Splitting the Enchanter into 2 classes

[Legidias]

Take away buffs from enchanters, put them on wizards. Boom you have 2 full classes that are now balanced out

[Quizlop]

Additional balance suggestion: Swap Torpor and Nature's Touch.

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Legidias [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Take away buffs from enchanters, put them on wizards. Boom you have 2 full classes that are now balanced out

That's bad class design though. Enchanters having a good number of buffs, pertaining to altering the characteristics of people, is inherent to their class identity. They enchant things. Similarly, a class that was built around doing nuke damage (Wizard) shouldn't suddenly be given Haste buffs and such to compensate for their nuke capabilities being poorly balanced in later eras of the game.

I think the current Enchanter class just has so many amazing tools that it would be enough to fill 2 classes. Ideally in a game, I would want Illusion type spells to be more powerful as well, because that's a really interesting mechanic. So that further pushes the concept of wanting 2 separate classes to house all of these abilities.

Originally Posted by kjs86z [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Are you upset you don't play an enchanter?

I've played all the caster classes to high levels; it IS generally upsetting to play characters that do so much less, and to have groups suffering so much because of the game revolving around certain busted mechanics, of which the Enchanter class has access to nearly all of them, and few other classes have access to any at all.

[Legidias]

Maybe doesnt fit lore, but it fits a balanced gameplay design

[Raev]

The single biggest balance problem with classic EQ is doling out cheap 'control' spells that are hugely effective against what would otherwise be far more powerful NPCs. Since raid bosses had to be immune to those spells, they made them all fully MR, which made casters gimp on raids, so they give Wizards lures, and well, here we are. But this was more an issue in Classic/Kunark than Velious.

In Planes of Power they fixed this with specific immunities and being extremely stingy with the control spells, e.g. Enchanters don't get AE stun, AE mez, or even a 1 minute+ mesmerize, liberally gave out immunities to mez/stun/charm/snare, and made nukes harder to resist.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The single biggest balance problem with classic EQ is doling out cheap 'control' spells that are hugely effective against what would otherwise be far more powerful NPCs. Since raid bosses had to be immune to those spells, they made them all fully MR, which made casters gimp on raids, so they give Wizards lures, and well, here we are. But this was more an issue in Classic/Kunark than Velious.

In Planes of Power they fixed this with specific immunities and being extremely stingy with the control spells, e.g. Enchanters don't get AE stun, AE mez, or even a 1 minute+ mesmerize, liberally gave out immunities to mez/stun/charm/snare, and made nukes harder to resist.

Yeah, pretty much the same thing was true of slow.

In classic the slow spell line scaled nicely to higher percentages, but then when the game continued getting more powerful, they couldn't really make slow do any more slowing, because it was already a percentage-based effect (ie. it already worked just as well on a PoP mob as it did on a Kunark mob).

IIRC they maybe added one slightly higher slow before they pretty much just had to give up and stop adding to the spell line (although they did add disease-based slows ... again, differentiating by mob resists to keep things interesting).

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The single biggest balance problem with classic EQ is doling out cheap 'control' spells that are hugely effective against what would otherwise be far more powerful NPCs. Since raid bosses had to be immune to those spells, they made them all fully MR, which made casters gimp on raids, so they give Wizards lures, and well, here we are. But this was more an issue in Classic/Kunark than Velious.

Hmm, why do you think it's less of an issue in Velious? It's much worse there I think, with the raid targets having absurd health totals. Rogues and Monks are inherently doing more DPS than any caster can possibly do regardless of resists for those fights (except for maybe a Necro who could stack every single DoT they have), because mana runs out and melee costs nothing.

Some raid targets being immune to MR based spells isn't a big issue to me, so much as the overall resists in general. There are a lot of non-Magic Resist type DoT's and DD's that simply don't land, which means Mages/Druids/Necros/Rangers can't contribute much/any spell damage.

[Keza]

I feel like it's a bit extreme for balancing the class, but if you want to theorycraft splitting enchanters into two halves they already did it in EQ2. For classic EQ I just think slow/charm are brokenly OP. Could probably nerf mez as well, but it's the other two that make them gods. Shams with slow/canni/torpor as well.

In either case you would have to create new spells (or reappropriate future spells) to make it function as an entire class. Well.. a fun class anyway. I suppose there's an argument to be made that several of the classes are incredibly dull. You yourself say this revamped enchanter would be boring. In that case why split them instead of just nerfing it?

[Izmael]

The problem with classic EQ isn't IMO supposed class "imbalance", but rather the fact that the content is 20 years old, static and all figured out.

Enchanters aren't feeling OP in HS, Velk or Seb when they have to learn the place. They do feel OP in there when they go there for the 100th time, though.


Maybe Blue could have some custom content which wouldn't break the whole classicness of the server, like content where you wouldn't acquire any new loot, but rather just experience (for alts?) maybe.


That content could be hard and balanced in a way so it's a challenge to everyone.

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Keza [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I suppose there's an argument to be made that several of the classes are incredibly dull. You yourself say this revamped enchanter would be boring. In that case why split them instead of just nerfing it?

I mean ideally I would fill the 2 classes out with more than just the current Enchanter spell list, while also lowering the power level of Slow for the Enchanter (actually removing it altogether and replacing with "Distortion" type Illusion effects that mitigate damage), and removing the dual-wield capability of NPC's who can't already do it for the Psionicist. But, it says a lot that if the current spell list was split into 2 classes, each of those classes would still be very powerful:

Desired for every raid (even if it's just for 1 unique buff sometimes), able to provide huge assets for general grouping content, and able to solo well too. Enchanter would clearly be lesser than Psioncist for soloing at the high levels, but still better than quite a few other classes - a buffed up Animation pet is plenty capable of defeating 70% slowed, STR/AC debuffed enemies. While not able to do as game-breaking things soloing, the Enchanter would more frequently be better than a Psioncist for general grouping. The overall power level of Slow/Haste is just so high, and hell, as long as the group can chip in for some Peridots, an Enchanter can even be the "healer" for some group content with their Rune line (because Slow already does most of the work).

I also think the DPS of the Animation pet is very underrated for grouping and shouldn't be ignored. Yeah, it's no Charm, but it doesn't turn around and attack you sometimes either, nor cost additional mana to maintain. While most players would not find the class very exciting in that state, I'd quite enjoy it still, because it's subtly very powerful, and actually pretty funny to need a hit at the start of a fight in order for the pet to go in swinging. It requires more positioning and planning than just pressing the "Pet Attack" button, as compared to a typical summoned pet (although I do quite enjoy the laziness of that sometimes too). Being determined to get that DPS in for the group is what would separate a buff bot Enchanter from one is getting the most out of their profession.