Second Pass at Enchanter Balance Changes

[Nwaij]

I know it is less, but we could argue that it is more of a % than unresistable focus effect (there is none)

So your reason for a new elemental focus being half of what other elemental focuses are is that "unresistable gas no focus effect, duh!" ? That's just pathetic.

The change to enchanters was a paradigm shift for everyone (myself included). What I have been doing is reading feedback, and hashing out details with admins.

I'm still waiting for an explanation why this was even deemed necessary. Care to elaborate?

A long while ago enchanters had a similar issue where players did not like their DPS contribution hidden. Interestingly, when an enchanter Boons a rogue, the rogue does the damage on the server, and we send Boon's contribution to the enchanter, and not the rogue. It was a solution that past developers came up with.

But the core mechanic for the enchanter was "boosting your allies damage".

AoD looks like it was a 30% spell crit bonus to your target. Historically we can see that these spells were intended to boost your allies damage. I do not know if perhaps this did not synergize well with wizard ultimates or what, but it got changed to a spell mimic. This percentage was 50%, and then this 50% was removed. (the 50% was may not have been live, but it was in the code base. We can use blame to determine who wrote it and when)

30% crit boost was indeed synergizing too well with WIZ ultimate blasts. Funny how current staff isn't even aware of that any more. 50% mimic was never live.

I hashed out Boon and AoD shared cooldown a lot. This will remain as a shared cooldown. I have talked about increasing the mimic portion of AoD so that AoD and Boon is more of a situational choice. (I have heard that Boon is always the better option in a raid). Also, real question. Would players prefer if the shared cooldown was 30s with a 24s duration? This is more active, but technically a nerf.

So you are telling us that it is INTENTIONAL that 2 of the ENC ikisith spells are not only nerfed into oblivion individually, but MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TO BE CAST (not land!) on top of that? I'm curious here, is any other class discouraged from playing in this way?

I like this mechanic. We talked about adding tank and healer specific versions of this.

I'm curious what that is supposed to mean.

 

[Moghjubar]

Charm definitely doesnt need to be the majority of any classes dps, because by nature, charms don't actually scale well with gear progression. There is also another fact: enchanters aren't the only class that can charm things - when there are mobs put there for the enchanter to charm that just happen to be undead, for example (see a new mob in bloodstorm), a necromancer can charm it and do the "Enchanter class feature" damage while still also doing their own damage. I'm unsure about mobs for druids in the same vein, but this would also potentially be an issue there. At the very least, enchanters charm should increase the damage charmed mobs do, and some gear should effect this as well (like companion strength, or even just control enhance) for proper actual scaling.

On charm breaking: if theres any situation where charm could break and instagib the enchanter and create a loose mob, then any such power more becomes a liability rather than an asset. Having to throw all the various control enhances seems like a bandaid here that also makes any time you are reserving them for a boss (clearing, limited cooldowns available, etc) far more punishing than it should be. I can see having to deal with charm break be a good reason for other charming classes to think about charm, but ideally at least with enchanters, charm breaking should mes the target / stun the target long enough to re-establish control.

And yeah, the making of the 2 class feature spells be mutually exclusive (and also just straight up breaking an established tome line of the enchanters, nuking one of their unique class features basically to oblivion) seems to pretty much what kills most of the enchanter class identity that was there before. At the very least, that tome line should be changed to something more like: use Bond on someone and then you get the tome benefit naturally (as before), use AoD on someone and then you get a caster version of that tome benefit (so your nukes/dots arent shit). Id say they still shouldn't be truly mutually exclusive (like a 36s cooldown on a 1 minute lasting spell, so you have some option to twist them if you can spare the spell gems) just so enchanters keep a little bit of that old class identity, but eh, I guess thats not happening.

 

[cornelweezy]

On charm breaking: if theres any situation where charm could break and instagib the enchanter and create a loose mob, then any such power more becomes a liability rather than an asset. Having to throw all the various control enhances seems like a bandaid here that also makes any time you are reserving them for a boss (clearing, limited cooldowns available, etc) far more punishing than it should be.

a 9 point Class tab AA 'Permanent Charm' (makes Word of Command charms never fade) with a Special tab AA that added hp/atk/flurry % would make me feel a lot better about this. Go ahead and replace cascading bond then make enchanter tome 3 give a chance for 2/3/4/5x DD crits. Now we're talking.

 

[Nebi]

i feel for you guys.

if i started a character , invested years worth of work, only to have it changed , i would be pissed.

