What does everyone feel the soloing capabilities of an Enchanter should be?
I personally love the interplay of an enchanter with a group but as I have gotten older, the amount of friends I have able to play hardcore MMO's on the same schedule as me has dwindled significantly. It would be great if Enchanters could get by on their own at least here and there. IIRC leveling as an enchanter in EQ1 and Vanguard (psionicist) could be a tad rough.
That said, the Enchanter class has always been my favorite archetype and it is sorely lacking in representation in current MMO's. I've done 3 playthroughs of Pillars of Eternity as the Cipher class to get my fix lol. I would probably push through a tough leveling experience just because I love the class fantasy so much (i know the game is group oriented and that puts some players like me a little behind the curve without a guild).
Anyway, first post here and just curious to get the communities thoughts!
MauvaisOeil said:I thought EQ's chanter was one of the most powerfull soloers with overhasted charmed ennemies, wasn't it the case ?
in the early days, 1-30 was def a bit of a struggle, and you don't really come into your own until 45-50. By 60 you were in great shape, Enchanters were a little backloaded. By that i mean 70% slow for 3 minutes on a mob that hits for 250 is fantastic; 20% slow for 45 seconds on a mob that hits for 40 not so much. It was one of the few classes that got stronger as they leveled but soloing in those early and mid levels could be pretty tough.
I hadn't given soloing as an enchanter any thought. I guess I haven't thought much about soloing any class. I suspect I'll spend my "down time" exploring and crafting.
When it comes to grouping, you don't have to be in a guild to meet people and find some great groups. You make new friends through pickup groups and chance encounters. But, if you're guildless, either it's by choice or your armour smells. Lots of good guilds who will gobble up mature, fun-loving players.
Welcome to the Pantheon community, Wood.
woodpipes said:MauvaisOeil said:I thought EQ's chanter was one of the most powerfull soloers with overhasted charmed ennemies, wasn't it the case ?
in the early days, 1-30 was def a bit of a struggle, and you don't really come into your own until 45-50. By 60 you were in great shape, Enchanters were a little backloaded. By that i mean 70% slow for 3 minutes on a mob that hits for 250 is fantastic; 20% slow for 45 seconds on a mob that hits for 40 not so much. It was one of the few classes that got stronger as they leveled but soloing in those early and mid levels could be pretty tough.
This was my experience too. I mostly soloed an enchanter until 30 or so and then had some friends PL him up to the 40s. It was really rough going early on. The pet sucked. The nukes weren't that great. The dot's really stunk. You didn't get a decent charm for a long time if i recall. It was a lot of roots and slowly grinding stuff down, maybe even some fear kiting? I forget. I had a necro too for a while I may be getting them mixed up. But my enchanter sat at level 29 for a looooooooooong time until like I said my brother and his friends came and helped me out. After he got to 49 or so it went really well. I was just smearing stuff. And I was in high demand for groups, I was pretty good at controlling adds in sebilis.
MauvaisOeil said:I thought EQ's chanter was one of the most powerfull soloers with overhasted charmed ennemies, wasn't it the case ?
Enchanters were extremely powerful soloers in EQ and 2nd fastest in leveling (bard was #1 by a long shot), but it took massive amounts of concentration and was much more stressful than bard or necromancer (who wasn't far behind enchanter). They could walk into any dark blue con dungeon and solo their way through it though, so the risk/difficulty had its rewards for sure.
Yea, enchanters were op. With a pet they could haste and a slow spell that was second to the shaman they could solo very well. I had a lvl 50 enchanter on Agnarr soloing The Hole where there were yellow cons. The risk,however, is insane. If you are in a fight and your pet randomly breaks at a bad time and your oh crap charm or quick mez doesn't work in time...you pretty much die. Plus a buffed pet breaking and running over to you had quad hitting you for enough to be a one shot is bad. Also, you never knew when your pet would break soo you are always on edge ready to run or cast your level 1 mez to stop your steroid pet from smashing you in a few seconds.
Watemper said:Yea, enchanters were op. With a pet they could haste and a slow spell that was second to the shaman they could solo very well.
