ToxicChicken wrote:Updated for b41.
First, please accept my most sincere gratitude and respect for creating the Illusionist class and even more for continuing to improve it and always making certain that it's upgraded for the latest beta. I have played with it since b38 and next to the Archmage, Illusionist is my other favorite class. It nicely covers the shadowy mysterious part of the magic user archetype, next to Archmages fiery destruction spells, Alchemist's craft and Necomancer's power over death. So it is my hope that one day darkgod will include it as one of the main classes.
It even fits into the back-story perfectly. Along with the other "socially acceptable" mage type, the Alchemist working with their potions and crafting, Illusionists can be "just" the stage magicians and fortune tellers, hiding under the plain sight under the protection that it would be just too silly to put those "harmless" tricksters on the same category as the great sorcerers who caused the Spellblaze. If you are not to attached to the name you could even change it to "Magician", but that is not really important for me.
But now onto constructive criticism. If I sound too demanding or presumptuous, then please excuse it as simply an overeagerness because of something that you created that has become very fun, entertaining and dear to me.
First, why is Illusionist sad and alone under its own category? Wouldn't it make more sense to but him under Mage, like Goblinz put his/her Death Knight under Defiler? But that is really nitpicking, just thought I would mention it.
Second, is Illusionist a pure mage or one with a minor in rogue? Because now you have included the traps tree as a
class tree, meaning that Illusionist now has two rogue cunning trees,
both locked. If you want Illusionist to be a hybrid a little, I recommend that you unlock Cunning/Survival and set it to 1.00. at minimum. And why is Cunning/Trapping 1.00 when it is a
class tree and the next lowest class tree is Divination with 1.20 with all the rest being 1.30? (and why is Divination not 1.30 too? Does the Illusionist not perfectly fit the fortune teller archetype?)
About Parlor Magic. Alakazam
costing 70 mana for two little bunnies is absolutely bloody ridiculous! It's supposed to be the most basic trick of a magician! So, either please give us more bunnies with a much shorter cooldown or greatly reduce the mana cost. On second thought, reduce the mana cost even if you do, I mean much, much more useful Eldritch Touch is only 30! Abracadabra made more sense when it was a quick heal not a regen. I mean "Woila! I was injured, but *flash* now I'm suddenly totally fine!" fits a lot more as a magician stage trick, you could even make it cure some "cosmetic" status effects like bleeding. Presto Chango finally has a sane starting range, very good.
Mentalism. If you are going to replace one of the only two original direct damage spells with something like Hypnosis, then please make it more useful than just reducing will and mental save. In my opinion, only reducing resistances to charm, confusion and whatever that laughing effect is, in preparation for your spells that use those effects, would redeem that spell. I recommend that you make the ultimate skill of the tree - Terrifying Visage - work kinda like the old Traumatize, reduce the mana cost, make it
always affect physical damage and additionally a stun
if it passes the check, in that order. Because a reliable damage spell is better than some psudo "über" mind attack that you can't use on anyone that matters.
Shadow Weaving. Constricting Eldritch Touch is fun and tactically useful, but since the spider summon is gone now and some people where used to playing the Illusionist partly as a summoner, I recommend you reduce the cooldown for it. Or at least reduce the cooldown with each point added into it, to motivate people to invest more than one into it.
Glamer. I question the choice of not letting charm affect the undead or summoned beings, I always saw charming them as replacing their summoner for them, taking over that connection, "hacking into it". So that they technically don't have their own minds is not automatically an obstacle because of lore. I would also rather have the Mass Charm back, than this Hideous Laughter, because my damage spells are now too nerfed to be reliable for wiping out even debuffed mobs, so I would have to rely on them doing it to themselves with Charm. I also question the wisdom of removing Silent Casting. Afflicted have their Relentless talent that gives them resistance from confusion, stun/freeze, fear and knockback. A talent that would give the Illusionist resistance for only
one effect, is not gamebreaking. It made Illusionist different from an Archmage to me, less powerful, but harder to render helpless with silence.
Now some critical points about defensive options. Illusionist has always had not enough defense in my opinion and now you have removed both Invincible
and Displacement Shield. So what has Illusionist left for defense? If you were willing to spend 10 points and combined Blur Sight and Defensive Posture (that now has a sane sustain cost) you can have some defense, especially ranged defense if you combine it with the new Dark Shroud (another 5 points needed just for the defense stat), but lets be honest here, even that defense would not be high enough to protect against archers, rogues or higher level melee fighters. So that leaves Premonition, that when maxed out, will take away about fifth out of
one of the element you are getting attacked with. And... that's it.