 

[Tevinter]

big high impact runes w/ a cooldown feels better than endlessly spamming a shitty rune. could have more passive-style runes that absorb a % of incoming damage mixed w/ strong runes that absorb all incoming damage but have short duration and a cooldown. could also do neat stuff and have runes that explode for damage upon expiration, or give a damage buff while the rune holds.

30s CD bonds would just feel shitty as even though its technically more active it'd still just be a maintenance buff but more annoying than it is now.

charmed pets need to benefit more from the enchanters power somehow and have some interaction w/ the buttons the enchanter presses besides pet attack. spells and/or AAs that make the pet do something special because of a button the enchanter pressed. Flurry whenever you vex a target (your beguiled guy finds an opening! wow sick lore reason!). maybe a way for the pet to whirlwind / aoe in some decent capacity when you're in one of the many exp areas where you'll end up pulling 15 dudes at a time and get sad nostalgia thinking of that one time you saved a group by casting mez and how you havent cast that spell in an exp group since the bush administration. really they just need a way to have pets be more than /petattack /afk.

having your guy feel cool and strong in one zone and dogshit terrible in another isnt a very good feeling and is part of why people think undead/construct being uncrittable by melee is stupid. this is one of the biggest issues w/ the class imo (and charm in general), and part of why (but not entirely) it feels so awful in a duo. a mage isn't forced into using their level 63 vendor pet instead of runic 2 because they're fighting in elds, rangers arent forced to swap to clockwork bow because they zoned into povalor etc, enchanters should be no different here. even vex scales based on how hard the mob you're fighting is hitting. this makes enchanters feel terrible when duo / exp / questing because you're fighting mobs that arent good charm targets, dont have good vex value, and arent worth CC'ing. on top of this your class just does incredibly bad damage to them, can't heal itself, and is squishy enough that these trivial enemies are actually threatening to you. mages can at least solo w/ their pet, necros can kite / pet / lifetap, wizards can kite, enchanters can go and fuck themselves. on top of this, they lack the mana sustain that wizard / nec have in those scenarios. even in the class tank + caster duo (which is one of the worse duo combos to begin with) enchanters are the caster that in many situations contributes the least. questing / duo is a major part of this game and also where enchanters have been weakest by a country mile for a very long time.

also as others have stated if aod and bond are going to stay sharing a CD it feels really weird for their runic and emerald jungle spell to be competing w/ each other for essentially the same function. speaking of bad spells runic 2: catatonia is still really bad / too long CD / too much aggro / too much mana for what it does.

 

[DodoBot]

At the very least, enchanters charm should increase the damage charmed mobs do, and some gear should effect this as well (like companion strength, or even just control enhance) for proper actual scaling...

At the very least, that tome line should be changed to something more like: use Bond on someone and then you get the tome benefit naturally (as before), use AoD on someone and then you get a caster version of that tome benefit (so your nukes/dots arent shit). Id say they still shouldn't be truly mutually exclusive (like a 36s cooldown on a 1 minute lasting spell, so you have some option to twist them if you can spare the spell gems) just so enchanters keep a little bit of that old class identity, but eh, I guess thats not happening.

Are either of these possible?

I did find it a little bit odd that the aod mimic damage % or the boon damage wasn’t just scaled a bit instead of only being able to choose 1 or the other. A lot of the enchanters I’ve talked to really enjoyed the aspect of weaving these 2 end-game attainable spells and trying to find the best dps classes to use them on for different encounters. If anything just make lower level versions of AOD so it isn’t just this spell you suddenly get when you can farm Ikisith.

This is a fair point about one of the more subtle ways we would optimize damage - and also don't forget melee itemization for yourself. With no word on the Cascading Bond AA, those of us with four ranks are out hundreds of AAs, and there is no sign that there will be a fix or a refund. We are effectively operating on one class tome - no other characters face that issue. The biggest problem with putting everything on a shared cooldown isn't just raids, it is that removing both the ability to stack several copies of the spell and pooling the cooldowns really hurts the group and duo dynamic. Playing duo as an Enc / Druid or Enc / SK would involve me meleeing with the bond tome and spell mimicing the other class.

I don't necessarily hate the 1 minute cooldown, and I like being able to cast and do other things. Charm is fun, and I'm fine with that. Where there is charm mob availability, there is potential for competitive DPS at a variety of tiers. However, what is being done is like removing rains from mages and replacing them with a one-off targeted AE. Yes it can sort of do what you were trying to do with blowing up many mobs, but it is not the same.

