This is a continuation of Xornn's Guide to Enchanting.

Note: This is a solid guide, but somewhat outdated in terms of efficiency of the way to kill things that Xornn recommends. For example, mobs generally do not resist enough to necessitate using a form of Tash on every mob. Slows are also not always necessary (for example, if you're using the highest possible level on your pet and you root rot the mob down to 50% or less before your pet goes in, your pet can usually handle itself just fine...so when summoning a pet just use Reclaim Energy until you get the highest possible level for your pet and you won't need to slow every fight (I usually just slow when it's a mob that's 1 level below me or above and it works out fine)). So make sure you take this with a grain of salt and crunch numbers/practice things in game to see what's actually needed in order to be the most efficient. Don't just follow the way Xornn says to do it as it's not always the best way.

Circles

There was a satisfying complaint of creaking leather as a pale, worn hand deftly undid the clasps of the tome and lifted the heavy, boiled leather covering. The bookbinding was woven from the strongest spidersilk in a tight and complex pattern through the heavy parchment contents. Each immaculate sheet carried a countenance of regality upon it, bestowed by mercury-etched runes among the hand-drawn edgework of the spellbook. Xornn traced a thin, weathered, pale finger along the gold and platinum trim of the binding, gently easing the tome fully open upon the massive oak slab table he stood before. With an exertion of mental will, the pages calmly passed over the binding and came to rest, left to right in sequence, turning the pages systematically as the old, tired high elf felt the memories of his life passing before him.

Chase the Moon. A long since forgotten smile took over the koada'dal's mouth and cheeks as he thought of the days of cyclops hunting in the Plains of Eastern Karana. The pages kept passing, the years continually skipping to and fro before him, flashing images of a life long in days.

Uleen's Animation. Xornn stared quite some moment at the conjuration, and felt a familiar weight on his shoulder, from a pack weighted down with weapons to weave into the spell. Xornn closed his eyes for a moment, reveling in the motion of life he recalled.

Illusion: Werewolf. That was the day Rhedd married him, just after boxing him on the ear for trying to stand at the alter in that snarling form. Xornn blinked several times, and nearly wept for the first time since he was twenty.

Each Circle of mastery signifies new powers, abilities, and possibilities--which will heighten your enchanting abilities with each passing rank. By the time you have reached the 12th Cirlce (a long and instructive journey), you will have a mastery of all skills and tactics available to the enchanter. The Circles beyond that (13th to 22nd) are high-powered upgrades to skills you already have by 12th, which is why this site focusses primarily on level 1 to 50. While the later Circles will see mention, I want to focus on the times before that, when you are truly learning.

1st Circle (1-3)

Leaving the cave entrance of Neriak behind him, Drekaar strode confidently passed the captain of the city guard and out into the dangers of Nektulos Forest. With a quick wave of his hand, he flung a ritually prepared dagger into the air as his magic gripped and molded the metal, stretching it to impossible lengths. An explosion of light and sound signalled the completion of the conjuration, and an animated sword and shield was floating in the air beside him.

"You'll have to do for now," exclaimed the dark elf with a bit of resentment in his voice. "Until I gain access to more powerful magics." With that Drekaar spun and let loose a short burst of constrictive alteration at a snake slithering by him. The seven-foot serpent quickly rushed toward him, the magic more inconvenience than threat. Drekaar readied his staff as the creature closed...

Once in the game, complete your newbie quest, and spend your first 5 skill points; I recommend you dump all five points into your weapon skill--Piercing if you have no money, and suggest One-Handed Blunt as soon as you can get one. Later on, as you start maxxing your melee skill before using all your practices, drop a few into Sense Heading to get it going better. You should be practicing Sense Heading any time you can, because you will come to love knowing which way your facing in the future.

First, let's look at your spells now:

Lull - First Aggro-Reduction spell, reducing frenzy/reaction radius to 15ft--when it works. I actually tested this spell intensively with a new enchanter once, and found it didn't resist badly at level 1. By level 3 it was up to 40% resists on the same level 1 mobs. *shrug* Anyway, it's definitely an optional purchase, extremely unreliable.

Minor Illusion - Turns you into an immobile copy of the nearest inanimate object. Kills Spirit of Wolf if you have it cast on you, and makes your faction Indifferent with almost all mobs. Good purchase for those with less than perfect faction, especially for a dark elf wishing to buy/sell in places like East Commonlands.

Minor Shielding - Self-Only buff that gives up to +10HP +6AC at 5th. You should always have this buff on in combat. Also the lowest casting cast Abjuration spell you get, tied with Tashan, both of which can be repeatedly cast to train your Abjuration. 27 minute duration, start play with it.

Pendril's Animation - Your first pet spell. Strategy and tactics with pets will be discussed later. Requires 1 Tiny Dagger as a spell component, and your pet is a rogue. Hits for decent damage with low delay, but has weak HP. They don't tank well--and can never be commanded. They just attack anything that attacks you. After a bit of research, I've compiled the damage you can expect from your pets. This animation will hit for a max of 8 damage, and this is will always /con as a level 1 pet. It will always hit for 8 maximum. I don't know the hit points of your pet, but it's never good, so don't rely on your pet to take damage for you very long.

Reclaim Energy - Used to unsummon your pet, and recover about 25% of the pet's casting cost in mana. Not worth using till about the 5th Circle, when your pet will cost 85 mana.

Shallow Breath - DOT. Max damage of 5, lowers STR & AGI by 5. You will get many upgrades to this spell, though it will see less and less use as you advance. At 7 mana, this is the cheapest Alteration available--cast it on yourself or your pet repeatedly to max your Alteration. Granted this isn't actually a DOT yet, but it's the first in the series. Start play with this spell.

Strengthen - Targetted STR buff. +10 STR for 10 mana by 6th level, and the only STR buff you'll have for a long time. Get used to casting it on everyone and everything if you wish to buff STR. There is an ATK bonus for raising STR, and 10 ATK raise will help you or your animation hit at this low of a level. 27 minute duration, recommended purchase.

Taper Enchantment - Targetted reduces the duration of top enchantment/buff on target. Will see little use as by the time you need something to remove enchantments, you'll have two upgrades. Not needed unless you're collecting.

True North - Spins you to face North. Is also the cheapest Divination spell at 5 mana. Cast repeatedly to train Divination to max, pick up to get prepped for PB stun series.

Weaken - First of the Weaken line, targetted debuff--lowers STR of target by 15 max at 10th level. Collector's spell.

Completing the First Circle is fairly simple. At first level kill white mobs by pulling with shallow breath and meleeing them. You will ding quickly. Save all money you make for your first spell purchase, Pendril's Animation. Once you are able to summon a pet, continue to melee, and your pet will act as a free "dot" since he just wails away on the mob. You can even back out of a fight for a moment, but don't let the quiet guy tank very long... he's a real wimp, just a damage factory. Always stand on the opposite side as your pet in a fight, because he'll hit more solidly from behind.

The next spell you should pick up is Strengthen, because you need to buff you and your pet with anything you can get. Continue killing blues and whites till you finish off this spell rank, and mobs such as Fire Beetles are wonderful for their loot. The remaining spells don't really matter as to order of purchase, save Minor Illusion, to allow you to be indifferent with all merchants when selling--this very often will allow you to not have to zone for a good selling price. Spell Lineup - (because you have so few spells, I'm going to list good places to put these spells in the future by slot number, so you're used to it being there later). 2-Shallow Breath, 8-Swap (Pendril's Animation); though for now, pet spell, Strengthen and Minor Shielding can go anywhere. Spells take so long to memorize you don't want swap slots yet. The spell listed in swap is the recommended spell you will be casting most often or at least find convenient to have memorized all the time.

Hoard your money for those fourth level spells, because you're going to need several of them...

2nd Circle (4-7)

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 (druids only get animal Fear unlike you). Just be sure to cast Tashan on the yellow mob to lessen possible Fear resist. 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.

3rd Circle (8-11)

Jakonis tried to concentrate, to hold his meditations calmly as the fight with the orcs flared around him in the lair of the Crushbone orcs. The calm his master instructed was broken and distracted by screams and sounds of melee in the distance, some three paces away. There was an alarming break in his control, and the high elf quickly rose to see a dwarven warrior, come to join the fight breaking apart the hypnotic

trance Jakonis had just draped over an orc.

"That's mezzed, damn you!"

As is true of most Circles, the enchanter gains a multitude of new spells again. Many of them will see large use for quite some time to come. At a glance we have:

Alliance - Increases your faction with the target's faction category. This will only shift you one faction level to the better at best, and if you are Dubious or worse, it's unlikely that you'll even manage that. Still this is a good way to sometimes take a merchant from Dubious to Apprehensive and be able to use them. Combined with Minor Illusion, you can actually get most mobs to Amiable. (My guess is that Minor Illusion is treated has having no class, religion, race, or anything, thus base faction modified by your deeds.) Now if only you could move like that.

Bind Sight - Utility spell that we get called weird for using. Allows you to see through your target's eyes. May be recast from new target, but the next destination must be in range of you (spell does not require LoS). Honestly I only use it to have fun. Drains stamina bar slowly and expires when stamina runs out.

Cancel Magic - As mentioned before, this is your first upgrade to Taper Enchantment. In PvP this may see more use... but I think I've cast it once, ever. Most spells I would cast it on (like Blind) don't last long enough to even make it worth it, or occur often enough to warrant memorizing the spell. Removes one spell effect on success.

Chaotic Feedback - Our first DD (direct damage)/stun spell. The damage is 43 to 48 (increases gradually) for 45 mana. At 8th level this is actually a decent ratio, but the recast delay is horrid at 8 seconds, and you had better get used to it. Our nukes will always be slow and poky to recover, and all the other casters will get more and more efficient with their mana. This spell is magic based, and a resist really blows because of the recast delay alone. Be sure to drop Tashan first. Honestly you will rarely nuke in group situations, except to stop runners, but you have another spell better for that. I kept it memmed all the time, but normally as a "if I toss this nuke <so and so> doesn't die" spell. Our nukes are very aggrovating to mobs, and will later be known as "Mega-taunts". This is because I have seen a wizard do over 610 damage to a mob with 4 nukes, while I plinked the mob with 150 damage and a split-second stun (from Chaos Flux), and when Root broke the mob charged me! The stun on this nuke is instantaneous, but it will interrupt casting every time. Kamikaze-Soloing blossoms with the addition of this spell to our arsenal.

Enchant Silver - Turns one silver bar into an enchanted silver bar. Pretty simple, really. Used to make Enchanted Silver Jewelry.

Eye of Confusion - Blinds your target for up to 18 seconds. If you blind a mob before fearing it, this will cause it to run erratically sometimes, but not slow it down any. This spell sees plenty of use in PvP I'm sure, but I have used it very little.

Illusion: Gnome - Shortest race in the game--usually goofy looking--gives infravision.

Illusion: Wood Elf - Shortest elf in the game--looks naked because they can't be enchanters--infravision.

Lesser Shielding - Self-only buff. +30HP +9AC +10MR by level 18 (when you will have a replacement spell, go figure). In many cases you will notice the AC raise you receive from spells is increased; I feel this is due to increasing Defense skill applifying the effectiveness of AC raises.

Mircyl's Animation - Next pet. Requires three daggers. This and all further pets are bought in Highpass Keep from Tarn Vislyn, an Erudite in the library. This animation hits for 10 to 14 damage now, and I'm not sure what levels they summon as--anyone want to offer that--and Bashes. Getting to be very good at shelling out fast damage.

Root - Amazing spell, still using it in the 51+ levels. Keeps the mob from moving--overwrites movement hindering spells like Snare or Clinging Darkness, and takes priority over Fear. (So a Rooted & Feared mob will behave as if rooted till it breaks, then run away.) Root costs 30 mana, last up to 48 seconds, and takes 2 seconds to cast (0.5 seconds faster than Mez). Combined with your pet and nukes, you really advance in your soloing ability with this spell. The target makes a save to break the effect every 6 seconds, or every time a direct damage spell effect lands on it. (Like our nuke or our DD/DOT/Debuff first landing.)

See Invisible - Allows you to see invisible mobs. Useful when keeping your party invisible, and also on PvP servers. Casting See Invisible on your pet will not keep him alive if you go invisble, and this spell does not make Shadowed Men visible.

Sentinel - For the longest time I have seen this spell as just amazingly annoying. It centers on the area you cast it (even if you move) and continues to notify you of any an all movement in that area. It surrounds anyone triggering it with mana flashes, and you have a constant mana flash around yourself as well while the spell is going. If you're near the area of effect, you also hear a constant spell noise. This spell cannot be turned off, and lasts around 5 or 10 minutes. I cast it off the end of a dock when waiting for the boat by myself so I can run errands in town, and I also discovered that you get faction hits from mobs that dies in the area of effect. (Was discovered accidentally at an orc camp.)

Soothe - The upgrade to lull. If there were two mobs at an orc camp and I wanted only one at this level, I just mez one. The other one charges, the group fights it. I've got 24 seconds till I re-mez or they pull it. I have never cast this spell--not even once.

Okay, the first, and most boring thing you need to do is raise your Evocation. Chaotic Feedback is the first spell you have of this type, and getting it to at least 20 is my recommendation if you don't want to sit around having a fizzle-fest. Your cap for 8th level is 45 in Evocation, and I reached that cap before proceeding. It takes a lot of nuking your pet to get there, but it's worth it when you never fizzle this mana hog.

Root and Chaotic Feedback, plus a pet upgrade really transform your ability to Kamikaze-Solo, by crossing it with a technique known as Root-Kiting.

Root-Kiting is what wizards and shamans do. You immobilize the mob so it can't move, then either nuke or DOT it until it's dead. If the Root breaks you renew it, and you keep this up till the mob is history. Enchanters do basically the same thing, except we have a pet to help out too. Mobs at 8 to 11th are getting to be too strong for you to melee anymore, so your pet is stuck doing all the work now. Unfortunately, the enchanter pet will always have terrible hit points, so you have to help him out a lot. When Kamikaze-Soloing now, here is the technique I advise:

You should have Strengthen/Haze/Lesser Shielding up, while pet has Strengthen/Haze

Open with Tashan, killing magic resistance and pulling the mob. Take a hit to put your pet in (I was calling him "the shiny guy" at this point in my career), then back out. Drop your DOT (Suffocating Sphere) on the mob if you like, though later on you're going to get out of this habit, then watch the fight a sec. Now toss on that nuke. Many times, the first nuke won't be enough to make the mob charge, so just wait for that ungodly recast, and toss another one. This time it will charge. I've never seen a mob take two without charging unless I let my pet really tear it up before nuking (meaning pet probably won't survive the fight). Now at this point, you have a very pissed off mob rushing you, and you must remain calm, because two things are happening right now:

1. Youre pet is wailing on the mob from behind. As a rogue, he actually does more damage to the creatures back consistently.

2. Your pet isn't getting hit. Sacrificing a little of your life for the team is what having a pet is all about.

But you don't want to take a pounding... when you are ready to let the pet take over the fight again, drop Color Flux (because you should be really good at timing the spell between attacks now), then take a step back while the spells ungrey, and drop Root as soon as you can. The mob will spin to face your pet again, and depending on how the fight is going, you can open up with the nukes again. What's important to do is try to outdamage your pet, because you get full xp for the mob if you do. Otherwise the pet gets half the xp--but it's better than no xp at all because you can't kill the mob. (In groups pets take no experience by the way.)

Using the Kamikaze technique with a wizard partner is also very sound. The wizard is quite familiar with Root breaking, and the two of you become quite adept at letting whoever isn't being charged renew the hold. Plus wizard nukes can get just absurd!

Finding a necromancer that wants a reverse-kiting partner is much more likely at this level, and finding a druid to reverse kite with is easy too. (They get Snare at 1st level.)

Now to complete 8 through 11th, you can solo like this, but I recommend finding an orc camp and sticking with it. You will learn a lot of valuable things about interacting with the other classes here, and discovering the strengths and weaknesses of the other races and classes. While grouped, keep Strengthen on all the members that will be meleeing, and Haze on the ones who are taking the main damage. The reason you don't Haze them all is mana-management... it's too much of a load to keep them all buffed. Shaman and Enchanter buffs rarely stack, and some Cleric buffs clash with ours as well--so learn what spells you need to add in those cases. Every single pull, land Tashan on the mob, followed by Suffocating Sphere. If you like, you can drop Enfeeble, and there is an effect on the damage, but it's not drastic, and rarely worth the mana. Dropping a nuke on the mob that will finish it will save about the same amount of health lost, really, and frees up a spell slot, which you're probably beginning to see is getting very crowded when you have to choose only eight spells from our thickening spellbook.

Your real time to shine is on multiple pops. Mez one and the second will charge. (Called a mez-pull.) Your party has 24 seconds to kill the mob. Or, you just re-mez to start the clock over again. If there are three mobs it gets tougher but still isn't hard if your group cooperates. Mez one and two charge. The tanks intercept, and you mez one of the two they are on. As soon as the mez lands they back up (causing the non-mezzed one to follow) and begin fighting. Now you keep the other two mezzed. You can do some amazing things with mez, and this is the time to expirement, when a mistake won't necessarily get the party killed. For the most part, you'll be medding a lot, dropping Tashan and DOT on every mob, and nuking the bigger mobs to help finish them. As long as you've always got mana, everyone will love you when there's an extra pop that charges right into a mez.

You should keep a pet summoned, but I wouldn't let him go into combat unless you're on a single pull. If mez resists, your pet can buy you valuable time to let the party switch to the mob your pet is on while you mez the one they were fighting. (Since "the shiny guy" won't back out of the fight, and breaks mez.) Your pet is your bodyguard--not your personal tank. However--during a single pull where you would like your pet to be doing extra damage, or you're on the last mob of a series and need the extra damage the shiny guy puts out, Root the mob. By standing on the mob, it will swing at you (rooted mobs swing at the closest target, almost always). The attack will bring your pet into the fight, and only took 30 mana, as opposed to the large amount of nuking that might have been required otherwise. At the higher Circles, the chance to aggro a 27th level mob that the paladin is fighting involves using 100 to 200 mana in nukes, and the mob will not leave you alone after that without more casting. Or you can Root for 30 mana, take an attack that often misses anyway, and your pet is in.

Let me take a moment to explain why DOTs are going to see little use in the future. When you drop Suffocating Sphere on a mob, it will do 18 damage over the course of 12 seconds, so it's worth dropping onto a mob. But at the Fourth Circle you obtain Choke, which takes much longer to do it's full damage. If a DOT is only working on the mob for half it's normal duration, it's only doing half-damage. Therefore, it becomes more feasible just to use nukes if you want to contribute to damage. But at the Fourth Circle, you obtain your primary debuff line that you'll be using from now on... but more on that later. The other thing to bear in mind, especially when trying to outrace your pet, is that a DOT only counts as your damage for the first hit. All the rest of the damage is "un-named" and counts as from nobody. So the damage your DOT does is not outracing your pet. [Note: This has apparently changed! DOT damage is now considered assigned damage to you! This is a good thing, and makes DOTs feasible for outracing your pet finally!]

Spell Lineup: 1-Chaotic Feedback, 2-Suffocating Sphere, 3-Color Flux, 4-Root, 5-Mesmerize, 6- , 7-Tashan, 8-Swap Slot (6 is still left empty, so put whatever suits you there. The swap slot is now going to see use, just putting whatever buffs you need to cast into the 8th slot. One more level and you'll have a fairly standard spell lineup, and I'll explain the placement then.)

The Third Circle is an extremely important level for you, as it's when you truly begin learning to group. The orc camps and Kamikaze can take you all the way into 12th, and you find this is actually a very easy Circle to finish, as your spells are in their prime for the mobs you are fighting. As always, I suggest soloing steady blue mobs to avoid not only downtime now, but death. See you in the next Circle!

4th Circle (12-15)

Drekaar smiled. A smile of knowing, of power, of destiny... of evil.<

The orc beside him--his slave--was the first in a long line to be charmed. It was time to get started in moving along Innoruuk's rites of Hate.

Welcome to 12th level. You've done well and truly proven your commitment to Enchanting at this point. You have come very close to obtaining all of your spell lines now. This is also the last Circle you before you must begin the task of Research, so enjoy the following spells...

Bind Affinity - Sets new bind point for target group member. You can bind yourself virtually anywhere (save places like Timorous Deep), and anyone else in "city zones" such as Freeport, Highhold, Qeynos, The Arena, etcetras.

Charm - Here it is. The big dog. When you cast this, the target mob (max level 25) becomes your pet to command. NPC mobs hit much harder, have more hitpoints, and basically outweigh all PC pets in every way. If two mobs fight (one as your pet) and you slow the enemy, your pet should win the fight, though almost dead. Then you kill your pet for full experience. No class can touch our adaptiveness in soloing with this method, and few will encounter the excitement.

Dropping double-blues with little mana use and your full attention requires is a real rush. It's also extremely hazardous. While at a point and time I felt that Charisma was the end all be all of charming, my ways have changed, and Drekaar solos charm style with 85 Charisma.

Choke - The next in our line of DOTs. The DD caps at 20 by 16th; the Debuff is -10STR&AGI by 18th, and the DOT inflicts 12 damage every tic for 30 seconds (60 damage). This spell completes the duration in 36 seconds, netting 80 damage and some minor debuffing, as AGI decreases lower AC of targets.

