Post by lizzieborden on Sept 24, 2008 8:22:04 GMT -8
The Enchanter was the first toon I had ever created, and although I regard Lizzieborden as my main now, Lockdown remains by far my most powerful toon, at 80th level and over 1900 AAs.
Let me start by saying that the Enchanter is arguably the most difficult class to master, and likely the most frustrating. This is simply because you pay for mistakes like no one else. Not just yours, but those of others. A broken mezz by a well-meaning off-tank will quickly have you in the hover mode waiting for a rezz. With only silk armor to protect you, a purecaster's hit points and no way to heal yourself, you don't usually last long against an enraged mob's undivided attention.
Unlike the other purecasters, you're not known as a DPS-class, but more of a utility class. Your nukes and DoTs are someone's idea of a cruel joke. You can dish out the punishment when you need to (more on that later), but in group settings, you're more of a group's performance-enhancing drug. You have the best haste spells in the game, and you have the mana regen spells that most casters and hybrids consider indispensable. You're also good for slow spells and debuffing a mob.
In addition, you're the best crowd-control in the game. With the recent expansions, your tools for doing this have never been better.
When an add comes, you put it out of the fight for a short while, while your group deals with the first mob. As I hinted above, the problem with mezzing is that it generates a huge amount of aggro. No one should touch a mezzed mob without the ability to sufficiently provoke it so that it doesn't attack you. This is why off-tanks who aren't paying attention tend to get you killed. And it's why the Enchanter is not the class for the short-tempered and easily frustrated. Keep a sense of humor, Enchanter!
A few other things that set your class apart is the Tash line of spells. Tash is your resist debuff, and perhaps it may seem somewhat gimp when compared to the others. For one thing, unlike the other resist debuffs in the game, Tash works on only one thing: Magic Resistance. Worse still is that it lowers MR to a LESSER degree than those other resist debuffs which affect several of the mob's resists.
There is, however, one advantage to Tash to offset the obvious disadvantages: unlike the other resist debuffs, Tash is irresistible. Completely. If it were not for the level requirements in certain raid zones, even a first level Enchanter could land his Tash on the most powerful raid mob.
As mentioned above (and as anyone who's played this game knows) Enchanters are known mostly for their crowd-control abilities. The usual method is mesmerizing or "mezzing." What this does is renders the mob inactive for a limited time. Any damage inflicted on a mezzed mob will wake it up again, and unless the "blur" aspect of the mezz procs (varying chances per mezz), the Enchanter will be very high on the mob's hate list. Ideally, a taunting class, or someone who has the ability to generate huge amounts of aggro should be the one to wake it. But the frustrating aspect of this class is that this doesn't always happen as it should, and this will, in the majority of cases, mean the Enchanter's death. Moreover, not every tank understands that he must taunt or generate aggro some way before he attacks a mezzed mob.
One such memorable occurrence during an expedition saw me dying every time the tank attacked a mezzed mob. After the forth death, I had had it. I took my rezz, then gated home. The tank still didn't get it. He blamed me for stealing aggro.
There are a couple of possibilities to avoid this. One is to simply memorize a "blur" spell (having your "Enhanced Forgetfulness" AAs maxed helps). The problem with this is that blur doesn't always work. In fact, without the AAs, it's fairly unreliable. Even with the AAs, your success is not guaranteed.
Another possibility is to root the mob as it's mezzed, making it unable to move to you when it wakes up. The problem here is that root spells break, especially when the mob is attacked. And of course, that strategy is useless against a mob that summons.
With the latest expansions, Enchanters have gotten a few long overdue tweaks that make their lives a little bit easier. I'll cover the better ones one at a time.
1) Faster mezzes. While the standard mezz has never gotten better than its 2.5 second cast time (single target variety), The Buried Sea expansion saw the coming of a new mezz. This mezz has the advantage of a faster cast time (1.5 seconds, and a very high resist check starting at -100, plus the resist is now chromatic, rather than checked against a mob's magic resistance). The disadvantages are that the mezz has a shorter duration (about 7 ticks with Mesmerization Mastery) and a long recovery time (about 15 ticks).