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I want to ask everyone this? If you think that the enhancement playstyle is just a lark with those two spells, then what is the purpose of the visage and misdirection lines of spells? What about trickster's augmentation or boon? I feel like that component of the lower level class identity is being ignored because it was "bad" and AOD and bond were targeted because they are "too good" - but the nature of a short term enhancement buffs is not isolated at raid levels.​

​

Why not tweak these spells and potentially offer lower level forms of bond or AoD? These are an existing part of the class that was always stylistically similar to those spells, but has a lot less utility. There are plenty of other ways one could simulate the enhancement playstyle at a lower level as well. I'm pretty adamant that even though it needed adjustment, enhancing spells are and should remain a core component of the class.​

​

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@Dev-Cole is talking about a paradigm shift... I have read the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which is the book where that term comes from. The idea of a paradigm shift comes about as follows: Once an existing paradigm is established, it operates with small incremental tweaks while essentially solving puzzles in a field. When the existing model is inadequate to address anomalous results and the model itself is unable to be modified, the field enters a crisis. This crisis provides an opportunity to re-examine the core assumptions of the existing paradigm and develop alternatives. If these prove to be successful at resolving the anomalies and proving a consistent, useful, framework, a new paradigm emerges... However, there is nothing in Kuhn's ideas that says that a potential new paradigm is immune from challenge or that it shouldn't be judged against the past (Kuhn was as much a historian as a philosopher).

These changes feel like we never adequately challenged the old system to see if it could still solve puzzles within the paradigm...
It is like we jumped straight to a new one, and we never got to consider the core assumptions of the new model before it was established.
While some historical analysis is presented, I don't feel like the players comparisons with the recent past are being heard.
Science is a process that is guided by consensus, not decree. I don't know that we have really achieved a consensus here, and now it feels like the debate is closed in some areas without an explanation why. I don't know if that feels fair...

So I'm going to follow with a few more questions.

1) Assuming highly skewed raid DPS was a legitimate problem (I think that's fairly evident, but we're calling it an assumption) - was the old model completely inadequate to deal with the anomaly? Were we actually at the limits of what could be explored going forward by tweaking the class as it was?
2) If there was no way to address the previous anomalies, we're in the realm of developing new core principles, but we still have to have a competitive level of utility - in addition to addressing the anomaly. Have we achieved that? What gaps are there?
3) If we assume that the previous playstyle itself had some utility or value to the players, and the value is not just a damage contribution, but how the class is played - Are we achieving that value in the current framework?
4) And if not (due to the shared AOD / Bond cooldown), what about the current operating principles prevents the use of separate cooldowns or any action on the cascading bond AA ability? I'm asking because I know that the damage can be scaled, the timers can be adjusted, and the AA can be made a hotkey. So what about the overlap of these items is so game breaking that they must be off the table? Is there a way that we could meet them part way?

Not trying to be a jerk here, I'm open to a lot of these changes, but I don't think we get back to "normal" until those questions can be fully answered - and we have a ways to go until I think it's settled.

 

[Iliangur]

The change to enchanters was a paradigm shift for everyone (myself included). What I have been doing is reading feedback, and hashing out details with admins.

I hashed out Boon and AoD shared cooldown a lot. This will remain as a shared cooldown. I have talked about increasing the mimic portion of AoD so that AoD and Boon is more of a situational choice. (I have heard that Boon is always the better option in a raid). Also, real question. Would players prefer if the shared cooldown was 30s with a 24s duration? This is more active, but technically a nerf.

I 100% believe you mean well, but you don't really seem to be taking in the core feedback - as I've read these and patch notes comments it's pretty clear to me that nobody likes the refactor. There's been some legit cool secondary benefits, curses being AAs, etc., but nobody said "throw us into a meat grinder and see what comes out." How are enchanter player numbers these days?

You... hashed out the boon and AoD cooldown? You just said you're taking in the feedback - 100% of the comments have been against this. Dude... I've played my enc since 2006. That's nearly 16 years of effort. I don't want most of what has happened. The original problem was two spells were a bit too powerful. What the hell happened.

