Other than Charming or being Evil...

[DarumaRanger]

<p>Why do you think some folks prefer playing a Coercer over an Illusionist?</p><p>If you don't like the unpredictability of charm vs having a static pet ala Illusionist, and you're not particularly set on being an Evil race/class... what would draw one to being a Coercer rather than an Illusionist?</p><p>See... I've tried a Coercer, only up to Lv 10, and admittedly I'm not a very good player, but I had trouble dealing with Charm; having it be resisted and getting aggro'd, having it break and now having yet another mob to deal with, etc.</p><p>As compared to my Lv 10 Illusionist with his static pet I died way less often than the Coercer... in fact up through Lv 10 I did not die ever on the Illy.</p><p>So, thus far at least, the Illy seems easier and in a sense more powerful.</p><p>Why don't I just play an Illy then?  Well... while I'm not married to being Evil, I would prefer it, (I have enough goody two shoes in my stable), not to mention I really like the Darklight Woods starting area.</p><p>I understand some folks like the challenge of charming mobs, as well as the chance of having a better pet than an Illy, or some folks simply prefer being evil.  I'm just having trouble getting over the charm issue, so I'm wondering what else draws folks to a Coercer over an Illusionist other than Charm?  Maybe those same things that aren't occuring to me, might make me decide that dealing with charm is worth it.</p><p>Thanks for your insight.</p><p>Take care.</p>

[Controlor]

<cite>DarumaRanger wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Why do you think some folks prefer playing a Coercer over an Illusionist?</p><p>If you don't like the unpredictability of charm vs having a static pet ala Illusionist, and you're not particularly set on being an Evil race/class... what would draw one to being a Coercer rather than an Illusionist?</p><p>See... I've tried a Coercer, only up to Lv 10, and admittedly I'm not a very good player, but I had trouble dealing with Charm; having it be resisted and getting aggro'd, having it break and now having yet another mob to deal with, etc.</p><p>As compared to my Lv 10 Illusionist with his static pet I died way less often than the Coercer... in fact up through Lv 10 I did not die ever on the Illy.</p><p>So, thus far at least, the Illy seems easier and in a sense more powerful.</p><p>Why don't I just play an Illy then?  Well... while I'm not married to being Evil, I would prefer it, (I have enough goody two shoes in my stable), not to mention I really like the Darklight Woods starting area.</p><p>I understand some folks like the challenge of charming mobs, as well as the chance of having a better pet than an Illy, or some folks simply prefer being evil.  I'm just having trouble getting over the charm issue, so I'm wondering what else draws folks to a Coercer over an Illusionist other than Charm?  Maybe those same things that aren't occuring to me, might make me decide that dealing with charm is worth it.</p><p>Thanks for your insight.</p><p>Take care.</p></blockquote>Its about risk V speed. Coercers are riskier than illusionists. They both can take down the same mobs. Coercers solo faster than illys. Illys solo safer than coercers. In fact the illusionist is one of the safest (if not hte safest) soloer in game. BUT some fights can take 30+ mins while the coercer would take that same mob down in 5. Versus trash mobs its not to noticable on the speed. But versus names coercers are much faster.

[Kattheswas]

Rather than start a new thread asking similar questions.... I'm going to roll a new toon for the new expansion when it comes out...Now I played an illy up to lvl 23 and it was a lot of fun...fights were a lil slow, but it was fun.. So I understand coercer gets hcarmed pets instead of just a reg. pet..... And Controlor says coercers burn mobs down faster.. so as someone who's never tried coecer.. What are the differences between the two classes?

[Controlor]

<p>^... Illys rely on dots. Coercers rely on reactives. Ilys power regen is superior over the long run Coercer pr regen is superior in bursts (channel anyone). Illy summons pet which shares abilities from the illy gaining new ones each new pet but predictable, Coercer charms pets and they vary reatly in dmg and ability. Illys have better mezes, Coercers have better stuns. Coercers need higher subj than illys. Coercers buff hate/DPS. Illys buff haste / procs. Coercers generall mroe pieonholed in raids (as in they are in MT or OT group near useless elsewhere), illys are more versatile. There is more just cant think of em atm.</p>

[Davram]

Illusionist do not have better power regen than Coercers. We have the best power regen in the game. Ease, Beholder's Eye, Gorging Thoughts. And I don't know what level you are or what Illusionists you know, but they absolutely pawn coercers in the dps column.