Fights at this level are just starting to take 30 seconds, so this spell will do usually still do it's full effect. However, I often found that my primary debuff was a much better investment as at this point, and I'll cover that later. Our DOT stacks with Druids, but not with some Necromancer DOTs (their debuffing line). If you know the fight will last long enough for your DOT to do full effect, it is much more efficient than nuking--such as a Snare-Kite or Reverse-Kite situation with a druid--but if the DOT will not expire before the mob dies, don't bother wasting your mana on DOTs when a nuke will be just as mana-efficient. As one of the weakest damage-output class in the game, you really have to squeeze every last point of damage from your mana.

Ebbing Strength - Targetted STR debuff -25STR by 20th. As stated previously, even landing a full debuff spread in the higher levels only drops the damage your party takes by up to 35% or so. Our best debuff line we get (mentioned further down) will achieve the same effect as our current debuff spread with only one spell, as opposed to two or three casts, higher chance of aggroing the mob, and not landing all of them till the fight is half-over anyway. This spells sits tucked neatly in the back of my spells now--only to occasionally surface for a duel.

Enduring Breath - Target needs no air for 27 minutes. Spell regent is 1 Fish Scale. Useful if you spend a good amount of time underwater. I cast it once and awhile, but more of a utility spell.

Illusion: Dark Elf - You can get into Neriak, Grobb and Oggok now... time to rejoice! This will allow you to complete the Stein of Moggok quest now (covered later) as a decent source of income, as well as grant you access to the Neriak Library in Neriak--Third Gate, and gives you ultravision!

Illusion: Erudite - Turns you into the tall, dark-skinned High Men. No special vision, and only useful for faction adjustment, really. Because they can be enchanters your equipment will still show up.

Illusion: Halfling - Turns you into the wee-folk. Looks cute, and I like it in Rivervale so I don't have to duck to get in doors. This is one of the illusions only found in Erudin (possibly Neriak).

Illusion: High Elf - As I'm a high elf, I was accused of being weird for buying this one. Hey... I like having all the spells. Besides... it's funny to cast Illusion: High Elf when someone is trying to figure out what race you really are.

Still, this is not a make or break spell to have.

Kilan's Animation - The next pet, now an axe and shield! Uses only 1 Tiny Dagger again, and is actually a rather impressive pet. You're getting to the point that you should /con your pets to make sure you have a good one--Reclaim Energy will actually see some use here. Now you will see the animation hitting for 12 to 16 damage at most, bashing, plus getting in the occasional double attack--and its hits are considered magical! Truly our pets start turning into damage machines at this Circle.

Languid Pace - This is the greatest debuff line we get--Tashan line excepted--as it slows the target's attack speed down. At 50 mana this may seem really expensive at this level, but I assure you it's not. Casting Ebbing Strength and Choke is 85 mana, and will lower the damage the mobs inflict about the same amount, after both spells have landed. Languid Pace increases the mob's attack delay by 18% at level 12, capping at 30% by level 60, though by level 23 (the last level before the upgrade spell) you can expect a 24% increase to attack delay. This translates to a 3 second attack tic becoming 3.72 seconds! In other words, a mob that would take 20 swings at your pet in 60 seconds will now take only 16 swings! That means with one cast, 20% of the mob's damage is stopped.

This debuff line will make your pet last much longer in solo, make your party take less damage from the very beginning of the fight, and even buy you time to cast in between mob attacks. I cannot compliment this spell enough--learn to love it, because this spell is going to see a lot of use in the future.

Memory Blur - What an amazing spell this is. This spell has a ton of uses such as: preventing a killsteal (Memblur - Nuke), powerleveling (Memblur almost dead mob - they finish it), outracing your pet for damage (Memblur - Nuke), saving people from a mob chasing them (memblur period), stopping a fight you want out of, such as when your pet dies (Mez - Memblur). However, it's a matter of abandoning fights that memblurs apply to.

If you still plan to kill the mob, then mezzing and root are the tools to try. (Such as getting a mob off a healer or yourself.)

Mist - Upgrade to our targetted AC buff--capping at +8AC by 16th.

Serpent Sight - Gives your target Infravision (finally allowing Erudite enchanters to stop using illusions to see), and often cheers that human monk in the group up. Usefull utility spell.

Thicken Mana - Used to make Viscious Mana, required for Wu's Fighting Gauntlets. I know of no other use for this spell, and it's difficult getting the spell from Lesser Faedark at the Brownie city. You can use Alliance to get yourself non-KOS to the brownies then Minor Illusion once inside to gain access to the merchants.

Whirl Till You Hurl - As mentioned in spell lines, this is a post-nerf spell, which has been nearly ruined. It has some use in pulling a caster to keep it from opening with a nuke (as they won't cast if you run out of range before WTYH wears off or get out of LoS. Collector's spell really.

From this point on, rather than telling you what and where you should fight, or what spells to pick up, I'm going to only explain the changes to our various levelling

strategies.

Kamikaze-Solo - Now that you have Languid Pace, the battle is really going to change. You should have Mist/Lesser Shielding, and pet should have Strengthen/Mist. As you shouldn't really see any melee action at this point, I wouldn't bother Strengthening yourself. Always /con your pets, and try to re-summon till you get the best one possible. Make a chart of the max damage they inflict for their level, and you won't regret it. In the future it's the only reliable way to tell your pet's level.

Find your blue mob (I always fight blue mobs unless Charm-Soloing--and even then I suggest blues, but you can manage white/yellow if you're just really into dangerous fights), pull it with Tashan, as per usual. Take a hit, then drop Languid Pace on it. Your pet has a serious advantage already. As the fight progresses, nuke to assist your pet. If you get rushed Color Flux/Root to get out of the fight, and resume nuking. You need to do over half the damage to the mob for full xp. If you wish, you can begin Blur-Nuking to outrace the pet, but I find it's usually not worth it yet. There are very few mobs your pet can take without you nuking a fair amount still, but if you think your pet has done more damage than you during the fight, when it's getting low (leave time to cast) toss Memory Blur on the mob, then Chaotic Feedback. You will easily do half the remaining health to the mob, giving you full xp for the kill. I also refer to this Kamikaze-Solo as "Root-Kamikaze", as you develop a new method of pet-solo in the Sixth Circle.

Spell Lineup: 1-Chaotic Feedback, 2-Choke, 3-Color Flux, 4-Root, 5-Mesmerize, 6-Languid Pace, 7-Tashan, 8-Swap Slot. The 1st slot in my spell lineup is always my strongest nuke, 2nd is always my DD/DoT/Debuff, or else my secondary nuke for chaining. The 3rd slot is Color Flux till 49th, period. Same goes for Root and Mesmerize. The third through 5th slot are always going to be Color Flux, Root-spell, and Mesmerize-spell. The 6th slot is a situational "debuff", either an attack slow or fear. If neither of those are going to be cast, then the 6th slot is like an extra swap slot, usually a spell that I will cast freqently, but not as much as the first 2 slots. Mesmerization often ends up here. I keep spells 1-6 hotkeyed, making them easy to cast by just pressing a number. This is the reason Tashan is on 7th slot. I will cast it once per fight, usually to pull. I just just use the mouse for that. Color Flux, on the other hand, I just stab "3" to cast it, and because my movement keys are "E, S, D, F" I have to take my middle finger off of the forward key (E) to press Color flux. Since I need to be holding still to cast this works out. 8th Slot is the true swap slot from 12th on. Spells memorize fast enough now that you can just buff from this slot. As a side note, placement of spells in the spell-book is just as important. You need to be able to find your spells quickly. The first 7 spots in my spell book are the 7 I have memmed most commonly. Then the other 3 spots are for the most commonly rotated 6th slot spells. An attack slow is my current spell in the 6th slot by default, replaced with Mesmerize (for Mez Kiting after you have Enthrall in the 5th slot), Fear-spell (for Reverse Kiting) and Mesmerization (keeping the mezzes right next to each other). Page 3 & 4 is my buffs page. Anything that will go into my swap slot is memmed here, and this is the page I'm on most of the time. Page 5 is extra color stuns, most commonly used charm, etc. Page 6 is my pet spell and whatever Berzerker I lob on him, plus See Invis, Invis, and my dispell-spell. After that it's kind of a crap shoot and personal preference really.

Grouping - Dervish Cutthroats and Bandits are going to be very popular camps now, and your services are going to become much more sought after. Mez-pulling takes on a new facet with the addition of Memory Blur to your spell list, and here's how it goes:

Don't be afraid to pull for the group, honestly. If a single mob, pull with Tashan to kill magic resist right away, and let the tanks intercept it on the charge. If there are two, Mez-Pull and let the tanks intercept. Then, make your decision. If they can drop the pull quickly, just let the mez break in 24 seconds and they fight it next. If they are going to take awhile, then just Memory Blur the mezzed mob and make sure everyone is out of aggro range. It will forget all about being mezzed, and the party can take their time pulling it. In most cases, blurring will not be necessary yet, as you're not fighting rough enough stuff to worry about needing to re-mez.

Now, once your group is fighting a mob, there are only two spells you should consider throwing: Tashan, followed by Languid Pace. This single spell drastically reduces the damage the tanks are taking, and they will notice, trust me. Choke has the same casting cost, and will rarely be on the mob for full duration, thus rarely do full damage--however, this also means that Languid Pace won't be on for a drastic amount of time. Get a feel for it--if Choke stays on for 20 seconds, but never to duration, then Languid Pace probably won't help the fight much. If Choke goes to duration every time, Languid Pace is going to be a huge spell for lowering the damage to the tanks. However--Languid Pace usually doesn't aggro the mob to you, only has to be cast once, and lasts the whole fight. With most fights at this level lasting 20 seconds, Spell Lineup - Same as Kamikaze-Solo unless you use Memory Blur, which I left in Swap Slot.

Reverse-Kite-Partner - This applies to Reverse-Kiting with Necromancers and Druids. There is effectively no change to Reverse-Kite with necros, except that I recommend not using it. Just let the necro cripple movement, and you cripple attack speed, your two pets will destroy mobs. With a Druid, you Tashan, they Snare, you take hit and send pet in, then choose if you wish to Fear it. I usually do, but you and the druid will keep it agged easily, and your pet will still follow swinging. I like Fearing because it walks slow instead of running slow. Toss Choke then Chaotic Feedback. Landing Choke early in the fight is priority. I recommend the same tactic for the druid (DOT then Nuke), then the both of you should just let your pet and the DOTs do their jobs. When the DOTs wear off (if the mob isn't dead), finish with nukes, unless you think the DOTs will do close to full damage. Spell Lineup: Replace Languid Pace with Fear and you're ready to go.

Charm-Solo - Read Tactics--Charm for more on this--as charm soloing at 12th is the same as at 49th, just with bigger mobs and longer casting times. Spell Lineup: 1-Chaotic Feedback, 2-Charm, 3-Color Flux, 4-Root, 5-Mesmerize, 6-Languid Pace, 7-Tashan, 8-Swap(Memory Blur). This is one of the few levels I suggest Memory Blur in swap slot, as you may often find yourself unable to finish your pet and needing a break.

I have armed you with your weapons for this Circle. Go out and complete your training--you are becoming a master of your class now, and not many make it this far, actually. Upon reaching the Fourth Circle, you open up the final powers of enchanting, and become truly amazing; and desired in groups! The rewards are hidden, but fruitful to our profession, and I will see you again in the Fifth Circle!

5th Circle (16-19)

Xornn stood and concentrated. His brow furrowed as he tried to call upon the gentle touch of mana all around him. The effort was difficult--it felt unnatural, and his emotions kept getting in the way. Master Takk had always said he was too emotional. Even more upset now as his ego began to fight to the surface to argue

that point--emotionally charged, Xornn gave out a short curse.

"Try again, Xornn," exclaimed Rhedd, a look of concern on her face that she was trying to hide with a flippant smile. Xornn could read the beautiful fier'dal with ease, and she had never seen the young high elf find difficulty casting a spell. Xornn turned his back to her, partially from embarrassment, mostly out of anger--with failing. As her hand snaked out and gripped him by the elbow--more firmly than he though Rhedd was capable--and Xornn shot an icy glare over his shoulder at her, the mongrel dog warning the demure feline to watch where it played.

Then she smacked him--hard. There was an audible clap as her flat hand snapped him across the cheek, spinning him completely around to face her. His shrowded, dark blue eyes, trained veils of his character, failed. His body was in a near convulsion of war between shock and rage, and something more deep-seated... regret. "You want to give me that glare again!?" she demanded. "I'll sit here and slap you around if that's what it takes for you to look at me and not through me!"

Xornn was dumbfounded. Rhedd had never said a harsh word to him, ever in the years they had traveled together. Now the fierce druid stood here, a foot shorter than the high elf, but towering over him in stature. "I didn't... m-mean..." he stammered, but Rhedd interrupted him as she lunged into his chest, curled her arms under his back, and on her toe-tips pressed her soft lips to his own.

Whatever semblance of composure the high elf had, it was gone as their lips parted. Rhedd's eyes were bright and excited, but her cheeks were flush and crimson. After a moment of silence, she spoke softly, though a stone block may as well have fallen from the sky and landed on the hut beside them, as well as she cut the silence. "Now... cast."

Xornn needed a moment to remember what spell he was trying to cast. Her kiss was so unexpected, and already the high elf missed it. Just then, as he began clearing his thoughts, a cool breeze struck him--from within. And the floodgates of mana opened upon him--Rhedd smiled quietly at him, "About time you figured that out. Now come on, we're late for meeting the others." The wood elf turned on her heel and began running along the beach to the north, leaving Xornn standing dumbfounded to contemplate the meanings of lips pressed recently.

Take a moment to pat yourself on the back now. You have reached the transitional Circle now. It just keeps getting better from here on out. You now have access to all the tools of our craft, and I'm going to show you how to use them to maximum effectiveness. The Fifth Circle not only completes your line of spells, but leaves you holding many key upgrades which you will come to live and die by:

Breeze - That's right, patient ones, the first in the Clarity line, added when Ruins of Kunark was released. Increases mana regeneration by 2 mana/tic. Mana regeneration to the best of my research is like this: When standing, each "tic" you receive 1 mana. If you are sitting this number increases, I'm guessing to 3 per tic, like HP do (since HP are 1/tic standing also). When Meditating, you receive (Meditate / 10) per tic, or you Meditate level per minute. So at 16th, with a Meditate cap of 85, you receive 85 mana per minute of meditation. However, Breeze gives you 2 mana each of those ticks, whether your sitting, standing, running, or casting a spell. Breeze gives you 20 mana per minute, for 27 minutes, all at the bargain price of 35 mana. If you don't run with /roleplay on, expect a lot of requests for it. I never had this spell not buffed on me once I got it. (Bought from enchanter merchants in Firiona Vie or The Overthere strongholds.) When Breeze is buffed, you receive 3 mana/tic standing, 5 mana/tic sitting, and 10.5 mana/tic meditating. The effects of the clarity line are most visible when not meditating obviously, as Meditate truly dwarfs the mana regen of Breeze. However you see the difference over time still. A level 16 enchanter with 150 Intelligence has around 480 mana. It would take 57 tics for them to regen to full mana, or 45 tics with Breeze buffed. That means you saved 72 seconds, or 12 seconds per bubble of mana! When in a group, shaving 12 seconds of your regen time for a bubble of mana is a huge impact, especially when you need mana to re-mez!

Chase the Moon - Super-fear. Lasts up to 36 seconds, and I swear I cast this spell more than Breeze at this level. Has no recast time, unlike Fear, and resists less, holds longer, and any necromancer to see it in action suddenly likes reverse-kiting with enchanters! You will use this spell for a long time to come, especially when partnered with a druid/necro/ranger.

Disempower - This impressive debuff affects the target with -20STA -15STR -9AC cap by 34th. This spell sits near the back of my spellbook. I've explained the usefulness of debuffs already, and believe me I've tried both ways... Ebbing Strength + Disempower + Choke is about the equivalent of just casting Languid Pace, if that, and one of the debuff spread always resists. It's just not worth the time, the mana, or the spell slots taken up to memorize them all. Still, if there is someone else in the group to slow the mob's attack speed, lowering the mob's AC will help the tanks hit it. But attack slow should have priority. Researched from Tasarin's Grimoire Left & Right page 24. Also purchased in Shaman Guilds.

Enchant Electrum - Turns an electrum bar into and enchanted one for use with Jewelcrafting.

Enthrall - Upgrade to Mesmerize. For 50 mana, it holds the mob for 48 seconds. This becomes awesome in later levels as fights begin lasting for up to two minutes. I don't use Enthrall all the time, only when I know I need the mob to sit still for awhile. Will also be useful at higher levels, as it has no recast delay, unlike Entrance or Dazzle at 39th and 49th.

Identify - It's supposed to tell you stuff about Lore items. On the last page of my spellbook, and it's never worked on any Lore item I cast it on. To be fair though I only tried about four items..

Illusion: Barbarian - You're tall, blind, and have face-paint of some sort.

Illusion: Dwarf - You're short, have infravision, and have face-hair, regardless of gender. (Correction: Apparently only one female dwarf face has a beard.

Illusion: Tree - Just like Minor Illusion, you get fairly neutral faction with this illusion. Often times, Tree is better when there is nothing to turn into nearby, or you want to look inconspicuous while hiding. I stayed a tree for an hour in Mistmoore Castle one night while watching one train after another just trot by me, killing the poor bastard next to me who's invisibility broke.

Invisibility vs Undead - Very powerful spell, though I only use it to traverse across Kithicor Forest. Does exactly what it says, must target group member. For some reason, your pet classifies as undead too, because he commits suicide when you cast this. (After more checking, I've found this spell less useful. In dungeons of undead is very useful, but for the occasional wanderer you can't keep both invis and invis to undead up at the same time.) Maximum duration (random) of 27 minutes.

Levitate - Another very handy utility spell, requires a Bat Wing for spell regent. Mobs cross elevation slower than levitating people, so actually useful to flee in hilly areas. Allows you to stay above most water, and you drop slowly rather than plummet from cliffs. I use this spell in chasm areas, deserts, and crossing large bodies of water. Encumberance won't affect a levitating person as badly, either--but it's not a massive aid. Researched with Tasarin's Grimoire Left & Right page 23. You can also buy this in any Shaman guild.

Mesmerization - This is the big-dog. Area Effect Mez. The area is pretty large, and you need to just experiment to figure it out. The reason you need to discover the range well is because it's possible to catch yourself in the AE. No one in your party need worry, but catching yourself is very embarrasing. During dungeon-crawls, if the puller brings in 4 mobs, after they arrive and swarm around the tank, I target the tank, then fire off Mesmerization, and watch four "<mob> has been mesmerized." messages scroll up, followed by one yellow indication of mez breaking. (That's the mob the tank is fighting.) The rest of the mobs politely sit still for 24 seconds, at which point I re-mez them before it breaks and calmly return to meditating. This spell is what defines the enchanter as you advance through the Circles. Mesmerize, Enthrall, and Mesmerization do not stack, and you must let one expire before putting on another. For example, if you have been AE Mezzing three mobs, and you want to switch to Enthrall on them, you'd best root them or something while they're under the AE mez, and when the effect breaks quickly Enthrall them. I recommend just layering the AE mez on until there's only one mob. You want to have a massive CHA for doing crowd control in groups, as mezzing four mobs at once leaves you very likely to get a resist on one, which means you have a pissed off mob trying to show you how much he appreciates you trying to stun him. This can be bad, and learning to calmly Color Flux/Enthrall that mob becomes critical to you not dying, quickly. Researched from Tasarin's Grimoire Left & Right page 26. You must research this one folks. See below for notes on researching.

Quickness - We got Languid Pace to start off the attack speed debuff line, and now you have Quicken to start of the the attack speed buff line. Starting out at 28% haste at 16th, and capping at a 30% increase to attack speed by 20th, you will quickly find your pet shines with this buff on. (The actual formula EQ uses for this is somewhat of a mystery, but with a pet swinging 40 times per minute normally, Quickness will give 12 extra attacks in that time period! 30% attack speed increase is literally a 23% decrease in attack delay, changing from 3.0 seconds to 2.3 seconds.) Only has a duration of 11 minutes, but it's well worth the cast on your pet or tanks, and will become vital to every group. With a group that has three tanks, keeping Quickness on all of them, swinging 2.5 times every 2.5 seconds (180 attacks per minute, 60 per tank) will result in 54 extra attacks! With a mana cost of 80, for 240 mana every ? minutes (it's a duration that increases as you level, just time it) you've just added a 4th tank to the group that never needs healing! That's indirect damage at its best.

Rune I - This is a targetted damage absorber. It will cause the first 27 damage the receiver takes to be absorbed at 16th capping at 55 damage by 21st level--though it will not prevent stuns and interrupts--before the shield fades. You need a Cat's Eye Agate to fuel this spell, and quite frankly mobs do 55 damage in two swings at this level. It's really not worth it to use in most cases. But some enchanters keep it memmed in their "swap slot" (usually the eighth slot, where you mem your different buffs for casting, and frequently change the spell--enchanters are the only class that truly needs a swap-slot) to drop an emergency rune when the Cleric is trying to heal. However, I don't mean to write this spell off. During soloing, that Rune will often last two or three fights, and your loot off one mob will usually cover the cost of the gem. I wouldn't drop it on the pet, but it's worth considering putting on yourself, as that's hit points you don't normally have.

Sanity Warp - We finally get our upgrade to Chaotic Feedback! This spell starts off at 88 damage for 75 mana, and finishes at 95 damage by 23rd level. More efficient that Chaotic Feedback, it has a our magic-induced stun attached, and also has a casting time of 2.75 seconds, with a recast delay of 8.0 seconds. Still, it's an improvement that was sorely awaited, and only wizards and mages are nuking out of our league at this point. This spell is a heavy-duty taunt, especially compared to most classes' primary nuke. It's a side-effect of the stun.

