New coercerer - disappointments

[Xypez]

<p>Hello all,</p><p>I just started to play EQ2, so I'm fairly new. My first char is a coercer, which is now in the middle 30's. Eventhough I don't even dare to take a look on my kill/death ratio, I still like the class since it's something new and fun to play.</p><p>Nevertheless I'm still disappointed in many different aspects.</p><p>This starts right off with teaming. Coercer seems to be, at least at my level from what I was able to see, a very replaceable class. So far I've never encountered a situation in which cc was really needed. A team seems to need a tank, healer and DD. Crowd control is a bonus when a set, balanced team is unable to find an additional DD. So far my impression of my personal role and importance is the following:</p><p>- Crowd control:</p><p>It was very often (always?) the case so far that the team did not want me to aoe mezz. This is because of closed aoe attacks of the DD's which else won't hit the target. So in these situations, my usefulness in terms of cc is limited to mezzing adds of different encounters. And this is rarely the case when the tank does his job well (nor is it really needed), and nor would it be required when my spot was replaced by another healer, DD or tank.</p><p>When fighting orange/red mobs, my mezzes don't seem to work too well. I've often experienced situations in which a caster got an add on him, and I tried to mezz it a couple of times in a row with no luck. It ends up with the tank offtanking the mob off the caster. So it's actually more of a risk letting me try to mezz instead of the tank OTing it. Yes, when the tank got the add on him finally, I can mezz it. But the whole situation took so long that the primary target is down before I finally managed to mezz the add.</p><p>Pet I don't dare to use since it's not worth the trouble getting the team into a dangerous situation when the charm suddenly breaks, especially during fights.</p><p>- Manaboosts:</p><p>Are indeed handy, but not required. I doubt that the overall downtime is affected enough to make anyone pick a coercer over a DD class. Yes, the downtimes are slightly less, but having a DD instead of a coercer would make the team still much faster.</p><p>- Damage/stuns/etc:</p><p>Damage is very low compared to DDs. Stuns are neat but never a must for a team. There are small things like a +dmg buff, the +%hate buff, etc., but these small things don't make too much of a difference in a grind team.</p><p>So summed up these factors seem to make myself to a very replaceable class at my current level. Why take a player who isn't required at all when the team could get more xp and more items without doing so? Or when it coule be faster by taking a DD instead?</p><p>My plan now was to get my spells upgraded to adeptIII or even masterI to make the best out of it. Since I can hardly afford anything, I wanted to farm some green nameds. But this solely seemed to work at the low levels. Right now I don't manage to get any green nameds down. My main issue is that my energy runs out before I manage to get the mob down. With chain mezzing I might could get back some energy during fight, but the whole procedure would take way too long to make any sense, since I would even have to recharm the pet in between. I did get myself an adept III spell and tried to get the best pet possible for my level (eq2i pet list), but this still didn't work too well (especially when charm breaks and the pet manages to nuke me).</p><p>But even when I did manage to get all my spells to m1, I still would max. be on par with the importance of an additional DD with regular equipment and ~a1 spells...</p><p>So summed up coercer seems to be a replaceable class for grinding, an ok soloer and solely a good farmer when he is well equipped (and why farm when the equipment is great already? The idea of farming is actually to get better stuff).</p>

[FlamingDuck]

