>Conjurers are stupid strong situationally. That should be
>balanced by them being vulnerable situationally.

Strong? Yes. STUPIDLY strong? No. They're also balanced by the fact that of all character classes, they already have the most ways to self-die, and are the easiest class to self-die with.


>You go with familiar/elemental/archon/mercenary - that's like
>20% chance of a skill going for archon.
>You have flash, which can blind and then archon will never be
>hit with a skill.

Ranking with a mercenary is still not a very good option in most cases, and just fills the role of another party member. You might as well not count mercenary as part of your calculation and just calculate with party members.

Also (and this is your biggest error here) blinding an NPC does not prevent the NPC from targeting others with bash/trip/dirt kick, just like it doesn't prevent them from targeting others with spells/supps when the mob is capable of such. It doesn't prevent it from targeting PCs with such, and it also doesn't prevent it from targeting the archon with it.


>So I'm more of a "There are mobs that can't be blinded? So you
>can't set up archon keeping you alive forever in like 10% of
>your fights? We the people don't really mind, think of
>something to mitigate that, have the assassin tank ghasts and
>go angel if you're so absolutely sure you should do ghasts."

As for your statement about, "not sweeping ghasts," it's not an issue about ghasts. It's an issue with ANY ranking area. Ghasts simply highlight the problem the easiest because you if you have to flee, you only have a 50% chance of fleeing safely. But the problem still exists even in other places. Frigid Wastelands? Frost giant draws in Archon and proceeds to beat down conjurer. Conjurer flees and now weak, non-tank party members have to tank and get their own asses beat while conjurer is getting healed. Same thing with drow warrior students. Same thing with Aran'gird, same thing with demons in Organia. Same thing with Maethien ruins. Same thing with skeleton warriors. Same thing with Spider Haunt. Same thing with literally ANY ranking area.

"keeping you alive forever in like 10% of your fights?" The only place where the archon can "keep you alive forever" is in fights where you're not really challenged anyway, and having the archon fight physically wouldn't even present a challenge. Even before this change, I have been killed or forced to flee while having an archon around to heal me, without the archon being drawn into a fight. They are NOT god mode, and they DO NOT make you immune to death. There are already PLENTY of situations where you can be killed despite having the archon around and actively healing, where the damage output of the enemy mobs seriously challanges or even outstrips the archon's ability to heal.

I really feel like you haven't actually PLAYED a conjurer, or haven't done so very much, certainly haven't actually critically analyzed how archons work. Archons wait for your HP to drop before they start to heal you. Luminous archons will often let your hp drop to below 60% before they start healing you. The healing they use is cure critical for non-goods, and heal for goods. That's some very slow healing to rely on when you're at 60% or lower, unless the mob you're fighting isn't pumping out damage very fast anyway. Blazing archons will also let you drop to about 60%, but they use heal for non-goods (unless their morale is low, and then it's also cure critical), and rejuvenate for goods (unless their morale is low, and then it's only heal for goods). I rarely use radiant archons, since if I am able to conjure a radiant archon, I'm also able to conjure a transplendant archon, and I'll make sure I have enough mana to just skip radiant and go straight for transplendant. As such, I'll refrain from commenting on radiant archon behavior. Transplendant archons will usually wait until your hp drops to 70% before they start healing. If their morale is really high, they might heal you at 80%. If their morale is low, they'll wait longer before they start healing you. When you start talking about transplendant archons, you've got the most amount of survivability if the archon is drawn into combat while ranking, since, by that time, you're already AT LEAST level 40 yourself and have much more HP and usually stronger groupmates as well. That's not always the case, though, and even if it is, if your own parry and shield block percentages aren't very high yet, you're still going to be taxing the archon's healing, even when the archon isn't drawn into the fight. Which means the moment it DOES get drawn in, you're now screwed.

You say they should be balanced by making them vulnerable situationally, but this change actually makes them vulnerable almost ubiquitously.

You say this only affects 10% of the fights, but it's more like 98% of the fights. The ONLY places I can think of where this change doesn't completely negate the conjurer's ability to tank are under water where bash/dirt kick don't work. That leaves Coral Head, Ship's Graveyard, Underdark Sea, Ruins of the Deep, and Coral Palace. So what do you do if the only people available to group are two shapeshifters who lack a water/amphibious form, who can't contribute anything while fighting under water? Elementals are totally useless for fighting under water, so no offensive help from that. The only familiars that can move under water are homonculous, imp, djinn/janni/efreeti, cherub, and phase wasp (via rejoin). Since we're talking about archons here, we can mostly rule out imp and efreeti since evils who bring archons are taking their life into their own hands anyway. Mercs cannot move under water unless it's a storm giant which is super weak damage at best. Silver construct can move under water and puts out a little damage, but nerfs XP gains.

So basically, if the conjurer wants to be able to tank reliably, he needs to go under water to rank and has to have a party composed of people who can actually DO something under water. Granted that most classes can, but not all, and with so few numbers these days, it's nowhere NEAR a guarantee to find a party that is under water capable. When you factor in that a growing percentage of our current playerbase is newbies who quite likely don't have much in the way of strong gear or strong skills, this likelihood of an under water capable group diminishes even more.

I challenge you to name me ONE place where a conjurer can go to rank with a party where this change DOES NOT completely nerf tanking ability, other than under water areas.

One final note. You say, "we the people don't mind..." but you DO NOT represent "we the people". So far, I have seen FAR MORE people speaking out AGAINST this change than people saying they're ok with it. And that's not counting the people I've spoken with IC who complain about it as well (albeit in less direct, less open ways).