Power Draining Down the Drain

A few nights ago I was invited to a group in Maiden's Chamber. Well, invited may not be the right word. Begged, dragged, pleaded with. This includes Call of the Hero the moment I got into Jarsath Wastes, and zoning in to Maiden's before I even got my bearings from that.

We get to the first named. Ok, they say, we want you to mez this guy, and power drain him to nothing. And keep him a zero power while we kill him.


...


Say what? You want me to use my skills as an illusionist? And here I thought power draining was dead in this game, at least as far as PvE was concerned. Sure, I'll be glad to!



And I did it. The mob resisted a lot, so keeping him mezzed was a challenge. I remembered to take off all proc buffs and gear, because you don't want the remez attempt to wake him up from the old one. Mind you, I have a master 1 mez and 5 AA levels in making it less resistable, but he still resisted me some, and the power drains. But we got there, and it didn't take a bunch of retries, either. Exhilarating!

The reason they wanted me to do this, they said, is that the mob, Bilithu of the Old Way, will summon you to another room where there is adds and the fight gets very messy then. If he has power to do it with.

Wow, I thought, SOE is really trying to allow some strategy back in the game, but they are doing it in instances, just like Vaults in KoS, and so on.

Power draining was very effective in the early days of the game, With a couple of spells, I could steal all of a mobs power, and that would make them a lot easier to deal with. But that's not been the case for a long time. Most mobs have far more power than I can drain easily, just killing them is much easier, whether I'm soloing or in a group. Power draining might be a good way to deal with a heroic mob if you have a duo, but that's about it. But my three main spells with power draining also have a big stun, a stifle, and a power boost for my group, so they still have their uses. Is it making a comeback?

No. I saw this in the Test LU 42 notes:

Charasis: the Maiden's Chamber - Bilithu of the Old Ways:Summons of the Feaster is no longer affected by mana draining spells and abilities. Bilithu's power pool has been reduced.

This is what it is to be an illusionist in EQ2 these days. We have abilities that are good abilities, and we can make make-or-break contributions to our groups. But the game designers won't let us use those abilities. Either that, or our group members won't, because they don't know or they don't think its "fun". May Erollisi bless them, but right now, I don't feel like it.