<cite>Xypez wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Hello all,</p><p>I just started to play EQ2, so I'm fairly new. My first char is a coercer, which is now in the middle 30's. Eventhough I don't even dare to take a look on my kill/death ratio, I still like the class since it's something new and fun to play.</p><p>Nevertheless I'm still disappointed in many different aspects.</p><p>This starts right off with teaming. Coercer seems to be, at least at my level from what I was able to see, a very replaceable class. So far I've never encountered a situation in which cc was really needed. A team seems to need a tank, healer and DD. Crowd control is a bonus when a set, balanced team is unable to find an additional DD. So far my impression of my personal role and importance is the following:</p><p>- Crowd control:</p><p>It was very often (always?) the case so far that the team did not want me to aoe mezz. This is because of closed aoe attacks of the DD's which else won't hit the target. So in these situations, my usefulness in terms of cc is limited to mezzing adds of different encounters. And this is rarely the case when the tank does his job well (nor is it really needed), and nor would it be required when my spot was replaced by another healer, DD or tank.</p><p>When fighting orange/red mobs, my mezzes don't seem to work too well. I've often experienced situations in which a caster got an add on him, and I tried to mezz it a couple of times in a row with no luck. It ends up with the tank offtanking the mob off the caster. So it's actually more of a risk letting me try to mezz instead of the tank OTing it. Yes, when the tank got the add on him finally, I can mezz it. But the whole situation took so long that the primary target is down before I finally managed to mezz the add.</p><p>Pet I don't dare to use since it's not worth the trouble getting the team into a dangerous situation when the charm suddenly breaks, especially during fights.</p><p>- Manaboosts:</p><p>Are indeed handy, but not required. I doubt that the overall downtime is affected enough to make anyone pick a coercer over a DD class. Yes, the downtimes are slightly less, but having a DD instead of a coercer would make the team still much faster.</p><p>- Damage/stuns/etc:</p><p>Damage is very low compared to DDs. Stuns are neat but never a must for a team. There are small things like a +dmg buff, the +%hate buff, etc., but these small things don't make too much of a difference in a grind team.</p><p>So summed up these factors seem to make myself to a very replaceable class at my current level. Why take a player who isn't required at all when the team could get more xp and more items without doing so? Or when it coule be faster by taking a DD instead?</p><p>My plan now was to get my spells upgraded to adeptIII or even masterI to make the best out of it. Since I can hardly afford anything, I wanted to farm some green nameds. But this solely seemed to work at the low levels. Right now I don't manage to get any green nameds down. My main issue is that my energy runs out before I manage to get the mob down. With chain mezzing I might could get back some energy during fight, but the whole procedure would take way too long to make any sense, since I would even have to recharm the pet in between. I did get myself an adept III spell and tried to get the best pet possible for my level (eq2i pet list), but this still didn't work too well (especially when charm breaks and the pet manages to nuke me).</p><p>But even when I did manage to get all my spells to m1, I still would max. be on par with the importance of an additional DD with regular equipment and ~a1 spells...</p><p>So summed up coercer seems to be a replaceable class for grinding, an ok soloer and solely a good farmer when he is well equipped (and why farm when the equipment is great already? The idea of farming is actually to get better stuff).</p></blockquote><p>You've pretty much listed all the problems with enchanters, its true sadly and pretty much explains why coercers especially are such a rare class to come by. We are an unnessessary archetype, Crowd Crowd is pretty useless and health/power regeneration is nice but again nothing neccessary. Handful of places it can be pretty useful but they are uncommon. Charm for coercer greatly boosts our DPS and one of our best tools but unreliable and too dangerous in groups, so that's bloody out the door. (sigh) Forgot CC in raiding, they're gimped it to the point of total uselessness according to everything I have heard.</p><p>So basically that leaves us as power batteries and a moderate DPSer in groups, better replaced with a "real" DPS class like a scout or any other mage. I'll admit I still enjoy the class when I solo but coercers need to be looked at! Come on SOE please look at enchanters and make us more useful!</p>

[Oriax]

If you get any master spells make sure you get a master charm spell. that should be your number one priority to have for soloing. The damage pets put out from ad3 to m1 is alot. There is a real big gap between those 2 spells and the difference grows larger as you get to higher tiers.

[Davram]

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. Yeah it's not easy leveling a coercer. Some things may seem worthless right now. - I don't really know what it's like at the lower levels anymore, any alt I start I PL now anyway. But, when I was leveling, mezzing was very important. It still helps a ton in a lot of instances. Before they nerfed Nizara it was pretty tough to finish without a CC. - And how is power regen not worth it? You realize it's in combat power regen right? 4 classes have power regen, our raids have at least one in every group. - Keep practicing and you will get the hang of damage, yeah we aren't a DPS class, but our buffs are a heck of a lot better than dps classes, except those darn Illusionists. Learn your reactives, I know at your leveling the tank is getting hit. Get those debuffs and reactives up and spam that one DD spell you have, throw in those longer recast ones when they are up, and keep your debuffs and reactives up. - Hmm, stuns; probably one of my favorite spells. Not only is it great soloing and grouping, but we can stuns epics. How cool is that? There have been countless times where the tank takes some crazy spike damage and a well timed stun gives the healers a couple seconds to get off their heals. - And our last saving grace is our random buffs and abilities. I am a MT raiding coercer, I specced Agi and stam. Who can argue with 14% heal crits in a MT group. And coercive healing, wow defiler do you wards ever drop? Then we can pretty much save a raid if something doesn't pan out right. I have thoughtsnap and unfortunatly dps pulls aggro on occation. Or tanks can get an adds of the MT for whatever reason, "I got it, mem blur inc". So yeah some changes do need to be made. But, I still think we are one of the coolest classes. Soloing gets pretty easy when you get the hang of it. If you aren't happy with a coercer, I think maybe you should betray to an Illusionist, I think you might have more fun playing one. You can do a lot of the same things as a coercer, but you have a ton more dps capabilities.

[noobslayer]

<p>It can take some people some time to learn how to solo with a coercer, others pick it up right away, but no other class in the game really solo's as well as a coercer can if done right.</p><p>A troubader can do much of what we can solo, but it takes them a hell of a lot longer.</p><p> Charm is mainly useful soloing</p><p>Mez is rarely needed, but it can save a group or let them take down something they couldnt otherwise, really overusing this ability will slow your kills and your exp down</p><p>What a coercer mainly offers a group at your level is</p><p>Mana Regen, if you are pulling fast enough you will definately need this to kill downtime, if you aren't finding it useful, your group isn't killing fast enough</p><p>Stuns decrease damage and coercers are the masters of stuning, most mobs cant do anything while stunned, if you are lacking a healer this helps immensely, it also helps to just decrease the number of heals period and frees up the healer to do other things like debuffing or dpsing which will further decrease mob damage and increasing yours</p><p>DPS...you CAN dps, you are no assassin, but you do more damage then most classes</p><p>Debuff mental...this helps your tank to hold aggro, taunts are based off of mental</p><p>boost DPS..you have a dps buff, make sure to put this on your tank and melee dps, it may seem small and it is at first but it gets better</p><p>In general at your lvl and even at high lvl (you just get more stuff) in a group setup a coercer adds Power to the group, slows down mobs, adds dps, and has the ability to Crowd Control in the rare situations it is needed.  It is a utility class and can be replaced with other utility classes just like healers can be replaced with healers and tanks can be replaced with tanks.</p><p>In soloing its easier to solo with a wizard or an illusionist, but neither can take down as powerful mobs as a coercer can, but it takes skill to do it with a coercer. You can solo heroic yellow names pretty easily once you learn how, and you don't really need a pet to do it, a pet when used right just speeds it up and makes it a tad bit safer.</p><p>With orange and red mobs....its not really worth fighting these for the most part while leveling. They are hard to kill, your spells and melee attacks dont land as often or as hard and it generally makes the xp suck, just wait a lvl or three and kill them then.</p>

