Duress

Ok, so I've had time to use my weapon and ruminate.

Let's go beyond aesthetics and stats and discuss just the three procs:

Siren's Stare is a clickie buff for a single fighter in your group. It adds mental damage to their taunts in the same way the Warrior set bonus does.

Siren's Gift is a 12% chance proc that, for 10 seconds, reduces the power cost of group members' spells by 20%.

Siren's Flow is an upgraded Mana Flow. The time it takes to pass mana has been reduced to five seconds (recast is the same, however), and the entire group of your target will get 10%. You will get back 10% for each person (and his/her pet).

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For a mythical item, Siren's Stare sucks. It's a carbon-copy of a set bonus that warriors don't give a shit about.

Forgetting for the moment that Siren's Gift doesn't even proc reliably, it's a redundant proc. Why the hell do I need a SECOND power management proc on the same weapon? (Nevermind that I already have other tricks like Shroud and Channeling.)

Siren's Flow I like a lot. It's irksome to lose VM status, but this is something I can live with IF and ONLY IF the previous two procs were replaced with something more worthwhile. Otherwise, I'd really appreciate this proc being "fixed" so we're getting the 10% we invested back.

Now here comes the constructive part. I've been thinking of creative alternatives for our weapon, and these are two that came to mind.

1) Option One:
A groupwide perpetuality-like proc. In essence, we "compel" our groupmates to cast faster and faster. Ideally, it'd be something where it'd affect both spell haste AND reuse because just speed is kinda worthless for some classes.

2) Option Two:
A temporary raid-castable group buff that "shields" the group from accruing hate. In RP terms, we force the encounter not to notice the group. The group then enjoys whatever seconds of hate-free damage. Not sure precisely how the mechanics would work for this (whether you can flat-out block damage from gaining hate or whether they'd get a reactive deaggro).

So those are two ideas. Feedback is welcome. I'm curious to see what other *high-end* coercers think would be a nice complement to their mythicaled-out raids, because no doubt they've already seen changes in dps output and aggro management.

The thing that concerns me about our situation is that while Siren's Flow is nice, it's STILL not clear to which group we belong or benefit. I figure having a tricked-out group-wide ROA-cum-Perpetuality buff would be something nice for any group. The "free damage" buff is utility that allows our raid to maintain high damage output without blowing themselves up.

The real point is to show the devs that we're not just going to piss and moan but offer constructive alternatives. (Although I have to say I'm partial to my ideas because they're my ideas! <3) So let's get the ball rolling?

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Codename

I haven't gotten it yet, but hopefully soon! (My guild just started in VP, woo)

But I really like some of your ideas, Duress.
Especially the groupwide Perp. effect. That sounds awesome as hell. Maybe not quite as awesome as groupwide Haste, but still awesome!

Antrig

There's always the cookie cutter approach - no conc slots for pet, 1 conc slot to buff group DPS.

I would prefer more imagination though. But something as Duress suggests to make coercers welcome in other than tank groups would be better off in our base spells, rather than something only 1% will see.

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Templar/Paladin/Illusionist/Dirge/Scholar

Mendanbar

I don't think she's advocating not changing other spells, but more that it should support that class' role in raids.

Why on earth would you add pet conc slot changes onto a coercer weapon? You can't charm in raids, and frankly, it would be retarded to. It would either be immensely overpowering (long duration) or hectic and totally unwise (short duration). So what do you end up with? Something that doesn't do any good for a raider.

And well, frankly, I don't think it's unreasonable to spend 5 minutes to fix something designed for the "1%" (which actually isn't even close to that, especially since these things are supposed to last well into the next expansion, when PLENTY of people will be getting them - look at claymore rewards) so that it's actually appealing to that 1%.

Senelin

If I saw a groupwide perpetuality, I'd like to see it based off of *my* spell casting, because otherwise only a couple people in the group are going to see benefits.

Another idea is to add a spell caster benefit to impetus, such as +spell damage % or +cast speed. You could make it groupwide and add +10 or +20 cast speed as well, and we would be a *great* addition to any group.

EDIT: Another idea I had... not sure about the feasability.. something for the MT that had a chance when anyone other than the 1 person you cast the buff on hit the mob it had a % chance to drop them a hate position... might not be a good idea, but there might be some other idea based on it that would be good.

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Duress

It's a weapon acquired by raiding. It should then be applicable to raiders. Charm concentration slots is -- thanks to raid design -- thus not applicable. I don't know how smart charms in a raid situation would be anyway.

Either way, these are suggestions for this version of the weapon only. There are a slew of other coercer issues to address, but this one is the most likely to receive immediate attention, hence this thread.

If this "perpet-like" spell is going to have wide appeal across various raid groups, it has to have both spell haste and reuse components. Scouts need reuse more than they need spell haste. Therefore, I'm asking for a whole new effect/spell than Perpetuality as we know it.

I like the idea about Impetus having a caster-related bonus to it. But if this is being added through our mythical weapon, the bonus better be pretty awesome. The unfortunate thing is that BOE and spell crit are fucking everywhere so...raiders with their mythicals are probably approaching that point where the gains are marginal rather than magnificent.

