Enchanter: AA Ability Guide
Last Updated 02-18-23: Updated for the NoS expansion.
Some AA descriptions do NOT work the way they are described in-game. I have included extra information for such AAs. To avoid any confusion, all AAs discussed are also described based on max-ranks purchased or auto-granted.
Recommended AA Abilities
With so many AA Abilities auto-granted so far, here is a quick checklist, to narrow down important ones to max out (especially, if you intend to raid). These are listed in order.
1. aDPS
- Beguiler’s Synergy (Focus)
- Illusions of Grandeur (Class)
- Chromatic Haze (Class)
- Gift of Hazy Thoughts (Class)
- Tashan’s Lingering Cry (Class)
2. Mana Reduction
- Gift of Mana (Archetype)
- Gift of Gracious Mana (GoM is a prerequisite) (Archetype)
3. Self Survival
- Eldritch Rune (Class)
- Veil of Mindshadow (Class)
- Combat Stability (General)
4. General Raid Benefits
- Glyph Spray (Class)
- Hastened Night’s Endless Terror (Focus)
5. Personal DPS
- Focus: Drown (Focus)
- Enhanced Ruin (Archetype)
- Focus: Mindstorm (Focus)
- Focus: Mindsunder (Focus)
- Improved Twincast (Archetype)
aDPS
aDPS AAs can either be passive or activated. Most passive ones are proc’ed by spells you cast while active ones are for burns or short-term aDPS boosts.
Passive aDPS
Bequiler’s Synergy – will proc 100% of the time synergy for your group each time you nuke with Mindreap (even if resisted). Increases the base damage of 1 chromatic, fire, ice or magic spell by 65%. A bulk of aDPS for your group will come from this spell alone.
Gift of Hazy Thoughts – will grant your stuns and any damage spells to have an 8% chance to proc Gift of Chromatic Haze on your group, which increases the base damage of 1 direct damage spell by 60% and increase the crit rate chance by 100% for that spell.
** The in-game description explicitly states your direct damage spells proc this ability. However, it’s verified that your DoT spells can proc it, too, for your group.
Tashan’s Lingering Cry – will automatically trigger and apply this second debuff when a mob is tashed. Increases the damage a mob takes from spell damage by 7% to 17%. Yet, more reason to ensure all mobs are tashed ASAP to apply this second debuff to them.
Activated aDPS
Illusions of Grandeur – part of your burn routine, lasts 2 min, takes 12 min to refresh.
- Increases chance that all damage spells deal critical damage by 13%
- Increases damage dealt by critical direct damage spells by 180%
- Increases damage dealt by critical damage over time spells by 140%
Chromatic Haze – part of your burn routine, takes 10 min to refresh
- Applies 2 procs, lasting 12 seconds until instantly consumed by direct spell damage
- Increases the base damage of 2 direct damage spells by 390%
- Increases the chance that such spells will deal critical damage by 100%
- ** Affects pseudo nukes with DoT components such as Throttling Grip (verified).
Spire of Enchantment – auto-granted to max ranks, lasts 1:30 min, takes 7:30 min to refresh.
- Increases chance for direct damage spells to critically land by 9%
- Increases maximum mana by 8000 points
- Increases mana regen by 400 points
- Typically, used after IoG wears off.
Mana Related
Your spells that do damage not only help proc aDPS, but they also have a chance to proc-mana saving abilities for both you and your group. You may find yourself quickly drained of mana otherwise without GoM-related abilities, especially if using the Double-Grip spell rotation.
Passive Mana
The great thing about Enchanters is that they can take advantage of not one, but TWO, GoM proccing abilities:
Gift of Mana – Grants your damage spells a 10% chance to proc on you GoM, reducing the mana cost of your next spell by 1 mana point.
Gracious Gift of Mana – Requires Gift of Mana to be maxed out first. Grants your damage spells a 10% chance to proc this group version of GoM for your entire group.
Activated Mana
Gather Mana – lasts 1 min, takes 27:36 min to refresh
- Instantly restores 50,000 of your mana points
- Increases your mana regeneration by 1500 points for 1 min
Self Survival
By maxing certain survival-related abilities, enchanters can live through a lot of disaster!
Passive Self Survival
Combat Stability – increases the soft cap of your armor class by 120%
- Your AC soft-cap is the amount of AC that functions at 100% effectiveness
- AC gains in excess of the soft-cap are reduced in effectiveness by a percentage based on your class and level. For enchanters, this is 0.25 AC per point of AC after soft-cap.
