I've got both an Illusionist and Coercer at 120. They seem pretty comparable to me. All the fussing seems focused around Charm. Once you hit 65 and have Possess Essence, it's less of an issue. I view Coercers now kind of like I viewed Fire/Kin controllers back in COH. The low levels solidly suck, but at higher levels, they're pretty fun.
OP is on the TLE so lvl 120 is irrevelant and so is lvl 65 possess essence currently. There is no reason why they couldnt fix their exaggerated nerfs to coercers pet while illusionists pet is allowed to be this strong.
Well, I could counter that since the OP put it in the general class discussion section, that above level 50 is relevant. That's really a side issue to the bigger topic though. My earlier post was written with the mindset that on a live server, 1 to 65 goes pretty quick. Doubly so if one uses the Agnostic Dungeons or similar means of power leveling. While that's true, there's no reason that the lower half of the game should have to suck for any class due to random, arbitrary nerfs. I've always been of the mindset that any adjustments in either direction should be based purely on mathematical balance, not to promote another class or because a dev doesn't like said class. I almost got onto a long tangent here about balance and how the game plays completely different at various levels (nevermind the TLE servers play completely different than the Live at the same levels). Also how, despite some folks telling me the game IS balanced at end levels, that my tanks all hit MUCH harder than my mages above 120 while wearing nearly identical gear stats-wise.
Completely agree with this. I'm leveling a new Coercer on the TLE and it sucks pretty hard compared to how much fun the class used to play, especially solo grinding.
Illy's are in the worst spot of all the support classes. Coercers are in the best spot on live. All support classes can support fine. The coercer played well can out DPS any other support by 4X the DPS. On TLE Illy is going to outshine a coercer for a while then the Coercer will rise then with the addition of the Illy cloak, Illy's will once again shine for a while. Then when they strip the cloak, Illy's fall again, I think right after KA, and Coercers get this AMAZING stuff in BoL and on that boosts their DPS while bards and Illy's continue to be bottom feeders (in comparison) to Coercers. The only ones who will tell you different are coercers themselves. As to the charm, it was initially only meant as a gimmick and a script helper. Not as a character defining tool.
Anyone having played coercer at the begining of the game will say that charm was NOT just a gimmick nor a script helper. It was class defining and it was fun. Questing in outdoors regions full of heroics, finding the best charm possible, juggling with crowd control and your charm, trying to keep your aggro low and kitting your targets, having to quickly react when your charm break at the worst time and having no AAs to help you deal with it. So many deaths or near deaths fights in contested zones trying to do as well as conjurers. I still remember trying to charm every type of creatures available, looking at their archetype, their dps or in some case their buff. Crossing half the map multiple time to charm that specific creature. Today you have mercenaries and posses essence but it cleary does not compare to the experience of charm. Charms only get really broken when they started to introduced % based damage on creatures. They just got lazy and nerf them to the point it kills one of the best and fun tool of the coercers. I believe only EQ1 would still provide that experience if you are looking for it. As for coercer/illy comparison, as already mentioned one expension one is better than the other one depending of the stats cap we have, and if they decide to boost or not our buff at every level upgrade. Today coercers are in better spot than illy but that could change as soon as they will release new mercenaries/familiars. I believe both class are good to play at the moment and even if there is some dps difference, compared to how low we are with some T1 dps it does not mean that much.
I have seen coercers doing 2tril on T1's. That means much more than "not that much". Just what I have seen. Illys, Troubs nor Dirges are even close to that. Let's not down play the disparity. But I like the Coercer putting up decent numbers as I wish all Support classes made some impact. It would make the classes more interesting and fun to play and by virtue of that bring more players to those classes where we are seeing huge decline in support game wide.