Shalee's Animation - Axe and shield still, needs 2 Tiny Daggers to cast it. I've seen this pet hit for 12 to 20 damage now--I've been informed that the 16th level pet hits for 20, leaving a level range of 12th-16th level--and double-attacks much more commonly now! It's strikes (and all pets from 12th on) are magical, and combined with Quickness you will just shrivel at the damage it can put out. The hit points are nothing to celebrate though, so get used to making fights either very fast to keep your pet alive, or find a way to keep it from getting hit. I highly recommend resummoning pets till you get a good one now (18 to 20 point hits), as Tiny Daggers aren't expensive--however as long as you get 16 or better (fairly common) you should be alright.

Shielding - The next in the line of self only buffs all pure casters get, +46HP +12AC +12MR at 16th, capping at +50HP by 20th, and +14AC by 21st level. Really getting impressive now, and you should always have it buffed, 50 mana to cast and a 36 minute duration.

Before preparing to level, you should do the following:

If solo, you should have Breeze, Mist, and Shielding up, and your pet should have Strengthen, Mist, and Quicken. You'll need to keep Quicken in a spell slot most likely, as you'll be renewing it a lot. Optionally, keep Rune I up on yourself all the time if you might get hit. That little buffer can really come in handy.

When grouped, plan on keeping Breeze on all casters at all times, and Quicken on the tanks, this mana load may seem prohibitive, but it's the most efficient way for you to affect the combat--mana regen and haste effects are the enchanter's realm of mastery, and you should start getting used to throwing out short duration, high casting cost haste spells repeatedly. I suggest getting some sort of timer to keep at your computer for timing when you have 1 minute left in the haste duration. Strenghten and Mist will need to go around as usual, though there's usually someone else to handle those buffs if your group has any size at all. It's hard to discipline yourself to keep Mist and Shielding on yourself at all times, but when that resisting mob rushes you after a mez gone bad, you won't regret having taken the time. If mana is tight, Mist can fade, but Shielding is a must.

One thing you need to learn now; if you're not casting or targeting, you need to be meditating. Always. Mana management is what you're going to have to get very good at as you progress in levels, especially when you're out of mana, you just enthralled the stray mob that can kill you in ten seconds, and the group is taking another two minutes to kill the current mob. You have to find the mana to re-enthrall that puppy at least two more times, and the only way to do this is meditate and watch those mana-tics, 6 seconds a tic. When you hit 6 tics, stand up and re-mez, then drop down and start watching. If you time it right, you can even sit again before the next tic. Every 36 seconds allows you time to recast on a resist, or to let the party know you're about to need some serious assitance. Okay, enough of this, on to the strategies, the most familar ones first:

Kamikaze-Solo - The animation just keeps doing more and more damage. (I was calling him Mr. Quiet Guy at this point.) Tashan pull, Languid Pace, and your Quickened pet proceeds to just wail on the thing while you lob in Sanity Warps. Color Flux/Root is a wonderful tool to get the mob attacking your pet again, and outside of Quicken making your pet do more than its already impressive damage output, Kamikaze-Solo doesn't see much change. Spell Lineup: Sanity Warp, Choke, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Languid Pace, Tashan, Swap Slot

Reverse-Kite-Partner - Replace Fear with Chase the Moon, and upgrade to Sanity Warp for the nuke. Pretty much the same drill otherwise. Reverse-Kiting blues is a joke with a partner, as you and your pet could handle that easily; however, if you can find a steady supply of blues, you will see about the same xp because of low down-time as opposed to white/yellow mob, which are also viable options. Spell Lineup: Sanity Warp, Choke, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Chase the Moon, Tashan, Swap Slot

Group Tactics - I've covered all of your roles in group--AE Mez is the huge change to the battle plan. Note that having AE Mez doesn't mean the party should depend on it; it means that you can take 3 to 5 mob pulls. Remember that when mobs resist you are the first to get attacked for it. Demand that the healer keep you at full health all the time, and anyone able to Root/Snare/Stun is responsible for helping you gain control of stray mobs. Landing mez on a pissed off mob is possible, especially with Color Flux--but what if it resists that? Not to fear because the wizard just rooted it for you so you can drop Enthrall on it and get back to medding. In situations where you don't have several mobs to mez, you drop that Languid Pace and meditate, because you need to always be raising your mana back up. Try to stagger your buffing, say dropping Quicken on the tanks, next Breezing everyone, then after the next pull dropping Mist around if needed. That way you can manageably keep the buffs on people without having to hold up the pulling of the group while they wait for you to get mana. I usually buff myself before buffing the party (unless something like Quickness) so that when it starts flashing on my screen I know it's time to refresh. The tanks love it (as well as the casters) when Quicken stops flashing before they can inform you it's fading. With a spell like Quicken that has a a short duration, just get used to how many pulls it lasts, and have them send you a /tell when time to renew if you haven't caught it, or keep an egg timer or something nearby set to 1 minute minute before in will fade, and start rebuffing in that last minute--this saves spam on the party, and makes you look really good too, since they never see anyone asking for buff renewals. If you can do all this buffing, keep crowd control mezzing in order, and find the time to drop Languid Pace once and awhile, the groups will beg you to stay when you decide to go. When I was 19th level, I had groups volunteering to pay for teleports if I would come group with them. Many times I didn't even know more than one person in the group. A bad enchanter leaves a horrible taste upon the group that they long remember.

But a great enchanter leaves something rich that they will never forget. Enchanters make the group fight faster, safer, better, and against odds that would normally flatten the party. Spell Lineup: Sanity Warp, Choke, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Languid Pace, Swap Slot. If you want to put damage on the mob, Choke is usually the best idea to avoid aggro, but sometimes a good Sanity Warp is what ends the fight. Just be sure you have the mana free to do this. Charm and/or Mesmerization are great spells to put in place of Choke. You don't want DOTs around with Mesmerization anyway, and with Charm it might be a good idea to have a heavy hitting nuke prepped for launch.

Bear in mind it is not only acceptable to have no offensive spells ready (save possibly Charm) while grouped, but advantageous. Your job in a large group is almost always crowd control, buffing secondary. The more options you have available, the better you will do. Leave nukes and DOTs to those more suited (wizards, mages, necromancers)--your going to be keeping the party alive, not the mobs dead.

Charm-Solo - Let me explain in the simplest terms what the goal of charm soloing is, just to level a bit of reality on you:

Find a mob that you probably can't kill without seriously helping your animation.
Cast a spell that makes the same mob your pet for a random duraton.
Attack another mob that you can't kill without seriously helping your animation.
Pray that the first mob stays your pet long enough to kill the second mob.
Make the first mob no longer your pet on purpose (making it ultra-aggro to you) and kill it.

That's all there is to it, really. Charm sometimes holds for 5 minutes. Other times it holds for 5 seconds. Just for those of you who aren't math wizards, if charm breaks during the fight, that's two very aggro mobs rushing you. Now I'll tell you how to get through a charm-solo, planning on the

charm to fail.

You first find two mobs to make fight each other. Charming a mob and then looking for something to attack with it is just increasing the chance for the charm to break right in the middle of the fight, which gets you killed. Very often, this is unavoidable, but that's your own risk you must take upon yourself if you so choose.

To summarize again, Charm-Soloing involves one of three stages:

Gaining control.
Re-Gaining control.
Re-Gaining control.

And really, this is it. You must get control of your pet and start the fight. The fight itself is a joke--because you don't care if your pet wins or not really. If it should actually die for some reason, it will have severely crippled the other mob for you to finish it off. The mop-up of the fighting isn't the hard part--it's dealing with Charm breaking. If you can stay calm in the face of certain death and regain control of your foes, you're ready to charm-solo. For more

detailed disussions, read Tactics--Charm.

Spell Lineup (volatile): Sanity Warp, Charm, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall (or Mesmerize), Mesmerization, Swap Slot (Rune). The reason I moved Charm and put Mesmerize lies under two motivations. Firstly, DOTs on a mob you might have to mez are bad. You close down our safest escape route that way.

Regardless of which method appeals to you the most, you have learned enough at this point to make your own choices as to which methods will carry you on... into the Sixth Circle...

6th Circle (20-23)

Rhedd was rooting around in the ground near a bush looking for some food to cram into her pack, like always, and Xornn stood to haste his animation again. Broon, the mighty cyclops, would be coming up to the canyon mouth any minute now, from the word given by the ranger that had spotted him from high on the lip of the pass to Highhold. As Xornn sat back down, the druid shouted that Broon was in sight, and Xornn resigned to

study his tome of magic another time.

Broon hadn't spotted them yet, but his huge tree-trunk legs were chewing up the ground in earth shaking strides. Xornn calmly waited for the right moment, then stepped out from behind the rocks to cast Tashani on the lumbering hulk. As Broon sensed the attack he set into a charge, but Rhedds snaring magic slowed the run to a crawling gait. Quickly the animation was upon the cyclops and Xornn altered Broon's perceptions into that of fear, as he turned to flee his obvious death (somewhat magically inspired) but found the druid's spell rendering his flight into a slow motion escapade from a dream sequence. Then it got harder to breath and winds began to violently take hardened form and whip away his flesh in peels...

By this point you have probably caught onto something--the method you use to advance further in your enchanting career changes very little now. Only the tools available to you. Should you choose to perform crowd control in groups, solo kamikaze-style, kite (or reverse) with a steady partner, or truly show nerves of steel with daring charm-solos, you have seen the avenues lain before the enchanter, and gotten a feel for the spell lines required for each, as well as learned to manage your eight spell slots well. From the Fifth Circle on, it's pretty much only upgrades to your current arsenal. My presentation style will change now, with less hand-holding explanations, more commentation on spell upgrades, and tactics broke into sections with summaries of changes to previous usage. Without further ado, let's examine this Circle's additions.

Benevolence - Upgrade to Alliance. I take Dubious mobs to Indifferent with this spell, and Apprehensive to Amiable. Combined with the proper race combination, you can go pretty much anywhere, and even complete most quests--even ones not intended for your race/class!

Berserker Strength - +25STR by 30th, and 50HP Shield by 60th. Targetted spell costs 40 mana, and honestly sees little to no use. With a short duration of three minutes or when the HP Shield is used up, plus the AGI decrease effectively lowering the target's AC by 5, Strengthen is really just a better spell, especially when you can cast Strengthen 5 times for only 5 more mana than this spell, and neither really have a lasting impact by this level. Back of the book spell here. Research spell with Tasarins Grimoire page 30 left & right.

Calm - Upgrade in the Lull series. Collector's spell, though of some use on very green mobs.

Cloud - Upgrade in the Haze series. Caps at +11AC by 25th. Clerics and Shamans have a better AC buffs than this by now, but when they aren't around this does nicely, or when trying to save the cleric some mana.

Color Shift - One of your uber-spells. Upgrade to Color Flux, as well as key piece of one of the last techniques the enchanter must learn, stun-locking. At 40 mana, this 1.5 second casting time stuns a larger area (25 foot diameter) of mobs for 6 seconds, for 40 mana. Combined with the 20 mana and 4 second stun of Color Flux, you can basically stun a mob for 10 seconds using only 60 mana. During that 10 seconds, the melee damage to the mob isn't being answered (the tanks aren't getting hit back), which the tanks love. The area of effect is much larger than Color Flux, and you must learn how far is safe... but about a small room is the radius. Research spell with Tasarins Grimoire page 312 left & right.

Crystallize Mana - Used to make... well... I've never actually cast the spell. Just bought it from the Brownies in Lesser Faedark and scribed it to complete my collection. It makes something for some obscure armor quest I was once told, but I honestly never cared to check.

Endure Magic - As you encounter more and more spell-casting mobs you are going to fall in love with this targetted buff. Raises Magic Resistance +20. Research spell with Tasarins Grimoire page 375 left & right, or obtain at Cleric Guild.

Feckless Might - Upgrade to Ebbing Strength, -30STR cap at 28th. While a full debuff spread is quite impressive by the numbers, this pure STR debuff will do little to nothing to impact a fight. While the number of full strength hits a mob inflicts will be reduced slightly, casting Choke once will shorten the fight enough to duplicate it's impact. I still suggest not bothering with it outside of dueling situations (which still I don't recommend it unless you just want to humiliate someone). You'll blow half your mana or more to debuff a mob with a full spread, then struggle to outrace your pet with the rest. In a group, blowing mana this frivilously is out of the question. Debuffing STR has its place in the enchanting way--Player vs Player.

Illusion: Iksar - This spell is obtained through a long and difficult quest in Kunark. I bought the spell from a very high level enchanter, and honestly until you reach the Ninth or Tenth Circle, you have little chance of getting this spell without a lot of assistance. After two weeks and three deaths in Kunark, I only obtained 2 of the 4 quest components before breaking down and purchasing the spell. (Infravision & cool-looking)

Illusion: Ogre - The Ogre cannot be stunned from the front. (Infravision)

Illusion: Troll - Troll form gains regeneration and infravision. Bear in mind this regeneration is 1HP per tic, standing or sitting. Over the course of 36 minutes, you will receive 360HP. (Assuming you never hit full health.) Still, regen is regen, just don't expect to be blown away.)

Intellectual Superiority - Not in P1999Upgrade to the 12th level spell Intellectual Advancement, this spell checks for fizzles as though you were 6 levels higher. Again not a must-have spell, but I've found a few times it was actually helpful.

Shifting Sight - This spell is the same as Bind Sight, only you have Infravision when you use it.

Sisna's Animation - Meet your latest damage factory. Requiring 3 Tiny Daggers again, the last of the "axe" series can be expected to have maximum damage outputs of 14 to 22, depending on its level. If you can, resummon till you get the 20 to 22 hitter--it will make a huge difference in not only the damage per hit, but the higher level pet hits more. This animation also gains the ability to Kick, and double attacks just about every round. Double-slash, bash-kick, double-slash, double-slash, bash-kick. That's what this things fighting looks like now. With Quicken it brings tears to your eyes.

Sympathetic Aura - The first of our Charisma buffs! +18CHA cap at 24th, and really helps boost your CHA without needing equipment, and more importantly helps lower resists with charm and mezzing, even if only minorly. This and Breeze were always buffed on me, even when just travelling.

Tashani - The upgrade to Tashan, giving -23MR by level 26, and a mana cost of 20, while retaining the 1 second cast time. This spell is a welcome addition to our easily resisted nukes we carry in our spellbooks.

Strategies and changes to those strategies are listed below, but first let me start with an analysis of stun-locks.

Stun-Locking has a multitude of uses, all of which I will mention below, and it also offers almost a complete soloing ability by itself. Here however, I'm just going to explain how stun-locking is accomplished. Color Flux has a 1 second cast for a 4 second stun. Color Shift is 1.5 second cast for 6 seconds of stun. Both have a re-cast delay of 12 seconds. Drop Color Flux, and when the spells become available to cast, you have around 2 seconds to cast. If you can wait just a split-second, then cast Color Shift, then you land the six second stun right as the Flux wears off, leaving the mob unable to move still. Now if you truly landed the spell perfectly, the stun will go out to a 10 second duration, meaning that Color Flux is just becoming available as the stun lifts. Typically the mob will get one swing, then the stun lands again. Stun-Locking causes a very large amount of aggro in the mob (stuns do this), and I will discuss this in each tactic area stun-locks are used. After much practice, I am able to restrict a mob to a maximum of one "attack tick" every ten seconds, for 60 mana every round of stunning. Oftentimes, I actually re-establish the lock before the mob's "attack tic" occurs (as apparently your tic for when to swing runs even when stunned), making for a seamless stun. Do not believe that you can chain-stun without ever giving the mob a swing, though. 4 seconds + 6 seconds = 10 seconds. You need 13 seconds for it to be a total stun-lock, as after Color Flux ungreys (12 seconds of stun later), you still have the 1 second casting time.

I can't emphasize just how powerful this is. Now let's look at your tactics.

First a look at your buffs. When Solo, you should carry Breeze, Sympathetic Aura, Cloud, Shielding up. Your pet should have Strengthen, Cloud, Quicken. (You might drop Strengthen on yourself too. You aren't ever meleeing anymore, but it doesn't hurt to have 10 STR to help with encumberance, and you already memmed it to put on your pet, too. Quicken is going to have to be renewed frequently, and you might as well just set a spell slot aside for it unless you really like memming spells. I'm used to switching spells a lot, even three or four times during battle, but I still don't like it.) Group buffing will be a little different; you need Breeze and Sympathetic Aura up at all times, and you should find the time to drop Shielding. Cloud will most likely be surpassed by another AC buffer (such as Cleric or Shaman) and let them fill this role when they can--otherwise Cloud goes on anyone who is supposed to be taking damage. Strengthen on anyone that is going to melee (often covered by Shamans as well), and Quicken on whichever party members will be meleeing... as it's going to be your most profound damage assistance.

Kamikaze-Solo - The traditional Kamikaze-Solo still entails taking your Quickened pet, pulling a mob with Tashani (always blue, less downtime, easier fight, great experience), take a shot to put the pet in, drop Languid Pace, Sanity Warp, tank till you take a decent hit, then Flux/Root and back out, then Sanity Warp till Root breaks, re-Flux/re-Root, and continue till the mob dies. You and your pet don't take too much damage, you easily outrace your pet, and mana used will return at about the same rate your pet heals. Using this method, whenever I had the mana to take something on, my pet had the health too. I love Kamikaze-Solo, and to this day, I still use it. Stun-Locking can be used if the fight is going poorly and your pet is looking really tore up, by just stepping in and Stun-Locking as long as you can. Bear in mind that the aggro from stun-locking will make your pet unable to taunt the mob off you in all likelihood, but it will keep your pet alive, and you have to take one shot every ten seconds. Not bad. There is a whole new solo-ability based on this, which I'll cover later on. Basically, the only change to Kamikaze-Solo is the use of Tashani over Tashan, and the ability to Stun-Lock in a jam, which will apply for the rest of your career. Spell Lineup - Sanity Warp, Choke/Chaotic Feedback, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Languid Pace, Tashani, Swap Slot. Color Shift often replaces Choke/Chaotic Feedback for full stunlocking, and Memory Blur over Languid Pace..

Reverse-Kite-Partner - I won't mention Kite-Solo anymore, because anytime your partner can snare you should Reverse-Kite. Your pet equals not only a damage factory, but consider it an unresistable DOT that costs you the life needed to get it fighting. That's worth it. You Tashani, they Snare, you take a hit, then Chase the Moon. Nuke if you're wanting to speed things, but with a decent CHA Chase the Moon will hold for ages and ages. I usually just plod along after the mob dropping Chase the Moon when it fades, and toward the end of the fight, just nuke it to finish (when it would be a waste to fear again). Necromancer's Fear isn't as good as Chase the Moon (they pass our ability in the Ninth Circle, and we catch up in the Tenth again), and the Clinging Darkness series of movement impeding isn't as effective as Snare. However, pets follow the slightly faster mob with ease, and the Darkness line is a DOT. Druids and Necromancers are always going to be amazing partners for enchanters. Spell lineup: Sanity Warp, Choke, Color Flux, Root, Enthral, Chase the Moon, Tashani, Swap Slot

Group-Tactics - In the group, you take on a whole new role: Stun-Lock. First off, let me talk about Quicken. For 80 mana you grant a 30% attack speed increase to one group member for a short duration. If you're just dropping Tashani and Languid Pace on incoming mobs, this is worth it, as you'll be doing crowd control and meditating at all times. Dropping that single Languid Pace is also the equivalent of dropping Quicken on your entire group of melee members, but you will have to do this for every pull. If there are three people in the melee, you can often skip Languid Pace, because with three tanks you'll be casting Languid too often, and a quick stun lock will totally stop damage for 10 seconds at the same mana usage, which will be more effective than Languid Pace. But, with Languid you can med during the fight. What it boils down to is how much mana you have to play with. Now I've mentioned stun-locking twice so far, and let me explain when you do and don't use it.

During any fight where mezzing is required, get that taken care of first. It's your primary goal. After that's taken care of, your second goal is to make sure people are buffed. Then make sure to land Tashani if any spells are going to be thrown at it. Languid Pace needs to find their way onto whichever mob is being fought when it will be of use--but if it's almost dead before crowd control is taken care of, just let them finish it, and meditate. Don't feel like you haven't done your part; if you hadn't mezzed the extra mob or two, they would be hitting the tanks--or even the casters--which is much more damage prevented than Languid Pace would have done.

However, on a single-mob fight, when it's safe to (you learn quickly when Color Shift will aggro mobs not in the fight--the range isn't that big, though), you drop Tashani on the mob, then step in and begin to stun-lock. Two amazing things will happen; first, you will watch the tanks rip through the mob without taking any damage. Second, the aggro you build from stunning won't matter, as it continues staying aggro to the tanks. Consider this: Stunning for 10 seconds, with just my pet and Muadan, the 30th paladin I traveled with usually, Muadan will inflict about 200 damage over that ten seconds, and my pet will do about 150 (this doesn't include Augmentation, an attack speed buff that lasts 30 minutes). That's 350 damage inflicted for 60 mana, during which the tanks took no damage--that makes stun-locking the equivalent of an uber-nuke. The mob will then take one swing at Muadan, then the lock re-establishes, for another 350. Each bubble of mana I have as High Apprentice of the Eighth Circle represents around 175 mana. I can stun for 30 seconds (getting over 1000 damage on the mob) and use one bubble of mana. This is just with a paladin and my pet--I hope you can see the amazing power of stun-locking.

