What do we need?

[Scry]

<p>Now I am only recently returned to the game so I cannot speak for high end raiding yet (my guild just started into RoK raid zones) but from what I read on these and other forums is coercer's feel their biggest problems have is our ability to DPS and our utility being of less value as the game progresses.</p><p>Certainly my own parses tend to support the view that our DPS is low compared to all the other mage classes and obviously our epic but regular and mythical does not help us where it does help every other caster class only widening the gap further.</p><p>This is not a whine post though I did have an idea about how our ability to DPS could be improved, how about a change to our mythical allowing our power drain damage to do normal damage as well.  I am not informed enough to talk about numbers and what kind of % but if our mana drain from our various spells and proc's on items which seem to be more prolific in RoK dealt damage surely that could fix our DPS in a number of settings, single group and raids?</p><p>Way back when the buffed mobs mana totals (bosses) our ability to mana drain became useless this change would at least give those spells some value again, it even kind of ties in with Cataclysmic Mind and the way Sony seem to have us down as mana manipulators.</p><p>I am pretty sure that people will shoot my idea down in some way but to be honest I am fine with that so long as we hopefully see some other suggestions and perhaps a small step away from the complete negativity we get on our forums.  The attitude here is a long term problem and in my opinion understandble for how we have been treated since release but it really has done us no good at all and all that happens is that we lose the most vocal coercers slowly over time.</p>

[Obsidiann]

Why don't you decide for yourself instead of forming the opinion that there is so much broken with this class based on a handful of people on this forum who repeat themselves to try to make a point?Play the class for yourself and if you feel there needs to be a change make sure you make use of /feedback, /petition and /bug every day. These tools are made to provide feedback and call for change, yet I'm sure many of the people complaining do not make use of these tools every day.You say that you're not sure you can speak for high end raiding, that you've recently returned to the game and that you don't have numbers to back up your point. I have to ask then, why post now? Why not prepare all of this information before posting so that this isn't just another whining/idea thread. We already have lots of those and none of this is constructive or giving us a chance to progress as a class, but no one seems to realize that.

[Scry]

<cite>Obsidiann wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why don't you decide for yourself instead of forming the opinion that there is so much broken with this class based on a handful of people on this forum who repeat themselves to try to make a point?Play the class for yourself and if you feel there needs to be a change make sure you make use of /feedback, /petition and /bug every day. These tools are made to provide feedback and call for change, yet I'm sure many of the people complaining do not make use of these tools every day.You say that you're not sure you can speak for high end raiding, that you've recently returned to the game and that you don't have numbers to back up your point. I have to ask then, why post now? Why not prepare all of this information before posting so that this isn't just another whining/idea thread. We already have lots of those and none of this is constructive or giving us a chance to progress as a class, but no one seems to realize that.</blockquote><p>First of all I think I need to make it clear I have been a coercer since release I know how the class is broken I understand game mechanics and how Sony seems to have no real clue or direction for our class.</p><p>I made the point that I cannot speak for high end raiding because I right now I am not doing it, I did not say I have not raided high end in the past.  Besides high end raiding is not all of the game and believe it or not coercer's do have problems outside of that arena.</p><p>As for me using the feeback, petition and bug every day who says I don't?  But the point is this forum is for all coercers and my opinion is just as valid as yours, as is my right to express it here on these forums.  You say we are not giving ourselves a chance to progress as a class?  Are you blind? Coercers have been suffering since release and you know what Sony has literally had YEARS for us to make some progress.  In that time we have had many coercers being positive here, weve had eloquent ones, weve had informed ones, weve had those brilliant from a technical viewpoint of the game and our problems.</p><p>But you know we have received almost no feedback, almost no fixes to the problems weve endured for so long, well I am glad your happy to sit back and wait for another 4 years or so I however want to express myself, hopefully in a positive way and maybe just maybe something will get done before there are no more coercers left at all.</p>

[Ferrah SeFoxel]

<cite>Obsidiann wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why don't you decide for yourself instead of forming the opinion that there is so much broken with this class based on a handful of people on this forum who repeat themselves to try to make a point?Play the class for yourself and if you feel there needs to be a change make sure you make use of /feedback, /petition and /bug every day. These tools are made to provide feedback and call for change, yet I'm sure many of the people complaining do not make use of these tools every day.You say that you're not sure you can speak for high end raiding, that you've recently returned to the game and that you don't have numbers to back up your point. I have to ask then, why post now? Why not prepare all of this information before posting so that this isn't just another whining/idea thread. We already have lots of those and none of this is constructive or giving us a chance to progress as a class, but no one seems to realize that.</blockquote>Did you even read his post?...

