schmee
09-26-2006, 05:36 AM
<div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><i>flame away if this isn't helpful or is repetitive, but as a young and upcoming coercer, i wanted to take a stab at explaining some of our core roles in groups, as opposed to simply focusing on the kind of DPS we are capable of with the best wizard pet in the zone. as both healer watching other chanters, and a young chanter myself, it seems this kind of basic knowledge is lacking among the EQ2 community and i'd like to see it return as a standard expection among chanters in groups. but again i will happily concede my knowledge/experience is limited to what i've seen in a young coercer alt in EQ2, and a lot of experience in EQ1. </i>- - - - - Probably a slightly premature write up as it will not have the 50+ spell lines in mind, nor will it refer to the high level spell names, but this will reflect the basic shell of what a coercer can do in a group. When my young coercer comes of age, I will no doubt add an addendum for the 60-70 game, or at least grouping in that range - but the point of this treatise is to explain the basics of what a coercer should be doing in a group (with clues to the budding illusionist therefore included no doubt), for the benefit of the coercer, and for the benefit of the coercer's potential group members. There is much fine material on the web for young coercers about charming, largely for soloing purposes. Charming is the coercer's signature ability, and it is what makes the class extremely powerful in soloing (while the risk factor is extremely high relative to other classes). However, the coercer is also an outstanding group addition, and one that can change a group's capabilities from barely being able to take on their targets, to suddenly dominating their targets when and where they choose. For some odd reason (and almost the opposite of EQ1), EQ2 has not developed much understanding or love for the enchanter classes. Indeed the first waves of population seemed to sweep through EQ2 with very few playing enchanter classes. For years it seemed extremely rare for one to even find an enchanter of any kind, with the few wise old soles who did often being buried deep in the treasure troves of guilds smart enough to keep them all to themselves, and thus hidden from the general population. However today, things are starting to change. The enchanter classes have received a bit of love from the EQ2 developers and their abilities are much more useful now in the high end game (or so it is said), and it is clear that an increase in enchanters coming up through the ranks is at hand. My own coercer often sees other illusionists & coercers looking for groups in his age range, and the cross-server coercer channel is very active these days. There still does not seem to be however, a very good explanation of what the coercer, or enchanter, does in a group - sans charmed pets. And it is still obvious that many of the other classes do not understand what exactly the enchanter does. All many seem to know is that when an enchanter joins their group, they suddenly seem to be able to take on a lot more than they could before the enchanter got there, or indeed, when the enchanter leaves. And so, herewith a basic description of the coercer's group abilities, complete with explanations of how those abilities are employed using an example that covers most of the bases of enchanting in ways most anyone with experience of the game can understand... <font size="4"><b>The Coercer's Abilities</b></font> Coercers have a number of key skills as it pertains to groups, and they are often utilized by more than one method - such as having a single target mesmerize, and an area of effect (aoe) mesmerize. For the purpose of this text being useful for most levels, and not just the higher level coercer, I'm going to use general descriptions of these spell lines rather than actual spell names for a given tier. The first and most basic enchanter skill is the ability to debuff a target's various magic resistances. Successfully landing this spell on a target will make everything else you cast (since most of what you can cast is checked against these resistances) more likely to land the first time, and not dispel (or break) over time. It is not always required to use, sometimes there just isn't enough time, or if your targets are younger than you, it won't matter as much, however, the idea of debuffing the resistances of your enemy should always be prevalent in your mind while coercing, for without that natural disposition, you may commonly find yourself unable to understand why all your key abilities seem fruitless in the face of your tougher, older enemy target. The core ability of the grouping coercer however, is the mesmerize line of spells. For the coercer, this begins at level 2 with the 'slumber' spell - the first in our long line of single target mesmerizes, or mezzes. Mez is a critical spell because it enables you to stop a target from attacking you or your group - however it is a bit tricky to use correctly, for it will drop the minute that target takes any kind of damage. Indeed, the term 'breaking mez' refers to the act of causing damage to a target in such a way that breaks that mez spell. Mez is only useful in certain situations, but thankfully, it is a series of situations that any decent group will constantly be facing - namely, the situation where more than one enemy is hitting/attacking the group. For example, a typical encounter in EQ2 will pit the group against 3 targets linked together. Attacking one of those targets will result in the other two coming along and helping his buddy attack you or the group. This is when you mez - determine which of the three targets your group is attacking, and then mez the other two, while the group finishes off the first. This accomplishes a number of things, primarily