Needless to say, don't bother with Languid Pace in a stun-locking situation. If you wish to become adept at stun-locking, I'll tell you how I did. First I found a Deathfist Pawn and cast Tashani to pull him. I then sat there and practiced holding the lock on him. When you run out of mana, kill it, and scroll back to see how many cycles of stunning you had, and how mana swings the mob took. When you get good there is one attack round before Flux lands again.

Spell Lineup: Mesmerization, Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Languid Pace, Swap Slot. Mesmerization often replaces Sanity Warp, as you won't be nuking mobs while grouped much anymore.. Charm can often be swapped in over Languid Pace or into the Swap as well when you plan to do full bore crowd control.

Charm-Solo - Tashani is a beautiful addition to Charm-Soloing, and one you will love with. Keeping Color Shift instead of Flux memmed will buy you an extra two seconds for regaining control, though it's typically not needed--during charm-solo you want the faster casting time of Color Flux. Stun-Locking can be used to make sure your pet wins the fight when it's close, but I recommend against that because Charm breaking right after you stun can make regaining control very difficult. Just nuke it if it looks close. Soon you will have a longer casting time charm spell, and then Color Shift will be mandatory. Spell Lineup: Sanity Warp, Charm, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall/Mesmerize, Languid Pace, Tashani, Swap Slot (Rune I)

Now after all your patience, I give you what I find to be our most powerful and reliable solo-technique to date:

Kamikaze-Stun-Solo - That's right, take Kamikaze ability of fast, free damage from your pet, and combine it with the cheap damage prevention of Stun-Lock. The end result is that you have a highly effective, mana efficient method to drop steady blues. However, you will not be outracing your pet, which is why I avoided this technique for so long. The idea of Memory Blur and Nuking to outrace your pet doesn't interest me, as the little damage factory can often outrace you before the long casting time of the nuke finishes.

Instead, you should just nuke during the fight.

Tashani pull, then get your pet behind the mob, and Color Flux, then Color Shift--your pet is hitting for great damage, and you're waiting for Color Flux to ungrey. Rather than just standing there, after Color Shift finishes, you've got 6 seconds before Color Flux will be available to cast. Sanity Warp takes 3 seconds to cast. As soon as Shift lands I just fire off Sanity Warp. Now, when the stun lifts the mob will be aggro to you for sure, and your pet is tagging it in the back, which we know is always good. Color Flux, Color Shift, Sanity Warp. The nukes assures that you outrace your pet, while the stun-lock keeps your pet healthy. If you Flux/Root, your pet is getting hit the entire time you're nuking. The idea is that you nuke the mob out before your pet dies. In this technique, your pet hits for more from behind, and you keep anyone from taking damage. Consider how small a change this is from normal Kamikaze-Solo; you're replacing Root with Color Shift. (Flux/Root/Sanity Warp vs Flux/Shift/Sanity Warp) You still keep Root memorized, and if you decide you've taken too much damage for one fight, then just Root the mob and step out. Your nearly undamaged pet can finish off the mob with ease, and if you don't think you've outraced Mr. Kamikaze, just Sanity Warp again. The reason I am so in love with this technique is also spell slots. Tashani, Color Flux, Color Shift, Sanity Warp, and Root. That leaves three more slots open, which is beautiful. I keep Enthrall, Memory Blur, and Quicken usually. Bear in mind that if you get in trouble and lose control of the fight, Root the mob and back out, and if the pet dies, back out of aggro range and Memory Blur. You don't have to Mesmerize first. Root doesn't cause aggro after it first lands.

Take the tools you have been given, and move to your next major level of upgrades in the Seventh Circle!

7th Circle (24-28)

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...

8th Circle (29-33)

A yawning wind careened across the hillside, grasping briefly at the mystic robes of the koada`dal, snapping the weightless fabric across his pale, thin frame in gusts that pulse and receed as a river fighting to overcome its banks. The rest of his party was pacing about nervously on the hill, waiting for the paladin to return from his scouting. Across the sunburned sloped stood a massive fortress wall, standing as a testament to the giants in this mountain terrain against the elements trying to erode away this "Kunark" land Xornn found himself in.

A host of warcries sheered the howling winds and drew the attention of everyone gathered around the high elf, and in the distance, the daring paladin rushed from the mouth of the fortress screaming, "Incoming! The giants are upon us!" Three of the lumbering behometh's chewed the ground behind him, and the cleric looked at Xornn expectantly.

The high elf sighed.

Well done. You have reached 29th level, and if requests for Breeze weren't enough to drive you to /roleplay, I'm sure Clarity will do the trick.

Augmentation - This is another haste spell (won't stack with others) but works a little differently. For 90 mana (10 more than Quicken), you get an attack speed increase of up to 28%, +30 AGI, +9 AC (not counting the AGI raise), and Stamina regeneration. The buff lasts for 27 minutes, and is basically Clarity for melee-types. Amazing spell. The haste effect is effectively Quickness that lasts for 27 minutes, plus a nice AC and AGI buff (AGI aids hit avoidance plus AC). Many times I used this spell over Alacrity, especially when the groups were very tank-heavy, and Alacrity was proving just just be too much mana. Many tanks will request this spell also, as the stamina regen is getting critical as the haste buffs drains that yellow bar and heavy weapons make stamina a precious commodity.

Clarify Mana - How's this for cool? Another thicken mana spell that I have no idea what it's used for.

Clarity - You've worked long and hard, and you deserve this one. Replenishes 6 mana per tic, which is just amazing. 7 mana/tic standing, 9 mana/tic sitting, and at 29th (maxxed Meditation) you get back 20 mana/tic! 70 mana and a 27 minute duration. Beware the mindset you will encounter that this is what your purpose in a group is--it's just a perk. Enchanters are capable of so much more, you can just stagger a group now with the power you bring to the table.

Curse of the Simple Mind - Targetted INT and WIS debuff. Not terribly useful, though is often dropped in a duel on people, for it does affect their mana pools. More importantly, this cheap debuff gives the message, "<target> looks stupid." -20WIS -20INT cap at 48th.

Dyn's Dizzying Draught - This spell is Whirl Till You Hurl with some debuffing combined. Spins target for up to 12 seconds (same duration, same save method meaning it breaks instantly when being fought in melee), -9AC -50Mana -30AGI at 29th, -15AC -50AGI cap at 49th. 150 mana to cast this spell, and it has a 35 second recast delay. This spell is less used than the illusion of your own race.

Enstill - Upgrade to Root, 60 mana, lasts up to 96 seconds, and allows the mob a save every 6 seconds still. Outside of that... the chance to save is the same, and the mob still gets a save every time hit by direct damage. If you wish to drop Enstill, followed by a DOT, then this might be worth using... I've never messed with this spell yet, as the 2.5 second casting time makes it less useful when I need it--while trying to escape a mob. Research spell with Velishouls Tome pages 75 & 76, or buy at Shaman guild.

Feedback - Targetted Damage Shield. When target hit the attacker takes 11 points of damage. Decent passive damage spell, which is very useful to throw on your pet when soloing (the damage the mob takes hitting your pet really adds up) and a great way to add some damage in a group if you have some spare mana. Throw on the main meat-shield (the tank getting hit the most). Also stacks with Illusion: Fire Elemental (netting 25 damage). Research spell with Velishouls Tome pages 108 & 109 (faded).

Haunting Visage - Not in P1999 Luclin spell which causes the recipient to generate extra aggro (percentage unknown at this time, but can be noticeable). The spell lasts for about 3 tics, at 100 mana in 2 seconds, with a 24 second recast, so you have to mem it well before you intend to use it.

Illusion: Air Elemental - Grants Levitate, needing no Bat Wing. Carries the KoS to guards.

Illusion: Water Elemental - Grants Enduring Breath, needing no Fish Scale. KoS to guards.

Listless Power - Upgrade to Disempower. Targetted debuff for -35STR -35AGI -18AC cap at 50th.

Nullify Magic - Cancel Magic upgrade. Pretty much guaranteed to nail 2 buffs without fail every cast (casts at a 4 level bonus). Research spell with Velishouls Tome page 67 & 68.

Obscure - Upgrade to Cloud. Targetted AC Buff, capping at +14AC by 34th.

Suffocate - Upgrade to Choke. DD for 34 damage, followed by DOT effect of 11 damage per tick for 18 tics (108 seconds), plus a debuff of -15STR -15AGI all for 100 mana at 29th level. DD increases to 65 by 60th, and debuff to -20STR -20AGI by 38th. The problem with this spell--takes too long. 1 minute and 48 seconds is a long time to wait for a DOT to do its job, and because of that, this spell sees limited use in reverse kiting yellow/red mobs, when it will do full damage, but most fights will not last 1 minute and 48 seconds, so Suffocate doesn't see a lot of use still. Most fights last 1 minute tops, which is about 150 damage. Just Chaos Flux if doing indirect help isn't keeping you happy.

Uleen's Animation - This animation I've done the most research with. It varies from 20 damage max for a 21st level pet, to 28 max for a 25th level pet. This mob Double Attacks, Dual Wields, Bashes, and Kicks. With Augmentation or Alacrity, this pet is just amazing. In order to make him dual wield, just hand him any one handed object that isn't restricted to primary hand (like a spear) and he'll start using it. If you hand him a weapon with a delay below 26, then the graphic will change to the weapon (say a dagger) for both weapons. Watching the hits will reveal it's still slashing and piercing. If you want your pet to nothing but piercing, you must hand him two daggers. I can tell you now, the delay or damage of the weapon you hand your pet makes no difference. Your pet always attacks at 26 delay, even if you hand him a 17 delay weapon. The only way damage would go up is if you hand him a weapon with a max damage of 29 or higher. Proccing weapons used to proc against any mobs (even those not of the correct type) and very often, but since then this has been remedied. Still, handing an enchanter pet 2 gnoll hide lariats (proc Stun) is pretty much hilarious. He'll stun lock mobs for you. However, that's way down the line when you can afford stuff like that to just give to your pet. For now, just hand him any weapon. I think daggers look cool, or rapiers look the best, but I often Clarity a magician in exchange for a Dimensional Pocket with 4 Daggers in it. By the way, if you aren't used to the pattern by now, this animation requires 2 Tiny Daggers to cast. The second weapon will add an extra attack to the "round" when it "procs", basically guaranteeing 2 swings per round (since it has double attack and dual wield now), and often getting it 3 swings now.

Ultravision - Targetted buff, grants the target Ultravision. No more risking KoS with Illusion: Dark Elf, has a duration of 36 minutes. (Research from Velishouls Tome pages 43 & 44, or can be purchased from the Gypsies in Oasis of Marr.)

Buffs-Solo - This is getting easy to figure out now. I keep Clarity, Sympathetic Aura, Augmentation, Obscure, and Major Shielding on myself when soloing. The first two increase my solo ability, and the last three raise my AC and/or HP higher. My pet has Obscure, and either Alacrity or Augmentation. When Kamikaze-Stun-Soloing, I use Alacrity for maximum attack speed increase. When Kamikaze-Rooting (vs mobs that I can't stun, like giant class), I use Augmentation. The attack speed increase is 10% less, but includes a large AC raise which I want when Mr. Ginsu is getting hit more. (Mr. Ginsu was thusly named the first time I handed him 2 daggers.)

Buffs-Group - Clarity on all the casters. Augmentation or Alacrity on all the tanks. Augmentation doesn't need renewed all the time, but isn't near the haste of Alacrity--but in tank heavy groups, you might not have the mana for Augmentation. Drop Strengthen on the tanks if someone else isn't doing so, and Obscure doesn't hurt, but at this level Clerics and Shamans not only have better buffs, but they are always in your group now. If you just keep Clarity and Augmentation on the group, they'll love you. [Note: If the casters call for a Clarity at the same time a tank tells you haste is fading, always renew the haste first if in combat--it's more important to getting things dead. If there's no combat, renew Clarity first, as the haste is just wasted duration when not fighting.]

Kamikaze-Solo - Other than choosing between Root- or Stun- Kamikaze, there's no change to the technique, except less downtime with Clarity, and Chaos Flux is hitting for a full 150 now. I've made mention of chain-nuking previously, and it's usually necessary in the next spell rank--but it can have serious application at this level, too. Spell Lineup: Chaos Flux, Suffocate/Sanity Warp/Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Tashani, Swap Slot

Reverse-Kite-Partner - Clarity makes it to where you can usually meditate back the mana used to Chase the Moon before the duration expires. Suffocate is extremely mana efficient, especially combined with your pet. You may have trouble getting druids to just DOT mobs (love you Rhedd), but if you can, you can drop yellow/reds without too much trouble, and only using half your mana each. If dropping blues quickly, just get your pet in and fear them, maybe nuke once. The mob will die, and very quickly. You can usually drop three or four blue mobs in a row without pausing if you just meditate during the fearing. There is another use to reverse-kiting blues now though, besides being absurdly safe, and good xp in a blue-heavy area; weapon skill raises. You pet will maintain the aggro the whole time, so you can follow along practicing that One-Handed Blunt (which you will actually use with the Incandescent Wand--more on that in Group-Tactics). Spell Lineup: Chaos Flux, Suffocate, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Chase the Moon, Tashani, Swap Slot

Charm-Solo - Clarity gets you mana back faster for less down-time. That's it. As I said earlier, Charm-Solo changes very little. If you must use Beguile, I recommend not memorizing your nuke, as it's only used to finish fights, when you'll have the mob mezzed or rooted and have time to open the spell book and get it. Later you will be able to just lead with Color Shift to recharm, but you still don't channel well enough to try this yet reliably. Spell Lineup: Beguile, Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall/Mesmerize, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot (Rune)

Group-Tactics - Remember the two roles you have? That hasn't changed, though it should be redefined to three jobs you must be performing at all times to be a great enchanter:

All extra mobs must remain controlled until ready to be killed.
Mana regen and haste must remain on all applicable group members.
All mobs receive Tashani, and either Tepid Deeds or Stun-Lock, when you have surplus mana.

Don't feel that if you're not debuffing mobs you aren't doing your job. If they are only fighting one mob, it's because of you in all likelihood, so they won't complain if you don't jump in there. If you have time, Tashani it. If the fights are actually lasting awhile and you have some extra mana, Tepid Deeds it, or if it's the last mob of a series, Stun-Lock it. Otherwise, meditate--no one ever complains when another mob pops in on a near dead group, you Enthrall it, and

say, "Well, I've still got 50% mana. Everyone med up and I'll hold it."

Spell Lineup: Mesmerization, Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot (Beguile)

It's a real power-trip. *grin*

And thus my guide has come not to an end, but to pause. Honestly, you haven't needed this guide since the Sixth Circle. From then on I'm only telling you what is obvious--use the upgrades to your big spell lines, and learn to fill your eight slots wisely. Regardless of what path you choose to advance in, you have been shown the powers of the enchanter as they were meant to be used. Master these powers wisely, and you will be hailed as a master-enchanter. [Note: Obviously I passed this rank long ago, but I leave this here for nostalgia.]

Xornn Mier'noen, Apprentice of the Eighth Circle

9th Circle (34-38)

Xornn looked around the party, standing amidst a throng of lizardmen, all gazing blankly about the base of the pyramid. Five of them, unmoving, in Xornn's enthrall. The high elf locked gazes with one of them and felt it's mind melt away, replaced by the high elf's desires. Returning his concentration the the other four scaled men, his new thrall joined the battle with the paladin and warrior, fighting a sixth lizard as the cleric tried to keep them healthy. "We'd be lost if not for Xornn!" Xornn frowned and looked over at them. "If you place so much faith outside yourself, you are lost already; no matter, I will guide you."

Welcome! After some determination (and a lot of solo- partner- hunting) I've reached the Ninth Circle. While still an Initiate, it's easy to see what the spell changes are doing for this Circle. Time to take a look at the new material

we've been given to work with:

Anarchy - The long-awaited upgrade to Chaos Flux! If you think chain-nuking was developing some effectiveness during the Eighth Circle, you're going to be loving this one then. If you haven't chain-nuked yet, this will get you started. 273 damage at 34th, capping at 288 by 39th, for 160 mana--while that's a bit of a mana hog, it's still our most efficient nuke yet. You'll hear stories about it being resisted more, but I've spent several hours in a team where my job was to cast Anarchy twice, and saw no special resist rate. The casting time is 4.6 seconds... a real doosy, but it's not really off-par from a mage or druid nuke. The recast rate is 8 seconds as always, so go cook a hotdog while waiting for this puppy to ungrey, or just Chaos Flux to let the mob know you're still there.

Boltran's Animation - Now I haven't had the chance to just summon these little animations and make a damage scale, I've noticed something with Seventh and Eighth Circle. The cap changes about 4 points of damage, and spans about 5 levels. Currently, I've seen this guy hit for 32 tops, fitting the 4 point cap, and I'm guessing that would be a 30th level pet (one level above last spell rank seems to be the cap). I figure 26th to 30th is the pet level, ranging in damage from 24 to 32. This pet has a fair hit point base, good damage and being a fresh pet level, 26 to 29 mobs are blue, leaving you good chances to get pets higher than what you're hunting! (Always very very good.) Uses three Tiny Daggers, and is bought in Highhold Keep Library.

Cast Sight - Remember Shifting Sight way back when... which was Bind Sight with Infravision? Now you get Bind Sight with Ultravision. I like this one for screwing around while auctioning, but that's the only use it sees from me.

Enchant Platinum - I just got Jewelcrafting to 192! I hear the last 8 points are a pain, but I'm getting close! Anyway... enchanted platinum jewelry is an option without help now. I always charge 10% of the metals value to enchant metal. Bought in the Neriak Library.

Entrance - Upgrade to Enthrall! Still has the same casting time, and holds the mob for 72 seconds now! This spell is just awesome. Only hard part is counting TEN mana ticks before re-mezzing. At 85 mana, it's not too big a load for how much time to med it buys you. I'm in love with this one. Entrance has a 3.75 recast delay though, unlike Enthrall at 2.25 (the ungreying time all spells have)--get used to this little delay, and it might even have you keeping Enthrall memmed for a bit still. Still, Entrance is awesome for long-term mezzing, and I got into the habit of glancing at my analog clock's second hand and remezzing 1 minute later.

Gift of Magic - New Scars of Velious Spell! This spell sucks down 150 mana, and in exchange raises the maximum mana pool of the target by 50 for 1 hour. Now if they aren't going to meditate to full within that hour, this spell will offer no benefit, but casters (especially healers) will usually benefit from this extra rim-space on the mana bar. Bought from spell vendors in Iceclad Ocean (at the little pirate gnome village), which just meeting all the merchants and hailing a few makes this spell worth picking up..

Greater Shielding - Next in the general shielding line. +100 HP, +23 AC, and 16MR caps. Always up. This one is just a great spell. Just need Arch Shielding to finish out!

Illusion: Fire Elemental - Turns you into a fire elemental with a damage shield (9pts at 34th, caps at 16pts when you get to 60th). Carries the same KoS risks.

Insipid Weakness - Next upgrade to the STR debuff line. -35 STR debuff at 34th, capping at -51 STR by 50th, very impressive! Like all STR debuffs, sees little to no use, however -51STR is -51ATK, which does affect offensive ability, if minorly. Research spell, Salis Writ Left and Right page 60.

Mana Sieve - Drains mana from target, 214 at 34th, 370 at level 60. Doesn't give you mana, but doesn't cause damage, either. Mezzing a caster mob followed by this will let you drain them quickly--and handy vs a caster in a /duel. Research spell, Salist Writ left 90, right 90 (faded page).

Radiant Visage - Upgrade to Sympathetic Aura, capping at +30 CHA by 40th level! You should easily be able to hit 200 CHA by now if you want to. Research spell, Salis Writ left and right page 64.

Rune III - I found a new respect even for the older runes after toying with Rune III for awhile. Stops 168 damage at 34th for a 7gold Jasper regent, capping at 230 damage by 41st level, which is chump change at this Circle. Drop it for an emergency heal (especially on your pet), buff your pet with it, drop it on you in heavy charming situations to buy you time... it stacks with anything, so it's free 230 hit points for 7gold... trust me, that's a good deal. I'll mention Rune III in Kamikaze-Solo later!

Buffs-Solo - On yourself keep Clarity, Radiant Visage, Greater Shielding, and Rune III is a good idea. I'm starting to consider recommending always having your highest Rune up, actually. The regents cost little, and are quite worth it. The pet gets Augmentation, Strengthen, Obscure, and sometimes Rune III. My rune will last several fights, and the pets will oftentimes last to the very end of the fight. Alacrity was considered, and sometimes I use it, but Rune III is usually in my swap slot now, and I don't need to switch them that much.

Buffs-Group - Clarity casters, Haste tanks, then catch Clarity on the hybrids. Obscure them if someone else can't duplicate the effect, otherwise save your mana for crowd control and buffing. Remember to check if any Bards need CHA buffs.