Sure, you have added Dark Shroud, but resistants against only darkness is pretty much useless and your ranged defense is never going to be high enough, as a mage that does not put points into dexterity, to matter and that's the
only original class specific defense you are leaving to you poor class!
My recommendation:
1) Totally revamp Dark Shroud. Although damage it does is useless, black tendrils of darkness doing damage makes much more sense than Phantasmal Shield doing it, so keep it. Now make it have great resistance to darkness
and light and a small global resistance, because it
is a mass of magic darkness between you and everything. Then you can make it work like the Doomed Deflection shield, let it slowly gather a small shield in time that needs time again to get back up, when damaged. Of course, for all of that, you should probably greatly increase the sustain cost, but then it would at least be something worthy of its price, not an useless and
only original defensive sustain. Then you could also rename it into something more beautiful, like the Cloak of Midnight or something.
2) I also recommend making a second defensive sustain. Illusionists are thematically connected to mirrors (as in "smoke and mirrors", you could actually name it that, if you can't think of anything better) so you could make something like the Defiler Bone Shield, you would have three mirrors circling around you, each absorbing one attack before breaking. For added fun, if the attack is a beam of lets say light, darkness or arcane, they could also reflect it back before breaking. That second defensive skill would be the "light" one that would thematically balance out the "dark" Dark Shroud, because Illusionist with its Dazzling Lights and Shadow Weaving seems like a Light-and-Dark-balanced class, like Anorithil, to me.
Now about offense. You have removed Traumatize, so, discarding the Staff Combat tree, that is good as a backup sidearm at best, you have only left us two attacks, both light and in a world overpopulated by Luminous Horrors, that's
not a good thing. Also now you have made the cooldown of Dazzling Lights bloody increase, when investing into it. I'm sorry but that really seems like almost a mockery to me, a player should not be
punished for investing in a skill, there should not be a situation where the wise action could be to
not invest into a skill, even if you have the points to spare.
So, don't make Dazzling Lights cooldown
increase and either bring back Traumatize or turn Terrifying visage into something like that as a reward for fully investing into Mentalism tree. You could even make Dazzling Lights into something like the Prismatic Spray from D&D, dealing a little damage from each damage type and fabulously colored like a rainbow!
Or you could make that attack an ultimate of the Legerdemain tree, instead of Mislead, that we can already have as a Lure trap now for an Illusionist.
It seems that most of the things in the offensive front that have made Illusionist into a better and more fun class, have come unintentionally from darkgod. Like Illuminate starting to cause damage and Command Staff giving you some well needed versatility. I know that Illusionist is meant to be a class that takes things down indirectly, but he still need
something to help finish of the enemies. You seem almost afraid to give it any offense at all, why? Because if I suddenly find myself facing Luminous Horrors, Undead or summoned beings, then what is there left for me do? I can't even Teleport away anymore.
Now about Conveyance and teleports. Not only can't we no longer have Displacement Shield and with no alternatives to it given, we no longer have Phase Door and Teleport. While Shadow Walk is a satisfying replacement for Probability Travel, Transposition and Presto Chango are
not for Phase Door and Teleport. So my advice: give it back, locked. That way there would be three locked trees, like some classes (like Anorithil) have for minimum (if you followed my advice and unlocked Cunning/Survival): Cunning/Trapping, Shadow Weaving and Conveyance. Yes, you could use the argument that Illusionist has too many teleports, but that's like saying
that Archmage has too many damage spells. Teleporting around the battlefield is just something that Illusionist does. Yes, it gives a lot of escape options, but in a situation where Archmage could make a stand, Illusionist would be forced to bravely run away anyway, so I think that it's more than fair.
Should you take my advice and bring back/replace some spells, then in my opinion the most expendable (from most to least useless) are: Clarity, Doppelganger, Hypnosis, Hideous Laughter, Terrifying Visage, Mislead and Transposition.
In conclusion: The latest version of the Illusionist is unacceptably nerfed, so please most importantly:
1) Bring back Conveyance, locked (and maybe unlock Cunning/Survival, if you want to make Illusionist more like rogue), don't replace any tree with it, just add it to the list.
2) Give us back a direct damage spell that
does not only do light damage.
3) Give us some actual original defensive sustains (Dark Shroud shows promise, but is too weak), two at least.
4) Stop
punishing us for investing points into one of the two damage spells that we actually
do have: Dazzling Lights.
5) And really most importantly, make the cute bunnies cost less than 70 mana!
If you actually took the time to read this wall of text and at least gave a thought or two to my proposed improvements, then you have my gratitude.
