Coercer Changes in LU45

[Aeralik]

LU45 will see some significant changes to the coercer class.  You guys appear far behind on dps especially compared to your illusionist counterparts so its time for some changes.  These changes are preliminary and subject to change of course before going to test or while on test.Possession - You guys dislike it and I think I dislike it even more.  So this spell is getting a big change.  Instead of temporarily controlling a creature, it will keep with the possession theme by creating an essence of the creature that is a controllable pet.  It basically turns into an always on pseudo charm pet.  This pet won't be able to zone or anything but you can at least use it in dungeons with groups or raids.  Reactives - These will be more oriented to players triggering them rather than having to rely on the npcs to trigger them.  In addition, Cataclysmic mind will get an upgrade and be similar to the illusionist reactive except that it triggers off damaging spells hitting the mob.Dehate Line - If the target of the spell gets aggro they will trigger a hate position loss instead of damage which should be more in line with the use of the spell.Volatile Magic - This will change for all enchanters.  The spell does not play well since I see many of the enchanters just spamming sprint to stay under 30% power.  That really wasn't the intention of the skill at all.  Instead it will be a reduced amount that applies regardless of your current power amount.Power drains - To compensate some for the reduction to Volatile Magic, both enchanter subclasses will be getting their power drains turned into damage.  In their current state these are more useful for their control effects rather than the actual power drains.  After the changes the spells should be a bit more useful.Mana Ward - This will change to be a powerful ward based on the amount of mana the coercer has remaining.  It won't be as powerful as soul ward but it will be similar and thus a lot more useful.Coercive healing - I haven't decided on exact specifics of this but it will see some changes to bring it more in line with illusionist aa lines.Tashania - This will change to be extremely hard to resist and apply to all magical damage types.  This should make it something you use on pull to help land debuffs with the new raid resists.Feel free to post comments below. I will be reviewing them over time and as you react to them on test.  As always make sure your feedback is constructive since that helps me the most.  Also please keep the discussion coercer/enchanter oriented so that things are easier for me to find without having to read through off topic posts.

[Lleinen]

Im glad our time has come and am extremely happy with what your proposing and will be testing the HELL out of it for you.

Thankyou sir!

As for feedback :I love the idea with mana ward AA, working like soulward but not as good, its still a nice emergency ward to have.As for coercive healing idea.  I believe adding 15% to ALL heals and wards (not limited to reactives, wards, regen heals), with either a casting speed or reuse speed bonus.  Also would this remain a beef to healers only while illusionists get the melee only buff?  25% DA is pretty big so Id go even for 20% to all heals with a 15-20% casting speed bonus.  Not sure how "in-line" that would fall but I know people love IA, so lets make it so healers REALLY want CH. 

Im still slightly confused on puppetmaster, but it sounds like you can copy a mob your fighting and summon that (obviously scaled down).  Lemme know if im correct.  Also, would there be a concentration cost on this and would the pet be a feasible thing to do (as in, would it be WORTH it to summon this in a raid or not?).I love the change to VM.  That would fix the way group mana flow is working on the epic and allow us to be more creative with our gear choices instead of having to have power proc items on 24/7 like now.Dehate line, by hate position lost do you mean -xxxx hate or -x hate positions?  If positions thats good, although most people we put it on get 1 shotted, it would still help a lot.  Also, would this trigger of spells only or melee?  Either way its good for when a raid mob AEs.Reactives/Cata Mind, I love your thinking.

So we would see a dot+stun and dot+stifle on intrepid focus and harrowing silence respectively vs. the power drain?  I wonder, also, would the damage on brainshock and dissecting gaze be upp'd to compensate for the loss of power drain on those spells as well?Tashiana change, awsome, just like in eq1, a great idea.  Hard to resist and debuffs everything, great idea!

[Cawti]

This looks like a *great* start, Thank you!!!!I will make sure Cawti's test copy is up to date.

[Tiko_7801]

O-M-F-G it may be time to betray to coercer!!!!!!!!!!! Of course it depends on what really ends up happening!!!! I really like time compression will be hard to make it worth it.....but def going to look again at the coercer after this.

[Supp]

Is that possession change theoretically application to all charm capable classes? In this case, I'm speaking of the necro charm, which breaks so often that it's detrimental to use. I believe druids can also charm. Any chance of that change being universal?