Kamikaze-Solo - As if I haven't worshipped this style enough yet, there's a new way to do things now, which I'm not a big fan of, but I'll mention it. First off, with going with root-nuke-nuke, then Anarchy and Chaos Flux are your new team of heavy hitters. They shrivel mobs quickly, and you'll like them. stun-stun-nuke is becoming much more attractive, though the casting time on Anarchy is really long... 6 second stun, minus 1 sec to ungrey, minus 4.6 seconds to cast... that's right... 0.4 seconds to spare. I've tested it thoroughly, and you can still fit it in there, but it's pretty damned close. The new method just involves Tashani, Tepid Deeds, and watch your pet. Let him fight it to 60% of the mob's health left, then open with the nukes. You can often times get two nukes off, and the mob hasn't charged yet. I learned this from a mage, and here is my problem with it: Healing. The mage sits there then drops a heal on his pet before starting the nukes. While our heal is actually better (Rune III), it requires a regent which limits how many times we can do it. Tepid Deeds plus Rune III on our pet means the pet will go a long time before the Rune goes, but I believe it's best to just nuke THEN. When the mob rushes me, my pet isn't getting hit, and that's what I'm concerned about. I use Chain-Nuking now. Tashani pull, pet takes it off me, Tepid Deeds draws it off pet, then Root... usually get two or three nukes off before it breaks, and it's damned near dead at this point... so I often stun-lock it to finish, as the pet is just WAILING on it. This is a good time for soloing. Spell Lineup: Anarchy, Chaos Flux/Color Shift/Suffocate, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot.

Reverse-Kite-Partner - I love doing this still, and giants have "kill me" written all over them. Grab a snare-class and have a ball... Chase the Moon (or let the necro use Invoke Fear) and Nuke/DoT to mana efficiency. I love blues still with this, for less downtime and better experience over all. (Not to mention more activity.) Spell Lineup: Anarchy, Suffocate, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Chase the Moon, Tashani, Swap Slot.

Charm-Solo - Rune III makes this tactic a little safer, and higher CHA doesn't hurt with resists. You can actually solo several Spectres at once in this Circle, but I don't suggest trying unless you are very comfortable with charm soloing (however this is usually where enchanters cut their teeth on charming). I've done a little charm-solo with mountain giants so far, but it's a tad dangerous. If charming isn't for you solo-wise, there's nothing wrong with that. Still, learn charming for group, you need the skill, whether used or not. Spell Lineup: Anarchy, Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall/Mesmerize, Beguile, Tashani, Swap Slot.

Group-Tactics - Honestly, not one thing changed for group fighting. I'd gotten more comfortable charming, and Entrance allows me to perform some amazing crowd control, but outside of that nothing is different. Our three roles stick with us for life. Spell Lineup: Mesmerization, Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Enthrall, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot (Beguile)

Other-Tactics - I don't really mention tactics like partnering with any non-snare types in the Circle descriptions, because they aren't often that accessible. This makes them no less useful, however. Partnering with a Paladin can be amazing, or finding a Magician you can convince that partner experience will be better. (Tough to do.) Look at it this way... if a Magician can kill 2 mountain giants every 9 minutes, you need to kill 4 every 9 minutes with two people for the same xp. Heading for 34th, I grouped with a mage and we dropped 5-6 giants every nine minutes.

10th Circle (39-43)

Xornn loosed divinative magics and felt his body shift and change... and shrink. He stood the height of a gnome, and still the tiny room felt cramped. There was a murky, mystical ceiling of water above him, and the tiny chamber smelled of mold. The wizard next to him was quiet and reserved, and had remained calm despite their difficulties getting this far into the forever damned frogloks in this pit.

"Where will we find this 'Reanimated Hand'?" asked the rogue. He seemed interested in finding this thing; what rumors had he heard of it from his guild?

The wizard pointed up at the murky, suspended water and smiled, and we heard a mantra of casting beyond the liquid barrier.

Welcome to the Tenth Circle! I've spent a lot of time on tradeskills lately, and waiting for my real life best friend to catch up with me in the levels department. But I'm back on the leveling track again, and the Eleventh Circle is only days away. Let's get started now and take a look at the new spells!

Aanya's Animation - Upgrade to our animation, now used a longsword and shield. Costs 200 mana, takes 10 seconds to cast, and has a 20 second recast. Only uses one Tiny Dagger again (thank goodness), and seems to have a high damage of 36, still in-line with the 4 point raise per rank. I've seen it hitting as low as 28 now as well. Combined with Celerity, this little monster swings fast. Honestly it's not hitting as solid as I would like to see, but it's nothing to scoff at still. Working on getting levels worked out, but I'm getting green /cons at 39th, so it's not on the same scale as the old ones. Soon as I get the level nailed down for one I'll know. [Note: The 36-hitting pet is level 31 *grumble* so the level range is 27th to 31st.]

Cajoling Whispers - Upgrade to Beguile, level 45 cap. (6.8.2019 wiki says level 46 cap) Has a 5.1 second casting time, so getting this puppy off in conjunction with stuns is going to involve running back a ways. Beguile will hit up to a level 39 mob still, so you won't really need it yet. PB Stuns will not cover this spells casting time, so you'll have to use a root or mez to hold it for the recharm.

Calming Visage - The Luclin converse of Haunting Visage, this spell causes the recipient to generate less aggro than normal for their actions. Actually useful to cast on CHealing clerics and nuking wizards, but usually only needed in raiding environments. This spell is a reducer of aggro in situations where excess aggro is unavoidable. This is not going to stop a nuke happy wizard in your xp group from drawing aggro. It might however, allow your raid wizard to get one more nuke in before getting summoned and pummeled. The spell is just like Haunting Visage, at 100 mana, 2 second cast, and 24 second recast delay, and 3 tic duration.

Celerity - Mwuahahahahaaa. 185 mana for 50% haste by level 44. Lasts for 16 minutes, and boy is this one worth the mana. Drop it on your pet and watch him turn into a slicing, dicing machine. Double the cost of Augmentation, and requiring two casts per one Augmentation, it's still worth it in most cases, as this speed increase is just staggering. Your pet has a delay of 30, meaning every 3.0 seconds it has an "attack round" of up to three swings when dual wielding. With Celerity, that delay drops to 2.0 seconds, a full second faster. Basically every 6 seconds, your pet is taking an extra attack round!

Distill Mana - Creates a Vial of Distilled mana. I "dryfired" it and saw it needs a Sapphire spell component, maybe 2. No clue what it does, and no one seems interested in finding out. It's on page 37, with my other "bottled mana" spells.

Gravity Flux - AE Nuke. You get a partner to AE snare with you and prepare for some helacious fun. If the mob isn't killed by the spell, it will literally hurl up into the air and come smashing back down. Damage will hit for 209, followed by 100 as the mob lands at 39th. Maxes at 330. If it's like most AE spells, 5 targets is the limit, but just kiting two mobs, you could be landing 660 damage for 337 mana a shot. That's awesome. Make it three mobs... 930. Alteration based nuke also, meaning your specialize has a chance to kick in, and it doesn't resist as badly as our nukes. When you first get this spell (has to be researched from Salis Writ 174 left and right), target yourself, make sure your on level ground with nothing around you, pan the view around so you can see yourself and everything above you. Then cast. When you finish laughing your head off, get a healer to fix you up. Research Salis Writ Page 174 left & right.

Illusion: Dry Bone - Morph into Drybone, adds 25 Fire Resistance. Sets base faction to undead, but this won't necessarily do much good, except possibly in Befallen. I honestly use the spell because it looks pimp, and the giggling is a great way to annoy people.

Illusion: Spirit Wolf - When I got Breeze, I didn't go /anonymous. When I hit Clarity, I went /roleplay for a few levels, but by 35 I went back to showing my level so my friends didn't have to ask where I was. But the first time I cast this, I understand why druids go anon. I got asked for 5 sows in 3 minutes, just running through a zone. Changes faction to Beta Neutral, give 15 attack raise, 10 cold resist. Does not increase your movement rate.

Immobilize - Upgrade to Enstill. 80 mana, less likely to break than Enstill or Root, and casts in 1.8 seconds, faster than Root! Has a maximum duration of 60 seconds, with 6 second periodic checks. I actually still prefer Root, because I never need to root a mob for very long, and Root usually saves mana. 80 mana is very costly, and sometimes I think I'd rather Root it twice. Research Salis Writ Page 282 left & right or buy from Overthere or Firiona Vie shaman vendor (they get it at 51st).

Insight - First in the INT/WIS buff-line. 10 WIS raise at 39th, capping at 14 by 52. Also raises INT 5 at 39th, and caps at 6 INT soon after. Duration of 40 minutes, which makes the 125 mana cost more bearable. Casting this on WIS based caster's that don't have 200 raises their maximum mana pool quite a bit.

Invoke Fear - Fast casting upgrade to Chase the Moon. 100 mana for up to 42 seconds of fearing, with a 2.5 second casting time, a full second faster than Chase is. Unfortunately, it also carries a 7 second recast delay, which makes bounces a little more painful due to the delay for trying again. Since you save a second on the cast however, this works out to about the same time.

Mind Wipe - AE Memory Blur for 100 mana. Quite useful if you've got tanks being repeatedly healed and you're worried about aggro on the healers. Dropping this can reset their records, and let damage shields start building aggro again. Also excellent in conjunction with AE Mezzing when used excessively. Still, you're not going to use this spell much until later levels. Research Salis Writ 288 left & right.

Pacify - Remember what a piece of trash every spell in the Lull series has been? They still are. Go read Lull for a description of this spells effect, only it costs 100 mana to get killed now.

Rampage - Upgrade to Berzerker Strength, +29 STR imparted at level 39, caps at +40 STR by 60th, 79 point hp buffer shield at 39th, cap of 90 at 50th level. Also lowers AGI 20 points. Kind of a cheap Rune really, and at 90 mana, not too bad of a quick buff. But the STR goes with the hp shield, so tanks get little use form this. However, it is very handy for a hp buffer in the middle of combat, or especially to throw on a shaman, who can then cannibalize the hp buffer for mana. Your shield will net a shaman about 75 mana, so you can give him 75 mana for 90. Almost like a baby necromancer. Because this spell also has a short duration (about the same as Feedback and other damage shields), it's only useful for pre- or mid-combat casting.

Resist Magic - Upgrade to Endure Magic. 85 mana for +40 MR. Great targetted buff for your upcoming days against casting mobs, 36 minute duration. Salis Writ page 153 left & right or buy from cleric vendors.

Shade - Upgrade to Obscure, caps at 17 AC by 44th.

Wandering Mind - New Scars of Velious addition! Takes 5 mana to cast, and drops a mana drain "DOT" onto the target. Drains 6 mana from them and gives it to you over the course of 20 tics (two minutes). Just like necromancer's lifetap DOTs, you continue regaining this mana even when the target it dead, as long as you landed the spell before it became a corpse. Has a 150 second recast delay, and is dropped off mobs in Velious.

Buffs-Solo - Keep Clarity, Augmentation, Shade, and Greater Shielding on yourself, and the pet needs Strengthen, Shade, Celerity, and Feeback! You'll notice I left off Radiant Visage and Insight. That's because they're just wasted buffs. (If you're going to charm-solo, yes--keep Radiant Visage up). Now on the pet the damage shield is just more free hits on the mob for you! Honestly I forgot I had it during the last two Circles, but this is plainly a good spell to keep loaded all the time for dropping on your pet. I also use Illusion: Fire Elemental in places where faction isn't an issue. You're going to get hit during solo, so you may as well hit back when you do.

Buffs-Group - Keep your normal solo buffs up, and everyone in the group needs Clarity if they use mana even remotely often, and Celerity if they are tanks. If you're the one debuffing for the attack slow, then you will probably downgrade to Augmentation for mana reasons, but you just need to see how the blue stuff is doing before making that call. I keep two tanks under Celerity and hardly notice the mana load, even when tossing a lot of attack slows. Insight is a tricky issue. There is an increase to their maximum mana with this spell for sure, there's two things to consider. First, the INT raise isn't very large, only 6; that's not much mana added for an INT caster. Second, that mana is only added when they are at full mana, technically. I gave a 35 shaman a full bubble of extra mana by casting Insight on him; but if he hovers at 40% mana all day, then he's not really benefitting from the spell, is he? Kind of a tough issue to address. You're raising the max mana they can have, but they will rarely utilize it. It boils down to this--if you have the mana to spare, drop it on them. If you don't, they aren't losing much, really, unless they reach over 80% mana, which would have been their maximum. But if I hover at say... 400 mana, and throw 120 mana at each pull, then med back 120 mana before the next pull, having a maximum pool of 1000 or 1200 mana means very little. I say buff it when you got mana, 45 minutes duration they're bound to hit full mana sometime.

Kamikaze-Solo - Okay, there is one monumental change to animation soloing now. It's not Celerity, though that's nice. Not Immobilize, but that helps. Nope, it's not even Shade--I hope you didn't really think it was Shade. It's regeneration; I'll explain. At 34th, the biggest problem I had, and the primary necessity for dropping Rune III on the pet was because I didn't like the downtime. I could kill most mobs with 2 or 3 bubs of mana, then sit down and med back up. When I hit my mana mark where it was safe to pull (I like 4 bubs or even full mana), I toggle over to the pet to drop Feeback on him... and find him at 60% health. I spent a good 2-3 minutes medding to find my pet not ready to go yet! That downtime is the key issue, because the pet heals slower than I get mana back. At 39th, pets begin healing at the same rate as NPCs do. That is the factor which makes Kamikaze-Solo so strong now. I pulled a mob this morning (mid-blue) with Tashani, took my shot, dropped Tepid Deeds, tossed on Anarchy and got rushed, threw on Immobilize (or Root... mood depending), and Anarchy chained with Chaos Flux left the mob lying dead before me. The pet saundered up to me all huffy and protective, and I looted and went to sit down. I toggled over to my pet's health while medding (what I usually do) and began yacking in the /ooc channel. I'm used to the pet taking a long time to recover, and he was down to 40% (Immobilize never broke so I had to nuke it to death) which meant I had a wait. I only used 40% mana, so I figured I had a long wait. I looked down and noticed my pet had full health, and I had only gotten back 20% of my mana! This extreme healing rate translates into one key ideal--if your pet doesn't die, he'll be ready for the next fight. Spell Lineup: Anarchy, Chaos Flux/Suffocate/Color Shift, Color Flux, Entrance, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot.

Reverse-Kite-Partner - Snare/Darkness/Bonds (wizard snare) & Invoke Fear; that's all there is to it. Especially in Kunark zones which are so roomy. You just blast away at it while your pet gorilla (as my favorite enchanter buddy calls the pet--because it's like a brain-dead bouncer--not real bright, but very dedicated in purpose) wails away on it. If you get an AE snare set up, Gravity Flux is awesome. Spell Lineup: Anarchy, Suffocate/Gravity Flux, Color Flux, Root, Entrance, Invoke Fear, Tashani, Swap Slot.

Charm-Solo - If you want to go after mobs higher than 39, you have to start using Cajoling, but you don't have a stun with duration long enough to cover the cast time yet. I recommend staying with 39 and down mobs using Beguile and a larger mana pool till you hit 44. Spell Lineup: Anarchy/Beguile, Color Shift/Cajoling Whispers, Color Flux, Immobilize, Entrance/Mesmerize, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot (Rune III). Because of the decision between Cajoling Whispers or Beguile, you will need Mesmerize somewhere in the lineup (though not required for Beguile, I usually load up Mesmerize over Entrance then).

Group-Tactics - Really, nothing has changed in your jobs now... just your buffs your throwing. Keep crowds controlled, and beware mobs that can kill you much faster than before. Keep the tanks fast and the mana flowing, and ensure only one mob is swinging as often as possible. Slow the mobs if no one else is there to do it, and don't be stingy with droping Rune or Rampage on people getting low in the HP bars. The healer never complains about you helping stop damage when you have the mana. Every single class adds new abilities to the group, and you need to start playing around with them to see just what they can do. One new thing you're going to start encountering more damage shields. You've got to get Nullify Magic or Strip Enchantment out, and kill those things off. Your tanks will melt to damage shields, summarily freaking out your healers. While just about all casters get some form of damage shield remover, enchanters are the best at it.

Outdoor Lineup: Anarchy/Nullify Magic, Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Entrance, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot. Possibly load for charm-solo and just use your pet in group.

Dungeon Lineup: Mesmerization, Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Entrance, Tepid Deeds, Tashani, Swap Slot (Cajoling Whispers). When Cajoling Whispers breaks at this level, you should just Entrance it then, rather than trying to recharm, in most cases.

I'm screaming toward 40 now, and getting a level a day. I'm going to be taking a day off next week from leveling, but within the next week I'll be adding the Eleventh Circle, and I assure you I'll be cheering about how much more powerful our soloing has gotten--Shiftless Deeds is going to be the most staggering spell we get at the next Circle!

11th Circle (44-48)

"Gorenaire," exlclaimed Xornn, pointing across the snow-blown

mountainscape.

"She's beautiful," replied Rhedd, enraptured by the majestic demigod's sweeping strides and underlying grace of power.

The high elf looked over at his wife admiringly as the sun struck her long tanned cheeks. "I suppose so. Impressive at least."

Rhedd poked him in the ribs, and took running down the slope, toward Firiona Vie.

I've spent some time playing around in the Eleventh Circle, and now I'm ready to share the news of what you should expect to encounter! First off, let's examine our new spells:

Arch Shielding - The last in the line of our personal shieldings, and a damned impressive one at that. 200 mana to cast, thats alright because it lasts for 72 minutes, granting +144 HP, +26 AC, and +20 MR at 44th. +150 HP by 50th, and +27 AC at 48th. Actually very difficult to renew before it fades, unless you have the spell memmed already. Spells "blink" for about 16 seconds, and the casting time on this one is 12 seconds. Took me awhile to get used to holding still for this one to finish casting. My trick is to buff Shade, then wait about 30 seconds to buff Arch Shielding. When Shade starts to blink I know it's time to renew Arch Shielding.

Boon of the Garou - Targetted werewolf illusion, must target group member. :) First off, everyone in the group will want this spell, just get used to it. Secondly, it's a great buff for the tanks, but they must be 44th to get the spell. Besides making them look like a werewolf, it also gives +100 DEX and +50 ATK, and a proc effect of Lifetap for 27-28 damage. The spell costs 100 mana, has a 1.5 second cast time, and a 3 minute recast delay. The duration is your level times 6 seconds, so 4 minutes and 24 seconds at 44th, capping at 6 minutes by 60th.

Brilliance - If getting INT and CHA both to 200 seemed like an impossible goal, this targetted buff will really help a lot. Caps out at a 14INT 6WIS raise at 52nd, starting at +12 INT at 44th. Every point of INT you have (or WIS for WIS-casters) gives you your level / 5 in mana. That's 140 mana above your normal cap at level 50 for other casters, but if it starts fading at a bad time, you've got room to recast it, because they've got to hit full mana before they truly benefit from this spell. I'm most pleased with the spell as it made reaching the 200INT 200CHA barrier much more attainable. [Note: I've since abandoned the 200 INT/CHA line, though I can hit it rather easily now. I've become more concerned with AC/HP/Mana now. CHA impacts my charming, and little else, so INT is only looked at in terms of how much mana it yields me, basically.]

Color Skew - A third AE stun spell to use, finally! It's an 8 second stun according to the spell data, but I just don't really pay much attention anymore.. At 60 mana, this is the same as dropping the other two stuns on a mob. However, total stun locks are now not only possible by chaining all three spells together, but really easy. At 44th level, with 200 INT, I have roughly 1720 mana to play with, or about 352 mana per bubble. Roughly 3 complete rounds of stun-locking with all three spells will be about 1 bubble of mana. Getting the timing right, that means the mob is held locked for 51 seconds. I've got mixed feelings on dedicated stun locking right now. Many times I use Flux/Shift on a double pull of the same mob type so I can get a look at which one is losing life without the tanks getting wailed on. I've gone up to Flux/Skew now for that purpose, and while Shift/Skew will actually allow a total stun-lock, I find that when devoting to the task I'd rather just Flux/Shift/Skew. So far it hasn't taken more than two cycles, which ended up to be about half a bubble of mana spent after taking Clarity into account. Great addition to the lineup still. However, I still haven't been able to cast Cajoling Whispers, even with it up. I suggest using Mesmerize to hold the mob still while you re-charm. Research Nitilims Grimoire page 115 & 116.

Discordant Mind - Long-awaited DD upgrade. 6.1 second casting time is getting huge now, but the 508-528 direct damage (at 48th) is just awesome. For 220 mana our nuke is on par with mages again... who are tossing 580-600 for 250 mana at the equivalent levels. The recast however, at 8 seconds, isn't on par with anyone but the enchanter you see standing in the mirror. Anarchy becomes the new filler for the recast delay, and with a good damage level, isn't bad. While of course our new nuke isn't going to see a ton of group usage, solo and partner capabilities are going to vastly improve.

Extinguish Fatigue - 35 mana targetted stamina regen. Refreshes the whole bar, and as Celerity has probably started so show you, these tanks really do start running out of stamina. Don't let this spell slip too far back in your spellbook because you're likely going to use it. Still, clerics will usually be casting this before you, but there will be times the healers are busy healing, and you've already done your jobs for the battle. Go ahead and give the tanks their stamina then... they've earned it. Research Nitilims Grimoire 351 & 352 or buy from cleric vendors.

Illusion: Werewolf - Mwuahahahahahaaa! This is our last illusion, and the damned coolest one you're going to see. Seems to be the same KoS factor as the elementals are, and I've heard that you will get friendly faction from the Frontier Mountains mountain giant fortress. Haven't had opportunity to test this yet. Besides looking totally cool looking, and scaring the crap out of newbies when you rush at them, this gives you up to 61 to your ATK rating, and a 40% haste buff. You can even combine it with Celerity for some mind numbing swing speed. While there is no practical use for swinging in a group, when you're being rushed in a solo situation, what would it hurt to just hit the mob once as it arrived? Anyway, I use Werewolf + Celerity when I want to train my one-handed blunt during reverse kiting.

