Coercer vs. Dirge

[Roriondesexiest]

Well I inherited a lvl 70 Dirge.

 

The MT group in my Raid has a dirge and assassin in it for hate.

 

We have another coercer in the group, she is in the Off tank group.

 

Have a Troub for the Mage group.

 

I put myself in the Melee DPS group normally.

 

This week I did labs and I brought the dirge instead to try him out and put him in my same group.

 

The DPS of the Melee DPS group seemed to go up quite a bit with the dirge in there instead of my coercer.  I couldn't believe how good the debuffs and buffs were on the dirge.  Was a bit odd having to run all around the place to dps.

 

I really love my coercer but think I am going to switch to the dirge for raiding.

 

 

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

The AA's and class abilities for a Dirge really emphasize the DPS group position. Cacaphony of Blades, AA's like crit +'s, etc.Honestly, the only reason to have them in MT group over a Coercer is the stoneskin proc. All the rest can benefit the whole raid from anywhere, increase DPS, or increase stuff the Coercer can.The Coercer instead gets a bunch of AA's that aid the MT group in multiple ways. Coersive healing, Thought Snap (if they ever fix it), Heal Crit, far better group regen... the only thing we are missing is a straight up stoneskin proc, heh.But the real question is... why is the Assassin replacing the Coercer? What exactly is the group setup here? MT, Dirge, Assassin and three healers? Pally, Dirge, Assassin, Wizard and two healers? It's not MT, Dirge, Assassin, Conjuror and two healers is it? Considering how mitigation scales it's kind of useless to put a Conjuror in there now...Really, it seems weird to not have the Coercer in there. Wasteful if you ask me...

[chily]

MT, Dirge, Assassin and three healers i guess

 

Assassin tranfers some hate to the mt and increase the hate gain in this way.

[Dagator]

To start, I have both, a 70 dirge and a very close to 70 coercer.  Our guild raids about five to six times a week, but we are by no means super uber.  We are progressing through the EOF raid zones well at the moment, but have not completed Mayong or EH. 

 

Ok, our MT group usually has dirge and assassin, with three healers.  The reason for the assassin is that he provides 29% hate transfer to the MT, and our assassin typically parses 2k or more so that is alot of hate.  As a dirge, I provide not only stoneskin, but parry buff and buff to crush/pierce/slash, (we have a zerker that likes to tank alot, and the dps buffs help him hold agro as his dps goes well over 1k typically).  I have also spec'ed my AA's for the MT, as we have two dirges that raid regularly, and he is dps spec'ed.  So for my AA's I have the plus to crits, that is heal, melee and spell.  I also have the blade dance, which protects group from aoe for 30 secs, (but it actually only blocks one aoe). 

 

So with the coercer, I can buff the mana like no other class, and that is important.  I can also buff melee with our plus dps buff, or buff hate to the MT.  We can reduce hate as well.  So when I raid with my coercer, (just starting to raid with him btw), typically I am in a group with a warlock, brigand, conj, fury, bruiser.  The only problem we have is the poor warlock still dies alot on multi mob encounters, but he never runs out of power...lol

 

When agro is a real problem, like when we are doing labs or something where our raid dps is hitting above 20k regularly, we will put a coercer in the MT group along with the dirge and assassin just to help the tank with agro.  This also slows down the dps a little because they don't have as much power regen...

 

Just my 2cp...

[Cattastrophy]

I hate to say it... but Dirge is WAY better in an MT group... IF, and I put a huge IF on this, they have thier AA spec-ed for such. If they aren't then a Coercer spec-ed for MT group / raiding in mind can be as good if not better in some cases. I have a 70 Dirge as well, and I believe that any Dirge that has the Wis line is wasting 24 AA that could be used to help MT group much better and on personal / group wide DPS. But that is just my opinion. (Best setup for MT group / DPS personal and other wise is: STR line 4-4-8-8-0, dont' waste the 8 points on the bottem one, AGI line 4-1-0-0-0, INT line 4-4-4-8-0)Stoneskin is wonderful, but can get the Dirge killed on INC, DPS buff and mana regen isn't AS good, but very close, and the parry beets our AGI any day, if they are spec-ed right of course. ~_^

[Roriondesexiest]

I have better luck for some reason with the dirge/assassin for MT hate than when I put a coercer in the MT group.