[Controlor]

Davram@Befallen wrote: <blockquote>Illusionist do not have better power regen than Coercers. We have the best power regen in the game. Ease, Beholder's Eye, Gorging Thoughts. And I don't know what level you are or what Illusionists you know, but they absolutely pawn coercers in the dps column. </blockquote>Well i know me... I am a lvl 70 illy heh. Anyways let me clarify. <b>DPS: </b>Using a charmed pet a coercer will out dps an illusionist. W/o a charmed pet the illusionist will out dps a coercer. When i had said you do faster kills i was normalizing over Soloing where coercers WOULD charm a mob. Thus for soloing purposes coercers have higher dps than an illy. While in raids / groups an illy will have higher dps than a coercer due to ability to summon own pet, and illusionists dont rely on reactives but instead fast ticking dots. So we are both right. <b>Pr Regen:</b> I said that over the long run illusionists are better for pr regen, Burst pr regen goes to the coercers. This was discussed in this <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=169706" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">thread</a>. Illusionists power regen takes time but our spells grant greater power / tick and we have savante which for 30+ seconds (depending on how many aa's are put into it) cuts all power cost by 50% which greatly reduces power consumption. Versus coercers channel which is a great normalizer of the groups pr and is good burst power regen.

[thebunny]

<cite>Controlor wrote:</cite><blockquote>While in raids / groups an illy will have higher dps than a coercer due to ability to summon own pet </blockquote><p>What illy uses their personae in a raid, or a group for that matter?  If the coercer has a good pet, they can out-dps illys.  But in general, illy dps > coercer dps.</p><p>I rolled a coercer alt a few months back.  I picked coercer over illy mainly because there seems to be so many illys running around now, and I wanted something different.  Coercers appear to have more options with regards to power management/regen than illys do, which appealed to me.  And of course the ability to charm mobs is just so cool, even 50 levels later. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>To the OP, I had troubles with charm breaking often in the early levels as well.  In fact, I didn't even bother with charm until about level 20, as it just wasn't worth it.  However, as you get higher level, it gets much easier to hold onto a mob, so hang in there.  Also, try to get a master of your charm spell (master charm damage is MUCH greater than adept 3 charm damage) if you can, and experiment with which pets are best for particular zones (i.e. not all pets are equal).  eq2i.com has a good list of coercer pets for each zone.</p>

[Controlor]

<cite>thebunny wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Controlor wrote:</cite><blockquote>While in raids / groups an illy will have higher dps than a coercer due to ability to summon own pet </blockquote><p><b>What illy uses their personae in a raid, or a group for that matter? </b> If the coercer has a good pet, they can out-dps illys.  But in general, illy dps > coercer dps.</p>(snip) </blockquote>    Depending on the group make up or where your raiding Yes is the answer to the bolded question. Common example is if in the mage group your grouped with wizard X2, troub, fury, random caster, yourself. Then YES your pet is more beneficial than your buffs. Also in places like labs your pet can add more dps than buffing. If your grouped with a lot of classes that have near cap haste or are long casting dmg spells (ie wizard/locks) then Yes your pet adds more dps than buffs. It becomes situational but i have had my pet out on raids a number of times and it adds about 200-300 to my dps. I havent used one in a group yet but i have grouped with illys (on my paladin) who have pulled their pet out and would OT the adds by soloing them stead of mezing. So as a chanter its more viable choice to summon a pet in a raid/group than it is for a coercer. Now to the second part. (non bolded part). Thats EXACTLY what i said. W/ good pet coercer > illy. W/o charmed pet illy > coercer. Heck if both classes dont use pets illy > coercer simply because illys rely on fast ticking dots that do extra dmg when wears off while you rely on reactives. Ours are pretty much guaranteed to be used up. While i read over and over on your forums how on raids your reactives are barely used up which drastically reduces your dps.

[Davram]

I have never seen an Illusionist using a pet in a raid or much in a group for that matter. Any Illusionist that uses a pet in a raid should be shot. Synergism is much more important. That being said our Illusionist still pawns me in dps, granted he has a troub group and is dps specced while I am MT specced. He averages about 2.2k while I'm around 1.2k. As far as power goes; coercers have all the same spells as Illusionist, save Savante. But, we have Beholder's Eye, which gives additional combat power over time. I'm pretty sure <a href="http://eq2.allakhazam.com/db/ability.html?eq2ability=2468" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Devitalizing Gazes</a> and Gorging Thoughts are comparible. And channel which doesn't give any more power, but evenly disperses the power pool of the entire group. And soloing, where do you get that Illusionist take longer. They do a lot more damage and have the same basic soloing principles. If you are trying to solo mobs fast with an Illusionist or coercer, I can probably bet you aren't using solid techniques. I haven't been in many situations where I am soloing a named and I felt the pet helped me. They do some dps yes, but they can be much more of a liability.