As Tev/Mogh said above, charms don't scale with character power like every other class/ability. I don't think the +pet focus even affect them. Charming is neat, but it should be fringe and not core. It's exhausting - you're one run-to-the-kitchen-for-a-drink-at-a-bad-time away from dying, and charm pets being capped in haste, without ability to heal, it's 90% not worth the effort. As an enc you're never gonna do better than 50% of what another class can, if you even can at all. In a good group maybe, but if you're in a good group they don't need your charm. I much prefer to Boon/AoD my buddies, or failing that, boon/melee myself. The LOIO pet is fine - the timer on it is too short and it dies on a (yellow?) and above - but I'd use LOIO pet over a charm pet most of the time. I'm not going to die when charm breaks, it has a set duration, and my group isn't having to watch me like a hawk for healing.

Alt-runes would be cool; spell blocks, CHOICE of % mitigation, etc., but don't remove what's there. When I solo/duo, the ONLY thing keeping me up is rune eating the dps. I can't heal. I take 80% of the damage and that playstyle, already more effort that it's worth, is dead.

 

[Kedrin]

This all seems like classic SoD style. It appears that every enchanter dislikes the new charm meta yet they will go unheard and charm meta will continue to be pushed on them. Just like the new buff system, and ranger birds, and ...

 

[Iliangur]

This all seems like classic SoD style. It appears that every enchanter dislikes the new charm meta yet they will go unheard and charm meta will continue to be pushed on them. Just like the new buff system, and ranger birds, and ...

Yeah, in conversations with some of the other enchanters the feeling is that we're pounding our fists on a brick wall. The noose or the guillotine - your choice!

 

[DodoBot]

It appears that every enchanter dislikes the new charm meta yet they will go unheard and charm meta will continue to be pushed on them. Just like the new buff system, and ranger birds, and ...

Lots of us enjoy the challenge of using charms in the right circumstances and fully acknowledge their potential for incredible damage when the right pets are available. The problem is that enchanter used to be an "All of the Above" class that could work off a base of Short-Duration Enhancement Spells and add in Melee + DD and DoT + Charms + Runes on an as-needed basis. Now that the first two parts of that list have been decimated, the options of play are much more limited.

Charm is situationaly great, but for all that has been taken, it does not feel like enough to compensate for all of the losses. The intent to balance things seems to be there, and in zones with good pets, the numbers are decent. However, we can't deny that the class is being funneled into an increasingly narrow role without transparency or support... Charm as the current core of the class is especially frustrating right now in light of:

1. The limited number of charm monsters in game,
2. Lack of pet spells / survival abilities while charming, and
3. Damage variance from zone to zone (a wizard can do the same DPS in UThaz vs Remanants, an enchanter can not).

Addressing this would make charm "feel" a lot better, but another consideration is that Necromancers and Druids - who bring a great deal more to the table than enchanters currently do - also have access to charms on certain mobs (e.g., Necros charming the bloodstorm mummy). Why bring an Enc to bloodstorm when you can potion up and have a necro handle mezes, do his DOT thing, AND get the top end charm pet?

While I suppose the best charm targets could be bumped to level 59 along with Word of Command (thus excluding Dru/Nec and still covering all light-blues), charm is still lacking in spell / AA support. For example, why is druid is on the MielD spell but not enchanter? Charming is FAR more dangerous and less flexible than the way we played before and needs not only targets, but supporting spells and abilities to make it a primary ability.

The number of suitable charm targets will probably be increased throughout both raid and exp zones, but that still does not address the other classes having access to these pets - unless you make the competitive damage dependent on something the enchanter is doing (like a buff that he or she casts on the charmed pet - say some sort of bond spell...)

As a reply to the above, are the developers willing to elaborate on the following pertaining to future flexibility of the class?

1. What is the perceived UNIQUE class role that enchanters are filling (or should be filling) that can not be done better by someone else?
2. How do you plan on addressing the current gaps in enchanter roles - particularly group / duo competitiveness?
3. Are there plans to increase charm usability by adding new buffs / spells / abilities or reworking existing spell lines (misdirection, stuns, visages, bond, etc)?
4. Beyond charm, are there avenues where the enchanter playstyle will actually have room to grow and expand?
5. We are effectively down to one "Class Defining AA / Tome" - and Cascading Bond is on chopping block instead of being tweaked... (why? whose consensus?)
   1. What are the plans to replace it? Will the replacement work within the narrow playstyle that is trending or expand into new avenues? Can we talk about this?
   2. When will a third capstone AA be developed, and do you see this as important towards bringing things back into balance?
6. What about the short term buff / enhancement paradigm was so game breaking that it had to go rather than be scaled? See Central Question Here.