 

My question was if you have another coercer in the raid would you rather have 2 coercers or 2 diges, from playing the dirge the other night, they seem to have alot more utility, since I have the other coercer in the OT group, and a troubador in the Mage DPS group. 

[Dagator]

Well oddly enough, we usually have two coercers and two dirges and one troub that want to raid so it can make things tricky.  Typically we put a dirge/assassin in the MT group, and then make a second tank group with a coercer/dirge then two dps groups, one with troub and one with coercer.  I know this isn't optimal but we try to spread the mana regen around.  If the zone is easy or we are outputting too much dps, we triple up in the MT group with dirge/assassin/coercer then two healers and a meat shield. 

Honestly though, I love playing my coercer even though he dies alot.  When my coercer was level 60, I could solo mobs that my dirge still has problems with to this day.  I have only raided with the coercer a few times and it was very fun, but that could be because it is new to me still.  My goal is to pull agro from the MT during a raid with the coercer...

[schmee]

a curse on you! how dare you spoil the coercer + dirge luv ftw in MT goodness!next thing you know, there will be conjurors demanding i deaggro them over warlocks, swashies and brigands living together! aaahhhh!

[Dagator]

LoL

We did labs last night as someone needed vyemm, (I am beginning to hate that zone), and we had a pretty interesting raid setup, but we went with a coercer and dirge in the MT group along with assassin, defiler, inquisitor and guard.  We just had a funky raid force online, but we cleared the zone in under two hours.  The guardian had a zonewide dps of 1080 or so and only lost agro on that one eyeball guy that has the knockup and you cannot hit except with magic for a long time.  The necro's were lifeburning and pulling agro for fun on that mob...lol

Other than that, it went well...

[laddich]

Typically our raid MT grp is setup like: Paladin (Amends on) Warlock, Coercer, Shaman, 2nd Healer, Dirge. The Dirge typically is busy with emergency heals, rezzing and keeping an eye on AE's and using Bladedance. In EOF getting more and more AE blockers is essential on raids. The Paladin/Warlock combo with Coercer Hate Buff basically locks any encounter where only wizzies can get agro if they hit too hard to early (sooo typical).

[hylozoist]

My answer to your original question is that the dirge is better for raiding in most cases.As you noted - better buffs, better debuffs, not including ability to rez, and the DPS is better than a coercer (although, clearly not significant).  You have more overall utility with the different buffs you can put up.  The only thing you're missing is the ability to mez/stun/stifle/daze mobs, and the ability to deaggro individuals.  (But a troub is a far better at deaggro, but that's beside the point isn't it?  But if you don't have a troub regularly, the coercer is valuable in this sense).  DPS-wise, just over a few parse comparisons for KoS raids, a mastered dirge increased dps by 33%.  The coercer increased group dps by about 20%.  So, unless you're without a troub or need mez or stun/stifle (very, very few places where it's absolutely necessary), the dirge is the better bet. 

[Cosmasi]

just a question I have had recently, do dirge and coercer hate transfer stack ,

Message Edited by Cosmasiva on 01-29-2007 08:12 AM

[IllusiveThoughts]

any mt i've raided with that has had a coercer always holds agro better than with just a dirge.

 

but the difference has been minimal, something to the tune of 100 or so dps before pulling agro from the 2 classes.  This was tested lots of times (not really a test but just no hate reduction on my wizard)

 

possibly the difference is the additional 7% hate gain from coercer hate buff. 