The threat-position buff is interesting and it sounds like we're on the same page for being responsible for hate management, but I'm still partial to my idea of the "hate-free period," if only for

a) the unique factor
b) the potential to assist, say, our mages in outputting a HUGE amount of damage without immediately dying and fucking up scout positioning, etc. and
c) the potential to coordinate when other groups are about to spike in damage

Overall, I'm going for "WOW" factor here because this is our mythical we're talking about. With my suggestion, I see a lot more potential for assisting an entire group to accomplish WOW type things than a buff that does what the claymore reward does.

Make sense?

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Senelin

Yes, I agree that a short term would probably add more of a "holy hell" effect... could be coupled with tash and potm and the mages could go insane.

Maybe a 20% cast speed and another 10% reuse for group.

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Linyen

I like the cast speed thing based off perpet for my gorup
I dont like anything that has to do with "upgrading" charm on a raid epic, thats retarded
The shield thing for aggro kinda sucks because a lot of coercers are still in MT group
I still like my original 12% chance to cast 10sec group immune to stun/stifle/daze

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Linyen Darkmoon`Rage, Leader of Deaths Door
Everfrost, 80 Coercer

"Because Im too lazy to betray"
Co-er-cer(noun) - To be coerced into thinking you will get anything exceptional.
www.deaths-door.com
Fix Coercers in 08' !!

Renataki

I think that in addressing the epic, we really need to address some issues the class has as a whole. True, only 1% of us will see it, during Kunark. But eventually this thing won't be that rare. So I feel it's important to ramble on as I'm about to.

The hate proc is a good idea. In fact, it's such a damn good idea that it needs to be removed from the epic. Instead, add it to our hate line and add two new spells at 66 and 80.

Ex: Angering Demeanor (66) - Same Hate % as Enraging, with mental damage on taunts
Infuriating Demeanor (80) - Same Hate %, larger mental damage

Siren's Flow - This I like. This is good. Keep this.

Instead, change Volatile Magic so it doesn't have the random-ass requirement of < 30% Mana. Just have it *randomly* add 25% to a spell's damage, maybe 10 or 20% of the time. It's worse than the current form to be sure, but given that we really can't use it at all anymore, that'd be an upgrade. And, it would actually be, oh what's the word...volatile. And yeah I realize this would hurt Illusionists (sort of). I'm willing to bet most of them would be happy to stop that Sprint bullshit.

Siren's Gift - Hrm...again not a bad idea, but it's more of the same. We already give groups tons of mana. But you know, this would be a really neat effect for maybe...the "Eye" line of spells. Let us randomly give the group a little bit of mana savings. It would actually make it something different and useful. Instead of just being mini-clarity with a 10 minute duration and a dumb reagent.

Now, assuming any of these changes would go through, I've basically stripped the epic of all it's abilities. So what do we have instead? Well, how about we focus on the other stuff a Coercer does. You know, aside from being mana batteries?

Let's see, three abilities...two passive (Mythical only), and one proc. Again, I think Siren's Flow is good. Let's keep it.

Illusionists got that nifty Rapidity upgrade. More double attack, groupwide haste. This goes with the theme of Illusionists - quantity, not quality. Coercers, with our DPS buffs, provide quality. You don't swing as much, but you hit harder. So, acknowledging this, make our DPS buffs groupwide, same as Illusionists. But don't add a double attack mod. Give it strikethrough. Not 100% of course, but enough that a melee who gets the buff won't say "Aw man, this is near worthless." 10 or 15% maybe.

So, for a proc ability, how about:

Siren's Stare - 9% (Fabled) or 12% (Mythical) chance on offensive spell of applying Siren's Stare to the target:

-Strips target of all immunities (Mez/Stun/Stifle/etc And by this I mean Epic immunities as well.)
-Any offensive spell that hits this target will return 100 power to its caster.
-Upon termination, target is cured of stun, stifle, mez, root, and daze.
-Lasts 8.0s
-This effect may not be overwritten.

Yeah, it's a power proc, sort of. But here's my train of thought on this one. Illusionists got a group power proc, but it's melee only. It's 1000 power though. Instead, we get a raid-wide one, which only affects casters, and probably not for nearly as much power. Also, again, Coercers focus on making attacks connect hard, not just having more of them. Debuffing is what we do. Strip the immunity and let the stuns and stifles fly! Notice I put the cure clause in there and also the "can't be overwritten." This allows us to get a control spell off, but it doesn't let us solo epics, nor does it reliably allow us to keep the debuff on there. (You can't overwrite it with itself.)

You want unique and a "wow" factor that falls in line with our class? I feel I've presented that.

I realize that these changes might require a few more changes to the class, but at this point, shouldn't we seriously be asking for that? And I didn't even go into Thoughtstones.

EDIT: Typos, touch-ups, etc. (Morning here...ugh...)

Renataki

Small addendum to the above post. Ignore the part that mentions "root." That was an edit, and root clearly doesn't need to be on there. It's totally not useful for raid encounters, but having that debuff, and subsequent cure, work with root would only serve to screw up our soloing. Mez, stun, stifle, and daze only.