I don't know what to do with my coercer!

[Shadrir]

<p>This has to be the most interesting and frustrating class I've ever played.  It is my favorite and the one I hate the most.  I am lvl 32 with so-so gear and adept 1 spells. I have an adept 3 charm waiting for me at 33.  I also have a 27 defiler and a 25 troub.</p><p>My problem is the unpredictability of this class and fights.  Last night I was doing fine with a same lvl beetle soloing mobs.  I stop to say high to a guildie and my freshly recharmed pet goes haywire.  For the next twenty minutes I can barely fight a mob without charm breaking.  THe previous day was worse.  I was trying out the /pet ranged command with the fairies and they apparently have high resists.  I couldn't even solo a same level heroic because of the charm breaks.  Soooo;</p><p>1)  What lvl should I be charming?  Same level mobs or lower lvl?</p><p>2) What is the highest lvl above me I can safely charm?</p><p>3)I am considering quitting my coercer for my defier, but the defiler is soooo boring to solo ( and I know I have to solo sometimes because of my schedule)</p><p>4) Does it get better and do we get more tools to survive resists and lock down mobs in groups that really work or is this what I should expect all the way?</p><p>5)  I love this class but sometimes it feels like work and when I play others they seem so weak.  (C'mon, what other class would I complain about not being able to solo a same lvl heroic as if thats a freak of nature)</p><p> Btw.  I have 5 in the EoF charm line and I just unlocked the agility line to speed up casting.</p><p>Paltaye</p>

[Lord Montague]

<p>It does have its challenges, but yes there are things you can do to improve for certain.  To me, the solo game for coercer has been quite challenging, sometimes frustrating, but never dull.</p><p>I noticed that you said you were speccing down AGI, which is fine - fast casting things is fun, but you might want to consider the WIS line instead.  I say this for two reasons.  1) 4th rank ability increases your subjugation (along with ordination I think, but I can't recall).  Aside from putting points into the EoF enhancement for charm and getting high ranked upgrades of charm (Adept III or higher), this is the one thing you can do to make charm more reliable.  2) There is an ability in the WIS line that increases your resists across the board by a significant amount.  This will greatly improve your survivability.</p><p>What level mobs you charm purely depends on where your subjugation skill is.  If it's around 20 or so higher than your cap due to various stat buffs, you'd probably be safe charming something 2 to 3 levels higher than you.  And bear in mind, caster classes will break charm more frequently than non-caster, although they are preferable to have because they can do more damage.  But bear in mind a lot of what I'm suggesting is guestimations based on my own experiences.  Good luck!</p>

[Akashi]

Enchanters and their subclasses have always been some of the most difficult to play well.  I've known some really good charm soloers, but its not easy, its takes a lot of work and decent amount of skill. For me soloing is not really where enchanter shine, its all about the group play. The ability to save your group from a complete disaster with your CC abilities is what really makes the coercers so unique and so valuable. If you don't like to group then having fun as a coercer is going to be a lot more of a pain.

[Shadrir]

<p><b>Lets be clear; I love to group but my schedule limits my playtime so I don't group as much as I would like.  That is why my defiler is not my main.  I own in healing with him but soloing is just awful and I don't have the freedom and variety that I have on my coercer.</b></p><p><b>The last two times I grouped, both in Runnyeye, my perfomance and contribution seemed to be lacking.  The first time, I was lvl 30 with a good group higher lvl than me.  I did'n't charm anything because it wasn't really needed and I was afraid of charm breaks at my low lvl.  During the entire time my spells were resisted repeatedly.  I didn't feel uber like I normally do in groups.  I told the group of higher lvls that I felt like a leech and was going to leave.  They asked me to stay, apparently wanted my mana regen, but I left.</b></p><p><b>THe second time I was lvl 31 in Runnyeye with the same type of group, mostly higher than me, with 35 Illusionist.  She dominated!  She locked down the mobs repeatedly.  All I did was cast my ae mez to catch those she didn't get or do a single mezz for one that got away.  I also cast my reactives of course.  Again, I didn't charm a mob.  I also didn't feel like a difference maker but I gained a lvl.  Should I have charmed a mob?  THey were all heroics at least 2 to three lvls higher than me.  I felt I would have a pet constantly breaking charm. Plus, they really didn't need it.  We blew throught the mobs.  Best group I've ever been in. (35 Ill, 36 Pally, 33 Dirge, 35 Warden, 35 Bruiser, and me 31 Coercer)</b></p>

[Shipwreck_GPA]