Barring a patch, open communication will go a long way towards assuaging our current frustration. Personally, I think a lot of small QOL changes could be quick-patched based on feedback here and situational testing without waiting for a full fledged buildout that could take months. This is what was attempted at the end of the BL revamp several years ago, and it took a problematic start and put it back on track with the players.

 

[Kapitol K]

could you guys imagine if they took away moon comet from wizards and made their familiar do 1200 dps

 

[DodoBot]

Suggestions for Charm Support​

Since the current deliverable that is being adjusted is charm, I’m throwing out some ideas to better support it as a class ability. The focus is on survivability, scalability, and ease of use. For organization, I am dividing these ideas between spells and AAs. I’m also thinking we could consider itemization and clickies, but I haven’t spent enough time to brainstorm them here.

Spell Ideas Here​

• Rework the misdirection spell line to synergize with the target’s pets. (This is good for charming when cast on self, but can also provide utility when duoing with a Mag, Nec, or BL)
  • Change the recourse to increase target’s pet’s hate as well as decrease target’s hate.
  • Increase the damage absorption slightly.
  • Increase the duration of the spells significantly.
• Give enchanters a charm-only burnout type buff, and add them to the MielD spell.
• Buff the visage lines to offer additional effects. Target charm bonuses but allow PC targets too.
  • Improve agro generation or reduction when cast on pets.
  • Reduce cooldowns for all of these spells.
  • Add a damage or a tanking bonus depending on glamorous or horrifying.
• Add a bond spell for pets as an option for use when AOD or Cascading Bond are suboptimal.
  • Could be offensive (dmg mimic or other share) or defensive (split dmg from Enc to pet)

AA Ideas Here​

• Add pass-through AA to allow focus effects to affect charm pets and allow scaling with gear.
  • A first step could be to tweak companion focus effects (Health / Strength) to work with charm pets, even if mechanics are not identical to how they work with summoned pets.
  • A subsequent step could be to consider applying caster foci to charmed mob abilities.
  • Finally, a way to apply worn haste and advanced item effects might be considered.
• Rename the Guardian Animation AA to “Enchanter’s Guardian”. Allow charm pets or the runework sentinel to block attacks on the enchanter in addition to just the animation pets.
• Add a class AA called “Mind Probe”. Without agroing a target, informs the enchanter if the target is charmable, mezable, stunnable, and how resistant to magic it is.
• Provide a means for uncapping Enc charm haste or provide a stackable AA haste similar to BL’s.
• Add a class (perhaps capstone / tome style) AA to offer guaranteed protection upon a charm break “Willshaper’s Shield”.
  • R1) Automatic, short duration rune self-casts on charm break.
  • R2) Improves auto-rune absorption.
  • R3) Improves auto-rune absorption. Increases stun duration on charm daze to 4 secs.
  • R4) Improves auto-rune absorption AND duration. Increases charm daze stun to 6 secs.

Itemization / Clicky Ideas to be Determined​

Thoughts?

 

[Iliangur]

Let's refactor wiz/mag/nec/dru where they keep nice dps (and applicable charm ability), but now each detrimental cast has a chance to ae explode taking them and anyone around them out. Melee just randomly DT themselves if auto-attack is active. Add a 1 hr enhanced control-esque cooldown on big heals/nukes/stances for all classes. Heals/hots and nukes/dots on the same cooldown/spell slots so each pair is mutually exclusive, and all have 1 min recast timers. Really boost the strategy and tradeoff planning for everyone. Cut down on those wasteful extra 1-2 cleric/necro/wizard/druid/shaman raid slots since their spells won't overlap, and open them up for some other classes.

To be clear I don't hate charming, it's fun sometimes - but it is much harder and a far, far more risky playstyle. It is nowhere near as reliable as other casters/pet classes - no "twice as hard for twice the reward." Over small time intervals and looking only at dps it may look alright, but anything with a duration like questing, going after a named, etc., it's just never up to the task. There is a reason raids save enhanced control to burn on enc during boss encounters (we literally need other classes to be reliable through a full raid with our now primary dps mode lol). Heaven help you after wasting enhanced control on wipes.

I've charm farmed in upper to mid-FR, Elds, and parts of LOIO because it's what a boxed enc duo can handle, and my cash output at T12 with a little over tier in AAs is the same as my no-raid-gear, no-AA fishing alt just vendoring maps (no EDs). Either case is 18-25% of what other classes at the same Tier can accomplish. Doing the enc duo over a nude fisher-bot also means frequent deaths, meding from 0, running back, and fighting in or setting back up - if someone else hasn't moved the apparently empty zone.

