1st March 2008 - Current issues with the Coercer Class [Archive]

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Antryg Mistrose

03-01-2008, 02:39 AM

Based on the recommendations in <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=409229�" target="_blank">this post </a>here are my issues with the coercer class, with even more material shamelessly stolen from other people. Its not a class guide or any kind of beginner coercer tutorial I'm afraid. All the spell names are the highest tier versions, and it reflects current, not past issues with the class.Our peers: Coercers place in the overall DPS hierachy seems a bit low. Comparing to other classes with similar utility - Illusionists and Bards. This would be acceptable if coercers had more compelling utility and so were welcome in groups and raids for buffs. This is not the case. These classes, illusionist especially, have higher personal dps, AND more desirable buffs.Why is coercer DPS so low?: Coercer is a mage, and does have a full complement of spell lines. However several of these spell lines don't do a lot, and a few others do less and less as mobs are debuffed more and more. So in raids when everyone is trying to debuff a mob as much as possible, and even in groups when playing with well geared fighters, the better your group/raid, the worse for the coercer.It may be that compared to other DPS classes, coercers have been designed with deliberately lower dps as a charmed pet is supposed to make up the difference. There are 3 main problems with that:1) Finding a pet. On raids this is impossible, in groups & solo it is time consuming2) 3 concentrations slots. Group & Raid there are competing buffs.3) Safety. Unlike a summoner's or illusionist's pet, the coercers can turn on the player/group. That restricts acceptance in groups, and makes the pet a mixed blessing even solo - it breaks invis when it turns on you, and is effectively an uncontrolled add.Reactive Spell Lines that get worse instead of better:Hostage Every time the mob hits with a melee attack that penetrates wards it gets damaged. One of those that runs counter to trying to debuff a mob, and gets prevented entirely by stun/daze (or overzelous shaman!). I can't help but compare to the illusionist's equivalent which triggers when a player hits the mob and can use up its triggers as a result in seconds. Mobs do NOT consitently hit, they can be parried/riposted/dodged/slowed etc, so the main suggestion for improvement is to make it trigger on an attempt to hit rather than a successful hit. Common with Spell Curse, this spell (despite its duration) often times out without all the triggers being used.Spell Curse. When the mob attacks with a spell that is not resisted outright or avoided it gets damaged. The 2nd of those spells that runs counter to trying to debuff a mob - stifle prevents it, swipe slows it down. Again this can do high damage if cast just before an AoE, but frequently times out with triggers unused.Peaceful Link. Deaggro and damage whenever the player cast on takes damage. The 3rd of those reactive spells. IF it didn't have the deaggro you could cast it on an MT as a damage shield. With the deaggro its just a 2nd rate Alin's (troubador GROUP wide deaggro) with some damage to the mob on AoE's (problem with stifle & swipe). The illusionist equivalent spell Tandem is MUCH more in demand. p.s. T7 master is > T8 adept 3. That is a fairly common issue with scaling, which seems to have hit us as a relatively low damage class more than others.Cataclsymic Mind. The 4th reactive spell. The mob takes damage proportional to power it expends. The main issue - mobs expend stuff all power. They either use low level spells that use very little power (LU13 change I'm told), or they use special abilities that use none at all. It this spell was affected by power drains (e.g. mental breach poison), this would go from barely worth casting to our most significant DPS (depending on if it was scaled back much). We would actually get synergies from classes like illusionist (who also have power drains), and several of our own spells (with power drains), would actually have a non-PvP use at last.So there we have 4 spell lines that rely on mobs doing things, for a class filled with control spells, who is trying to prevent the mobs doing anything.Spells with bugs:Thoughtsnap Not a 100% sure that being able to thoughtsnap a mob to the CORPSE of a grouped fighter is a bug, but it might be. Of more concern is that it can sometimes reset the encounter. (its also of short duration and resisted a fair bit which limits its usefulness).Spell Lines that just don't work well:Possession Useful for inspecting potential pets or moving a pesky mob out of the way when harvesting. It can for solo mobs be used to attack and kill another mob if you are quick, but thats not a large benefit as if the possession times out you have TWO angry mobs coming for you, and you could just have killed them anyway. This spell has such HUGE untapped potential. It could have been a signature line. Suggestions for improvement: <ol><li>Increase the cast range so that it is NOT inside the aggro range of a lot of mobs and/or make it castable in combat (it is currently castable if you are in combat, just not if the mob you are casting it on is).</li><li>(shamelessly stolen from <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=409787" target="_blank">Strossus's post here </a>): "To make the spell a temporary pet spell. Meaning that when you cast Possession on your charmed pet it inherits all of your stats, spells and abilities. For the duration of the spell your pet will also cast any spell that you cast" and hopefully take advantage of perpetuality <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />" Still only a solo trick though</li><li>Making the spell castable on a PLAYER character rather than a mob (hopefully with a much increased/useful duration), could revolutionise this spell too - Not possess them, but actually copy their spells so you can be that additional priest or "real" dps character for a while.</li></ol>Puppetmaster Okay, it was originally caned by those who saw it in beta. I arrived in beta late, so didn't see that version. Summarising <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=409617�" target="_blank">what Rijacki wrote</a>. Its pretty poor damage for a a level 80 mage spell, the different qualities of spell don't scale well. (Personally I'd like the dumbfires to be a lot bigger in appearance so they'd at least have some shock effect on group/raid mates <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> )Channeling vs Volatile magic <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=409617�" target="_blank">As Pricia puts it</a> "We need to be under 30% power to get our dps buff in the intelligence AA tree... and yet we pretty much need to keep as much power as possible if we want to make a good use of channeling. The end result is that half the time we can't even take advantage of our extra dps. Irritating to say the least", and even worse when/if you get hold of the coercer epic and start manaflowing. Illusionist's equivalent (more or less anyway) to channeling is Savante, which has no such issue. (For me personally this conflict is one reason for playing around with the enchanter melee/str line).Power drains No specific spell, but attached to a few of our spell lines are power drains. These do nothing useful, solo, group or raid, and the suspicion is that the damage or other effects of these spells have been reduced to "compensate". They are useful in PvP, and would be VERY useful solo/group/raid/pvp if Cataclysmic Mind was modified.Thought Stones. These reagants serve no useful purpose beyond cluttering up bags. It would have been nice if they had been removed when crusader's were, but its never to late <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />Some suggested spell improvements:Tashiana Doesn't bring a lot to a raid due to the limited classes that deal mental damage. Recommend either having debuff apply to more than just mental debuff, possibly at cost of reducing the mitigation amount. Alternately change it to be *unresistable* spell that for 13s causes mob to be unable to resist any spell effects. (This might be stepping of the toes of illusionist's with their Illuminate)Manaward Manaward has no use whatsoever in it's current incarnation. The all-or-nothing aspect of manadrains in RoK result in this AA needing a 100% review and/or overhaul. Since mana proc'ing items are completely innundated this expansion I would recommend replacing it with an entirely new ability, that either has directly noticeable group buffage or else significant enough DPS to be worth taking.Coercive Healing The gain of 15% or 1 proc is not tremendously useful in comparison to the illusionist counterpart of Time Compression. This aa is limited to one archetype, priest, and then further limited to one category of their spells. Recommend replace with ability: Coercion - expanded ability that has desireable benefits for any archetype that receives the buff, not simply priests. Look at Time Compression and then do something complementary, similar to how DPS/Haste from Coercers/Illusionists complement each other. (or I'm not proud - give us time compression too).Counterblade - no worthwhile use in PVE as you don't see mobs designed with racial or profession spells (then again troubadors, crusaders and illusionists each I understand the same problem with one of their spell lines. Hypnosis - no worthwhile use at all, 2s cast time makes it not be a worthwhile emergency spellCharm I really don't know enough about this to write intelligibly (I mainly group/raid and got to 80 before pets were nerfed). The nerf (to caster pet damage) wasn't well communicated, and I personally disagree with the developer quoted in <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=406896�" target="_blank">Gnobrin's response</a> - Given the risk we take in using pets and the time taken to find/maintain them my personal view is they SHOULD do damage "out of line with even the highest DPS classes". There have been a lot of posts on improving charm, I can't really do justice to them in this summary, so here are just some headings.<ol><li>Dire/permanent charm / break chances.</li><li>3 concentration slots (Illusionist's pet can be ZERO, and I summoners base pet is less before they start buffing)</li><li>Relative uselessness of any charm below Master level</li><li>Relative uselessness of higher tier replacements (do NOT change without changing 3. dammit!)</li><li>Portable (across zone lines) pets</li><li>Scaling (up) of pets when in a grey zone</li><li>Nothing to charm in raid zones, and unwelcome to charm in groups (mainly from 1. and 2. )</li></ol>Shock Wave I thought I'd end on a positive one. Nice spell, some actual real damage AND a stun. The only problem is it is point blank range and we are a squishy mage. Perhaps have this spell cast on a mob, and radiate out from there, rather than the Coercers position (we do NOT want it converted into a green encounter only spell, mind!)Group DesirabilityFor mages we offer a deaggro (limited by concentrations slots). Thats it. The only "utility" class that offers less is Dirge.For meleers we offer a DPS buff. Dirges get that plus Chime of Blades, possible skills buff, possible double hit buff ... Troubadors have haste, possible double hit buff ... Illusionists get haste (doesn't stack as well as DPS so more effective) and Illusory ArmFor tanks we offer a hate increase. Dirges is much bigger. But we have a hate transfer component too - problem is we don't do much DPS to transfer, unlike assassins or swashbucklers, and swashbucklers just got a big boost there with their mythicFor priests we can offer ONE priest coercive healing and the group increased heal crits.Put this all together, and every group in a raid would prefer a bard over us - dirge or troubador depending on melee or caster, and 3 groups would definetley prefer an illusionist. For the 4th group (MT group) we sort of had a place, but it was not a firm one. With RoK epics hitting so hard 3 priests + dirge + hate transfer is looking more the norm, so we have nowhere to go.Mythics:Compare the illusionist & coercer epics. Illusionist gets a melee buff group wide leaving more slots for tandem, and lose ALL 3 concentration slots required for their pet. The result - illusionists DPS contribution (personal and buffs) and desirability in groups/raids just improved substantially.Coercers get to use the SHARED manaflow line on a group (why we have AAs for a shared line escapes me but thats another issue), currently that now returns 60% of power to the coercer. The problem with that is that the shared volatile magic AA line requires the enchanter to stay under 30% power to get extra damage. So using this part of the mythic will hurt coercers.Coercers did get a fighter taunt/damage buff, but that is a bit underwhelming in contrast.The proc rate of Siren's gift is so low as to be broken.Why we are currently a bit more vocal:1) Charmed pets were substantially nerfed, with very poor communication from SoE.2) The one mob in RoK that power drain had a real, desirable use on was modified (Maiden's Chamber).3) The DPS / desirabiliy gap to Illusionist just widened substantially with Mythics4) Coercers used to have one area we did better than illusionists (in fact pretty much everybody) - solo. That is now gone. (see 1)5) We do have the edge on power management over bards & Illusionists. With RoK there is enough power proc gear that that is no longer relevant6) The recent increase in epic resist rates (LU43) has disproportionately more effect on classes that rely on speed chain casting (enchanter agility line) for DPS.Specific comparison to IllusionistsHaving played both this is my impression - Illusionist is a finished class. Coercer isn'tHere in no particular order are other similar abilities they have, where the coercer always seemed to get the short end of the stick:Individual Invis vs Group InvisDPS vs HasteEmergency Fear vs Emergency MezzLink vs TandemNothing vs Temporary casting buffroot/daze vs root/stifle (where do you normally root a mob, hmm?)Mezz - 2 extra mezzes (PbAOE & single target one), Illuminate & Sentiment => no resists or subjugation gear necessary.The only things I can think of that Coercers have over Illusionists in a group/raid setting are:2 extra stuns, slight healing buffs, Thoughtsnap (resisted a lot and duration low), Blue AoE stun/damage.Thats a sadly short list.What we need:I'm not game to second guess the developers, or the others on this forum and 'flames who've been playing a lot longer. So I'll just say 2 things:1) The potential for a LOT more personal DPS (just the potential the actual can be left to player skill)2) Competitevely compelling buffs to the other "Utility" classes

Gwynet

03-01-2008, 11:17 AM

That sums it up pretty well... Thank you!Note - I don't really understand what you mean by 'mobs expends stuff all power'.

GinasiBryn3r

03-01-2008, 12:53 PM

A.Tyndiel

03-01-2008, 01:06 PM

Great itemization of our current problems and needs, great job indeed! Unfortunately, I sincerely doubt anyone with the power to make substancial development decisions will ever see this. The problem with our plight has never been one of cordial dialogue between the two parties involved,(players/devs), its simply been one wherein one party totally ignores the other. The anger that Mods see within these forums now isnt one that started a month ago when RoK first appreared, its simply started to boil over at this point due to literally years of mis-managment regarding this once useful class. Add to that the clear and apparent advantage that our sister class holds against us, as well as the advantage that Bards, our utility cousins hold, and well what you get is a class that honesty has no place in todays Post RoK Everquest 2. That, in essence, is why theres so much frustration within the Coercer community. Were not asking for overpowerdness,(sp?), simply for a fair chance to leave our own mark out there in Norrath. If it were a matter of player skill, than you wouldnt see as many disparaging remarks here. Unfortunately no amount of player skill or apptitude could ever balance the field of play near well enough to make Coercers as useful as our brethren within the parameters of our particular responsibilities,(aka: support/utility.) That is, unless the clear and present faults that lie within our class' design are fixed/improved. So we beg, we plead for improvements, and what do we get? Not only have our current spells not been fixed in any way...we continue to see nerfs of current spells that actually had some redeeming value in the past, (aka: Charm nerf.) What we are left with in the end is a class that no longer offers a viable use in todays post LU42 group or raid system. We offer a myriad of colorful, "tricks" like possession, puppetmaster", unfortunately, no substance. In essence...the coercera at this point, is one very big Fluff Spell. A premise that is entirely unacceptable given the status of our nearest relatives, illusionists. How can one see our current state, and not wonder if indeed Coercers are the "odd man out", on a slow track to purgatory? All we ask for is a level playing field. We dont want more...we dont want less. All we plead for is some attention...some reason to hope that our beloved class isnt on its way to that shining place in the sky were defunct classes go to rest. Because given our current state, and the absolute silence from devs, that is exactly were we all fear we are headed. Prove us wrong SOE...prove us wrong.