<p>Hello! </p><p>I would suggest a couple of things.</p><p>First, I would look for non-heroic pets if possible. I would definitely stay away from heroics 3 levels higher than you. And I would look for nukers when possible. Personally, I like Shaman/Druid type pets when a Wizzie/Warlock type isn't around and I am grouped, but that's just me.</p><p>I would try to keep in mind that some pets are more "resisty" than others, so play around in the zones you like and see which ones work well for you. Some will perform really well, some will be poor, and some will be too resisty to be reliable. There is a pet wiki page on the net somewhere, with really good tips on pets for zones. I think it's in the stickies up top, but should be easy enough to find if not. I am not at home, where it's bookmarked, so I can't give you the exact link.</p><p>Runneyeye is going to be tough for you in my opinion, being lower than the zone. You probably won't shine there until you get a couple mnore levels. When I was that level, I lived in Zek and EL. There are a ton of quests in both zones that I rode from 29ish to like 35ish, easily and quickly. </p>

[Rarlin]

Akashi@Nagafen wrote: <blockquote>Enchanters and their subclasses have always been some of the most difficult to play well.  I've known some really good charm soloers, but its not easy, its takes a lot of work and decent amount of skill. For me soloing is not really where enchanter shine, its all about the group play. The ability to save your group from a complete disaster with your CC abilities is what really makes the coercers so unique and so valuable. If you don't like to group then having fun as a coercer is going to be a lot more of a pain. </blockquote><p> /agree</p>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

Well, first thing is that since crowd control is an all or nothing thing, having it work the first time is crucial. So having your subjugation skill bonuses and higher quality spells will be very important if you want to land spells on higher level mobs. Another thing is that dungeons tend to have stronger mobs for their level, and are designed to be in a more difficult pulling pattern, thus give more experience overall. Their resists could end up being higher and more troublesome than a same level mob outside overland. One tip for charming is to mez or stun the mob and land some mental debuffs on it first. If you do your dot one, then make sure it's stunned because it will break mez. Charming it after it's debuffed will make it break less often (this isn't a hard numbers thing, just something people have noticed in practice). If you intend to solo, the Wisdom line is great (as was mentioned) due to the higher subjugation skill bonus. It also gives a Focus bonus along with it AND now a reduction in recast time on your single target mez. This would greatly improve casting during soloing and repeated mez usage. Something to consider is the Strength line. If you build your character around boosting str/sta/agi you will find yourself a lot tougher for when breaks happen, and even get in some melee damage for a constant power free damage as opposed to completely relying on reactives and pet for killing things. 8% uncontested ripostes (or parries if behind), and counter spell (which in practice is actually very nice). I'm trying it out right now, and once I get my gear all redone and some numbers I'll make a post on it. All I can say is that it DOES get better in the higher levels, as your durations on all your crowd controls get longer (and can be chained together better), as well as having more AA's to throw around into things like the Wisdom line. Also, there's more gear out there that can help you focus on skill improvements, or if you go the Strength line, there's more gear that include both Strength AND Intelligence increases. Lastly, later in the game you'll get more spells (ancient spells), and Fabled equipment as you've reached the cap and start to get on the occasional raids.

[Dendro]

Charming is mostly for soloing.  Don't charm heroics (at least until you become more skillful and have more and better spell lines). There are certainly other important uses for charm, but in a group you are generally better off using those 3 con slots to buff your group members (+dps or -aggro). In a full group, you shouldn't try to mez everything.  Mez slows down the damage you do to the monsters as well as the damage they do to you.  Mez is good for adds (lots of those in Runnyeye, like the intersection with the evil eyes). Other than adds, you shouldn't be mezzing much unless your healer is unable to keep up. Mezzing dramatically reduces the damage that can be done by many classes (warlock, zerker, sk, conj, swash in particular). What crowd control should you be doing then, if not charm or mez? Stun! Coercers excel at stuns. Stunning a monster doesn't prevent it from taking damage, so your group dps isn't lowered much.  Use group stun, single-target stun, when you level further use the reactive stun and (when safe) the aoe nuke/stun. Daze is also very good, it prevents melee autoattack.  Your group nuke has a daze, as does your root.  Use stifles when fighting caster mobs. By doing this, you're greatly reducing the damage monsters do to your group while only slightly reducing the damage your group does to the monsters (mainly via your reactives and druid thorns). For soloing, I would recommend the +charm in EoF, then wis line for max +subj, then agi.  The str line may have some merit in PvP, but not in PvE.

[Fasci]

That aforementioned pet wiki is <a href="http://www.eq2i.com/articles/Coercer_Pets" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>.

