Consolidated Coercer issues thread

[Ozgood]

<p>I am trying to get this stickied, of course with your feedback and input.  Please try to keep this constructive and don't flame anyone for their opinion.  If you disagree, simply post your reasons why.  We want to be as subjective as possible.  Hopefully if there are enough of us left, we can get this noticed by the Devs before RoK.  </p><p>Charm- I have my subj maxed and 5 points into Charm and using a Master Charm.  It still breaks a lot.  I understand that it was designed to break occasionally, but on yellow one up and even one ups, it breaks a lot.  Being that Coerce is the root name of our class, I would think this is a primary objective of our class.  Right now, with it costing 3 concentration slots, being worthless in most raids and full group situations and breaking a lot, it might need to be looked into.  The casting pets are SO much more potent than melee pets, if you can find them and IF they are charmable.  Plus pets don't zone, /shrug, don't know if that should be changed or not.</p><p>Mez- Mezzing seems decent and it seems that SOE wanted Illusionists to focus on mezzing and us on Stunning.  I am ok with that.  Mezzing and stunning in PvP are really watered down and because they give so much immunity to being done again (and most melee classes have some sort of stun) they aren't really viable at this point.  I can lock down a PvE group with a group mez, but it lasts maybe 3 seconds full term on a PvP group.</p><p>Reactives- Great in PvP, especially against healers.  In general though, just like the root of the word, they are in reaction to something.  Reaction to someone or us getting hit or nuked.  Now why they had the squishiest class with no real DD have all their damage come from being hit is beyond me.  In a good group you burn through mobs so quick that you MIGHT go through a whole round of reactives.  While decent damage, it is a DOT but worse in that it doesn't tick every few seconds or so.  Again, I think reactives are a good idea and I like them, but as a sole way to DPS, besides pet (see above) it makes Coercers one of the hardest classes to play.</p><p>Survivability- Wizzies and Warlocks get mana shields and wards that absorb damage.  They also get buffs versus poison, heat and cold.  Conjurers and Necros can have perceptors body guard and necro can lifetap.  We die more than most classes out there simply because we have no protection and our DPS is dependant on getting hit or nuked.  If I put a reactive on a wizzie and they hit me with a big nuke, I will be dead 90% of the time and their ward will have absorbed a lot of the damage of the reactive that ticked once.  Make the melee pets capable of taunting off of us.  Make Healer pets heal us.  Bard pets buff us etc.</p><p>Utility- Mez, stuns, and power regen.  My int buff and power buffs do less than druids.  My power regen is decent, but other classes can do it as well.  I can mez, if a group knows what they are doing, but a illusionist does it better and on the run.  We can stun and chain stun in PvE which is very good.  In PvP, no so much.</p><p>Buffs- See above.  We have some nice power regen buffs, but nothing like the "crack" I am accustomed to giving out as an enchanter.  Our DPS buff is awesome.  Our annoying demeanor buffs are very nice as well.  But again, pet or no pet?  With a pet, you have 2 slots, use them wisely.</p><p>Mitigation- Worst in game, period.  Needs some help.</p><p>Raiding- No pet, low DPS, DPS buffs and taunt buffs and power regen.  Occasionally mez, stun and stifle.  Not bad, but like the bards, most of these are buffs we could cast and walk away, unless there are adds to mez.</p><p>PvP- We need more survivability.  We can kill healers most of the time, everything else is quite a gamble.  If you have a pet, it is a different story, but again, see above.  Ever have someone "cure" your pet?  Ever have you pet break on you in a PvP fight?  Not pretty.  No other class has a class defining skill that is so situational and difficult to use.  Heck most times, I can't find a pet before I am ganked.  Make us less dependant on the pet, or more by making it more stable and zone with us.  </p><p>Pets- Very nice to get that "right pet".  Our DPS depends on it a lot.  But some pets seem to break constantly, don't cast when they are casters or simply can't be charmed.  Our pets bring dangerous DPS to a group.  It would be nice if they could fill other roles.  Tank pets would taunt, Healing pets would heal, utility pets would buff etc.  This would make Coercers a welcome addition to most groups, if they didn't break so much.  Overpowered you say?  Well,  a necro can heal, rez summon a tank, scout or caster pet in an instant and still do more DPS than we can without one.  These mobs before they are charmed can heal one another and buff up, why can't they when we control them?  Aren't we their masters?  In addition to that, make our charms so that if they are charmed they stay charmed for the full duration. To balance this, make the charm easier to resist initially.  But once Coerced, make them ours.  Give us an AA line that allows us to make one pet a perma pet once a day and allow it to zone with us.  Once it is killed or we are, we lose the ability for another 24 hours. Just a thought.</p><p>Class defining abilities-  As mentioned above, either make us Coerce better or better at utility.  Right now, we are behind bards and every other utility class as to what we bring to a group.  Make our power regen phenomenal, make our stun reactive into a buff that hasa high chance of triggering.  Something!</p><p>KoS AA's-  I am currently a Chronomancer and like the thoughts behind this line.  It works quite well in PvE and PvP.  I haven't tried any others.</p><p>EoF AA's-  Increasing our reactive triggers is awesome and also increasing our mana regen abilities are nice as well.  Haven't went real far here, but would like some suggestions.</p><p>Thoughts?</p><p>I will edit this as we get responses.  Please take a moment and say what, if anything you would like looked at.  I use the term "looked at" because I don't think any of us, without knowing the game infra-structure can say this or that needs to be changed.  Perhaps by asking nicely and being constructive we can get somewhere like other classes have done.</p>

