Is it just because of the lack of auto-spells from the archon/devil?

Is so, specifically which are hard to deal without?

You have wands for dam redux.

Is it the healing?

Is it the bash protection?

Is it the flight?

I've only toyed around with the class to level 40 or so but I could see someone make due for all of that in some other way except for the bash protection. Would it make sense to make protective shield a class spell instead?

Especially now that there is a new chaotic mage cabal I wonder what people's thoughts are on this.

I know conjurers are not very popular at the moment as they seem to have taken a heavy nerf making them a challenge to play. But the chaotic versions were never popular at all. Just look at the PK standings. Orderly... Orderly... Orderly...

1) Mobs targetting archons is a big deal.
2) Lack of essential edges are a bigger deal.

Conjurers are like druids in that you'll see less and less of them until people give up entirely. It's just not the same experience with the edge changes.

Scarab not being a cabal.

.

Which is why I don't play it.

Was a reason ever given?

I don't recall. But there has to be SOME reason to start a Mage cabal and exclude one class of mages. Especially one that isn't a very popular build to begin with. It would make more sense to me to allow them in with the hopes more people play it. Especially when so many have such a bad taste about conjies. Most of the reasons given in this thread seem to stem from problems with the orderly servitors. Giving people a reason to play chaotic conjie might help balance out that poor perception. The class just feels trashed right now.

If you want to play some weird character, like chaotic conjurer, I think it's not a big deal to get into Entropy, if you RP it right.

The roleplay of just dismissing creatures not natural to this world or creature bound to slavery of a master would be an excellent RP opportunity.

But you know...good luck with that ####.

Fortress?

Chaotic conjurers can be good?

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?3,864903,864903#msg-864903

That was me getting jumped by Twist and (surprisingly) doing the right thing.

Pish.

Maybe if you let people gaunt into the Dale Cemetary again, Arolin would come back and roll a Scarab conjie.

(Please don't.)

Just saying.

Was Rituraaj, or was there another one before him? I thought sure Arolin had one that abused the Cemetery and got it changed. But I've never been in the know w.r.t. who's playing whom, so I'm probably just misremembering.

nt

As a result you see few neutral/evil conjurers because the risk of servitor suicide is there (even though not that bad).

Lots of people prefer archon and devil to demon and angel because of the defensive aspects.

Having played chaotic evil and good though I have seen the difference. While you really have the same ceiling regardless of ethos super happy angels rescue a metric ####ton, I had no problem charging groups with not great protections because once you hit gushing the rescue is almost automatic with a happy angel. The gain with demons is not as pronounced, they certainly do stuff much more often but you still won't get a lot of lag from them. The exception is a high level happy challegha, they turn into direct damage monsters easily for a chaotic evil conjurer(my favorite to use against any build with solid defenses in a one on one).

That seems like a real big draw back the chaotic conjie.

If you are hoping to out damage a pair of servitors and have reliable bash then you are a very rare person or in a gank. Devil doesn't have better for evils against numbers but angel is just as good as archon from all the rescuing.

At hero you also have Clair spells, tesserect, a familiar, and gaunts so you have a lot on your side to help pick and choose engagements. Get ambushed? Teleport, move your familiar around and tess to it or another mob somewhere you would rather be and then stalk and strike back,

My most humiliating defeats came from attempting to bash a conjurer.

Feb 18, 2016|Lv 18|Northern Foothills|vs 1: <26> Zulus (100%, pillar of lightning)
Feb 23, 2016|Lv 18|The Past Grove|vs 1: <32> Telentar (100%, pillar of lightning)
Mar 20, 2016|Lv 23|The Tower of Sorcery|vs 1: <34> Niandre (100%, magic missile)

They're basically unplayable now with servitor nerfs and edgepoint nerfs. Specifically:

1) Your friends just kill you when you flee/word out of combat

2) You can't afford to take murderous rep and like five other edges absolutely essential for a conjie

3) Your friends randomly kill you even if they were happy just before

4) Your friends will break out of circles more without you being able to control or dismiss them and after that you die

This leads to a pretty frustrating experience overall unless you enjoy being killed by your pets more than anything else because that's the majority of your action.