[Cattastrophy]

In reply to: "just a question I have had recently, do dirge and coercer hate transfer stack ,"um... since when did I get a hate transfer? We just get hate "buffs" actually. Which effect ALL hate gained by the person we cast it on. (Great way to kill a guild-mate that has been annoying you on a raid.) Dirge M2 is 42% gain plus the agression buff. Coercer A3 is 43% gain, M1 is 49% gain with no agression buff at all. Coercer is better for general hate gain and power regen, Dirge is better for keeping the tank alive with Stoneskin and other buffs.Are they stackable, well yes and no. The cap for "hate gain buff" was set to 50% after they removed our level... 66... 63... I forget which level but we had something that was better than ED many many updates ago. i'e dreally wish they'd just make the upgrade 1% higher or even leave it the same as ED and set the level higher so I could actually get the freakin master for it! WTB Enraging Dem Master 1 - will pay just about anything - PST!

[TwistedFaith]

WOW so many coercers who also have Dirges as alts etc.I myself have a 70 dirge with around 65 AA, he has fantastic debuffs to attack speed etc and I have also spec'd him for raiding with the +7% to all crits and bladedance. Kinda sucks from a personal DPS point of view but for the good of the raid it's nice to have a dirge spec'd this way.Lots of people forget that the 7% crit chance from the dirge stacks with the 13% to healers that a coercer gets. This along with most healers AA crit chances boosts all healers in the main tank group to around 43% crit chance on each heal (HoTs included). Throw coercive healing into the mix on the shaman and your looking at a really nice combo.I kinda like both of them in the MT group honestly, though our scouts cry and moan if they dont have a coercer to dps mob them, which makes a HUGE difference to their dps. Good plus with the dirge is that if you have the assasin in the MT group instead of the coercer then they also benefit from the dps buff of the dirge and cacophony of blades which increases their hate output when transfering to a tank. If the MT is a zerker then they will do anything to have the dirge with them The dirge also gets a VERY nice skill at the end of one of their EoF lines that increases trigger chances. This kicks [I cannot control my vocabulary] and works across the board on various things such as a templars own stoneskin proc.Also bards are getting a revamp in the near future to increase their dps apparently so thats cool.Kinda waffling here, but I like both classes, though I find the coercer to be way more useful in groups, try doing Nizara with a dirge instead of a coercer and see how you go

[Anvilhead]

I have both a dirge and a coercer. 

 In terms of buffing the MT's hate/dps/power...my coercer will beat my dirge hands down.

 However, in those encounters against Orange mobs, where they resist everything more...you'll want the dirge parry, stoneskin, hate song (that buffs aggression), not bad power regen, and the +crush/pierce/slash buff running.  In those encounters, the defensive bonuses brought into the mix by the dirge outweigh the coercer advantages.

 That's been my experience at least.

[Blumfield]

Cattastrophy wrote:

In reply to: "just a question I have had recently, do dirge and coercer hate transfer stack ," um... since when did I get a hate transfer? We just get hate "buffs" actually. Which effect ALL hate gained by the person we cast it on. (Great way to kill a guild-mate that has been annoying you on a raid.) Dirge M2 is 42% gain plus the agression buff. Coercer A3 is 43% gain, M1 is 49% gain with no agression buff at all. Coercer is better for general hate gain and power regen, Dirge is better for keeping the tank alive with Stoneskin and other buffs. Are they stackable, well yes and no. The cap for "hate gain buff" was set to 50% after they removed our level... 66... 63... I forget which level but we had something that was better than ED many many updates ago. i'e dreally wish they'd just make the upgrade 1% higher or even leave it the same as ED and set the level higher so I could actually get the freakin master for it! WTB Enraging Dem Master 1 - will pay just about anything - PST!

I didn't quite follow all of this, but I gather there's been a patch  msg somewhere which stated that enraging demeanor  + other 'passive' hate buffs cap at 50%.  Can anyone attest to whether this is true or false?  Link?

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