new coercer needs a bit of help

[casedwards]

Hey guys.  It looks like most people that ask get some good help here so I think I will post my questions here instead of tracking down a coercer in game.  Im a level 30 Coercer by the way.  Most of my equipment is mastercrafted or legendary.  I have 209 int and my other stats have near to nothing.  My spells are split between adepts and app4s.  I do have a few adept 3's 1.)  I  loose my pet  a lot.  I know its a danger of the coercer to loose the pet but I have an adept 3 and I am loosing some pets after one short fight in group situations.  At times this causes problems.  Not what you would expect.  The group does not wipe they just kill my pet before I can get him back hehe.  Is there anything I can do to get pets that wont break the charm?  I have been trying to cast the reduce mitigation before I cast coerce but its not helping, at least not much. 2.) Im having trouble finding good pets near the front of a zone.  I know this has been touched on with the pet guide but out of curiosity do you guys wait till you get the right pet or charm something in the mean time hoping it will do some sort of dps?  I have a erudite and I use the erudite aura sense to find a pet.  Most the time I have been waiting till I find a caster to coerce.  Should I be taking the fist thing as a temporary pet?  Are there some casters that wont show up on the aura sense?  It seems some enemies cast spells but they are not showing up as a mage or healer. 3.)  I have this really neat new spell that does dps for every point of mana they spend.  This does not count our mana drains does it?  It does not seem to.  I also dont see many pets that actually use very much mana.  I have been hunting in stormhold, fallen gate, ruins of varsoon and Im not really seeing much mana use.  Do these guys start showing up in later areas?  Where can I find a good use for this spell?  It seems very powerful Im just not tapping into it. 4.)  I have not soloed much of the 30 levels so far and I am not likely to solo much at all except to finish quests.  Being in a group all the time can lead to interesting situations.  I dont mind teaching a group I am with on a regular basis how a coecer works (mez, stuns, etc.) but Im not likely to tell a pick up group because its so time consuming to teach them how to act when they should be doing it anyway.  Most tanks insist you target them.  When your in a group that the mezzes don't do any good because they are all attacking different things what do you do?  I have been playing with stuns and dots stacked on the different creatures.  Im not asking for a way to explain it to them.  I know how to do that I know I could set up a macro for mezzes or charms.  I know I could tell them what to do and how to act but that robs the joy our of the game for me.  It makes me feel like a whinner and I wont do it.  I would rather take their play style and find a way to work around it.  What can a do for a group like that?  What is the coercer capable of adding to a group like that? 5.) Our AA mana feed...its the first one everyone gets.  I have noticed I am using it on my tanks all the time.  Is this normal?  I figured I would use it on healers occasionally but it turns out we are all full power and the tank is always out of power.  I am using it at every recast to feed him/her power.  Do you all do the same thing? 6.)  I know there are certain group mates that will not like aoe mez because they want to do their aoe dps.  Could you tell me if I am missing any?  Swashie, conj, necro, warlock, paladin(high level).  I also would think that for others its the oppisite.  Monks, mystic, defilers, brigand, wizard, guardian really like having them all mezzed except the one they are fighting.  Is this accurate or would you suggest always only mezzing those outside the encounter. I guess thats it.  Im sure I have more but thats all I can think about right now.  Thanks for any answers that you give.  If you know of some link that I could go to for some of these answers please hesitate to post it here.  I have read a lot of the stuff here on the boards and unless its something new and updated on these topics then I am not likely to trust it.  I have had to weed through so much info to figure out what has changed since the posts that are often linked as the end all be all of certain subjects are old and outdated.  If it seems like to much work to just answer it because its been answered "a thousand times before"  then just dont answer, I wont miss your comments I promise

[MugnMo]

