Fixing Broken Coercer Mechanics (Idea Thread)

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

I think what we need is a pure Idea Thread (tm). One where we can propose, hash out, and agree/disagree on things that would fix the current broken, strange, or backward thinking mechanics of our class. <i>I posted some of these in another thread, but it was on the third page and most folks had probably stopped reading it by then. It also wasn't quite as focused a discussion as this one will be. </i><b><span style="font-size: small">Possession</span></b> A simple fix: Make it an unbreakable charm that works in combat. Give it 30s duration, or have the duration start at 15s, and goes up with quality until 45s at Master 1, or something similar. Honestly, as neat as the concept of controlling a mob is... it's extremely buggy, and honestly not something I'd want to try using. We basically have to stop doing our own class abilities (crowd control, dps, etc) to control this pet for a few seconds. Not worth it. I would much rather see it being a quick casting, short duration, no concentration Charm that worked in combat. This way we don't have to step out of our bodies and stop crowd control/dps to get this pet, and it would give us another Charmed pet that is intended as a short lived control spell that adds a bit of DPS. Make it work on Epics (with an immunity timer so you can't have a bunch of coercers spam it). Reduce duration to a third (Master 1 = 15s) of course. Since you can't attack an ally, you can't use it to kill him. Make him have no hate or something if you are afraid we'll use it to clear epic mobs out of the way (hmm.. EH might go quick if we had that capability). 15s of a True Epic taken out of combat, and in fact using its DPS to help kill for you. Now that would be fairly decent for an Ancient Ability. Right up there with Fusion? Who can say... but it'd definitely be USED, which is far more than I can say of the current version. I'd give up being able to grief bot farmers to have a spell I could use on Epics... and any other fight really. <b><span style="font-size: small">Alternative Pet AA</span></b> Summoners have this neat AA that gives them a replacement pet that would help in certain Epic fights, or in certain raid setups (minus a brigand, etc). Conjurors get a Healing pet, while Necros get a debuff pet. Since Coercers are extremely limited in Epic charming situations (to the point that I think nearly every last one has been removed), an alternative pet built with raiding specifically in mind would be great. This pet should replace the final AA of the Mana line, which is already somewhat wimpy in 99% of situations (basically, specific pvp encounters and maybe 3 or 4 high end raid mobs?). We could retain some of it's current concept (spamming a manaward), but also add in some extra features. Pet Ability Ideas: 1. Constantly Regenerating Power Ward, spams every 10-20s. Applies to the group. 2. Decrease Hate Gain on Non-Fighters in Group, or procs dethreat on non-fighter's targets in group. 3. Proximity Power Heal (not fixed to group). Anyone within 10 meters is spammed with power heals (small amount). A pet like this would provide a raid utility that I could see dropping 3 concentration slots for. It might not be useful in every single situation (if mana and aggro aren't an issue), thus to me it seems like a fairly balanced Pet. Useful in the situations it's called for, but not so useful that every single Coercer would HAVE to get this. Pet style choices could be a cloudy type thing.. or maybe a Tinmizer's whirling death thingy, that would be kinda neat. Basically.. it's a thing we control with our minds to project our abilities at mana/threat across an area. <b><span style="font-size: small">Change How Reactives Apply Damage</span></b> We should not be forced to do crappier damage the weaker the content gets, or the better our team protects our tanks. It's simply ridiculous that we have to give up doing DPS to apply our crowd control the most effectively, whereas every single other class that has crowd control can do so without costing so high of DPS. The only other class out there that has Reactive Damage in this manner is the Inquisitor with ONE spell line that is maybe a fraction of their DPS (they have over half a dozen more abilities for DPS, that do far more damage). Our Reactives are our MAIN source of DPS. I'm glad that they are getting fixed with regards to +spell damage, but it does not fix the fundamental flaw of being [Removed for Content]-blocked by the other half of our spells. With this in mind, there's two things that need to be done to fix this problem: 1. The damage must occur when the Mob <i>attempts </i>to do damage, not when it succeeds. This ignores anything we do to make our Tanks better at avoiding damage (avoidance, resists). It doesn't clash against the fundamental concept of "improving ourselves". 2. The damage must occur after a time, regardless if the mob sets it off. This ignores any issues with crowd control basically stopping our Reactives from working at all. Mob action can make it occur much quicker, but even without Mob action, it should still happen eventually considering we can basically keep certain combat actions from happening for a long duration. The best way of doing this would likely be a nested cascade effect: - Applies Convulsions on Target, lasts for 10 seconds.   - Convulsions ends if Target attempts melee action.   - Upon termination, Target is dealt X damage.   - Applies Convulsions upon termination, lasts for 10 seconds.     - Convulsions ends if Target attempts melee action.     - Upon termination, Target is dealt X damage.     - Applies Convulsions upon termination, lasts for 10 seconds.       - Convulsions ends if Target attempts melee action.       - Upon termination, Target is dealt X damage. The spell still lasts the full 30s to do full damage if the mob doesn't do anything (locked down with stuns, dazes, etc), however at least the full damage will eventually be applied. For our Spell AE version, we would have to alter how it works so that it damages the group instead of the single person that activates it. This means less single target damage against spellcasters, but now the spell will actually damage the group like a true Encounter spell, and in fact, will end up doing more damage since it will actually go off (I don't think I've ever seen it drop before it's duration was up). So a cascade that looks like this: - Applies Hemorrhage on Target encounter, lasts for 15 seconds.   - Hemorrhage ends if Target encounter attempts to cast a spell.   - Upon termination, Target encounter is dealt (1/4 regular convulsion) damage.   - Applies Hemorrhage on termination, lasts for 15 seconds.     - Hemorrhage ends if Target encounter attempts to cast a spell.     - Upon termination, Target encounter is dealt (1/4 regular convulsion) damage.     - Applies Hemorrhage on termination, lasts for 15 seconds.       - Hemorrhage ends if Target encounter attempts to cast a spell.       - Upon termination, Target encounter is dealt (1/4 regular convulsion) damage. This one happens over 45s, similar to our current Spell version. Our AA's for damage increases could basically increase damage by 2% per rank, and/or reduce the duration by 3s per rank, effectively 1s per tick per rank (increasing the speed of when the damage occurs, thusly increasing DPS). More ticks would be hard to code in a cascade like this, and it woudl not necessarily increase DPS, so these would work much better for pure DPS increases. Okay, so discuss these ideas. Break em.. tell me I'm living in a dream world, etc. Or post your own ideas for how these should work. Hell.. I'd be happy with the Possession fix and making our Reactives work off an attempted attack. But one can dream, can't they?