Incapacitate - Upgrade to Listless Power. Truly amazing amounts of debuffing now... for 150 mana, this 8 minute duration spell will drops -49 STR, -49 AGI, and -22 AC from the mob at 44th, capping at -55 STR & AGI, -24 AC at 50th. While the AC drop will be slightly beneficial, the rest has little impact on the mob for the mana spent. More on the debuff spread later.

Pillage Enchantment - This sees an extreme amount of use with the commonality of damage shields on higher level mobs. Kills 4 buffs on a mob with virtually no failure rate. 70 mana a shot. Research Nitilims Grimoire page 35 & 36.

Rune IV - Hmmm. Well... this one costs 236 mana, compared to 149 mana for Rune III--58% more mana cost. Stops 394 damage max at level 50, compared to 230 for Rune III--71% more damage stopped. Looking good right? Spell regents... Peridot, 10.5 platinum for each one, or Rune III's Jasper at 0.787 platinum--that is correct, 1234% increase to cost of the spell regent. (I know the percentage looks goofy, but it's correct.) So... if you cast Rune III fourteen times, you've finally exceeded the cost of Rune III. Rune IV will stop more damage, but the cost for the damage stopped is staggering. The primary advantage of Rune III is that I've looted well over 8 gold each time I have to renew the rune, whereas this new rune won't last 13 times as long as Rune III. Therefore I'm not looting 10.5 platinum each time it runs out. Not even close. I won't be using this one, not for awhile anyway.

Shiftless Deeds - Upgrade to Tepid Deeds, amazing spell. Single handedly the most effective passive damage stopper we have (stun locking doesn't allow you to meditate). Costs 200 mana to cast, with a 6 second casting time, will decrease attack rate by 49% at 44th level, capping at 65% by 60th. A mob with an attack delay of 30 will swing every 6 seconds after this lands. Halves damage output of the mob, flat-out. Research page 300 & 301.

Summon Companion - A spell added during the class balancing days of EverQuest, most pet classes get this spell, and luckily the enchanter qualified as a pet class. Casting this simple spell will cause your pet to teleport to you from anywhere in the zone, as long as it's hate list is clear. If it's fighting something, it won't work. Very handy if you should lose track of Mr. Kamikaze, especially while either killing greens in a dungeon where pathing can make him wander off, or after running across a zone faster than the animation can move. As a side note, because the animation tries to sit northwest of you at all times, if you sit in the northwest corner of a room, it will typically move to the center of that room and "freeze". I refer to this as "chanter guarding".

Tashania - Another upgrade... to Tashania. 30 mana and 1 second casting time, unresistable and -31 MR at 44th, -33 MR at 48th. Do you need to hear anything else? Old World Coin quest in Temple of Solusek Ro to get spell.

Weakness - Next in the Weaken-line, upgrade to Insepid Weakness. -59 STR at 44th, capping at -65 STR by 50th. Used in conjunction with Incapacitate and Suffocate, we're talking about staggering levels of debuffing. Snaring mobs like this is possible, but it needs some finessing to work... more later. Sucks up 120 mana for its 6 minute duration.

Yegoreff's Animation - Only one more pet left now... this one uses two Tiny Daggers, and need 250 mana. This will provide a level range of 30th (hitting for 36 max) to 34th (hitting for 44 max). Now at 44th level, a 33-34 mob is blue, which means only 40% of your pets are going to be blue now. While I was repeatedly reading and being told that our pets would be quad-hitting by now, I'll tell you what I've seen. Typically double-hits for near maximum damage. Occasionally a triple hit, but not real common yet. I've seen a few "quad" hits, which were actually a double attack with the primary weapon, a dual wield attack (try to hand it blunt objects so I can see which weapon is hitting), followed by a bash. I have never seen a true "slash slash crush crush" in one round of swings. Whether or not I will in the Twelfth Circle remains to be seen, guess I'll find out in five levels. I'm still pretty happy with this pet, outside of how low level it is. The level cap for 39th was a 31st pet, and after hitting 44th I find out the 34th is the best I can hope for. I suppose that's been the real dissapointment for me is the hit points. Our animation dies so easily now, especially with how hard mobs are hitting at this level.

Buffs-Solo - On myself sits, Clarity, Augmentation, Shade, and Arch Shielding, plus I often have Rune III up. The pet always gets Celerity, Shade, and Feedback. I also make sure to carry around a few lightweight weapons to hand the pet, to maximize his attack rate. It can't take much damage, which is why

Buff-Group - Add Brilliance to the INT casters when you've got spare mana. Same issue of being extra mana for them when they hit full, so consider it one of the lower priority buffs to toss on people. You'll be dropping Celerity like there's no other spell at this point, even keeping three to four tanks hasted. They are the mainstay of your fighting force, and Celerity makes a huge impact on the passive damage... look at it this way. If you have two tanks in the group, casting Celerity on both of them is like adding a third tank.

Kamikaze-Solo - How did you know this would be my first area covered? The new pet didn't blow me away on it's level, but I'm not complaining about the damage it puts out--too much. Shiftless Deeds is great for prolonging the animation's life, which I can't describe how needed it is now. The pet takes very little damage before making a heart-wrenching death gasp now. The success of Kamikaze-Solo right now lies in a stronger pet and freshly upgraded nuke. Tashania pull, Shiftless, Discordant Mind, Root, Discordant Mind, and quite honestly it's about time to loot the mobs or watch the pet finish them. One thing I've started doing against hill and sand giants is opening with Root, Tashania, Shiftless Deeds, and throwing Discordant Mind till Root breaks. Gives my pet a nice head start on life when the melee begins.

Spell Lineup: Discordant Mind, Anarchy/Rampage/Rune III/Suffocate/Color Skew, Color Shift, Root, Entrance, Shiftless Deeds, Tashania, Swap Slot. As you can see, that second slot has a multitude of choices. Anarchy for chain nuking, Rampage or Rune III for pet heals, Suffocate for the slow DOT, or even Color Shift for trying to keep the stun-lock on. (Just requires some creative backpedalling to make time for Discordant.)

Against mobs it works on I mez them first then debuff, and finally I've started soloing casters like the Great Oowomp in Timorous Deep using...

Mez-Kiting - I've just started fiddling with this one, mainly when I'm bored or want to camp a caster like a spectre in Feerrott or the Great Oowomp in Timorous Deep. I think this method would actually work from level 8 on, but I'm not going to list it till someone tests this out and proves it works. Casters have low hit points but shell out extremely fast damage with nukes. Thus the danger in fighting them, as we have low hit points and shell out... well... fast damage without the recast delays. So I load up to fight the Great Oowomp, a nasty ogre shaman by the Bloated Belly pickup docks. He drops some nasty spells on you, mainly the dots is what can tear you up. The first time I fought him (level 34 mob by the way) I used a pet, Tashania hit, and pet is in. I may or may not be DOTed by now, depending on resists, and Discordant Mind slams home, sucking away almost half his life in one shot. No need to slow a caster, because it won't be swinging at you most of the time. Then I have to Root him and let him start nailing the pet. The next Discordant Mind lands, and nearly kills him (sometimes it does because of the pet). Fight over, and pretty easy, depending on what spells landed on me. His disease based DOT chews away over half my life sometimes.

So I unsummon my pet, determined to do better than that. When he pops again, I just cast good old level 4 Mesmerize on him. Bam. Got him, and 24 seconds to play around now. I drop Tashania followed with a Discordant and watch his life shrivel away. He begins casting, but Mesmerize lands before he finishes casting. If he doesn't cast and rushes me, Flux/Mez locks him back up. The second Discordant sends him packing, but I re-mez him anyway. Each time I have a seat for 2 mana tics then stand and blast him again. The mezzing is cheaper than the mana I get back actually. I chuck Anarchy and loot him, 2 bubs of mana spent, and no hits taken. Okay... maybe there's something to this mez-kiting thing. Something I'm going to try next time is Eye of Confusion. It's about the most amazing way to duel someone, so I'm curious how a casting mob does. If it will just keep it from rushing straight at me, I'd use it on everything. Mez/Blind/Nuke, rinse/repeat as needed. We'll see soon enough if it works or not. Spell Lineup: Discordant Mind, Anarchy, Color Shift, Root, Entrance, Mesmerize, Tashania, Swap Slot. [Note: Eye of Confusion would make the mob wander a little on the way too you sometimes, but usually it just ensured they will cast on you instead of charging, so it definitely wasn't worth a spell slot.]

Reverse-Kite-Partner - Discordant Mind and a stronger pet, plus Tashania make this form of fighting extremely easy now. Just pull in the bad guys, tash/snare/fear and drop a brain-melting bomb on the mob. AE Kiting is very viable now, if you get a good partner and time the nukes well to make sure they don't split back up. Two AE-nukers can do some amazing things. Spell Lineup: Discordant Mind, Suffocate/Gravity Flux, Color Shift, Root, Entrance, Invoke Fear, Tashania, Swap Slot.

Charm-Solo - Color Skew allows you to finally get Cajoling Whispers cast, NOT. I suggest instead using Mesmerize to cover your re-charming time. Spell Lineup: Discordant Mind, Cajoling Whispers, Color Shift, Root, Mesmerize, Shiftless Deeds, Tashania, Swap Slot.

Group-Tactics - You're really becoming a diverse caster. If you want to be called the best, then here is my advice: Know when to use what. That's it. I've showed you every tactic there is for crowd control, buffing, debuffing and even some miscellaneous crap. The king of enchanters at this level isn't the one who always mezzes certain mobs or stun locks when slot A is properly filled by slot B. You see a caster pull and instinctively decide right then if you're going to stun-lock. At the same time you call for AE nukes targetted on yourself. If you're going to be holding the crowd still, you might as well take advantage of the AE power wizards and druids have to offer you. Watch for the times when charming is worth the risk, realize when a safe single mezzing strategy is the best for the group, or when you need to just get your hands dirty and start stun-locking. I will offer one new piece of advice though. Really evaluate the situation when gunning for AE Mez. A pair of resists can mean you're dead very quickly, and you will usually find that single-target mezzes will mean less healing till you get them under control. Still, sometimes when there's 5 incoming, an AE mez followed with skillful stuns, single-mezzes and maybe even some charming is what makes you the best at what you do.

Outdoor Lineup: Pillage Enchantment, Color Skew, Color Shift, Root, Entrance, Shiftless Deeds, Tashania, Swap Slot. Color Skew often gets replaced by Boon of the Garou, or over Pillage Enchantment when no damage shields to worry about. Using the charm solo loadout can be staggering.

Dungeon Lineup: Mesmerization, Color Skew, Color Shift, Root, Entrance, Shiftless Deeds/Wandering Mind, Tashania, Swap Slot. Color Skew becomes Beguile/Cajoling occasionally, depending on pulls and my confidence for the day.

12th Circle (49-50)

Xornn walked back up to the sprawling castle of Felwithe.

Many long years had passed since he first emerged from those gates, a young, ambitious, and carefree koada`dal in search of knowledge and adventure. Deep-set wrinkles creased Xornn's face now, and a longing, memorative haze clouded his emotions. The forest was loud with noises of bats in the sky and fairies among the trees. As he looked upon his birthplace, a pixie ambushed a young enchanter, trying to reach the safety of Felwithe.

He gave the creature attention long enough to turn his head, and it fluttered to his side, a mental slave. Then the faydark forgot him again, and left him alone to ponder his journey come to end.

A thin arm snaked around his waist, and another followed up his back, and a small hand dug fingers into the base of his scalp. Rhedd pressed herself against Xornn's chest, and one long arm absently draped over her and around her back. She could tell he was lost in thought, and took heart in the fact that while Xornn might not be aware she was standing in his arms, the high elf's soul was aware, and returning the embrace.

"Was it worth it?" she asked inquisitively, and the air of Greater Faydark shattered.

Absolutely.

This was by far the most rewarding adventure I've embarked upon, and the most entertainment I've seen from anything. While the levels beyond are still waiting for me to reach them, 49th was the marker I've been looking for. The culmination of our class, the former end of our journey. There is of course more beyond the 12th Circle, but this is the culmination of our abilities. You are a master by now, and the rest is just more cookies in the basket. There will be more to come, more discussions of further Circles, but this is where I pause for now.

Spells

Adorning Grace - Targetted CHA buff, +40CHA for 72 mana, all for 110 mana. Great spell, especially in charming, plus it has some impact on mezzing still, though charisma isn't nearly as influential on mezzing as I once believed.

Allure - Charm upgrade, new cap of level 50 mobs. This spell will use 245 mana to cast, and has durations just like the last 3 charms. It just targets bigger stuff now--and takes 6 seconds to cast. Research spell with Nitilims Grimoire pages 378 & 379.

Berserker Spirit - Nice little quirk with the 49th spells; since they were made when 50th was as high as you could go, they all start capped out. This one is a great example. The upgrade to Rampage, it lends a 200HP Shield, +40STR, and -20AGI for a short duration (about 5 minutes), at a 3 second casting time. There's a 12 second recast delay which really stinks, but with Shiftless Deeds slowing a mob down, it's ready to cast by the time it needs renewed usually. More on that later. This spell is basically Rune III, with a recast delay but no regent needed. Amazing spell that will see tons of use.

Blanket of Forgetfulness - Targetted AE Memory Wipe, and the source of my absolutely favorite solo style now with Mr. Jerky. (I'll explain later.) I haven't had the amazing spell not blur anything yet, though reaggros still occur. Used in conjunction with Mesmerization, I've had some real fun with this spell. 4 second casting time, 175 mana a shot, 12 second recast delay.

Dazzle - Upgrade to Entrance! 96 second mez, 125 mana to cast it, and a 5 second recast. As a bounce at this level is chased by ae stuns almost exclusively, I see little impact from the recast delay. Great spell, especially for hectic pulls where I'm mezzing everything around me for long periods of time.

Enchant Adamantite, Brellium, Mithril, Steel - I've bought the spells, but I haven't cast them yet. Used for making enchanted items with Smithing, and each spell requires components. Mithril needs a Blue Diamond, and I heard that Adamantite did, but I haven't used that one yet. Adamantite is found in Neriak, Brellium in Akanon, Mithril in Felwithe, and Steel is in Qeynos, Freeport and Erudin.

Gasping Embrace - Finally receive our upgrade to Suffocate. DD/DOT/Debuff... first the nuke hits for 50 (lower than Suffocate oddly), then the debuff is -49STR & AGI (caps at -50STR & AGI at 50th), followed by -33HP per tic for 20 tics. After 2 full minutes, that's a total of 710 damage for 200 mana. Efficient? Hell yes. Practical... not really--when fear kiting I use this, but hardly any other time.

Group Resist Magic - First group buff! Grants +54MR (+55MR at 50th) to all group members standing close to you for 36 minutes for 200 mana, with a 6 second casting time. Great spell, and should be used in all groups unless there is no chance of a caster being encountered. I buff it still anyway just to stay in practice of doing it.

Illusion: Imp - Not in P1999This Luclin spell turns you into a levitating Imp, and grants 15 FR as well. The faction hit appears to be the same as Werewolf, basically KoS to everything. If someone wants to check on Solusek and the effect on the imps there, I'd appreciate any information.

Kintaz's Animation - The last animation until 55th. If the 39th and 44th pet had you discouraged, brace for impact. This pet is just amazing. All blue summons at 49th every time, hitting for 44 to 52! Yes, an 8 point jump in the max damage from 44th! It triple hits steady, and scores many quad hits. It may not have a zillion HP, but for some reason the animation finally learned how to stop getting hit so damned much! It last much longer in battle now. The 52 hitter is a 38th summon, leaving the level range at 34th to 38th. 300 mana to cast, 12 second casting time, 24 second recast delay. The most amazing thing about this animation is not the damage output, not the survivability, not the improved level range. It's taunting. Drolvargs (very easy switching aggro) take Tashania, Shiftless Deeds, Discordant Mind, and Anarchy, all chain cast, without aggroing to me. The taunting ability of this animation is staggering. As a matter of fact, I haven't rooted a mob since I hit 49th during kamikaze-solo. The new animation is "Mr. Jerky" giving props to the Jerky Boys. All the crap upgrades 34th, 39th and 44th had reperations made for this little gem. Staggering.

Paralyzing Earth - Root upgrade from Immobilize. 100 mana, 2.5 second casting time, 2.5 second recast. Save checks are every 6 seconds still, but also the resist rate is lowered from Root or Enstill. About the same as using Root on a mob with Tashani cast on it. Has a maximum duration of 3 minutes, so actually a good spell when you need a mob seeing melee damage only to stand still. (Read: Charm Solo) Researched with Nitilims Grimoire pages 400 & 401.

Purify Mana - Last in the bottle mana series, sitting on page 37 with the others. Needs a poison vial and 4 rubies to cast, which is why I haven't cast it. No idea what the enchanted mana vial the spell produces is used for.

Reoccurring Amnesia - 3 second casting time, 24 second recast delay, 100 mana. Single target repeated memory blur. Appears to drop Memory Blur on your target each tic for 4 tics, or until the blur "takes". You can buy this spell in South Qeynos down by the docks.

Shadow - Last targetted AC buff, +20AC before Defense factored in. 7 second casting time and 70 mana, very nice AC buff.

Swift Like the Wind - Here it is, the haste spell you've been waiting for. 60% haste, 16 minute duration, for 250 mana, with an 8 second casting time. Amazing buff, taking a glance at the numbers. 49th animation can be safely said to swing 3.5 times per attack tic. Over 20 attack tics (1 minute with 3 second delay) that 70 attacks. After Swift Like the Wind, that jumps to 112 attacks, adding 42 attacks! The attack delay of 3 seconds drops to 1.875 seconds now, which seems small (1.9 seconds from SLtW vs 2.0 seconds with Celerity) but over the course of 30 Celerity tics, SLtW has gained 3 seconds on Celerity, which is almost 2 full extra attack tics. The mana increase is heavy, but haste is the most influential passive damage buff there is--you pay for improvements heavily.

Buffs-Solo - I keep up Clarity, Augmentation, Shadow, Arch Shielding, and Group Resist Magic if I'll encounter any casters at all. Rune III still gets buffed when I'm out with Mr. Jerky, as it doesn't fade quickly like Berzerker Spirit. When using charm-solo or mez-kiting, I also run with Adorning Grace up for the CHA boost. Mr. Jerky has ordered me to buff him with the following: Shadow, Swift Like the Wind, and Berzerker Spirit before each pull. Mr. Jerky also slapped me around till I started carrying a Tinkerer's Pack full of rusty weapons for him. He wanted a flashier weapon, suggesting my twink wizard's staff of writhing, but I drew the line there. We're not speaking at the moment, till a compromise is reached.

Buffs-Group - Not a real brain-load here. If they use mana, they get Clarity. If they melee, they get Swift Like the Wind. Brilliance and Insight those who need it when you can, and drop things like Gift of Magic for kickers if you get some downtime. Boon of the Garou sees a lot of use by me in outdoor, low-mezzing groups, but I don't usually have the spell slot room inside when it's time to start flinging crowd control around.

Kamikaze-Solo - Dear lord. I can't tell you how cool this has gotten with the addition of Mr. Jerky to the team makes this much more effective now. You will see quad hits and good damage finally. However, unlike necro and mage pets, the animation has a hard time hitting for full damage on mobs nearing it's level. The ATK rating for the animation is lacking, resulting in much weaker hits on the average as AC of mobs gets increasingly higher.

Group-Dungeon - This is what makes the real enchanters. Honestly, you've been ready for this since you hit 29th. You've just got better tools to work with now. As you will almost ALWAYS be in charge of nasty amounts of crowd control at this level, outside of mana and haste, you're going to be dumping tons of stuns, mezzes and charms. Dazzle is your single-target weapon, Mesmerization is your area-effect lockdown, Charms are the savior of a heavy pull, and stun-locking is the glue that holds it all together, with a Root tossed in for good measure. In a typical dungeon group my spell lineup is: Color Skew, Color Shift, Color Flux, Root, Dazzle, Mesmerization, Tashania, and the swap slot. If I find myself using AE Mez a lot, then Skew becomes whatever Charm I need. Skew is just the plaster to finish out a stunlock. Typically Flux/Shift is enough to get things under control quickly.

13th Circle (51)

The spectral caller eerily rasped past twenty paces ahead, and Xornn watched from behind the fallen pillar. The vegetation of Trakanon's Teeth was clinging, leaving a humidity to the air matched only by the audible chirping of the countless insects serenading their cries to the night. Unnoticed by the unholy patrol, the high elf waited patiently for the way to clear.

Well, patience wasn't always one of the old enchanter's virtues.

Mentally dominated and well on it's way to attacking the camp it came from, Xornn pressed ahead, into a building with a deep ramp into the earth--or what was left of a building. Deep below, there Xornn found a glowing black and red speckled orb, humming with a toxic power. Withdrawing the organic key his travels had recently procured him, he touched the key to the globe with some trepidation.

"We need you in our group, now!"

Welcome, old enchanter, to the ruins of Sebilis.

From the 13th Circle on, your spells are going to be upgrades upon old versions; some will be staggering improvements, others will be interesting trinkets. A few you won't be able to comprehend how you did the first 50ish levels without it.

Spells

Collaboration - Upgrade to Benevolence, way back from the 6th Circle. This one increases your faction by 300 "units". I don't actually know how much a unit is in terms of slipping from say Threatening to Dubious, but it does just that in a place like Velketor's Labyrinth, where this spell can make you completely non-KoS.

