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After reading all the posts by the OP here methinks our friend has a severe case of Shaman Envy, and the only solution is to roll a shaman and get him up to 80. He will never again be without work, will always have a group, will always be wanted, for on his server, Shamen are in hot demand. And on the rare occasion when as a Shaman he cannot get work *gasp* he has a wonderful well-qualified solo-ready Enchanter to play until such time as people begin to send him tells begging for his Shaman.
Two good RL friends play shamen in game, and I have grouped with both for a couple of years now. I cannot count the times we have been in an instance, or a dungeon, or trying to break some camp of mobs and said "Damn we need some CC here. This would be a whole lot better if we had an enchanter, or even a bard." I have never experienced faster killing with a shaman in the group as opposed to an enchanter. The two are completely different classes, with the exception that both can slow. So what. I like having both in the group. They do different stuff.
Doesn't the Enchanter get a line of nice debuff spells (Tash, Incapacitate etc) that weaken the mob up nicely, making them easier to kill? Or do level 80 elite players not want that in a group either? Seems as though you can cast those without anyone knowing, except suddenly the mobs become easier to kill.
My level 80 RL ranger friend needs to go to Chardok b for an epic drop, and his exact words were "We aren't going in there without some crowd control though". He didn't say "We aren't going in there without our trusty Shaman by our side." He said "crowd control". Even a bard would be hard pressed in there, but a good enchanter would save the day.
Tis bad logic to condemn an entire class to obsolescence based entirely on your own experience and one guy posting in the forum. People are entitled to their opinions, and everyone plays the game their own way. I my own years of personal experience, a desire for off-tanking in group situations comes from the above-mentioned zerg mentality and a sheer ignorance on the part of newer players of the idea of mezzing and crowd control. It has been stated here by several people that using crowd control is the most resource-efficient way to deal with a multiple-mob pull. That is what the enchanter class was designed for. I have found that a well-worded, gentle suggestion to try crowd control has been met with success, and pleasure on the part of the group when the killing starts to go much faster and the healer suddenly isn't perma-OOM anymore.
If you disagree, if you think you are obsolete, if you think no one wants you, that's fine; it's your opinion and you are entitled to it. The rest of us will go on as usual, grabbing enchanters for our groups when we can find them, and playing the game the way that we want to. I even saw a guild invite in one of the posts. Enchanters apparently are still viable on some servers.
There will always be players who think certain classes are useless; I tend to avoid them - or more likely they avoid me. Maybe your server is more populated with those types than the rest of the servers. In which case, I reiterate my initial statement that you roll up a shaman and become desirable in the eyes of your server-mates and most importantly, yourself.
I will concede that Shamen are better in group settings than the Enchanter. If you have a group that doesn't like Charm (which would be about 99% of them), and prefers to off-tank over crowd control, then the Shaman is most definitely better. It's really useless to argue otherwise. Once you eliminate the need for CC and Charm, what can an Enchanter do that a Shaman doesn't do better?
On the other hand, I doubt a Shaman is as well-equipped for soloing as I am.
But it should also be noted that crowd control doesn't necessarily mean a mezzing class. I've seen people remove mobs from the group and use a root. In open spaces, Druids, Necromancers, Bards or Rangers can kite the adds. Adds can also be effectively negated by charming, even turned into DPS for you.
The debuffs you mention are pretty good. The Enchanter can slow up to 70%, and has a "Cripple" line of spells on a par with Shamen. While their resist debuff line lowers MR only, and while other classes have resist debuffs that can lower MR further, plus other resistances, the Enchanter Tash line has one distinct advantage: it's completely irresistable.
More recent additions include "deep sleep," a proc that comes with their mezzes, which will cause the mob to suffer attack penalties for two minutes after the mezz lands. Another one is a "Wake of Atrophy" aura, which lowers the HP of any mob that gets within it.
Thanks, by the way, for a thoughtful reply. I'm glad to see that some can disagree without becoming defensive about it.