Xethren

03-01-2008, 01:31 PM

Nicely said everyone

Rijacki

03-01-2008, 01:36 PM

<cite>Pricia@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>That sums it up pretty well... Thank you!Note - I don't really understand what you mean by 'mobs expends stuff all power'.</blockquote>Not to interpret the OP's actual wording, but...Mobs use abilities not spells or CAs. Abilities don't use power like spells and CAs do. That's why Mobs can still "cast" even when they're at zero power and is also linked to how they can "cast" even when stifled or stunned.Presumably, power drains are useful in PvP since player characters -do- expend power and can't do spells or CAs when they have no power. (My coercer on Venekor is all of level 4 and still on the Island and only an hour old)As to the OP. Thank you for the summary. It's pretty comprehensive.My suggestions for "fixes" to the issues:Like the OP, I agree that coercers do need more help in the utility and dps realms. If their utility was higher than illusionists, it would make sense for their dps to be so much lower. But since illusionist utility -and- dps is higher than coercer, it doesn't make any sense for balance.- Cataclysmic Mind: I agree this should be changed to damage proportional to the power expended or drained. That would give power drains a purpose in -all- facets of game play (raid, group, solo, and PvP).- Spell Curse and Hostage: These should react to the mob DOING something (like it says in their text) and not act like damage shields and only react when the action of the mob hits. They would still be effected by stun, stiffle, and daze but they wouldn't be effected by debuffs and ally resists. It would allow coercers to still do good damage even when their group, raid, etc improves gear and abilities. - Peaceful Link: Frankly, it's rarely worth giving up the concentration slot unless you just happen to have it free. It's not going to create more damage since the entire point of deaggro is to reduce the chance of the target being hit.- Possession: Ya know, I haven't even used this more than once or twice, just to understand the hype. The fact it can't be cast in combat but its range is so small that it's well within the aggro radius of most agressive mobs is completely contraproductive. The fact it bugs the target so that, if it was possessed, its damage is completely messed up after if it's charmed (is the damage reduction done twice?) makes it completely useless as a way to check out a potential pet, too. Checking out what a particular NPC uses could be helpful, but a lot of the mobs you'd want to use that investigation on are tagged as non-charmable.-Puppetmaster: This just needs more power. In addition, the difference between the various levels of quality -really- needs to be looked into. I've had the App IV version, the Adept I version, and, stupidly, got the Adept III version. The difference between App IV and Adept I is marginal. The difference between the Adept I and Adept III is completely and utterly non-existant. I see the exact same mins and maxs with Adept III that I saw with Adept I and about the same level of squishiness (I go into tougher places now than when it was Adept I). From what I have heard of the Master I version, the damage -might- be as much as +10 to the max per hit. *rolls her eyes* The damage on this dumbfire needs to be increased. It should be on par with the other mage dumbfires of the same level and/or have a higher To-hit and be less squishy.Group/Raid desirabilityPower regen is still helpful and, when I was moved out of the MT group in favour of a healer for one fight, I did see the power levels of the MT group suffer without me there, it really isn't the be-all, end-all. While I was on vacation, or even for that one fight, I never heard from anyone saying "oh we really could have used you and your power there". Better power regen, especially with the CoA change, isn't even a compelling reason to want a coercer along for a group.Coercers get dps vs illusionists haste. DPS only helps for auto-attack. Haste helps for procs, too. Illusionary Arm is the buff everyone clamours for. If I forget to cast DPS on someone after a death, I'll notice the open concentratin bubble before the other person notices any reduction in their damage ability. Hate - Dirges have a better magnifier, swashies a better transfer. Ours does stack with both of theirs (and the cap is hit without both being master) which is the good thing. It does reduce the either-or. But, if you need to drop one of the three out of a group to bring in another healer, coercer is the most likely to be dropped especially if the swashie has the mythical with the hate transfer increase. Coercer mythical adds damage to taunts. Not enough to balance that against the swashie's increased transfer.Healer help - While coercive healing is a coercer line acheivement, increased heal crits isn't. The increased healing of coercive healing isn't a significant increase that it gives any moment of thought about swapping a healer for the coercer in the MT group. The increases of coercive healing are barely noticed or at least never factored in for what healing is available.In response to the illusionists getting a group version of their haste buff, the casting distance of that buff is being increased (or was in a hot fix, not sure). Even though coercers don't have a group version of their dps, it would be nice to get the same increased cast distance on ours (same for Demeanor). Squishies needing to get in melee range to recast a buff is silly. Heck, we don't even have the same casting range on those as a dirge! The first time I went to recast those 2 as a coercer in a raid when the MT went down, I was shocked! I was about the same distance I'd cast the dps buff and hate buff as a dirge (my previous raid main) and they were red. We have to practically touch the MT in order to cast the buffs on him! (yeah yeah, that's the definition of melee range.. but.. well..) The range for cast on those two is completely and utterly ludicrous. With the illusionist one being increased, for -all- illusionists not just those with the mythical, ours should be increased, too.Mythical Illusionist vs CoercerIllusionists only need one concentration to haste buff the whole group. For a coercer in the MT group with 2 healers, a dirge, a guardian, and a swashbuckler, the coercer needs 3 concentration to dps buff the group. The illusionist can use the concentration for other buffs (not even counting the fact the mythical gives them a concentrationless pet). This makes them A LOT more desired in groups. This makes them even more useful in all the raid groups. This makes them, too, better in the MT group since the haste will make more damage and more procs for both the MT and the swashie transfer which more than makes up for the "loss" of the coercer's hate spell. Time compression in that same group would more than compensate for the "loss" of the coercive healing. Since illusionists can get the healing crit achievement, there is absolutely no loss there at all.It just adds insult to injury that the coercer mythical makes the damage increasing achievement line all but impossible for the coercer now with the 60% return.While I haven't yet lost my place in raiding with my guild, I am well aware that, as they get better, as the coercer stands now, I will be encouraged to betray to illusionist in order to continue raiding because my offerings as a coercer will be so diminished and a 2nd illusionist would be greatly preferred.Illusionists have so much more damage -and- better/more utility than a coercer especially once a group or raid has better gear and improved abilities. An illusionist gets better along with the rest of the group/raid. The coercer gets more diminished.The fact the solo-ability of the coercer in RoK was 'adjusted' with a change to charm pets is just icing.

WasFycksir

03-01-2008, 03:55 PM

Well said and I would add...All those problems and stack them on top for a PVP battle, makes a gamer want to cry.

Taharn

03-01-2008, 10:11 PM

This is a really great post, thanks for taking the time to write it up.All I'll say myself is to reiterate to any high-up person that reads this JUST how frustrating our counter-productive abilities are. Having your dps drastically reduce as a mob is debuffed just doesn't seem right. The same goes for when my guild does T7 zones. There's no point in me even TRYING to put my reactives up, since the majority of the time the duration ends with 5 ticks still waiting to be used. All this is more for a raid situation, where our control spells are next to useless. Making reactives trigger on attempted attacks would go a long way to helping us out, like, a LONG way.This would also lead into group situations. If they triggered off attempted attacks, you can then choose between controlling the mob, or doing your dps (a fair enough choice for a 'utility' class). Is your tank well-geared, and you have 2 healers...dont worry about the stuns, just do all-out dps. Got an under-geared tank, well, give up some of your dps to help keep him alive.

Antryg Mistrose

03-01-2008, 11:38 PM

In terms of improvements I've seen some other very nice suggestions, just can't seem to find them at present.E.g.Change possession to work on raid/group friends (and for a longer duration) - temporarily copy their char. Puting in something like an immunity timer would keep it challenging, as you'd have to get familiar with a lot of other classes skills/spell icons, and cast orders. It would be huge utility if your raid was short a 2nd of a necessary class too (depending on reuse/immunity).Noting that Troub & to a lesser extent illusionist are caster buffers, and dirge being melee/tank (and semi-priest), there is some arguement for us to be as well, and there a re a few obvious buffs in this area - double attack, area attack, crits, strike through, along with the already allocated dps/haste.An issue with that is that we are mages, so in a group with melee buffs flying around we don't get much out personally. Perhaps up our autoattack modifier and/or give ranged autoattack. Not too sure of this one personally as it not really a mage flavour, but we aren't currently candidates for a mage group (over illus) so tend to miss out on mage buffs (grouped more often with a dirge than troub for example).

Gwynet

03-02-2008, 01:15 AM

Something else I wanted to mention, that shows how poorly the class was designed in the first place...We need to be under 30% power to get our dps buff in the intelligence AA tree... and yet we pretty much need to keep as much power as possible if we want to make a good use of channeling. The end result is that half the time we can't even take advantage of our extra dps. Irritating to say the least.

Scry

03-02-2008, 08:09 AM

Good analysis and representation of our current problems by both the OP and Rijacki, here is to hoping that this thread is read and reacted to by the dev's as Echgar has implied it will.

Alienor

03-02-2008, 02:04 PM

Nice writeup. Agree 100%. While we might be able to solo stuff no one else can, it is not necessarily fun, efficient or makes sense. We need more dps (or xp from mezzed mobs <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />) and some moreAlienor, Coercer, retired.

Antryg Mistrose

03-03-2008, 06:32 AM

I've modified the original post with ideas/quotes shamelessly stolen - so sue me.

Sigunn

03-03-2008, 08:56 AM

<cite>Scry wrote:</cite><blockquote>Good analysis and representation of our current problems by both the OP and Rijacki, here is to hoping that this thread is read and reacted to by the dev's as Echgar has implied it will.</blockquote>Agree 100%. This is a great post.

