From todays patch:
We'll take the bitchstorm one first. Max level an Enchanter, Necromancer or Druid can charm is now 52 (except for Dictate/Control). Max level a bard can charm is now 50. Dire Charm has been lowered to level 49. You can no longer charm mobs above your own level. Before the enchanter community flips out and quits - this is a temporary change while I figure out how to balance charm vs the rest of the game and make it more potent - but less reliable. So these levels will be raised in the future. We're just looking to prevent some pretty unbalancing things that have been happening. Count to ten, please.
1...2...3...4..5678910. :roll:
I can only guess this change has come about because people have stated that enchanters are bards are the easist to solo. Let me enlighten some of you people who have seen enchanters and bards solo. O wait, I think i'm the only enchanter i've seen who DOES solo. Almost every other enchanter i've seen is a Bot or has another Bot to back them up. So lets look at this.
First of all, enchanters unlike live are not able to charm undead. The dev's decided to make enchanters here unable to do it. We have to deal with it. But there is also golems, mushrooms, Fish (renders/fish in SG) and the list continues, which are naturally immune to charm.
Mobs have a notorious ability to resist charms. I had charm break once and had a mob resist FIVE re attempts to charm and my charisma is 290!!
And yes the mob was tashed. The normal now is about one or two resists.
As for the higher level charms which in the old way was the only way to charm past 55.
Dicate has a huge refresh time. Short duration... the only truly usefullness of this is crowdcontrol. Control, i've yet to see it in action or drop. Along with the proposed two 64 spells that were originally announced for enchanters which one was charm related.
Group wise, Charm is almost never used, it's to unreliable and tends to take away from the enchanters main responsiblites of crowd control. The exception is having a 2nd enchanter who charms something if a mob wasn't immune or above 55.
Having played an enchanter, druid and necro onlive, enchanter is by far the hardest to succesfully charm fight. Necros and Druids both have the ability to heal themselves. Enchanters have no way of healing. It is sheer luck and a hint of skill if you can survive a mob that resists charm mutliple times. I'm sure some of you are thinking.."but you have pbaoe stun or mez" A. your lucky if you can even get off a pbaoe stun with a mob hitting you. even with a 1.5 casting time. B. if you can't get off a 1.5 sec stun then your NOT going to get off a 2.5 casting time mez.
at 65th level with 290 charisma, i've had random charms last me from 10 secs to 20 min (roughly max duration) If i'm lucky it lasts till the end of the current fight. Either way since you have no way to know how long it will last, constant attention must be kept on pet and be ready to respond on a break or you just earned a debt.
Nerve racking? beyond belief.
If your reviewing charm to be more potent, then it can start with Dire Charm. Starting with it's a 9 AA cost plus the prereqs of having X in general and archtype (i think it was roughly 26 AAs plus level 59 before you can get it) It's an hour and 12 min refresh time. Here are it's biggest flaws.
1. Mobs can and will resist it, try again in an hour and 12 mins.
2. Mob is to high level so sorry please try again in an hour and 12 mins.
3. Congradulations you have DCed something, whoops zone crash or Random LD from someone zoning in or lag , please try again in an hour and two mins.
Charm does NOT need to be made Less reliable!!!
It is bad enough as is. As for making it more potent umm WHY? I was under the belief that the reason the level caps were at 55 for random charm and 60 for dictate and 62 for control with fixed was so things would not get out of hand.
Regardless you might want to take into account Rosie's whip which allows a warrior , bard and Wiz to charm mobs just like enchanters (which they cannot use)
Here are a few things I would like you to also consider when your balancing. Lets look at some comparisons shall we? By the way this info was taken from
http://camongrel.hbnet.de/spell_test/index.php
DDs
Enchanter: 65 Relic: chaotic Visions 1150
Cleric : 62 Condemnation 1190
Druid: 64 Wrath of Skies 1510
Wizard: 65 Relic : Tarhyl's Embrace 2250
Mage: 62 Shock of Sun 1150
Note it even with the 65 Relic!! spell that a Wis based casters are doing more dmg than enchanters. Mages get the same dmg at 62 but then mages have a fairly lil issue of a pet which they can heal.
Edit: on a note someone mentioned that enchanter relic spell was more efficient. I would like to add these two then.
Enchanter 61 Insanity 925 (only two DD spells enchanters get 61 and 65)
Wizard 62 Relak's rapid rending 1475
Relic spells are Rare and not easy to come by. So I added this to show the difference. There is also a refresher time for all enchanter DD spells.
DoTs
Enchanter 63 Chokehold 1300
Shaman/ 62 Caress of Sivyana 1785
necro
Druid 61 Crawling Swarm 1602
The ones listed for the other classes are Not their highest dot. I chose to show what the dmg comparison was between Enchanters highest dot and the two lowever level ones from the other dot classes. These dots being ones that are universal and not like mages or priest lines against summoned or undead.
So lets summarize. Damage output wise enchanters are the weakest. Meaning the damage the enchanter themselves can do. Can we increase others DPS? oh hell yeah. Melees with VoG, casters with mana regen and our curses we can make life wonderful for others. But I can't honestly remeber the last time I ever used Charm on a Raid. The only Charm I use in a group is DC. (when and If i can get it to last) I've used charm in a group for Crowd control, but the charm doesn't last because the pet will die before the next pull. At least if a group is smart they do it this way.
I just want people to remeber their little lists when fear is put in and the same issue arises when necros and bards will once again gain their big bad titles of soloers. The summoning ability of mobs will become irrelivant when they are snared by druids/bards/necros and then feared. Although granted druids will be stuck with animals. Bards and necros will have the run of the mobs.
I'm just hoping this turns out to not be as bad as i'm fearing it will be. On the bright side i'll have time to work on my alts.
