Coercer/Fury Duo and Healing a Pet

[Toskrin]

<DIV>Lately I have been two boxing my Coercer and Fury.  I came about that combo simply because I had the two toons sitting on different accounts.  Now it may not be as conventional as a fighter/priest duo, but it is quite versatile.  I can kill using different strategies:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1. The Fury can tank/heal while the Coercer and charmed pet contribute damage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2. The Fury can nuke followed by Coercer Mez or Root.  Usually no pet. Fury's nuke refreshes and repeat.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3.  Can let mob aggro get tossed around between Fury, pet, and Coercer and heal with the efficient Fury group heal.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>However, there's one strategy which hasn't worked very well, and that is using the pet as a tank, Coercer contributes damage, and Fury heals pet.  The problem is that the pet has practically no mitigation or avoidance.  A fighter pet may have tons of HP, but the Fury heals can't keep up with the incoming damage.  In fact, the Coercer, who has less Health than his pet, tanks better because he at least has some avoidance.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now I haven't tried a bruiser or monk pet - do they avoid better than the other fighter pets? I have had some success with Priest pets tanking, since they can help out with heals, but they heal so unpredictably.  Sometimes they die slowly without healing themselves once.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Anyone have any experience with using your pet as a tank in a group with a healer?</DIV>

[CronusFateweav]

I've duod with a Fury more or less every day since we started playing this game. I nearly always have a pet (since the revamp to charm so many moons ago), and the person tanking generally depends on who can take the most agro as we all just fully unload on trash mobs, with the Fury spot healing. When we come up to stuff that's closer to even con or named, we'll let the pet tank. Furies are extremely powerful healers versus spike damage, and can usually keep up just fine. (Though, granted, we've only been using the pet tanking strategy regularly since 60 and KOS) When the mob is something that is giving the healer problems, I just mitigate the damage using stuns, silence, daze, whichever. You're countering your reactives at that point, but you're also countering being dead, which is a fair trade as far as I'm concerned.There are a few mobs where healing does become very difficult or even nigh impossible. Centurions and drakota in HOF, and some mobs in Nizara come to mind. When you're up against something with huge dps that's unstunnable, remember that you can usually still get some mitigation in with daze and silence. If your pet is high-dps enough to hold agro well (centurions again come to mind), then I'll send it in, let the pet take a little damage, daze the mob while the fury catches up on healing, then throw on reactives and dps all out (no dots unless you want to cancel them) while the fury spam heals, until the pet's hp gets low. Back the pet off and root/mez your current target until the fury can top the pet off again, and repeat.If the mob's immune to all your control spells, well... Not much to be done except heal, nuke, and hope.This post was not nearly as helpful as it was in my head, but more questions are welcome as I am intimately familiar with this particular duo.<div></div>

[Toskrin]

<P>Nice to see someone else playing this combo.  I'll also use the all out DPS strategy with green heroics.  Whoever gets aggro is the tank.  It works best if aggro switches.  If the pet is not too strong, I send the pet in first, then the Fury gets aggro with a nuke as the pet's health is falling.  Then the Coercer dumps DoTs and reactives and ends up with aggro.  Actually helps to spread it around.  The Fury group heals and individual heals through indirect targetting on the mob.</P> <P>On the tougher mobs I would definitely like to keep aggro on the pet.  It is not that hard for the pet to keep aggro with DPS and aggro buff.  When health gets low, I will stun with the Coercer and then heal with the Fury during the stun time.  That way the Fury can't be interrupted and some DPS is mitigated.  Like you mentioned, I can always Mez/Back off pet and then heal but DPS suffers a lot because DoTs can't be used and reactives are then gimped.</P> <P>I suspect my pet tanking woes may be a level issue.  The Fury and Coercer are often about 5 levels higher than the pet and the target.  What level pet are you using?</P>

[CronusFateweav]

I generally use a pet that's even con or a level or two lower. But you'll definitely suffer if your pet is a lot lower than you and the mobs you're fighting.<div></div>

[Ammem]

So far from my experience Warden and Coercer duo is the best and if you can throw in a Zerker. Warden and Coercer duo has yet to fail me in named bosses fights of approximately our level.

[Norrsken]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Toskrin wrote:<BR> <P>Nice to see someone else playing this combo.  I'll also use the all out DPS strategy with green heroics.  Whoever gets aggro is the tank.  It works best if aggro switches.  If the pet is not too strong, I send the pet in first, then the Fury gets aggro with a nuke as the pet's health is falling.  Then the Coercer dumps DoTs and reactives and ends up with aggro.  Actually helps to spread it around.  The Fury group heals and individual heals through indirect targetting on the mob.</P> <P>On the tougher mobs I would definitely like to keep aggro on the pet.  It is not that hard for the pet to keep aggro with DPS and aggro buff.  When health gets low, I will stun with the Coercer and then heal with the Fury during the stun time.  That way the Fury can't be interrupted and some DPS is mitigated.  Like you mentioned, I can always Mez/Back off pet and then heal but DPS suffers a lot because DoTs can't be used and reactives are then gimped.</P> <P>I suspect my pet tanking woes may be a level issue.  The Fury and Coercer are often about 5 levels higher than the pet and the target.  What level pet are you using?</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I use either the highest level fury/wizard I can find up to the highest yellow type, or any other max yellow. 2 levels below me is the lowest I ever go, and then it has to be an awesome mob with one of those insane attack scripts.