[noobslayer]

<p>A really good xp grind group: this is just one set-up, there are many</p><p>Berserker, Druid, Warlock, Shaman, Scout, Enchanter/bard</p><p> Just have the Zerker pull several encounters, let the shaman ward, the druid heal when wards fail and dps otherwise, the warlock tags everything with AEs, the scout concentrates on taking mobs out one by one</p><p>The enchanter/bard ....</p><p>Mana regen because otherwise the group will run out of mana if pulling nonstop</p><p>Stuns because otherwise the tank will likely fall or the healer will one from overhealing</p><p>Mezzes when the tank loses aggro on something when pulling because of prewards/regens, but only long enough for the tank to get it back</p><p>DPS as you can</p><p>Well the enchanter is probably better here, less group buffs then the bard. but more CCing abilities, better dps, and better stuns (especially a coercer)</p><p>Seriously without the enchanter the groups xp gain is gonna go way down because they wont be able to pull as often or as many mobs</p>

[noobslayer]

<p>Tips in groups:</p><p>Stuns are best used when you know when to cast them.  You know the mob has hard hitting abilities like nukes or harm touchs...stun it it doesnt get to go as often.</p><p>Your DD damage spell is an interrupt...see the mob casting? You probably don't want it to finish, you can use a mezz for this same purpose if your DD spells isnt up</p><p>DON'T mezz unless its needed, a stun is better, it doesnt stop damage to the mob from AEs, and if the mob gets hit it is still stunned.</p><p>Daze when its up, it stops the mobs auto attacks</p><p>Stifle the casters</p><p>If you dont react really really fast, an enchanter is likely not for you.</p>

[chily]