The way Lockdown uses it in groups is to mezz the incoming add with the chromatic mezz. Tash, slow and debuff the main mob. You may even have time to fire off a nuke or two. Then tash the mezzed mob, then mezz with the standard longer-lasting mezz.
2) Beguiler's Directed Banishment / Beguiler's Banishment: Beguiler's Directed Banishment is, to be perfectly blunt, the best AA in the game, out of all classes. Bar none. Many have anticipated its being nerfed (hasn't happened yet), and I've heard an account about a Bard visiting the Dev boards and DEMANDING it be nerfed.
Thus far, nerfdom has not happened (at least not noticeably).
What Beguiler's Directed Banishment does is that it knocks the mob backwards -- a considerable knockback, by the way, comparable to the knockback that the named Shissars do in the Shissar Temple in the Grey -- then roots the mob in place for a short time -- about three ticks -- then blurs it. In sum, it's knocked out of aggro range (except for mobs with a large aggro range), and forgets all about you. It takes 1.5 seconds to cast, and it recovers in 4 seconds. So, you can use this slightly faster than once a tick.
I told you it was the best AA in the game. Consider the possibilities.
If you charm kite, you can tash the mob first to lower its MR, then kick it back with Beguiler's Directed Banishment, then land your charm as the mob is rooted, then buff it up. The root will wear off shortly and you're ready to fight with it.
Sick of off-tanks breaking mezz or tanks that don't understand taunting? Just punt that mob to the other side of the room and let your tank go play with it there!
Suppose you're fighting a mob that has killed your charmed pet or the tank has gone down. If the mob doesn't summon, finish the job with nuke punting. Kick the mob back, then wait a few seconds to recover your "punt." Then nuke it again. Then kick it backwards as it charges. Your nukes aren't much, but eventually, you'll finish the job.
Have you ever been attacked by a mob that you'd rather not kill because you don't want to take the faction hit? Punt it away. It will be knocked out of range and forget all about you. If it has a larger aggro range, so what? Punt it twice.
What about the confusion that comes when the group doesn't know what to attack? Take charge of this situation, Enchanter. Punt the extras away, and let your group take whatever's left. You solve this issue.
See? I told you it was the best AA in the game.
Beguiler's Banishment is a variation of Beguiler's Directed Banishment. It's a cone-shaped version that knocks back all the mobs directly in front of you. It's got a slightly longer cast time -- 2 seconds -- and a longer recovery time -- 8 seconds.
These two are very useful tools in charm kiting. If your charm breaks and both mobs charge you, you can send them both flying and the root will allow you to reclaim your charmed mob and finish the job.
Train coming? You can buy some time for you and your group and send them all packing.
3) Chromatic resists: Your nukes and DoTs have never been anything to stand up and sing about but you now have an advantage that no one else can claim. Your nukes and DoTs are now Chromatic. A Chromatic nuke is a nuke that is checked against the mob's lowest resist, whatever it happens to be. This means, unlike the games heavy hitters, such as Druids, Magicians, Wizards and Necromancers, you don't need to concern yourself with which type of nuke or DoT will be best, depending on what the mob is most vulnerable to. Your nuke will be checked against the mob's greatest vulnerability automatically. You don't need to have different types of nukes or DoTs memorized. Just your one will adapt itself to every mob.
(So, go chew on that cud, Wizzies.)
4) Mind Shatter Line: Again, your nukes and DoTs were never anything impressive (and they're still not), but the nice thing about this particular DoT is that it steals mana. The DoT is five ticks in duration, but steals mana back every tick. While the cost of the nuke is greater than the mana recovered, you can use this when your Gift of Exquisite Radiant Mana procs. Which means, you can cast the DoT for a single point. Not only does it inflict damage, but it gives you back mana.
5) Mana Flare line: This enhances an Enchanter's usefulness in groups, and is also a huge help when charm kiting. It's a nuke/DoT proc for extra damage each time it lands. You can cast it on yourself or cast it on someone else. They're sure to love it. It usually lands once, but can land multiple times with every cast. (My record is five procs off a single nuke, which only happened once.)
