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Knightma

03-11-2005, 12:35 AM

<DIV> <DIV> Sorry for the long post. Here are my thoughts of our spells at Level 50. Use this information as you see fit. I tried to be a little more honest on our spells than I’ve been reading on the forums. I do not think all of our spells are horrible, nor do I think they are all great. I think we need a lot of help overall though. I have not put any “solutions” in my thoughts, because I have no idea what role that SoE wants us to fill. I do know that we have 3 main functions. 1) CC – We are decent at this, not the best, not the worst. I do feel that CC is completely unnecessary at about 37+. It is nice to have at times, but not really needed at all. Our main stun and group stun are nice spells that actually can be very useful. 2) Utility – Power Regen/Haste/specific buffs. I feel we do well here overall. Our haste is solid, our power regen, while recently nerfed, is still the best in group regen there is. Our buffs, well those are lacking and hard to tell their overall usefulness. Before you jump on this statement. (From all of my research Clarity = Insight in its power regen ability. The extra utility of Insight may be greater than Clarity, but I will not argue that point.) 3) DPS – We are one of the worst DPS classes that exist. On raids our classes parses better than only healer classes, and that is because they are healing almost full time. In plain group situations, we can actually be out damaged by healer classes at times. So on to our spells. Haruspex – This is a decent spell. It deals out okay damage IF it goes off and if the encounter is 3 or more mobs. It’s not really useful in small encounters. It does generate a Thoughtstone, however, due to duration changes on Mind’s Eye and lack of use of Dreadful Awe, that is really no longer necessary. Beguile – Currently Broken, I will not comment on it until it has been fixed. Annoying Demeanor - +%hate buff. Can only be cast on group members. Does it work? I’m not sure anyone knows. I do cast this spell on the MT in group and during raids if I’m in his group, if not I don’t use the spell. Enthrall - Single target mesmerize. This spell is a decent spell, though I rarely use it and has a few serious drawbacks. I use it to control adds or do hold at bay ++ boss mobs. It seems to be resisted way too often. I find that even green mobs resist this spell often enough and I usually get beat to a pulp. I find it odd that using a spell that is suppose to assist in damage mitigation often times causes the healer to expend large amounts of power to heal me while the MT taunts the mob off me due to resists. 8 second recast means that if it is resisted…. Ego Blast – I don’t really use this spell. Its damage is not all that great, it has a long cast timer, and root…well all roots are currently a joke. Dreadful Awe - AE mesmerize. Most coercers use this spell about once a month, for fun. It’s not all that useful. It will mez a group of mobs for a short period of time IF 2 other things hold true. 1) No one does any type of damage to ANY of the mobs in the group. 2) No mob resists the spell. If one does, they all seem immune to this Mez. I don’t use this spell. Signet of Realization – I have no qualms with this spell. No real need to upgrade it though as upgrading doesn't do much, but feel free to do so if you want. Uncover – I don’t use this spell. I don’t worry about seeing invis, and it does not stack with our other buffs. Perplexity – I don’t use this spell. Why? It’s a de-aggro stun. Sounds nice. So Mob A is beating on me, this spell is what you call on….4sec cast time means this spell will almost never go off due to interruptions and death. Eerie Focus – This is a great spell. 14sec stun with a power drain. No it doesn’t stack with mez, but that can be worked around. It doesn’t work on +++ mobs, but it seems that SoE wants it that way, and I can understand that. Tyrannical Mind – Our main nuke. Everyone uses this spell. Its damage is passable at best, and it’s only a small upgrade from our Lvl 28 nuke. It generates a thoughtstone and this is what everyone uses to gain their thoughtstones that they use for Mind’s Eye. Its damage is from as low at 250 to I’ve seen it as high as 600. 