I just recently started playing again after the expansion and subsequent patches as wel, but I've got a few weeks head start on you, so maybe I can help out a bit. Your new best friend is your Forced Hesitation (or level 30 equivalent) root spell. It's a short cast root that lasts (my version, I had it at 37 when I started again, not sure what level you get it) 24 seconds. The first half of it, the target is mezzed, but also rooted in case mez breaks. The second half, just mezzed. This root cannot be broken by damage dealt to the target. Instead, the root has a chance to break based on period resistance of the mob. What this amounts to is that 99.9% of mobs your level or lower will *never* break out of it early. I'm sure, as a person who sounds quite familiar with the coercers' history, you can imagine the implications of this spell. Your Breeze+ spells have been changed to a maintained group spell, yay for that, no more having to cast Breeze every 15 minutes on everyone. It seems to me that the spell may have been nerfed to a small extent, but I don't remember the exact regeneration before, so I can't say for sure. It's still enough to be able to regen power in combat with a target mezzed over time if you're patient. Or four targets, if they're not resistant and you're using your new version of AE mez: The revamped "Awe" AE mez line is a spell I now use almost exclusively over the single mezzes. It still requires a thoughtstone, but you generate a lot of those now (more on this later). This mez now lasts 30+ seconds, refreshes in 10, and has a maximum of four targets. It costs roughly 1.5x your base single mez power cost. It comes with the added risk that if a target resists a reapply of the spell, it breaks the old copy of the mez, so you'll want to be ready on root or mesmerize as you use this. Generally, however, resists aren't a big problem with it. If you have an encounter of 5+ mobs, you can choose which ones the AE mez will land on, after a fashion, by applying single mezzes to the ones you don't want. Single mez blocks ae effects from hitting the target, including ae mez. As such, Awe will not overwrite single mez, but single mez will overwrite Awe. If a target has multiple mez effects on it, (root inclusive), all of them will have to fade before the target can awake, unlike it was back in the way-before. Your DoT spells for solo dps while the target is rooted are more or less intact. You more or less have only two options now, Melancholy and Anguish (or level-appropriate versions). Both are worth keeping applied at all times since Melancholy also has a tash-type (EQ1 reference) mental/magic/divine resistance debuff attached, and Anguish taps enough power to *completely renew its own power cost over the duration*. The next big thing is the change to the Despotic Mind line and Sibyllant line. Despotic Mind is no longer a large DD, it's now an impairment that makes the mob take damage any time it uses power. Manaburn type effect. Sibyllant works in a similiar fashion to its previous incarnation, except the effect is no longer ae, and it can apply more than once. Drop Sibyllant on the mob, and for 30 seconds, up to 5 procs, the mob has a chance to take a large amount of reactive damage any time it deals melee damage (50% chance). Later on you'll also get the Spell Lash line, which works like Sibyllant, but with spells, and the effect occurs on every spell, not 50% of them. When fighting casters after you get that spell, Spell Lash + Despotic/Tyrannical Mind will just make them suicide themselves. All three of these spells grant thoughtstones if they're in effect when the mob dies. The catch is that, for most melee-based targets, you really don't want to be tanking them as a coercer, so the DPS potential of Sibyllant and Despotic Mind drop to zero. This is where charm can come in handy if you're soloing. Charm something weak, and use it to force the mob you're killing to proc reactive damage on itself. When it dies, if your pet is low, break the charm and kill the pet. Charm has several annoying problems, though. First, it tends to break far, far too often for its intended maximum duration. Counter here: always keep your target rooted, so when charm breaks you must deal with only one incoming mob instead of two. If you charm a target with any arrows (side note: ^^^ is now the equivalent of the old ^^ con in a heroic group, and appropriate scaling on down from that), the charm will turn the mob into a no arrow version of itself. Thus you're getting 0 extra reward for the higher risk associated with charming a more difficult target. When the charm breaks, the damage dealt to the mob will scale back up to its maximum health, so dismiss your dreams of exploiting charm to get ^^^ mobs to low health then breaking charm for an easy clean-up kill. You can, however, charm a mob and let it die while charmed, as long as (usually) its target is rooted, and you're standing back, the mob will *despawn* when it dies while charmed. This is a bug, it yields no experience, and it will lock that mob on your engaged targets list and disallow you from engaging more than Max-1 number of targets until you relog. You won't be in combat though. Last thing, you can charm a single mob to take yourself out of combat and get decent regen for a time, if that's the only thing you're engaged on. The mob will regen faster than you will, however, so be warned there. Still situationally useful. All that said, I almost never use charm. I generally don't solo mobs for experience, though, I duo with a fury for that (incidentally, if you find a friendly and decent fury, consider the possibilities of their Master II level Starburst AE damage spell combined with your Awe line versus heroic groups of 4 no arrows), so charm may be your bag if that's how you plan to level, it's a matter of preference and situation. Mostly, when I solo, I'm soloing something for loot or fun. Patience is the name of the game, but there's little that you can't solo. For example, last night, I cleared every named in Nektropos Castle, Maltus Everling and guard included, by myself at level 42. Melee ^^^ mobs aren't much challenge, though I recommend an imbued wand to put you over the edge in mana efficiency for the long fights. Also, an int hex doll is nice. Root, dots, wand, patience. Caster ^^^ mobs are much more challenging. While it's tempting to throw on Spell Lash and Despotic Mind and hope, it won't work. They might take 3-4% damage per spell they cast, but you'll take 10-20%, and it won't end pretty. With caster you need to drain their power, and the best way to do this is your new version of your (formerly 14 second duration) stun spell. This spell has a huge power drain, and you can use it, combined with mez, to slowly drain away a mob's power. Just make sure you mez right as it fades or the power drain effect will cancel your mez and you'll get cooked. Once it's out of power: root, dot, and wand away. If you're dealing with a mob that can cast extremely short cast time or instant spells, this method will fail as you'll get burned in the brief second in between your stun and mez. There are ways around this, at your level you'll need to develop your own, since your stun is 7 seconds and the one I'm using now is 9. But as an example, if you queue all these spells in a row, with no pauses, you can lock the mob perfectly with no movement. Eerie Focus (long stun), Muddled Thought, Muddled Thought (yes, twice, 4 second recast here), Bewilder (shorter stun), Mez. With the 9 second stun, this produces a power drain, a little damage, and no risk, save if you get resisted. The last spell I didn't mention is your new Damaged/Scarred Psyche line. Another debuff along the lines of the hex dolls, it's worth using if you're grouped with any other caster, and generally also worth using if you're soloing anything higher than a ^^. I haven't crunched the numbers so I can't swear that it's more efficient than using that power for an extra nuke or two when soloing, but I believe it is. That's about all I can come up with, hope it helps
Feel free to ask if you have any questions!