6) Chromatic Runes: This new line of runes procs an AoE stun when the rune is broken through. Gives the tank long enough time to recover the aggro and allows the Enchanter to take a step back.
7) Ward: The "Ward" line of spells is a self only buff that has a chance to proc a mezz on any mob that touches the Enchanter. The mezz is fairly hard to resist with a -50 on the mob's resistance check.
8) Stupid pet tricks: There are pet classes. Those would be Necromancer, Beastlord and Magician. And then there are classes with pets. While the Enchanter doesn't have the heavy-hitting pets of the "big three" pet classes, his summoned pet remains the most powerful of all "classes with pets."
With the SoF expansion, you have a huge variety of AAs to choose from. You can gain avoidance and mitigation for your summoned pet and even a 1-minute (buff extensions apply) heal over time for your animation, which also works on your charmed mobs.
Nice deal.
9) Stayin' Alive. With the post-Omens expansions, you have a few tricks up your silk sleeves to keep you alive. Enchanter, you're going to be smacked around. Sometimes by a mob that was your charmed pet a second ago, and is still wearing your haste and damage shield. But a few things that Sony has given us to give us a fighting chance.
Veil of Mindshadow (AA): This is an AA that allows us to supposedly remain partially out of physical existence while able to act on the physcal plane, as Sony describes it. Translation: Super-mitigation for a limited amount of damage. This AA can be cast every ten minutes. So, keep it up at all times. When a mob is beating it down and the timer has run its course, you can cast it again.
Chromatic rune line (Spells): This is a self-only rune that procs an AoE stun when it's beaten down. Very handy to have. When a mob attacks you, the rune procs its AoE stun and the mob is stunned long enough for you to mezz it, charm it or punt it away (with Beguilers Banishment or Beguiler's Directed Banishment).
Color Shock (AA): Self only ward that procs a stun on any mob that hits you.
Ward of Bedazzlement line (Spells): A self-only buff that procs a mezz on any mob that strikes you. The mezz is hard to resist with a -50 on the mob's resistance check (against MR) and lasts three ticks (longer with Mesmerisation Mastery).
I think that's all I've got on this subject. I hope everyone reading this has gotten a good idea of what's involved in playing this class. Any additional questions can certainly be posted here, and I or someone else will try to answer them.
Let me start by saying that the Enchanter is arguably the most difficult class to master, and likely the most frustrating. This is simply because you pay for mistakes like no one else. Not just yours, but those of others. A broken mezz by a well-meaning off-tank will quickly have you in the hover mode waiting for a rezz. With only silk armor to protect you, a purecaster's hit points and no way to heal yourself, you don't usually last long against an enraged mob's undivided attention.
Unlike the other purecasters, you're not known as a DPS-class, but more of a utility class. Your nukes and DoTs are someone's idea of a cruel joke. You can dish out the punishment when you need to (more on that later), but in group settings, you're more of a group's performance-enhancing drug. You have the best haste spells in the game, and you have the mana regen spells that most casters and hybrids consider indispensable. You're also good for slow spells and debuffing a mob.
In addition, you're the best crowd-control in the game. With the recent expansions, your tools for doing this have never been better.
When an add comes, you put it out of the fight for a short while, while your group deals with the first mob. As I hinted above, the problem with mezzing is that it generates a huge amount of aggro. No one should touch a mezzed mob without the ability to sufficiently provoke it so that it doesn't attack you. This is why off-tanks who aren't paying attention tend to get you killed. And it's why the Enchanter is not the class for the short-tempered and easily frustrated. Keep a sense of humor, Enchanter!
A few other things that set your class apart is the Tash line of spells. Tash is your resist debuff, and perhaps it may seem somewhat gimp when compared to the others. For one thing, unlike the other resist debuffs in the game, Tash works on only one thing: Magic Resistance. Worse still is that it lowers MR to a LESSER degree than those other resist debuffs which affect several of the mob's resists.
There is, however, one advantage to Tash to offset the obvious disadvantages: unlike the other resist debuffs, Tash is irresistible. Completely. If it were not for the level requirements in certain raid zones, even a first level Enchanter could land his Tash on the most powerful raid mob.