Add in if you were really looking to maximize output giving your charmed pet procing weapons to use. Charmed mobs seemed to proc far more often than players ever did.
I solo'd an Enchater in EQ1 to level 20 in two weeks. My five friends thoght i had found an exploit to do it so quickly. I didn't, unless you count playing 60 hours a week an exploit. LOL. I expect the enchanter to be the band leader, the guy who sets the tempo. in addition, i expect him to be a hard taskmaster. screw with his mezzes one to many times and you'll find yourself unemployed. Of course i have nothing to base those assumptions on in Pantheon. Someone needs to be in charge of any given group. and in my not so humble opinion, that should be the CC'er.
I am not necessarily interested in soloing but more on solo survivability when out and about (traveling, gathering resources for crafting etc). I am hoping a few DOTs or DDs will be included in the mix. If nothing in that arena, than maybe an invisibility that persists while gathering would suffice (unless the illusions allow you to travel and gather as well.... mining as a tree anyone?)?
I never enjoyed solo'n as an enchanter, but a huge reason was because the enchanter was my second class. My first class was a necro. I was really just over playing EQ by myself. That being said once I was level 60, and then again in PoP at 65, I loved going places, charming something, and holding down a camp that normally a group needed to do. I remember at 60 I could solo the Kobold Village in Velks.
I loved the chaos of CC though so I never had a desire to pull. Let the tank run off and bring back whatever he wants, I'll deal with it at the camp.
I'm sure many classes will be "able" to solo, but I feel like VR is dissuading players from soloing by giving those classes great synergy with other classes. In particular, it looks as though the enchanter and summoner (both likely capable soloers) will be a monster of a duo team. I'm assuming if the necro is anything like the EQ necro, they will have some kind of synergy witbh another class to promote not going through the whole game solo. The solo kings in EQ in order of ease were probably the pet classes (Nec, Mage and Enc) followed by the root rot SHM, and quad/swarm kiters (Druid/Wiz/BRD) then the SHD fear kiting. The classes that couldn't solo "efficiently" were the Cleric, War, Pal, Rngr and Rog... Monk depending on gear/buffs (but that's not really soloing). I think they are trying to promote grouping with the opportunity for the creative/skilled to be able to solo some content. The Paladin may be able to solo some undead content, but otherwise, its my opinion that aside form the limited Paladin content, only the casters will be able to solo equal level content (and maybe the Bard) due to the ability to deal damage without receiving damage.
There were a few raid events in the level 80-90 range where charming a mob to fight others was necessary. It was not soloing though, and it was not reliable so charm had to often be reapplied. Meaning the Enchanter got beat on a bit, and someone had to cast a heal or dead Enchanter possibly. Doing it solo never worked for me. It was either too slow as far as XP, or I ended up running away. My sweetspot was in groups and raids. In Earth we used 6 Enchanters, if you did Earth you know where and why. 4 could do it, 3 possibly.
If your charmed pets comes with their abilities/spells then it's going to be really interesting. Especially if you can pick up a cleric/druid mob as a pet and he is actively healing the caster or allies
I personally don't think any class should have a greater advantage to soloing over any other (if every class is equally desired for group content like some claim will be the case). I really hope either all classes can solo (which I'm fairly certain will not be the case) or no classes can solo at all and that they have an amazing LFG system along with virtual instancing (multiple versions of same area based on population - because no area will be large enough to accomodate the player base (due to induced demand) literally no matter how much content they create) - The very concept of having mandatory group content will congregate players to certain areas; if you have 5 areas in a forest for players to adventure, they will be full... and if you then add a 6th or 7th, they will also be filled... if you have a 3 lane highway and traffic is slow, adding 1 or 2 or any number of extra lanes will not improve traffic because more cars will just fill the newly created lanes - "induced demand". You need an "alternate" route(s) to improve traffic, the more alternate routes that exist, the more the traffic improves across all routes. If they do have completely non-instanced content then every class better be able to solo even if in a limited capacity or in certain areas (but I am doubting this will be the case, so I really really hope the LFG tool is amazing!)