[Lee Hor]

Very good idea's, id love to be able to have an unbreakable 15 seconds charm on epic mobs (excluding named), to me that’s what coercing/dominating others minds is all about <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. possession is only good for a laugh, and to me leveling up is all about getting exciting new spells and equiptment to play with i was so disapointed in this one <img src="/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> TBH I think the only reason i still play my coercer now is because I’m living in the hope that one day we might get fixed lol. >ChickenFish<

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

Hey, at least I got one response, heh. Another thing that needs changing... Power Drains The current mechanics for Power Drains is messed up. The devs have admitted it and I recall hearing that at the fanfaire there were comments about Power Drains being looked at. Right now, Power Drains work in PvP or duels and it does give another form of added damage to transfer to the MT. Honestly, if you ever wondered why you are getting so much aggro it's probably because the power drains are doing all that added aggro inducing "damage", although the mob isn't actually dying any faster. There's two ways of fixing this... 1. Change the way NPCs treat power. 2. Change Power Drains to do something different on NPCs. If they decide to change how NPCs treat power they need to simultaneously make it so they use their power up properly when casting their abilities (and make that ALL abilities, even racial, etc), AS WELL AS drastically lowering the steep scaling of power pool for Mob heroic/epic qualities. The main issue with draining Power is that the mob can still cast at full damage and effectiveness UNTIL the mob is COMPLETELY drained of power. If the Mob has just as much or more power than hitpoints, or if they regen so much power that it's effectively that way, then there's no point in wasting time focusing on Power Drains. It will be a disgarded tactic, as it's far easier to simply kill off the creature. Basically.. between the mob casting and your power drains, the power needs to run out completely in a Heroic situation by the time the mob is down to 50% hp at best. Give us SOME time to see benefit from draining power. If instead they decide to change the Power Drain effect to something else on NPCs, then they'll have to make up something other than a Stifle. As nice as that is, we currently have some of our Power Drains attached to the duration of a Stun (so Stifling is useless there), and a Stifle (doubling up stifle doesn't really give us much). So what can we put in place other than Power Drains? Let's look at what the point of power drains are meant to do: Reduce incoming spell/ability effects (eventually). One way of doing this is to slap on a -damage effect on profession/racial abilities (similar to +damage only in reverse). This wouldn't stop the effects, but it would make the damage lower. This doesn't help against non-damage effects though. Another way would be to add a "reduce resistability % bonus" on the enemy's abilities. This would affect everything from landing, so it's a more widespread effect. In both cases though, they'd be useless on our Stun and Stifle spells if their duration didn't outlast the effects themselves. Like, the Stun's duration is 8s but the debuff lasts up to 20s or something. Anyone have any better ideas for Power Drains?