The risk of charm breaking mid-fight is a Sword-of-Damocles hazard no other class faces. Or it breaks during recovery and you just recharm (if you don't insta-die, no middle options), but now your rest/med timers are reset and meding takes twice as long as another class or if charm hadn't broken, while at the same time that charm duration is just counting down again. You can't really enhance them by giving pet silks, haste collars, or weapons (esp. good stuff like EF) because it's going to die quickly. No real pet buffs like bst/mag (let alone mield spell). No pet stances or abilities. Haste is capped which I don't think is a limit on real pets, for the class with the best haste spell. And when it does die you just hope there's something charmable nearby to burn more mana on a best_in_game_but_gimped_for_some_reason_haste and ghetto_enc_lvl_29_ds. It's the "I couldn't find anyone to group or help me but I still want to try to play" option - but now it's supposed to be the core identity/mechanic.

And I've mentioned it before, but there are pots for ds/mana regen/haste, but there's no heal/hp/dmg/etc. pots to cover the (severe) enc weaknesses.

 

[Nwaij]

I think I said that before.

But can we please just roll back ENC changes, all of them, and tweak AoD/LB numbers a tad instead of the trainwreck that is currently live, that noone who played ENC for more than 2 min asked for?

 

[Iliangur]

I think I said that before.

If enchanters could read they'd be very upset right now

Rollback most of it. It's a half good update, just the other half sounded better on paper than the experience.

Maybe keep the splurt dot, removal of dd knockback, and curses being aa. Shorten relic nuke recycle. Chromatic can stay in for fun, w/e. Restore and just tone down aod/bond. Leave longer duration but let us cast it on 2-3 targets. Give us the boon aa melee benefits as passive. Remove reagent req on the unbinding. Leave charm pets around. Enhance enc charm so it's a bad RNG to die farming rather than a miracle RNG to accomplish anything. Give charm a set duration with system messages (you feel your grip on X's mind weakening, you have 20 minutes remaining). Boost control enhancement for enchanters. Reflect buffs from enc to the pet (like summoned pets and SB buffs). Let enc create illusory (weaker) copies of their weapons/gear to give pets (in lieu of silks/collar/summoned or farmed weapons). Shorten Enhanced Control AA recycle for enc, or give them extra AA to reduce its recycle to like 10 min.

 

[cornelweezy]

Really just want some dev feedback from Cole or whoever so it stops feeling like the enchanter community is screaming at a brick wall. I had a post deleted. There are oodles of not sh*t ideas from plenty of very experienced, excellent raiding enchanters and also people who played other classes who happen to be upper crust at enchanter buttons. Can we get more dev comment, please?

 

[Nwaij]

I had a post deleted.

Oh so it's not just me.

 

[garry]

As someone who bailed when the bailing was good (when the fifteen-minute buff fiasco was still impending),
it may not be my place to say this, but the enchanter class already had some severe problems.

Let's look at a few facts about enchanters:
1.) They can't heal themselves (or others).
2.) They can' take a hit.
3.) Their DPS has depended on the strength of everyone else in the party (party assumed, since nobody
in his or her right mind solos on an enchanter -- or at least not by choice) and (rarely) the strength
of the charmable monsters in the current region.
4.) Most of their utility is useless/undesirable in group content 65+.

With the list above, we can see that enchanters are going to have a hard time questing and farming by themselves. One can box a tank, but it had better be able to heal itself. If it can heal itself, then you probably don't have much DPS. You can box a healer, but who's tanking, then? Maybe you can charm something, and heal the charmed pet, but when charm breaks, you're struggling to keep the enchanter alive (this has actually gotten a great deal easier with the removal of summoning mechanics in many zones). Full disclosure and 100% true story here: When I created my enchanter and did all of its main quest up to 5th seeker, I boxed a high tier monk/warrior through most of its progression and spammed runes, where applicable. When I boxed the warrior, I'd use bloodlust, cast SB on the warrior, then enrage directly thereafter for "acceptable" damage output and healing once every blue moon. Things worked out, but it was super annoying, slow, and often dangerous. Any time an enemy casted spells the enchanter would take damage that I couldn't mitigate with runes or heal -- well, not unless I used the monk, instead of the warrior, and used its Rujik bracer. (I remember the Nazdrich being especially bad in DL -- especially with their cold based melee slows.) The WW-esque ice burrower type mobs weren't much fun either, since neither of the classes in the duo could track.

