if they extended, it has a cooldown, etc. )

For third tome line, maybe adding spell rune to our runes? Such things already exist (WI robe, etc.). Might make dilated shelter worth using, esp. since it still requires reagents / is high mana cost.

Placid focus was at least unique, but needs a new look with recovery changes.

The new detrimental dispel is neat, but needs to be an aa - we have too many spells. Reagent should be removed, or made summons /vendor friendly.

Maybe chromatic nukes should be made into a procing buff on the target, let them get the procs and runes. With loio pet the max chromatic 400 rune would be a mini heal (or on animations if they were rune-healable). Or debuff the mob with an emote about being weak against X element (or two lines, rando debuff and a targetable proc/rune buff). The chromatic focus can increase dmg of the procs from targets /debuff/rune size.

 

[DodoBot]

And can we finally address enc pets? The loio one is pretty cool, but not everyone has it, and it has limited uses (it poofs at con yellow or above). Maybe we could make the animations actually semi useful. We should also be able to heal any animation w our on tier runes, like Loio pet. For the loio pet, can we remove the poofing? The thing lasts 20 min and messes with targeting anyway. Other pet classes get the Mielech's Fury pet buff which is really good, so I would argue letting enc use Loio on bosses wouldn't be unbalanced. At least could we make it refuse to engage rather than poofing, so we wouldn't have to resummon it (losing weapons, bits if they extended, it has a cooldown, etc. )

For third tome line, maybe adding spell rune to our runes? Such things already exist (WI robe, etc.). Might make dilated shelter worth using, esp. since it still requires reagents / is high mana cost.

Placid focus was at least unique, but needs a new look with recovery changes.

The new detrimental dispel is neat, but needs to be an aa - we have too many spells. Reagent should be removed, or made summons /vendor friendly.

Maybe chromatic nukes should be made into a procing buff on the target, let them get the procs and runes. With loio pet the max chromatic 400 rune would be a mini heal (or on animations if they were rune-healable). Or debuff the mob with an emote about being weak against X element (or two lines, rando debuff and a targetable proc/rune buff). The chromatic focus can increase dmg of the procs from targets /debuff/rune size.

Definitely in agreement with Iliangur here. I mentioned earlier maybe making the third tome work with runes. Another idea was maybe something to do with the animation. Also, remember, unless Cascading Bond is reworked, enchanters are essentially out two useful "Class Tomes" - please consider either making it a hotkey or a passive, because it is going to see practically zero use now! You'll find my old 3rd tome ideas below.

Improved Animation:
Dramatically increases the animation pet's hp, atk, ac, and attack speed as long as it has the ability up on it (Hotkey-able). Could provide a little more flavor to the sword pets which rapidly diminish in power once you start raiding. Ranks could offer more stats or cool proc options (like a spell interrupt, an AC buff to target's target, or a concuss for the Enc.). All ranks also increase the base defensive stats of the animation as a passive.

Rune Channeling:
Give the enchanter an exhaustive stance with moderate stamina drain and a medium cooldown. While the stance is active, improves the runes cast by the enchanter. Options on ranks for this include chance for increased absorbance, absorption of spell damage., or flat AC on top of the rune effect - or just faster casting or fatter runes. This could be a great oh-shit button, but would need careful balancing.

Simulacrum:
Gives the enchanter an exhaustive stance with moderate stamina drain. Upon activating , the tome shadowsteps the enchanter away and drops all agro. A clone enchanter spawns in his place and fights alongside him for the duration of the stance. Each rank could provide successively more hps, spell abilities, or lower stamina reduction. Good agro drop, and fun gimmick, but potentially hard to code.

I feel like all of these fit with the spirit of the class without being redundant with existing spells, tomes, or focus effects. They could be a lot of fun, provided they were balanced appropriately. As far as chromatic nuke goes, damage could be better, the rune should definitely scale, and maybe we can make the recourse go in as a bard song instead of a in regular buff slot... Food for thought.

 

[Latten]

Encs are Masters of the mind. They have some mana drain line. Make em so they can remove an abilety if the mob is oom. The more of the drain the more it hurts over time while the mind domination increases. Add a growing dot on mana drains?

 

[DodoBot]

Popping in with a couple ideas on the new spell line as well as some reflections on a few of the old ones.

On Chromatic Spell Lines
Rather than making the rune component a fixed quantity, perhaps it could be worked to scale with a percentage of the nuke component’s damage. If the effect is 15%, then this means that if an enchanter hit something for 3000, the next 450 damage would be negated. Making the rune work against spell damage in addition to melee and putting it in a song slot instead of a buff slot would further increase the utility.

... And since enchanters have been a problematic class forever, I went digging for a few ideas in REALLY old threads (See this gem here: https://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/threads/enchanter-balancing.17973/). Below are a few of the more interesting ones, updated to keep with the times.

New Relic Spell: Bedlam
Originally, an idea to replace the relic nuke, I think this would better replace Placid Focus (since the meditation changes have made that spell less relevant than the updated nuke). The idea would be a point-blank area of effect spell with a 1 tick duration during which all mobs in range would attack the nearest mob to them at normal (not 'charmed') damage. 1.5 second casting time, similar range to the Color Swirl line, with perhaps a bit longer of a cooldown. Strike a balance between resist adjust and recast time. The spell would not work on charm-immune mobs. It fits the lore of the enchanter class being masters of mind and the general idea of enchanters doing "indirect" damage.