Combat Agility – increases your melee avoidance by 105%. Melee avoidance is derived from a combination of your AGI, items with avoidance, and defense skill.
- All current raid mobs have 100% strikethrough mechanics.
- Strikethrough counters all avoidance, rendering it useless for enchanters on raids.
- However, if you’re doing a lot of group content and pulling, then this ability may be worth maxing out sooner than later. In short, your mileage will vary with this passive AA.
Phantasmic Reflex – Grants your 120 and lower mesmerization and stun spells a 16% chance to proc a melee guard on you. The melee guard will absorb all melee damage up to 34,000 damage per hit, and will absorb a total set amount of 170,000 before dissipating.
Activated Self Survival
Eldritch Rune – instantly buffs you with this rune. Takes 5:30 min to refresh.
- Absorbs all incoming melee and direct spell damage, up to a total of 430,000 damage.
- Can be pre-buffed on you, and it will go into your regular buff window as a normal rune.
Veil of Mindshadow – instantly buffs you with this melee guard. Takes 5:00 min to refresh.
- Absorbs 60% of incoming melee damage only, up to a total of 180,000 damage.
- Can be pre-buffed on you, and it will go into your regular buff window as a normal guard.
Self Stasis – auto-granted. Instant ability. Takes 5:00 min to refresh
- Also know as an Enchanter’s “fade” ability.
- Allows you to escape combat from mobs that are up to 5 levels higher than you.
- Useful on raids to get off of rampage attacks by mobs/named.
- Mesmerizes you for 18 seconds (or until you click off the buff in your regular buff bar)
- Good to take yourself off single-rampage mobs.
Friendly Stasis – auto-granted. Instant ability – single-target version of Self Stasis. Takes 15:00 min to refresh. It was previously discussed in the general guide that it’s not advisable to use it on other players. You can just use it on yourself as a back up if Self Stasis is on cooldown.
Raid Survival
All abilities related to group and raid survival are basically activated shields and guards.
Activated Group Survival
Reactive Rune – instantly applies a melee shield and a spell shield into your group’s SHORT-duration buff window. Basically, two separate buffs applied. Note that the buffs will vanish if you zone. Takes 20:00 min to refresh.
1. Reactive Rune XVI (Melee Shield) – if you take a melee hit that exceeds 35,000 points, it will trigger the rune component on you – Reactive Rune XVI (Protection).
- Reactive Rune XVI (Protection) – Absorbs ALL melee and direct spell damage up to a total of 92,000 damage. Yes, you read the spell DD part correctly. Confused, yet?
2. Reactive Rune XVI (Spell Shield) – if you take a direct spell damage hit that exceeds 40,000 points, it will trigger the spell shield component on you – Reactive Rune XVI (Spell Shield)
- Reactive Rune XVI (Spell Shield) – Absorbs direct spell damage up to a total of 97,000 damage.
This ability is mainly worthwhile to use in a raid group setting due to the minimum threshold needed to activate its components. In group content, you may not see damage that hits that high per hit.
Activated AE/Raid Survival
Glyph Spray – instant ability that hits all nearby players with a single buff. This buff acts as both a spell shield and a DoT component. Has a 20 min reuse time.
- Absorbs 100% direct spell damage (acts like a true spell shield)
- Absorbs 25% of DoT spell damage (with a maximum of 9000 damage per tick)
- Will absorb a total of 130,000 spell damage (of either DD or DoT) before dissipating
Generally, useful on raids in anticipation of any crippling AE DD spell damage.
Debuffs
Most of these abilities offer better utility by eliminating a spell slot – in some cases, and others have various accuracy debuff components.
Passive Debuffs
Projected Somnolence – this ability can trigger one of two debuffs depending if you are using a mesmerization or a slow spell. However, both debuffs reduce a mob’s hit accuracy by 26% for 2 minutes duration. These are the following debuffs:
1. Somnolence XI – accuracy debuff is automatically applied every time you slow a mob. Even if your slow doesn’t land (or is blocked by shaman slow), this debuff will still get applied.
2. Deep Sleep XI – accuracy debuff has a 30% chance to be triggered by a mesmerization spell.
Activated Debuffs
Mental Contortion – reduces base melee damage by 25%, accuracy by 25%, and deals a weak DoT of 15,000 damage every 6 seconds. Last 3 minutes on a mob. Takes 9:00 min to refresh.
- Generally, reserved for named or boss mobs due to the long reuse timer.
- It can coexist with Somnolence on the same mob. However, Somnolence’s higher accuracy debuff of 26% will affect the mob instead.