chily

03-03-2008, 09:37 AM

<cite>Antryg Mistrose wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hostage Every time the mob hits it gets damaged. One of those that runs counter to trying to debuff a mob, and gets prevented entirely by stun/daze. I can't help but compare to the illusionist's equivalent which triggers when a player hits the mob and can use up its triggers as a result in seconds. Mobs do NOT consitently hit, they can be parried/riposted/dodged/slowed etc, so the main suggestion for improvement is to make it trigger on an attempt to hit rather than a successful hit. Yup should trigger on block, deflection and parry tooSpell Curse. Every time the mob casts it gets damaged. The 2nd of those spells that runs counter to trying to debuff a mob - stifle prevents it, swipe slows it down. Again this can do high damage if cast just before an AoE, but frequently times out with triggers unused. Yes coz not all mobs cast spells and so on.Peaceful Link. Deaggro and damage whenever the player cast on takes damage. The 3rd of those reactive spells. IF it didn't have the deaggro you could cast it on an MT as a damage shield. With the deaggro its just a 2nd rate Alin's (troubador GROUP wide deaggro) with some damage to the mob on AoE's (problem with stifle & swipe). The illusionist equivalent spell Tandem is MUCH more in demand. p.s. T7 master is > T8 adept 3. That is a fairly common issue with scaling, which seems to have hit us as a relatively low damage class more than others. As Coercer i like Tandem too yeah lol. but the hate dec from Link is not that bad.Cataclsymic Mind. The 4th reactive spell. The mob takes damage proportional to power it expends. The main issue - mobs expend stuff all power. They either use low level spells that use very little power (LU13 change I'm told), or they use special abilities that use none at all. It this spell was affected by power drains (e.g. mental breach poison), this would go from barely worth casting to out most significant DPS (depending on if it was scaled back much). We would actually get synergies from classes like illusionist (who also have power drains), and several of our own spells (with power drains), would actually have a non-PvP use at last. that spell is really broken a bit in PVE yup. there are only like 2 named in rok whereit's aktual a use and the only solo mobs are the Yei'lei hyrdromancers in frens.So there we have 4 spell lines that rely on mobs doing things, for a class filled with control spells, who is trying to prevent the mobs doing anything. Now we come to the spell lines that really don't do a lot:Spell Lines that just don't work well:Possession Useful for inspecting potential pets or moving a pesky mob out of the way when harvesting. It can for solo mobs be used to attack and kill another mob if you are quick, but thats not a large benefit as if the possession times out you have TWO angry mobs coming for you, and you could just have killed them anyway. This spell has such HUGE untapped potential. It could have been a signature line. Suggestions for improvement: <ol><li>Increase the cast range so that it is NOT inside the aggro range of a lot of mobs and/or make it castable in combat (it is currently castable if you are in combat, just not if the mob you are casting it on is).</li><li>(shamelessly stolen from <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=409787" target="_blank">Strossus's post here </a>): "To make the spell a temporary pet spell. Meaning that when you cast Possession on your charmed pet it inherits all of your stats, spells and abilities. For the duration of the spell your pet will also cast any spell that you cast" and hopefully take advantage of perpetuality <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" width="15" height="15" />" /> Still only a solo trick though</li><li>Making the spell castable on a PLAYER character rather than a mob (hopefully with a much increases / useful duration), could revolutionise this spell too - Not possess them, but actually copy their spells so you can be that additional priest or "real" dps character for a while.</li></ol>Either more range needed or even better let us cast it in combat.Puppetmaster Okay, it was originally caned by those who saw it in beta. I arrived in beta late, so didn't see that version. Summarising <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=409617�" target="_blank">what Rijacki wrote</a>. Its pretty poor damage for a a level 80 mage spell, the different qualities of spell don't scale well. (Personally I'd like the dumbfires to be a lot bigger in appearance so they'd at least have some shock effect on group/raid mates <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> )Nice shock for other spell yup, poor dps a bitCharm I really don't know enough about this to write intelligibly (I mainly group/raid and got to 80 before pets were nerfed). The nerf (to caster pet damage) wasn't well communicated, and I personally disagree with the developer quoted in <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=406896�" target="_blank">Gnobrin's response</a> - Given the risk we take in using pets and the time taken to find/maintain them my personal view is they SHOULD do damage "out of line with even the highest DPS classes". There have been a lot of posts on improving charm, I can't really do justice to them in this summary, so here are just some headings.<ol><li>Dire/permanent charm / break chances. (makes the fun out <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> )</li><li>3 concentration slots (Illusionist's pet can be ZERO, and I summoners base pet is less before they start buffing)Illu pet sucks our pet's could do more then illu's on i think and we can pick from every kind of pet</li><li>Relative uselessness of any charm below Master level (not true, the ad3 does less maybe but it does it good too )</li><li>Relative uselessness of higher tier replacements (do NOT change without changing 3. dammit!) (You know that means that master charm will get neferd and not that ad3 will get boosted? Anyway even if ad3 charm does like 90% Comparred to master the most still will use master so it's no change at all. The only change that would be welcome would be that every level and tier of charm does dmg like a master charm one but the regen and resis rate of lower tiers is bad that would be a fix that is ok.</li><li>Portable (across zone lines) pets. Not really sure if that is needed last thing i want rather the rest first plz.</li><li>Scaling (up) of pets when in a grey zone. why? that is soo dump you ruin your own dps big time with that big fat NO, unless reactive get changed then ok <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></li><li>Nothing to charm in raid zones, and unwelcome to charm in groups (mainly from 1. and 2. ) wrong coz there are hardly pet's that do like 10k</li></ol>Channeling vs Volatile magic <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=409617�" target="_blank">As Pricia puts it</a> "We need to be under 30% power to get our dps buff in the intelligence AA tree... and yet we pretty much need to keep as much power as possible if we want to make a good use of channeling. The end result is that half the time we can't even take advantage of our extra dps. Irritating to say the least". Illusionist's equivalent (more or less anyway) to channeling is Savante, which has no such issue.Channeling is not the prob tough with Volatile magic. The Problem is that our myhtcial weapon gives us 60% !!! power back with manaflow. Channel rocks, i use it maybe like once every 30min if i use it often. But i use Mana flow for more then channel.Power drains No specific spell, but attached to a few of our spell lines are power drains. These do nothing useful, solo, group or raid, and the suspicion is that the damage or other effects of these spells have been reduced to "compensate".(They are useful in PvP I've read)Defo PvP and solo coercer spellsShock Wave I thought I'd end on a positive one. Nice spell, some actual real damage AND a stun. The only problem is it is point blank range and we are a squishy mage. Perhaps have this spell cast on a mob, and radiate out from there, rather than the Coercers position (we do NOT want it converted into a green encounter only spell, mind!)Omg don't touch that spell ! the only thing you can touch on it is the dmg coz a 7k max hit is really low for a mage <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><Group DesirabilityFor mages we offer a deaggro (limited by concentrations slots). Thats it. The only "utility" class that offers less is Dirge.For meleers we offer a DPS buff. Dirges get that plus Chime of Blades, possible skills buff, possible double hit buff ... Troubadors have haste, possible double hit buff ... Illusionists get haste (doesn't stack as well as DPS so more effective) and Illusory ArmFor tanks we offer a hate increase. Dirges is much bigger. But we have a hate transfer component too - problem is we don't do much DPS to transfer, unlike assassins or swashbucklers, and swashbucklers just got a big boost there with their mythic. [Removed for Content] you are a n00b, Sry for saying that. of course we don't can parse like 4k zonewide like a swash and yes our hate inc is lower then the one from a Dirge. BUT ! before we only had a hateinc instead of Hateinc and hatetrans to reach the cap in both.Also like 20% of our hatetrans is invisble aka not showing on parses! Power feed, manaflow and so on all that generatres hate that we transfer. The real suck part from it is that there is no upgrade for it in T7 or T8.For priests we can offer ONE priest coercive healing and the group increased heal crits. Like a illu tough. TC is poss only for 1 yupPut this all together, and every group in a raid would prefer a bard over us - dirge or troubador depending on melee or caster, and 3 groups would definetley prefer an illusionist. For the 4th group (MT group) we sort of had a place, but it was not a firm one. With RoK epics hitting so hard 3 priests + dirge + hate transfer is looking more the norm, so we have nowhere to go.Can't aggree. Melee groups like Dps buff from coercer too tbh. Haste is nearly useless coz of all the temp haste buffs that the classes have. So the like Dps as much as haste if not even moreMythics:Compare the illusionist & coercer epics. Illusionist gets a melee buff group wide leaving more slots for tandem, and lose ALL 3 concentration slots required for their pet. The result - illusionists DPS contribution (personal and buffs) and desirability in groups/raids just improved substantially.Coercers get to use the SHARED manaflow line on a group (why we have AAs for a shared line escapes me but thats another issue), currently that now returns 60% of power to the coercer. The problem with that is that the shared volatile magic AA line requires the enchanter to stay under 30% power to get extra damage. So using this part of the mythic will hurt coercers. 60% power back yup that sucksCoercers did get a fighter taunt/damage buff, but that is a bit underwhelming in contrast. Fluff buff a bit it should add mental dmg to every ca of the fighter to be a notice able inc of dps.Erm you forgot Siren's gift. it should porc on success Hostile spell and should do some dmg, instead on porcing on successful spell attack like once every hour chain casting for omg 10secs ! .. 10secs every hour what a joke <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Why we are currently a bit more vocal:1) Charmed pets were substantially nerfed, with very poor communication from SoE.2) The one mob in RoK that power drain had a real, desirable use on was modified (Maiden's Chamber). (doesn't brother me tbh hard mob big fun)3) The DPS / desirabiliy gap to Illusionist just widened substantially with Mythics4) Coercers used to have one area we did better than illusionists (in fact pretty much everybody) - solo. That is now gone. (see 1)5) We do have the edge on power management over bards & Illusionists. With RoK there is enough power proc gear that that is no longer relevant. Yeah the power porcs are really cool even more when they porc for the group. really cool when the group feeds me <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Who can channel ? we can ! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Specific comparison to IllusionistsHaving played both this is my impression - Illusionist is a finished class. Coercer isn'tHere in no particular order are other similar abilities they have, where the coercer always seemed to get the short end of the stick:Individual Invis with AOE imunity vs Group Invis 1:0 for Raiding CoercerDPS vs Haste 2:1 for Raiding CoercerEmergency Fear vs Emergency Mezz (fear? when did you play coercer or did i miss something? )Link vs Tandem 3:2 for Raiding Coercer both are goodNothing vs Temporary casting buff 3:3 Coercer vs IlluCoercer dps vs Illu Dps 3:4 IlluThe only things I can think of that Coercers have over Illusionists in a group/raid setting are:Slight healing buffs, Thoughtsnap (resisted a lot and duration low), Blue AoE stun/damage.Tash big mental debuffThats a sadly short list.What we need:I'm not game to second guess the developers, or the others on this forum and 'flames who've been playing a lot longer. So I'll just say 2 things:1) The potential for a LOT more personal DPS (just the potential the actual can be left to player skill)2) Competitevely compelling buffs to the other "Utility" classes</blockquote>Give us a level 71-80 Demenor spell !Fix the Mythical weapon !

GinasiBryn3r

03-03-2008, 11:28 AM

Awesome post, few things to add... Dire Charm? = Yes, and let it be named, and zone... (some of our dps problem, that way we could bring mobs to the raid)Possession to copy a PC is an excellent idea, and interesting too...Chill we do get an emergency AoE fear btw, forget the name though

chily

03-03-2008, 11:56 AM

<cite>GinasiBryn3r wrote:</cite><blockquote>Chill we do get an emergency AoE fear btw, forget the name though</blockquote>Reek of Terror Level 40 SpellResistibility : 25% Harder.Makes targets in Area of Effect afraid.Dispelled when target takes damage.5min recast and i know why i don't use it now lol. I'm Dark elf and one of my traits is that i can dec hate by 1 poss with a 5min recast rofl.

chily

03-03-2008, 12:23 PM

A thing that would be worth to consider maybe.One of the problems with reactive Dmg is that the mob has to hit a lot of times in a short time to trigger all reactice hits. the best chance for that is that mob aoe freqently.How about Reducing the trigger count from the aa but inc the dmg from it with aa?5 triggers with let's say 3k hit each = 15KChange to 3 triggers with 5k each = 15kSame Dmg still but a far higher chance to get all triggers off.I think that coz first of all i love reactive dmg if the mob can do what he likes.There is allso one diff between tandem and peaceful link if i remeber the parses right ..The dmg of Peaceful Link counts for the coercer but it easy can be that is just a misstake of me.

chily

03-03-2008, 04:20 PM

I had Peaceful link on a brig and dps buff on me and log says:YOUR Linked Pain hits Zykluk Vyx for 636 mental damage.In parse the hatedec porc counts for myself but i'm not sure who get's the generated hate from it.

Signal9

03-03-2008, 04:56 PM

The only problem I have considering Tash as actual utility is that it benefits no one other than myself.It ONLY debuffs mental, and the only class that does mental damage is the Enchanter subclasses.It's great for us, but it does bupkis for anyone else.

Antryg Mistrose

03-03-2008, 06:21 PM

<cite>Signal9 wrote:</cite><blockquote>The only problem I have considering Tash as actual utility is that it benefits no one other than myself.It ONLY debuffs mental, and the only class that does mental damage is the Enchanter subclasses.It's great for us, but it does bupkis for anyone else.</blockquote>The reason I didn't mention Tash, is that on a raid it benefits Illusionists MORE than us. Troubadors do mental damage too (and can debuff close to Tash anyway continuosly) and Precision of the Maestro is mental. Now which enchanter is most likely to be grouped with a troubador ? .... (yeah, yeah PotM goes raid wide with troub's mythic, but you get the point).I try to synchronise Tash with PotM by getting a tell from troubs as part of their PotM macro regardless.Yes, we get the damage (and presumably hate) from Link, and the castee gets the damage (and there isn't much hate) from Tandem, but I'd rather people stick to issues in this thread so it stays on topic, than go off on mechanics. I've no doubt that if tandem did get credited to the illusionist it would be less popular, but the damage contribution to the raid/group would remain the same, and that > link especially when the illusionist gets their mythic and can then fill up slots with it.

chily

03-03-2008, 07:04 PM

yeah it's sad that tash is only a mental debuff, maybe a tiny bit more use when you have the current mhytical weapon that adds some mental dmg to the taunt's. Still not much more but a little at least :/ the odd thing is that our master strike deals magic instead of mental dmg :/about link .. it's not really usefull as spell shield on mt then since he has nothing from it.

StrollingWolf

03-04-2008, 02:24 PM

Stickied, so let's keep the conversation constructive <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Aule

03-04-2008, 08:54 PM

Coercer AA tree capstone abilities are subtacular:Thought SnapTashianiaManawardCoercive HealingThought snap has some merits in MT or OT group, or in grouping. And is handy for resetting encounters since it's buggy and doesn't operate 100% properly. Biggest complaint heard is that the requirements to obtain are non-useful or at least not highly useful for raiding purposes. [ Recommend leave as is but maybe fix the thought snap to corpse "bug" and figure out how to prevent the spell from resetting various encounters ]Tashiania, as discussed elsewhere, doesn't bring much to the raid, brings dps increase to self and other enchanters. Mixed reactions from the community as to whether they like it or not, but common consensus is that having it or not having it does nothing for raid desirability. [ Recommend either having debuff apply to more than just mental debuff, possibly at cost of reducing the mitigation amount. Alternately change it to be *unresistable* spell that for 13s causes mob to be unable to resist any spell effects. ]Manaward has no use whatsoever in it's current incarnation. The all-or-nothing aspect of manadrains in RoK result in this AA needing a 100% review and/or overhaul. Since mana proc'ing items are completely innundated this expansion I would recommend replacing it with an entirely new ability, that either has directly noticeable group buffage or else significant enough DPS to be worth taking. [ Recommend replace with new ability. ]Coercive Healing, gain of 15% isn't tremendously useful, not in comparison to the illusionist counterpart of Time Compression. This aa is limited to one archetype, priest, and then further limited to one category of their spells. [ Recommend replace with ability: Coercion - expanded ability that has desireable benefits for any archetype that receives the buff, not simply priests. Look at Time Compression and then do something complementary, similar to how DPS from Coercers and Haste from Illusionists. ]Slightly off topic, but common to both enchanter classes is the KoS AA capstone abilities of:Counterblade - no worthwhile use in PVE as you don't see mobs designed with racial or profession spells [ Replace with something that increases utility or personal dps ]Hypnosis - no worthwhile use at all, 2s cast time makes it not be a worthwhile emergency spell [ Replace with something that increases utility or personal dps ]

Rijacki

03-04-2008, 09:17 PM

Illine

03-04-2008, 09:33 PM

<cite>Chillispike@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antryg Mistrose wrote:</cite><blockquote>Emergency Fear vs Emergency Mezz (fear? when did you play coercer or did i miss something? )</blockquote> </blockquote> desaggro spell ... in french "puanteur de la terreur" in english "reek of terror" <a href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Reek_of_Terror" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Reek_of_Terror</a>AO fear plus reduces aggro.I like it honnestly, <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" />

Aule

03-04-2008, 09:38 PM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Signal9 wrote:</cite><blockquote>The only problem I have considering Tash as actual utility is that it benefits no one other than myself.It ONLY debuffs mental, and the only class that does mental damage is the Enchanter subclasses.It's great for us, but it does bupkis for anyone else.</blockquote>Taunts use mental for their resists. So... tash helps the tank hold agro if he's using taunts to do so.</blockquote>My understanding is that Paladin and SK taunts used disruption and everybody else got resisted by mental. Now I'm not positive, someone else can speak to that. That note aside, I know SK's can get their taunts to >60% harder to resist, and that many guardian's don't use taunts when they already have the mob focused on them. I see HO's needing a taunt go uncompleted frequently.