Playing on the TLP server in EQ I've been stuck for weeks now at the same level because I'll log in, LFG for about an hour, and if not non-stop reading chat for an hour straight and/or dilligently spamming multiple chats, the groups you find may not even be able to get you in because if you do find a group it is likely to be a replacement in a group that has been already established and is in some dungeon somewhere that will take you 20-30mins to get to... if you can invis - and if the group doesn't disband while waiting for you to get there becuase they died while short on group members or the person that left was keeping the group together in the first place. I'm only playing the TLP because I'm so incredibly bored and refuse to play WoW.
But ya... everyone solo or nobody solo imo.
Darch said:I personally don't think any class should have a greater advantage to soloing over any other (if every class is equally desired for group content like some claim will be the case). I really hope either all classes can solo (which I'm fairly certain will not be the case) or no classes can solo at all and that they have an amazing LFG system along with virtual instancing (multiple versions of same area based on population - because no area will be large enough to accomodate the player base (due to induced demand) literally no matter how much content they create) - The very concept of having mandatory group content will congregate players to certain areas; if you have 5 areas in a forest for players to adventure, they will be full... and if you then add a 6th or 7th, they will also be filled... if you have a 3 lane highway and traffic is slow, adding 1 or 2 or any number of extra lanes will not improve traffic because more cars will just fill the newly created lanes - "induced demand". You need an "alternate" route(s) to improve traffic, the more alternate routes that exist, the more the traffic improves across all routes. If they do have completely non-instanced content then every class better be able to solo even if in a limited capacity or in certain areas (but I am doubting this will be the case, so I really really hope the LFG tool is amazing!)
Playing on the TLP server in EQ I've been stuck for weeks now at the same level because I'll log in, LFG for about an hour, and if not non-stop reading chat for an hour straight and/or dilligently spamming multiple chats, the groups you find may not even be able to get you in because if you do find a group it is likely to be a replacement in a group that has been already established and is in some dungeon somewhere that will take you 20-30mins to get to... if you can invis - and if the group doesn't disband while waiting for you to get there becuase they died while short on group members or the person that left was keeping the group together in the first place. I'm only playing the TLP because I'm so incredibly bored and refuse to play WoW.
But ya... everyone solo or nobody solo imo.
This statement defeats the purpose of both EQ and Pantheon, and for the love of MMORPGs, I sure hope none of this is the case. You probably are bored of WoW because all the classes ARE the same. You can take any Tank (Druid, Monk, DH, etc) and place them in a raid and it be just about the exact same. EQ and Pantheon represent something else. Each group or raid composition will provide a different output. The only way this occurs is if the class dynamics are different. Enchanters will undoubtedly have a more difficult time to solo than a necro or SK. However, they should be more than capable, albeit a bit more difficult. If this premise isn't followed, we will have a WoW replica that crashes and burns as well.
Evilsmaher said:Darch said:I personally don't think any class should have a greater advantage to soloing over any other (if every class is equally desired for group content like some claim will be the case). I really hope either all classes can solo (which I'm fairly certain will not be the case) or no classes can solo at all and that they have an amazing LFG system along with virtual instancing (multiple versions of same area based on population - because no area will be large enough to accomodate the player base (due to induced demand) literally no matter how much content they create) - The very concept of having mandatory group content will congregate players to certain areas; if you have 5 areas in a forest for players to adventure, they will be full... and if you then add a 6th or 7th, they will also be filled... if you have a 3 lane highway and traffic is slow, adding 1 or 2 or any number of extra lanes will not improve traffic because more cars will just fill the newly created lanes - "induced demand". You need an "alternate" route(s) to improve traffic, the more alternate routes that exist, the more the traffic improves across all routes. If they do have completely non-instanced content then every class better be able to solo even if in a limited capacity or in certain areas (but I am doubting this will be the case, so I really really hope the LFG tool is amazing!)
Playing on the TLP server in EQ I've been stuck for weeks now at the same level because I'll log in, LFG for about an hour, and if not non-stop reading chat for an hour straight and/or dilligently spamming multiple chats, the groups you find may not even be able to get you in because if you do find a group it is likely to be a replacement in a group that has been already established and is in some dungeon somewhere that will take you 20-30mins to get to... if you can invis - and if the group doesn't disband while waiting for you to get there becuase they died while short on group members or the person that left was keeping the group together in the first place. I'm only playing the TLP because I'm so incredibly bored and refuse to play WoW.