As mentioned above (and as anyone who's played this game knows) Enchanters are known mostly for their crowd-control abilities. The usual method is mesmerizing or "mezzing." What this does is renders the mob inactive for a limited time. Any damage inflicted on a mezzed mob will wake it up again, and unless the "blur" aspect of the mezz procs (varying chances per mezz), the Enchanter will be very high on the mob's hate list. Ideally, a taunting class, or someone who has the ability to generate huge amounts of aggro should be the one to wake it. But the frustrating aspect of this class is that this doesn't always happen as it should, and this will, in the majority of cases, mean the Enchanter's death. Moreover, not every tank understands that he must taunt or generate aggro some way before he attacks a mezzed mob.
One such memorable occurrence during an expedition saw me dying every time the tank attacked a mezzed mob. After the forth death, I had had it. I took my rezz, then gated home. The tank still didn't get it. He blamed me for stealing aggro.
There are a couple of possibilities to avoid this. One is to simply memorize a "blur" spell (having your "Enhanced Forgetfulness" AAs maxed helps). The problem with this is that blur doesn't always work. In fact, without the AAs, it's fairly unreliable. Even with the AAs, your success is not guaranteed.
Another possibility is to root the mob as it's mezzed, making it unable to move to you when it wakes up. The problem here is that root spells break, especially when the mob is attacked. And of course, that strategy is useless against a mob that summons.
With the latest expansions, Enchanters have gotten a few long overdue tweaks that make their lives a little bit easier. I'll cover the better ones one at a time.
1) Faster mezzes. While the standard mezz has never gotten better than its 2.5 second cast time (single target variety), The Buried Sea expansion saw the coming of a new mezz. This mezz has the advantage of a faster cast time (1.5 seconds, and a very high resist check starting at -100, plus the resist is now chromatic, rather than checked against a mob's magic resistance). The disadvantages are that the mezz has a shorter duration (about 7 ticks with Mesmerization Mastery) and a long recovery time (about 15 ticks).
The way Lockdown uses it in groups is to mezz the incoming add with the chromatic mezz. Tash, slow and debuff the main mob. You may even have time to fire off a nuke or two. Then tash the mezzed mob, then mezz with the standard longer-lasting mezz.
2) Beguiler's Directed Banishment / Beguiler's Banishment: Beguiler's Directed Banishment is, to be perfectly blunt, the best AA in the game, out of all classes. Bar none. Many have anticipated its being nerfed (hasn't happened yet), and I've heard an account about a Bard visiting the Dev boards and DEMANDING it be nerfed.
Thus far, nerfdom has not happened (at least not noticeably).
What Beguiler's Directed Banishment does is that it knocks the mob backwards -- a considerable knockback, by the way, comparable to the knockback that the named Shissars do in the Shissar Temple in the Grey -- then roots the mob in place for a short time -- about three ticks -- then blurs it. In sum, it's knocked out of aggro range (except for mobs with a large aggro range), and forgets all about you. It takes 1.5 seconds to cast, and it recovers in 4 seconds. So, you can use this slightly faster than once a tick.
I told you it was the best AA in the game. Consider the possibilities.
If you charm kite, you can tash the mob first to lower its MR, then kick it back with Beguiler's Directed Banishment, then land your charm as the mob is rooted, then buff it up. The root will wear off shortly and you're ready to fight with it.
Sick of off-tanks breaking mezz or tanks that don't understand taunting? Just punt that mob to the other side of the room and let your tank go play with it there!
Suppose you're fighting a mob that has killed your charmed pet or the tank has gone down. If the mob doesn't summon, finish the job with nuke punting. Kick the mob back, then wait a few seconds to recover your "punt." Then nuke it again. Then kick it backwards as it charges. Your nukes aren't much, but eventually, you'll finish the job.
Have you ever been attacked by a mob that you'd rather not kill because you don't want to take the faction hit? Punt it away. It will be knocked out of range and forget all about you. If it has a larger aggro range, so what? Punt it twice.
What about the confusion that comes when the group doesn't know what to attack? Take charge of this situation, Enchanter. Punt the extras away, and let your group take whatever's left. You solve this issue.
See? I told you it was the best AA in the game.