1) Unfortunately, it’s really just pot luck. The only firm thing you could do is upgrade your charm to master (which you should try very hard to do if it’s possible). Outside of that, it’s just crossing your fingers that it doesn’t break at a bad time etc. I’ve heard the same thing about debuffing mitigation before charming as well, but like you said, I’ve seen no real noticeable difference.2) This is really personal preference. Do note that scouts and fighters can make good pets as well. For instance, brigand pets in general are great! I don’t usually worry about charming a temporary pet if I’m in a group as I’ll be there soon enough. If I’m soloing I’m more likely to grab a pet and use it for a short time. Really, there’s no real right or wrong here.3) You’re right in that our power drains don’t trigger this… sorry slipped away in a daydream about it working this way… Maybe someone else can offer some good information here, but even at 70, I’ve never seen this do much damage. Of our reactives, I use the CA/Spell group reactive, then the damage reactive, then the power reactive.4) I know you don’t want to be fussy, but if mezzes are needed (like on adds), I’ll usually make a request or two such as I’ll take care of the adds etc. However, if they don’t listen to you, you’re right, it’s not worth it wasting your time and energy try to teach an old dog new tricks. I do one of two things here: one, if the group can survive without me mezzing adds etc, I’ll switch into more DPS mode and play like I don’t have mezzes. Two, if the tank is being unmanageable about you targeting him, or getting the group into situation were you’re dying and won’t work with your suggestions, I’d just leave.5) Sounds like you’re a pro on this already! A tank that’s working hard to maintain agro burns a lot of power. I bet 90% of my feeds are to the tank. Probably 5% to myself, and the other 5% over healers or getting someone who just died some power.6) For the most part, if the group is okay handing the encounter as a whole, I don’t try and mezz within an encounter. As you mentioned, it just cripples the group too much when you can’t use AOEs (add on the fact that if they don’t know you’re going to be mezzing in advance, all it takes is one AOE DOT to make mezzing impossible). Multiple encounters is a little more difficult as some classes really love / depend on blue AOEs. This one just takes time and experience to get there, but it sure sounds like you’re well on you way.Hope this helps and best of luck!

[casedwards]

Very helpful thank you.  Sounds like you confirmed most of my thoughts.   Having someone else with a bit more experience say the same things is helpful.  Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[Sonaht]

One thing I have found helpful is to always maintain the mindset that my pet is my enemy not my friend, and my main purpose is to mind-screw and create chaos, weakness and death among the opposing ranks. One thing I aim for is to have all of the enemy die, including and especially my pet. This is the big difference between necro pets and coercer pets IMHO: one is strengthened and nurtured and one is weakened and destroyed. I consider a perfect round one in which both pet and opponent die simultaneously. I also keep a big nuke "in the chamber" for the killing strike when my pet is finished with his job and has a bit of life left. For a Coercer I think the term "pet" is an unfortunate choice of words. One thing I do for my group is pit the enemies against each other so that when we take them on they are that much closer to death, so having the party kill your pet is the desired end.  Many times in an encounter you can find the "off" mob by tabbing through them and mezzing the ones that have a full health bar or are targeting the healer, again creating chaos and weakness among the opponent. I don't consider it as important to keep any one target mezzed as it is to take off targets out of the action while no one is fighting them. The recast timers are short enough that you just move on to a new one if your party start hitting the one you had mezzed.

[tugnut]

90% on the time i am in my guild group... and in places like HoF and such i grab a good pet some times they are 3^...when charm breaks... they leave me and my pet alone, i can deal with it a lot better with out some one trying to help lol.

when i do pick ups... first thig i tend to do is PT the main tank and ask him how he wants me to play... as i see it he is in charge of the grp and if you get a good repore at the start, he will end up telling the players what to do and saves you a lot of agro from group members.

 

also charm is a great pull tool.. i know a lot of players use proxy pulling.. but if your killing lots of single mobs and they are close to each other, pull one with charm.. stand it next to tank.. tank will be rdy to taunt..dismiss pet. works great well if the tank knows what ya doing lol

 

with the charm issue i have to say like above aim to get a master charm... there is master charm and then there are all the other spells that try to be like it.. it will change te way you play big time.

[Maelick]

I have to disagree with Sonaht here... before I had my Master charm, I didn't really cared about my pet. If it was killed, I was just taking another one and sending it to death. Now, that a whole different story.

Main point is, a good pet at my level(46) is usually outnumbering party members in terms of damages. I remember a hunting in desert of flamme where my ghoul was doing twice as much damages as the next member of the group. And there are very few mobs that are able to pull that much dps: you need a caster mob, with a short recast time and an aggressive script (if it can heal itself, then it's heaven I noticed fury are usually quite good. I usually like ^^ mobs for their quick power regen).

=> So once you got a good pet, keeping it alive (and under your control) is very important.

 

Just another example. I was hunting in Rivervale, soloing for a quest. I was using a "midnight maiden" as a pet. I joined a group, and was doing my fair chair of dps. I made a mistake with my keyboard leading my maiden to death (yes, you can cry at that point ). I tryied charming something else around (not to bother the group with the loss of my maiden ) but finally preferred putting +dps buffs instead. Global damages were better on the parser with the buffs than a bad pet.

 

So there are two conclusion for me:

- As long as you don't have master charm, or haven't found the right mob in the area, your pet is pretty disposable. Just pick one, try, and if it is not what you expect, lead it to death.