<p>Like i allways say coercer are hated will you solo more mobs then the tank could hold. and coercer are dps yup, charm a mob (ad3 does it really) and with the right mob you outdmg some other classes <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> If you have probs with mezz .. debuff em reactive dmg is pretty a lot yup like 40% of the dps with just the 3 spells, they should be allways the first spells that you cast. And you don't have 3 others spells maybe atm. Hate dec, Hate inc and dps buff.</p>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<cite>Xypez wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>- Crowd control:</p><p>It was very often (always?) the case so far that the team did not want me to aoe mezz. This is because of closed aoe attacks of the DD's which else won't hit the target. So in these situations, my usefulness in terms of cc is limited to mezzing adds of different encounters. And this is rarely the case when the tank does his job well (nor is it really needed), and nor would it be required when my spot was replaced by another healer, DD or tank.</p><span style="color: #ffff00">Mez is an "oh crap" spell. It's not used for when things are going well or when you have a full group. It's for when you are 3 people taking on a full group encounter, or when people go LD and you need to lock things down. Or when adds show up that the group isn't ready for (yellow encounters and the spike damage could drop the tank). This need is only magnified at higher levels. At 30, if you are only taking on normal encounters in zones that don't have social aggro issues, and basically playing it safe all the time... well, that's why Mez isn't going to do you lots of good. The situations are out there, and in the end game it's very useful.</span> <p>When fighting orange/red mobs, my mezzes don't seem to work too well. I've often experienced situations in which a caster got an add on him, and I tried to mezz it a couple of times in a row with no luck. It ends up with the tank offtanking the mob off the caster. So it's actually more of a risk letting me try to mezz instead of the tank OTing it. Yes, when the tank got the add on him finally, I can mezz it. But the whole situation took so long that the primary target is down before I finally managed to mezz the add.</p><span style="color: #ffff00">Mezzing well requires two things: a high quality spell, and high subjugation. Without those, mezzing lower level mobs is the best you'll be able to do. Orange and especially Red mobs are not easy. That's the point... they are hard to hit for everyone, and honestly, some of the most inefficient combat you can do. Unless you need an update, fighting a Red mob is rather silly... it's red because you aren't ready for it yet. Hence why mez won't work well. There are ways of easily getting your mez's to stick. When upgrading spells (harvest for some metals to upgrade to adept 3), you can get Mez up to a decent sticking point. The Wisdom AA line gives a nice chunk of Subjugation, and if you started getting AA's right off the bat, at lvl 30 you should have enough to be putting points into them by now.</span> Pet I don't dare to use since it's not worth the trouble getting the team into a dangerous situation when the charm suddenly breaks, especially during fights. <span style="color: #ffff00">Some places it can be worth it. And once you get used to charm breaks, you will have very little risk for your group. Currently, even at lvl 70, I still use my lvl 32 Beguile because it's master 1. I would suggest trying to find the master for your charm, or at least get it adept 3, and then go solo a bunch to get used to dealing with a broken charm. The extra damage a charmed pet can bring can be astounding... and they can tank fairly well too. At the very least, it can break up a tough group encounter so you don't have as many things hitting the tank at once. It takes a lot of practice though, and even I don't charm in every encounter or instance. </span> <p>- Manaboosts:</p><p>Are indeed handy, but not required. I doubt that the overall downtime is affected enough to make anyone pick a coercer over a DD class. Yes, the downtimes are slightly less, but having a DD instead of a coercer would make the team still much faster.</p><span style="color: #ffff00">You haven't experienced chain pulling then. Unless you have a Bard already, mana regen from a Coercer makes it so you NEVER have to stop. This equates to a lot more experience and loot in the same amount of time. Not only that, Coercers get a few burst power spells, starting with Manaflow for an extra 10% jolt, and at 35 you can look on the broker and find your Bloodlines spell Mana Cloak which basically keeps the Tank in full power. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but tanks are huge mana pits. If the tank runs out of power, or is sitting at low, he loses aggro more, or can't pull aggro back from an add or peel. It also means sitting there waiting for him to get a bit more power between each fight, and if you go to early (which you most often do), the fight ends up being much tougher than it needs to be. Keeping everyone in power means the encounters go smooth all the time, and you never have to wait. If you play any other classes, try counting how many minutes are wasted on downtime and add it all up over a night. You might be surprised (in my experience, it's anywhere from 30%-50% of our time when I'm not playing my Coercer). Lastly, there's fights and raids that have very long durations and power draining mobs that will basically be nearly impossible to beat without some kind of regen. You will find that regen is possibly one of the biggest reasons people want you to join your group, so don't neglect it.</span> <p>- Damage/stuns/etc:</p><p>Damage is very low compared to DDs. Stuns are neat but never a must for a team. There are small things like a +dmg buff, the +%hate buff, etc., but these small things don't make too much of a difference in a grind team.</p> <span style="color: #ffff00">+Hate and +DPS and our small DDs all do their part. Like someone said already, our DD is an interupt. It's fast casting, and fast recast... so spam that sucker against those casters. Our biggest damage comes from our reactives. You should have your melee reactive spell by now, and you should be casting that all the time. If you fight anything decently powerful, it will go off lots and account to over 50% of your damage. At 32, you get a group spell version, which only adds more to your DPS potential. Stuns are basically what makes us capable of replacing a healer. At the lower levels, people are so twinked that they don't really need all that healing... but you will notice it in the later levels a lot, many people need 2 healers to survive an instance. Stuns make it so that second healer isn't needed. At the higher levels, you can very nearly stun lock a single mob, making it so you don't even need a tank or healer at all. Toss in your stuns against mobs that have special attacks or high spike damage (when you see the tank go down to orange very fast, that's the kind of spike damage I'm talking about). This will make it so the Tank won't die as easily, giving your healers a break. It's also the perfect crowd control. Is the mob attacking someone else? Stun him. Then it doesn't matter if there's a dot doing damage, or the Tank is beating on it to get aggro back. If it's stunned, all that can happen and <i>it's still locked down like it was mezzed</i>. It won't last as long, but it only need to last as long as the tank gets aggro back. Later, you will get more tools that help you do this, and the ability to keep things perma stunned (thus locked down but still taking full damage) will be a powerful asset.</span> <p>So summed up coercer seems to be a replaceable class for grinding, an ok soloer and solely a good farmer when he is well equipped (and why farm when the equipment is great already? The idea of farming is actually to get better stuff).</p><span style="color: #ffff00">All a Coercer needs to farm/solo is a decent master level charm (even one levels lower as long as it's 20+) and decent crowd control (root if you have a nuking pet.. stuns/mez's otherwise). Honestly, with the right spell upgrades, you can kill anything that is not immune to crowd control or too resistant, even if you are naked. </span> <p><span style="color: #ffff00">I'm not sure where you got the idea that we need to be "well equipped" to solo well. Equipment has had very little factor on whether or not I could solo things.</span> </p></blockquote> The fact of the matter is, Coercers make it so you can move through encounters faster or easier, and can virtually replace a healer spot in the group. Yes, you might be replaceable... but then again, you are able to replace others too. Just get your head past the "tank/healer/dps" trinity and you can see where you are needed.