[Xethren]

What do we need? We need Sony to actually look at the class and see how game changes have made many of our spells worthless to the point of not even keeping a spot for them on the hotkeys. We are and should be more than buffbots.

[Antryg Mistrose]

It should be blindingly obvious what we need:The potential for a darn sight more personal DPSBuffs/utility that a group actually wants as much as a bard or illusionist

[Aurumn]

<p>I second the more DPS point. Unless of course they're planning to nerf all the other mages down to Coercer dps levels, then we can all cry together. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p>

[GinasiBryn3r]

<p>Well we need one of 4 things,</p><p>DPS</p><p>UTILITY</p><p>ABILITY TO TANK</p><p>ABILITY TO HEAL</p><p>That way we're in line with something that the game is based on...</p><p>Just to reiterate what's already all over these forums...</p><p>Our DPS is crap, Our Utility is crap, our epic functionally is mediocre, but looks like crap</p><p>Give us more of one, I don't care, I just want my familiar spells to be enhanced one way or another.  Not a bundle of contradiction and immunity on my spell bars.</p><p>Power drains = useless</p><p>Stuns/Mezzes = useless (at least on the only mobs it matters on)</p><p>DPS? lol what dps? we struggle to compete with that dps geared fury a.k.a. HEALER</p><p>lastly, you coercer's that agree need to express your thoughts, I have been reading all of these posts and some are out of whack but i agree with the majority of them, so I'm posting this is in hopes that SoE will get the message that it is not just a handful of reposters and it is a serious problem</p>

[Aurumn]

<cite>GinasiBryn3r wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><b>Well we need one of 4 things,</b></p><p><b>DPS</b></p><p><b>UTILITY</b></p><p><b>ABILITY TO TANK</b></p><p><b>ABILITY TO HEAL</b></p><p>That way we're in line with something that the game is based on...</p><p>Just to reiterate what's already all over these forums...</p><p>Our DPS is crap, Our Utility is crap, our epic functionally is mediocre, but looks like crap</p><p><b>Give us more of one, I don't care, I just want my familiar spells to be enhanced one way or another.  Not a bundle of contradiction and immunity on my spell bars.</b></p><p>Power drains = useless</p><p>Stuns/Mezzes = useless (at least on the only mobs it matters on)</p><p>DPS? lol what dps? we struggle to compete with that dps geared fury a.k.a. HEALER</p><p>lastly, you coercer's that agree need to express your thoughts, I have been reading all of these posts and some are out of whack but i agree with the majority of them, so I'm posting this is in hopes that SoE will get the message that it is not just a handful of reposters and it is a serious problem</p></blockquote><p>Well put. Not having raided with my coercer I can't testify to the impact there. Solo I seem to still be ok, at least at my current level. I'm not as savvy with pet choice as the veteran coercers so the pet nerf bat hasn't really stunted me too badly yet. However my experience in groups makes a few things clear:</p><p><u>We have invisible utility</u>: We *can* do a lot to pull a rough group's tail out of the fire, if they let us. Assuming we do they likely don't notice. If the group is about to wipe and I manage to mezz/stun enough to give the healer a second to breath 90% of the time the tank (or whoever is still conscious) immediately breaks mezz trying desperately to kill the mobs. [Revive?] If we get in over our heads I can charm a mob out of the encounter and turn it against the rest. It's a last ditch thing, but if you need to reduce numbers fast it can work (and you get to enjoy the shocked questions about how on earth you did it). I've even been shocked to find myself grabbing agro from the tank with my modest DPS. I may be a bit too much of a group-newbie, but when I have to back down <b>my</b> dps I get a little confused: I don't know whether to be impressed with my DPS or worried about what kind of tank I'm running with.</p><p><u>Good groups benefit from us, but rarely *need* us:</u> When I'm with a good group they enjoy the power boost and buffs, but it looks like I'm slacking off because the mobs drop before the reactives have much of a chance to do their work. Unless I get off a master strike, or everyone else is asleep, the damage I put out is less than desirable. A good tank/healer combo means I don't need to mezz anything. A stun here or there to slow down damage spikes on the tank or healer is about all the CC I need to do. It's pretty much toss up my buffs, stand in the back row and plink-plink-plink. Lately this had made me a little self conscious thinking they'd be better off with a bard or Illy that can hit harder. </p><p>All that said, I'm happy with my choice of a coercer for my main and I love playing her. I still can't resist laughing maniacally when I charm some humungous mob and it obediently trundles along behind me as I lay waste to anything on my quest kill list. However, it would be nice if the general population had a better understanding of our role... heck, from what I've read it's hard for some of us to know exactly what that is at times. I'd also like to see our class improved so that our skills are more valuable or at least have more of an impact in <b>good</b> groups. We should be able to contribute to the group's performance even when things are going smoothly, not just when the fit hits the shan, so to speak. I can only imagine that the raid situation is worse than the good group scenario as I've seen more call for Dirges or Illys than coercers as I've been researching trying to grow my little 'tonga into a raid coercer some day.</p>