Everlasting Breath - This is the upgrade to Enduring Breath from Luclin. The only difference is no material component is required to cast this version. Rumored to drop in The Deep.

Levitation - Luclin upgrade to Levitate, same effect, but does not require a material component to cast. Drops from the bandits in Fungus Grove.

Theft of Thought - I mentioned one of those spells you can't imagine not having... this is one of them. 25 mana per cast, which you target a caster with. 2 seconds later you will have 346 mana (51st) to 400 mana (60th) from your target. Wandering Mind move over, there's a new mana tap in town. The recast, 2 minutes--which is a pain, but when you've got a lot of mezzing to do, regaining 20% of your mana bar every two minutes is really nice. If your group won't leave a caster mob till the last kill of a multiple pull, train them, it's just free mana waiting for you. Now, in addition to this, there's a handy little trick you can use when you find yourself low on mana (and needing it badly) with no casters around. /duel someone in your group, whichever you like. You will no longer be able to buff them, but you can both /camp when death is not imminent. You can cast Theft of Thought on anyone you're dueling, and even if they don't have mana, it will still tap them. They will also fall victim to PB stuns, AoE Mezzing, and any mistarget casts you have, so take care. Still, when you have 10% mana and you're going to lose control of the fight, that monk over there is a limitless source of mana just begging to be tapped.

Wake of Tranquility - Only seems proper to pair a pretty trinket with an amazing spell like Theft of Thought. WoT is just an AoE version of the Lull series. By this point of your career, you realize that Lull only belongs in the occasional no-xp very low green camps when farming loot. Wake of Tranquility has the same horrid resist rates, just allows you to lull a whole room at once instead of needing several casts.

Buffs-Solo - I've gotten to where I keep a set lineup of buffs going, modified again by my changes in play style. When solo, I always have Clarity and Arch Shielding up. Augmentation and Shadow don't see much use from me anymore, but I'm not saying you shouldn't buff them. I just find them another nagging buff I'm not in the mood to cast usually. I usually won't even buff Brilliance and Adorning Grace. Basically, I'm lazy, and those two spells are drastic buffs, the rest are just helpful.

Buffs-Group - Once I get into a group things change. Clarity on everyone with mana, Swift Like the Wind on all melee classes, Group Resist Magic on the whole shebang, and I keep Clarity, Arch Shielding, Group Resist Magic, Brilliance, Adorning Grace, and at least Rune III, sometimes even IV. When in group it's a whole different ballgame, and I'm nickel and diming for every edge I can get. It took a long time to decide, but I think it's about responsibility. If I want to skimp on my buffs while soloing, that's me that suffers the consequences--but if I'm not in the mood to put a wisdom buff on the druid, I'm skimming them by not doing my job--even if I may think they don't need it.

Group-Dungeon - Theft of Thought causes a massive change in play style, as it becomes simply imperative to have a caster alive during fights as long as possible. This also means figuring out what spell slot to dump in exchange for ToT, which can't be unmemmed all the time. My lineup is typically Mesmerizaion, Color Skew, Color Shift, Root, Dazzle, Theft of Thought, Tashania, and Swap Slot, which will typically contain Shiftless Deeds (if I have to slow) or a charm, both spells I can quickly memorize when the need arises.

The big thing about 51 and on is the dramatically higher experience requirements; 51 to 53 are hell levels (compared to 50), 54 to 58 are hell compared to 53, and 59 is hell compared to 58. Oddly enough, 60th level needs about the same experience to "complete" (filling the xp bar) as 53 does. You are now an Illusionist, a master of your profession--so shine with your talent, and lead the group to victory.

14th Circle (52)

An ear-shattering roar careened down the staircase and took Xornn cleanly off his feet, impacting him into the wall and taking his breath away. A wave of searing heat hungrily chased into the corridor, bursting the thick oaken door the small army of heroes had just opened into flame. As the heat reached Xornn and the enchanter beside him, their world slipped into a blurring ripple of vision. Both of their robes took aflame, on the sleeves and legs, but they both calmly puffed out the loose, magical cloth from the ground. Muadan, the half-elven paladin of reknown, soared through the archway and bounced down the stairs unceremoniously as another ear crushing roar eminated from beyond the portal. The window into the battle was only a roiling mass of unnatural fire and magic, with the screams of heroes and cries of fallen comrades sounding the score of this quest.

Muadan rose painfully to standing again, giving Xornn a solemn look of wordless knowledge--the battle wasn't fairing well. Mystical runes shimmered around the stalwart paladin, not healing his wounds but minorly covering them up for a time. "It's time, Xornn."

"Aye." Xornn and Jakonis calmly strode into the portal, calling upon discording spells to shatter Lord Nagafen's psyche.

During the 14th Circle you will encounter another set of spells with widely varying usefulness, including a very hotly debated one. This will be the last level that you are able to participate in fighting Lord Nagafen and Lady Vox, though don't be surprised if you're asked to come and buff well into the high 55+ range. There are going to be a multitude of groups pounding on your door with invites now, as if the last 35 levels or so haven't been testament to your desirability.

Spells

Boon of the Clear Mind - 175 mana for a 27 minute group buff, of Clarity. People receiving this spell (and almost all Kunark post-50 spells) must be 42nd level or higher. If a 41 or lower is grouped with you, then BoCM will not cast. Be prepared to hear several questions about what this spell is, even requests for Clarity. It doesn't say Group Clarity, and a notable number of people will not make the connection. The mana regeneration is 7/tic (as Clarity is at 48th on), and goes to 8/tic at 56th, but you will have Clarity II by then. If you need to Clarity more than two people, this spell is going to save you mana. Not only that, but you will know exactly when to refresh mana regen now. As you probably discovered with Group Resist Magic, at least half of most groups will remind you that the group buff is fading. I used to try to explain it fades for me also, but I finally just started smiling and saying, "On it."

Color Slant - You next PB Stun, 125 mana, 8 second stun, 1.5 second casting time, and drains 100 mana from affected targets, same 12 second recast, and a 35 feet AoE again. This stun will actually see little use, as Color Shift and Skew will be sufficient for just about any stunning situation, and if you need a solid stun lock with no gaps, Color Flux added to the former two will be much more mana effective. However, I did on one occasion, in a Mistmoore raid involving a contest to see how many mobs we could pull at once, load Color Flux through Color Slant--and 24 faction hits later, I was really low on mana.

Fascination - Upgraded form of Mesmerization, and one of the most hotly debated topics among enchanters (Mesmerization vs Fascination), as is the use of AoE Mezzing all together. Stated here is my well tested opinions, and after 51 levels of opinions, take that as you may. At 200 mana per cast, versus 70 mana per Mesmerization, this is a colossus mana upgrade to go through, 3 times normal. What you get for the extra 130 mana: drastically reduced resist rate, with basically a built in 25 MR drop on the target's save, 5 extra feet on the AoE (35 feet), and 2 extra tics of duration (36 seconds). Those two tics can often be the difference between having time to memorize another spell, and being stuck in a renewal of AoE Mez loop and casting one or two spells before you have to renew your hold. Most powerful is the lowered resist rate, however--you will rarely see a resist in most grinding groups, meaning that you're paying 3 times as much, but are less likely to have to double cast this spell. If you see two resists on an AoE Mez, you will likely just cast again and hope for a better result, as two coming free stands a chance to waste too much time single mezzing them, and suddenly the rest of the pack is coming free. A single resist is no big deal, and usually that's what you will encounter in most xp grinding camps. However some places you might find resists a bit higher, and this is when pulling out Fascination for that one time you need to get 4 mobs off the cleric now can really pay off. Highly a situational spell, but when resists are higher, and Mesmerization is limited in effectivness, Fascination can be an asset.

Rune V - Last of the Rune series, still uses a Peridot, just at Rune IV did, only this one affords an appreciable amount of protection. At level 52 this is a 640 HP Shield, capping at 700 HP at 60th. The spell requires 350 mana and the previously mentioned Peridot, but can be quite effective in an emergency, or for a planned damage. Primary example is a situation like pulling King Tranix (fire giant in Nagafen's Lair, shadow knight); Rune V is placed over the monk puller who goes up and takes the harm touch (700ish in damage) then feigns death, comes back for a heal, and goes up again to pull the now "spent" shadow knight. Without Rune V, the harm touch would have done a massive amount of damage, and left the monk a small hit point base to rely on for feign deathing away from several upset fire giants. Should the spell actually go to duration, 110 minutes is the expiration time. For many raiding situations, enchanters will get (or bring) a stack of peridot for keeping Rune V on themselves, as 650 to 700 HPs is a nice buffer to keep you standing during intense fights.

Trickster's Augmentation -

Buffs-Solo - Though at 52nd level I saw much less soloing, and quite a bit of time in places like Chardok, Karnor's Castle, and Old Sebilis (especially the latter), I did still charm solo from time to time, usually do to login time restraints. Clarity & Arch Shielding were all I kept up, with Adorning Grace when charming. My animation (still used on seafury cyclopses and such) got Swift Like the Wind & Shadow, with Berzerker Spirit as the heal spell.

Buffs-Group - As stated last circle, I pull the whole ball of wax out for groups, using every buff that helps at all whenever mana permits. Only real change is Boon of the Clear Mind assisting with the mana load, and helping keep track of when the group needs refreshed. Bear in mind that Boon of the Clear Mind will not overwrite your own Clarity, so click it off before casting.

Tactics Changes

Group-Dungeon - Boon of the Clear Mind is more of a pleasant distraction than an amazing buff at this point, as you won't really need this spell, it's just handy. Fascination will be a decision every enchanter tries, I warn to be cautious of the mana cost, but respect the drastically increased power of the spell. Rune V will see use in pulls where you are aware of damage about to be taken, plus if you have the peridot to spare--this can really reduce the amount of healing you need. However 350 mana per rune can burden your mana pool if chewing through them too quickly. I still usually dump Rune III up, just because it's cheap and efficient, stopping the first attack tic of a mob, and giving me time to react. However Rune V will stop quite a bit before going down.

Prepare for a long journey to 53rd, but at least you will always have a multitude of groups to choose from, and at this level, you will really start getting remembered for your work. On many raids, you will start moving into position as the lead enchanter at this point, but it's no different than small grouping. Tell everyone what you want them to do, and expect them to do it.

15th Circle (53)

A pulsating throb of power emanated from the massive pyramid before the adventures, as scattered sand carried on the wind lost its drive and sprinkled to the ground around the unsettling calm of the monolith. An assorted gathering of Xornn's companions stood around him; Annoden the powerful, wily human magician; Rhedd, his beautiful and savy wood elf wife; Aelgar, the mighty half-elf warrior; Dessari the woof elf ranger, Aelgar's wife. Atop the pyramid, their wizard guide stood solemnly, staring into the sky at something only he could see.

"It's time," he hissed, "gather close, we planeshift now."

As they clambered atop the monument they felt the air blur with each pulse of the mystic energy it trapped at this nexus. The wizard began his casting, speaking in a lost, inherently evil portal. With a folding shift of reality, the journey began and ended and Xornn was looking at a pitched battle before his party, the first wave of the raid. Several were down already, including the first enchanter to go up. Xornn found his initial steps hindered, then realized he was gripping his wife's hand.

He mouthed a silent phrase to her as he released her grasp then strode purposefully into the throng of attackers, as they began their assault into the Plane of Hatred.

Actually I hope you have been going to Hate already by this point, but if you haven't yet, go now. Go before you have Clarity II. Go before resists become a rarity rather than commonplace. This place used to see raids of level 46 to 50, and they succeeded. But no matter where you go or what you do, excel.

Spells

Aanya's Quickening - Upgrade to Swift Like the Wind, and one of the best haste spells you'll see. The upgrade in haste is 64% (from 60%), which is great, but that's not the major improvement in this spell. The mana cost is 275 mana (from 250 mana) which is a very small increase, not the improvement. The duration is 24 minutes, 8 minutes longer than SLtW, and it casts in 4 seconds as opposed to 8! Get used to hearing "AQ plz" because you're going to hear it a lot. Fantastic haste spell, all around great upgrade.

Boltran's Agacerie - Upgrade to Allure, and an amazing upgrade at that! First the bad side, with is the oppressive mana cost of 400 per cast. This is huge, admittedly, but what do you get for 155 mana more than Allure? You get a higher level cap (53 for normal mobs, 51 against planar), which is great, especially with the increasing level of mobs you're encountering in experience grinding groups. But that's not why this spell is amazing--the casting time is 4.0 seconds! This means that with a 20th level Color Shift, you can cover the casting time! Once you have Boltran's Agacerie you won't look back--just an awesome upgrade all around.

Cripple - Getting into the hardcore shaman debuff now, with -75 STR, -65 DEX, -75 AGI, and -33 AC to the target. This all takes 225 mana to cast, and finishes in 2.5 seconds. The defensive capabilities of a mob drop signifigantly from this spell, and this is quite useful when there is already a shaman in the group slowing. Still, your shaman is typically going to be throwing this spell out over you. Something to keep in mind though, especially on a raid where you are playing 2nd or 3rd enchanter in line and need something to do.

Recant Magic - This is the king of dispels, nailing not only 4 effects at once, but casting as though you were nine levels higher than normal. You will cast this spell as though you were level 62 for effectiveness purposes when you first get it. In the situations where you need to dispel a mob (especially in raid environments where a mob is SoW'd and 100% magic resistant... dispel will take out that running speed and probably save your entire raid--Spite Golems in Plane of Hate being the mob I'm speaking of).

Buffs-Solo - Soloing is becoming increasingly rare at this point, as Kamikaze styles will be hard pressed to find plentiful blues that can be dropped (Dreadlands is just about wholly green, and Burning Woods is getting a tad strong for the animation to handle). The other option is charm soloing, but be warned that mobs are beginning to get increasingly high amounts of hit points, meaning that you will find finishing of the pet to be a major investment in nuking mana, and fight times will get very long as they just can't kill each other fast enough. Couple in the fact that hits are beginning to get extremely powerful as well, and you'll find that grouping is looking more and more attractive. I suggest snagging a healer partner more than ever for charming, or fear kiting if you don't want the full group experience. Still, Clarity/Boon of the Clear Mind, Arch Shielding, JBoots/SoW (this is a must if you plan to solo now, experience is too valuable), Adorning Grace if charming.

Buffs-Group - You have a new haste. Your mana load is about to lighten so much, as you snagged an extra 8 minutes duration with this haste, and you'll find you can even do four tanks at a time with minimal trouble now. Outside of this change, buffing stays the same.

Tactics Changes

Charm-Solo - As I said, run with a healer these days, the only experience you're losing is the full xp for killing the pet; all the other kills your pet took half the experience when soloing. You will last much longer, and often never need to stop fighting. Boltran's will allow you to recharm much easier, though monitor your mana closely. If you have two fast breaks on charm in a row, consider abandoning the fight, as a 3rd charm means 1200 mana invested in controlling a pet, and that's probably at least half your mana pool.

54th level is the level to hit. At that point, you will be invited everywhere to do everything. Clarity II and Aanya's Quickening are all you need to be welcomed to any raid that occurs when they are short on enchanters. 16th was huge with Breeze, 29th was awesome with Clarity, and Clarity II will change the way people treat you completely. This is your last "single-hell" level, so enjoy it while you can, your experience bar is about to get awfully sluggish at 54th. Good luck, Illusionists...

16th Circle (54)

A swirling breeze of calm and serenity overwhelmed Xornn as new mana flooded his mind. The cleric's meditations visibly relaxed as the spell floated over him, and the high elf returned to the fight at hand. A flooding wash of glamour pulled hungrily at his mana reserves, but was necessary to hold the massive juggernaught at bay while the party battled another. Xornn felt his shielding wane, and quickly began the long spell of renewal as another juggernaught raced in from behind the party!

Interrupting his casting and cascading a glamour into the new opponent the old enchanter called out, "Warriors! Hasten your fight, my hold is strong, not invincible!"

As he renewed the glamour on the first juggernaught, Xornn felt the end of his mana approaching, but quickly drained the fungus priest dazzled behind him. This was still a losing situation.

Welcome to the most pivotal post-50 level, as you finally gain access to Clarity II. You felt the desire of Breeze, and the rushing demand for Clarity. Now you will wonder how you ever enjoyed enchanting without Clarity II. 54th is also the first "double-hell" level. You will now level at roughly half the speed of a 51-53 character. This will continue through 58, and at 59... well let's worry about 54, shall we?

Spells

Clarity II - The final upgrade in the mana regen series, and the qualifier to get you on any raid that takes place. 115 mana to cast, 35 minute duration, and grants 11 mana/tic regen! There's really nothing else to say about this spell--it's a must have at all times.

Dementia - Final upgrade in the nuke series, 250 mana, 6 second casting time, and the traditional 8 second recast. This spell will start out at 615 damage, and cap at 675. Not a huge upgrade over Discordant Mind, but when you're in need of just nuking something, this is a nice way to put it down.

Glamour of Kintaz - A new mez line that allows you to mez some targets that cannot be mezzed with Dazzle and before. Even when Dazzle will work, you may wish to used GoK instead; 275 whopping mana, 2.5 second casting time, and no recast delay. This nets you a 30 second mez effect, cast as though you're two levels higher (starting out as a 56 cast), and slightly less resistant than a 56 enchanter's Dazzle. While this is a huge mana investment to keep going, when there's a sebilite juggernaught pounding on your party, GoK is often the way to go. In places like Chardok there are mobs that can only be mezzed with GoK or it's father spell, Rapture. Much like the "switchover" tactic with AE Mezzing, you may find that GoK chased with Tashania and Root is a good tactic to spare your mana the brunt of this drain. Remember, for 100 more mana than Dazzle, you're getting 1/3 of the duration. Still this is a fantastic spell for stopping I high-powered mob from crushing your party. In situations where a resist means death, GoK is a good idea.

Shield of the Magi - Final upgrade in the self-shielding line. Grants 250 HP, 32 Raw AC, and ?? MR. With a 12 second casting time, be glad you only have to renew it every 90 minutes. Should be up all the time, unless there is no chance you need to resist magic, and a shaman can talisman you then (don't stack).

Buffs-Solo - I myself run with Clarity II, Shield of the Magi, and JourneymanBoots (if you don't have JBoots yet, go get them). When charming, tack on Ardorning Grace, if I need MR Group Resist Magic goes on.

Buffs-Group - C2 all mana users, AQ on the melees, GRM on the group. Shield of the Magi, Adorning Grace and Brilliance on myself, Brilliance/Insight/Gift of Magic passed out to those that request it.

Tactics Changes

Solo - A few things you will discover (if you haven't already) about soloing: Your animation is just too weak to take down an XP mob, outside of Kamikaze-Stun, which is a massive investment of time and mana at this point. Charm soloing is getting very dangerous, as the difference between a recharmed ex-pet and a greasy enchanter goo on the wall is sometimes just a particularly well-timed bash. Better break out the platinum and start using Rune V if you aren't already for charm soloing. Mez-Kiting is a forgotten art by now... because of the investment in time and mana--we just aren't efficient enough to drop these colosally big mobs. Honestly Charm-Solo is the only really viable option anymore, though there are xp mobs out there Mr. Kamikaze can still drop. They just aren't the norm anymore.

Group - New mana regen, new high-powered mez, new self-shield... it's a great time to be grouping, and with C2 you're going to get invited pretty much anywhere. The only advice I offer is to recognize your limits--there are places where you are going to have a very hard time controlling the crowds, but you're there because of the buffs you bring to the party. GoK is your friend, despite the mana cost.

The 17th Circle is my current home as of this writing, though hopefully that will change in the very near future. I wish you all the best of luck, and tell you this--you're almost a Beguiler, and despite what higher enchanters may tell you about the enjoyment of 55+, don't listen to them--find out for yourself. There's more to EQ than just raiding and buffing--and that's something you have to see for yourself. Spending a night in Chardok is far from boring--ever.

17th Circle (55)

A light, rhythmic tapping pervaded the crisp air about the band, as the stocky dwarf Omar fidgeted with his battle-worn axe, and the intricately forged metal rings of his vest clicked and patted against each other and the leather beneath them. He huffed in a visible show of impatience at this waiting game, his own personal jab at the "finger-wrigglers" always wanting to stop and "align the planets" as far as he was concerned. The snow was deep here in the Wastes, at least up to Omar's waist in most areas, not counting the massive gorge he had just been levitated over--much to his complaint.

Their scout was off in the distance, looking for the giant captain they came to slay, and there were a few other soldiers and knights among the band. Near the back of the group a paler than normal high elf was kneeling in silent meditation, despite a talkative halfling next to him carrying on a conversation with no one in particular regarding the next meal. His eyes, steeled gray, were open--but blank, as though he were merely a very lifelike statue, rather than the enchanter they had traveled with many days to get here. Omar let another derisive snort go, to little visible effect on the group.

As Omar began to feel his limits to this waiting approach, Xornn spoke up, "Yes, Omar, your time is almost here." The gaze of the koada`dal was on him, only not quite looking at his creased and weathered eyes, but more like... his shoulder. He turned as the wind seemed to die behind him, from a strong breeze to a light wind, and then a light breeze seemingly choked out by a growing shadow. As his own bodily mixed battle fury began to take hold, a screaming sense of energy and speed overcame him in a swirl of rippling magic. The giant cresting the hill and blotting away the setting sun seemed to move slower--or perhaps Omar was moving faster. It was all the same in the end--the captain would fall.

