I had another insanely long rant typed out, but I feel sorry for giving the imms (and other readers!) a headache making them read it to get the point. So here's a bullet point version that I hope makes sense. Bear in mind that affinity is the most awesome of ideas and I love that it's gone in, these niggles are taking that into account.

1. Invokers that don't invest in six paths, take a lot more damage. Six paths is still very time consuming and seven paths not realistic.

2. Invokers heal like an anaemic geriatric. Even with slow and now even with healing preps/equipment. It was recent changes that greatly increased my worries over them.

3. Their power has taken a big hit in recent years. Affinity adds mojo but their spells are dealing less nastiness all round - unless an uncovered vuln can be exploited (not very common).

4. Their damage redux with less shields means more protections necessary (and a lot more time spent getting them, somewhat lessening the 'less time for less power' trade). Protection is how an invoker lives and having to rest at all means you're pretty much out of the fight (now that healing at a healer is not an attractive option with dam redux). Gone are the days where invokers could prep to take hits from deathblows. They are now -too- easy to tool in melee and any lagging option means the invokers in big trouble.

5. Less tactical options hurts lower path invokers enough, affinity bonuses don't really cancel not being able to stop cranial. Or being unable to use quicksand. The loss of just one path (that isn't lightning ) is a pretty big hit. They're already as hard to set up for battle as a conjurer and are far more likely to have to retreat if they're targetted at all.

6. Dispel (magic) is very unfriendly. Less paths, means less dispels needed to strip you of much needed shields. The revelation that you can also bash them while shielded is likely the scariest let alone having lag protection dispelled. These combined with aweful hp management makes them exceedingly fragile. They've lost a lot of the power they were made fragile to get.

7. I think Invokers are well balanced in larger battles. Even though once they've been targetted they tend to be in trouble they can give dam redux across the board, have area spells and mass-effecting traps. I worry that its near impossible to face numbers alone with one. Two people can take down a prepared invoker fairly easily where a bard might well kill said two people. Heavy damage reduction is necessary against one well equipped foe, against two it just won't cut it.

8. Quicksand is teh awesome. Anyone who drops ooze, is a fool. I incidentally never perfected oozeshield with my invoker. That makes me somewhat foolish. *sigh*

My suggestion (though possibly not the best) is give them more damage redux across the board, but especially with fewer shields (4-5). Perhaps a rework would be best but most time consuming. I would love to see them forced to drop at least 2 paths and have the different elements let them specialise more in what they could do. The variety of invokers would increase, and doubtlessly their numbers too. Some sort of fast healing option is possible but I would stress that it shouldn't be direct healing - just a big regen boost. Along the lines of a slow effect but perhaps have it stunt mana regen, making slow preps superior! This would make them great at exploration once more even with fewer paths. Thanks for your time, I'm eager to get feedback from oldies who've played new invokers as I've only heroed two 'new' invokers and niether were a particularly good experience for me.

Yhorian.

Well, let's see.

>1. Invokers that don't invest in six paths, take a lot more
>damage. Six paths is still very time consuming and seven paths
>not realistic.

Nope! Five paths works great for this. Four is still viable, but I can admit I probably wouldn't recommend it.

First: You can only have five shields at a time and barrier. Thus, if you're a barrier-capable invoker, five shields is as good as you're getting.

Second: Even if you can't add barrier, that sixth shield is not a big deal. Each shield is not an equivalent amount of damage reduction. There are diminishing returns, and nearly all of the DR is in the first 4 shields.

Obviously, an invoker with fireshield is going to be a lot better off against specifically fire attacks than an invoker that doesn't.

>2. Invokers heal like an anaemic geriatric. Even with slow and
>now even with healing preps/equipment. It was recent changes
>that greatly increased my worries over them.

This really only becomes a factor as you pile on A/B/S, stoneskin, etc. Your own class/cabal/etc. damage reduction abilities don't hamper your regen. Thus, an invoker with six shields and nothing else up heals normally. A warrior with six shields and nothing else up does not.

>3. Their power has taken a big hit in recent years. Affinity
>adds mojo but their spells are dealing less nastiness all
>round - unless an uncovered vuln can be exploited (not very
>common).

Having played an invoker to hero range in the last year or so, I can honestly say that while they may not be the walking engines of destruction they have been at points, they're still a tough, tough class able to walk through a group of three or four, even non-newbie players, on a good day.

>4. Their damage redux with less shields means more protections
>necessary (and a lot more time spent getting them, somewhat
>lessening the 'less time for less power' trade). Protection is
>how an invoker lives and having to rest at all means you're
>pretty much out of the fight (now that healing at a healer is
>not an attractive option with dam redux). Gone are the days
>where invokers could prep to take hits from deathblows. They
>are now -too- easy to tool in melee and any lagging option
>means the invokers in big trouble.

They still can prep to take hits from deathblows; they're just not going to heal super fast immediately afterwards. Barrier lasts, what, eight ticks?

You did notice that some Battle powers including deathblow also made the 'tweaked down in this pass' list, right?

>5. Less tactical options hurts lower path invokers enough,
>affinity bonuses don't really cancel not being able to stop
>cranial. Or being unable to use quicksand. The loss of just
>one path (that isn't lightning ) is a pretty big hit.
>They're already as hard to set up for battle as a conjurer and
>are far more likely to have to retreat if they're targetted at
>all.

For me, it's hard to pass up a path because I'm actually out there killing people with charge weapon and gel and wind wall and ####. I'd say most (not all) of the invokers I watch put in the extra practice time for almost nothing, though. All I can think to say is, know yourself and know if you're really going to get serious use out of six or seven paths.

>6. Dispel (magic) is very unfriendly. Less paths, means less
>dispels needed to strip you of much needed shields.

Not necessarily. You can't see me, but I'm evilly grinning.

>7. I think Invokers are well balanced in larger battles. Even
>though once they've been targetted they tend to be in trouble
>they can give dam redux across the board, have area spells and
>mass-effecting traps. I worry that its near impossible to face
>numbers alone with one. Two people can take down a prepared
>invoker fairly easily where a bard might well kill said two
>people. Heavy damage reduction is necessary against one well
>equipped foe, against two it just won't cut it.

See above.

Strangely, I think invokers look less and less good the more both sides are prepped (beyond basics such as fly and class abilities). I've had a lot of mutual-low-prep invoker vs. group fights where, yeah, I'm near dead on round 2 or 3, but 1-2 of the group is dead and the rest are running for it.

So how about that dugong?

I was thinking to myself, is a shifters regen not badly effected by ABS then? Won't those getting the dredded anaconda and using barrier find they don't actually regen much health at all? And I really don't know if I've got it right, but won't they dodge less because of haste?

If yes to all the above, I demand Dugongage.
And a third shifter spec.
And some decent beer while I'm at it.

Thanks for clearing up some invoker worries, I actually wasn't sure if natural dam redux was effecting it. I get the feeling affinity does more than I know now though.

Yhorian.

If not, or if it's just something subtle, maybe this could be made more significant? That way, you could trade some versatility for reliability.

I've heard it suggested too that affinity helps spells like iceshards and iceneedles reach their full number of hits or that it helps shield of electricity go off more often, things like that. Is that even true? If not, maybe it's another way to make less paths more attractive.