9sec recast. Reek of Terror – I never use this spell, I never upgraded this spell. I really don’t know if this spell is useful. Seizure – This is our 2ndary nuke. It’s under whelming. It’s a quick spell that does about 150 to 200 damage per shot. I spam this with Tyrannical Mind above to try to do some DPS. Ravaged Psyche – This is a great spell. It’s a debuff that decreases a mobs resistance to our mental attack spells. I open with this spell, and try to keep it up over the lifetime of the mob. Despair – One of our 2 main DoT’s. Its damage is….under whelming but it has a slow component in it. I have no idea if the slow works, but I’ll assume that it does. This spell does about 400 to 500 damage total….or a little less than our main nuke does, and it does it a lot slower. I use this on raids for its slow component, and I pray that it works. The damage on this spell I consider a bonus. Torment – Our main DoT. It does about 600 damage total. It has a very slow cast time but it is one of the 2 spells I use to drain mobs power. It no longer gives any worthwhile power to me, but I use it to drain raid mobs of power. Damage wise, it’s useless. Our main nuke does better damage faster, I only use this spell to drain raid mobs of power, the damage is a bonus. Agonizing Silence – This is a great spell. It stifles mobs and drains them of power. Its great for any ++ or less mob, though why you would use it on anything less than ++ I’m not sure. It won’t work on +++ mobs, but I believe that is they way SoE intended it. Its usefulness during raids is extremely limited and I don’t use it much. Clarity – Excellent spell. Put it on yourself, put it on your group mates, put it on your raid mates. 15min timer…way better than 3 min. Its only real drawback is the great deal of agro that it generates. If your MT doesn’t pull all the mobs with taunt….they will come looking for you. Devouring Thoughts – This is our other power drain spell. I use it to drain power from the main raid mob. I used to use it to help restore power to my group….uh well it still restores about 80 power total per cast per member….uh yeah that’s useful. But it still drains mobs, and that is now its only purpose as far as I’m concerned. I use it on the Raid Boss and drain him dry…takes a while, a long while. Disregard – Nice spell. Self only, 10 min timer 8% speed increase. Makes getting from Pt A to Pt B easier. Fatal Hesitation – I don’t use this spell. I’m sure it has it’s uses but… Mind's Eye – Our best spell, until recently. Recently it had its effect reduced by 75%…its cost to cast went unchanged. I have issues with that. It’s a nice addition to Clarity but as a spell on its own….its horrible. And its a level 48 spell. If it weren't for Clarity this spell would be completely useless. Velocity – Great spell. I use it all the time and my group loves it. Great on raids where a number of melee classes cannot afford to use powers due to stacking issues or pulling agro from the MT. Instigation – It’s a buff. You don’t need to upgrade it really, but you can if you want. Synergetic Link – This spell is nice. Not great but nice. In a group situation I cast it on all melee types, even 5% chance of proc is nice. In raids…well I don’t cast it unless I’m in the MT’s group, you can’t cast it on non-group members. It generates extra agro and the MT doesn’t like anything that might assist in taking agro from him. Psychic Wail – Nice spell. 6 Sec group stun. Doesn’t affect the +++ but stun is not suppose to. Demoralizing Gaze – This spell is bad. It’s barely an upgrade from our previous AE nuke, which was bad as well. Slow cast time, low damage….single target nukes are more effective than this spell 95% of the time. To sum it up, we have some good spells. Most of our good spells are very situational, and I don’t actually use them all that often. We have a large number of under whelming spells and spells that simply are not useful. I do not know what our place in the minds of SoE is, and I don’t think anyone else does either. I’m not worried that as a coercer I wouldn’t find a group while leveling. There are just too few Enchanters out there as it is. Nyco Tine of the Shard 50 Coercer (considering retirement)Permafrost</DIV></DIV>