All of this was before the change to enchanters; and I want everyone to focus on that for a minute, because I waited until my enchanter was t8-9 before I even did any of its faction quest and MQ past 6th seeker, because I knew how annoying the 6th to 5th seeker segment of its questing would be. (Even before that, the enchanter was 100% useless in Heartland Undercaverns where everything reflects and is an uncharmable robot aside from the fungus men in the beginning of the zone!)

I want to focus on point #3. An enchanter doesn't get better (in most situations) as it gets more gear. Yes, you can get archaic mez and CE4; yes you can get some AAs(now) (and an EF tome) to help with mez duration --and that's great for Rujik; Farguzair, Master of Ice; Plane of Frost's linked pulls; The Abyss trash; (some) Silent Halls trash; (some) Windstone trash, the pull in EF in the room directly before MT; and maybe some other situations that elude me, at this time. Don't get me wrong, I love me some mez. That's actually why I made the enchanter. I loved those sorts of fights and frequently played other people's maxed-out enchanters for them. I think it's regrettable that this mechanic isn't desirable in more areas (and the talk of making stronger monsters in experience zones, which would actually make it useful again, is actually really cool --though I expect as much to come of it as came from the DFS revamp many moons ago.)

Anyway, back on point: What about an enchanters damage output? Either one was grouped with strong characters to mimic, or one did basically nothing. My enchanter had rank 8 DI/AF/MR/FR/CR/DR focuses, AoD, and LB; and none of that mattered in the slightest when I went to Eldenals and grouped with some fresh 65 characters. I could copy garbage DPS from a melee; copy worthless low-level spells the few times a grouped player had mana to cast them; or I could do crappy relic nukes with an annoying pushback. I ended up charming The Crypt Guardian when it was up and doing better damage --granted I didn't mind doing that as I like exploiting class utility when it's available; but I could take that same enchanter and DESTROY Kaesora while boxing a wizard with a decent mana pool and that class tome (at the time) that gives mana back upon kills (while grouped with a sufficient tank/healer, of course). On raids, I was top DPS --and that's funny because it didn't matter what raid I was in (t5-15). If an enchanter was equipped with decent DI/CR/FR focuses, max CoP bonus, and AoD, it would top the DPS charts, with a proper raid composition. By and large, gear didn't matter. One could argue that the mana pool could restrict the enchanter -- causing its mana to run out before the end of a higher tier fight -- but with the Gather Mana AA, this was never a problem (especially post cooldown reduction), even when my enchanter was substantially undertiered for any of the encounters to which I brought it. The only risk in bringing it was its lower HP, which was largely outweighed by its DPS output. My enchanter was legitimately top DPS the instant it got AoD, because it was geared enough to have decent focuses by the time the spell was accessible. SB/boon were hit and miss DPS, since it depended on what melee DPS characters were in the raid (scaling with their characters rather than the enchanter).

The fix for the raid side of this seems pretty self-evident:
Make it so that AoD does ((N-1)/10)*100 percent less damage per nuke/DoT tick than it normally would after scaling with the enchanter's focus effects, where N is the current number of players with AoD cast upon them by the enchanter in question.
(Effectively, this would reduce the damage of the mimicked spells by 10% per extra concurrently mimicked player.)

The formula would be this: mimick damage = scaled damage * (1 - (n-1)/10)

Example: You AoD a single wizard and it does a nuke that you copy. With your focus effects, CoP bonus, deity spec....etc. it scales to 3k damage. If it's your only target, it would do:
100% [1.00] - [((N-1)/10)] = [1.00](100%) - ((1-1)/1) [0.00](0%) of its scaled damage, which is
3k*(1.00 - 0.00) = 3k.

If you had any two AoD targets and the same nuke being mimicked for 3k scaled damage, you'd have something like this:
3k * (1.00 - (2-1)/10) = 3,000 * (1.00 - 1/10) = 3,000 * (1.00 - 0.10) = 3,000 * (0.90) = 2,700.
(90% the nuke damage). The same percentage would apply to whoever else has AoD at the time when they cast a DD/DoT.

Of course, this could be changed to scale more harshly. It could be (n-1)/5, so each additional
AoD target would drop the efficacy of the mimicked spells across all targets by 20%.