[AngryCoerc]

I think that we need a class defining ability.  Right now we have none.  Charm is not nearly as useful as it should be.  Our power regen is nothing special; an illusionist can generate darn near as much power and do 3 or 4 times as much DPS.  Why not give us a pet?  We are the only pet class that never really uses a pet.  With the recent changes to nerf it is even less practical to use a pet.  What are we?  What are our class defining skills/spells?

[TuxDave]

<p>Here's my idea on one way to improve our dps (solving the reactive problems) and how to improve our mythical.  Since we don't tank and we don't heal, we need better dps or better utility.</p><p>To solve the dps problem, change our main convulsions to be 1 trigger with 3 ticks so the damage will be a dot every 1 or 2 sec.  Make the AA that enhances it either add 2 more ticks (if you chose every 1 sec) or reduce the duration and add 2 more ticks (if you chose every 2 sec).  The reason that i make that distinguishment is because 5 ticks over 10 sec is way too long.  </p><p>To make our mythical have as much utility (equal to the Illusionist group wide rapidity and free personae), make volatile magic affect the group.  Then we'll get love from the dps group again.  </p><p>Just my ideas that need some adjusting to balance out the classes.  I think the convulsion change from 3 triggers, 1 damage each to 1 trigger and 3 ticks of a dot will help our dps tremendously.  I can't tell you how often I have the recast back up but the triggers not used.  Illusionists never have that problem. </p>

[shogun007]

We need a gun with one bullet.

[Rijacki]

If we had "reactive" damage that reacted to what the target was doing rather than how it is able to hit (i.e. if it proced on a spell/CA cast or a autoattack swing), the damage potential for them would increase exponentially.  If the power drains had an effect on what a target could or could not do (like that ONE mob in Maiden's pre-nerf) instead of mobs doing powerless abilities it would allow changes in strategy and give a reason for so many of the coercer's spells having power drain (and so few having any real damage).Just those two things would improve things substantially.  The first would increase DPS and the second would help decrease the drain on healing.

[Trepan]

