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Bigglewiggins looked at the animation towering over him. While it wasn't necessarily huge, it was more a case of the gnome being rather small. Not far away from where he was meditating, there was a camp of three kobolds. In combat they were tough, but not a great challenge. However three at once would be another thing. Mentally prepped, the brave little gnome stood and began casting a mesmerizing spell... At level 4 you have reached the Second Circle, and learn several of the enchanter's key powers. Let's look at the new tools available. Color Flux - Drops an PB stun in the area immediately around you (melee range) which lasts 4 seconds. The recast delay on the spell is 12 seconds. Not terribly useful to you quite yet, this spell will become second-nature for you to regain control of a fight in the future, and to buy to time to cast another spell. Enfeeblement - Second in the Weaken line, capping at -20STR -3AC by 8th. (Which is curious because further upgrades to not affect AC of the target.) More of a collector's spell, but useful to humiliate people in a duel. Dropping STR does drop ATK, which reduces hitting for players, unconfirmed on mobs (but assumed similar to warriors in most cases)--and at low level that ATK drop might actually have a decent impact. Fear - The first of our Fear line. Lasts for up to 18 seconds, and has some limited applications, which I'll discuss. Gate - Simple teleport self to bind point spell. All casters/healers get Gate. A must-have spell. Haze - First of the targetted AC buff line. Gives target +5AC by 5th (note that you may see as much as 6AC from this spell, but the spell data shows this is, there is either a server-side formula we aren't aware of, or your Defense skill affects this AC.) Illusion: Half Elf - Change form to half elf (w/ infravision). Illusion: Human - Change form to human (w/ normal vision). Invisibility - The first class to get the spell. Target group member becomes invisible. Use /con to tell if mobs can see you. (If not indifferent they see you, unless indifferent already, in which case it doesn't matter if they see you.) Has random duration, but if holds over 10 seconds it should last awhile, with a 20 minute max duration. Turning invisible kills your pet, even if it's no where near you, which can be very handy if you lose your pet in a very bad place running free. Juli's Animation - Summons new animation. 2 Tiny Daggers required, hits harder now, has some more HP's, still no tank. (Little hint... without help, it will never be a tank.) I've seen maximum hits of 8 damage for a 3rd level pet, up to 12 damage for a 5th level. Later on you will Reclaim and resummon pets till they hit for max damage, but it's not really necessary at this level. Your pet can pretty much destroy level 1 and 2 mobs when you're 4th level. Mesmerize - The first of the Mez line, arguably what makes the enchanter the most powerful group member around. It's a targetted stun that lasts for 24 seconds, so long as the target takes no damage. (Debuffs are fine.) Can be cast over itself to renew the duration. This is an aggro spell, so nearby mobs will attack if they normally assist in fights. Mezzing one mob to pull the one next to it is called Mez-Pulling, and a very common tactic in camp groups. I'll be covering the uses of mezzing throughout this guide. Suffocating Sphere - Upgrade to Shallow Breath. Does 10 damage on impact, followed by 8 more passive damage one "tic" (6 seconds) later, and lowers STR & AGI by 5. You'll still be using this DOT a lot, as you have no nuke yet. Duration finishes after about 12 seconds. Tashan - Single target unresistable magic resistance debuff. Caps at -13MR at 10th level. If you don't open up your attack with Mez, you'll open up with Tashan. If you open up with Mez, you follow with Tashan. You must land Tashan always, until you realize when it's not necessary--which I'll leave to you. We don't have enough mana to screw around with resists, and Tashan drastically helps lower resists. At 4th level, you might not open with Tashan, but I'll discuss that later. While -13MR isn't much, bear in mind that when a spell like Root is cast, the mob makes a save based on it's MR + 25 (spell data reveals this), and this makes it MR + 12. You make the call... At this point, you're still going to be best off using your pet to solo blue mobs, maybe the occasional white. Blue mobs leave very little downtime, which is why they are optimal. The mobs you will be facing don't really hit hard enough to do serious damage at this point, either--at least not so much that meleeing is out of the question. Before too long it will be suicide to melee with any intentions of taking damage, as becomes true for all casters. You gain several tools to make fights easier now, however. Suffocating Sphere is your upgrade to Shallow Breath, and will give you a better damage:mana ratio, and Tashan will greatly reduce the chance of spells resisting. The first spell you toss on any mob now should be one of two--this will apply till you delete your character. 1. Tashan - Always always always kill the magic resistance of the mob. It makes your spells hit better and last longer. It also makes any caster in your group more effective. 