Sorry to retread a frequent topic...

[namax]

<p>..but I need help learning this class.  I'm lvl 18 - I knew I'd die a lot but I'm setting records.</p><p>Here's what I've learned from this forum so far, and what I'm trying to do.  For spells, I found a reasonably priced Master Charm on the broker, and I picked the Mez for Master II.  The rest I haven't worried about too much...AD I's if it was cheap.</p><p>In the limited grouping I've done (with guildie alts who understood crowd control), my role seemed to mainly be crowd control when needed, the power debuff, and some dps.  It rarely seemed worth it to charm a pet - bottom line I felt less than 100% useful.</p><p>Soloing - which I'd like to focus on has been a mixed bag.  I've been looking for good pets, but it seems the better the pet, the shorter the duration of the charm.  For example, I charmed some of the caster skellies near Valmar in CL (con white, yellow or orange heroic).  Sometimes, I can't even survive the second mob in the charmed pet's group.  IE I charm the pet, the grouped (not charmed) mob attacks me, my pet defends and pulls the mob off me, but before I (we) can kill it, my charm breaks and the two of them wipe me in a heartbeat.  So then I focus on single mobs to charm, but they seem to be melee class.</p><p>Now, armed with pet, I try some mobs.  Single mobs are no problem.  I let the pet do a lot of the work and gain aggro, and nuke a little trying to to pull the mob from my pet.  As was mentioned in these forums, it's easy to do this, then kill the pet while it's hitpoints are down.  IE Charm, kill mob, kill pet, repeat.  If I attack groups, I have more trouble.  I usually mez one of the group while my pet works on the other.  However, the mez rarely lasts long enough for the pet to finish the first mob.  If I help the pet with the first mob, I inevitably get aggro and pull the mob on me.  If I take it really slow, and keep mezzing the second mob and let the pet do all the work on the first, the charm wears out before I finish the encounter.  Bottom line I die a lot <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Honestly at this stage, I feel like I can level faster skipping the pet altogether - just rooting, mezzing, and nuking grouped mobs a couple of cons lower.  That's why I feel like I'm doing something wrong.  Any help would be appreciated.</p>

[Mioawara]

<p>I am a 42 Coercer. My only EQ 2 toon.</p><p> Soloing can be VERY painful, but something you need to know is, some places are more painful than others regardless of your spells. I can only assume SOE either does not want us doing certain things, or they just don't realize what certain combinations of powers and resists on certain mobs do to us... Well they also just might not care. Regardless, some zones that you can kick the doors in and just beat into submission with other classes are PAINFUL for us. An example would be the Orcs in the ruins off Freeport. Now someone will come in and say how easy they are for them, blah blah blah. Trust me. I don't take "No" for an answer. I did all those quests. It was just not among my smarter moves. Had I gone somewhere else I would have gone faster and had fewer deaths.</p><p> Then again that is what a Coercers path is in my book. We are incredibly soft. We die insane amounts. BUT, we can also do easily things other people simply can't do. The caveat is, you gotta be on your game. You have to be able to stand in the mixer, take the punch and still think on your feet. Some people are not cut out for that. Better to learn that early on I say. </p><p> Anyway, long answer to your short question. There is no pat answer. Each mob you come up aginst will be different. The first couple hours in a zone you should spend figuring out what your stuff will do and accept that you WILL die doing that. Once you dial in on what mobs are good pets, go forth. If something drops fast pass on by or treat them as a tutor in the art of pet agro management. </p>

[DwarvesR]