Aule

03-04-2008, 09:52 PM

Major Issue (probably one of the most significant issues)Hostage and Spell CurseBoth of these spells require that the mob succeeds in dealing damage for the reactive to fire. This issue primarily affects Hostage, which not infrequently can have its full 45s (modified by AA's) duration expire with charges left unexpended. In comparison the equivalent Illusionist spell typically has fired all charges by the time the recast cycles.Spell Curse is affected to a lesser degree if the spell is outright resisted due to high resistances on the player. Most of the time the damage is simply mitigated so the effect still fires.Suggestions:Fire the spell on an attempt to deal damage, rather than successfully dealing damage. In order for this to help it must, and I can't stress this enough, MUST fire when the damage is fully absorbed by a ward or avoided by any other passive means.Alternately, have any affect that modifies triggers to instead increase the base damage of the spell by some appropriate amount. Hostage for example has 3 charges base, +2 from AA's and +1 from VP armor set bonus. The result is double the charges so each should increase the base damage*** by 33% and then leave the charges at 3.*** This must be BASE DAMAGE. If it is not base damage then this effect will be a nerf due to maximum threshold of spell damage modifier being exceeded.

chily

03-05-2008, 06:09 AM

<cite>Aule@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Signal9 wrote:</cite><blockquote>The only problem I have considering Tash as actual utility is that it benefits no one other than myself.It ONLY debuffs mental, and the only class that does mental damage is the Enchanter subclasses.It's great for us, but it does bupkis for anyone else.</blockquote>Taunts use mental for their resists. So... tash helps the tank hold agro if he's using taunts to do so.</blockquote>My understanding is that Paladin and SK taunts used disruption and everybody else got resisted by mental. Now I'm not positive, someone else can speak to that. That note aside, I know SK's can get their taunts to >60% harder to resist, and that many guardian's don't use taunts when they already have the mob focused on them. I see HO's needing a taunt go uncompleted frequently.</blockquote>Sk taunts are disease based like the other spells, but no clue about the skill i think it's prolly/hopefully aggession.The last named in the KoS-Vaults has high mental and disease resis as far as i remember. My Sk had a hard time dps and taunt on him if i remember right.

chily

03-05-2008, 06:12 AM

<cite>Aule@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>Alternately, have any affect that modifies triggers to instead increase the base damage of the spell by some appropriate amount. Hostage for example has 3 charges base, +2 from AA's and +1 from VP armor set bonus. The result is double the charges so each should increase the base damage*** by 33% and then leave the charges at 3.*** This must be BASE DAMAGE. If it is not base damage then this effect will be a nerf due to maximum threshold of spell damage modifier being exceeded.</blockquote>/thumps up for that <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Illine

03-05-2008, 08:31 AM

yeah that's also one of our problem. We only deal one kind of damage.Sorcerers, conjurators and druids have heat and cold (plus magic I think sometimes).Warlocks necros and shamans disease and poison (plus cold for mystics I think). I don't know for clerics but must be divine and/or magic. Illusionnist must be mostly mental ... Coercers is only mental. So a mob like in KoS vault, we were useless, almost all my spells were resisted. We should have 2 types of damage like the other classes I think, just in case :s. magic en mental damage? And I agree, I have the impression my procs proc less when grouped with a warder. I've always wondered if hostage was procing when the damage was fully absorbed. It should, just like when it's resisted or an attack is missed or parried. The enemy did a move so should be damaged. That's how I see the spell. Not only when the MT is hit. It would increase or dps and let it be constant even when grouped with a great tank.

chily

03-05-2008, 09:04 AM

That we deal only one kind of damage mostly (master strike is magic) is only a problem with mobs that have high resis vs mental.The good thing atm about dealing only 1 kind of damage is that we only need 1 kind of admorment for symbols which is cool.Your debuffs debuff every magic resis and ayslum mental and magic but tash only mental.So we can debuff the ones we need for our dmg good at least <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Antryg Mistrose

03-05-2008, 11:22 AM

Added more stuff that I mainly stole from Aule. If anyone feels I am misquoting them or have anything badly wrong, post/pm and I'll correct. At least until I betray <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Sonorod

03-05-2008, 12:42 PM

I would like to add my own observation or two.I played around with a lot of different aa seetings. What I've seen is that there is a lot of conflict either between the enchanter tree and coercer tree, or the enchanter tree and Coercer's DPS in general:<ol><li>STR line -- The final ability prevents the next class-type spell...can be helpful at times, but thus makes three of our spell lines miss damage opportunities.</li><li>INT line with Power line -- If you are trying to stay under 30% power for VM and have chosen the Power line as well...isn't that a bit counter-productive? As it is, I found staying under 30% even without the power line quite a challenge and usually not worth the effort. Most times I am better off trying to use up my entire power pool during a fight rather than trying to stay low for dps.</li><li>Cataclysmic Mind -- First 3 points in coercion have to go to this ability making it do more reactive damage, but also increasing its duration. Problem, the termination nuke is not increased, but thusly takes longer to happen, overall the AA for this lessens the DPS significantly. Considering the lack of damage already, I just cast it as another hostile spell for Perpetuality and/or a chance at gear proc.</li></ol>A word on possession. I always compare this to other spells that saw their debut at 65. Fusion vs Possession. Forget the fact that it added a substatntial amount of wiz dps. Look at how often it's used. That's what we want. A spell that our class will look for a way to use whenever it is available. Even if it gets me killed, I want to have fun with it! I really wouldn't mind if it was useable on charmed pets to give us a summoner's touch, but that's not real original...but should work that way anyhow. The link line is used primarly as a De-aggro and it's really one of the best short of say a Guardians single target ability. But I do see an increase in my DPS when I have 3 of these up against an aoe-ing mob. But I think I'd rather see some sort of benefit to either my or my allie's abilities.As for Puppet Master, I think the spell is fun. But again, compare the new spell to another new spell. Bloodletter for SK's. They get a self-death preventer. We get 20 more DPS (if the adept III gets to run full, unresisted course). I try to use this when it is up just so there are at least 3 more targets to proc Spell Curse. We are a utility class for the most part and I think these little guys should carry some sort of control or utility affect. I think if each of the mob used some watered-down version of the mob's abilities this would be a better spell.Charm -- At the rate they keep reducing the effectivness of charmed pets, I use this more and more as just a 30 minute stun. Soloing it still works, but only as a meatshield regardless of pet picked. If our other control spells affects epics for 1/3 duration, why not this one? Could add some fun to a raid or some pull options.Great thread! I hope someone with red letters takes a good look here at all the constructiveness.

chily

03-05-2008, 01:30 PM

<cite>Sonorod wrote:</cite><blockquote>1. STR line -- The final ability prevents the next class-type spell...can be helpful at times, but thus makes three of our spell lines miss damage opportunities.Yeah, the 100% repose is only on caster = the coercer not his pet our group mates. and it's nice for pvp necro's and other classes like to start with fear and the repose from that one send it back to him.Also i think many coercer are specced for full int/agi and if they went str line (like me) you can't get the last abilty of the line with 70aa in enchanter tree.2. INT line with Power line -- If you are trying to stay under 30% power for VM and have chosen the Power line as well...isn't that a bit counter-productive? As it is, I found staying under 30% even without the power line quite a challenge and usually not worth the effort. Most times I am better off trying to use up my entire power pool during a fight rather than trying to stay low for dps.Depents how you see it. If you see it as a big thing that you have to stay under 30% for dps all the time it's not 100% true coz you still can dps if you are above 30% just lesser lol.Also the problem with staying under 30% isn't the power line in rok, the problem behind is that many healer use power porc items for groups ! so they feed you a bit too :/. The other odd thing is that our current mthyical weapon returns 60% power on manaflow which makes the VM even more bad :/3. Cataclysmic Mind -- First 3 points in coercion have to go to this ability making it do more reactive damage, but also increasing its duration. Problem, the termination nuke is not increased, but thusly takes longer to happen, overall the AA for this lessens the DPS significantly. Considering the lack of damage already, I just cast it as another hostile spell for Perpetuality and/or a chance at gear proc.Yeah that one is defo crap. i spend 3 points in it for the next spells in line and inc the duration by 6 (i think) from it <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote>my 2cp <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Aule

03-05-2008, 06:33 PM

Some things to include in the Good Things column from a raiding perspective:Self invis - blocks AOE, particularly of use in the MT group to invis yourself for pulls that generally start off with an immediate aoe hit. Let's you avoid the AOE and thus not use up that portion of the group ward.Channeling - for the increasingly rare situations where we find our group getting low on power, this spell is just awesome. One of the only spells the class has currently that make group members say "Wow".Shock Wave - already mentioned, just like to reiterate that this spell is well done. One of the few that is significantly superior to the Illusionist counterpart.Peaceful Link - while it does nothing for dps the way Tandem does, which is where the major complaint comes from, it is significant in that we have the option of reducing hate gained by any class, even a Fighter.Mitigation Debuffs - especially when paired with a Brigand, these are just good clean fun and increase DPS of the raid spell casters (and some item proc's).Ego Torrent and Stuns - well timed use of these spells can give that little bit of breathing room to keep the tank alive. Doesn't apply to instances though since you know, instance named mobs are superior to epic x4's in terms of resisting control effects. (Okay okay couldn't resist a little complaint on that aspect.)Root - Affects Epic mobs for reduced duration, the 5% best-in-class break rate on Root means it may even last a little while on an Epic.

chris93699

03-06-2008, 06:18 PM

Any positive changes would be most most welcome. Every other pathc i see notes on all other classes being changed, illys geting more gopd stuff.. and if any changes to coercer we are nerfed. Been playing a coercer for two years now and the slope is getting steeper and steeper. A lot of us hoped for positive change with kunark and well we do even less now. Tho i could say one thing that would make me happy and easy to do ... nerf the heck out of illusionists so they on same level as us.

Flaask

03-06-2008, 09:24 PM

<cite>chris93699 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Tho i could say one thing that would make me happy and easy to do ... nerf the heck out of illusionists so they on same level as us.</blockquote>Noooo no no no. This has been brought up in other posts and no one wants to see illus nerfed. Sour grapes won't get us anywhere. If anyone's going to take this thread seriously we can't say things like that.

Alfgand

03-07-2008, 02:17 PM

<cite> Ok, my two cents on Ant's post: OP comments deleted in spots for brevity, my comments in red.</cite><cite> </cite><cite>Antryg Mistrose wrote:</cite><blockquote>Our peers: Coercers place in the overall DPS hierachy seems a bit low. Comparing to other classes with similar utility - Illusionists and Bards. This would be acceptable if coercers had more compelling utility and so were welcome in groups and raids for buffs. This is not the case. These classes, illusionist especially, have higher personal dps, AND more desirable buffs. This is dead on target. It clearly our biggest gripe. Its not even debateable, its dead on. It is important to note that we do not want to nerf our brother enchanters Illusionists, when they finally seem to be "fixed". That would simply result in breaking them and not fixing us. We need to eliminate our pain not share it.<blockquote>Reactive Spell Lines that get worse instead of better:Hostage Spell Curse. Peaceful Link. Cataclsymic Mind. Everything on OP is completely right.Spells with bugs:Thoughtsnap Great spell, OP comments valid.Spell Lines that just don't work well:Possession All sentient life in the entire universe knows this spell is completely useless. Wizards get Fusion and we get this? This was made very very very clear to dev's in the posts in RoK beta, when puppermaster was going to be an upgrade. They listened then and changed it. Please listen now please REPLACE with something good.Puppetmaster DPS is way to low. Idea is fine however the pets are way too small. If the concern is that players will mistake them for adds then use the possession rainbow color effect.Channeling vs Volatile magic OP sounds good on this.Power drains In PVE these are totally usless. This is broken like a pocket watch run over by a pavement roller. Give us DPS or buffs or debuffs that work in place of this.Thought Stones Have mercy and either remove these things or let us sell the stupid things for 10 copper to vendor.Some suggested spell improvements:Tashiana Agree with opManaward SameCoercive Healing Very usefull but needs a boostCounterblade - no worthwhile use in PVE YepHypnosis - no worthwhile use at all YepCharm Frankly Charm is mostly fine. Those who complain about charm breaking. Well thats the price of being able to pick your pet from most mobs in a non raid zone and pick them on the fly. Three concentration slots. Again, frankly not a problem since charm appears to be designed for solo. With that in mind we need to be compensated by higher DPS when we do not have a pet in groups or raids. Our DPS solo with a pet is almost perfect, just give all tier pets a moderate boost in DPS and/or survivability and we are set. Dire Charm would be nice but not a required thing. Pets zoning? How in heck would you balance that? It may not even be technically feasible.Shock Wave Perhaps have this spell cast on a mob, and radiate out from there, rather than the Coercers position (we do NOT want it converted into a green encounter only spell, mind!) That would be sweet indeed !Group DesirabilityFor mages we offer a deaggro (limited by concentrations slots). Thats it. The only "utility" class that offers less is Dirge.For meleers we offer a DPS buff. Dirges get that plus Chime of Blades, possible skills buff, possible double hit buff ... Troubadors have haste, possible double hit buff ... Illusionists get haste (doesn't stack as well as DPS so more effective) and Illusory ArmFor tanks we offer a hate increase. Dirges is much bigger. But we have a hate transfer component too - problem is we don't do much DPS to transfer, unlike assassins or swashbucklers, and swashbucklers just got a big boost there with their mythicFor priests we can offer ONE priest coercive healing and the group increased heal crits.Put this all together, and every group in a raid would prefer a bard over us - dirge or troubador depending on melee or caster, and 3 groups would definetley prefer an illusionist. For the 4th group (MT group) we sort of had a place, but it was not a firm one. With RoK epics hitting so hard 3 priests + dirge + hate transfer is looking more the norm, so we have nowhere to go.Yep, dead on target.Why we are currently a bit more vocal: We are the most broken class in EQ2 thats why. OP lists most reasons. It appears the devs just don't care or dont understand our class. </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>Specific comparison to IllusionistsHaving played both this is my impression - Illusionist is a finished class. Coercer isn'tThis is so very very true.What we need:Fix all above is what we need. No more nerfs to class that is drowning.</blockquote>

Aule

03-07-2008, 02:47 PM

In regards to Haste vs. DPS, my opinion is that it is situational with a slight edge to haste.Observational variables: <ul><li>Most melee chars are using 3.5-4.5 delay weapons these days</li><li>Dual wielding increases the delay further</li><li>Bards increase haste significantly</li><li>Inquisitors buff DPS</li><li>Melee chars are expected to have some sort of permanent haste item</li><li>Many adornments exist for upping DPS mod</li><li>Monks raid buff haste</li><li>Illusionist epic includes a double attack modifier</li></ul>When grouped with either enchanter the affected class will be normally well over 100 on their mod. So the returns for either are being marginalized by the massive amounts of buffing.Haste, however, affects not only weapon damage but ALSO affects rate of melee proc's. DPS only affects weapon damage.I believe that based on this set of information that haste mod has a better long term effect except for the few occasions of mobs with damage shields that can not be dispelled and fights like Venril Sathir where you expect a decently high percentage of time spent not swinging.I would like to see, whether it's an epic component or just a boost to the spell, some sort of additional bonus provided by the DPS buff. This can be a way to continue to improve the spell line without adding to the DPS component. Whether this be an increase to base damage of spells and combat arts, double attack rate, melee crit rate, addition of a proc on successful attack, whatever.The fact that I add a DPS mod to my group melee characters, and an illusionist adds a marginally superior haste mod, along with a double attack rate, along with a single target 25% double attack mod leads me to believe that any melee group is going to see a better return on investment by having an illusionist instead of a coercer.