[Controlor]

I agree to a lot of what you posted (even tho i am an illy). Really chanter (both illy / coercer) should have same pr regen buff but it needs to be higher than bards. Even if it isnt by much like 5-10 pts higher just something. For your charming sugestion. A charmed mob should never has never and will never zone with you. (this goes for EQ1 and EQ2). BUT i think that you should have been given an AA along the lines of dire charm. Where you permenantly charm a mob. The mob cant break from the charm ever. BUT it had a limitation on the lvl of mob you could charm. (at the time it was 15 lvls lower than you dont know if it stayed at 45 as max or went up with increase in lvls in EQ1). They should havegiven something like this to coercers via AA. With the limitation of lvl it wouldnt really work well in instances where there are blue+. But it should have been given even if your can only perma charm a grey mob or a green mob 10 lvls lower then you it would make it a bit easier on you. Again i am an illy so dont know all the problems with you guys over there in charming land heh. But as a friend once said: Coercer + charmed mob = uber. Coercer alone = Gimped illusionist.

[Ozgood]

Good points.  Anyone else?  When or IF we get this thread rolling, I will consolidate all these into the opening statement/request.

[Mordion89]

<p>I've made a thread about coercers' issues some couple of months ago, you could use it for your reference</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=169821" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=169821</a></p>

[Rumbler]

<p>I am relatively new to coercer having changed from my Fury for guild class mix reasons although I am now 70 with 91 AA. Gee I miss the fury dps. Despite my newbieness here is my 2cents. </p><p>Auspex Reactive damage gets worse as your tank gets better avoidance. I've actually asked my raid tank and dirge to take some of their avoidance buffs off and put the shield away so I can get some damage. On trash a well geared raid MT will hardly get hit.</p><p>Mobs don't seem to use much power when they cast so we don't get much damage out of Destructive Mind. Needs its PvE percent increased?</p><p>I don't seem to run into many mobs that cast spells at all or frequently enough to get any notable damage out of our proc on cast spells.</p><p>Stunning seems to generate massive agro. Maybe it is justified but I sure would be happier if it had less effect.</p><p>Power drains - whats the point? They have no effect at all in PvE anymore and half our spells seem to be power drains. The game was changed so mobs could continue casting without their power but coercers were left with all their useless power drains.</p><p>At least one or two charm-able heroics in each raid zone would help our dps alot. Has anyone got Possession to work? Seems very hit and miss - mostly miss.</p><p>Edit: Just read the linked post above. I think it covers everything and more than I posted.</p>

[AziBam]

Totally agree about the irritation of charm breaking.  I have max wisdom AA subj, 5 points in charm AA, master domination, and scoop up any +subj gear that I can find and equip....despite all that I fairly regularly have charm breaks.  That's silly.  Especially given that it is only a relatively small number of pets that are outstanding.  The other problem is that our entire mechanic of damage is broken.  Reactives are our biggest hit spell...and we are outstanding at stuns.  /scratches head  So, um...wait...we cast our reactive damage...and then prevent the mob from doing any damage...BRILLIANT!  Our EOF AAs were pretty poor.  When I reached the end of the coercion line to get the fairly mediocre Coercive Healing ability (best line and end ability of the bunch) I had to spend a long time pondering which of the remaining weak lines to start to pursue.  Meh, Meh, and Bleh going from right to left on the tree past coercion. . I'm ok with our power regen abilities.  I think they are pretty solid.  I'd be crazy to gripe about our stuns (PVE non-raiding).  I think we need at least one short recast high direct damage spell.  Ideally one that is single target and also one that is encounter based.  (I'm not asking for damage numbers like Ice Nova or Fusion btw, just some respectable direct damage short recast spells.)  The easiest way to help breaks in charm that I can think of would be to increase the % harder to resist factor of the spell line.  I know that it is relatively high already as spells go but it is such a huge piece of our dps (when we are trying for that) it should be safer to use without constantly having to hassle with breaks.  The frequency of the mobs resist check could also be reduced so it would have fewer chances to try to break away.  Three points is a ton of concentration to spend on it as well.  