Eeow

03-11-2005, 11:19 AM

<DIV>great post</DIV>

VikodiN

03-11-2005, 01:36 PM

<DIV>Excellent post!</DIV>

Cornbread_GA

03-11-2005, 04:42 PM

<DIV>No, Fatal Hesitation doesnt have uses. :smileyindifferent:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Tinky Vonwinky</DIV> <DIV>50 Coercer</DIV> <DIV>Mistmoore</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

Ramir

03-11-2005, 07:14 PM

<DIV> 1) CC – We are decent at this, not the best, not the worst. Crowd Control is essential post-37. But you may not notice because Enchanters are generally so bad at it. In xp groups, the standard is simply to have the tank taunt everything. On raids, you normally off-tank. If a secondary encounter adds, and you have an Enchanter in your group, you should be able to expect the Enchanter to deal with it. The fact that you don't - and don't even appreciate this would be useful - showcases just how far off the mark current Enchanter CC abilities are. 2) Utility – Power Regen/Haste/specific buffs. Coercer power regeneration is decent - and has long been the major reason Enchanters get groups. Haste is ok, but haste isn't EQ1 haste. It is actually a fairly minor buff compared to things like +strength buffs. Our defensive buffs are simply terrible. I've put virtually every other class in the game into a main tank group on raids for defensive buffs against specific raids. I've never even considered putting an Enchanter into the main tank group for any purpose except power regeneration. Haruspex - This is one of those "good for a Coercer" spells. It's damage, coupled with the recast timer and the reactive nature means that any class but a Coercer or a Priest wouldn't ever pull this out of the back of their book. Coercers only do so because it generates thoughtstones and their other AE line is so bad. Enthrall - Most people don't understand just how bad it is because they can't see both sides of the fence. I've played with any number of Coercers and Illusionists, and you'll notice a distinctively different manner in which they handle single target mesmerize. On average, a Coercer will refresh mesmerize about 15-20 seconds into the duration. An Illusionist will do so 35 - 40 seconds into the duration. The reason for this is simple: Coercers have no fallback position. If the Coercer gets some bad resists, they will be taking a beating and possibly getting killed if the tank is inattentive. If the Illusionist gets resisted, they cast their other mez. If that gets resisted, they cast their stun (and can lay the first mez over it). If that doesn't work, they kite the mob while casting 'over the shoulder'. It is rare to see a Coercer control more than 2 mobs for this reason. An Illusionist can control 4 with almost casual ease. Ego Blast – It's also horribly inefficient. Signet of Realization – Until you've walked a mile in the shoes of other classes, it's tough to see just how bad this spell is. Bards and Priests have huge concentration buffs that put Coercer concentration buffs to shame. We cast these buffs because we might as well, not because they make any real difference. In addition, it is important to understand how resists work. There are two types of spells - direct damage and all other. Direct damage spells can be partially resisted. Every other spell is all-or-nothing. Needless to say, the bar for all-or-nothing is considerably higher. Couple this with the fact that the single greatest determinant in resist is the level of the character vs. the level of the mob, and the result is that mental resist is nearly useless since virtually all mental spells are all-or-nothing. Uncover – It not only doesn't stack, it overwrites superior mental resist buffs (thus lowering your mental resist). Note, this is supposed to be a continuation of Unveil - which indicates there is a heck of a lot more wrong with this spell than the fact it's merely counterproductive to cast. Eerie Focus – This is a good spell (for a Coercer). I'd prefer it were 'nerfed' to remove the power drain, though. Tyrannical Mind – The only real problem with Tyrannical Mind (other than the fact that it does terrible damage compared to virtually anything a non-Priest would bother to use) is that it doesn't stack between multiple Coercers - once the best version of Tyrannical Mind has landed, no other versions can land. Reek of Terror – I had an amusing conversation with a Wizard the other day, who was griping about his '43 spell' (all