There's no reason that something like this couldn't be tuned! This would allow enchanters to stay good or even great in groups (depending on who's in the group with it) while not being overly powered on raids, since there'd be a quick limit on how many targets could be usefully mimicked at once. There'd be a bit of a bell curve to the mimicked DPS output where, at some point, adding another person to the AoD chain would make you worse off. This also punishes enchanters when they AoD someone who is being lazy and inattentive (which was often the case when I was raiding on an enchanter). It's very common to AoD a wizard or necro only to find out that s/he is AFK for the majority of the buff's duration. That's a very frustrating waste of DPS/mana/time/effort. Further, this leaves room for improvement. "Class tomes" (AAs) could be setup to decrease the damage penalty per extra concurrent player upon whom AoD is currently active. There could even be worse versions of AoD for lower level enchanters to prepare them for this game play mechanic that would have harsher penalties per extra player upon whom it is cast -- or even initial penalties applied to the formula (I.E. n/7 instead of (n-1)/7). This can also be explained diegetically. Imagine the difficulty an enchanter would have copying what ten people are doing at once. S/he might get sloppy. If it's just one or two, s/he would probably imitate the spells pretty well.

For SB/LB, the same approach could be taken, though simply restricting them to one or two targets would be fine, in my honest opinion. This was typically the worse choice of the two, anyway (as it should be as a more easily obtainable spell). I'd imagine that it's pretty important for rogues these days, with all overhaste procs having been removed; but I'm out of the loop, so I'll leave it at that.

Note that I don't think this is a "fix" for the enchanter class. They will still feel like garbage when in the wrong group settings, since they will resume relying 100% on available charm targets (which are going to vary in strength by zone), if their group members are lackluster. Being able to do some melee DPS oneself, as an enchanter, is not something that I've experienced (given the junky weapons that mine had), but I doubt that it ever rivaled healer DPS --and with verdict, it came at a risk to your survival and annoyance to your groups' healers, anyway.

The problem that I always had with my enchanter that it wasn't nearly as effective in all zones and group/raid compositions. One should never feel like their character is substantially worse (or even useless) because of where they are or who they're playing with. That completely goes against the idea of "progression." If a fresh 65 enchanter can charm the same mob in Abyss, have other people enhanced control it, and do the same damage with it, you haven't really "progressed" your in your ability to contribute DPS via charming by filling every slot with t99 gear, have you? If you are stuck AoDing a wizard without Archaic: Moon Comet, you will very likely do less damage than an enchanter with worse gear that is AoDing one that does have it.

Look, the TL;DR is that not being able to be effective really sucks all enjoyment out of the game; and being variably effective, depending on things that are out of your control sucks, too. Consider reverting with some of the changes I've mentioned and doing so while keeping some of the quality of life changes like the new AA versions of curses (See Iliangur's post hereinabove). Some of these things seem really cool, and I wish that they'd existed when I still played this game.

I don't peek at these forums much since quitting, but it's how I get my SoD fix post buff-apocolypse. It really saddens me to see threads like these. I hope that things get better for everyone who's still playing the game!

 

[Iliangur]

The scaling damage per active target seems like a good idea to try - there aren't many 3 wizard 6 man's to exploit, so it let's us be useful in groups again. Not only does the recast now suck, but the 50% rate. Why bother when a wiz may get 3? flash flames off if they're throwing aggro management to the wind.

Agree with all the rest. Some good related ideas have been posted in this thread, too.

 

[DodoBot]

Enchanter Changes from the 10 August Patch Below:

ENCHANTER

• The duration of the Misdirection line of spells has been doubled.

SPELLS

• Suffocate, Gasping Embrace, Torment of Gnyrt, Asphyxiate, Chokehold, and Misery of the Swamp spell descriptions updated.

I don't know if I missed anything, but it seems like there's not a lot of priority of addressing the issues being debated here. For such a long thread, it is not abundantly clear if any of the items discussed above are even on the development docket... I know this was obviously a huge patch and the focus was on knights, but I think I speak for all of us who play this class when I say that:

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Given the number of concerns discussed in this (nearly 5 page) post, we should at least get a reply that 1) we are being heard, 2) that X, Y, and Z are being reviewed, and 3) A, B, or C are out of consideration for now. 4) Any sense of timeline or calendaring would be also be valuable. Again, I realize that knights were the focus of the last patch, but can we get a status update on the (presumably unfinished) enchanter revamp?​

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Again, I don't want to denigrate anyone's (volunteer) work or sling mud, but it has been 6 weeks since a staff reply on this thread, and a lot of us were anticipating more changes than this. Appreciate the updates and the work that is (presumably) going on behind the scenes...