[madha]

Now i love you...

But how am i going to pick my aa now if tash is fixed and mana ward is fixed i might have to drop thoughtsnap, unless u gona increase the duration =P.  Can u remove the coercer aa spec for mindbend, i realy never use this spell.

Any words on any of the sugestins to allow fotr t8 upgrades to enraging demenor and impetus. They are great by themselfes dont get my wrong but i dont want to be locked into using a t5 spell in t20.

And OMG I want ur babies and im a  man

[Cawti]

Possession is not "charm".  It is the coercer level 65 special spell which currently so useless I've only casted it maybe 10 times total in the 2 years I've had it.Supple wrote:

Is that possession change theoretically application to all charm capable classes? In this case, I'm speaking of the necro charm, which breaks so often that it's detrimental to use. I believe druids can also charm. Any chance of that change being universal?

[Sonorod]

I think I might cry.

 Thank you so so much!

 What about thoughtstones?  I hear Nil crystals are going away and it's been rumored so are thoughtstones and their generators?

Never mind, I found the posts about them.

 So the update comes out tomorrow..right? right?

[Xalmat]

Wow.... Talk about some loving! They needed it too.

[Mr. Dawki]

Rather than nerfing the dmg to volitile magic try making it a bit more complicated to use. Here is my idea

 Volitile magic- Increases spell dmg by 30% but drains 15% pwr every 5 seconds can be toggled on and off at will. Instant cast. instant recast.

Concidering the amount of pwr a chanter can give back to themselfs you may need to raise the pwr cost. This way it still takes some skill to use and still gives them the kick they wanted in the first  place.

[Scry]

Thank you for the update its good to know that finally we are getting looked at and getting some changes that will at least mitigate some of the serious problems we coercer's are struggling with.

I will look forward to seeing what gets onto the test server and then to the live servers, here is hoping that maybe just maybe with these changes the tide will turn for us.

[Ishniana]

*The puppetmaster spell definitely needs to be looked in to, currently it is more of a fun spell than anything else.*Reactives, the way I read it you are changing them to proc off spells coming in to the mob, what about the Auspex type line would that be based more off melee?

[Lleinen]

Sonorod wrote:

I think I might cry.

 Thank you so so much!

 What about thoughtstones?  I hear Nil crystals are going away and it's been rumored so are thoughtstones and their generators?

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...414918&#4629545

Aeralik said : Nil crystals were actually removed because I was removing the coercer thoughtstones with some other changes.  So for consistency sake I removed all the components.  It's a bigger impact for warlocks hence the post about it in their forums

[Lleinen]

Mr. Dawkins wrote:

Rather than nerfing the dmg to volitile magic try making it a bit more complicated to use. Here is my idea

 Volitile magic- Increases spell dmg by 30% but drains 15% pwr every 5 seconds can be toggled on and off at will. Instant cast. instant recast.

Concidering the amount of pwr a chanter can give back to themselfs you may need to raise the pwr cost. This way it still takes some skill to use and still gives them the kick they wanted in the first  place.

Not a bad idea but 15% every 5sec is some crazy arrse power drain.Personally I like VM not requiring mana and getting nerfed slightly, to say 15-20%?  Not having to worry about power to do damage would be nice for a change, especially with the other changes comming, keeping the 30% damage might be overpowering.

[Balrok]

I think I might ask my guild if I can betray back.  ..... "might". 

[Wilin]

I have really wanted to play my coercer alt for a long time, but every time I seem to get into them, they get nerfed to hell. I also feel bad for coercers who want to raid because the argument has been growing that they are not even wanted for a raid slot. This news is absolutely wonderful though.

I sincerely hope that all of this gets sorted out because it has been long overdue.

[KamidariTuibumbi]

Wow, this all looks great, "on paper".  I look forward to seeing all the changes on test!

[zorros]

Ok i know this is about Coercers and im glad you guys have got some love but while we have someones attention can some one please look again at illusionists pets. They still dont keep up with us. Its very annoying to have to run around in stealth in pvp just so if i see someone or i get attacked my pet isnt 2 mins away from me.VM change btw is fab. Since you guys nerfed the stay incombat tactic i found it increasingly stupid to have to keep spaming sprint all the time cos im lazy lol and as for the mana drain change thats just totally fantastic !!!.I just hope its not too late.