it means the two in the group you've mezzed aren't causing damage to your group, but it will also prevent them from landing debuffs on your group or taunting your main assist (MA) to different targets, which greatly confuses and slows down the process of defeating the encounter. Unfortunately, in EQ2, the power of this capability takes awhile to reveal itself - the tendency for groups to fight things they can kill relatively quickly, usually because at some point they will attempt something much more difficult, wipe out, and decide they won't be trying that again anytime soon. With a good coercer and his mesmerize skills, this dynamic will change dramatically. Moving on, the next key ability of the coercer is his ability to stun. Enchanters get very long stuns, in (at least) two lines: a single target stun, and; and an encounter stun. Stuns may seem trivial, but understand that when you're fighting a giant or a dragon or something that hits very hard, that 5 second stun (or much longer at higher levels), can render your target completely unable to deal damage or heal itself at a very critical time. Perhaps even more importantly, you can prevent that target from dealing a death blow to one in your group, for just long enough to let your healer classes recycle their primary heals and throw the heal, reactive, ward or regenerative heal needed to save the day. You will hear the term 'chain stunning' used to describe using both of your stuns (even if you aren't in an encounter) over and over to slowly shave away up to 10 or 20 seconds or even more of the target's time available in which to do harm to the party. Eventually, timing your stuns becomes a rather critical skill, eg when you need to bring a couple of groups under control or ready yourself for swapping one of your mezzes around, or a whole host of other scenarios. The other trick to stunning is to know that they have a relatively long recast time, so you need to get comfortable with knowing intuitively how long you have left before you can use it again. The ability to stun should not be taken lightly, learn how to use them - experiment with them often, keep them in easy to reach places on your hotkey bars. Buffs are what enchanters are more often known to have. We coercers share the breeze line of in-combat power boosting buffs with other enchanters, and we get a series of power enhancing skills over the course of our career, eg the mana flow ability we get with our first AA ability. One should, of course, always seek to maximize the use of these buffs, but know that these are merely a nice side benefit to the class, and if the group you're in is only concerned about your ability to buff power regeneration, then they are probably not the most knowledgeable group out there. Coercers are blessed with the ability to improve the DPS output of any melee character with a concentration buff that does so. However, as the coercer gains levels, they will find other such buffs that have different benefits - and with limited concentration points to spend, one should think carefully about the make up of the group and how best to utilize the limited number of buffs they can have out at any given time. We have a buff that subtracts taunt from a caster (and damages it's attacker) when they've been hit, for example, and it might be better to give that buff to a caster which is very likely to get hit often, than to have the DPS buff on every melee member of the party, should they be more than the number of concentration points you have available. There is no right or wrong way for all situations here, it is the job of the coercer to know what their buffs do, and to dish them out appropriately. One thing to know however, is that you should never have concentration points to spare. You should always be maximizing your buffs to whatever degree possible - and indeed, this is why a coercer can be less effective using a pet in a group (which requires 3 concentration points) than dealing out their maximum number of buffs. Finally, the broad category of the coercer's remaining debuffs widely varies and yet often can turn the tide in battle. Some are damage dealing, some are more utility oriented, I'll break them down by category. A number of these are reactive debuffs. Reactive meaning they require an action to trigger reactively, in order for the debuff to fire, eg our first melee reactive, Sibyllant. These abilities can be very powerful, but should take second chair to our crowd control responsibility in a group. Once you've ensured that your job of controlling the flow of battle has been achieved, then you have the time and warrant to cast these debuffs in the hopes they will contribute to your party's efficiency in bringing it's enemies down. Too often this game - especially with 3rd party parsers being so prevalent - tempts the player into being focused purely on DPS (damage per second). A coercer can easily feel the need to ignore their duties of crowd control and removing damage, and instead focus on putting out DPS. However, it should be argued that doing so will make you a much less effective coercer, while you might be higher up on the list of DPS. Most importantly it will make your group much less capable. The enchanter is as much about removing the enemy's ability to cause damage, as it is to create damage in their own enchanted way. If you want respect as an enchanter, it is strongly recommended you bear this in mind. If you want respect as a DPS, then I suggest you go play a warlock, wizard, assassin, etc. The utility debuffs a coercer gets are things like the silence line of spells which prevent an enemy from casting spells for a short time. We have root spells, we can dispel beneficial magic on a target with dispel magic, and we have a number of spells which boost our own power or our groups power while draining the enemy's. All of these spells