Lleinen

03-07-2008, 03:36 PM

From this thread...sources posted here also...<a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=409535" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=409535</a>SUMMARY OF COERCER PROBLEMS :RaidingCoercers are having trouble finding a good fit into raids lately. It seems for the most part that coercers mainly can only go into the MT/OT group because of their hate buff and ... well, thats all they really have. Thats the problem. Our utility compared to other classes (dirge, illusionist, swash(hate transfer)) is horrid.Some people will say, " Yah! But we have channeling and can maintain a groups power like nothing else! " . And thats true...but in the end, with raiding, thats not the problem anymore. If you take a few hours out of your day any raid can be setup with enough power procing items to have them set for just about anything.Also, our DPS is a joke. Its either low or high, theres no real in between. Either the mob hits your tank/raid or it doesnt. There is no middle ground. Our DPS is too situational and annoying. We've already given proper insight for this. Have Auspex and Spell Lash proc on ATTEMPTS/SUCCESS instead of only successfull hits.So in review our buffs are FAR INFERIOR to dirges, illusionists, and swashbucklers, why would you need a coercer for any group? DPS is nice for...what...a ranger and monk? Who uses those on raids anymore? Maybe a monk but...yah. Then theres the power proc thing that makes our class a joke along with REACTIVE damage based on your tank/raid getting HURT!? Isnt the point of a raid to get better and not die/get hurt in time...so as the raid gets better our DPS gets worse?Mythical (Raiding) Epic RewardNot to toot my own horn here but I WW disco'd the fabled version of this epic and never have I been more crushed than I was when I saw it. The effect was poorly thought out and will totally never be used...let alone on the Mythical version. Im not really a "grouper" or "casual" person so Ill leave you guys to comment on that, but I will comment on the Mythical.Hands down, the worst epic. The stats arnt even that good. I didnt get disco on this and when I saw the mythical get disco'd I have been teetering over the betray button for a while ever since that day. I have faith. I dunno...I just have faith, for some odd reason, that maybe, just maybe this time coercers might get some love. So I will go over it really fast...Wisdom instead of STR. The amount of WIS on this weapon wont help with resists, at all. And as a mage STR gear is hard to find. All things being said this item should be "epic" and having WIS on it doesnt make it epic in anyway. Then, there is Siren's Gift. The stake to my heart. A proc (even if it wasnt a proc it would still suck) that does -20% power use for 10 sec...wow. Thats alone shows that the coercer class is completely and utterly ignored and not looked at. Coercers have no trouble, as is, to maintain the power of their group with the 4 combo we have called Channeling, Cannibalize Thoughts, Mana Flow, and Mana Shroud. Why do we need ANOTHER power reducing effect? We dont! I understand the dev's want that to be our main role, but they seem to not understand how the game works at the moment. How can you make a class do something specific (and just about only that) and then release items with AMAZING power proc'ing capability. Helm of C.Mayong and the belt from Chokadi collar collection quest just to name a couple. A healer with ONE of these items INSTANTLY cancels out ANY possibility (outside of an outright 100% power drain) to lose their power.-20% power use is meanlingless, useless, and a horrible thought up proc. Two thumbs way down to whoever thought this one up. Then there is the focus to Mana Flow to make it group. Just to comment, about QA as well, wow, did you guys even test this item out? Mana Flow returns 10% power for every person in that group plus pets to the coercer. I mean...do you know what our AAs are? You must...because Illusionists are so well taken care of, dont you? The last ability in INT line tells us that we MUST stay under 30% power to gain 25% more damage.With this focus effect, how are we going to stay under 30% power all the time? Simply put, just dont ever cast mana flow? The devs shoulda had this fixed in GU43...but it wasnt. Not suprising, hopefully all the epic fixes will come out sometime before the next expansion at this rate.Then there is the last effect, the clicky. Adds mental damage to a fighter in your groups' taunts. I love how our epic helps out other people all around and we dont get a single thing to help us besides 10% reuse (which btw, is the only plus on this item). I understand where they are trying to go with this and his sighted at MT/OT coercers...too bad its trash. They dont need the extra beef, all we're doing is increasing their DPS (which btw, gets upgraded with THEIR epic)...so why not beef our DPS? And no I dont mean add 2 pets to puppetmaster (which is a horrible thought out spell as well).I dont understand. I know a lot of raiding coercers think "wow, what the heck is going on" when they look at an illusionist parse compared to ours. They are much more consistant across the board. For us, especially now with the resist nerf to mages resist rate, our DPS has always been situational and depended on the mob. So what I dont understand is why we dont get a clicky buff to buff ourselves and give us a extra proc (or even just make it a proc on the weapon and do away with clicky) for significantly higher DPS. Why is a mystic and fury outparsing me some of the time? Im a mage, and I have SOME usefull utility (see power proc'ing items above) in my DPS/hatebuff but its so minimal why does our DPS have to keep suffering more and more and more?This epic failed. 80%+ of the raiding coercer population agrees. It could have been better in SO MANY other ways but...sadly, it isnt and at this rate wont be, but again, I hold faith. If you'd like to see suggestions (which btw they are TONS that are MUCH better than current effects on some of my sources at the bottom of this under the epic concerns).DPSOne word. Reactive. In some situations its crazy good and other situations its horrible. As your raid gets better, your DPS drops more and more and more. If your tank is avoiding or blocking a hit, your losing DPS. If, like Nexona, the AE is bugged, when it goes off you will only get 1 trigger instead of 5 triggers of Spell Curse...why is that? Illusionists get a click they put on a ALLY and instantly get their reactives used up. For us we have to wait for our raid to be hurt...that doesnt make any sense. (even in groups this is hard, most mobs are heroic and there are so many stuns/dazes/stifles out there that we just get use up 3-6 triggers on 1 mob, and obviously, rarely, there are mobs that use them right up).Basically what Im saying is....our DPS is TOO INCONSISTANT. I've already floated the idea out there that in order to save coercer DPS then they need to make Hostage / Spell Curse proc on any ATTEMPTED/SUCCESSFULL hit. Not just successfull. It makes our DPS in some situations minimal and I dont see why I have to cheer for my tank/dps overaggro'ers to get hit so I can see my numbers going up.Some say...well, why would you do that? Your utility not DPS! WRONG. We are a mage class with MINIMAL utility and MINIMAL dps. A good chance to help coercers with DPS has been averted 2 times thanks to Lockeye and Aeralik. Possession is not group (too risky) or raid (uhh, epics?) useable, bugged, and just an outright horrible (breaks when we get farted on, bugs ring events, etc) spell. Puppetmaster sucks...thats all. Swarm pets that dont do a thing. I took this spell off my hotbar a couple days ago because I lost DPS by casting it. 3 pets that have a chance to hit for 2-300 and miss quite a bit? Now with the caster nerf...lol, thx Aeralik *thumbs down*. What were you thinking? (Honest Q. please answer).Our DPS really could be brought up to par by balancing the damage output that Hostage/Spell Curse do then making it proc on attempted/successfull attacks, and increasing Hemmorage damage a bit and/or make Cataclysmic Mind back into a nuke...at the moment its worthless. Power drains dont do anything...why do we still have this spell? The trigger at the end still doesnt do anything for this spell.CharmingPersonally for the risk vs reward I dont think our pets needed to be toned down 50%. Yes they needed a little nerf bat, but all the way down 50% is a bit much. I dont group that much so Ill let someone that does comment on this more (see sources below), but I believe you guys need to stop making PvE get affected by PvP. They are seperate and we're sick of seeing the minority change our game for us. Make it SEPERATE. And tone PvE pets back up about 20%.UtilityNot much I can say here that I didnt already say under the epic forum. Ill go over all our utility :Power management (its all fine and dandy, Cannibalize Thoughts, ManaFlow, Channeling, Mana Shroud) *thumbs up*Hate buff (worse than dirge, hate transfer is minimal because our DPS is, especially now after caster nerf to oranges, too inconsistant (see DPS section to fix this)).DPS (not bad, too bad we usually only put it on 1-2 people at most. Just make it a group buff for 1 conc or somethin.)Deaggro (proc's when the person gets AE'd...not even sure if its working anymore, imo change it to something like Synergism, make it proc when that person attacks, that will bring up utility A LOT)Stunning/Dazing (nice, works fine in raids and solo, too bad it counters our DPS because the mob wont be attacking, therefore neither will we)Stifles (useless, power drains too)Crowd Control (situational and rare, for the most part its turn and burn, pull lots and burn em down!! who cares about mezzing? again, very situational)Debuffs Obliterated and Asylum (dont debuff enough, asylum is ok, obliterated should be around 2k imo...make it like tash in eq1 which was very usefull)Most our utility is situational (CC, deaggro, debuffs, stun/daze)...some of it its minimally usefull (aggro buff, dps)...and some of it just is hardly used (power management, items drop in game that make these almost unused).Best way to give us more utility is to increase our DPS to make our hate transfer better, make our deaggro proc on attacks and not getting attacked, and upgrade our debuffs to be more usefull. The problem is we dont have any good utility that makes us stand out (dirge has CoB and +melee buffs, crits, hate buff, etc which is all fine, illus have haste IA synergism less-power-use less-resists, etc....we get hate and dps...thats it, it doesnt make us stand out in ANYWAY)

ChodeNode1

03-07-2008, 04:55 PM

How about for the ability that procs off of the mob hitting the tank, make it a single charge that has 3+ ticks of the stated damage?

Oriax

03-08-2008, 08:50 PM

Came up with a Puppetmaster spell change/improvement which I noted in my post:<a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=409787" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=409787</a>In case anyone liked/disliked it and want to put their 2 cents in.

Antryg Mistrose

03-09-2008, 04:01 PM

Corrected some spelling mistakes, and the definitions of Hostage & Spell Curse as per Harowen's comments

Wrapye

03-09-2008, 05:17 PM

<cite>Aule@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>Some things to include in the Good Things column from a raiding perspective:Self invis - blocks AOE, particularly of use in the MT group to invis yourself for pulls that generally start off with an immediate aoe hit. Let's you avoid the AOE and thus not use up that portion of the group ward.I have been running into more and more AoE attacks that break my invis, particularly in VP. This negates the advantage of enchanter invis.Peaceful Link - while it does nothing for dps the way Tandem does, which is where the major complaint comes from, it is significant in that we have the option of reducing hate gained by any class, even a Fighter.The deaggro is the same as the previous tier's spell, Harmonious Link, so the T8 version is not an upgrade in any practical sense.</blockquote>

Aule

03-10-2008, 02:54 AM

<cite>Wrapye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aule@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>Some things to include in the Good Things column from a raiding perspective:Self invis - blocks AOE, particularly of use in the MT group to invis yourself for pulls that generally start off with an immediate aoe hit. Let's you avoid the AOE and thus not use up that portion of the group ward.I have been running into more and more AoE attacks that break my invis, particularly in VP. This negates the advantage of enchanter invis.Peaceful Link - while it does nothing for dps the way Tandem does, which is where the major complaint comes from, it is significant in that we have the option of reducing hate gained by any class, even a Fighter.The deaggro is the same as the previous tier's spell, Harmonious Link, so the T8 version is not an upgrade in any practical sense.</blockquote></blockquote>Good point. With the advent of a number of raid encounters forcing the entire raid into combat to start with the benefit of the self invis is being more marginalized. Should note that in there somewhere.

chily

03-10-2008, 07:18 AM

Where is the upgrade or a item to boost our dps buff in rok?In Eof we where able to boost our dps buff by 10 more from 78 to 88dps buff.In Rok no set piece or mthyical does that <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Illu's had in eof haste inc on set armor and now in rok a change to group wide + doubble attack.With the last increase of resis on epic mobs the taunt from tank resis a lot more too, so the adding of mental dmg to them alone is even more useless.I would wish the mythcial weapon would make the tanks CA and stuff harder to resist too (like illu's have a spell for that allrdy <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> )

Signal9

03-10-2008, 03:25 PM

<cite>chris93699 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Any positive changes would be most most welcome. Every other pathc i see notes on all other classes being changed, illys geting more gopd stuff.. and if any changes to coercer we are nerfed. Been playing a coercer for two years now and the slope is getting steeper and steeper. A lot of us hoped for positive change with kunark and well we do even less now. Tho i could say one thing that would make me happy and easy to do ... nerf the heck out of illusionists so they on same level as us.</blockquote>This is being part of the problem, not being part of the cure. Asking for nerfs to others is moronic, as it just dumbs down the entire game.We want fixes, not nerfs.

Signal9

03-10-2008, 03:30 PM

<cite>Chillispike@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>Where is the upgrade or a item to boost our dps buff in rok?In Eof we where able to boost our dps buff by 10 more from 78 to 88dps buff.In Rok no set piece or mthyical does that <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" />Illu's had in eof haste inc on set armor and now in rok a change to group wide + doubble attack.With the last increase of resis on epic mobs the taunt from tank resis a lot more too, so the adding of mental dmg to them alone is even more useless.I would wish the mythcial weapon would make the tanks CA and stuff harder to resist too (like illu's have a spell for that allrdy <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /> )</blockquote>There is no upgrade. They nerfed the crap out of it, supposedly in order to provide more "headroom", but we've got nothing to show for that nerf either. I expected an upgrade to both our DPS buff, and to our hate gain/transfer after both were nerfed.

Antryg Mistrose

03-11-2008, 04:40 AM

<ul><li>Researching this article and checking when various changes/nerfs were made - about 5hrs</li><li>Receiving Tynnomion clusters in the mail as soon as I mentioned I was thinking of betraying - 2.5 plat/cluster on Najena</li><li>Knowing that you are playing a class that "works" - Priceless</li></ul>As you might have gathered I have betrayed.Yes, the post was only up for 10 days, but I did intentionally put a date on it, as I figured it would only take 2minutes for a developer to post "Yes we think coercers aren't quite where we want them yet, and are working on it", and they didn't. I have drawn my own conclusions as a result, and 2 months to properly level an illus in the hopes that coercer will one day ... forget it.Any keener coercer, feel free to copy/paste/steal into another thread.I'll PM for a de-sticky now.p.s. Veil of the Unseen is an enchanter line, NOT a coercer one

chily

03-11-2008, 11:06 AM

<cite>Antryg Mistrose wrote:</cite><blockquote>p.s. Veil of the Unseen is an enchanter line, NOT a coercer one</blockquote>woha really ? checking .....Level 15 Veil of the Unseen for coercer and illu (old level 15 enchanter spell)Level 24 <a href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Illusory_Mask" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Illusory Mask</a> for illu (Group invis) <a href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Smirking_Demeanor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Smirking Demeanor</a> (24) for coercer i think the hate inc and trans is ok <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Please leave this post sticki !!