Xornn quietly knelt back down as the last fighter was hastened, and watched the battle calmly. He shivered, once.

You have graduated again, students--to Beguiler. There is one pivotal change that will occur now, that you will notice from this point on--54th weeded out a lot of people. 55th+ is an elite group for the most part, that has pushed the limits of their abilities, and proven they have what it takes to work with a group--and therefore with an enchanter. The levels will get slower with each passing, but the power you wield will begin to rise at nearly an exponential rate now. It's a very good time to be an enchanter, and you are about to see things you never would have imagined possible. For the enchanter is a rare class as you advance this far--so many fall to the wayside as the margin of error gets smaller and smaller, and the risk vs. reward becomes too great. But you made it, didn't you? So you might say it's all downhill from here.

Of course, I wouldn't.

Spells

Gift of Insight - This is the upgrade to Gift of Magic, a spell of somewhat questionable importance. However, make no mistake when assessing the value of this one, for whereas GoM increased your maximum mana pool by 50, this one increases by 100. Not impressed? Good, you shouldn't be--but then couple the increase of mana regen by 1, which stacks with the Clarity line. This is the awesome power of GoI, and why it will be a must cast on any primary mana user. (Hybrids don't need it, but anyone who's primary tactics need mana should receive this buff.) The mana cost is an extreme 300 per cast, but the duration is a long 75 minutes, so after the initial drain this one won't be too bad to keep buffed out.

Largarn's Lamentation - This spell actually has no real forerunner, though it acts as a cross between Mana Sieve, and Whirl Till You Hurl. 120 mana to cast, with a 2.5 second casting time, this is a targetted (not AoE) stun that last 8 seconds, and drains 75 mana from the target. It is also bears a fairly low resist rate. 120 mana is very costly, but this can allow for a stun from across the chamber to stop a Gate or Complete Heal, when you have no time to approach and stun, or it's too hazardous to get into melee range. This spell carries a 24 second recast delay, so don't rely on this to aid well in a stunlock situation. Note the spell carries a 1ft knockback effect, which could actually contribute to pushing a mob around. (Note that outside of causing a stun, the next most effective way to interrupt an NPC caster (or any caster actually), is to move them. Everyone standing on the same side of Lady Vox as they attack is the key to interrupting her Complete Heal attempts if the enchanters don't get enough mana drained.

Memory Flux - This is the final spell in the Memory Blur line, single target, and very costly at 350 mana. Some small testing has given me the impression it is the most reliable blur we have to date, but for the intense mana cost involved, I would rather use several blurs, or just trust in Root like I did since level 8. Carries a 12 second recast as well--and will probably see little use by any enchanter experienced with blurring reliability in the high end game.

Wind of Tashani - The first AoE MR Debuff we receive. While this may initially sound like a death wish, you will find it is often very useful, particularly if you are in an area that tashing is rarely if ever necessary. In a situation that you rarely get resists--the only time they become a concern is during high quantities of saving throws, such as during AoE Mez usage. In this instance an AE Mez followed by AE Tash can reduce all of the MR across the playing field quickly. Also setting up for the shaman's AE Slow to blanket the mobs. 45 mana to cast, with the traditional 1 second cast time of Tash spells. Lowers MR by 23, as a poison effect for removing purposes.

Zumaik's Animation - One last animation for the enchanter's bag of tricks, and quite seriously, about the only application it still has involves farming green mobs, or fear kiting--the latter of which doesn't occur much in the 55+ game, though Shadows of Luclin has brought a new set of zones where high level fear kiting is a very real opportunity. Unfortunately it's still a very slow method to level, as kill times get longer and longer, and setup time for fights is extreme. By the way, damage range is from 46 to 54 max--only a one level increase from the last pet.

Buffs-Solo - Animation soloing is completely out of the question at this point, unless you manage to find a low hit point mob (probably a caster) that doesn't devour your animation in seconds. If you do find this, then lob on mana regen and ac/hp buffs, because that's all you're going to need. Your pet needs HPs and Haste of course. When charm soloing, lob on your CHA buff if you feel it helps, or just stock up on peridot and make sure Rune V is up all the time. Due to the extreme heavy hitters you are required to work with when charm soloing now, Rune V is about the only acceptable protection now.

Buffs-Group - No brainer here, just add GoI to the mix for any healers and casters--hybrids can make due with just C2, unless you're really bored. Don't go crazy trying to land GoI like crazy on a group, C2 is the critical spell, and GoI can wait a bit if needed.

Tactics Changes

Solo - You gain a new animation, but this isn't really enough to solo--the only chance you really have to maintain a solo with the animation involves frivolous usage of Rune V, and a lot of Dementia casting. If you have the bucks for this, I invite you to continue the practice, but this will hurt your pocketbook fast, and approaches the danger of charm soloing at this point. Your animation is so fragile, trying to solo with it is almost like trying to fight just wizard style. I recommend saving the animation for farming equipment for your twink. Charm soloing is very dangerous now, and if you do choose to fight this way, it's important to consider this factor--if the average charm is 2.5 minutes (reasonable with my experience), can your pet finish the fight with your pull in that time? At one point in charm soloing, about 40 to 50, mobs you charmed could kill two other mobs before charm broke. You will find with the colossal increases in total hit points of the mobs, even the heavy hitting charmed pets have trouble finishing a fight in under three minutes. Dealing with a charm break is practically expected at this point, unless you are able to locate a set of low hit point mobs that will carve each other up quickly. I no longer recommend using slow on the enemy mob, as you will rarely hold a pet that can survive two fights in a row, and losing your pet can often mean zoning because you don't have the mana to nuke finish a mob. Successful charm soloing usually involves a pair of mobs spawning together, rooting one, charming the other and letting them battle it out, doing your best to make sure your pet barely wins, allowing you to break charm and have a fleeing mob left to finish off with nukes. You may even consider hasting your pet, to make for a reliable kill time. If you choose this route, then I suggest slowing the enemy, and going for a two mob kill before charm breaks. A strong haste is often enough to pull this off, but you can go from full health with Rune V up to very dead in seconds in this situation.

Partner - Shadows of Luclin has introduced a plethora of new zones crawling with high level mobs that can be fear kited with ease! While this brings back the power of a snare/enchanter duo, the experience gains from this effort are still slow, even for a double-hell level. Mana efficiency is the key, and an excellent spot, free of adds, but without long pulls--and pull time is usually such a factor, that coupled with very long kiting times, it's just not worth the effort. However when you don't have time for a group, and don't want the extreme hazard of soloing, fear-kiting is back as a reliable, and at least active method of leveling.

Group - No visible changes to the grouping tactics, outside of a new buff to cast, and lower resist rates due to your level. This will continue all the way to 60th, when encountering a resist is usually just a minor annoyance rather than a common situation.

18th Circle (56)

One short, swift stroke, bereft of sympathy, was all the signaled the fall of the raiding troop's scout. The iksar fell slowly to the ground, his scaled hide parted from shoulder to waist in a diagonal across his back, as multiple gouts of crimson liquor sprayed a globbily trail in the air to mark his path to the rocky tunnel floor. A dull thump, decidedly wet by the sound, left a muted haze of silence over the astonished raiders, despite the high

pitched dragon shrieks of the sarnak towering over the monk's corpse.

Down the long hallway the monk had run in from, the shriek carried well, losing no volume or girth in it's rolling gait down the hallway. Soon the cries of battle began to sound through the entire complex deep inside Chardok, followed by mystical warning claxxons blearing on, warning of intruders at the front gates. Soon the battle would begin in force.

Xornn looked wearily at Amaeranth beside him. She looked at least as tired as Xornn felt, and she was better at hiding it--so the high elf knew he must look fairly haggard. The concern on her face was a mirror to his pondering, and left no doubt how bad he looked. The raid was going well, but the toll was being lain on the enchanters as they repeated stopped wave after damnable wave of oncoming dragon-men.

"Vengeance!" cried out one of the warlords, and the raid as one consumed the sarnak and the two unfortunates which came in time to die in their unleashed fury.

New resolve washed through Xornn, as the warriors vows of death were soon reinforced by powerful sword strokes and hellish wizard fire permeating the air. Amaeranth helped another enchantress to her feet and the three looked solemnly amongst themselves. Xornn finally spoke, "Let's finish this then, the royal family dies tonight."

They all nodded, and turned as one to face the oncoming rush of twenty more dragon-men.

Most enchanters will tell you that 56 was worse than both 55 and 57 were. My guess is because you're taking a larger cut of the experience by 57, the xp movement is becoming more visible. Honestly though, be proud to be this far, and know that you're over halfway to being a Phantasmist. (Though opinions on that will very, considering how bad 59th is.) No real spectacular spell additions at this level, primarily you've just inched closer to finishing the leveling runs. You've probably made a ton of associates by now, if not very close friends, and seen and done just about everything in the game. If you haven't, get out there and see what you missed in the drive to level.

Spells

Augment - Augmentation II essentially, and long-awaited. Unfortunately, the effects really don't stack up enough to make it a choice versus Aanya's Quickening. 45% haste, 35 AGI, 18 raw AC, and increased stamina regen. dropping off 19% haste just isn't worth the AC and AGI from this spell. So it's really more of a collector's item in reality, save a few encounters (like Kedge Keep) where you want a solid haste + stamina regen, or in situations where you must haste a ridiculous amount of people, because the mana cost is half that of AQ. Casts in 5 seconds, 135 mana, lasts 36 minutes.

Horrifying Visage - Not in P1999This is a single target spell new with Luclin; it's apparent effect when cast on someone is to cause every strike after it lands to generate extra aggro. Exact percentages are still in speculation at the moment, and I'll wait until I'm more confident in the numbers to say exactly. This is the upgrade to Haunting Visage from the 8th Circle. The spell has a 36 second recast delay, so you need to have it memmed slightly in advance to needing it, takes 200 mana in 2 seconds, and causes heightened aggro for 18 seconds afterward.

Overwhelming Splendor - Last CHA buff received, this one is a whopping 50 CHA! By now it's probably become apparent that anything you're able to actually land mez on is very blue to you. This means that the mobs will almost always be at or around their resist floor, before CHA is even a factor. This buff allows you to focus on INT (for more mana) even more greatly, as most enchanters will have enough "incidental" CHA raises that this will take them near to or over CHA at 56+. By this level HP gear is usually a better choice over CHA, but a 50 point buff never hurt anyone. 175 mana, 5 second casting time.

Torment of Argli - An interesting, and basically new spell line. This spell causes the targets Intelligence and Wisdom to drop by 21 points, as well as drain away 560 HP in 20 tics (28/tic). Also over the course of that 2 minutes, the target loses 35 mana per tic! This DOT stacks with our DD/DOT/Debuff line, and is excellent for draining away mana faster from caster mobs that are prone to CHeal and Gate on you. The spell drains 150 mana in a 2.5 second casting time, and carries a 10 second recast. Definitely a great spell against a caster, combined with Mana Sieve and Theft of Thought, and even Wandering Mind, that's a lot of mana drain for the enchanter!

Trepidation - Final fear spell in the line, this one costs 200 mana (double that of Invoke Fear), lasts a maximum of 36 seconds (6 seconds less than Invoke Fear), and carries a 2.5 second cast time, with 7 second recast. The benefit of this spell? Less resistant, as though Tashan was being cast on the mob already. Worth picking up, though you won't be fearing a terrible amount these days.

Buffs-Solo - Clarity II, Gift of Insight, Shield of the Magi, Brilliance, and Overwhelming Splendor. If you intend to stay alive for very long, I suggest stocking up on Rune Vs. Animation solo is a rarity involving caster spawns you might find or other extremely low hit point mobs, and charm solo is about the only route that works with efficiency. If charm solo wasn't dangerous enough last level, the mobs that give you xp now hit even harder, faster, and have greater hit points. Have fun. :)

Buffs-Group - Horrifying Visage is a new addition to group enchanting, and I will only say that if you find you need to use this on a tank to keep aggro on them, they should not be your lead tank. This spell is more of a raiding application to help keep a mob sticking to your main assist target, not for xp-grinding. Outside of that, no changes to group buffing.

Tactics Changes

Don't forget about Torment of Argli's mana drain potential (the best use of the spell), especially in raiding scenarios, but otherwise very little will change for you

There are no words of advice to you now, Beguilers. You have journeyed much too far to need help knowing how to level, or words of encouragement that I believe you will become a Phantasmist. You know, yourself, if that will be a goal you strive to complete from here--and either way you decide, you will have chosen the right path, your own.

But I'll offer my encouragement anyway, because I can.

19th Circle (57)

Rhedd inhaled softly, catching a wafting overtone of charcoal and smoke which seemed to permeate the air around her. Shifting her weight to the other foot, she knelt down and began to reach out with her senses into the hills before her, littered with standing and fallen trees abound. There was a crackling far behind her to the south, no doubt another fire still burning from the frequent meteor showers in the wood, but all of those sounds began to mute as she selectively stopped paying attention to each one. Finally there was only one voice, one sent, one sense in the area, and she knew where is was.

The sound of a familiar voice broke her trance. "Perhaps," said her tall husband, "the rumors of him being here were exaggerated." Xornn was looking up into the hills, and Rhedd could tell he was accomplishing little more than thinking louder. With a bit of annoyance, she huffed and stood back up, crunching her fists into her waist demurely.

"I have an idea, husband," she said coyly, "you track Jeb, and I'll give him the notes the two of you have gathered."

If a cough cough sound like a laugh, then the dark elf behind Xornn made that noise perfectly as he turned away from the perturbed fier`dal. Halcion began to look for something to do in the middle of a burning wood, and finally propped one foot up onto a smoking, blackened stump that met it's demise in the most recent shower of falling meteors--and began to massage the back of his ankle, with his back to the couple. He could feel Xornn's gaze boring a whole into his backside, but his old master would not find ammo to throw at his wife in him. Resigned, he turned back to face the scorn of his chosen.

"Xornn Mier`noen. Are you... anxious!? Wait until the others hear about this!" she nipped him on the cheek with a little kiss, and smiled up at his reddening face. "Now don't get upset, my love--emotion is a curse even you are afflicted with. Jeb is up on that mountain to the west. I felt him."

"Great!" said Halcion louder than intended, and took leave to scale the mountain as fast as possible, leaving Xornn to face his wife alone.

You get one pivotal change this level, and that's a larger cut of the experience in groups--which means the leveling won't actually feel as bad as it has. Enjoy that while it lasts, because at 59th you'll forget what it means to get experience. Not a good level for spells or tactics changes really, just moving a step closer to finishing the journey.

Spells

Enlightenment - Final spell in the Insight/Brilliance line, this one buffs both INT & WIS by 21 each. At 60 minutes duration for 200 mana, this spell is a good investment over the long haul to keep your max mana pool high. Still, consider this a very secondary buff in situations where the blue stuff is looking skimpy, because you have to hit full mana to gain much from this spell.

Forlorn Deeds - Final spell in the Attack Slow line, this one will max out at a 70% slow, for 225 mana (only 25 mana more than Shiftless Deeds). Same 6 second cast time, and a bit better chance of landing, but not an entirely mandatory spell. Still this spell is worth using over Shiftless Deeds without a doubt, just hard to obtain and very expensive to buy.

Tashanian - Final single target MR Debuff, now 40 mana, 1 second cast still, and a 39 point drop to MR. Still not the best MR drop we get, but very close.

Umbra - Last of the targeted AC Buff, this one is 80 mana for a 23 raw AC buff, lasting for 99 minutes. Our AC buff has seen little use in the post 50 days, but can be used in a pinch for some extra AC much cheaper than the cleric could offer.

Buffs-Solo - Enlightenment replaces Brilliance, and if you're soloing and not lazy like me, you should probably buff Umbra for good measure. Of course, I am too lazy to do that anymore.

Buffs-Group - The addition of Enlightenment and it's longer duration are a nice change, but outside of that nothing new.

Tactics Changes

Group-Tactics - Slip Tashanian and Forlorn Deeds into the mix now, and enjoy your lowered resist rates. Remember that slim margin of error you've watched shrink from about the 8th Circle and on? Well it's widening again. These last levels, you can actually get away with sloppier enchanting because of your level--isn't that a welcome relief?

Keep on plugging away everyone, you're almost there (59th). I won't root anyone past that wall, because that's like playing 54 to 58 a second time. See you next level!

20th Circle (58)

Never completed. An enterprising enchanter should finish this masterpiece. Update in work - Spaid

Spells

Bedlam - The upgrade to Berserker Spirit, it lends a 350HP Shield, +50STR, and -25AGI for a short duration (about 7 minutes), at a 3 second casting time. There's a 12 second recast delay which really stinks, but with Shiftless/Forlorn Deeds slowing a mob down, it's ready to cast by the time it needs renewed usually. This spell is basically Rune IV, with a recast delay but no regent needed. Amazing spell that will see tons (and tons) of use. Must have if you plan to AoE Chardok (but you may want to hold off until revamp for updated quests!)

Fetter - Fast-cast Root upgrade from Immobilize. 75 mana, 1.75 second casting time, 2.5 second recast. Save checks are every 6 seconds still, but also the resist rate is lowered from Root or Enstill (Unsure on this - Spaid). Has a maximum duration of 3 minutes, so actually a good spell when you need a mob seeing melee damage only to stand still. (Read: Charm Solo)

Wonderous Rapidity - Upgrade to Aanya's Quickening, and the best haste spell (based on % only) you'll see. The upgrade in haste is 70% (from 64%), which is good. The huge downside is the mana cost is 325 mana (from 275 mana) which is a non-trivial increase, the duration is 20 minutes (at 60), 4 minutes shorter than AQ, and it casts in 7 seconds as opposed to 4! In this Enchanter's opinion it's not worth it except on raids as 4% haste is negligible on most mobs.

Buffs-Solo - Some will slip Fetter in for good old Root but I haven't yet. Keep Bedlam up! It's free hit points.

Buffs-Group - Time to fight with the melee's about AQ versus Wonderous Rapidity. I don't feel 6% is worth 50 mana and a shorter duration but explaining that to the dps can take work =(. Placate them if they REALLY want WR.

Tactics Changes

6% haste can make the difference on a raid target. If you've got the mana and the dps go ahead and Wonderous Rapidity.

21st Circle (59)

Spells

Asphyxiate - Finally receive our upgrade to Grasping Embrace. DD/DOT/Debuff... first the nuke hits for 50, then the debuff is -39STR & AGI (caps at -42STR & AGI at 60th), followed by -45HP per tic for 20 tics. After 2 full minutes, that's a total of 950 damage for 250 mana. Practical only if fear kiting which is likely never...

Gift of Pure Thought - 300 mana for a 33 minute group buff, of Clarity 2. People receiving this spell (and almost all Kunark post-50 spells) must be 42nd level or higher. If a 41 or lower is grouped with you, then GoPT will cast and grant them Group Clarity II but you must target yourself (or possibly someone else in the group 42+) or you'll get the message that this spell is too powerful for your intended target. Be prepared to hear several questions about what this spell is, even requests for Clarity. If you need to Clarity 2 more than two people, this spell is going to save you mana. Not only that, but you will know exactly when to refresh mana regen now.

Rapture - Unresistable 24 second single-target mez for 250 mana. Recast time is also 24 seconds. Extremely helpful for Myconid's in Sebilis and potentially some raid trash.

Buffs-Solo - No changes, choose to live.

Buffs-Group - In specific circumstances you may want to swap in Rapture for whichever mez you use (or to have it loaded as well!). Additionally, if there are more than 2 mana users you'll want to load Gift of Pure Thought.

Tactics Changes

No changes.

22nd Circle (60)

Spells

Dictate - Unresistable 48 second charm for 750 mana and a 6 minute recast. Works on mobs level 58 and lower. Ouch.

Gift of Brilliance - This is the upgrade to Gift of Insight. GoM increased your maximum mana pool by 100, and added a mana regen of 1, this one increases mana by 150 and an increase of mana regen by 2, which stacks with the Clarity line. A must cast on any primary mana user. The mana cost is an extreme 450 per cast (150 more than GoI), but the duration is a long 100 minutes (25 minutes longer than GoI).

Visions of Grandeur - "Upgrade" to Augment. This time, the effects are close to the benefits of Aanya's Quickening. 58% haste (vs 64% for AQ), 40 AGI, 25 DEX and 20 ATK . Casts in 6 seconds, 275 mana, lasts 42 minutes (twice that of AQ for the same mana).

Wind of Tishanian - Essentially AE Tashanian. You thought Tash pulled agro before? Try multiple tashed mobs! The only use I can think of is on a multi-pull to use prior to AE mez.

Buffs-Solo - Swap Gift of Brilliance for Gift of Insight. Dictate if you think you can kill the mob you're sicking your pet on within 48 seconds. Seems unlikely though for the mobs that will give you exp at this level.

Buffs-Group - VoG instead of AQ or Wonderous Stupidi...Rapidity.

Tactics Changes

No changes.

Xornn's Enchanter Spell Guide

Contents

Circles

1st Circle (1-3)

2nd Circle (4-7)

3rd Circle (8-11)

4th Circle (12-15)

5th Circle (16-19)

6th Circle (20-23)

7th Circle (24-28)

8th Circle (29-33)

9th Circle (34-38)

10th Circle (39-43)

11th Circle (44-48)

12th Circle (49-50)

13th Circle (51)

14th Circle (52)

15th Circle (53)

16th Circle (54)

17th Circle (55)

18th Circle (56)

19th Circle (57)

20th Circle (58)

21st Circle (59)

22nd Circle (60)

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