Lots of questions from someone who never tried the Coercer class before...

[Jonny_Reload]

<DIV>I keep hearing there one of the best Solo Classes around, yet I play a Necromancer (Which is also claimed to be one of the best Solo classes around yet I'm having a [I cannot control my vocabulary] hard time getting past the Tier 2 levels.) What could anyone offer to this thread that has played both a Necromancer and a Coercer and finds the Coercer better for solo'ists.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Do Charmed pets stay around forever or temporarily?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If a Charmed pet is timed, can you keep Charming it once it's duration is up?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Can you just Charm a really high level pet or do the resist easily and get aggro towards you when you fail?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>How are Coercers for DPS compared to a Wizard?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What helps Coercer be one of the best Solo Classes besides a pet? </DIV>

[Wrapye]

I've only played a necro up to level 26, but coercer is at 70.Coercer's ability to solo depends heavily on the zone.  What mobs are there, what they can do.  The other big factor is the quality of the charm spell.  Charm is probably the most dependent on quality of any spell I've encountered in the game.  The higher the quality, the longer the charm will likely last and the stronger the mob when charmed.Charm is temporary.  It has a listed maximum duration, but mobs will often break before that.  You can recharm them afterwards, though many times it will break in the middle of a fight, and you're dead before you can get control back.Necromancers have an easier time soloing against an isolated mob or small group.  It is against larger groups, or in places where adds are common, that coercers shine due to crowd control abilities.  Coercers generally do not have very high dps, though if you choose certain AA lines you can boost that dramatically (enchanter INT and AGI lines).Coercers are probably the most 'finesse' class in the game, in that they aren't a straight-forward dps class, nor do they have a dependable pet like the summoners or illusionists.  But if you know how to play one, and know what mobs make the best pets for that zone and what you are looking to do, they can be very powerful.  There are coercers who solo Halls of Fate, and I don't think I've heard of any other class doing that.<div></div>

[Aranieq]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> JonnyReload wrote:<BR> <DIV>I keep hearing there one of the best Solo Classes around, yet I play a Necromancer (Which is also claimed to be one of the best Solo classes around yet I'm having a [I cannot control my vocabulary] hard time getting past the Tier 2 levels.) What could anyone offer to this thread that has played both a Necromancer and a Coercer and finds the Coercer better for solo'ists.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Do Charmed pets stay around forever or temporarily?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If a Charmed pet is timed, can you keep Charming it once it's duration is up?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Can you just Charm a really high level pet or do the resist easily and get aggro towards you when you fail?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>How are Coercers for DPS compared to a Wizard?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What helps Coercer be one of the best Solo Classes besides a pet?</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I've never played a Necro but I do have a Hobby Conjurer (i know not the same but similar principle)</P> <P>I can handle a much harder mob with my coercer (charmed pet or not) than with the conjurer.  When the pet dies because I just can't keep it up or kill the mob fast enough ect the mob is uncontrollable with my coercer it's just a hickup and often part of the plan that the pet died and I just root/stun/mezz the mob turn to the right and get a new one if I have to.  I also feel my coercer does a lot more damage than the conjurer (with and without pets ie the casters dps alone vs the caster and pet dps).  I can clear through zones faster on Coercer than with conj as well because of charm clearning ect...  I Don't actually solo with a pet often excet for really hard Mobs and tough nameds or clearing fast to get to a named first =p.</P> <P>I don't have a wizard but I do have a 2nd Box Warlock that I often solo for questing and times when I'm too lazy to log on the coercer for 2 boxing... I've found the warlock can handle "allmost" the same level of mob my coercer can but it's "messier".  The mob must die faster for a better chance of success where as my Coercer could play with it about all day and it doesn't effect her success rate much.  Both toons can take down a green-Blue ^^^ by themselves with effort but the Coercer has much less "stress" during the fight. For group encounters... it's similarly matched in "stress" factor they can both handle a group encounter easily being AE classes. </P> <P>As for DPS my Coercer is far better geared than my warlock so she's not a good dps comparision.  On our raids in dps role my coercer<STRONG> (880(No Vim)-998(with Vim) INT combat)</STRONG> takes top 2-5 (900-1.8k) places depending on pull type and zone on a <U>14k-16kdps raid average</U> (<STRONG>with a fury, with Synergism,</STRONG> and <STRONG>with or without a troubador</STRONG>).  The <STRONG>wizard is in top 1-5</STRONG> places  <STRONG>with a fury, Synergism, sometimes troubador</STRONG>. The warlock is similarly parsed to the Wizard.  The <STRONG>MT coercer</STRONG> is parsed in the mid-low end of parse (300-600 dps) <STRONG>with fury(no Vim), Dirge</STRONG> and <STRONG>NO SYNERGISM</STRONG>.</P> <P>Theres a bunch of different discussions on the pet questions you have and I would recomend reading through them.. I've put a bunch in the FAQ's post sticky'd at the top.  I hope the comparisions I have are helpful and what you were looking for.  My coercer is mastered except for 1 T7 spell and fully fabled so the comparisons of the conj/Warlock solo is a little skewed but still relevant IMO.</P>