Gnobrin

03-11-2008, 10:39 PM

Thanks ALL for the wonderful information here! I can't promise prompt change (I've thrown thos thread to the development staff over the past week), but having all the issues in one location, and not several bickering threads is awesome. If I hear ANY murmer of information in regards to this, I'll jump back in!~Gnobrin!

Wrapye

03-12-2008, 11:55 AM

<cite>Gnobrin wrote:</cite><blockquote>I can't promise <strike>prompt</strike> change</blockquote>Fixed that for you. As much as I would like to believe otherwise, and really I'm not trying to be overtly negative, the community manager cannot promise any change whatsoever. The only people who can do that are the lead developer and/or the producer.

Illine

03-12-2008, 12:58 PM

still it's good to have an answer. Means someone did read our posts and we could hope for a little change. Better than nothing I guess

Rythen16

03-12-2008, 09:32 PM

Dang it, Gnorbin. I was actually going to log on after reading the forums and start the betrayal to illusionist. Now, I will wait to see if the class I love will be looked at. My coercer will still be shelved, but I'll log my Mystic on and wait a little while longer on betraying my coercer.Thanks for posting and thanks for getting our concerns to the devs that need to see it.

AkiraCrash

03-13-2008, 12:42 PM

i've all but retired my coercer at 70 just from the dismal outlook of Coercers in general. we seem to be becoming obsolote in raid environs. Charm effectiveness removed, most abilitites either useless or ineffective.resisted, epic with obsolete abilities, we've got nothing to look forward to anymore. please do something to make coercers wanted in any form. right now we have nothing left to make this class stand out from any other, in fact were wanted even less now in raid, and as such, will be overlooked in raids and group due to being ineffective compared to other classes.we have no cards to play anymore. power regen is moot, we can't deal damage, our reactives are dead, our charms are dead, were a second rate mezzer compared to illusionists. make something happen people, and bring back the validity of the coercer!

Cawti

03-13-2008, 04:30 PM

This is my first post on the official forums, although I've been fairly active on "another" site talking about Coercer issues.This outline of the current issues with the class is pretty complete. However the suggested changes are all pretty minor. The real problem with the class right now in raid/group settings is that we don't have a niche of our own. So, I'd like to suggest to the devs who are looking at these issues: Don't rule out major re-envisioning of this class.When people who don't actually know the classes talk about the difference between coercer and illusionist they say that coercer is set up to be better "melee buffers" while illusionists buff mages more. Consider making this a true statement.Enchanters, like the priests have a melee line. Along with making us better melee buffers, perhaps you could (like the Mystics, Wardens and Inquisitors) make us a "battle" caster. Then, the way our reactive damage works would make more sense in a solo setting. ((However these still need to proc on attempted mob actions, not mob "successful" actions.) You could replace some of our "useless" spells with things that cement us in this role. You could consider replacing the power drains with something that augments this role as well. (Or simply with more damage.)The one thing that I think we are really crying out for here is for the class to have a "vision". When addressing this, I think it would help if you, in the process, gave us a niche of our own.In order to make the battle mage thing work, we'd need defenses that work against stun immune mobs, (one idea was a rune that perhaps also protected us vs CC effects). We'd also need buffs that we, and other group members would actually look forward to having.Maybe the rest of the community doesn't like melee as much as I do. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But the greater point of my post here is to ask for you to first come up with a vision for the class, and *then* look at the specific issues.

Aule

03-19-2008, 12:06 AM

One thing that I think any dev/designer/whatever should ask themselves whenever making decisions about our class should be:- Does the change I am planning on making pigeonhole the Coercer to a specific group? Or does the change increase options available to the class?As an example, Thought Snap. Directs encounter to random target in group. If the Coercer does not end up in the main tank group or the off tank group, this AA has zero usefulness. It's is also nearly useless if you're in the off tank group, but for some reason there's another fighter in there like say, the monk lands there. If instead you marked the target with a cross-raid buff, similar to how Safehouse works, then it would not matter what group you ended up in as your thought snap would point to the specific tank. Also, you would have specific control over the person who is receiving the mobs, which is something that has always annoyed me. This would allow usefulness such as being in the main tank group and being able to thought snap the out of encounter adds that pop to some other tank, rather than the main tank.That's just one example, there are others, coercive healing, mythical right click effect, etc.I don't want a niche that if I'm not in I'm significantly losing effectiveness. I want my class to be useful in any group and bring usefulness to the raid in any group.

Illine

03-19-2008, 09:52 AM

we're not the only class with this problem of useless spells dépending on our raid group.Assassin's or swash aggro transfert, solo buff that proc when taking damage. like the warden heal buff. The defiler reducing dps buff, the spine cloak buff from warden and fury.also the weapon buffs if you are in a caster group. The mythical increases the swash aggro transfert. But if he's in a group where noone can accept it, is it more usefull than our buff to put on mt? Plus on the MT group, there are usually litlte mana problems, so mana flow group wide not good. I usually use it on priests on other groups.What I would have loved is seeing channel raid wide ... THAT is a great spell and would have been so usefull.but hey, I'm not going to have the mythical anytime soon <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so I don't worry now.

Signal9

03-19-2008, 02:43 PM

<cite>Rythen16 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Dang it, Gnorbin. I was actually going to log on after reading the forums and start the betrayal to illusionist. Now, I will wait to see if the class I love will be looked at. My coercer will still be shelved, but I'll log my Mystic on and wait a little while longer on betraying my coercer.Thanks for posting and thanks for getting our concerns to the devs that need to see it. </blockquote>I would not anticipate seeing any information in the next 6 weeks mimnimum. Nothing will occur quickly in this matter.I do not plan on betraying at all, but I've lived through enough of these sessions that I won't be holding my breath for change.

Maroger

03-19-2008, 11:51 PM

They gave Illusionist a permanent pet, so I wish they would bring back the animation from EQ1 for Coercers. I would much rather have the animation back than having to g out and Charm a pet each time I solo.They have made soloing much harder for a coercer esp. when compared to an Illusionist or the EQ1 Enchanter. I personally think it was a mistake to divide the EQ1 Enchanter into two classes.When will they fix out spells? We have a lot of spells that do power drains but mobs have no power so the spell is useless. We were promised a fix for them many, many years ago when they nerfed the power drain but of course they never fixed it. Now we have a whole line of useless spells.

Lleinen

03-20-2008, 07:16 AM

Worthless Spells (in idea and general)Puppetmaster (trash)Possession (trash)Cataclysmic Mind (trash, doesnt work in PvE) Harrowing Silence (mana drain portion)Intrepid Focus (mana drain portion)Unreliable Spells (inconsistant, decent ideas, need to be advanced more)Hostage (on any attempted hit, not successful)Spell Curse (on any attempted hit, not successful)Peaceful Link (deaggro is good, but why not make the proc more usefull?)Mythical Epic (psst! its horrible in every way!!)Siren's Stare - fighter taunt proc (worthless, dmg is pitiful, give coercers dps love here)Siren's Gift - minus 20% power use (worthless, b4 epic I tell my dirge to not even run power buff, isnt that a bad sign? many options on this one posted all over the boards and in this thread)Group Mana Flow - decent idea, but bugged (dunno how QA dropped the ball on this one, returns WAY too much power negating INT line, but again, power isnt needed if your going to put so many power procing items in game, thinky thinky)

Aule

03-20-2008, 06:39 PM

As a follow up, and I know that this thread is primarily about raiding concerns, but a perfect piece of evidence that the dev's don't seem to have anything approaching a good grasp on dealing with our class is the named mob immunities.You all know the one's we're talking about, the ones that are immune to stun (got 4), stifle (1), root (1), mez (2) and daze (1). Epic mobs aren't immune to these, they simply get reduced duration and temporary immunity. But these non-epic mobs get to enjoy full immunity to 1/3rd of my spell book.Non-epic named mobs should, at absolute most, enjoy the same limited effectiveness that epic mobs have, they shouldn't 100% ignore a huge amount of the effective worth of a class.

Darkflame2

03-21-2008, 05:13 AM

It's a pretty detailed post on how the Coercers are lacking. I would have to agree pretty much on everything Linyen said but would add that our RoK 7 set bonus is broken and still doesn't apply to the group members another disappointment when finnally getting it like the Epic.The idea that we are utility is fine. But, realize that half of our Buffs are now grey spells from later tiers (Impetus and Enraging Demeanor) with no upgrades. Our ability to keep the groups mana full is well under control. Our Crowd Controlling ability in a raid force is serverly limited. Many of our ancient spells are useless in raids (Posession, mindbending, Amnesia (took a huge hit with resist rates) pretty much leaving us with Channeling which is a great spell. I think our Hate transfer is fine personally, hell i am ripped agro a couple times even lately.

Darkflame2

03-22-2008, 01:37 AM

They were some interesting changes on Test today considering the Coercer class and the VP set gear.<a href="http://www.eq2flames.com/coercers/22881-new-fabled-coecer-set-test.html#post520190" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.eq2flames.com/coercers/2...html#post520190</a> has the pics2 Set bonus :Applies Focus: Peaceful Link - Increases the Hate Reduction by 6% and removes the concentration cost(This is the coolest thing ever minus the fact that I have to buff/rebuff it for each and everytime. just make it raidwide the maintain window just cannt support it and 2 minutes of buffing is crazy, but i LOVE the spell now... I am amazingly useful and I do more DPS and I control more hate)4 Set bonus:Applies Focus: Cannibalize Thoughts - Increases the power restoration by 25%(Same as before just need the 4 pieces now and not 5.. still very good)6 Set bonus:Applies Quickening Strands - Reduces the groups spell casting time by 15%(Would be Great IF IT WORKED ON LIVE OR TEST BUT IT IS STILL BROKEN AND I HAVE BUGGED REPORTED IT MORE THAN ENOUGH. The spell casting haste is applied to the coercer but NO ONE ELSE in the group)

Darkflame2

03-23-2008, 12:17 AM

Because /bug reporting doesnt seem to be read see if this helpsThe Coercer 7 Set bonus (on Live)and 6 Set bonus (on TEst) on VP Class Armor is BROKEN still. The effect of spell haste is applied to the Coercer only and no one else in the group.

Rijacki

03-23-2008, 01:03 AM

<cite>Shadowlings@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>Because /bug reporting doesnt seem to be read see if this helps</blockquote>Do you realise this is the Saturday before Easter and, aside from it being a weekend, it's a holiday many people in the US celebrate from Friday to Sunday?The patch with all the changes went on Test late in the day on Thursday.

Darkflame2

03-23-2008, 01:32 PM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Shadowlings@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>Because /bug reporting doesnt seem to be read see if this helps</blockquote>Do you realise this is the Saturday before Easter and, aside from it being a weekend, it's a holiday many people in the US celebrate from Friday to Sunday?The patch with all the changes went on Test late in the day on Thursday.</blockquote>GGDo you realize that RoK came out at the end of last year and this got by QADo you realize that Trak died on March 6th and I have been bug reporting it and more 1-3 times a day since thenDo you realize that since Test on Tuesday I have been bug reporting that set alsoandDo you realize this is one of the main problems with Coercer, that we are overlook so often. Also that in my career I have most likely sent in over 300 bug reports over all main characters/accounts and seen very little action taken. Trying to help the Coercer class here but it's so damm hard when stuff isnt done or the only reply is someone pointing out the date of a holiday weekend.BTW I knew it was easter a dev told me 8P

Rijacki

03-23-2008, 05:20 PM

<cite>Shadowlings@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Shadowlings@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>Because /bug reporting doesnt seem to be read see if this helps</blockquote>Do you realise this is the Saturday before Easter and, aside from it being a weekend, it's a holiday many people in the US celebrate from Friday to Sunday?The patch with all the changes went on Test late in the day on Thursday.</blockquote>GGDo you realize that RoK came out at the end of last year and this got by QADo you realize that Trak died on March 6th and I have been bug reporting it and more 1-3 times a day since thenDo you realize that since Test on Tuesday I have been bug reporting that set alsoandDo you realize this is one of the main problems with Coercer, that we are overlook so often. Also that in my career I have most likely sent in over 300 bug reports over all main characters/accounts and seen very little action taken. Trying to help the Coercer class here but it's so damm hard when stuff isnt done or the only reply is someone pointing out the date of a holiday weekend.BTW I knew it was easter a dev told me 8P</blockquote>I am well aware we're often overlooked. Posting the information about the coercer set changed in the In Testing forum (it's still on Test not Live, yes?) without using a redirect to EQ2Flames might help. It would most likely be better than in an obscure forum which is rarely, if ever read.

Darkflame2

03-23-2008, 09:10 PM

FFS the name of the thread is Subject: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>Re:1st March 2008 - Current issues with the Coercer Class <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/insert.m?topic_id=409617&forum_id=75&start=60" target="_blank"><img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/transp.gif" alt="" width="10" height="10" border="0" /></a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/quote.m?post_id=4599303&start=60" target="_blank"><img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/transp.gif" alt="" width="10" height="10" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=60&topic_id=409617#top" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/styles/EQ2/eq2_default/images/common/icon_up.gif" alt="" width="16" height="15" border="0" /></a> I said Live and Test set bonuses are broken. IF they are truely asking and looking for input into the live of a coercer and thats what this thread is for ... then it would be assumed it is read as it also has been stickyed to the TOP of the forum. Now got anything of our own on Coercer issues?

Sonorod

03-24-2008, 10:00 AM

Something else I've /bugged is that our fabled epic adds 5% spell reuse haste, but while it says "ALL SPELLS" very clearly, it does not affect anything not in the "splls" tab in our knowledge book. Everything else we cast counts as a spell for perpetuality, so why don't we see the reduction in reuse timers on "ALL" of our spells? I can only assume the same is true with the Mythical. Being able to recast Hemmorage and Channel faster is nice, but I'd really like to see miracles, thought snap, tashiana and the like all refresh faster too.

Gungo

03-25-2008, 04:15 PM

I had a few ideas for coercer spells as i see them as the defensive debuffing counter to illusionist if you liek them use them if you do not like them then don't.Instead of illusionary arm allow coercers to debuff Double atk by 25%Instead of time compression allowcoercers to increase the recast and cast of npc abilities (to much like traumatic swipe)with all the new physical damage reduction abilites how about adding a 10% spell damage reduction to a coercers groupFinally a ward reactive that prevents the next hit on target and reflects that amount UP to a certain number say 3325 (same as repent) back toward the NPC. it is a damage ward and Feedback which will help in the mt group alot. also allowing power drains to work with cataclysmic mind and cause damage would be great.