Later..
We'll take the bitchstorm one first. Max level an Enchanter, Necromancer or Druid can charm is now 52 (except for Dictate/Control). Max level a bard can charm is now 50. Dire Charm has been lowered to level 49. You can no longer charm mobs above your own level. Before the enchanter community flips out and quits - this is a temporary change while I figure out how to balance charm vs the rest of the game and make it more potent - but less reliable. So these levels will be raised in the future. We're just looking to prevent some pretty unbalancing things that have been happening. Count to ten, please.
1...2...3...4..5678910. :roll:
I can only guess this change has come about because people have stated that enchanters are bards are the easist to solo. Let me enlighten some of you people who have seen enchanters and bards solo. O wait, I think i'm the only enchanter i've seen who DOES solo. Almost every other enchanter i've seen is a Bot or has another Bot to back them up. So lets look at this.
First of all, enchanters unlike live are not able to charm undead. The dev's decided to make enchanters here unable to do it. We have to deal with it. But there is also golems, mushrooms, Fish (renders/fish in SG) and the list continues, which are naturally immune to charm.
Mobs have a notorious ability to resist charms. I had charm break once and had a mob resist FIVE re attempts to charm and my charisma is 290!!
And yes the mob was tashed. The normal now is about one or two resists.
As for the higher level charms which in the old way was the only way to charm past 55.
Dicate has a huge refresh time. Short duration... the only truly usefullness of this is crowdcontrol. Control, i've yet to see it in action or drop. Along with the proposed two 64 spells that were originally announced for enchanters which one was charm related.
Group wise, Charm is almost never used, it's to unreliable and tends to take away from the enchanters main responsiblites of crowd control. The exception is having a 2nd enchanter who charms something if a mob wasn't immune or above 55.
Having played an enchanter, druid and necro onlive, enchanter is by far the hardest to succesfully charm fight. Necros and Druids both have the ability to heal themselves. Enchanters have no way of healing. It is sheer luck and a hint of skill if you can survive a mob that resists charm mutliple times. I'm sure some of you are thinking.."but you have pbaoe stun or mez" A. your lucky if you can even get off a pbaoe stun with a mob hitting you. even with a 1.5 casting time. B. if you can't get off a 1.5 sec stun then your NOT going to get off a 2.5 casting time mez.
at 65th level with 290 charisma, i've had random charms last me from 10 secs to 20 min (roughly max duration) If i'm lucky it lasts till the end of the current fight. Either way since you have no way to know how long it will last, constant attention must be kept on pet and be ready to respond on a break or you just earned a debt.
Nerve racking? beyond belief.
If your reviewing charm to be more potent, then it can start with Dire Charm. Starting with it's a 9 AA cost plus the prereqs of having X in general and archtype (i think it was roughly 26 AAs plus level 59 before you can get it) It's an hour and 12 min refresh time. Here are it's biggest flaws.
1. Mobs can and will resist it, try again in an hour and 12 mins.
2. Mob is to high level so sorry please try again in an hour and 12 mins.
3. Congradulations you have DCed something, whoops zone crash or Random LD from someone zoning in or lag , please try again in an hour and two mins.
Charm does NOT need to be made Less reliable!!!
It is bad enough as is. As for making it more potent umm WHY? I was under the belief that the reason the level caps were at 55 for random charm and 60 for dictate and 62 for control with fixed was so things would not get out of hand.
Regardless you might want to take into account Rosie's whip which allows a warrior , bard and Wiz to charm mobs just like enchanters (which they cannot use)
Here are a few things I would like you to also consider when your balancing. Lets look at some comparisons shall we? By the way this info was taken from
http://camongrel.hbnet.de/spell_test/index.php
DDs
Enchanter: 65 Relic: chaotic Visions 1150
Cleric : 62 Condemnation 1190
Druid: 64 Wrath of Skies 1510
Wizard: 65 Relic : Tarhyl's Embrace 2250
Mage: 62 Shock of Sun 1150
Note it even with the 65 Relic!! spell that a Wis based casters are doing more dmg than enchanters. Mages get the same dmg at 62 but then mages have a fairly lil issue of a pet which they can heal.
Edit: on a note someone mentioned that enchanter relic spell was more efficient. I would like to add these two then.
Enchanter 61 Insanity 925 (only two DD spells enchanters get 61 and 65)
Wizard 62 Relak's rapid rending 1475
Relic spells are Rare and not easy to come by. So I added this to show the difference. There is also a refresher time for all enchanter DD spells.
DoTs
Enchanter 63 Chokehold 1300
Shaman/ 62 Caress of Sivyana 1785
necro
Druid 61 Crawling Swarm 1602
The ones listed for the other classes are Not their highest dot. I chose to show what the dmg comparison was between Enchanters highest dot and the two lowever level ones from the other dot classes. These dots being ones that are universal and not like mages or priest lines against summoned or undead.
So lets summarize. Damage output wise enchanters are the weakest. Meaning the damage the enchanter themselves can do. Can we increase others DPS? oh hell yeah. Melees with VoG, casters with mana regen and our curses we can make life wonderful for others. But I can't honestly remeber the last time I ever used Charm on a Raid. The only Charm I use in a group is DC. (when and If i can get it to last) I've used charm in a group for Crowd control, but the charm doesn't last because the pet will die before the next pull. At least if a group is smart they do it this way.
I just want people to remeber their little lists when fear is put in and the same issue arises when necros and bards will once again gain their big bad titles of soloers. The summoning ability of mobs will become irrelivant when they are snared by druids/bards/necros and then feared. Although granted druids will be stuck with animals. Bards and necros will have the run of the mobs.
I'm just hoping this turns out to not be as bad as i'm fearing it will be. On the bright side i'll have time to work on my alts.
Later..