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[经验] Frequently Asked Coercer Questions [EQ2FLAMES.COM]

To help the coercer community better understand coercer workings andlimitations (and also maybe to cut down on tells and organize topics),I decided to make a few posts regarding frequently asked questions.Basically, this is to help the newer coercers; for veteran coercers,these should be rehashed discussions.


In depth answers:
Click on the topic to bring you to the analysis.

1. Buffing Your Raid
Basic values and mechanics for your buffs.

2. Achievement Points
Recommended achievement point distribution and explanations.

3. Improving DPS: Spell Priority and Casting Order
Recommended spell casting order and explanations.

4. In-depth Gear Analysis

Understanding Procs, Spell Damage, Crit, Base Damage, Int, Reuse, andCasting Speed, and how to best maximize dps through your gear choices.


Quick answers/links:


Coercer Worldwide Channel
/join befallen.coercers

Coercer Spell List

EQ2 Game Data Coercer 1-80 Spell List

VP Set Gems List

Incinerated Helm Pattern - Magma Diamond
Incinerated Pauldrons Pattern - Pyre Sapphire
Incinerated Chestguard Pattern - Dragons Eye
Incinerated Bracers Pattern - Crystalized Phospherous
Incinerated Gloves Pattern - Lava Ruby
Incinerated Leggings Pattern - Inferno Pearl
Incinerated Boots Pattern - Living Ember

Recommended Charmed Pets
eq2.wikia Coercer Pets

Recommended Possessed Essences
Bards or melee pets work the best.  

ACT Triggers for a troubadour pet when fighting one:
.*(a |an ).*Brilliant Blade.*|.*(a |an ).*Deafening Strike.*|.*(a |an).*Kian's Destructive Anthem.*|.*(a |an ).*Piercing Shrill.*

ACT triggers for a dirge pet when fighting one:
.*(a |an ).*Singing Strike.* | .*(a |an ).*Reproaching Discante.*

Recommended UI

ProfitUI Reborn
Offers reactive triggers and time left on maintained spells, quick curebuttons, quick raid buttons, and lots more. As a bonus, updates veryquickly, and has an auto-updater program as well.

Recommend Coercer Training Master 2
14: Gloom
24: Sibyllant
34: Anguish or Bravado
44: Tyrannical Mind
54: Magus
64: Harmonious Link
75: Hemorrhage

Top 5 deity choices
1. Sol Ro, with Ro's Fury and Incineration
2. Bertoxxulous, with Pus Bolt and Pox of Bertoxxulous
3. Cazic Thule, with Thule's Blessing and Id's Release
4. Karana, with Blessing of Serenity and Unyielding Ice Storm
5. Brell, with Earth's Vigil and Rift from Below or Forgehammer

Coercer Epic Walkthroughs
1. EQ2Flames Walkthrough
2. eq2.wikia Timeline
Life is short, Play more!

FACQ, part 1: Buffing Your Raid

Buffs, along with debuffs, are a basic part of the coercer class. Thebetter you understand your buffs, the easier to is to figure out who tobuff for maximum effectiveness.

The biggest point of this thread is to emphasize to younger coercers tofocus on using concentration slots for Impetus and Peaceful Link, andignoring on the whole Signet of Intellect and Coruscation. The secondpoint is to help highlight what exact utility coercers can providethrough buffs.

Part I. Class buffs

A. Enraging Demeanor - +17.1 hate gain, 17% hate transfer
B. Impetus - +78 DPS
C. Peaceful Link - 22% hate decrease and chance at -1 hate position if stuck by a melee weapon
D. Signet of Intellect - group 104 Agi, 104 Int
E. Coruscation - group 622 max power and arcane mitigation

Part II. Achievement Buffs
F. Coercive Healing - 15% base healing to wards/hots 1 additional reactive trigger, increased beneficial casting and reuse speeds
G. Empathic Aura - up to 16% heal crit
I. Empathic Soothing - up to 8% group hate decrease

Part I. Basic buffs
These are the buffs everyone gets.  Numbers listed are for master I versions.

A. Enraging Demeanor

What it does
: This spell increases hate. The hate gain capis 50%. The hate transfer cap is also 50%. This spell should stack withall known hate increase spells and hate transfer spells up to thatpoint.

How it works: The math should be straightforward: increase yourtarget's threat output by the hate gain percent, then add the amount ofyour hate transfer. If the assumption is correct, and if you're nothitting any caps, then you should be able to increase your target'sthreat output by 900 - 1300 average threat per second.

If you get the Shard of Hate enchanter robe, Insidious Robe, then yougain an additional hate proc and 100 combat art damage as well.

Enraging demeanor can also be enhanced by the Shadows Coercer lineability, Arcane Hatred. This can boost the hate gain and increase by5%, or 22% hate gain and 22% hate transfer.

Who should you put it on: Someone who's tanking, hopefully. Ifyou are placed in a group where you don't have anyone to put it on, youmight want to put it on a pet to dump hate. Shaman pets and summonerpets both are valid targets of this spell.

B.
Impetus

What it does: Damage per second (we'll call it DPS, incaps) increases auto-attack damage. This increase is on a diminishingreturns scale at returns a 125% increase for 200 points of DPS.