[Aurumn]

/cheer Aeralik

Finally some sunshine in the Coercer forums.  Maybe now some of the gloomies will perk up a bit.

I must say I'm rather impressed with the scope of the changes and the fact that it looks like the stickied class issues thread was listened to... I see a lot of familiar ideas in there. So... is Testcopy up and running for me to drop my Mezzy over there for tinkering? *crosses fingers* Of course, I'm sort of kicking myself for not picking up a copy of Possession while it was cheap... I'd imagine the selling price will spike now.

[Flipmode]

From someone who is usually critical and hard on the devs allow me to say THANK YOU!!!  I actually resubscribed to the game to type this and test the changes when you get the patch out.  If you can fix coercers, I have no doubt you can address the remaining few issues that caused me to quit.

As to the proposed changes, I like them especially the possession change.  It looks VERY promising and I cant thank you guys enough.  This may sound sad but that literally made my day!! 

[Jeepned2]

I will wait for the update to come out before I go dancing in the streets. However, looking at Aeralik's post, well, I would be willing to call this the biggest fix in EQ2 history.  So I wait with my breath held hoping this all turns out as good as it sounds.  And should it be as good, I will have to probabably eat a lot of stuff that I have posted. But with a little whine and cheese, the words should taste ok. Even if only half the stuff works as well as we had hoped, this still has the posibility if being a lot bigger and better fix then we could have ever hoped for. You do realize we may have to start a Aeralik memorial post, for there will be a ton of people who will want to say thanks.  

[Eriol]

I'm hardly an expert in this field, as my coercer is lowbie (high 30s), and while the change to Possession to essentially make a permanent pet seems good, what about us at lower levels?  Charm is... inadequate IMO.  It has lost a lot of the "side uses" that it used to have (exping on ^^^ mobs for instance), and overall isn't that great.  Is there a thought to have your "perma-pet" work down the levels as well?  But then again, losing charm entirely seems... sub-optimal.  I'd rather have that more usable too, like removing the concentration cost (other classes' charm doesn't require concentration, and it's STILL not used, my main being a necro, I do NOT charm, as it's just too much risk for the benefit), and perhaps making it FIXED duration, rather than infinite, but WILL break.  I think this would change charm into more a "crowd control + dps" rather than the "unreliable pet" functionality that it has now.Basically I'm glad for the high-end people that a lot of your concerns are being addressed, and a lot of this WILL help at lower levels too (how the reactive damage is triggered), but having something as useful as a permanent pet at the high levels but NOT at the low seems to be a change that would help the low-levels MORE if we had it.More talk is needed IMO, but I echo the other sentiments: great to see something being done that should help a lot regardless.

[Cawti]

Aeralik wrote:

LU45 will see some significant changes to the coercer class.  You guys appear far behind on dps especially compared to your illusionist counterparts so its time for some changes.  These changes are preliminary and subject to change of course before going to test or while on test.Possession - You guys dislike it and I think I dislike it even more.  So this spell is getting a big change.  Instead of temporarily controlling a creature, it will keep with the possession theme by creating an essence of the creature that is a controllable pet.  It basically turns into an always on pseudo charm pet.  This pet won't be able to zone or anything but you can at least use it in dungeons with groups or raids.  Reactives - These will be more oriented to players triggering them rather than having to rely on the npcs to trigger them.  In addition, Cataclysmic mind will get an upgrade and be similar to the illusionist reactive except that it triggers off damaging spells hitting the mob.Dehate Line - If the target of the spell gets aggro they will trigger a hate position loss instead of damage which should be more in line with the use of the spell.Volatile Magic - This will change for all enchanters.  The spell does not play well since I see many of the enchanters just spamming sprint to stay under 30% power.  That really wasn't the intention of the skill at all.  Instead it will be a reduced amount that applies regardless of your current power amount.Power drains - To compensate some for the reduction to Volatile Magic, both enchanter subclasses will be getting their power drains turned into damage.  In their current state these are more useful for their control effects rather than the actual power drains.  After the changes the spells should be a bit more useful.Mana Ward - This will change to be a powerful ward based on the amount of mana the coercer has remaining.  It won't be as powerful as soul ward but it will be similar and thus a lot more useful.Coercive healing - I haven't decided on exact specifics of this but it will see some changes to bring it more in line with illusionist aa lines.Tashania - This will change to be extremely hard to resist and apply to all magical damage types.  This should make it something you use on pull to help land debuffs with the new raid resists.Feel free to post comments below. I will be reviewing them over time and as you react to them on test.  As always make sure your feedback is constructive since that helps me the most.  Also please keep the discussion coercer/enchanter oriented so that things are easier for me to find without having to read through off topic posts.