Bite of Tashani – Converts the highest rank of Edict of Tashan (single-tash) you know into a PB AE tash on all creatures within a 50 foot radius of you.
Slowing Helix – Single-target slow. Casts the highest rank of Constraining Helix you know.
Enveloping Helix – Converts the highest rank of Constraining Helix you know into a Targeted AE slow. It can only slow up to 8 mobs surrounding your target.
Eradicate Magic – auto-granted ability that has a 95% chance to strip up to 4 beneficial buffs off a mob. It has a 6 second re-use timer.
Focus of Arcanum – while this is not a debuff, per say, it’s a personal resist modifier. It’s usually included in part of your burn order to incur less resists on anything you are doing during that period of time. It has a six minute duration with extended focus and can be reused every 10 minutes. I find that it’s better to use it rather than not.
- Incur less resists on mezzing
- Incur less resists on damage spells
Crowd Control
There are a couple of great crowd control abilities that can reduce the need to use PB spells or Root spells, or even save you mana.
Passive Crowd Control
Color Shock – Grants you a chance (with a 30% bonus) to instantly trigger a hard-to-resist single-stun on mobs up to level 123 that are hitting you. The stun lasts 4 seconds.
- Has Resist: Chromatic -2000 making it difficult to resist on a mob.
- This passive AA can be enabled or disabled by creating a hotkey for it.
Activated Crowd Control
Beam of Slumber – casts a 30 foot wide and 200 foot long mez beam in the direction you face, mezzing up to 8 mob up to level 123. Takes 1:30 min to refresh.
- Mana-free ability.
- Does not require a target to cast.
- This ability takes half a second to cast making it your fastest-casting mez spell.
- A root will additionally be triggered on any successfully-mezzed mobs only.
- Unlike PB AE and Target AE mezzes, you are limited to mezzing 8 mobs.
Noctambulate – Single-target, long-duration mez. Takes 5:00 min to refresh.
- Mana-free ability.
- Has a 3:00 min long mez-duration.
- Triggers a debuff when mez is off that slows the mob for 50% and reduces AC by 47.
Beguiler’s Banishment – auto-granted ability that punts up to 8 mobs backwards within a frontal cone from the direction you are facing. Has a 200 AE range. Takes 6 seconds to refresh.
- Mana-free ability.
- Does not require a target to cast.
- Pushes mobs backwards, briefly rooting them in place anywhere up to 18 seconds, and mem-blurs them 100% of the time.
- Note that on raids, mobs may be immune to the memory blur component.
Beguiler’s Directed Banishment – auto-granted, single-target punt ability. Takes 6 sec to refresh.
- This is the single-target version of Beguiler’s Banishment.
- Shares the SAME timer as Beguiler’s Banishment.
Personal DPS
Being both a DoT’ing and Nuking class, you get quite a few abilities to enhance both these areas. It’s worth noting that aDPS abilities also contribute toward your personal DPS.
Passive Personal DPS
Critical Affliction – increases critical chance to land DoT spells by 33%
Destructive Cascade – increases the critical damage dealt by DoT spells by 405%
Destructive Fury – increases the damage dealt by critical DD spells by 370%
Fury of Magic – increases critical chance to land DDs by 57%
Focus: Drown – increases base damage of Throttling Grip by 43%
Focus: Mindstorm – increases the base damage of Mind Vortex by 43%
Focus: Mindsunder – increases base damage of Mindreap by 43%
Enhanced Ruin – increases base damage of DoT spells that have a minimum duration of 30 seconds by 36 seconds worth of damage
- Note: This ability inadvertently also affects the nuke component of Throttling Grip, as it cannot differentiate the DD component from the DoT component for now.
Focus: Gravity Twist – Increases the base damage of Gravity Surge by 43%
Activated Personal DPS
Improved Twincast – Part of your burn order. Has a 15:00 min reuse time.
- Allows you to twincast up to 21 damage (DD and DoT) spells for 2:30 min
Calculated Insanity – Has a 20 min reuse time.
- Increases the mana cost of 27 DD spells by 57%
- Increases chance that DD spells will deal critical damage bu 95%
- Increases the damage dealt by critical DD spells by 20%
- Does NOT affect Drown-line spells like Throttling Grip
Dragons of Norrath Progression AA
By completing quests for either Sanctity of the Keepers or Power of the Dark Reign (you have to pick a side to align with) then a passive AA is unlocked granting you a 1% crit chance rate to both DDs and Dots, among other things.
This passive AA will bring you up to a total of 58% passive crit chance rate for DDs and 34% passive crit chance rate for DoTs, provided that you completed all Critical Affliction and Fury of Magic AAs already mentioned.