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

Most overland areas I can solo named my other toons can't by using a nuking pet. I don't like going on about this, for fear of having charm nerfed cuz people cry too much... but Coercers can take down what full groups do in not much longer time. It does require the right pet though, so in situations where a pet doesn't help.. yeah.. we'll take forever like an Illusionist would. You can't rely on reactives solo, and it's all about locking down the encounter (illusionist or coercer, doesn't matter). As for regen, with our AA's, our regen over a long period of time could possibly equal, though we don't get Savante. Still, the difference is small.. and it's not like people are running out of power when a Coercer is in the group compared to an Illusionist. When you have slow regen down, it's the tricks that make things happen. Mana Cloak for the MT when fighting a power draining mob is invaluable. Channel near the end of a 5 minute fight when all the healers are nearly out of power.. and the Tank (with Mana Cloak), yourself and the scout in the group all have decent or near full power. Things like this are what make us a great Power Regen class, and give more options over an Illusionist. Getting back on topic... I'd be lying if I didn't like my Coercer because of Charm. It's a fun spell on it's own, and can give us some great options. However, primarily I like my Coercer because of the Power Regen options, and the Stunning capability. I love that I can stun lock mobs and completely lock down encounters while still killing them. When crap hits the fan, I shine. And I like that. Half the group wipes, I lock down everything with mez, and the surviving DPS classes kill each mob as I stun lock it one after another. That's a great feeling, single handedly saving a group.

[Fasci]

I'd agree that I like the variety available through charming. It's much more interesting to me than having a (albeit more stable) predictable pet.  /shrugs I also remember seeing SO MANY illusionists on the newbie isle when I first started playing. Kinda put a bad taste in my mouth for the class (for me). And I really prefer the RP side of coercer vs. illu.  Of course, this toon is a Fae, so I started out on the good side & switched later, but that was my plan when I rolled him.  

[Mr. Dawki]

<p><img src="http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h263/gummby8/untitled-15.jpg" border="0"></p><p>You know, i laughed at this at first, but then sadly its true,</p><p>hate buff - dirges hate buff and ad stoneskin agi/str, parry, melle procs, and pwr regen</p><p>deagro - troubs get a group wide deagro, mage proc, power regen</p><p>power buff - see above</p><p>and a coercer vs illusionist ( illusionist you know supposed to be the closest thing to a coercer, the whole chanter clas and all )</p><p> dps - HAHA not even close advantage illusionist</p><p>soloing - illusionist can cap their sub effortlesly WITHOUT having to spend huge ammounts of aa's just to get their subjugation to a mez worthy level they get a pet that mimics their stuns so they can effectivly chain stunn a mob for nearly twice as long all while the pet is dpsing the target, coercer get a charm, which has been nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed again, as well as many of the mobs have been taken off the charm table, mezzes are nearly identicle, just replace the open ae stunn of a coercer with an open ae mez for an illusionist, soloing advantage illusionist, soloing addition apparently lockey seems to think a coercer is overpowered in the soloing department in the fact that they can hold 5 mobs down with mez and still find time to kill a mob, apparently he has not seen an illusionist do the same thing twice as fast</p><p>utility - illusionist, haste, dbl attack, time compresion, deagro proc buff ( it procs dmg and a small deagro at the same time), near tier 2 dps. and the pwr buff, so they get 6 points. coercer, dps buff, hate buff, deagro buff.....charm which is worthless in a raid and almost as useless in a group. advantage illusionist</p><p>if i didnt have an absolute loathing of qeynos i would have betrayed my coercer long ago, as far as a usefull class now they are the botom of the list</p><p>oh yeah the aa 13 second charm is still regarded as ap1 and breaks instantly, good work their guys that was a well thought out aa, "lets give them a second charm that will break as soon as it is cast and is so low lvl that even if itdid last the whole 13 seconds the mob would do about 13 dmg to a target if it ever manages to land a blow"</p><p>the lack of balance for the coercer class absolutly mind blowing ( hehe coercer...hehe mind blowing...hehe funny, whatever)</p>

[Controlor]