As to the coercer tree AA's:Coercive Healing:Illy's get 2 hot buffs, and right now we just get coercive healing.  So, this needs to be buffed *lots* for it to be comparable in scope.  Making it be a +base heals buff would be good, adding perhaps a recast reduction would be nice, but would step on the toes of the illy's a bit.  What about making it a smallish percentage but as a *group* buff?  So it would affect all heals and power heals in the entire group by a percentage?  Just one idea.  Consider what Time Compression on a shaman would do for them and work from there.Manaward:  I like the direction you are going here.  One of the other ideas would be to allow some sort of control immunities for the warded party.  Or maybe allow the coercer to cast the ward *while controlled*.This AA tree is pretty lackluster currently though since itemization makes mana regen less worthwhile.  You may want to look at adjusting the effects of various parts of this tree.  Like maybe have an added effect on some of the mana regen spells with AA's rather than simply improving the regen.Tashiana:  This sounds great.  The only suggestion here is to maybe add a temporary +Ordination skill increase or improved percentage chance to land further ordination skills for the coercer while Tashiana is active.  (Like the dagger from SoH.)Thought Snap:  This ability is busted all to pieces right now anyway.  Maybe leaving as is for now is the best option so that I have something obvious to drop to pick up the other stuff. 

[Aull]

I do not play a coercer but grats to all you guys who do. I hope to see more coercers running around.

Also big thanks to the devs!!

[Wrapye]

I'm not sure I'm quite understanding the new mechanism for Possession.  Sort of an illusionary double that doesn't take concentration?  From the raid comment, it would be usable on epics?The primary problem with Coercive healing is that most healers don't really see a difference with it on.  It should roughly correspond to 50% heal crit in terms of how much it provides.  Then again, most healers tell me that the crit heal bonus provided by Sta AA line isn't really noticeable either.With the changes to the reactives, other than cataclysmic mind, what really is then distinguishing the coercer reactives from the illusionist ones?I'll have to wait and see what the amount that the new Mana ward provides to see if it is worthwhile.  Most mobs that power drain in RoK seem to take a huge percentage at one time, if not all the power, regardless of how much the character has.  On the other hand, it might make the +% max power from the mythical epic and the fabled robe worth something, with an emphasis on might.  Same for the way the group Mana Flow works on the mythical.  Will +heal items impact this Mana ward, unlike the present version?Damage instead of power drain is interesting.  I'll wait and see just how much damage we are talking about.  Ilucide will have to redesign his mob in Maiden's if power drains are going away in general.  Or not, since no one I know bothers power draining the mob anymore.  How will this change interact with the 6-piece bonus of the Mindbending set?  That bonus is to return as power some of the power drained by the single target stuns for enchanters.I never used Volatile Magic much, spec'ing Agi/Sta because I generally wanted to have high power in the MT group for Channel, and keeping power under 30% just seemed like one more thing to keep an eye on.  Depending on what it turns into, it might be attractive.Tashiana and Link line changes look nice.Some other things to consider:Adding a hate or hate position boost to whatever fighter Thoughtsnap forces the mob to attack.  I generally find myself Thoughtsnapping a mob then needing to hit it with the memwipe to make sure the mob doesn't just snap right back to the previous target after 7 seconds.After using it for six months, puppetmaster needs a tweak.  It isn't in the same league as the other class' special level 80 abilities (though still orders of magnitude better than the original version in beta).

[Ibunubi]

Possession -- Anything new is a step in the right direction. Right now it sounds like I make a copy of my target, and now I have a pet while I'm in the zone and alive.

Reactives -- Wow, just wow. Sounds like a hostile effect placed on the mob, and people damaging it triggers the reactives. Much like Assassin's Mark... The proposed Cataclysmic Mind change is DEFINITELY an intriguing change.