2. Mesmerize - If you want the mob to hold still for a moment (so you can debuff it before fight, for example), then drop Mez on it. Your next spell should be Tashan, of course. *grin* For your soloing career at this point, I recomment casting Strengthen/Haze/Minor Shielding on yourself, and Strengthen/Haze on your pet. Pull mobs with Tashan, drop Suffocating Sphere on them, and melee till it dies. The pet is a nice helper, and can give you a breather if you're having trouble landing a spell in between attacks. If you want to drop Enfeeble on the mobs, it will have a slight affect on the damage you take as they miss more often, but it's really not that apparent when you take so little from blue mobs anyway. You don't need to open with Tashan at 4th level, however. As you will just literally be walking through the blue mobs right now, just pulling with Suffocating Sphere is sufficient, or even just running up and whacking them. However, around 5th or 6th, it will begin to matter if Sphere only hits for partial damage, in which case you should start pulling with Tashan to ensure the DOT goes on for full damage. Color Flux at this point is a utility spell. During combat, you might wish to drop a Color Flux out (if just to time throwing it between attacks). It will stun pretty commonly, buy you need to be in melee range to use it. It takes 1 second to cast and stuns the mob for 4 seconds. Counting the un-greying of your spells I'd say it leaves about 2 seconds to cast a spell afterwards. You will not be able to recast this PB stun spell for 8 seconds after it lifts the stun off, so don't rely on it to keep a mob stunned. But--it can be an extremely useful escape spell. If you drop Color Flux, as soon as it hits back up during that 2 seconds of ungreying and as spells become available twist and start casting Mesmerize; it will notify you about not having recovered repeatedly, but this ensures you start the mez as soon as possible. With a 2.5 second casting time, you can squeeze the spell in before the mob reaches you if you just take a step back while the spells ungrey (the twist halts your movement instantly to prevent interrupts. Color Flux is also useful just letting you and Mr. Kamikaze land some unanswered damage on the mob--an extra swing from you and the pet without getting hit back basically translates this spell into a very cheap nuke. Later on this spell will become amazing to you. Mesmerize at this level is going to be mostly a quick spell for beating a retreat. Stunning the mob for 24 seconds is great, but your pet doesn't cooperate well with this goal. So the only time you Mez when solo is to either hold the mob still for debuffing before you fight (which I don't think you should bother with), or to stop a fight you want out of after the pet dies. Fear is a spell I will cover now, that has some limited application right now. "Kiting" is the practice of slowing a mob's movement and running away from it and nuking or DOTing from a distance. "Reverse-Kiting" involves slowing the mob's movement, and making it run away from you while you nuke and DOT it. Necromancers are famous for this technique, and with someone to slow the mob's movement, you can help create the scenario. Honestly, most necros don't need a partner at this level though, though druids can snare from level 1 as well; as the two of you dropping yellow mobs is great, safe experience... if you can find one, you make a great team, since the necromancer/druid slows it, you fear it, and you both kill the mob. It evens the mana load on the two of you (since a necro is able to fear the mob already), and will speed how fast the experience comes. Unfortunately, fearing a mob that hasn't had it's movement crippled isn't very effective. Your pet can't hit it very well on the run, and you will find yourself running full-tilt just trying to keep up with the mob. When you finally catch it and re-fear, the mob will really have not taken much damage, and every time you fear it, there is a good chance that you will aggro additional mobs as it runs by them, cause a train to come back to you. Fear can also act as an escape spell though. If you see that a fight in unwinnable, and your pet is about to drop, you can throw this spell in an effort to accomplish two things; one, your pet might actually finish it, which is always nice, or two--while it runs for up to 18 seconds, you can be running the opposite direction, almost assuring you reach the zone edge/guard/people to /yell to. Kamikaze-Solo (soloing with your pet, who always makes fights to the death) is still probably the most viable avenue to you right now, though Reverse-Kiting is available with a necromancer partner. You're going to still level fairly quickly, save for the 7th level, when you are using a very substandard pet and substandard spells to fight mobs. You will very likely end up finding a partner by the time you finish 7th, and I recommend looking for a wizard (who will be equally frustrated at Root holding poorly, which Tashan helps with). Another enchanter is easy to find too, but it can be complicated getting both pets into the fight, as neither of you have Root yet. Spell Lineup: 2-Suffocating Sphere, 3-Color Flux, 5-Mesmerize, 7-Tashan, 8-Swap slot. (Again, memming times are still rather long, so Strengthen, Mircyl's Animation, Haze, and Minor Shielding can be left memmed all the time. You've got room still. While 7th will be a challenge to reckon, you will eventually reach the Third Circle, I promise. |
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