This post is mostly suggestion, but I think it’d fix a lot of issues, such as tanks being useless, oracles, pardoners and chronomancers being unnecessary, and things such as true sight being useless.
Have mobs spawn in groups of 5-8 or as a single miniboss(a largetrashmob or a dark version of yourself, et cetera), as opposed to their spawns of 2-3 now. These mobs would spawn with random buffs. Here are some suggestions.
-Aoe fire damage around where they stand
-detonate on death
-stun chance per hit
-hits player with ethereal(listed later)
-hits player with damnation(listed later)
-chance to petrify
-chaos (a random spell occurs when they are hit or land a hit)
-attack at 1/3 the normal speed for 4x damage
-double movespeed
-polarized (they keep certain distance from eachother)
-invisibility until auto attacking
-100% invisibility (this + determined = it follows)
-teleporting (would be funny paired with determined)
-slows you down
-nuking (they cast slowly and deal a lot of damage, again would make silences actually useful)
-enhanced crit profiles
-silencing
-void (cannot be linked together)
-mindless (cannot be taunted/feared, have erratic aggroe)
-determined (enemies always focus a single target, random then whoever aggroes)
-immune to a certain type of damage(would make enchantments/spells such as vindiction/ethereal very useful and interesting)
-drains mana per hit
-sometimes it could be a dark version of the party that casts the same spells and stuff
-sometimes it could be a boss from a zone 40 levels higher that just roams the area until it dies(runs away in cannon)
These types of mobs would spawn very, very often. (3-5 times a quest). That should be roughly just higher than the normal amount of enemy spawns per quest (a bunch of 2-3 spawns). That, paired with my next suggestion and better party matchmaking, would make the game much harder and funner. In addition, endgame mobs could spawn with up to 4 of these buffs or whatever is implemented, so you’d get like 8 enemy mages that are completely invisible channeling nukes to cast on a single target. This would make true sight useful.
You could add enchantments to weapons that drop depending on the type of special mob, such as:
-silencing (x% chance per hit, y duration, z ICD)
-spell resist reduction (x% chance to reduce magic/physical damage resit by y until death)
-igniting (x% chance to ignite enemy for y damage/second for z ticks with r maximum stacks)
-self invisibility (x% chance to become invisible for y duration and r hits before reveal, z ICD)
-wake up (deals bonus pure damage to enemies invisible that are not detected by true sight)
-dusty (arcs dust in front of the character, gives 3s of true sight of enemy hit by dust)
-shaping (invisible enemies directly hit with weapon yield true sight until their death)
-executing (enemies with less than x hp remaining have a 20% chance to die instantly per hit)
-slaying(enemies with less than x max hp have a 3% chance to die per hit)
-nullifying (steal x mana per hit)
-vampire (steal hp on hit)
-cleansing (if enemy has something like a ring of fire or frost, chance to remove it)
-understanding (if enemy has something like ring of fire or frost/ deal extra damage)
-chupacobra(steal small amount of hp, increasing per hit on enemy)
-bleed/hit
-fainting (generate 45% less threat with damage)
-calculating (critical strikes on enemies not focusing on you deal 10% more damage)
-brute (generate 45% more threat with damage)
-pressure points (40% chance to stun on critical chance)
-grace (every evade increases the damage for your next crit by 7%)
-rage (every block increases the damage of your next crit by 7%)
-holy (critical strikes only deal 85% of their normal hit, but are pure damage)
-savage (critical strikes deal 30% more damage but have a 15% chance to miss entirely, stacks multiplicativally with accuracy vs evasion)
-berzerker (critical strikes deal 30% more damage, but the striker takes 50% of the crit damage)
-harrying (reduces evasion on hit)
-heaving (blocked attacks have a 25% chance to not be blocked, 5 second icd)
-martyr (deal bonus damage when low on hp)
-zealot (same thing as igniting, but hits in an aoe, but applies to the wielder as well, only partially stopped by flame immunity)
-freezing/hit
-banishing/hit (30% chance on hit to make enemy ethereal, making them immune to physical damage but taking double magic damage for 4 seconds)
-judging (100% on hit to remove mindless(can’t be affected by aggroe/fear) from an enemy, 8 second internal cooldown)
-stupifying (100% on hit to give an enemy the mindless trait (can’t be affected by fear aggroe), 8 ICD) This would be great for mobs that are all rushing somebody.
-sadist(30% chance on enemy death to scare away enemies for 3 seconds)
-degenerate (30% chance on enemy death to draw aggroe of enemies for 3 seconds).
-Vindicting(chance to make enemies such as demon, ghost, or undead type are turned to normal type monsters and no longer have resitance to normal weapons(I don’t think they actually do yet, but they should just to make things more interesting.))
-damning (chance to make enemies of normal type into undead/ghost type, move slower, have different resistances and differant weaknesses)
-purifying (enemies of demon/undead/ghost type take extra damage)
-Sapping (lowers enemy max hp, 8-100% chance per hit, 1-25 second internal cooldown, calculated before slaying or executioner)
It’s **extremely ** easy to balance weapon enchantments. You can just tag on varying internal cooldowns, such, you could have a 90% chance for the executing sword to kill per strike on a sword on enemy with 30% remaining hp (that isn’t a boss), but have a 45 second ICD(would be useful on a mage that deals just below fatal damage with a spell. Or slaying with an 8% chance, 10 second icd and only working on trashmobs with lower con (such as rangers) (this would be useful for like a priest that’s dumped damage). It is important to make sure these only apply on auto attacks, and that they have parts that both do and don’t scale with damage/spell damage, so that all builds can find relative use for them.
You also have many balance intergers to play with. For instance, the ethereal enchantmant(would be popular on casters), could have a different chance to cause on hit, different duration, different magic damage amp, may or may not disarm enemy from phys dmg, and a different internal cooldown.
Low level weapons would spawn with 2 enchantments, and top level weapons could have up to 5.
If these two things were implemented, just surviving areas with a party would become an accomplishment, as also yield much better loot. In addition, it could scale with all already existing assets, meaning even the early game levels would become more interesting.
If somebody couldn’t deal with a mob they’d have to run, party up, or get some new loot. You could also add on achievements for surviving solo or rewards for partying up.
The game already has some enemy types, they could be added too. Something like the spell petrify on elementalist could temporarily change an enemy to adamantine/stone type damage profile (not sure if it does that yet.)