Mr. Dawkins wrote: <blockquote><p><img src="http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h263/gummby8/untitled-15.jpg" border="0"></p><p>You know, i laughed at this at first, but then sadly its true,</p><p>hate buff - dirges hate buff and ad stoneskin agi/str, parry, melle procs, and pwr regen</p><p>deagro - troubs get a group wide deagro, mage proc, power regen</p><p>power buff - see above</p><p>and a coercer vs illusionist ( illusionist you know supposed to be the closest thing to a coercer, the whole chanter clas and all )</p><p> dps - HAHA not even close advantage illusionist</p><p>soloing - <b>illusionist can cap their sub effortlesly WITHOUT having to spend huge ammounts of aa's just to get their subjugation to a mez worthy level. </b><span style="color: #6666ff">This is incorrect. A Illusionist does not need to cap their subj. 200 subj suits a illy just fine. And in order to get 200 subj they either have to wear a lot of subj gear or go wis line. With 8 pts into subj part of wis line it gives enough subj for an illy, and they can then focus on disruption gear. The reason that illusionists DONT need to cap their subj is because penetration aa line reduces resistability of single target mezes (and if you actually went full out stifle root and group mez) by 5% per rank and increases duration on mez. Currently my illy's main mez is 46% harder to resist and 47.5 seconds. Yours is 21% harder and 40 seconds. But still mez goes to illy.</span> They get a pet that mimics their stuns so they can <b>effectivly chain stunn a mob for nearly twice as long</b> <span style="color: #6666ff">(Acctually this is a bit high as well. If i time my stuns right with my pet i can stun a mob for about 29 seconds. Where as without a pet i am able to stun a mob for 22-23 seconds. So its not quite twice as long more about 1.5 times), </span>all while the pet is dpsing the target, coercer get a charm, which has been nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed again, as well as many of the mobs have been taken off the charm table, <b>mezzes are nearly identicle</b> <span style="color: #6666ff">(W/o aa yes W/ aa no see above reason)</span>, just replace the open ae stunn of a coercer with an open ae mez for an illusionist, soloing advantage illusionist, soloing addition apparently lockey seems to think a coercer is overpowered in the soloing department in the fact that they can hold 5 mobs down with mez and still find time to kill a mob, apparently he has not seen an illusionist do the same thing twice as fast</p><p>utility - illusionist, haste, dbl attack, time compresion, deagro proc buff ( <b>it procs dmg and a small deagro at the same time</b> <span style="color: #6666ff">Actually the deagro is bigger than the nuke. There is debate if the dmg crits whether the deagro crits (or deagro/agro is able to crit in the first place) So it can vary.</span>), near tier 2 dps. and the pwr buff, so they get 6 points. coercer, dps buff, hate buff, deagro buff.....charm which is worthless in a raid and almost as useless in a group. advantage illusionist</p><p>if i didnt have an absolute loathing of qeynos i would have betrayed my coercer long ago, as far as a usefull class now they are the botom of the list</p><p>oh yeah the aa 13 second charm is still regarded as ap1 and breaks instantly, good work their guys that was a well thought out aa, "lets give them a second charm that will break as soon as it is cast and is so low lvl that even if itdid last the whole 13 seconds the mob would do about 13 dmg to a target if it ever manages to land a blow"</p><p>the lack of balance for the coercer class absolutly mind blowing ( hehe coercer...hehe mind blowing...hehe funny, whatever)</p></blockquote>*EDITED*

[Bombodale]

<i><p>Why do you think some folks prefer playing a Coercer over an Illusionist?</p><p>If you don't like the unpredictability of charm vs having a static pet ala Illusionist, and you're not particularly set on being an Evil race/class... what would draw one to being a Coercer rather than an Illusionist?</p></i> To ask this question shows a lack of understanding about charming. There is no logical nor emotional reason why you would want to play coercer if you don't want to charm. My first char was a warlock. Warlocks die easily. After getting beaten up as a warlock in inumerable situations by various mobs, it's strangely satisfying to charm the same mob as a coercer and use that mob to kill other mobs. It's nothing about DPS or comparing stats or being a better player. It's all about the charm of charmin.

[Ran]

<p>I prefer a coercerer over an illu cause i love the challenge. I died quit often with this char but it fits me everytime to play better. Charm is funny too but not the one and only reason for me to play this class. I like em overall and would never betray to an illu.</p><p>Edit: at last.. i killed our swashi which no one in our guild has beaten yet <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Trepan]

Raniz@Valor wrote: <blockquote><p>I prefer a coercerer over an illu cause i love the challenge. </p></blockquote> Thats me all over.  I love the fact that playing the class effectively, let alone playing it well, is tough.  Its been a challenge, but last night I finally got my Croakercer to lvl 70.   Stuns, stifles, mezzes, charms, mana regen, pet control.  Juggle juggle juggle.  This is, bar none, the most fun I've had with any class to date and my second character to 70.