[mwr]

<P>Coercer dps is largely dependent on the pet and the quality of your Charm spell*; the class's base dps isn't hugely impressive, though it doesn't really need to be due to the wealth of CC options you have available. Soloing often follows a mez-nuke sort of strategy, whereby you mez a critter, let your pet unload its big spell (you want caster pets 99% of the time), mez it again and repeat (tossing in roots and stuns for safety if need be. It's effective and it's safe, but it can take a while. </P> <P>Also, don't approach the Coercer like you would a Necro; your pets are not tanks. They will not hold aggro; instead, they'll (ed: they being monsters you're attacking) pretty much beeline straight to you the moment you do something. Generally speaking, your job is to stun/root/debilitate the opponent as much as possible while your pets (and sometimes reactives) do the heavy lifting.</P> <P>*Starred for emphasis. The leap in effectiveness between even Adept 3 and Master is staggering. With an Adept 3, you'll do alright. With a Master you'll be surprised at what your pets can accomplish.</P> <P> </P> <P>Also, be well aware that you WILL die, and very often at that, until your skills begin to fill out. And more often than not, you'll die specifically because your pet decided it didn't like you any more while you were otherwise occupied.</P><p>Message Edited by mwr on <span class=date_text>02-01-2007</span> <span class=time_text>06:52 AM</span>

[DwarvesR]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> JonnyReload wrote:<BR> <DIV>I keep hearing there one of the best Solo Classes around, yet I play a Necromancer (Which is also claimed to be one of the best Solo classes around yet I'm having a [I cannot control my vocabulary] hard time getting past the Tier 2 levels.) What could anyone offer to this thread that has played both a Necromancer and a Coercer and finds the Coercer better for solo'ists.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>I have a 54 Necro with all M1 pets, and a 60 Coercer with M1 Charm, so that's the comparison I'm coming from.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>The necro, you could say is more "dependable."  The pet obviously never comes back after you, and you know pretty much what it can do at any given time -- you "learn it's power" so to speak.  The coercer is sometimes described as being like juggling live hand-grenades.  Higher risk, but then when you find that "sweet spot" on the coercer. . . well, I love my necro, and think she's very impressive, but next to my coercer. . . . . Nah, the coercer walks confidently in where my necro fears to tread.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Do Charmed pets stay around forever or temporarily?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>Charm spells are temporary.  They have a max duration, plus a chance to break at periodic ticks, as well as when your pet takes damage.  The longest lasting charm spell is attained at level 61 and has a 30 minute max duration.  something nice about charm spells though, is that the "tier" of the spell doesn't affect its resistability.  The level 20 charm M1 will land on a level 70 mob just as easily as the level 61 charm.  This is why it's generally suggested that once you find a charm spell -- yes ANY charm spell -- and obtain it at the M1 level that you keep using it even past when it should theoretically be replaced.  As was noted previously, with an Ad3 charm you'll do okay, but with an M1 charm you'll be astounded.  Sell your 1stborn if you have to to get a Master Charm.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If a Charmed pet is timed, can you keep Charming it once it's duration is up?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>Yup, sure can.  In spite of my charm having only a 20 minute duration, I've kept the same pet for 3+ hour gaming sessions at times.  Once you find a good pet, you *don't* want to let it go.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Can you just Charm a really high level pet or do the resist easily and get aggro towards you when you fail?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>This depends.  I could always charm yellows very reliably, and oranges never seemed to be too terrible on the resists.  That said, my preferred pet is actually a +4 level yellow, becuz then I can send it against mobs that are orange to me, but still yellow to the pet.  At level 60, my level 64 pet can chain through level 68 mobs without breaking a sweat, yielding 0.3% xp per kill on a solo mob for me.  In a "grind group" going against 'level-appropriate' heroic mobs at this level I feel lucky to see a 0.1% bump per kill.   So. . yes, I can get xp faster solo with a good pet than I can in a group working on heroics.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>If the mob does resist, yes, you do gain aggro.  M1 Charm + 5aa's into reducing charm resistability, though. . . . they don't resist much nor break all *that* often.  And even if charm does break, if you're properly controlling the mobs, you can easily re-charm and continue where you left off.  Of course. . .when everything goes right for a while, it's tempting to think you don't need to always be controlling the mobs but. . . . well. . . as has been said, get used to dying a lot.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>How are Coercers for DPS compared to a Wizard?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>You want wizard dps?  Charm a wizard pet.  </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>So far as personal dps goes, it's not terrible.  We have a couple of dot's that are quite good, really.  The single-target nuke isn't all that big, but it's fast casting, especially if you spec your aa's toward Perpetuality, at which point you can pop it out like a machine gun.  Still, you won't ever really see a single "big hit" like on a wizard.  That said, if a mob has your reactive on it, plus the 2 "power consumption" reactives and it tosses a spell, seeing 3 hits for 800-1100 pop up simultaneously, along with 2 dot ticks plus your small nuke. . .that can still be a lot of damage in a hurry.  I generally can pull aggro off my pet if I'm not careful (and this is with the pet being hate-buffed and nuking for numbers you'll see in a moment), and will usually just use the dots and nuke, maybe adding the 1 reactive spell in if I'm feeling like the mob's going down a little slow.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>So . . . no big hits, but a lot of small ones you can keep on pretty much all the time, so it still adds up fast.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>Add in that you can charm pets that will routinely toss out nukes bigger than a wizard, and suddenly your dps spikes but good.  Show me the level 50 wizard that tosses out an 1800-2200 point nuke every 5 seconds like a faelian evoker in Lfay?  Or the wizard that nukes every 5 seconds or so for 1200-1400 and heals itself so that it pretty much can't die like a sharpthorn prophet?  You can't do it.  Redbeard chaplains in LP nuke for 1800-ish every 5 seconds or so and autoattack for 450-500 in between spell casts and also keep themselves healed up nicely so you have no dowtime at all when using them.   As a result, while no hits might be as big as the huge wizzie nukes, your sustained dps over time is still comparable, IMO. (I have a 54 warlock too, so I know approximate numbers from the sorcerors.)</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What helps Coercer be one of the best Solo Classes besides a pet?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>With no pet, just using your crowd control spells you can take out yellow ^^^ named with no risk whatsoever.  Sure, it's a snoozefest, but you can do it.  Frankly, unless I'm going after specific loot a named is known to drop I don't bother.  I can get more xp and money from body loot off +8 level solo mobs, so there's not much point to going after the heroics in such a slow manner.   When an add comes up, just mez it.  No biggie.  Sure, you're still squishie and die a lot, but you get it back so fast, it's really not a big deal.</FONT><BR> <HR> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Overall, I absolutely prefer the coercer.  With my necro I can take on a +5 level mob with difficulty and significant downtime.  With my coercer I can take down +8 level mobs routinely and with no downtime.  I generally won't try heroics on the necro unless they're green, and deep green at that.  My coercer can take yellow heroics, if I decide I want to.  Don't get me wrong, I love my necro too, and totally enjoy both toons, but if I had to choose one to delete. . . it would be the necro that went "buh bye."</P> <P>Edited out a very embarrasing typo. . . .<BR></P><p>Message Edited by DwarvesRUs on <span class=date_text>02-01-2007</span> <span class=time_text>09:00 AM</span>