[miliskel]

im told that soloing a coercer is not charming , it is mezz stun nuke mezz....repeat..wait for a long while and the mob is dead, and then u cxan solo any mob....just one mezz resist <i>could</i> make u lose the fight =/

[Lord Montague]

<cite>miliskel wrote:</cite><blockquote>im told that soloing a coercer is not charming , it is mezz stun nuke mezz....repeat..wait for a long while and the mob is dead, and then u cxan solo any mob....just one mezz resist <i>could</i> make u lose the fight =/ </blockquote> Sounds slow and tedious.

[Dendro]

<cite>miliskel wrote:</cite><blockquote>im told that soloing a coercer is not charming , it is mezz stun nuke mezz....repeat..wait for a long while and the mob is dead, and then u cxan solo any mob....just one mezz resist <i>could</i> make u lose the fight =/ </blockquote> Troubs <i>have</i> to solo difficult mobs this way, coercers can when necessary but it's far, far slower than using a pet because our nukes are so tiny compared to those of a good pet.  Illusionists can do more damage than coercers using this technique because they can use their damage proc (theirs procs on damage party member does to monster whereas ours procs on damage monster does).

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

I've been looking at the Thought Snap line, and at level 70, it appears that you could very nearly maintain permanent stun/daze lock on a mob. Combined with the Strength line for power free DPS, I've calculated about 50-60k Damage before running out of power from pure stunning (which is done in around 3-4 minutes)... never tried it though. Could be an interesting alternative.

[Controlor]

<cite>miliskel wrote:</cite><blockquote>im told that soloing a coercer is not charming , it is mezz stun nuke mezz....repeat..wait for a long while and the mob is dead, and then u cxan solo any mob....just one mezz resist <i>could</i> make u lose the fight =/ </blockquote>That sounds like an overly simplified version of illusionist way to solo. But it is still long and tedious. Best way is rooting. Enchanters it seems has best single root in game as it has the lowest chance to break 5% (others have like 20%+). Root nuke thow dmg stuff on em. I dont know if you coercers have tried this tho (i am sure you have) but i know it worked on EQ1 (i am an illy so dont do the whole charming thing). Charm a mob close to the one your killing throw your reactives up let them beat on each other. When your charmed mob is almost dead back em off. Mez the mob you are engaged with. Break charm. Mez the previously charmed mob. It should be low on HP (Yes i know that it gets HP back when charm breaks but shouldnt get the whole hp back right???). Charm the one you were engaged on let em beat on the one you previously charmed. Repeat till dead? Dont know if that is viable. Worked in EQ1 tho.

[Lord Montague]

<cite>Controlor wrote:</cite><blockquote>...When your charmed mob is almost dead back em off. Mez the mob you are engaged with. Break charm. Mez the previously charmed mob. It should be low on HP (Yes i know that it gets HP back when charm breaks but shouldnt get the whole hp back right???)...</blockquote> There is a random component I've noted when breaking charm deliberately where sometimes it will reset its health and power to full.  Sometimes that's not a bad thing though - it can kinda be like a ghetto heal for your pet.  I sometimes will deliberately break charm when a pet is in the red and recharm it just for this reason, it can be very nice for downtime.

[Vydian]

This happens when you charm anything with ^ arrows. Since mobs HP is scaled when they are charmed, it gets readjusted when they break. Then when you recharm them, it gets adjusted back down. Hence, it looks like a heal, and functionally it is. I've used this when I can too <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Lord Montague]

<p>There is that too, but no I'm talking about taking a standard "no-arrow" or weaker that's down on health, break charm deliberately and sometimes (seems like it's a 50/50 shot, dunno), it's like the encounter completely resets and it goes back to full health.  You won't even be on the mob's hate list when this happens - it's like it forgot everything that happened (which is fairly interesting on non-aggro mobs).</p><p>Working as intended or bug, I couldn't tell you, but it is rather interesting.</p>

[GrlGmr]

Seirrah@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote><p>There is that too, but no I'm talking about taking a standard "no-arrow" or weaker that's down on health, break charm deliberately and sometimes (seems like it's a 50/50 shot, dunno), it's like the encounter completely resets and it goes back to full health.  You won't even be on the mob's hate list when this happens - it's like it forgot everything that happened (which is fairly interesting on non-aggro mobs).</p><p>Working as intended or bug, I couldn't tell you, but it is rather interesting.</p></blockquote> In my experience, it seems to happen when you're outside the range of the mob's tether from when you initially charmed it. So if you charm a pet, run halfway across the zone, then break charm, it will forget about you, reset its health, and start heading back. It waits for about 5 seconds and then runs back at full speed too, so you have to be quick on the mez/stun/charm if you want to use it as a pet again. If you get a resist then it will start beating on you again though.

[Graywindnz]

<p>I think they fixed the "running back to spawn point " in the last patch.</p><p>I have noticed that as you get closer to your next Tier Charm they break more often..</p>