Sonorod

03-25-2008, 07:31 PM

<cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>I had a few ideas for coercer spells as i see them as the defensive debuffing counter to illusionist if you liek them use them if you do not like them then don't. That's the problem we already have. We currently don't like some spells so we don't use them, or if we do use we don't see benefits.Instead of illusionary arm allow coercers to debuff Double atk by 25% Interesting idea, has merit, but what about mobs that have less than 25% chance already? Would debuffing into negatives present the chance they don't do their single attack? More likely that it would end up serviving no benefit past a 0% dbl atk chance. This would also cripple our main melee reactive dps.Instead of time compression allowcoercers to increase the recast and cast of npc abilities (to much like traumatic swipe) You mean like Chronosiphoning already does? Wouldn't this be a duplicate ability, or just adding the recast function. Also, the less often mobs cast, the further our major spell lines are crippled.with all the new physical damage reduction abilites how about adding a 10% spell damage reduction to a coercers group I assume you mean like a 10% ward agains incoming hostiles to the group? Meh, sounds like a priest wanna be to me. And no DPS.Finally a ward reactive that prevents the next hit on target and reflects that amount UP to a certain number say 3325 (same as repent) back toward the NPC. it is a damage ward and Feedback which will help in the mt group alot. This has too much smack of Spell Reflect that Illus. get. Also, I think alot of the point of the coercer is that we react to the immediate happenings of our enemies. Again though, I rolled a priest alt to do priestly things.also allowing power drains to work with cataclysmic mind and cause damage would be great. WORD<img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>

Darkflame2

03-25-2008, 11:35 PM

A few mobs on Live now and Test now seem to be immune to thoughtsnap all together now. The spell lands but is ignored by the mob completely. Granted this is a very small number of mobs but seriously is this supposed to happen? more immunity to our control effects and this one straight out immune.Our spell list is already so limited with immunity to control effect that we already find ourselves recasting debuffs and reactive damage spells just to try and keep prepetuality going. I mean reactive damage spells often expire or get reapplied with many counters never used.

Cawti

03-26-2008, 04:53 PM

I posted this on the other thread but just in case this is the only thread getting read by folks who matter, I'm reposting here:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I find it hard to believe that most coercers (at or near the level cap) are happy.At low levels, the class is challenging, but fun. It's neat to go into a zone, and think, "hey who will I charm here?" Or to pull way too many mobs with social aggro and yet still survive because of mez. Lower level coercers probably notice some of the problems with the class, (particularly the irony of having your primary role in a group be to stop the mobs from attacking, while having your primary forms of damage come only when the mob attacks.) However the fun factor of the other things makes it worth it.At high levels this balance BREAKS DOWN. Particularly in raids. After level 58, we don't get any new useful spells. After picking up the AGI and INT AA lines in the enchanter tree, and the 5 points in charm (if you solo), AA's are underwhelming compared to what other classes get.So, basically the class has stagnated in utility for 3 expansions while other classes have kept growing and getting stronger.Look at who is posting on these threads. A huge percentage have the "Loremaster" title. Your longest term players are the ones who are complaining the most. To me, that hints that the folks who are "happy" probably won't be for long, since the people who know what they are talking about are unhappy.Why are people so "suddenly" unhappy?1. The epic weapon is now the 4th time in a row where we could have been given a boost, and were denied one, while we saw our sister class and the other utility classes make out like bandits.2. Initial forays into RoK gave us reason to hope. Mobs had higher hit rates, so our reactives were proccing more. Charmed pets nuked hard enough to hold aggro over our reactives proccing. Many mobs made decent enough pets that we didn't need to cross zones to find one before getting started.3. Itemization in RoK is messed up, and coercers are hurt worse than any other class by it. Handing out uncontesed avoidance to tanks like candy ruins our DPS. Items that proc wards increase the time that our reactives won't proc and ruins our DPS. Tons of +heal and +heal crit gear make the wards bigger and since they block reactives, our DPS is still worse. Items that proc power are exceedingly common and since power management is one of our primary roles in raids we are slowly (or quickly) being rendered irrelevant.Coercers have historically been taken on raids primarily for 3 reasons:1. Hate management: Enraging Demeanor and Harmonious Link primarily. However E.D. only works if we can transfer hate, and since our DPS is getting worse and worse as our raidmates get better, we have a hard time filling this role. Even harder than it was before.2. Power management: This has been rendered almost trivial by itemization. No pressing need for what the coercers have to offer here.3. Amnesia: Resist rates on spells plus a huge lack of +Ordination gear/buffs makes this unreliable. Besides, I don't think a sane raid leader would bring a coercer along just for mem wipes.

chily

03-27-2008, 08:52 AM

Huch does your INT/AGI buff reduce the chance to land a hit and trigger melee reactive?If you buff int/agi you reduce your own dps a bit.What does agi do? increase the chance to dodge an melee attack?

Sonorod

03-27-2008, 01:49 PM

Yes, AGI increases your chances of outright dodging an attack. So by not buffing your group with INT/AGI, you make the tank relatively easier to hit. At lvl 80 it is not hard to hit the INT cap to where the 101 int from m1 group buff does almost nothing for damage, but it is nice to have the extra agi up when mobs turn on us. It's a win/die situation really.

Darkflame2

03-28-2008, 05:52 AM

The link change that was on test has had me thinking about the buff alot lately and if we Coercer could cast the link as a group buff for 1 con slot each and be able to cast it on other raid groups this would work alot better. 1) we could become a true factor in the role of hate with the ability to increase our weak DPS postition.2) it would allow us to still cast it and see whats in our maintain spell effects window only thing is not sure how it could work as for as rebuffing after someone dies.__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________ The Group Manaflow ability of the Coercer Myth Epic , IMO was really a nice addition short of killing the Volatile Magic. That was until I got a better look at what the Illusionist Epic was doing. For awhile I thought Coercer's were King of Power and Power Regen with Channel and thrid Eye. NOT even close now. The power return on the Illuys epic is like 2 to 3 times more than the coercer's including the power returned to teh coercer. The 2 classes are supposed to be balanced. Balanced in a way that we are different enough while still sharing alot of the subclass components.like : Stuns Coercer>Illuy . Mez Illuy>Coercer . Stifle Illuy >Coercer and so on. Its just Illuy are > Coercer in alot of stuff much more then it is possible to say they are balanced or equal.__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ___________Kings of the old tier gray buffs.First the % is a killer in MMORPGs. It has been since Complete Heal. You stopped doing upgrades to most spells with % or DReturns really hits them. Right now the most important things I am bringing to the table at a raid is my Gray buffs of Enraging Demeanor (lvl 52)and Impetus (Sixity something). Right now thats bad really really bad and whats going to happen next teir? How are the up and coming Coercer to replace the shrinking coercer community ever supposed to master these already extremely rare spells? Next tier are we still relaying on spells we got 2 years ago? Also increasing the Illusionist Haste via their Epic and not ours made no sense at all. I dont think it needed to be on their epic anymore then it needed to be on ours. BUT I do think if its ok to be in game the way the illusionists with epics have now than you should really have a Tier8 version of the spells for both classes.

chily

03-28-2008, 07:41 AM

<cite>Shadowlings@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>The link change that was on test has had me thinking about the buff alot lately and if we Coercer could cast the link as a group buff for 1 con slot each and be able to cast it on other raid groups this would work alot better. 1) we could become a true factor in the role of hate with the ability to increase our weak DPS postition.2) it would allow us to still cast it and see whats in our maintain spell effects window only thing is not sure how it could work as for as rebuffing after someone dies.</blockquote>I thinked that to but it would be a bit awfull to buff it once each group or just once raid wide with the current spell.for dps nice no doubt but the hate decrease would be useless because it would hit every class. So we just dec the hate of the whole raid for the same amount. A group wide buff would do that still too.The really annoying thing would be that the range of the effect is only like 25m.Atm you just need to be in 25m range to cast it and the effect is zone wide then.Tbh as annoying it is with all the negative effect's when you die i rather recast it on every player :/

Lleinen

03-29-2008, 07:33 PM

STUNS - Coercer > Illus POWER GENERATION (w/o mythical) - Coercer > IllusDPS - Illus > CoercerMEZ|STIFLE - Illus > CoercerUTILITY - Illus > CoercerMYTHICAL - Illus > CoercerDEBUFFS - Coercer = Illusionist (spell vs melee skill debuff)ROOTS - Illusionist = Coercer (who cares?)So basically coercers are getting smashed by Illusionists in the raiding scene in utility, DPS, and mana regeneration.Groupwise illusionists have better dps, utility, and crowd control (but who really cares about CC), but in the end its not too noticeable cause everything dies so fast anyway.

Illine

03-29-2008, 08:48 PM

<cite>Lleinen wrote:</cite><blockquote>STUNS - Coercer > Illus POWER GENERATION (w/o mythical) - Coercer > IllusDPS - Illus > CoercerMEZ|STIFLE - Illus > CoercerUTILITY - Illus > CoercerMYTHICAL - Illus > CoercerDEBUFFS - Coercer = Illusionist (spell vs melee skill debuff)ROOTS - Illusionist = Coercer (who cares?)daze coercer > Illu (with our root)fear coercer > illu :pSo basically coercers are getting smashed by Illusionists in the raiding scene in utility, DPS, and mana regeneration.Groupwise illusionists have better dps, utility, and crowd control (but who really cares about CC), but in the end its not too noticeable cause everything dies so fast anyway.</blockquote>but stuns > stifflesbut some mobs are immuned to stun but not stiffle .. so Illu > coercer

Darkflame2

03-30-2008, 04:21 AM

<cite>Chillispike@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Shadowlings@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>The link change that was on test has had me thinking about the buff alot lately and if we Coercer could cast the link as a group buff for 1 con slot each and be able to cast it on other raid groups this would work alot better. 1) we could become a true factor in the role of hate with the ability to increase our weak DPS postition.2) it would allow us to still cast it and see whats in our maintain spell effects window only thing is not sure how it could work as for as rebuffing after someone dies.</blockquote>I thinked that to but it would be a bit awfull to buff it once each group or just once raid wide with the current spell.for dps nice no doubt but the hate decrease would be useless because it would hit every class. So we just dec the hate of the whole raid for the same amount. A group wide buff would do that still too.The really annoying thing would be that the range of the effect is only like 25m.Atm you just need to be in 25m range to cast it and the effect is zone wide then.Tbh as annoying it is with all the negative effect's when you die i rather recast it on every player :/</blockquote>Quick note / hint on game mechanics ... If there is a group buff that you dont want then you can right click on it in the maintain spells window and cancel it. This would remove it from say a tank needing hate or Hate transfer. But a 1 con slot group buff would allow you to cast it on 1 maybe 2 groups and 99% of the time that would be the dps groups and not the MT and OT groups. The biggest problem with casting it on 24-28 targets (pets) besides the huge time factor would also be that you filled the maintain buff window and now cannt see debuffs, reactive damage spells, doll, effects or really anything but LINK spell icons.

cxp1

03-31-2008, 05:14 AM

The more I think about the Coercer class, the more puzzled I am about SOE's vision for us. Every class has a spell line or two that is broken, but 1/3 of ours are broken or not useful. The disparity between Illusionist and Coercer's is striking. (look at the VP set gear too... the bias towards illustionist reaches to the gear as well).What suprises me is how long SOE has allowed the imbalance to bleed on. Every week or so I find a new Illusionist that betrayed from a Coercer. You would think SOE would want to try to have balanced popluations, but apparently not. What is problematic about not having balanced population amongst the classes? Well, for one the game is not as interesting .. it has less depth. It's fun to have variety. While betrayal may seem like a simple solution to us whiny Coecers, its unfair to players to have spend the time and effort to get fabled set gear, masters, mythical etc.... Fun factor. I raided in T5 and I hated all the petty buffs... (remeber the stat rings?) I can't believe they want us to cast link on the entire raid. At a minimum SOE would have to change the hate generated by Link to the Coercer for damage credited to us. But it is no fun being a buff bot. Very boring. Buffing is just another time sink. I wish mages could buff fast like fighters. Adding Link to make it raid-wide shows SOE's continuing laziness to fix Coercers. SOE is broadcasting their intent: Lets give them more power utility, and hate reduction, and we can put off doing any real development work on them.The new resist rates remind me of spell fizzles. I rather do less dps without the resists. It makes it unfair to mages since burst melee damage hitting at the beginning of the fight and our stuff is getting resisted. Resists are not fun. The debuffs are harder to land now.I am beginning to question SOE's commitment to the game in general. A lot of the complaints about itemization, raid progression, and game mechanics, are obvious to most high-end raiding players. But SOE still doesn't get it. It's sad because they do put a lot effort in RoK. I think its the best expansion yet.. But, there is still to much tweaking, with gear, with classes, without much fore thought. I first thought the Devs just had something against Coercers... now I just wonder if there is some larger dysfunction in SOE.Hmmm... it would be more honest for Sony just to say: ATTENTION SOE ANNOUNCEMENT: (JOKE)We have designed Illusionist to be a much more powerful raiding class, we highly recommend betraying to Illusionist if you are a Coercer. We appreciate that you like this class, but we really don't understand how to make Coercrs effective on raids. No we are not stupid, we just have other priorities, and don't have time to address Coercer issues since your population is so small. We are sorry we didn't communicate this earlier, we thought if we ignored you for a long period of time you would get the hint.For those who stay, Rejoice! We have found a use for you! A new Mule ability will allow you to carry more items to and from other useful classess. Also, it is no longer necessary to cast spells other than buff spells. Your new BUFF Transfter ability will allow you to cast buffs for other players as well so they can focus on casting debuffs and damage spells. We have also responded to complaints that Coercers are taking a useful slot 24 persons raids so we will allow you to cast from outside the zone in location. However, since only a masochist would countinue to play a Coercer after these recent changes, and our forum does not allow masochists to post. All Coercer related threads have been delete, and your posting rights revoked. Thank you have a nice day!Face it, SOE's vision is that Coercers are a walking manastone... Maybe in the future people can just click on us for power and to deaggro, and we won't even do anything. What is sad, is there is so much noise and whining from almost every class, SOE has become tone-deaf. It does not matter how right you are, or how poignant the issue. We are all just a bunch of whiny players that post on the forums. Obviously, the business case to correct us is not compelling. It must not be worth the development dollars to fix us.I laugh when I hear beserkers, wardens, warlocks and rangers complain. Every classs could use a little tweaking. But only Coercers need a complete overhaul. Bruiser and Shadownights need a huge amount of attention too... but I don't play one of those <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15">It is going to be interesting to see how many Coercers will be left six months from now. Probably very few raiding ones... Vixn Befallen80 Coercer 140AA80 Fury 132 AA72 Guard 90 AA