I'd love to see an encounter where we had to power drain it because at 5% health it healed itself X% based on the amount of power it had left.   There may indeed be an encounter like this, but we don't see it because no one hammers draining power because it hasn't worked in forever.  How many mobs out there fully heal at a low health percentage?There may be plenty of examples of encounters that the Devs have designed for us that we make MUCH easier, but they don't realize that they've trained the rest of the players to play based on DPS and speed of kill.  Because of that, there may be strategies that we are integral parts of that have never been tried.   Drusella is a great example of something that goes against that grain and look how people have reacted to that?  (But then players will *&^%$ about anything different, and even *&^%$ about the norm.  heheh).   They honestly can't make an encounter that REQUIRES us... then the complaints from the other 99% of the player base about how hard it is to find a coercer would wake the dead.   They can't make an encounter that requires ANY particular class... but they can make encounters that a particular class makes easier.   Its just too bad that for 99% of the tough encounters, tidal wave DPS is the most efficient and effective way to go.Rijacki:  You're spot on with the reactives tweak.  If it proc'd a little more often (even a % chance of firing on an auto attack) it'd be nice.  Too many fights I have to shrug and overwrite a previous reactive with a new one to keep Perpetuality going... 4 charges left... 4 charges left.. 4... mob dead.My greatest wish:  That there was something we could do that would be useful to groups that made us as desirable as those goody two shoes 'chanters, and other classes knew about it without us having to explain it.   I want a "WOW", not a "oh, really?  Thats interesting."  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />I might even be happy with an anti reactive mezward - something that covers the mob with a ward that will withstand 5 hits or so before the mob wakes... and sparks or flashes when it gets hit to remind the attacker "Yo, I'm mezzed.  Try the other mob.  The one that's actually trying to kill you right now instead of sleeping."  Or, ooo, this is a good one, anti-taunts the tank to a non-mezzed mob in the encounter.   Yeah, thats the ticket.

[Aurumn]

I posted an idea I had for <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=408394" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a different kind of spell </a>that would provide something a little different, but being a relative novice to the class I doubt it has any real merit other than I thought it might be clever. (linked because, well it was kind of a long post <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/499fd50bc713bfcdf2ab5a23c00c2d62.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />) It would be nice if the class forums had something like the Tradeskill forum's State of the Tradeskills thread where the devs would post stuff that's in the pipeline or under consideration. It seems to work really well there.

[chily]

<p>reactive change => dot would be the worst poss change and i hope that never happens coz it's a class defining thing.What i wonder sometimes in groups how much do other classes stun and stilfe?How often do i cast Ego melt or sonic boom and reduce my dps?How often could it really be that my hemeroage really interupts a spell cast?There are so many way's how you can ruin your own dps with out even notice it <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[chily]

<cite>AngryCoercer wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think that we need a class defining ability.  Right now we have none.  Charm is not nearly as useful as it should be.  Our power regen is nothing special; an illusionist can generate darn near as much power and do 3 or 4 times as much DPS.  Why not give us a pet?  We are the only pet class that never really uses a pet.  With the recent changes to nerf it is even less practical to use a pet.  What are we?  What are our class defining skills/spells?</blockquote><p>Charm is not our 100% class define spell. Druids and illu's can get it with aa, necro's get it at 55 or 58. with some execpts but they get it.</p><p>Class defining spells are:* Reactive dmg* Channel/Channeling* Manaflow coz we can feed faster then illu if we spend aa in it and totaly insane like with the mythical weapon.* The lenght that we can stun mobs.* Memwipe, illu get phase but that is only a hate reset we can really memwipe the mob.* Dps buff, no other class buffs more dps then we can.* Hate dec singe taget but raid wide, ok not really since trouba get it for group and guards for one target, but we can dec the hate from those who don't have someone else for it* Tashiana we are our own brigs <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />* manaward .. well we can ward it a little at least :/* Though snap* CH ... easy can keep with TC from illu's for the main ward and heal spells.and now i cast ya what is class define for wizzi and warlock ? dps.</p>

[skidmark]

Nice list Chilli.<ul><li>Remove the DoT component from Gloom line but keep the Forceful Headache portion (bump up the damage on this as well) and reduce duration by half and reuse delay by half.</li><li>Reduce reuse delay on Ego Shock line by half.</li><li>A self buff that increases Disruption while lowering subjugation and ordination, and grants either a chance (once or twice a minute) for a DD spell that was just cast to automatically repeat its damage. If it is a DoT, cause it to front-load all of the damage while still dealing the DoT for the duration. Or a straight across the board mental damage boost on spells. Call it a caster's offensive stance if you will.</li><li>I like the pet idea too. Somehow differentiate it from the Illusionist pet. (Illusionists will want charm of course if coercer's get a pet.)</li></ul>