Demons (or angels and archons) have all remained the same as they always have?

They've had a lot of nerfs since inception that have affected use of all servitors at one or another. I've been playing mostly conjurers since the start, mostly neutral, but I don't really like how hard, self-injuring, they are to play now especially with so few edges. I haven't really done an evil one, so can't talk about them but neutral are definitely quite painful now.

If you want some specifics, these are from a neutral conjurer perspective:
1. First major nerf, though it can be seen as more of an exploit fix, is removing the ability to nofol pets on servitors to get rid of them early. Not a big deal as this makes sense, but did make them more difficult.
2. Next elementals underwater get angrier MUCH quicker than originally. I used to be summon earth elementals with a strong binding and make good use of them underwater just fine. Now they turn within a few hours making underwater very difficult to do anything in anymore since water elementals can't harm anything in the water.
3. Happiness of all archons/angels is much harder now. They get angry a lot quicker. Used to be as long as I got a strong binding on them I could even fight a few goodies and they would be fine as long as it was too many and killed some evils in between. Now they turn very quickly like this.
4. Angels were impossible on my last neutral conjurer. Even if they came happy, strong binding on no mana conjure, and constantly fighting strong evils, the angel would attack me long before timer, like 24 hours. It used to be that a strong binding and fighting evils they would never turn until maybe the last hour of timer.
5. Power of the veil. This implementation hurts as there are no nexus now, and ragers constantly keep the veil kinda ####ty making the veil affect your conjurations. Even when nexus was about it seemed to have affected it badly. This is just pure speculation though since I am not sure exactly what happened, but was a general feeling with my conjurers after veil was implemented.
6. Edges much harder to get for the important edges to help with conjuring/binding/circles/banishing. I have a feeling that a lot of nerfs came after edges were implemented to make the edges not be too OP. In otherwords, the edges became the ability to make a conjurer closer to like pre-edges. Again, just speculation, but it's how I felt as every couple of years my conjurers had more and more difficulties until now I just won't play them.
7. Mobs dirt/bash/etc your servitors. This is the latest and biggest nerf that affects everyone pretty much and had the biggest overall imapact I think on all types of conjurers. Archons and Devils in combat don't aid you or do their cool attacks making this much, MUCH more difficult to deal with. Now even a goodie conjurer fighting in a difficult place will have trouble.

I'm hoping that sometime in the future neutral, and possibly evil since I don't see many of them anymore either, get some loving to make them reasonable again. I actually see few goodies conjurers anymore either even though they are somewhat decent still in many cases.

..that basically makes the class unplayable for me is mob AI that automatically targets archons.

The class went from being excellent for exploration/gear gathering to 'you can do it but you're gonna die at least once each trip' mode.

The other stuff that makes everything turn on you quicker is stupid as well, and the 'pick your favorite edge or two only' option makes the class stupid too, conjurers had some of the best edge options that made the class go from suck to not suck.

I think it's been in play for long enough for everyone to understand that it wasn't in CFs best interests.

Conjurers were probably hit the hardest of all classes by the edge point nerfs as they have so many good (almost mandatory) edges that you can no longer afford.

Also re: Chaotic conjurers, they are brutal early on but fall off at hero. So these days when most of the action seems to be at hero ranks it makes sense they are less popular.

Most of the edges really boil down to just extra mana pumped into spells. The Clair edges reduce risk of nasties though I have done plenty without them. The loss of familiar edges really only affects the middle tier combat fams (top tier are fine and bottom are terrible even with them in combat).

Murderous rep is still really clutch and banisher and the circle one but getting them is still reasonable.

Low numbers give you plenty of space for conjuring time and slow is silly easy to get. The conjuring edges scarcity will create more of a time sink but your actual in PK chops aren't affected by the EP changes.

Now the mob targeting thing does make Devils trickier but again that is more of a PvE issue.

Why don't you play chaotic conjurers?

I don't play at all right now. Yay job hunting.

NT

gr

nt

Chaotic conjurers were NEVER popular.

And are there any simple changes that could fix that?

They don't get as much mileage from archons/devils which are way more powerful and useful than angels/demons in about 90% of circumstances.