Color Shift

[Silken]

Have been working up my little Enchanter, and just hit 20 and got this spell. The wiki says that it's duration is 6s, and after doing a bit of research in the forums here others are saying that it has a 5s duration.

So far, the longest I have had it last is 1s, even on green mobs. Is this something that scales up by level?

[Zabkin]

I don't think it scales, but it's been awhile since I have tried it on a low level toon.

The range is really small, so unless the mobs are in melee range it will not consistently hit them.

The level 20 Color Shift is a spell that should always be on your cast bar. Combined with a GCD clicky you can easily get off a Mesmerize (level 4) or Mesmerization (level 16) before the stun wears off.

[Triiz]

It's definitely 6 seconds or super close to it, it's not 5 seconds flat for sure. It is always 6 seconds starting at level 20, but you need to be pretty close to the mobs melee range for it to land. Alla has the AOE range listed as 25, compared to an AOE range of 20 for Color Flux, and 35 for Color Slant. P99 might be slightly different, but those AOE ranges seem right to me from personal experience.


18:41:02 2017] You begin casting Color Shift.
18:41:04 2017] A helot skeleton is stunned by scintillating colors.
18:41:10 2017] A helot skeleton tries to hit elementalbone skeleton, but elementalbone skeleton dodges!

^6 seconds. Cut the date off the log for simplicity sake.

[Silken]

They are definitely in melee range, and they do get stunned, just not long enough for me to reset the GCD, and cast another spell.

[Zabkin]

Some mobs are immune to stuns, what are you using it on?

[Silken]

Just Kobolds in Stonebrunt Mountains.

[Triiz]

They are definitely in melee range, and they do get stunned, just not long enough for me to reset the GCD, and cast another spell.

Try it on an Orc Pawn or something and post the log. My log is from a level 60 but I used it constantly from level 20 to 52 and it was always 6 seconds for me. If it wasn't 6 seconds Enchanters would be pretty screwed with charm breaks from 20-44 since Color Flux is such short duration and is really best suited for the initial stun immediately followed by a longer stun like Color Shift or Color Slant to get a mez/recharm off.

[Silken]

I went back and looked at the logs for some of those encounters, and the timestamps indicate that they were stunned for 6 seconds, but in-game they very clearly weren't. Perhaps it is a latency thing?

[dbouya]

are they attacking you too soon or moving too soon? because 1 seconds might be how long it takes the server to properly adjust their position on your screen, if it was wrong, for whatever reason... although they'd just warp to the new location not animate to it.

[Silken]

Good question. There is two or three kobolds, and an appropriate number of stun messages, but the second I see the stun messages, I hit my item to reset the GCD while I am backing up a few steps, and start casting mesmerization. When the cast bar for mesmerization is about 20% of the way complete, they all rush me.

I have watched the process a lot on video streams of enchanters playing, it is sort of what got me interested in the class.

[Zabkin]

IMO there is not enough time to move and then cast, you have stay standing in the same spot. If you are going to use the AE mez then you will have to risk the chance that you mez yourself until you become immune (level 56 I think). Buff your MR and keep your fingers crossed.

[Silken]

The cast time on the AE mez is 3 seconds, half the time that they should be stunned. One would think that you should be able to move for at least one second before casting, if they are in fact stunned for 6 seconds.

[Triiz]

The cast time on the AE mez is 3 seconds, half the time that they should be stunned. One would think that you should be able to move for at least one second before casting, if they are in fact stunned for 6 seconds.

Yeah unless you have absolute perfect timing you wont have enough time to stun, move, then AOE mez with a 6 second stun. It takes at least 1 second to run out of AOE mez range, then you usually need to be standing still for at least 1 second for your spell to not get interrupted.

The Enchanter's you've seen stun/back up/aoe mez are probably using 8 second stuns. Since you're hunting outside in Stonebrunt just stand far enough away from your pet to mez it on a charm break while the other mob is rooted.

[Silken]

That has been my strategy so far, but I really only needed AE mez when I was breaking up the kobold camps, and calm is critically resisted, which seems to happen a lot.