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The high elf standing beside him was eerie; quiet, reclusive, and competent. He rarely spoke, and when he did it was only quick mentions of facts that Loraax was quite aware of, but could not find reason to tell the enchanter he shouldn't say it. The halfling warrior pulled a bit of gummy muck from his blonde beard, and felt a hastening magic envelop his reactions and muscles, and the world around him seemed to move in slow motion suddenly. In long, overdrawn syllables, Xornn sat back down and said, "The fighters are hasted." Loraax shook his head with a sigh as the barbarian next to him concurred with the enchanter. Master of the obvious. Then his attention was drawn by his true calling, gnolls emerging from the cave entrance, deep in the plains of South Karana! "More gnolls to die by Rallos's fury!" he screamed as the halfling through a dagger across the grassy terrain. The blade missed, but drew the attention of the doggish patrolmen who came charging. Before they reached them, one of the two stopped dead in his tracks as bluish energy ensorcelled him. The other kept charging, only to meet the sweeping pass of Loraax's mighty velium blade as it howled out in pain. "You should have run, dog..." taunted the halfling, as Xornn dropped the beast's movements to a crawling pace that Loraax found quite unsporting. "Slowed, and the other is mezzed," reported the koada'dal, sitting back down by his tree. Master of the obvious, but at least competent. Welcome, Disciples, to the Seventh Circle. I'll waste no time with social bantery. You're here to see the spell upgrades I spoke of--behold: Alacrity - Upgrade to Quicken, capping at 40% by 36th. 115 mana for up to an 11 minute duration. The mana cost may look disturbing, but the sheer number of attacks this grants makes it all worth it. Even at level 24th, your pet (taking 2 swings every "tic" and kicking and bashing constantly) goes from 40 attacks to 50 attacks. Hitting for an average of 13 an attack, that's 130 damage per minute of combat, that will last two or three fights. Beguile - Upgrade to Charm. Max level able to charm now is 35. Casting time of 3.5 seconds; Color Shift will be required to stun for recharming now. Chaos Flux - Upgrade to Sanity Warp, 143 damage at 24th, capping at 150 by 28th. 100 mana cost, 3.5 second casting time, and that horrid 8 second recast delay still. Compared to other Seventh Circle nukers, Enchanters are beginning to fall behind in the mana:damage ratio still, but especially in the damage:second department, as casting this spell repeatedly yields another 150 point bomb 11.5 seconds after the first lands. Enchant: Gold - Turn a gold bar into an enchanted one for Jewelcrafting. Illusion: Earth Elemental - Raises your STR 10 and makes you Kill on Sight to most guards (all elemental forms do). Also makes you Dubious in many places, such as Runnyeye (not to the Evil Eyes, however). Illusion: Skeleton - Turns you into a skeleton (doesn't show your name) and you have no special vision. Faction changes with some undead, and you can walk around Befallen safely, nearly all mobs will be non-aggro. Invigor - Stamina regen, short duration. If you are partnered with a tank, actually keep this spell memmed to renew their staminar bar during long fights. Research spell with Velishoul's Tome pages 16 (faded) and 17, or obtain from Cleric guild. Major Shielding - Upgrade to our self-only buff. +75HP, +18AC, +14MR at 28th. 80 mana for a 45 minute duration. Keep on at all times. Rune II - Upgrade to Rune I, obviously, targetted HP buffer, stops up to 71 damage at 24th, capping at 118 damage by 30th. Needs a 5 gold Bloodstone for component, only use occasionally when buffing newbies, or dropping on the puller. 5 gold becomes pretty trivial fast, and this spell will see a little use, but not much. If you have a healer for the puller, don't bother. However, in solo situations I often keep this spell buffed, as mana for a rune comes back a lot faster than HP. Sagar's Animation - Upgrade to our animation, a scimitar and shield now. You're back to using only 1 Tiny Dagger, and during my testing I saw maximum damages of 16 to 26. Each pet spell rank, the lowest and highest max damage typically increase by 2. This animation will Bash, Kick, and Double Attack almost every round. Truly amazing damage machine now. Strip Enchantment - Upgrade to Cancel Magic. Very powerful spell. Strips up to 4 buffs off your target, either a mob or group member. Useful when fighting mobs with damage shields, or removing Charm from one of your party members. Sometimes requires multiple castings. In PvP, lead off with this spell to kill SoW and most other buffs anyone will have. This will remove mezzes, so be careful with it. (Research spell with Tasarins Grimoire Page 390 left & right.) Tepid Deeds - Upgrade to Languid Pace. Cuts mob attack speed by 32% at level 24, capping at 50% by 60th. However, you receive the next upgrade at 44th, so at 43rd this spell is increasing the attack delay of the mob by 42%. Doing a 38% slow debuff means that a mob swinging 40 times a minute will swing14 times now on a 4.14 second attack delay. Casting between swings becomes child's play, your pet lasts much longer soloing, and the damage tanks take is drastically reduced, while you calmly meditate in preperation for renewing Alacrity. Research spell with Velishouls Tome pages 8 & 9. Taking a look back, you might notice something about these spells: Eight of the twelve new spells are not only upgrades, but upgrades to spells we use commonly. The Seventh Circle is an awesome transition. Buffing-Solo - You should have Breeze/Sympathetic Aura/Cloud/Major Shielding (Strengthen optional), and Mr. Kamikaze should have Strengthen/Cloud/Alacrity. Buffing-Group - You need Breeze/Sympathetic Aura/Major Shielding, Breeze on all casters, and Strengthen/Cloud passed out to tanks that need it. You should have some really good CHA gear by now, and if not start getting it. Crowd Control, Stun-Locking, and even Chase the Moon are CHA based, and Beguile is going to start seeing some group usage by now if you haven't started already. Kamikaze-Solo - I'm going to lump Kamikaze-Root and Kamikaze-Stun into one group now, since the only difference is whether to stun-root-nuke or stun-stun-nuke. I prefer the latter to keep my pet healthy and keep me occupied during the recast delay on our nuke at this rank, but as mobs begin hitting harder and harder I started moving back to rooting later on. Tashani to pull, Tepid Deeds replaces Languid Pace if you're Root-Nuking, and Chaos Flux replaces Sanity Warp. At this point, you will be using the same spells I use in the Eighth Circle. If for some reason my pet should die and I want out of the fight, I mez, sit down and memorize Memory Blur. When using Kamikaze-Stun, I keep Alacrity here, and swap it out for buffing. When I'm fighting a mob that can't be stunned, Color Shift is replaced with Tepid Deeds and I switch to Kamikaze-Root. (I always have Color Flux memmed, however, in case something else attacks me.) Recently, I began combining them slightly, by dropping Tashani to pull, Flux/Shift/Root, then Flux/Shift/Nuke repeatedly. The reason for this is that I can leave my pet closer to the mob than myself, and the mob swings at my pet during the gap in the lock rather than me. This helps keep a fast-swinging mob from breaking out of the stun-lock as easily, and also makes switching to Root-Kamikaze very easy. Spell Lineup: Choas Flux, Sanity Warp/Choke/Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot A Word (or 319 words) on Chain-Nuking From level 16 on, the enchanter has a primary nuke (Sanity Warp) as well as a secondary "fall-back" nuke (Chaotic Feedback) which have some applications. First, and most obvious, is a "finisher" nuke when the mob is almost dead, but just won't quite die. Rather than firing off a full-strength blast, it is often more advantageous to just fire in a downgrade nuke to take that last little sliver of health out. The second use is for a "filler" effect between recast delays. Example: At 24th, you have Chaos Flux and Sanity Warp available for chain-nuking. You are out for a lovely day of Kamikaze-Solo. You spot a lion that you feel needs killed, and drop into battle mode. Tashan pull, Mr. Kamikaze step in, Languid Pace, and you chuck in a Chaos Flux. As the lion rushes you a quick Root and you step back. Another Chaos Flux cascades into the lion, and you're sitting there waiting for that horrid 8 second recast delay to cycle. Meanwhile you hear some sickening crunching noises coming from the direction of your pet, who is doing its best to show off it's lack of defensive tactics. (Probably been watching its master's melee tactic--take it on the chin.) Casting a Sanity Warp during the recast allows you to do some positive damage, shortening the fight, and keeping your pet alive. Now at level 20 to 33, this will not be needed often, mainly because Color Flux, Color Shift and Chaos Flux are a perfect match, as the pet not getting hit is great. However, by the time you hit 34th, Color Shift is really hard pressed to cover Anarchy's casting time, so you almost have to switch to Root-Nuke style of play, and at that point you will be very thankful for having knowledge of how to chain nuke. As always, I leave it to my students to recognize the proper time to chain-nuke. Reverse-Kite-Partner - Chaos Flux replaces Sanity Warp, and you should keep Alacrity on your pet. Outside of that there is no real change to this technique. Spell Lineup: Chaos Flux, Choke, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Chase the Moon, Tashani, Swap Slot. Charm-Solo - Beguile just allows you to charm bigger and badder mobs now. Color Shift is needed over Color Flux (since Flux doesn't give enough time to re-charm the mob). Chaos Flux replaces Sanity Warp, but other than that it's the same tactics as the first. The great thing about Charm-Solo is that it's the same method at level 12 as it is at 44th level. Spell Lineup: Chaos Flux, Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall/Mesmerize, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot (Because you won't be very good at channeling Color Shift yet, it's recommended to put Beguile either in the Chaos Flux or Swap (ususally latter) slot, so you can lead with Color Flux for the recharm.). Group-Tactics - Your role in groups is clearly defined at this point. After the buffing guidelines above, you have two real jobs: First, you must do crowd control, of course. Then you either Tashani/Tepid Deeds (which has an amazing impact on the fight), or if a single mob stun-lock when mana is surplused. Tepid Deeds uses 100 mana, while stun-locking for two "rounds" uses 120 mana. It is unlikely the stun-locking will go past two rounds (the mob will die by then) and the tanks will have taken practically no damage. Spell Lineup: Mesmerization, Color Shift or Beguile), Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot (Beguile) You've probably noticed that these Circles have become short and sweet facts and recommendations, as opposed to long and drawn out explanations from earlier. The reason for this is because you've now been shown basically every tool the enchanter has from the Sixth Circle on. Now I'm just pointing out the upgrades to those tools and letting you know which are good, and which are lemons. You are only five levels from Clarity. Go seek knowledge and experience, young master. I await you in the Eighth Circle... |
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