- But as soon as you get Master charm and the right mob, be carefull with it Once you reach the bottom of the dongeon, you may regret that mob which only spawn at entrance and nuke so hard (I'm thinking about the diviners in fallen gate... those are really impressive for their levels)

Maelick

Message modifié par Maelick le 10-26-2006 07:49 PM

[Chog]

Just thought I would add a few of my observations.

I have the Master 1 Coerce (level 20) and found the charm to break a lot more frequently then I would have imagined (in the 30's in RE).  Have not tried the level 33 Charm because it is only App1 (already have the 47 Master so not worried about the level 33).  The bad thing with having "any" mob charmed as a place holder is groups tend to kill anything they see (broken charm / best pet available / etc) even after telling the group what pet you are looking for (goblin Sorcerers, etc).  In other words, you need to charm a pet befor ethe group has a chance to kill it :smileyvery-happy:

Once you have a pet, the best advice I have seen so far is to target through your pet after you have sent the pet into combat.  In RE there are a lot of multiple group encounters (and wanderers and social agro and...).  When your pet breaks charm, mezzing and re-charming is not only easier and faster but more likely to recharm your pet before the group gets a chance to kill it.  So far the main reason my pets die is becasue of broken charm and groups slaughtering the helpful ally.

With mezzing.  As long as I am not a power drain (aka: My power is lower then others in the group), I will attempt to mezz incoming adds and sometimes mezz withtin the encounter (encounter mezzing is very situational though).  I do this knowing the group will break my Mezz.  Why do I continue to mezz adds knowing the group will break my mezz anyways?  Practice.

[Sonaht]

I think this is the great fun of the Coercer... so many tactics to explore. I came to the coercer from playing a necro and the big lesson for me was severing my attachment to my pet and building a new mentality. When I realized this I immediately turned combat xp off and began to rethink.  In retrospect, my comment may have been a bit strong, but I think it's a crucial point to consider. I am thinking in particular about some of the DoF mobs that specialize in turning your tank against your party and how effective that is. After reading the comment above about Master the time spent before that learning other techniques seems even more important. The coercer looks to have a nice bag of tricks to pull from. I think what I am realizing is that there is more up our sleeves than sending in a big pet to wipe the enemy. My personal goal is to be able to switch gears smoothly and adapt to any situation. I would also be interested to hear what others have to say about the way they play and their experiences. So much has changed in the game that I think it would be a good thing to discuss their current thinking on tactics and techniques.

Message Edited by Sonaht on 10-27-2006 08:47 AM

[schmee]

