I've been considering some changes for the Illusionist and planned to post about it for a while, but wanted to wait until the GM team had some rest after the fantastic Goblin event.
Now feels like the right time. What I'm proposing isn't about increasing or decreasing the Illusionist's power, but about making the class more fun to play.
I play the Illusionist FIGHTDK and have discussed this with other Illusionists on the server (Daniel, Gerbils, Hisoka, and a few others). We all agree on one thing: self-buffs are a hassle that undermine the fun and immersion of the class, since we constantly have to reapply them.
I chose Illusionist because I liked the idea of a supportive character offering buffs and debuffs. But because many of our buffs have such short durations, a lot of Illusionists skip using them entirely while hunting due to the hassle, combined with the fact that our cubes were largely useless (though that seems to have improved with the recent patch, so thank you for those balance changes).
Suggested changes (agreed on by the Illusionists I spoke with):
Illusion Diamond Golem: extend to 20–30 minutes, bringing our buff utility in line with an Elf's Skin or a Mage's Advance. This would let us properly buff others for the duration of a hunt.
Illusion Lich and Ogre: extend to match Illusion Insight's duration (640 seconds / ~10 minutes), so they fit naturally into our self-buff rotation.
Some Illusionists I spoke with also wanted a longer duration for Illusion Avatar, but I'm personally against this as they mentioned they use it as a PvP debuff on enemies (30% increased incoming damage), and extending it would affect that balance.
Naturally, longer durations for Diamond Golem/Lich/Ogre would require a significant mana cost increase but I'll leave that math to the competent GMs.