Mages get a personal protective buff at 43). He didn't realize that Reek of Terror didn't actually protect the Coercer in any way - the Coercer still takes full damage prior to the Fear going off. His response? "Wow, that spell is useless". Which pretty much sums it up. Other Mages can use their '43 spells' as de-aggro and protection. Coercers can't - this spell completely disrupts a battle and doesn't actually prevent the Coercer from taking a butt-whuppin'. Ravaged Psyche – I thought this was a great spell for a long time. Then I tested it and realized it was a complete waste of a spell slot. The problem is how resists are handled within the content. Mobs are almost always either completely immune to a certain spell type or they have pretty mediocre resists. So any single debuff effectively slams them to the 'floor' for resists. Putting an additional resist debuff on the mob doesn't do anything, since they're already resisting spells at the minimum possible level. Now, this wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that everyone (including Coercers) already gets a 'flooring' debuff for whatever they need to debuff - so they already do pretty much maximum damage with spells before we ever apply this. The only time this spell is useful is when you want to debuff resists without causing damage - which pretty much means mesmerize. However, mesmerize is an all-or-nothing spell, so it's 'floor' is already higher than the mob's resist. If it makes you feel better, throw this spell. You can probably get a Wizard's Ice Comet to do an additional point of damage. And you certainly don't have anything better to do with your power or time. Side note: Even if this spell were useful, the fact that it is resisted at the same rate as every other Coercer spell means that if you really needed to use it, it wouldn't land. Torment – Torment actually does the same damage as Despair - so with the longer cast timer, it's actually our secondary (not our main) DoT. And I can't imagine you'd ever use this to drain a mob's power. It drains about 15/tick - compared to chain-casting Seizure (which drains about 50 when it lands). Agonizing Silence – Rots in the back of my spell book. Perhaps it's because I raid so much, but this spell tends to be inferior to the spell it 'replaces' (Withering Silence) since it can't be used to drain ^^^ mobs. If you've got Liskia's, Agonizing Silence is a complete waste of time. Devouring Thoughts – This spell was never very good for power drain due to the recast timer. It was a little bit extra on top. It's main purpose was always power restoration - and it is no longer a power restoration spell. It is a power transfer (and a bad one at that) spell, as it costs more to cast the spell than the Coercer gets back (by a significant amount). The only reason to cast this spell now - like so many Coercer spells - is that you have nothing better to do. Fatal Hesitation – Since Coercers are so ineffectual at solo'ing, this spell has basically no use. Note that the Illusionist version is a 'quasi-mez' since it stifles. Mind's Eye – One of the most annoying this about the nerf is that Coercers used to be able to avoid Clarity'ing their group at all. In single group situations, Clarity alone was fine - or Mind's Eye alone - or Devouring Thoughts alone. The loss of convienience is enormous with this nerf. In terms of regeneration ability, you'll barely notice. It's less than half the power of Bard song. Instigation – Again, one of those "might as well cast it" spells. Unlike Bards and Priests, Coercers never have to worry about running out of concentration, so they'll throw up any old buff no matter how useless it is. Synergetic Link – I don't think you understand this spell. It is not an offensive proc, it is a defensive one. Casting it on anyone but your tank is a waste of time. As a defensive proc, it has the same problem all defensive procs have: no chance to proc. In most situations, mobs will only actually strike a normal melee blow against your tank once every 20 seconds or so. With a 5% chance to proc, this means you'll be hitting with a 150-ish nuke (if it isn't resisted) about once every 6-7 minutes. In the parses I've done, this 15-minute buff normally ends up being less power-efficient than just nuking something with Tyrannical Mind. Psychic Wail – I use this spell all the time, but mainly because I have nothing better. 490 power is pretty steep for this effect.</DIV>