one of the things that helps me work with pick ups - which is where i've spent virtually all of 60 levels so far - is macros. i have a macro for single target mez success, a macro that announces i'm mezzing an added encounter, and a macro for when i acquire a pet, and one for when i want the group to kill my pet. except the "mezzing added encounter" macro, all use the %t so i can indicate a target too. then i just use them as needed to make the group aware of what i'm doing. the first run thru, they might be utterly baffled - eg the classic situation where the whole group is sitting there waiting for my pet to go aggro so they can attack it, not realizing that it's charmed. but after a few run thrus, even the least experienced groups get in the flow of things and even start to throw out the "whoa, nice mezzing!" type messages. as far as when to mez and when not to, i generally mez everything when dealing with a single target style group, or when trying to aoe everything isn't really possible (either because the classes are all single target damage dealers, or because the group is too low to do enough aoe damage to survive). you've broken down classes pretty close to correct, except that wizards do a lot of aoe damage (a little confusing i know because warlocks are the aoe kings, but the reality is wizards get a lot of aoe damage too). but you will find the majority of groups will have at least one or two aoe types and prefer to use those aoes, which is when you are better served using your mez on adds and not mezzing much otherwise. when you get closer to 50, you'll have 3 forms of aoe stun which will really help this aoeing along as the stuns will provide enough time for the group to burn down the encounter without causing too much problem for the dps classes in danger of pulling aggro off the tank (eg a swashie/conj/warlock pulling taunt off a monk all the time). as for charm breaking, this is one of the reasons i rarely charm in groups (the other reason being i don't have m1 domination). even when charm lasts a good long time, you still get the situation where it will break at the worst possible time - eg when it's mixed in with a bunch of other mobs that look just like it and becomes impossible to target. having said that, i did spend a lot of time getting very used to charming in groups, and it is definately worth getting this dance down naturally so you aren't spending time having to think about it when you invariably do it. when charm breaks in a group, i just immediately pretend i'm not in the gorup anymore until my pet is under control again - and the time it takes to recontrol the pet is usually so fast it doesn't matter. the part that needs to be natural is to immediately target/cast single mez on the pet anytime you see the audiovision flash we get. it is so natural for me to do that i once tried to mez our tank once when a warlock joined the group with his group audiovision still turned on. come the day i'm 70 with master domination i'm sure i will be doing it all the time, but these days i'll really only charm when the group really needs some DPS, or when the situation is too easy, and i just want to have some fun - groups i usually don't hang around too long in anyway. one thing, much like our stuns and such, level of target in relation to you will make a big difference in duration for most of our spells, and if you're trying to charm orange mobs all the time, this will be very difficult (maybe this changes with higher quality charms, but i doubt it). i tend to try to find caster types that are white or lower to me with adept3 charm, and that tends to be very effective for when i do charm. magus giants in SS for example are great pets post 48, as they cast a DD when you open them up and swing for good damage if you don't keep backing them off. but looking at something more familiar to your current situation, if i was crawling RoV at 30 i'd upgrade my pet as we got further in. I wouldn't bother charming anything until we got into the 30+ golems, and then i'd work with one of those until i could find an interesting caster type, eg one of the casting skellies or clay goo thingies in the creator room. but i don't watch parsers and dont really think of myself as there to place high on the parser. i tend to be more about letting the assasins have fun with our DPS, healer's feel good about our power regen, and get into speed casting every debuff i can and then scouting out the next situation. and yes, tanks are typically the ones who need power, not the healers. this gets more and more so as you get higher in level too, until that is, the group really gets into a bad fight. eventually you'll get used to knowing when this is going to occur and without thinking you'll cast flow on the healer going into it (and probably know it's time to throw mana cloak). but more typically, the tank is burning up all their power trying to gain/hold taunt and the only one in the group who doesn't get to rest long enough to keep their power up - especially monks/bruisers & palis/SKs cause of how they burn their power in the tanking process. palis are one of me favorite tanks, but yeah, they will aoe dot like crazy, it's their preferred/main method of taunt, so there's little point in trying to mez the target encounter with them around. one last piece of advice when working with a tank who doesn't understand mez, i just say, "if you want me to mez, best to leave any adds alone or i can't mez them". tanks will leave their auto attack on all the time, and will instinctively target an add so they can fire a taunt at them - at least my tank does, as do most i've played with - and that autoattack while targetted is usually what breaks our mez. so the tank needs to get used to fighting that instinct and not worrying about adds when a chanter is in the group - sometimes they do and really appreciate it, sometimes they never figure it out. worst case i ever saw was a tank who had no idea what mez was, and broke it at a really critical time (really bad over pull on his part) and the group TPW'd. he was so embarassed he logged, even though no one said anything. as said above, best not to try to teach an old dog new tricks, but you can educate quickly with a few macros that give the group positive reinforcement when they do it right. worst thing you can do as a chanter in this game is go into the group with expectations of how things should be - be fluid, adjust to the group's need & expectations and you'll be a much beloved chanter. indeed, the most fun i have playing a chanter in pick ups all the time, is that every single group is a completely different experience - and i've always got some way to make it work by using my enormous tool chest to take up the slack. woops, went into /chanter fanboi mode.

[casedwards]

wow great bit of advice there thank you so much! I found a lot of the feed back useful.  I am 35 almost 36 now and still really loving the feel of the class.  I pulled up my illusionist(32) and found myself a little discouraged.  I found that solo wise at least when comparing 32 illusionist with all app4's and regular crafted items could solo WAY more then my coercer (at 32) with almost all slots filled in with legendary gear and all adept 1's a few adept 3s and 3 masters.  It was discouraging but I still really feel great potential with the coercer. I talked with a coercer that was in his 60's and he assured me that this was normal.  He said that by 45 or so we would become much more powerful and that 32 was just a bad level to compare.  I can't verify that but he seemed confident. What I am finding is that even though I feel weaker in the dps field I feel much stronger in the crowd control field wich is what I really want to be doing anyway.  Seems like the coercer has so many more options to do crowd control and we are not stuck with just a mez that hurts the aoe group but with stuns that make it so much better. One other thing I have noticed....seems a bit strange.  I have been playing with that spell that does dps for every point of power the enemy uses.....anyone else notice that even the casters dont use power?  This spell just does not seem to do any damage.  I also noticed that if I put my power drains on a fighter mob or scout that I can watch power drain....but on a caster the power does not move.  Do our power drains work?  Seems like they may be broken.  I would think all mobs fighters, priest, scout and mage would all use power and power drain should work on them.