will have their place and time for appropriate usage, so while it is tempting to place them at the back of your spell book and forget about them, it is strongly recommend you take the time to familiarize yourself with what they do exactly and when they can be used (indeed, some will have level and mob-type restrictions that will catch you unaware if you lack this experience). The coercer only has a few damage dealing type spells, and they aren't terribly powerful, for that is not what we do - it is wise to have them handy, but perhaps unwise to spend all your time trying to use them. During any given fight, there are only a few precious moments in which to perform any number of things we coercers can in our massive repertoire of abilities, and dealing damage directly is something any other mage in the game will easily beat us at, so earning respect for yourself as a much-desired coercer is probably best done without using those DDs. Nothing wrong with using them if there is time, it's just worth pointing out that if you spend a lot of time throwing your DDs, you're probably not doing the rest of your job very well, and your group probably thinks the same - although I'm sure there will be exceptions to this guideline. Those are rough descriptions of the core abilities. Now, on to looking at how they are employed... <font size="4"><b>Setting Up Your Group</b></font> As mentioned above, the primary problem a coercer has at this stage is they have a number of very good buffs to give to the group, but are limited in the number of how many can be dealt out - because these buffs require concentration points for each, and of course, we only get 5 like anyone else. The two concentration-based group buffs we get are very useful, and should probably be used in most cases, however when you're desperate for more conc (concentration) points, you might consider dropping one or both, depending on whether other classes in the group have similar buffs or if there is a greater need for your single target buffs. For example, should you find yourself in the unlikely position of being in a group with 4 assassins, then your power pool buff might be better left in the spell book, in exchange for being able to put your DPS buff on all of them, while dropping your agility buff might not be such a good idea since assassins use agility in many their capabilities and defense. Don't be afraid to take suggestions. Often you may find yourself in a new dungeon or zone with no idea of what to expect. Asking more knowledgeable members of your party what critical buffs are needed is not a bad idea, if it's possible. One thing that's pretty critical however is to ensure that your main tank (MT) is buffed with our 'demeanor' line of taunting spells. This will let them build additional hate on whatever they attack and will really help fights stay under control, when you don't have the time do the job all yourself. The best way to know what to do, is to know what all classes do. Don't be afraid to ask - indeed, be curious. If you have the time or ability to do so, go out play those other classes to better know what they do. And understand that many classes will serve different roles in different situations, eg the monk or berserker switching from offensive to defensive load outs. Last, but certainly not least, I would point out that levels should always be taken into consideration. If you have 2 candidates for using your DPS buff, and one of them is 8 levels lower than the other, use your buff on the eldest - they will do the most damage probably and therefore your buff will have the most effect. <font size="4"><b>Opposing Your Tank </b></font> Here now with the basic guideline to grouping as an enchanter. The art of coercion in groups is working almost counter to your tank. The tank's role is to pick targets and keep those targets focused on himself - so his superior mitigation takes the most punishment; subsequently letting the healer have some chance of keeping him standing, by not having to switch around healing others, and finally; letting the rest of the group deal the damage necessary to bring down the enemy. That is the 'holy trinity' in a nutshell, Tank/Heal/DPS. Your group role however is CC (crowd control), with a secondary ability to help along the trinity as it does its job. So, while the rest of the group is fixed on the holy trinity duties, you're the one who is keeping your eyes elsewhere, paying attention to what's happening outside of the current target, and intuitively prepared for any unforeseen (yet likely) surprises. Your tank is focused on picking the right targets and taunting them. Your role is to work with what the tank is not currently working on. At the beginning of a fight, it is a good idea to keep your tank targeted, so you can see what she's going to be hitting first. Once she's engaged said target, you then need to find a way to target what she's not. Once you get your aoe mez, you will probably be throwing it first of all and therefore will not need to be targeted on a target other than what your tank is using. However there will be many cases where you will need to acquire the targets your tank isn't on, so learning how to target via means other than assisting your tank becomes a real challenge for the enchanter. Tabbing (which by default cycles targets in line of sight) can be a very unpredictable means of targeting, and yet using your mouse to target directly on screen is also unreliable at best, so you need to get very practiced at doing either/or in each given scenario. Sadly, there is no secret way of targeting, no magic pill that will get you the target you want, you simply have to get skilled at the calm practice of acquiring targets in hot situations, and learn to use the cues available to you to know which target you'll want to acquire. The worst thing an enchanter can do is rush the