New Spell: Obstinance
Level 63. A single target spell that freezes target mob's aggro list. 2 tick duration. 1 minute cooldown. 4 second cast time. 0 resist adjust. This spell seemingly fits within the lore. The general usage would allow group members to do more unrestrained DPS which is useful in both raid AND exp-grind settings. Alternatively, if this is too powerful, the spell could be used to lock agro on the player currently at the top of the list, but not change the actual hate values for the remainder of players on the list. Another idea would be to make it player targetable to reduce all hate from this player to 1 for the duration. These ideas could fit as capstone spells to the visage lines that almost never see use post-65.

New Spell: Psychedelic Crisis
Level 65. 800 damage Targeted AOE w/ .001 second stun, Pushback 1. 570 mana. 5.5 second casting time. 10 second recast. Can't be cast on mez-immune mobs. Cast on You: "You are attacked by your inner demons." This can be thought of as an AoE Insanity (or an indirect sequel to Gravity Flux). This DPS still isn't going to get you invited to groups, though, unlike Insanity, you might actually have it memorized while grinding tradeskills, exping in groups with AOE weapons, or doing large pulls on raids / treasure maps.

On Catatonia
I think that while a 100% slow for 2 ticks is nice, a more useful version of this spell could be a slow that stacks on top of existing slows for a longer duration (say 4-5 ticks) but with a shorter recharge time (say, a minute and a half instead of 3 mins, 18 seconds).

Other random ideas going back 10+ years include:

• Damage Shield Ideas: Making feedback a spell line, reverse DSes, a mana draining DS
• Color Swirl Spell Line Buffs: Add constructs or undead to the stunnable list, decrease recast time
• Tweaks to the misdirection spell line (does anyone actually use this post 65?)
• A debuff spell that grant an NPC a detrimental proc.
• Slows that affect casting time instead of melee time.
• Debuff procs that could be cast on pets.

 

[Moghjubar]

Color swirl definitely could use a serious buff without removing what little utility it has: Could give it a fairly strong reverse DS debuff on landing that lasts ~30 seconds or so, or less: get the utility stunning things that can be stunned, and after things are unstunned (or things that are immune to stun) get extra damage whenever they hit something: usable in groups and some big mobs possibly even.

Then again... theres a handful of uses of it that actually doesn't want any damage done to mobs at all due to weird mechanics, so maybe a new, different spell would work instead.

Gravity flux could... just be made better (as well as invert gravity). Give it bonus damage vs certain mob types or something (big or brittle things that cant fly or whatever: constructs and undead come to mind), or bake in the possible Z axis movement into bonus damage. The spell was never really useful aside from its weird utility of self nuking but that doesnt work so... (theres a lot of random spells that are just like that though, ideas that just didn't get properly expressed, and certainly don't work in the SoD paradigm. Classic EQ, classic jank, I guess. Wish each class would get a big spell-by-spell examination for weird bullshit, especially hybrids.)

Some of the enchanter runes could also explode when removed, doing damage back. These things really need buffed by the chanters stats too, and not just how much abjuration the target has, which is just weird. Some could do spell absorption as well, but spell rune was technically the wizard thing, which admittedly doesn't get used much at all and never got expanded upon as their roles (see above spell jank).

Chanters can, alternatively, get additional passive stuff as well (various damage bonuses, crit % or crit dmg bonus, proc chances, whatever) but still need the class fun to play too, so I'd stay away from stuff like that and just fix a bunch of spells and gear that doesn't mesh with the enchanter revamp first. Feel free to give spillover fix ideas to shamans tho...

 

[Moghjubar]

After thinking about stuff for awhile, had an idea: use the existing stance system to give certain chanter spells different effects in different stances so they can actually cast all their cool stuff properly: existing mechanics with fun solutions, for a class that is so spell limited.

 

[Dev-Cole]

There is a lot here. I have read through most of it twice and made notes. All very good feedback.

 

[Dev-Cole]

adding charmable mobs to more zones (hard to balance, and time consuming)

I have already begun doing this. It will be announced next patch.

List of methods:
1) Mobs that were not charmable are now charmable.
2) Lower level equivalent mobs were added to high level zones that are charmable.
3) Slight reduction to exxisting mob level to allow charming

Current zones I've worked on:

• Windstone
• Bloodied Quarry
• Citadel of the Claw
• Cyrtho Malath
• First Ruins
• Highkeep
• Catacombs of Elthannar
• Deepshade
• Everchill Caverns
• Overgrowth
• Rust Factory
• Spires of Saitha
• Upper Thaz
• Silent Halls

• Emberflow (10:48 5/1/2021)
• Halls of Misery (10:59 5/1/2021)
• Plane of Earth (12:20 5/2/2021)
• Bloodstorm Tunnels (12:08 5/3/2021)

 

[Dev-Cole]

Give the enchanter an exhaustive stance

Beginning with next patch, the '/s' stance system will begin being replaced with a new system. So solutions based on the current '/s' system will not work.

 

[Dev-Cole]

So you can not even buy the required components off your local NPC vendor in reliable quantities.

Added a new purchasable reagent for this spell; available at next patch.

 

[cornelweezy]

Glad to see you giving this a real look over, Cole. Can we please do something about the knockback on relic nuke? I propose that the stun/knockback aspect be removed and a vex like debuff (melee attack reflected back) rider be added. Would boost dps given the spell's poor mana/dmg ratio, and open some spell gem flexibility. Even better if we can get a 60+ upgrade to Tug and Teg's lamentation so there's still a single target stun on command if needed

 

[Dev-Cole]

please add more reagent conservation options for ENCs.

This is technically true next patch

 

[Dev-Cole]

Can we please do something about the knockback on relic nuke?

Quote from patch notes:

• Anarchy, Discordant Mind, Dementing Visions, Insanity and Relic: Chaotic Visions knockback removed.