[Blumfield]

<p>3 things about coercer:</p><p>1) A coercer's crowd control (stun/mez/stifle/daze) is going to be unnecessary against mobs that a normal group can take down easily.  You're very replaceable in those situations.  But when your group wants to take down extremely difficult content, you become indispensable.  In T7, this means the hardest heroic zones in the game: Mistmoore Castle Basement, Nizara, Unrest (less so Unrest, as the average char's gear improves with EoF's maturation).</p><p>2)If your mezzes/stuns/dazes/stifles are getting resisted a lot, you need to do two things.  First, get masters of those spells.  Second, get + subjugation gear and adornments.  In T7, if you have all masters and 400+ subjugation, your crowd-control won't be getting resisted much, even on orange heroics.  For lower tiers, I'm not sure about the optimal subjugation skill to shoot for.  Maybe others have experience with that.</p><p>3) A coercer with only Adept 1s is going to be tough as heck to play.  If any class really needs to be mastered out to be effective, it's us.  So, either be ready to farm stuff for plat a lot, or level another character first so you can twink your coercer.  And if you can only afford a few masters, get a master charm first, then your mezzes.  The other spells are serviceable at adept 3.</p><p>your casual acquaintance and more,</p><p>Schmutzen</p>

[RingleToo]

<p>As a lvl 70 Swashy/70 Templar who REALLY appreciates what a coercer brings to a group and a raid, I'll give my 2 cents worth. </p><p>I have to conclude that people just don't understand the importance of crowd control. Coercers make life so much easier as far as I'm concerned. Sure, a group has to be more selective with using AOE damage, but that's a fair trade off for staying alive. Mez can be an "oh crap" spell (it's kept me alive countless times), but it I see it as much more. I just think crowd control makes getting thru an instance/zone easier, faster, safer. It gives you more options as to how you can do things where ever you're at. </p><p>And what a coercer brings to a raid - especially the higner end zones - is invaluable.  Maybe a coercer is replaceable but, really, most classes are. Though try doing an instance like Nizara without a coercer, see how well that goes. I can't speak to how well coercers solo, but I'll grab one for a group/raid every time.</p>

[thebunny]

<cite>RingleToo wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have to conclude that people just don't understand the importance of crowd control.</blockquote><p>/agree 100%.  I have run across way too many people who don't even understand what mez is.  Let alone charm - I love seeing someone stare at my coercer with a charmed pet, sending tells asking how I did that or threatening to report me for exploiting.  Stuns IMO are even worse.  Most people know what stuns are, but few know when they're being used - they just assume the tank and/or healer(s) are good.</p><p>One of my favorite memories in all of EQ2 was in a guild group in PoA not too long after KoS came out.  We were on the second floor, and our tank lagged into a room with 5 or 6 heroic ^^^ mobs (I believe they were yellow con at the time).  It looked pretty bad for the first few seconds, but we were able to keep the tank up long enough for our illy to mez the adds.  In the end we survived with I think only one death.  If it hadn't been for CC, there is no way we would have lived through that encounter.</p><p>CC isn't really necessary, but like someone else said, neither is anything else in a group.  CC will allow you to take on tougher encounters than you could before, and survive through more difficult situations (like when your tank makes a mistake).  Personally, if I had a choice between a Coercer/Illy and a DPS for a group, I'd pick the Coercer/Illy in a heartbeat.</p>

[Rarlin]

Just a couple things to remember... I know you may feel useless at this point in the game but remember that you're learning the class right now. Once you've leveled up and seen all the situations where you've saved the group, it'll be more clear how useful we can be. Although it seems like things are faster with more dps vs an enchater, this won't be the case in a few more levels... <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Lastly, you're absolutely right about classes not understanding the purpose of an enchanter; but in their defense, most of the time they don't have one. Keep in mind that the group stategy and playstyle can change dramatically if you start mezzing things, so evaultate the group. When I'm with a PUG I almost always start out with a statement like "don't worry, I'm not a mezz [Removed for Content], I'll start if we get into trouble". People like to blow things up, so let them! Watch health and remember that in most cases (at least the way I play), you're the SUPPORT for the group. Make the group succeed and you'll be loved... try to show how you can out DPS a templar and you probably won't be invited back... <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[anaphaxeton]

A good enchanter is someone who can multi-task, keep a cool head, and think on their feet. As has already been said you can fulfill a lot of roles in a group and pick up the slack where others are lacking. I can't speak for Coercer specifically as I play a 70 Illusionist but I can say that if you are good then you will realize you have much more control over the flow of gameplay than most others are aware of. In a normal, well balanced group you might get bored but if you find yourself in an "Oh Crap" situation you can save the day beautifully... this has happened to me countless times and the praise you'll get from the one trick pony classes is worth the occasional frustration. Also I will say that you picked pretty much the most difficult class in the game as your first character. Enchanters should really be (and usually are) played by people who have been around for a while and know the game mechanics well. So if you're feeling frustrated or disappointed, keep that in mind. Good luck, happy hunting, and welcome to the club! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Xypez]