process of targeting. The second worst thing an enchanter can do is panic. The enchanter is not always going to get their mez off in plenty of time, and indeed, often mez will not land the first time you throw it. You will get hit by big nasty enemies, but panicking is the certain way to ensure failure. You can survive a few hits, but you can't survive many hits, so you need to get good at getting the right target first, and taking the right course of action first. Much like firing a modern weapon, the process is 'ready, aim, fire', not 'ready, fire, aim'. The thing to remember with most of the enchanter's CC spells is that they have fairly long recast times, so if you misfire, you may have just incurred all the time necessary for the group to totally wipe out. Better to take the few extra seconds and make darn sure you've got the target you're after. As for identifying targets, the ability to f-key target your tank should be intuitive. You should begin every group you join first confirming the f-key that will target your tank, and know without having to think which key that is. If you don't know, f-keys 1-6 will correspond to the number of group members in your party, where f1 is yourself, and f2 will be the party member in group slot 2 on your party window, and so on. Also, don't forget that if a party member drops and rejoins the party at any point, then the numbers/positions will change, so readjust whenever this happens. Use your tank to help you determine which targets you are going to need to focus on, thus, you will mostly have your attention focused on what your tank does not. <font size="4"><b>The Encounter</b></font> Okay, your group is buffed, you're focused on what might happen when the party turns the next corner, you've got your tank f-key targeted naturally, and you're ready to start crowd controlling anything that comes at the group. Following, I'm going to use a sort of all-purpose scenario to show how an actual engagement might be handled. Here's a typically tough fight that without an enchanter would probably turn into a total party wipeout (TPW), a scout or SK throwing escape, or everyone running away across the Commonlands like little girls in dresses: You're in a relatively safe spot with the group, and the tank is preparing to pull a group of orcs. Ideally the tank will be letting the group know what he's about to pull, perhaps even informing the group of the size of the pull, which in this case is 3. But you don't need to know that. You've instinctively invis'd yourself after the last fight, and therefore you can - because you've checked first that none of them can see thru invis - walk right up and around them to scope out the situation. You know however - since you're studying the situation as intently as your tank - that the group the tank is about to pull might also bring social agro from another group of 4 orcs close by. You also know that there is a wandering orc who paths around the area you're all in, so there is always the possibility this orc will show up again. You've also paid attention to the fact that the orcs your tank is pulling are yellow (higher in level to you), while the potential wandering orc is orange (much higher level), and the other group of orcs close by are blue (lower level). Your tank begins the pull. And wouldn't you know it? Because the tank used his bow to pull, instead of proximity pulling (body pulling), he brought the other group of 4 blue orcs with them. Shortly into the fight, the wandering orange orc spawns near you, and starts walking directly toward the party. At this point, a practiced enchanter will have all the level dynamics worked out in their head and probably followed the following course of action... On the pull itself, they would have instinctively thrown their aoe mez on the higher (but not too high) leveled group of orcs. Why? Because they can do the most damage to the party at this point in time, and because the aoe mez would have probably landed successfully. Before the aoe mez spell had even finished casting, you would have retargeted one of the blue-con orcs in the other group and thrown your aoe stun. At this point, all 7 of the orcs in two different groups would be standing there not moving, except for the one yellow orc in the original group that your tank is still hitting - because he would have broken the mez on that target by doing so. Indeed, most of the rest of the party would also be attacking right away. You've got around 30 seconds before you need to worry about what happens in the yellow group, but your aoe stun is gone in a matter of 3 seconds on the blue group, so you need to reassess the situation at this point. Is the tank staying on the yellow group? Have they switched to the blue group? You need to take a course of action at this time which reflects the best counters to whatever the tank (or the main assist) is doing. If they switch to the blue group, then your best course of action is to stay focused on keeping that yellow - more dangerous - group of orcs mezzed. If they stay on the yellow group, then you've got to figure out a way to get that group of blue orcs locked down as soon as possible, why the group brings down the yellows - which might take awhile. In this case, they stayed attacking the yellow group of orcs. Since there are 3 yellows, and the tank is already attacking one of them, you can now single mez the other two, one at a time. No real need to debuff them with your arcane debuff since they aren't high enough level to resist much, so you should be able to target and single mez the other two very quickly - thankfully your single mez lasts a lot longer than your aoe mez. At this point, the blues will have finished being stunned and have been attacking your party for awhile, but haven't been causing too much damage. You've got the other two yellows single mezzed, and now your recast