[Encantador]

<p>They could 'fix' power drains.</p><p> The 2 problems with them are</p><p>a) they are all or nothing. Either the mob has power to cast or it does not.</p><p>b) power only affects a few casting skills.</p><p>Both of these can be changed.</p><p>a) Make power affect the strength of spell effects. For example, implement a threshold precentage, for the sake of argument say 25%, once a mob drops under this all things affected by power start being less effective. Say a mob nukes for 1000, at 25% it starts dropping off so that at 10% power it could be down to 400.</p><p>b) Make melee damage be dependant on power. Again have a threshold above which all attacks are full strength.</p><p>Alternatively make the presence of a power drain affect the damage. As an example, let all mobs generate power at a constant rate (each mob <b>type</b> would have a different rate). Now reduce this usage by the drainage amount. Say there is a nuke that the mob can use that requires 1000 power. This particular mob has a generation rate of 100 so the nuke can happen every 10secs. If there are power drains on the mob which are reducing power by 40 power every second, then only 60 power per second builds up. Two affects are now possible either reduce the effect of the nuke or make if happen less frequently. If the timing of the nuke is constant then reduce it to 60% of its damage  or if the damage is constant make it happen less frequently, as in 17 seconds between castings.</p><p>For the alternative solution power drains would affect melee in much the same way. A 100 regenning mob with a 40 drain on it would only do 60% of the damage.</p><p>Either system could be made to work. Even a combination of both would be possible.</p>

[madha]

<p>The reactive change would rock i find myself not stunning so i can get just a bit more dps =P.  Also can we tighten the dmg amount of sonic boom maybe 3k-4k i allwasy seem to land at the bottom end of the dmg range =P.</p><p>And soemthign needs to be done about charm, Cannot charm with any class that has a mental buff or can group cure arcane becasue spell break all the time. Cure being able to remove charm proves SOE is a bunch of [Removed for Content] lol. Are coercer's a pet class or is charm supposed to be a long duration mezz? becasue we have no utility as a pet class, I would love to have a pet like illunionists get omg thing mezzes and stuns and can hold agro pretty darn well. MAke charm turn mobs into a illusionist pet would make me happy =P.  </p>

[JackAll]

<p>The OP has a very solid idea for a coercer fix.</p><p>It would make coercers a lot more fun to play and give us a little more value on raids.</p><p>It got my vote</p>

[madha]

<p>I have been noticing that alot of mezzed mobs still move around like they are meleeing, some of the mobs in mmc do this they swing their hands but are mezzed.  </p><p>Now i hate hate hate WOW's handling of mezz, turning mobs into sheep, but it's a little better then the fact that eq2 mobs dont move. </p><p>Can we turn them into a stone type graphic of themselves like a statue maybe or something casue when u got 10 mobs hard to tell who is mezzed and who isnt when tab is taking you to the only other mob in the zone not incombat whith your group. Yes i know they have a particle effect around them but after 70 lvls of hands down most annoying particle effects per class, i turn mine off, and im sure most of my group mates do too =P.</p>

[Rarlin]

<p>Regarding Possession,</p><p>I do use this spell to move wandering mobs but it's EXTREMELY difficult.  If this spell could get any love, I'd like to see the following:</p><p>1-Increase Range of Cast</p><p>2-Make this work on mobs already engaged in combat.</p>

[Life777form]

I just want a way to be able to go smoke a cigarette without having my pet kill me while I'm gone.

[Rarlin]

<cite>Life777form wrote:</cite><blockquote>I just want a way to be able to go smoke a cigarette without having my pet kill me while I'm gone.</blockquote> Sounds like another betrayal to illusionist is coming...

[Life777form]

<cite>Rarlin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Life777form wrote:</cite><blockquote>I just want a way to be able to go smoke a cigarette without having my pet kill me while I'm gone.</blockquote> Sounds like another betrayal to illusionist is coming...</blockquote> I would but I started coercer just for the fun of charming mobs, it's just a blast using mobs against themselves.  That said I have started a necro up solely because I can go smoke a cigarette, really wish I could with my coercer though.

[Myex]

<cite>Life777form wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rarlin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Life777form wrote:</cite><blockquote>I just want a way to be able to go smoke a cigarette without having my pet kill me while I'm gone.</blockquote> Sounds like another betrayal to illusionist is coming...</blockquote> I would but I started coercer just for the fun of charming mobs, it's just a blast using mobs against themselves.  That said I have started a necro up solely because I can go smoke a cigarette, really wish I could with my coercer though.</blockquote> heh... since I started playing my coercer, I have developed a smoking habit... and a nervous tic.... and a slight drinking problem..