Granted it doesn't have color shift as clicky, but there is also a 8 second cast time on it. This makes it more of a toy than something you should really be using or a regular basis. Plus, the trophy comes with a giant 100% weight reduction bag! I know that with my chanter and his 80 str this comes in handy.
First of all...This Item you are linking will go into ammo spot. why would you put this in a slot where you could put something else. Unless as an enchanter you carry ammo for something? And if you do, WHY?, and is your ammo have better stats than the linked item.
Have 3 guild enchanters with these in offhand and tash / malo a hard mob. Then have the 3 chanters chain click this while melee kill it. Sure for a single party item the effect is rather useless, but you have to realize that free mana is always good. People give the donal's bp a hard time too but as a shaman I can just cann down every few mobs and get complete healed for mana. Every click item has its advantages and disadvantages. More advantages than not I'd say, considering you can duck to interrupt spells now.
Stun spells are resisted about as much as root spells, but free mana ownz and you all know it. =P
I click my bracer, pegasus cloak, staff, etc. and I love it.
hmm.. why don't you have 2 chanters without these things chain cast color flux/shift? With C2 you'd gain mana back just about as quick as you spent it =P
While complaining about the effect is about as useful as complaining about dex on an item, (that is, for pure casters) they could remove this effect and I don't think anyone would care. It would be nice if it had the same casting time as the spell color shift, and save you a spell slot, but color shift can't cost more than 20-30 mana.. about 1% of a chanter's mana at 50+..
ps- not saying this isn't a good item.. this is an *extremely* good item.. (range slot?!) I'm just saying Color Shift w/high casting time isn't all that great.
On a slight side note, couple this with a higher level 8 sec stun you could be very effective... Now if I had this item myself I'd dire charm a crystalline devourer in Velks, bedlam myself, and tank for my pet while he backstab the shiznit out of my target... Melee chanter!... ahh dreams can come true =p
Crown has an insanely long cast time, about 15 seconds I'd say, haven't really timed it but it's totally useless as an effect... this rod looks like 1 of the trash items from velk, he has some very nice drops and some junk ones, pheno focus would be much better than this if you wanted an offhand stats item... risk vs. reward verant? =)
Etal, lvl 60 ogre oracle Silael, lvl 58 de beguiler
The "additional casting time" added to items was not added to all items. Not even to most items. It was a specific nerf targetted at the Cleric Kunark BP and a couple of other items.
Actually, most items from Kunark / Velious that have right-click effects on them take twice as long as the spell does natively, it's just that they added EVEN MORE delay to some items because they were being abused.
If this spell follows the standard double-cast-time, it will take 3 seconds to use the effect, that means it could be used continuously to keep everything permenantly stunned even if the Enchanter is OOM (assuming no resists), as the stun is AE around the caster, 6 seconds duration.
I wouldn't doubt that the cast-time will be longer than 3 seconds to use the effect. The color stun line all have short casting times and re-cast times longer than their effect. This was, quite obviously, done to prevent their use to perma-stun. It's only by chaining two separate color stuns (and taking up not one but two valuable slots) is it possible to do this. I believe the casting time will be roughly as long as the effect if not slightly longer. The ability to perma-stun without the use of mana would be too overpowering, especially in AE groups.
If you mem your Color Shift spell, you could alternate casting it and activating this Rod. It'd be better than using the Color Shift / Color Flux combo.