Dehate Line -- Definitely want to see the rough draft of the spell.

VM -- A change that's long been coming, imo. 10-15% increase seems reasonable with the removal of hte power component.

Power drains -- Nice to see you recognizing what the spells are used for. Some illusionists and coercers are probably wondering if the damage amount will be worth casting with the spells' casting times. And for other spells with power drains, will those turn into extra damage? Spells such as Brainshock and Dissecting Gaze.

Manaward -- W O W

Coercive Healing -- Most coercers put it on a shaman if they're in a tank group for raids. Obviously, more warding power, less damage taken. Maybe add some temporary effect proc, maybe immunity to control effects that procs off healing spells, and/or group improved resistability (for debuffing purposes and taunts) that procs off healing spells, and/or ... Hell, add some casting time reduction to that, and limit the buff to priests.

Tashania -- W O W ... Reaching back to the EQ1 roots of the spell idea .

Additionally, I'd imagine new set bonuses for our Spectral Coercion set and Mindbending 6-set? I'd say you've got a potential set-bonus for Coercive Healing (with my ideas above) on our VP set.

[Soldancer]

CawtiDawnflower wrote:

Possession is not "charm". It is the coercer level 65 special spell which currently so useless I've only casted it maybe 10 times total in the 2 years I've had it.

It's Your own fault that You never found the real potential of this spell (most coercers didn't found it too). Possesison is GREAT as it is now and I'm sad to see that it will be ruined (no I don't tell why Possession is so great because after LU45 it doesn't count anymore). Puppetmaster is the crap, this should be changed, not Possession. @Aeralik You devs brought in a bad bug since Rok ( http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=402771 ) which You never fixed until now. I gave up the hope that You fix it and learned to live with it. Your planned changes will make the situation worse because the non-mezz breaking manadrain-component of the single stun and the stifle will now become a mezz breaking damage component. I hate such undesireable "dirt-effects". Would be really cool if You simply remove the useless mana drain, let the stun and the stifle a clear stun and a clear stifle without any dot component. All in all: This changes will be good for raids but bad for the soloability of coercers.

[Cawti]

Rereading your comment on Manaward again... When you say it'll be "like" Soulward, I think we all interpreted that to be that it'd be a "real" ward and not simply a power saving ward.  But now I'm thinking maybe you just meant the latter?  If so, it'd definitely need something extra to be worthwhile.  Control immunities (or even a percentage chance to resist outright) would be in line with coercers, IMO.  Without that I can't see spending all the points in an otherwise useless line.Though Illy's get a "real" ward with doppleganger, so a real ward wouldn't be out of line.  Or maybe a power/health combined ward?

[Ibunubi]

Soldancer wrote:

CawtiDawnflower wrote:

Possession is not "charm". It is the coercer level 65 special spell which currently so useless I've only casted it maybe 10 times total in the 2 years I've had it.

It's Your own fault that You never found the real potential of this spell (most coercers didn't found it too). Possesison is GREAT as it is now and I'm sad to see that it will be ruined (no I don't tell why Possession is so great because after LU45 it doesn't count anymore). Puppetmaster is the crap, this should be changed, not Possession.@AeralikYou devs brought in a bad bug since Rok ( http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=402771 ) which You never fixed until now. I gave up the hope that You fix it and learned to live with it. Your planned changes will make the situation worse because the non-mezz breaking manadrain-component of the single stun and the stifle will now become a mezz breaking damage component. I hate such undesireable "dirt-effects". Would be really cool if You simply remove the useless mana drain, let the stun and the stifle a clear stun and a clear stifle without any dot component.All in all: This changes will be good for raids but bad for the soloability of coercers.

I've only used Possession to move mobs out of my way in dungeons. And that other part, it's not a bug, it's just characteristic of RoK mobs, probably to make soloing not so yawn-fest.

[Roald]

It will be interesting to see how these actually affect PvP, as I doubt that will be considered when making them.

For example, the power drains have been removed and are now going to do damage, which will break a mezz prematurely when used, which means near instant death in PvP. Also, its nice to stack reactives on someone in a group, and then move back to CC'ing or burning down the main assist's target. If this change means that I'll have to remain on that person for them to trigger, this will be  detrimental to my role in PvP groups.