<p>Well first off thanks for all the replies and tips. I will try to answere to most of your replies: Teaming: Coercer being great for raids is another issue. I'm very far from this, so my main issue right now is limited to the solo and team abilities/usefulness of a coercer. Some of you mentioned that it would be possible to keep up the whole team with power which makes them able to grind without resting. Well I personally have no idea how this can be done, I currently got the following spells for power regen for others: (I hopefully don't mix it up now, since I got the German language client): Refresh Master II Consuming Thoughts Master I Mana Cloak (Apprentive IV) Mana Flow 5/5 I use Conusming Thoughts and Mana Flow immediately when they are up again. But I still have no chance to keep up the whole team with power, especially power eating classes - so am I doing something wrong or missing an important AA or spell? Many also said that they disagree with my statements regarding the usefulness of specific things, like the infight refresh line, stuns, etc. Well they ARE indeed nice to have, but my point was that the usefulness of a coercer at my level does not cut the additional damage of a damage dealer, since even when the team has got more downtimes, they still do much more damage. Much more kills and more downtimes vs. much less kills and less downtimes. And instead of stunning/silencing/etc. the mob, a damage dealer just smacks it down much faster - tank gets less hit. So summed up, DD vs. coercer is not a risk for more xp vs. safety for less issue at all. More damage for the team does as well make it more safe. I believe that many are aware of the power of mezzes. It's just that in a grind team with a tank that does his job right, a mezz is not necessary. Not for encounters because of slowing the killing speed down, and rarely for adds. Infact, a good team would solely make the healer end up with slightly less power in the end when an add is not being mezzed. And yes, there are situations in which I as coercer saved the team by using mezzes, charms, roots, stuns, etc... But this solely occurs in a mixed up pickup team with ppl who do make many mistakes. But I don't want to have a class which solely shines in pickup teams.</p><p> Soloing: First off what I would like to hear is the way you personally solo with your coercer. Secondly, I personally do have big problems soloing any kind of same lvl/low level named mobs - which could be easily killed by other classes. There are two different situations: - solo named mobs: I get myself a caster pet that I put on /pet ranged. I try to perma root and stun the named (stun whenever my root is 50% of recharge) as much as possible while watching my power and recharging whenever the power skills are up. During the recharge times of stun/root/powerspells/magic AC debuff, I'm unloading my damage skills. This has never worked so far because the named mobs always managed to break the root. I root again run back but after some time it breaks again. Until I'm dead. Max I can do is getting the green/blue named to 20%. This is with a Master I root and some Master I dmg spells, as much as I could afford. - grouped named mobs: the same as above but even worse. Because I have the additional risk of a resisted group mezz.</p><p><i>SIDENOTE: is it possible that one of the aoe mezzes is bugged? Dreadful Awe that is, which I just got. When I use a regular aoe mezz, the mobs are mezzed. When I reuse it while it's running, the timer of the mezz jumps up again for the whole encounter as intended. When I now use the mentioned aoe mezz, Dreadful Awe, the following happens instead: I use it once, whole encounter mezzed. When I then use it for a second time while aoe mezz is still running (to renew it), the mezz timer solely goes up for the single target I have selected instead of the whole encounter - so I then end up with solely one mob being mezzed and the rest of the encounter being unmezzed (and no, they didn't resist it).</i> Soloing greens works good with pet and power spells, can't say anything about that. Blue ones work too but more risky. Heroic ^^^ I have no chance, greens solely with luck (see green nameds above), green group encounters are ok but in the end too dangerous since I often face a situation were something doesn't work as intended and get killed, so I stick with single green/blue mobs. So I need very long to find a fitting level spot, which make me, in the end, go back to teaming. Two other things I would like to ask: 1) How can I prevent the mob from breaking my root? And how can I make the mob resist less? Is there an ability which is responsible for these two things? I currently try to get my int as high as possible for more damage and a bigger pool. Stamina comes next for more HP. Now what's about wisdom? Some say it is important, but according to the description it solely increases my resists - are there some hidden effects which aren't listed? 2) I hear the word subjugation very often. Since I'm German, I do not know what this word could refer to. Please explain <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Controlor]

<cite>Xypez wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><i>(snip)</i></p><p><i>SIDENOTE: is it possible that one of the aoe mezzes is bugged? Dreadful Awe that is, which I just got. When I use a regular aoe mezz, the mobs are mezzed. When I reuse it while it's running, the timer of the mezz jumps up again for the whole encounter as intended. When I now use the mentioned aoe mezz, Dreadful Awe, the following happens instead: I use it once, whole encounter mezzed. When I then use it for a second time while aoe mezz is still running (to renew it), the mezz timer solely goes up for the single target I have selected instead of the whole encounter - so I then end up with solely one mob being mezzed and the rest of the encounter being unmezzed (and no, they didn't resist it).</i> </p><p><span style="color: #6666ff">Actually this is how the spell works. Since the aoe mez prevents it from ALL aoes except when direct. This also effects your group mez. Meaning Once you mez a group of mobs they will be immune to any spell unless your targeting them. This is why the only one that gets remezed is the one your targeting. If you switch targets you will be able to mez 2 (the one you targeted while initial cast and the one you target after switching befor the spell finishes casting). Or you learn the art of aoe mezing. This is a skill all unto itself. It takes good timing. Basically what you do is you cast your aoe mez... Watch the timer. Cast your aoe mez RIGHT befor it ends so that all mobs are unmezed for at most 0.5 seconds. Or you can time it and cancel the mez in your maintained window befor the spell finishes casting and it should land on them all again. You will see the mobs twitch befor remezing. Again this is how it works and the art of group mezing is a hard skill to master. Best bet is to group mez then go around and single target mez the groups. </span> </p><p> Soloing greens works good with pet and power spells, can't say anything about that. Blue ones work too but more risky. Heroic ^^^ I have no chance, greens solely with luck (see green nameds above), green group encounters are ok but in the end too dangerous since I often face a situation were something doesn't work as intended and get killed, so I stick with single green/blue mobs. So I need very long to find a fitting level spot, which make me, in the end, go back to teaming.</p><p><span style="color: #6666ff">DONT just rely on rooting. If your getting low on either health or power then tell your pet to back off cancel all dots (if you have any) and MEZ the mob. You can keep a mob mezed indefinatly pretty much while you regen your power and health. It is wise to buy some health potions that heal you. They are fairly cheap. You can mez a mob and use a heal potion to get in combat hp and heal up. This should let you take down that last 20%. At higher lvls it gets easier to solo.</span> Two other things I would like to ask: 1) How can I prevent the mob from breaking my root? And how can I make the mob resist less? Is there an ability which is responsible for these two things? I currently try to get my int as high as possible for more damage and a bigger pool. Stamina comes next for more HP. Now what's about wisdom? Some say it is important, but according to the description it solely increases my resists - are there some hidden effects which aren't listed?</p><p><span style="color: #6666ff">Upgrade your spell and get high subjugation. Adept 3 or Master 1 root will have aless chance to be resisted. (And seems less chance to break). Annd subjugation also reduces resist chance. To answer what is subjugation (i dont know what it is in german). Go into your persona window (hit "p&quot<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. Then click in the tab that says "Skills". Scroll down. Subjugation (reduces resist on control spellssugh as stun mez root daze and stifle) is in the skill list along with ministration (reduces pr cost of heals), Disruption (reduces resists of nukes and dots), ordination (reduces resist of debuffs), Focus (reduces cance to be interupted). You want to either find gear that has+subjugation on it. OR you can go down the wisdom line in KoS the 4th one (2nd from last) increases your subjugation and focus (at lvl 70 it increases it by like 90 at 8pts in it). </span> 2) I hear the word subjugation very often. Since I'm German, I do not know what this word could refer to. Please explain <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote>