[Ozgood]

<p>Thank you Mordion89, great thread.  With your permission, I will consolidate both threads to create one post of issues or wish lists as it was for Coercers.  I agree with everyone else's posts.</p><p>Couple of more thoughts to make the Coercer a little better:</p><p>Buff that is castable on the main tank (or anyone, including pets) that procs a mental damage that converts into power for the entire group.</p><p>Dumbfire Wisp pets that do magic damage and explode at end of duration (30 seconds) in nice encounter AOE damage.</p><p>Just some more thoughts.  The more I get the more I will consolidate.</p>

[Mordion89]

<cite>Tiabella wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Thank you Mordion89, great thread.  With your permission, I will consolidate both threads to create one post of issues or wish lists as it was for Coercers.  I agree with everyone else's posts.</p></blockquote> Sure, go ahead, that would be really nice. After all, we're all coercers, we should help each other to get our message out to the devs. <img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Ran]

<p>Your point about charming/mezzing is right but this should stay. One reason i play this class is cause its so difficult to play. I like this. Theres nothing more boring than root the enemy and let our powerful charmed mage pet hits his nukes. This would make this class to easy. I just want to see more zones like Nizara where we can lend a hand, not just with our manareg. More challenging for our class. We are made for it.</p><p>Last days i was in FTH and after them i looked my parser and i was a little bit [Removed for Content] off. We got one short dmg spell, one bit longer dot dmg spell, 2 closed aes and with a good timing your cast window will always show up without a break. With the 2 decrease spells, mana reg spells etc. we got all hands full to do. What im so depressed about is the result. I always looked the 3 reactive dmg spells are active on the mob and in the hole time we got i pushed the other dmg spells all the time, all the time and the result show up in the parser was.... 80%! of the dmg reactive, the rest the other 4 spells. I skilled the Chronomancer tree and everyone which got this tree now about the speed of casting you get there. Wau why we got 4 more spells of dmg when they bring so low dmg output? Next time i got a break, zigarette, coffee or something else cause pushing the other dmg spells is just a waste of time. With a good group/raid there is no need to stun the enemy the hole time. Push the direct dmg spells a little bit, not to much but a bit so they get a use.</p>

[Verrie77]

<p>Very good thread !</p><p><b><u>Charm: </u></b> If this is what we "<b>stand for"</b>...<b>"what we do"</b>...then there shouldnt need 3 concentration slots !! Christ, a troub can charm for a little while...a druid aswell. And they arent <b>ment</b> to be able, there i can agree 3 slots is normal and understanding. But we are <b>COERCER,</b> we shouldnt have to concentrate much to do this. And yes, why on earth doesnt the charmed mob keep more of its original buffs / spells..doesnt make sense. Less broken charms is needed aswell.</p><p><b><u>Re-Mezz:</u></b></p><p>Come on ! This needs fixing. What are we there for if our own mezz cant land again ? <b>Hey !</b></p><p><u><b>Auspex </b>( dmg- reactive ):</u></p><p>I think this one mostly works if im not being pound at myself. I havnt run a parse on my own to see if it needs looking after.</p><p><b><u>Cataclysmic Mind:</u></b></p><p>Hmmm...yeah why put it on a mob when it diesnt use mana anyway. Well mayeb i should cast it casue it looks pretty ? Fix it or make it diffrent....make mobs use some mana or this is useless...or like others have suggested...let our <b>OWN </b>manadrain spells affect this if the mob spens so little.</p><p><b><u>Possession:</u></b></p><p>Great funspell...nothing more than that !</p><p><b><u>Mind Bend:</u></b></p><p>Also useless ancient-spell for us that raid, casue it doesnt effect Epics. Its agreat spell if it would work on epics. </p><p>Yes there is alot that needs to be fixed !</p><p><img src="/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p>