<p>Something else to look at is that at level 18, you don't have all of your spell lines yet.  As a result, charming part of a heroic group probably isn't the best idea because you don't have all of your control options for the rest of the group</p><p>I'd suggest going off and finding actual solo mobs.  In CL the Dervish Heretics and Dervish Thaumaturge's are both pretty good -- especially with a master charm, which you say you have.  Personally, I prefer a priest pet, but. . that's just me.</p><p>Sure, I *can* take on heroic mobs if I have to, but it's slow enough that I really prefer to just go through orange solo mobs.  Even at my current level 60, I can charm a level 64 pet, send it against a level 68 mob, have it carve it up like butter, and I get 0.3% per kill.  Show me a group that will give me xp that fast?  You can't.  I spent 2 hours in CoI today fighting blue heroics in a group and wound up with a total of 18% xp, including exploration dings.  Had I spent those 2 hours in LP soloing, I would have gotten close to 50% from killing and doing quests.  And probably more loot too <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>That said, it's not all about how fast the xp bar moves, and I had a blast in that group too -- especially once I got the tank trained to let me deal with the adds.  Was really annoying to mez a mob only to have him spank it 2-3 seconds later.  Gave our poor healer a workout he did. . until he stopped breaking mez.  Once that happened, we had no trouble at all.  Plus I got to do some okay dps, keep the mobs stunned a lot to save the healer some work, and generally have a grand old time.  Can't wait until I'm 68 and my guild starts taking me along on raids as coercer instead of inquisitor.  I like healing, don't get me wrong, but our raids have been without a coercer for a while now, so I think I'll be more useful that way.</p><p>Anyway. . .sure, we can solo very well, and I recall well the days at level 18 where I'd charm 1 in a group and then use it to kill the rest of the group.  I also recall dying a lot when doing that too.  Sire it's doable, but risky.  If/when you master it, it's very rewarding, but even if you don't you can still burn through solo mobs that are a lot more powerful than anyone else can.  My necro has all M1 pets, and I may consider taking an orange solo mob on it from time to time, but I know I'm gonna need a new pet once I'm done, plus I'll probably need a bit of med time too.  My coercer generally only looks for orange mobs to solo on anymore and I can keep the same pet for hours with no downtime at all.  I like that power.  I like it a lot.  Becuz I'm evil that way. . . . </p>

[Melodar]

<p>If your charming heroics because it says they are heroic dont waste your time. They get dumbed down to normal anyway. Try to avoid charming encounter mobs when possible. I find that there are some mob types that just resist no matter what you do. If you find one of these simply move on it isn't worth the time and effort to keep this one mob and yeah often they are priest types and only casters in area. Reactives make all the difference in soloing for me and I use them constantly. Prior to 30ish your gonna have a hard time doing most anything just have patience and hang in their. </p><p>In groups something you can do as crowd control is charm a mob on big pulls kill the rest of the pull then release pet to be killed. You perform some CC and you add some dps with the charmed guy. Just make a macro and let your team know how you plan on charming on big pulls. Use the macro to remind folks you are releasing the pet. Watch the tank and do not release your pet until the tank has turn to pet more often than not a tank will take off and ignore your message and you dont want to release as another pull is inc. </p>

[Norrsken]

<p>You are going thru the growing and learning aches of an enchanter in eq2. Most other classes has it fairly esy in t1 and 2, and way shorter learning curves than the enchanter.</p><p>Well, the enchanter gets squat to toy with in t2. We get the fast reuse single target crap nuke all mages get, and thats it. We haave charm, but its not very reliable, and ittakes some time getting use to it (Its a very powerful tool, but you really need a bit of time to get it). We have mez and root, but they are gimpishly short. In short, you are going thru hell levels where your class is at its weakest compared to everything else in the game. You wont start getting into motion until late twenties or early thirties. To add to this, the class has the steepest learning curve. IF you make one single mistake, you can very well die fast. Most of the time, you dont even have tomake mistakes for the [Removed for Content] to hit the fan. IT does it on its own accord. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p><p>Bite down and level thru is pretty much what you can do if you want an easier time learning the class. Once you get the hang of it, you will do stuff that no other class can do. But we pay for it as well in time it takes to do, and in deaths to learn to do it. And most coercers will never get there, because... You will die. Lots. All the time. And its not gonna be because you did a blatant mistake. ITs gonna be because you didnt react fast enough, or something didnt work out as planned.</p><p>If you like a challenge, keep playing the coercer. If you want it slightly easier, go with a summoner or sorceror. </p>

[namax]

Thanks for the encouragement!  I'm going to keep trying...I think part of my frustration is the last two toons I lvl'd were Conj and Bruiser - much easier to lvl - at least in the lower lvls...maybe the coercer will be as proficient (if not more) once I hit the 30's.