Enchanters(velious)

[amos]

How usefull will enchanters be in velious? Mobs have huge resists(mezzing) ?

[goshozal]

It's over. The end. No more fun. Just a white wasteland full of things that resist every spell in your book. You'll be hunted by dragons, giants, and dwarves for the rest of your days. If you kill anything, Ele will be sure to find out and patch it so you can't land a spell.

Hope you like spamming buffs and staring at walls.

[pasi]

I think I have an old post on this, but:

Kael - enchanters have very good pets here. Drakkel Direwolfs can be level 50-52 and hit for 200 or so. Unlike giants, they are stunnable so recharming isn't super awful. Depending on how classic this server is going to be, there are some downright broken Dictate mobs as well.

ToV - not the greatest, but if the raid doesn't wipe, you can get level 46 whelps or wyvern mobs. Level 46 sounds low, but it's actually very strong relative to melee. Realistically, tash and buff bot.

Sleepers Tomb - Tash and Buff bot.

Skyshrine - many strong pet options. Wyverns were pretty MR for their level, wurms aren't stunnable, but cubes make fine pets. Realistically, you aren't going to bring a pet up to Yelinak though.

Dragon Necropolis - many strong pet options.

Western Wastes - Velium Hounds are fine.

Velketor's Lab - solid pet options.

Icewell - can charm stuff in the basement (where Dain is fought), but dwarves are magic immune.

PoGrowth - stuns and mez are kind of important here.

PoMischief - Enchanter, Shaman, and Necro playground.

Sirens Grotto - Magician, Enchanter, and Shaman playground.

It's a pretty mixed bag. Enchanter CC isn't as much of a thing at the higher end. Shit is either immune or too high of a level. Dictate can temporarily CC a lot of stuff that Rapture won't hit. However, if you really dig, pet options are still there in most of the content.

[Tecmos Deception]

Most people seem to remember how chanters are just tash+buff bots on velious raid bosses (and even a lot of trash in the big raid zones), and so they say "high mr and unmezzable and unstunnable = lol chanters!"

But my thoughts on this are that chanters are already just tash+buff bots on raid bosses. When was the last time someone charmed something to kill trak? When was the last time CC stopped a train in VP? Yeah. Never. So as far as big raid kills go, chanters' situation won't be changing much at all.

And when it comes to "raids" that aren't killing gods/dragons, well, the planes are still there (and they get revamped?), chardok is still there (and it gets revamped?), and there are some raid-potential zones in Velious too besides killing AoW and higher. That kind of content has lots of potential for enchanters to shine, even if higher MRs really are a universal thing and life is more difficult for chanters.


And regarding the non-raiding game?

My general stance is that players overall were not as good at the game in 1999-2000 as we are now. How many times did you hear about a chanter soloing emp or spore king (or even HS south or chardok) on live? Yeah, it may have been partly because we didn't have the same use of forums and streams and wikis and shit back then, but I think the majority of the reason is because people just weren't as good (and people didn't have as long to acquire all the bells and whistles like soulfires and strings and stuff to use before moving onto new content too).

So if stuff that most people would have considered impossible on live during classic and kunark are pretty commonplace on here, I believe that things that most people considered pretty impossible in Velious era on live will/should be pretty commonplace on here. And if something was EVER done on live and we have record of it, it definitely will/should be doable here.

[Splorf22]

1. I'm guessing enchanters mitigate better here than on live
2. We can duck to interrupt spells
3. We abuse the WC cap
4. We have had two years at max level to fuck around farming
5. We have better internet connections and such

I mean it's not like human brains have improved in the past 10 years.

Also, to answer the OP:

There is a huge difference between a 'normal' raiding enchanter and an A-Team raiding enchanter. For most guilds an enchanter is a buffbot now. I used to get so bored in Sky with Vesica Dei that I would start memblurring mobs and getting Wizards summoned. On other hand, if you charm a mob that quads for 275+ . . . well you aren't bored. Frequently dead, but not bored. My guess is that Velious will be more of the same: if you are willing to game plan around it, charm will be very useful. If you are in a rush with three other guilds breathing down your neck, the enchanters will be buffing and then tash suiciding.

[Estu]

If you kill anything, Ele will be sure to find out and patch it so you can't land a spell.

hahaha

[Tecmos Deception]

I mean it's not like human brains have improved in the past 10 years.

Your brain didn't improve in evolutionary terms over the course of the first 6 months you played on p99 either, but I bet you were "better" at playing p99 at the end of the 6 months than at the start!

I'm not saying that we are smarter than people who played EQ 14 years ago. I'm saying that we've had a lot more time to play, read about, and think about the game, which has led to us understanding a lot of the game's peculiarities better, which has made us "better" at playing the game.


Look at how long it took anyone to solo spore king on p99. He was around for like... 1.5 years before you did it? It probably wasn't impossible to do, or maybe even any harder to do at all, day 1 or day 100 of Kunark than he was when you solod him on day 500... it just took time to realize that it was possible and then to actually do it.


My thoughts on Velious and it being the beginning of the end for enchanters being the monsters they are:

1) very few (if any) enchanters entering Velious on live understood what enchanters were capable of in the way that many enchanters on p99 do;

2) very few (if any) enchanters entering Velious on live had BCGs, mana robes, VP clickies, soulfires, mules loaded with wc hats and reapers, strings, etc.; and

3) the quicker progression of expansions on live left enchanters very little time during Velious to figure out what they were capable of before everyone was moving on to Luclin zones/levels/gear/AAs.

Certainly things like better internet connections and potentially different treatment of some balance issues (like cloth mitigation) can/do play into this. But I still say that if you transplanted top-notch enchanters from p99 back into live-era Velious, they wouldn't be rolling new classes because Velious really was the death of the enchanter, but rather they'd be absolutely wowwing Y2k EQers with the things they managed to solo/duo (and do in groups/raids, too!).



Also, I didn't realize ducking to interrupt wasn't implemented on live by now. Crazy how you can forget things over the course of a decade+.

Also also, these are just my THOUGHTS on the matter. My enchanter on live wasn't even 50+ until Luclin, and I never would have dreamed of trying to solo hs south/east or sebilis even when I was 65 with AAs, I was such a nub back then. So I definitely don't have then-and-now comparisons based on actual experience to make.

[Weekapaug]

Also, I didn't realize ducking to interrupt wasn't implemented on live by now. Crazy how you can forget things over the course of a decade+.

Might be misreading what you are saying, but I was ducking to interupt casts on my wizzy in '99 during classic.