[Xypez]

<p>@Controlor Thanks much for all the tips+information : ) </p><p><span style="color: #0000ff"><cite>Controlor wrote:</cite><blockquote><span style="color: #6600ff">Actually this is how the spell works. Since the aoe mez prevents it from ALL aoes except when direct. This also effects your group mez. Meaning Once you mez a group of mobs they will be immune to any spell unless your targeting them. This is why the only one that gets remezed is the one your targeting. If you switch targets you will be able to mez 2 (the one you targeted while initial cast and the one you target after switching befor the spell finishes casting). Or you learn the art of aoe mezing. This is a skill all unto itself. It takes good timing. Basically what you do is you cast your aoe mez... Watch the timer. Cast your aoe mez RIGHT befor it ends so that all mobs are unmezed for at most 0.5 seconds. Or you can time it and cancel the mez in your maintained window befor the spell finishes casting and it should land on them all again. You will see the mobs twitch befor remezing. Again this is how it works and the art of group mezing is a hard skill to master. Best bet is to group mez then go around and single target mez the groups. </span></blockquote></span></p><p>Ahhh now I know why I thought it would work differently: the duration of my previous spell was as long as the recharge time (+0.5 seconds or something). Meaning that when I aoe mezz, my skill did not recharge faster than the mezz would break. And since, as mentioned, the duration was almost equal to the recharge time, this made me *think* that I just renewed the aoe mezz : ) Thanks for the clarification</p>

[Controlor]

Not a problem bud. Coercers are good toons. Enjoy.

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

As for soloing... My solo methods really depended on the power of the mobs, and the types of classes the charmed mobs had. In Feerott, my favorite technique was to charm a crusader type lizard, as he would melee fairly well, but also do a small nuke AND ward/heal himself when he got low on health. Using a pet like that I could take down those Headhunter groups by group mezzing, killing each individual in the group, and take down the boss one on one. It's all about the combination of stuns, daze and stifle to keep your pet alive... and when he's low, tell him to back off and mez the headhunter. Soloing named is all about the mez, so you HAVE to avoid using your dots or using a nuking pet that dots. Sure, some named can be taken down with stun and root, but if those fail.. well, you know what happens. My method of mezzing groups is to group mez to start, stopping the whole group in their tracks, and then hitting them each with a single target mez. The single target has a long duration, meaning you can have multiple things mez'd at the same time. Group mez just doesn't work as well for maintaining... but it's great to start off because it stops everyone at once. It's definitely harder earlier on because all your durations on crowd control are shorter, and you won't even have all your crowd control spells yet (you get an AE nuke/stun at 50, and one of the ancient spells at 52 or 55 is another stun type). This class really is a late bloomer, but once you get the tricks down you should be able to do well even in the mid 30s. Oh, and Subjugation is a skill, just like Disruption, Ordination, Focus, etc. It helps determine how good your Crowd Control spells land. The 4th Ability in the Wisdom AA line gives you more subjugation, it's a great way to make those spells land better.