timer on the aoe mez is finally reset, so you can now aoe mez the blue con group of orcs. You've still got some time left before your single mez timers run out on the remaining yellows, but here comes that recently popped orange-con orc wandering right into your group. Intuitively - because he's orange to you - you debuff him with your arcane debuff before you try to mez him. It fails, because he is very resistant to you. He immediately hates you and starts attacking you. Thankfully, your focus skill is maxed so you can easily recast your debuff a second time and this time it sticks. Again, without thinking, you cast your single target mez on him immediately afterward and it lands. At this point, you've got three single target mez timers running (two yellow, one orange) with one of them just about to drop, and an aoe mez timer on the blue orcs, which is also very close to dropping. All your enemies are locked down, while the group is just about to kill the first yellow orc. You take your best guess at which of the two remaining yellow orcs the tank is going to target next, or even better you manage to indicate to him which to take saying, '/gsay kill the orc priest', and then you immediately cast your single mez on the other remaining yellow orc warrior. However, your single mez timer hasn't refreshed recast time yet so it just sits there blinking yellow at you, telling you that it will cast on your target the moment it is done refreshing - that's okay, at least you know what's going to happen next. A second or two later, it begins casting, and thankfully your tank is indeed hitting the yellow priest and not the yellow warrior you just remezzed, so all is well. In the meantime, you've just cast your aoe mez on the blue group again. Now your attention turns back to the nasty orange guy whose mez timer is fast running out. Your arcane debuff is still holding with plenty of time to spare. You simply refresh his single target mez, and move your attention elsewhere. The second yellow orc is halfway to death but taking awhile to kill, not to mention hitting your tank pretty hard. The third yellow orc is going to need a mez refresh but not for a good ten or so seconds. So you f-key target your tank and cast a stun. This gives your healer plenty of time to catch up the tank's health to a more acceptable level. You refresh your mezzes on the third yellow orc, your aoe mez on your blue orcs, and finally refresh your orange orc, while it took you two casts to finally land it. Shortly afterward the third yellow orc is near death and a sense of total control over the hectic situation is upon you. In between refreshing your mezzes on the blue orcs and the orange, you've cast your melee reactive on the third yellow orc to help the DPS on him along, as well as sprinkled a few stuns in for good measure. However, you've been careful not to waste power, as you know the real fight is going to come with the orange orc. You tell the tank to kill the blue orcs next, and unlike the yellows, they fall very quickly - so quickly in fact, you don't worry about refreshing aoe mez once they come under attack. Instead you throw your aoe DD+daze, then an aoe stun on them, then you throw your aoe power drain, followed by your aoe power dot, and finally another aoe stun while the DPS in the group quickly dispatches them in between. All the while however, you've kept a careful watch over your mezzed orange orc. Now, you've got at least half a bar of power left, the healers have the same and your tank is close to full health despite all the combat so far. The second you finished dealing out what you had in store for the group of blue orcs, you began debuffing the orange orc as if you were soloing him. You refreshed your arcane debuff, you threw your power reactive, your melee reactive, your power drain, and you rooted him (since your root does not break mez) and now he's ready to be attacked by the rest of the group. You're ready to throw blink (which will deaggro you and teleport you away) if he comes after you when mez is broken by the tank, but you won't hit it unless you really have to. Your tank knows this is a tough fight, so he is wisely taunting the target before breaking mez and initiating the fight, since taunt does not break mez. But finally, he is in for the attack, calling out that he is doing so and we're off. You let him hit a few times and make a dent in the target's health, and then you throw your first stun at him, followed by power tapping him right away so that you're constantly getting some power back from this fight. A few seconds later, things seem under control, but your melee reactive has now worn off because all three hits have been incurred, so you recast it to do even more damage. You check the target's power pool and pay attention to whether its going down or not - if it is you immediately silence him in case he's casting spells, and continue to throw your power reactive as needed, since that too will contribute to the damage done to the target. Then you throw your aoe stun to stun him once again. While this stun doesn't last as long as your single target stun, it is 3+ seconds of invaluable time for your healers to get caught up getting the tank healed. Again, your melee reactive has been spent, so you refresh, and now your power drain has finished up so you refresh it, and thankfully, your single target stun is now up again, so you cast it once more. Now the target is almost dead, and while the party's power is largely spent, the fight is near to a close and you've made the impossible, quite possible. The minute the fight is over, and well after you've cast mana flow on the most needy (healers>tank>DPS, in that order), you're already invis again and scoping out the next situation. <p> </p><p>Message Edited by schmee on <span class=date_text>09-26-2006</span> <span class=time_text>07:38 AM</span>