Arelith

Hey team,

Let me start off by saying, I love what was done with the Specialist wizards. The passive abilities, the signature spells, the bonuses on Spell Foci; they are great.

I've been playing a Specialist Illusionist (Shadow Mage) for a while now, and I have to say, the passive bonuses are amazing, the spell foci are thematic, but the signature spells are, in my opinion a little lack luster for the following reasons:

- Phantasmal: Descriptor Fear and Mind-affecting
So outright immunity on Undead, Oozes, Constructs, and a high probably of immunity on Cavaliers, BGs, Paladins, its also in the vein of Save or Die, which isn't exactly a #feelsgoodman sort of spell. Not to mention Clarity / Mindblank etc which I've seen a good dozen times on our Yellow enemy spawns

- Nightmare: Mind-affecting
Again Undead, Oozes, Constructs, etc. and anything immune to sleep (elves, drow) is immune as well. Not to mention Clarity / Mindblank etc which I've seen a good dozen times on our Yellow enemy spawns

Due to the immunities across such a diverse swath of enemies, and the fact both are DC based spells (which even if they thing isn't outright immune, they can save) both of these turn out to be very situational, I cannot remember the last time I actually used Nightmare outside of a RP setting.

Shifting Nightmare to something like Shadow Evocation or Shadow Conjuration at least gives some flexibility / cookie utility for the Signature spells, as the Illusions of Magic Missile / Wall of Fire / Summon Shadows / Shadowbolt / Gust of Wind are not subject to hard immune (outside of the Shield spell for MM).

The other schools occassionally have spells which are subject to immunity, but no other Spec School has 2 Signatures that are impacted by the same immunities.

Yes, they are on a CD, yes there are a million different spells in your spellbook to use, but there is a noticeable difference in content where this particular class combination can continue to actively participate in combat (outside of boss fights), and content where you are just sitting behind your mummies waiting.

For transparency, other spell foci on the char are: Abj, Trans, Illusion, Necro. So burning hands is the only 'spammable' spell from an attack perspective, and even that is sub-optimal due to the fact it destroys corpses and therefore loot.

I'd be curious if any other Illusionists feel the same way, or perhaps this is an edge case due to the other foci selected?

I agree on your points made but wish to add that illusion comes with color spray on GSF which I find very spammable. Especially if you are with a mind blanked party.

That being said, that isn't an illusion specialists toy, I would personally prefer to see something like concealment instead of nightmare as it doesn't have a multiplied duration from the spec to my knowledge.
So even at 30 wizard it would be up 100% of the time for 1 person but can't be meta magic'd or invis purged afaik making it a handy widget but not overpowered.

Phantasmal is an execution ability and has uses in PvE atleast but nightmare just really seems lackluster, and honestly I'm not sure making it harder to remove or more frustrating would change that.

This was a conscious, balance-related design decision, so unfortunately it will not change any time soon. Illusion specialization was the only somewhat popular one before the big specialist update because losing access to Enchantment spells is, with the exception of Mind Fog, a rather negligible sacrifice allowing Wizards to gain extra spells per day, basically for free.

If Illusion specialization granted any mechanically relevant bonuses, there would be almost no generalist wizards anymore because specialising in Illusion would be "optimal" - whether people want to RP an Illusionist or not. That is why we tried to limit the bonuses to RP-flavor stuff for the most part.

That makes perfect sense actually. Thank you for the clarification.

Have to say , the RP flavour skills are excellent though, bluff is just great, as is mimic