[Jonny_Reload]

<DIV>Do you get experience if your Charmed pet dies? (It was going to kill you after all) </DIV>

[Korpo]

^^No, you do not get experience when your pet dies (any more <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />).However, if your pet is nearly dead and you break charm, then kill him, you do get experience. A word of warning though, pets heal up a bit when the charm breaks.<div></div>

[Jonny_Reload]

How useful are their Achievement Points? (Do they get any ability trees that allow them to work on Charming better?)

[DwarvesR]

<P>There's an aa ability that makes your charm harder to resist and less likely to break.  My M1 Dominate with 5/5 aa's in the charm resistance has 36% harder resistability on intial cast, and 33% harder resistability on the periodic check, as per the stated description.</P> <P>I've found with this setup that my pet lasts the entire 20 minute duration about 2/3 of the time anymore, which is a big improvement over having an Ad3 Dominate and no aa's.  I never expected charm to last more than 8-10 minutes then.  Now. . .I can't say I *expect* it to last the duration, but I'm hardly surprised when it does either.</P> <P>In re: pets healing themselves a bit on charm break -- this is only true on mobs that have any kind of "up arrow."  Reason being that when you charm a ^, ^^, or ^^^ mob, it debuffs to a no-arrow while under your charm, meaning it loses HP.  When the charm breaks, it "re-buffs" to its former hp level, making it appear healed.  If you charm a no-arrow or any kind of down-arrow mob, they will not "heal" when charm breaks.  This is why when I solo, I rarely charm anything more than a ^ mob.  It's dangerous enough to play a coercer without adding in the risk of a pet that can 1 or 2-shot me when I lose control of it.  I can usually take several hits from a ^ mob, though, so that's usually not too bad.</P>

[Korpo]

What he said about the charm buff AA in the coercer tree, plus you can go down the WIS line in the enchanter tree to buff your subjugation skill. Subjugation helps charm stick better, and stay stuck longer.(Disclaimer: that's its intended purposed. Whether subj makes a difference or not is hotly contested.)<div></div>

[TheSpin]

<DIV>I'm also a new coercer and I noticed right away that charm was very unreliable unless you get it to adept 3 or better.  Not only does adept 3 or master charm stick a lot better, it also makes you're pets signifigantly more powerful.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I really think that's the key to being a successful coercer.  I also found life much better with a priest or mage pet that could nuke from distance.  My favorite pets in the commonlands were a level 15 blackshield cleric and then later I found a level 18 dervish thaumaturgist.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>They day that they made silver into the rare required for our T2 adept 3 spells I bought enough to make all of my T2 spells adept 3 and I was able to solo blue ^^^ at about level 20 (even without a pet).</DIV>