Tanatus

03-11-2005, 10:19 PM

<DIV>I am with RamiroS on that - cannt say better myself</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Just want to emphasis once again about CC</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>CC is not requied in every fight - true, in group sistuation even if [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] hit fan good tank (guardian) can withstand very heavy beating and good priest (warden, templar and inquisitor to some extend) can offheal that damage. None the less sometime sitation requied do CC and we are BAD for that. Let me explain you why....</DIV> <DIV>First and foremost we have limitation - how many mob we can "effectively" control - effectively mean - putting mob out of game for duration of fight. I'd say 2 mob TOP - RamiroS gave PERFECT explonation why only 2. Because we need chain mez every 20-30 second. We cannt afford resist. we cannt afford mob comming after us or we lose control over battle. I dont want to compare us with them (Illusionist) anymore. Lets just say this...</DIV> <DIV>In situations then coercer can effetively control adds - crowed control not requied. In situations then crowed control requied single coercer cannt handle situation.</DIV> <DIV>I recall only 1 fight then I was felt I am doing something that w/o me would not work. SoF final fight - old trick on perma mezing 2 mob and preventing em from respawn while group was happy wacking Fright</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As I said before last thing we need is be "Illusionist-light" like we are now. What is the way to make Coercer different from Illusionist yet efficient in CC? Imo it can be done very simple. Make recast timer on Entrall faster - 2-3 second and most important make Entrall faster casting spell 1-1.5 second. With 3s cast 1.5s recast spell I wont able control 5 mobs but I will RELAIBLE control 3 mob and with some luck 4</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I would agrue with RamiroS about Ravage Psyche thou...</DIV> <DIV>Imo its my primary spell since I hit lvl 45. Every combat I am starting with it. Dots as we all agree - horribly power inefficient and on top of it they slow cast/recast. Aka if you casting ANY dots you hurting own DPS. Ravage Psyche at Adept 1 drop resistance 1100-1590 (Adept 3 Despair do ~1210-1690) this is sufficient to raise baseline of TM from upper 400s to upper 500s (at Adept 3), Using Despair on top of it will bring TM damage to low 600s but lower your overall DPS due to timer you need to maintain this spell.</DIV> <DIV>In this light I am sorry to say but 2 our dots in lvl 45+ game total waste of your spell bar</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Also I dont feel THAT bad about Ego Blast - yes it bad, DPM is horrible but but but there is a little perk that in my eyes pay for that. If target debuffed well enouth it DO root target. I use a lot Ego Blast for solo double ups (best I was able at lvl 50 solo more or less safe lvl 43 double upps - took forether but its beiond point). Pull with Ravage Psyche, Entrall, Trigger HO with Ego Blast - no matter what will be on weel - you'll have enouth time to finish HO make 1 extra nuke (if you feel that way) and remez mob. So it goes - Ravage-Entral- HO (Ego Blast) - Tyr Mind (if I still have after that Weel up - aka Arcane Storm) I hit mob again with Ravage Psyche to finish HO - Entrall ... If you are carefull mob will never touch you</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'd agrue also about Agonizing Silence ... As a solo tool spell do its job... during raid? total waste. I have master 1 Withering silence and use it for power drain tripple up in conjuction with Devouring toughts master 1. Its not fast by anymean but it still something</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Velocity TOTAL waste spell book... Bravado provide SAME haste as Velocity for twice less power cost ... funny?</DIV>

Ramir

03-12-2005, 12:19 AM

<DIV> this is sufficient to raise baseline of TM from upper 400s to upper 500s (at Adept 3), Using Despair on top of it will bring TM damage to low 600s but lower your overall DPS due to timer you need to maintain this spell. I originally thought the same thing. But grouping with other casters made me realize that something wasn't quite right. So I tested it. Quite a bit, in fact. And what I discovered is that while we assume that what you're describing occurs, it isn't actually the case. Normally, Tyrannical Mind will do about 450 damage. If you apply either Despair or Ravaged Psyche, it will do about 100 pts. more damage. If you apply the second of Despair or Ravaged Psyche, it will do the same damage as if you had only applied one of them. The same occurs with other Mages - all of whom can debuff their own resists. If you use Ravaged Psyche, you'll bring their damage up to the same point it would be at with their resist debuffs. If you use both their resist debuff and Ravaged Psyche, you don't actually gain any benefit over only using one of them. Try it yourself by fighting the exact same type/level of mob repeatedly. Nuke without either, with one or the other, or with both. If you do this enough to filter out the normal variation of damage on the nuke, you'll discover that a single debuff is pretty much just as good as two debuffs. You'll get the same damage range, and the same rate of overall full resists. Now, Ravaged Psyche isn't directly inferior to Despair. But Despair fits into the "might as well cast it" category. It's less efficient than Tyrannical Mind, but you can't chain-cast Tyrannical Mind. Despair provides a slow as well. So you're probably going to be throwing Despair anyway. And as long as there is Despair on the mob, there is little reason to throw a Ravaged Psyche on it as well. Also I dont feel THAT bad about Ego Blast - yes it bad, DPM is horrible but but but there is a little perk that in my eyes pay for that. If target debuffed well enouth it DO root target. It isn't a matter of debuffing the target. It's fixed percentage chance to root. You also need to justify the use of this spell by building tactics specifically around it - tactics I'd argue are usually bad ones. Against the high gray ^^ mobs you're talking about, I normally just stifle, despair, and then roll through Tyrannical/Seizure/HOs while tanking it. This is not only significantly faster (since you're pouring out damage as fast as you reasonably can), but it's significantly safer. If something goes wrong with roots/mezzes/etc., the mob closes on you and tears you apart with combat arts/spells - often killing you before you can react. On the other hand, if you use stifle, the mob generally can't do huge surges of damage, so you've always got an 'out' - stuns, roots, etc. I'd agrue also about Agonizing Silence Agonizing Silence isn't a bad spell in theory. But it falls into the "why bother hotkey'ing it" department in my mind. The difference in power drain between Agonizing and Withering is truly minute. However, Withering costs less and can be used against ^^^ targets. If you want to mount both on your spell bar, more power to you - but if you use Withering in place of Agonizing for everything, you'll probably never notice the difference.</DIV>