[D-DevilK]

My 28 coercer daily farms Stormhold, so I have a few tips for you, seeing as he can take everything in the zone except for the 25 ^^^ Scion. (No Space to move.) She has 100% masters, so that helps too, + full mastercrafted. I will immediately run through the zone to find the inquisitor type mobs, they heal themselves when low, and do a decent DD spell that hits for ~400. I'll always lead with a mez. Then I will drop Damaged Psyche, all my reactives, then root. I will then set the pet on him (/pet ranged is activated) and proceed to unleash all hell on him and then wait for a root break, which seldom happens. Once root breaks, I stun, re-root, and continue stacking debuffs and reactives on him. Sooner or later, the mob will die. Considering the highest ^^^ named in there, that I fight, is 24^^^, fighting non-named blue and green ^^^'s should be a doddle. But always get a pet, they make things go a bucketload faster, and when you are forseeing a long fight, They are MANA-LESS DAMAGE.

[abominos]

Only level 21 so really just got started but what I did learn so far was the whole game changes when you get master Charm, every bit as much as everyone says.  I was extremely lucky and found Master Coerce on auction for 26 gold, snapped it right up.  Hit 20, scribed it and grabbed a Dervish Xealot in CL and stuck it on /pet ranged.  Then went into the yapping maze and started fighting one of the rock giants in there, lvl 18 ^^^ (only 2 levels below me).  I had one extra giant wander over during this along w/ the pet breaking once.  Even with that the fight was trivial since the root held (just app IV), I had no resists on mez, root, re-charm and the pet sat there on auto-pilot nuking for 300ish while I dealt w/ the problems that arose.  I was actually shocked when I looked at the mobs hp after re-mezzing the add at one point. Then thanks to great mana regen proceeded to finish off the 2nd ^^^ right after without a pause.  Was great and from what I read, only gets better.  The raid situation at later levels scares me though but meh, these games generally change alot month to month.

[xOnaton1]

<cite>Xypez wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><span style="color: #0000ff"><cite>Controlor wrote:</cite><blockquote><span style="color: #6600ff">Actually this is how the spell works. Since the aoe mez prevents it from ALL aoes except when direct. This also effects your group mez. Meaning Once you mez a group of mobs they will be immune to any spell unless your targeting them. This is why the only one that gets remezed is the one your targeting. If you switch targets you will be able to mez 2 (the one you targeted while initial cast and the one you target after switching befor the spell finishes casting). Or you learn the art of aoe mezing. This is a skill all unto itself. It takes good timing. Basically what you do is you cast your aoe mez... Watch the timer. Cast your aoe mez RIGHT befor it ends so that all mobs are unmezed for at most 0.5 seconds. Or you can time it and cancel the mez in your maintained window befor the spell finishes casting and it should land on them all again. You will see the mobs twitch befor remezing. Again this is how it works and the art of group mezing is a hard skill to master. Best bet is to group mez then go around and single target mez the groups. </span></blockquote></span></p><p>Ahhh now I know why I thought it would work differently: the duration of my previous spell was as long as the recharge time (+0.5 seconds or something). Meaning that when I aoe mezz, my skill did not recharge faster than the mezz would break. And since, as mentioned, the duration was almost equal to the recharge time, this made me *think* that I just renewed the aoe mezz : ) Thanks for the clarification</p></blockquote>I have one suggestion to help timing these kind of spells. Do you use any UI mods? One of my favorite mods is one that shows how much time is left for each maintained spell icon. There are a few available over at eq2interface.com. <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=15&topic_id=365539�" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Here's a screenshot</a> of my UI for my coercer. I use a <a href="http://www.eq2interface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=4473" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">pet window</a> with /pet ranged and /pet melee buttons right next to my hotbars. Then right above that is the maintained window so that I can cancel mezes easily. My maintained spell window shows the time remaining and a little progress bar underneath each icon so I can easily see that one mez has 4 seconds left on it, for example. I haven't put that window up on eq2interface since I was still thinking of changing it around but I could if anyone wanted to try it out.

[Xypez]

<p>First off thanks much for all your suggestions and tips.</p><p>@xonation: thanks much for the ui tip, while I did not grab the duration timer, I did rework my whole ui to make it appear more clean since I can't play with a higher resolution than 1280x1024, so new spells kept reducing my free space, which is now much better : )</p><p>So what first turned out to be a pretty weak class at the lower levels when not twinked with masters and good armor, now kinda started to impress me. After farming some nameds I managed to get my important skills to Master I with the rest being Adept III (lucky me even managed to find Master I Dominate and Master I Enraging Demeanor : ) (dropped in mines)). With my current level (mid 50) and items this class started to shine, it really seems that coercer gets an incredible boost for his levels and the equipment he got. The main reason for the level I believe is the mentioned durations of you, along with the high resistance chance of a skill being solely adept I. With this being my first char still having much to learn, even I now manage to kill two blue ^^^ nameds with adds at once, or staying in the middle of an orange mob camp mezzing/stunning the mobs while picking them one by one without taking a downtime. Even caster nameds are no problem. I really have much fun playing a coercer by now. Also teaming did improve, I can keep a named mob stunned for the whole duration of the fight, yesterday we even aoe killed mobs without healer. And it did turn out that even a good team can once come in a situation where an enchanter can save them from a whipe. Along with the power regeneration I offer, I do feel to have a class which is liked to be seen in a team.</p><p>There is still much I have to learn from playing a coercer, but from what I currently see I'm really far from considering a reroll <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>The only thing that I don't like is the changed way charm works by now (but I believe I'm not the only one thinking that way). It is just sad to see my pet run off while I'm in the middle of a fight.</p>