Other Personal DPS to Consider
Twinproc – Passive ability granting you a 22% chance to proc your weapon’s detrimental combat-activated spells. If you melee a lot, this is where it’s worthwhile to also have your NPT buff up on yourself. Casters can proc higher damage crits than hybrid and pure melee classes.
Limited Use
Interpret limited use as probably not a good idea for use on most raids mainly due to detrimental factors that such abilities can cause for other players. Every ability can have a purpose though – at least in general content. This is why I refrain from calling particular ones useless. Here is an analysis of questionable ones for you to make informed decisions on use.
Doppelganger
CONS:
- Instantly teleports you in a random direction (can fall off cliffs, into bad auras, etc).
- Overrides your targeted mob’s hate-list.
- Reduces tanks’ standard aggro abilities by 10% on the targeted mob.
- May turn a directional/frontal AE’ing boss mob on the raid.
- Non-mage swarm pet abilities are generally frowned upon on raids and add to lag.
Description: Instantly teleports you in a random direction and summons 3 level 119 swarm pet illusions on your targeted mob for 75 seconds. Has a 10 min reuse time.
- The first swarm pet has health equal to your own and casts Relentless Taunt II.
- Relentless Taunt II – Locks aggro on the swarm pet and decreases other player aggro abilities by 10% on the same mob. It is unresistable.
- Swarm pets will cast Relentless Taunt I. This is also unresistable.
- Relentless Taunt I – a 100% chance for pet to Taunt and Increase Hate by 1000 points.
- All swarm pets will cast any single DD spells and single-stuns you have memorized.
PROS:
- Great backup if charm solo/molo’ing on a charm break, and swarms can stun, too.
- Useful, if coordinating with a tank (maybe in a mission group), to off-tank a specific mob.
- Might be useful for splitting and pulling mobs in non-raid content if you have mez resists.
Phantasmal Opponent
CONS:
- Overrides your targeted mob’s hate-list.
- May turn a directional/frontal AE’ing mob on the raid.
- Like Doppelganger, also regarded as a swarm pet ability that can lag players on raid.
Description: Instantly summons a level 120 swarm pet that is a reflection of your targeted mob onto it for 60 sec. Has a 7:00 min reuse time.
- Swarm pet’s melee attacks have a 100% chance to trigger Phantasmal Taunt I.
- Phantasmal Taunt I – 100% chance for swarm pet to Taunt and increase hate by 100.
PROS:
- This can be another great backup if charm solo/molo’ing on a charm break.
- Also useful to keep an add mob busy, if coordinating with a tank to off-tank it.
- Also useful for splitting and pulling mobs in non-raid content if you have mez resists.
Dimensional Shield
CONS:
- Can teleport you off cliffs, into lava or into nearby mobs (and aggro them).
- You can’t buff-block Dimensional Instability (but you can click it off – if fast enough).
- Hard to use on raids if you’re moving around and not against a large wall.
Description: instantly applies two separate buffs on you. Has a 20 min reuse time.
1. Dimensional Shield VIII – absorbs 50% of melee damage up to a total of 150,000 damage.
2. Dimensional Instability III – Reduces hate generated from your attacks and spells by 15%.
- Triggers Dimensional Jolt III on any melee attackers hitting you up to 6 times, and then the entire buff will wear off you.
- Dimensional Jolt III – Reduces the mob’s hatred for you by 30% and teleports you up to 24 feet backwards (via yet another triggered component called Dimensional Shift I).
PROS:
- If you’re back is up against a wall, you won’t be pushed/teleported backwards.
- You can click off Dimensional Instability (if you are using this AA as a pre-buff).
Rune of Banishment
CONS:
- Can punt mobs off cliffs, into bodies of water, etc and get people summoned.
- Can root mobs on top of other players.
- Can make life difficult for players to move around with the mobs.
Description: Instantly activates a 12 second duration rune. Has a 10 min reuse time.
- Absorbs 75% of melee damage up to 80,000 total damage.
- Has a chance (with a 5000% bonus) to trigger Banishing Force I on mobs attacking you, and that are up to 3 levels higher than you.
- Banishing Force I – Gradually punts any mob that hits you up to 200 feet away (40 units). Once the mob is 30 units away, it will then trigger Banishing Root 1 on the mob.
- Banishing Root I – Roots the mob in place up to 30 seconds.
PROS:
- The punt component does not work on current raid mobs.
- More viable to actually use in a raid setting rather than in static-zone content.
- Might not be such a great idea to use in a group setting.