But ya... everyone solo or nobody solo imo.
This statement defeats the purpose of both EQ and Pantheon, and for the love of MMORPGs, I sure hope none of this is the case. You probably are bored of WoW because all the classes ARE the same. You can take any Tank (Druid, Monk, DH, etc) and place them in a raid and it be just about the exact same. EQ and Pantheon represent something else. Each group or raid composition will provide a different output. The only way this occurs is if the class dynamics are different. Enchanters will undoubtedly have a more difficult time to solo than a necro or SK. However, they should be more than capable, albeit a bit more difficult. If this premise isn't followed, we will have a WoW replica that crashes and burns as well.
I'm going to assume that you misread the statement, or are preparing yourself to be horribly disappointed. PRotF is touting to be a "group-centric" game, that focuses on co-dependency from every class. However, if this is anything like EQ (and not hyper co-dependent/group-centric as their claim), the Enchanter will likely be the most capable solo class. BUT, I really hope they make it group-centric... and have "content" that is designed for "any class" to solo (some classes easier than others obviously), and content that is designed for group. (In EQ, a good ENC can solo group content) Also - Although this game will be nothing like WoW (and I hate the financial drive of Blizzard), I would not say that is has either crashed or burned.
Darch said:I'm going to assume that you misread the statement, or are preparing yourself to be horribly disappointed. PRotF is touting to be a "group-centric" game, that focuses on co-dependency from every class. However, if this is anything like EQ (and not hyper co-dependent/group-centric as their claim), the Enchanter will likely be the most capable solo class.
I agree with this whole-heartedly. Enchanters being the most capable -- dependent for sure, especially as they get charm development. But, I would argue in any case, necro is the #1.
Darch said:BUT, I really hope they make it group-centric... and have "content" that is designed for "any class" to solo (some classes easier than others obviously), and content that is designed for group. (In EQ, a good ENC can solo group content).
I mostly disagree with this. I don't want solo content or you will have a game like WoW (which is what I was getting at originally). WoW can be solo, group, raid, PvP, etc. EQ, even nowadays on the test server, still is no soloable (maybe with mercs) in the general context. Sure, you can kill 10 levels lower (most classes still get pooped on, especially at higher levels) and be mostly alright. But, that will still be incredibly slow, tedious, and time-consuming. The game should be designed for "group-based content" and "some classes" to solo as they are going to thrive in these survival environments, such as necros, probably enchanters with the crowd control. However, this will be time-consuming as they won't do the dps compared (and ENC won't get 100% charm capabilities like original EQ days, that's just stupid overpowering and has been since removed as you probably know.
If you have seen some of the streams, even 1 level 20 mob (Although it seems by then, they come in packs of 3+ for some of the dungeons in Pantheon) take quite a bit to kill as well as are fatal in most situations if not carefully watched. I take that hoping that it will actually be that way and much less soloable content. These kinds of games are meant for solo and each unique group combination will have strengths in weaknesses (back to my point on the different tanks in WoW) allowing the groups to thrive or deprive in certain situations, creating a beautifully crafted game if appropriate measures (such as group content) are taken.
Darch said:Also - Although this game will be nothing like WoW (and I hate the financial drive of Blizzard), I would not say that is has either crashed or burned.
I would argue Blizzard is, and has been, both crashing and burning. Sure, they make a pretty penny. But, they are definitely hurting. Not enough to make a game free, but, hurting to say the least.
The long and the short of it are risk versus reward.
Is it going to be faster with a group versus solo? Hopefully
Is it going to be more efficient in the end to group? Hopefully
But can you do it when groups aren't available? Probably not in the highest level current dungeons, but maybe 1 tier or 2 back. (read: grinding/farming)
Ench's soloing current tier group content was never really a thing in EQ at least from release through OoW. At least not with any real speed, versus what a good group could do.
Having mained an Ench from release through Omens, and then again twice on 2 different TLP releases. It required quite a bit of min/maxing your gear, a lot of very tight focus, and a good amount of luck.