Alfgand

03-31-2008, 12:43 PM

<cite>cxp1 wrote: (Sven deleted some of Cxp1 post for brevity and Sven comments in Red.)</cite><blockquote>What suprises me is how long SOE has allowed the imbalance to bleed on. Thats for sure.Every week or so I find a new Illusionist that betrayed to a Coercer. I know you really mean Coercer to Illusionist. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />The new resist rates remind me of spell fizzles. lol, I had forgoten about those.ATTENTION SOE ANNOUNCEMENT: (JOKE)We have designed Illusionist to be a much more powerful raiding class, we highly recommend betraying to Illusionist if you are a Coercer. We appreciate that you like this class, but we really don't understand how to make Coercrs effective on raids. No we are not stupid, we just have other priorities, and don't have time to address Coercer issues since your population is so small. We are sorry we didn't communicate this earlier, we thought if we ignored you for a long period of time you would get the hint.For those who stay, Rejoice! We have found a use for you! A new Mule ability will allow you to carry more items to and from other useful classess. Also, it is no longer necessary to cast spells other that buff spells. Your new BUFF Transfter ability will allow you to cast buffs for other players as well so they can focus on casting debuffs and damage spells. We have also responded to complaints that Coercers are taking a useful slot 24 persons raids so we will allow you to cast from outside the zone in location. However, since only a masochist would countinue to play a Coercer after these recent changes, and our forum does not allow masochists to post. All Coercer related threads have been delete, and your posting rights revoked. Thank you have a nice day!ROFLWhat is sad, is there is so much noise and whining from almost every class, SOE has become tone-deaf. It does not matter how right you are, or how poignant the issue. We are all just a bunch of whiny players that post on the forums. Obviously, the business case to correct us is not compelling. It must not be worth the development dollars to fix us.So very sad and so very true. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /> I laugh when I hear beserkers, wardens, warlocks and rangers complain. Every classs could use a little tweaking. But only Coercers need a complete overhaul. Bruiser and Shadownights need a huge amount of attention too... but I don't play one of those <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /> Some classes need minor fixes a few need major fixes and Coercers are on the top of the list that needs major fixes. I just hope they do fix us and not totally shatter us in the process of trying to fix us.It is going to be interesting to see how many Coercers will be left six months from now. Probably very few raiding ones... Who knows, less than there are now which are not many. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /> Vixn Befallen80 Coercer 140AA80 Fury 132 AA72 Guard 90 AA</blockquote>Good post VixnFrom a previous post of mine a while ago....***********************************************A scene from Norrath soon coming to a server near you...The sun is shining on a crisp spring morning as a small boy walks hand in hand with his mother along a street in South Freeport. He says, "Mommie, who is that sad man standing over there in the corner?""Honey, don't point, it's not polite. He is a Coercer, there are almost none of them left." "Why Mommie, what happened to them?""Honey, thats much too sad of a story for such a nice morning."***********************************************

Marillion

03-31-2008, 09:21 PM

Nice post Vixn...I play with him day to day, and we both agree as a group/solo class its fine (the class can do some amazing things solo). The problem i see is that the play testing on test server wont highlight the issue of raid problems. A straight forward question i'd like to see answered once they have played for a number of levels, is how much of what they do in this leveling up, solo and grouping time would they be able to do in raids.By that i mean, make a post that says something like following:Charming is fun and a nice way to solo and an added bonus to have another combatant when grouping. - I can't use any of this functionality in raids.Mezzing is a skill that takes time to master, but once done has allowed us to minimize deaths and control each encounter we take on. - From what i read of the spell descriptions, this will be of very limited use in raids and only apparent if the mob has heroic adds.Etc.But more broken down showing all the limits that get generated by having class abilities performing 0 functionality in raids. Spells should really have a secondary flag, like the pvp mechanic that only turns on during a type combat. This could be initiated by being in an epic instance, and charm spells have pet summoning abilities for quickness of this post.Mikul

skidmark

04-01-2008, 04:50 PM

I wish that they would have just make an enchanter class and you would get to pick and choose your some of your core abilities cafeteria style. i.e. I don't want Charm, I want the pet instead...I like the reactives in exchange for decreased utility....I want better mez/stifle than stuns....etc

Maroger

04-01-2008, 05:08 PM

<cite>Xikks@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote>I wish that they would have just make an enchanter class and you would get to pick and choose your some of your core abilities cafeteria style. i.e. I don't want Charm, I want the pet instead...I like the reactives in exchange for decreased utility....I want better mez/stifle than stuns....etc</blockquote>I too would prefer the pet to Charm - but I don't want to betray to Qeynos. I wish they would make the illusionist Neutral and give Coercers a one-time chance to switch classes. -- OR BRING BACK DIRE CHARM. Or give us the "shiny bob" pet from EQLive. I just want a pet instead of the nerfed charm pet. Coercer's are hopeless in solo if you get a social mob with 4-5 friens -- even with AOE mez. you can get them all quieted down with the full mez before you go SPLAT.I also wish we had a really decent AOE DD spell -- we have no real DPS to help us when we solo.I remember first starting the character when they had all those low level orcs standing around between FRP and CrossRoads. I had an AOE then that would flatten them all. THen along came a massive nerf and I lost the spell. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

chily

04-02-2008, 09:47 AM

<cite>Shadowlings@Guk wrote:</cite> <blockquote>Quick note / hint on game mechanics ... If there is a group buff that you dont want then you can right click on it in the maintain spells window and cancel it. This would remove it <strike>from say a tank needing hate or Hate transfer</strike> the whole group/raid. But a 1 con slot group buff would allow you to cast it on 1 maybe 2 groups and 99% of the time that would be the dps groups and not the MT and OT groups. The biggest problem with casting it on 24-28 targets (pets) besides the huge time factor would also be that you filled the maintain buff window and now cannt see debuffs, reactive damage spells, doll, effects or really anything but LINK spell icons.</blockquote>For example agi/int buff. you want it on you but not on tank. The only 2 possilbe ways to get if of the tank is:1.) you never come closer then 50m to the tank2.) you allways stay closer then 50m to the tank and the tank chancels the buff in his spell window.

chily

04-02-2008, 09:49 AM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>Coercer's are hopeless in solo if you get a social mob with 4-5 friens -- even with AOE mez. you can get them all quieted down with the full mez before you go SPLAT. I also wish we had a really decent AOE DD spell -- we have no real DPS to help us when we solo.I remember first starting the character when they had all those low level orcs standing around between FRP and CrossRoads. I had an AOE then that would flatten them all. THen along came a massive nerf and I lost the spell. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>Looks like you are not level 50 and that you don't body pull with many mobs around.

chily

04-02-2008, 10:29 AM

Raiding:Reactive dmg:2 things about it.First: Reactive dmg is not really trackable !catalystic mind's terminate, hostage and spell curse do dmg with the same name !No chance of seeing if the mob melee's more or casts more or if the running out of catalystic changed something.Second:Successfull hit trigger would be ok if !! we could trigger it with a small chance too.Even a change to attempt of hitting (block, parry, riposte, deflect trigger) can't garantie that all tiggers went of before we can recast it.Things that decrease the chance and time inbetween the successfull hit:debuffs: haste, dps, stats, offencive skillsbuffs: int/agi (from coercer), parry from dirgeShield's: As soon as a the tank uses a better shield the chance to block for him goes up.Food and drinks: The new 15min drinks and food increase parryIf both reatives would have a chance to tigger when mob get's hit it of 5% - 7% maybe it would help.--- hmm now i know what you thinked before !!!You can cast 4 spells on every mob in a long aoe fight, asylum | hostage | psyche | catalysic mind and do some nice dps reallyThe real problem behind that logic is that there are hardly any aoe fights apart from pr raid zone maybe.Even warlocks can change the AE spells to single target and increase dmg by 30% (with mhystical), we can't !

Illine

04-02-2008, 10:39 AM

I never had problems soloing groups. Group mez is fine .. especially now that your pet stop attacking the mez mobs.For the AE DD, we have ego torrent and sonic boom. Then an AE dot and an AE proc and an AE stun if necessary. We're not the most effective AE damage dealer but it's fine. I personnaly find it easier to solo a group of mobs than a solo mob. Especially heroic. 3 ^ mobs are easier than a ^^^ solo mob.

Maroger

04-02-2008, 03:17 PM

<cite>Chillispike@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote>Coercer's are hopeless in solo if you get a social mob with 4-5 friens -- even with AOE mez. you can get them all quieted down with the full mez before you go SPLAT. I also wish we had a really decent AOE DD spell -- we have no real DPS to help us when we solo.I remember first starting the character when they had all those low level orcs standing around between FRP and CrossRoads. I had an AOE then that would flatten them all. THen along came a massive nerf and I lost the spell. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>Looks like you are not level 50 and that you don't body pull with many mobs around.</blockquote>Actually my coercer is 55. I would like to solo the Bloodline Chronicles to get my Vampire Master spell. MY SK got it easily as did my Necro. But I know how many mobs you get in some of those and I suspect my coercer would go splat -- I am not sure a pet would be even useful to charm. Even grey mobs will kill a coercer we are so weak.

Aule

04-02-2008, 04:04 PM

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite> <blockquote>Actually my coercer is 55. I would like to solo the Bloodline Chronicles to get my Vampire Master spell. MY SK got it easily as did my Necro. But I know how many mobs you get in some of those and I suspect my coercer would go splat -- I am not sure a pet would be even useful to charm. Even grey mobs will kill a coercer we are so weak.</blockquote>This doesn't have anything to do with Coercer issues. Unless you're honestly stating that you die to grey mobs, in which case this is definitely not the class for you.

Aule

04-02-2008, 06:20 PM

With the changes to debuffs I think it would be fair to change the Tashiana AA to be unresistable. The tash- line of spells in EQ1 was unresistable and generated a fair amount of hate, that's fine - I'm okay with more hate if that's the exchange. I'm not okay with a spell that's supposedly 52% harder to resist being resisted 3 times in a row. Maybe it could also make spells 25% harder to resist while tashiania is on the mob. This would allow it to be cast towards the start of the fight and allow everybody's debuffs to land easier. Hey that might make the Coercer more valuable on raids!

chily

04-04-2008, 08:30 AM

<cite>Aule@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>With the changes to debuffs I think it would be fair to change the Tashiana AA to be unresistable. The tash- line of spells in EQ1 was unresistable and generated a fair amount of hate, that's fine - I'm okay with more hate if that's the exchange. I'm not okay with a spell that's supposedly 52% harder to resist being resisted 3 times in a row. Maybe it could also make spells 25% harder to resist while tashiania is on the mob. This would allow it to be cast towards the start of the fight and allow everybody's debuffs to land easier. </blockquote>The problem with tashiana is that is has a resistabilty of 52% harder and not a hit bonus of 25% easier.Tashiana at pull is nearly impossible, but nulltifying staff hardly misses because it has a hit bonus <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.

Aule

04-04-2008, 03:22 PM

I think it should just be unresistable. Brainshock already is.Give it a hit bonus and that means changing it to a combat art, even if it has a 35m range that just means it's now subject to parry and riposte and such, unless it also gets immunity to passive defenses. In that case now it's nearly equivalent to being unresistable.

skidmark

04-06-2008, 07:20 PM

What about replacing the efficiency line with a different line. The end ability would be a "Dire Charm-like buff". You cast it on your charmed pet and it prevents it from breaking charm with a small boost to HPs and Power. It lasts for 5 minutes and has a 5 minute recast. Replace the other abilities in the line with pet combat arts that have longer reuse timers. Pet Strike: Mind Strike / / / Pet Strike: Gloom Strike Pet Strike: Silencing Strike | / | / | Pet Strike: Lashing Strike | / | / Pet Strike: Ego Strike Enhance: Psychic Wail (basically move to resistance line and change to resistance mod)Mind Strike: Instead of the Coercer using Mind Shock and its upgrades, their charmed pet can use mind strike as a melee attack. Reuse is increased to 6 seconds.Gloom Strike: Instead of the Coercer using Gloom and its upgrades, their charmed pet can use Gloom Strike as a melee attack. Reuse is increased to 12 seconds.Silencing Strike: Instead of the Coercer using Silence and its upgrades, their charmed pet can use Silencing Strike as a melee attack. All damage is converted from a power drain to a DoT. Reuse is increased to 45 seconds.Lashing Strike: Instead of the Coercer using Lashing Gaze and its upgrades, their charmed pet can using Lashing Strike as a PBAoE attack. Reuse is increased to 20 seconds.Ego Strike: Instead of the Coercer using Ego Shock and its upgrades, their charmed pet can use Ego Strike as a PBAoE attack. Reuse is increased to 1 minute.The encounter attacks (green) become PBAoE (blue) combat arts for the pet. Casting time is essentially 0 offloading the casting responsibility onto the pet, which will free the Coercer up to cast stuns/stifles/roots/etc.I put in a duration and reuse of 5 minutes for the Dire Charm end-line ability, simply because I think SOE views things like that as somewhat of a balancer to a powerful ability, which is what Dire Charm would be. I think this greatly enhances Charm, and it also would help increase the DPS, since the damage dealing can be offloaded onto the pet.Thoughts?

Illine

04-07-2008, 09:42 AM

I like this line as it is.diminishing reuse and casting time for those spells is really usefull. solo, group or raid while your idea would be good only for solo. plus they wouldn't change something that radically. Little changes ok ... but that would take too much time to do so don't hope.

Alienor

04-16-2008, 04:37 PM

Can we get a spell like the summoners call servant aka "bloody pet come here NOW!", please?

AmphibiousOne

05-07-2008, 07:45 AM

Wow. What was originally said in the first post is just.. it's how it is. Just trivially adding that our fun spells (minus the Shapechange: Ratonga) are [Removed for Content] too. By the time everyone is level 80 (so that's all you group with anyway) they don't actually work.

Rijacki

05-07-2008, 11:03 AM

<cite>AmphibiousOne wrote:</cite><blockquote>Wow. What was originally said in the first post is just.. it's how it is.Just trivially adding that our fun spells (minus the Shapechange: Ratonga) are [I cannot control my vocabulary] too. By the time everyone is level 80 (so that's all you group with anyway) they don't actually work.</blockquote>There is an update currently on Test and Test Copy which is going Live with GU45 that changes it all. This thread is about to become obsolete and moot.