On Thu, 12 Oct 2000 11:40:19 -0700, jhenders@... wrote:

>[Thought this question might lead to some good discussion]
>
>I think there's a heck of a lot of difference between an e-bay twink and
>a character who's played to 50+ switching to another character. And
>especially a bard, who's probably in the best position to watch how
>other's play their characters. Assuming some intelligence in the
>person involved, I'd say the 2 harders characters to pick up would be
>the cleric and the enchanter myself. I've run across L50+ enchanters I
>know played those entire 50+ levels themselves who still aren't very
>good. At the same time, I've played in guild groups with one of our
>enchanter characters played by a cleric who was excellent.

Would have to agree. I think I can make a good effort at being an
enchanter since I've been watching them at work for a long long time
and mostly wishing I, as a bard, could be even a fraction as
effective. Now, as my sig suggests, I've taken it seriously and
become an enchanter for real.

>To introduce another possible discussion point, the most noticable thing
>I've noticed about enchanters I don't consider very good is that they
>seem to stun less. The enchanters in my guild always seem to stun first,
>sometimes twice, before going to mez. This seems to allow them to keep
>way more mobs mezzed than other enchanters I've played with. Anyone else
>notice this? I have a rl friend on another server who has a 50+
>enchanter who said she doesn't use stun much because she's paranoid of
>the through walls and ceiling problems with AoE spells in dungeons. The
>only time I've seen this be a problem for our guild enchanters was on
>the first isle of Sky where the AoE stun brought the quest mobs up from
>inside the island (twice, we still don't let him forget that one). It
>sure served to show how ingrained the stun first, mez later habit was
>with him though.

To me the stun is extremely extremely extremely important. In fact I
can't say that enough. There are 2 key stuns for me as an enchanter
at level 20 and above ... colour flux (lvl 4 - 4 sec stun) and colour
shift (lvl 20 - 6 sec stun). Colour skew (lvl 44 - 8 sec stun) is yet
another upgrade. All are AOE.

The key to mezzing when something is hitting you is to stun with the
very fast casting lvl 4 spell, then immediately cast the lvl 20 spell.
This then gives you enough time with everything about you stunned to
cast your mez spell off and you don't need to rely on channeling to
get through an interrupt.

I actually found this to be very obvious and I'm surprised more people
don't use it when I watch them. A lot of enchanters I've seen rely on
getting only the longer stun off, but I've found it easier to do the
short one first, then the longer one, then mez. The mana cost is just
insignificant.

Anyway, enough said ... this isn't an enchanter list after all =)

--
Melaniel, Wood Elf Bard (48)
Expert bard, novice brewer, hardened drinker and terrific flirt!

Kalara, Dark Elf Enchanter (35)
Dying at a venue near you soon