Beguiler's Banishment is a variation of Beguiler's Directed Banishment. It's a cone-shaped version that knocks back all the mobs directly in front of you. It's got a slightly longer cast time -- 2 seconds -- and a longer recovery time -- 8 seconds.
These two are very useful tools in charm kiting. If your charm breaks and both mobs charge you, you can send them both flying and the root will allow you to reclaim your charmed mob and finish the job.
Train coming? You can buy some time for you and your group and send them all packing.
3) Chromatic resists: Your nukes and DoTs have never been anything to stand up and sing about but you now have an advantage that no one else can claim. Your nukes and DoTs are now Chromatic. A Chromatic nuke is a nuke that is checked against the mob's lowest resist, whatever it happens to be. This means, unlike the games heavy hitters, such as Druids, Magicians, Wizards and Necromancers, you don't need to concern yourself with which type of nuke or DoT will be best, depending on what the mob is most vulnerable to. Your nuke will be checked against the mob's greatest vulnerability automatically. You don't need to have different types of nukes or DoTs memorized. Just your one will adapt itself to every mob.
(So, go chew on that cud, Wizzies.)
4) Mind Shatter Line: Again, your nukes and DoTs were never anything impressive (and they're still not), but the nice thing about this particular DoT is that it steals mana. The DoT is five ticks in duration, but steals mana back every tick. While the cost of the nuke is greater than the mana recovered, you can use this when your Gift of Exquisite Radiant Mana procs. Which means, you can cast the DoT for a single point. Not only does it inflict damage, but it gives you back mana.
5) Mana Flare line: This enhances an Enchanter's usefulness in groups, and is also a huge help when charm kiting. It's a nuke/DoT proc for extra damage each time it lands. You can cast it on yourself or cast it on someone else. They're sure to love it. It usually lands once, but can land multiple times with every cast. (My record is five procs off a single nuke, which only happened once.)
6) Chromatic Runes: This new line of runes procs an AoE stun when the rune is broken through. Gives the tank long enough time to recover the aggro and allows the Enchanter to take a step back.
7) Ward: The "Ward" line of spells is a self only buff that has a chance to proc a mezz on any mob that touches the Enchanter. The mezz is fairly hard to resist with a -50 on the mob's resistance check.
8) Stupid pet tricks: There are pet classes. Those would be Necromancer, Beastlord and Magician. And then there are classes with pets. While the Enchanter doesn't have the heavy-hitting pets of the "big three" pet classes, his summoned pet remains the most powerful of all "classes with pets."
With the SoF expansion, you have a huge variety of AAs to choose from. You can gain avoidance and mitigation for your summoned pet and even a 1-minute (buff extensions apply) heal over time for your animation, which also works on your charmed mobs.
Nice deal.
9) Stayin' Alive. With the post-Omens expansions, you have a few tricks up your silk sleeves to keep you alive. Enchanter, you're going to be smacked around. Sometimes by a mob that was your charmed pet a second ago, and is still wearing your haste and damage shield. But a few things that Sony has given us to give us a fighting chance.
Veil of Mindshadow (AA): This is an AA that allows us to supposedly remain partially out of physical existence while able to act on the physcal plane, as Sony describes it. Translation: Super-mitigation for a limited amount of damage. This AA can be cast every ten minutes. So, keep it up at all times. When a mob is beating it down and the timer has run its course, you can cast it again.
Chromatic rune line (Spells): This is a self-only rune that procs an AoE stun when it's beaten down. Very handy to have. When a mob attacks you, the rune procs its AoE stun and the mob is stunned long enough for you to mezz it, charm it or punt it away (with Beguilers Banishment or Beguiler's Directed Banishment).
Color Shock (AA): Self only ward that procs a stun on any mob that hits you.
Ward of Bedazzlement line (Spells): A self-only buff that procs a mezz on any mob that strikes you. The mezz is hard to resist with a -50 on the mob's resistance check (against MR) and lasts three ticks (longer with Mesmerisation Mastery).
I think that's all I've got on this subject. I hope everyone reading this has gotten a good idea of what's involved in playing this class. Any additional questions can certainly be posted here, and I or someone else will try to answer them.