Tanatus

03-12-2005, 01:23 AM

<DIV>RamiroS I am still sorta paranoid about toe to toe combat after mobs been beefed a lot. I had in my upper 40s several situations then I was almost killed within 2 succefully landed attack from mob that was 10 lvl below me (at lvl 48 I was doing blighted rats in RV for a book - one succefully landed hit and I was cut on 40% 2 hit and I was down to 20%)</DIV> <DIV>I have around 5071AC and around 2300HP I can swarp gear for around 5200AC and 2500HP for a cost of power loss and some resistance loss. Still I am simply not sure if I can withstand direct melee attack from lvl 41 and above double arrow up mob... But lets compare</DIV> <DIV>You do Agonizing Silence every 16s (what ever cost it is), Despair and Tyr Mind/Seizure</DIV> <DIV>I do Entrall every 10-12 second , Ravage once every 90s and Ego Blast - Tyr Mind</DIV> <DIV>I do actually every Augur refresh around ~1000-1200 damage ~300 Ego Blast (adpet 1), ~570 Tyr Mind (Adept 3), ~250-400 (add on from arcane fury). And I do that much as soon as my Augur refresh. I do agree with stacking Despair and just rolling trough HO TyrMind-Seizure, Seizure, HO Tyr Mind-Seizure you might achieve higher DPS but constant using Agonizing Silence and Despair make your way about as much as mine power hungry and I dont think your way is safer. Mine is sorta slow but fools proof</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>About double debuffing... I havent run much parses but from pure subjective point of view if I have 2 debuff on mob Ravage + Despair or Gloom + Despair Tyr Mind more or less relaible score around 610-620 (600-640). Droping 1 debuff immideatly drop median of TM down to ~580 or so (545-604 or so). From overall poit of view gain of DPS is insignificant but numbers are visible. But if no debuffs ... its just horrible TM do as low as 380-410 at lower and and around 490-520 at higher end. So I guess what I am trying to say you right you need just 1 debuff either Despair or Ravage. Due specific of my style I prefer stick with Ravage for solo and grouping. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For raiding as I said - I do same thing as you are I have Master 1 Withering Silence and Master 1 Devouring Toughts both used for draining +++ and ++++ but for grouping/solo imo just imo agonizing work better</DIV>

Ol'b

03-12-2005, 05:15 AM

<DIV>Nice post , only part i would dare disagree is with torment ... I dont ever cast this spell , might be because im using seizure master 1 and now the only dot i will ever use is despair for the slow i guess it has.. Otherwise groups im in theres no time for dots .. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>coercer = dead class</DIV>

Ol'b

03-12-2005, 05:17 AM

<DIV>ohh yeah i forgot to mention how awesome our roots are , dont those babys come in handy =p</DIV>

ZennerM

03-12-2005, 01:36 PM

hiunfortunately i can't talk about the spells u're discussing above as i'm only lvl 20 BUT hell yeah the roots are completely broken!! i got me "binding light" (lvl 19 root) on master I quality but it still breaks 99% of time after the first dmg done to the rooted mob, this really is a pain in the a......i want my money back wasted for the master book!!