How it works: You take the damage of the weapon and multiply itby the percent increase that you end up with. You get at least 1%increase per 1 dps until you reach around 72 DPS. To be more precise,from 0 to 78, the increase in auto-attack damage is 76%. But, you'rerarely going to buff someone starting at 0 DPS. Most melee classes haveat least 60 dps even before factoring in any self or group buffs. Theincrease from 60 to 138 DPS is about a 50% auto-attack damage increase,and the increase from 100 to 178 DPS is about 20%. An averageself-buffed, unhasted, non-doubleattacking tank's auto-attack is atleast 400 dps (not to be confused with DPS) zone wide, and the averageself-buffed-only auto-attacks for at least 600 dps zone wide. Anincrease of 50% from these auto-attack numbers is 200-300 dps for theirzone wide, while 20% offers 80-120 dps improvement. Well-geared tanksand scouts in the raid setting can put out much more dps fromauto-attack, factoring in higher haste, double attack, crit, and weaponratios, thus increasing the multiplier. Even priests and mages getbenefits as long as they are equipped properly, but it varies greatly.Mages would see about a 50-70 dps increase if they maintainedauto-attack for an entire fight, and priests would see anywhere from100 to 500 dps zone wide should they auto-attack full time. ASTR-achievement spec enchanter would see an average of 120 dps fromthis buff. So, as you can see from the example, the increase issignificant even with the diminished returns scale factored in.

The old T7 EoF 5-set bonus increases impetus.  There is no upgrade from the level 62 version of this spell.

Who should you put it on: Anyone who is going to do alot of auto-attack damage, as long as you have concentration slots.  

C. Peaceful Link

What it does
: This spell decreases hate. Like hate gainand transfer, hate decrease also has a 50% cap and stacks with otherhate decrease buffs. The amount of decrease can be raised from 22% to27% through coercer achievements, and another 6% through the T8 RoK2-set bonus and a proc of approximately 1700 at 1.8 times per minutefor autoattacks.

How it works: For the hate portion, the math is againstraightforward as with hate gain: your target's threat is decreased bypercentage shown. Hate gain also factors in before hate transfer, so ifyour target is transferring hate to someone, the amount transferredwill also be decreased. At the full effect of 27%, putting it onsomeone who's putting out around 4000 dps is going to decrease theiraverage threat output by about 1000. For someone with a troubadour, thepercent decrease is reduced to 16%. But even then, the extra amountdecreased is still 640 average threat per second for someone at 4000dps, and 960 for someone at 6000 dps.

Who should you put it on: Whoever puts out a high amount ofthreat. Your best targets are generally wizards, brigands, rangers,assassins, illusionists, and warlocks, but you have to figure out who'sputting out the most threat for your raid. Scouts have more abilitiesto decrease threat (by transfer, hate decrease, or active threatmanagement) than sorcerers or enchanters, and summoners hate positionis only determined by their personal threat, and not any threat thattheir pet generates. Still, at times, even bards or other fighters aregood targets for this spell, so just be aware of which fights requirewhich strategies. As a side note, link does not affect a pet's hategain, but is never really useful for a pet anyway.

D. Signet of Intellect

What it does: Increases your group's intelligence andagility. Intelligence helps your damage. Agility helps increase baseavoidance (and increases scouts max power, but not to a point that it'suseful at all in that capacity). Diminishing returns kicks innoticeably at 700 int, and really starts to flatten out over 950.

How it works: Agility's avoidance increase is barelysignificant in raid situations, and is difficult to measure accurately.This is because base avoidance is greatly diminished due to mob levels(as some people say, base avoidance falls under "contested" or"mitigated"). So, I can't really say much about it.
Intelligence is a bit clearer to understand. The cap for intelligencefor a level 80 spell is 1220. The formula for all stats (15 * Level) +20. A spell's Int cap is affected by its level; for example,Hemorrhage, as a level 71 spell, will cap its damage at 1065 Int,Hostage at 1155, Spell Curse at 1170, and Shockwave at 1220.

At 1220 Int, you will see approximately a 40% increase in damage over 0Int, while at 900 int, you will see a 36.5% increase in damage over 0int. Raiding coercers should be at 900 int self-buffed no matter whatgear they've selected, so further gains will only lead to another 3%improvement (factoring in that certain spells get lesser gains).

The intelligence portion does not stack with other mage's intelligence buffs.  You can read more about intelligence in the fourth FACQ, In-Depth Gear Analysis.

When should you cast it
: If you can't find someone to putimpetus and there's no good candidates for link, Signet is an okoption. Just don't expect a huge increase, and generally don't bothercasting it if another mage has their group intelligence buff up.

5. Coruscation

What it does: Increases your group's max power and arcane mitigation.

How it works: Max power is easy to understand. Arcanemitigation is also easy to understand, but in another manner: magicalmitigation does not affect anything significantly in its current state.

When should you cast it: There's not any good reason to cast this buff, unless you have nothing else to cast.

Part II. Achievement buffs
These buffs you can obtain via the achievements system.

F. Coercive Healing


What it does: Increases wards, reactive or regeneration spells'heal amount by 15%, or also increases reactive triggers by 1. Further,it adds 15% speed to beneficial spells and 10% reuse to beneficialspells. It is the final skill on the "coercion" line in the CoercerAchievement tree.

How it works: As it states, it increases the amount of bothsingle target and group class-specific heals. It does not affect directheals. The increase is applied before plus healing mods. It stacks withall other known forms of increases, including gravitas and reactivesthat increase healing amount, and thus is a "base" increase for thoseheals.

Who should you put it on: Shaman should get it first in mostcases. Templars benefit the 2nd most, while inquisitors and both druidsare approximately equal as the 3rd most benefit. Although the addedheal amount is generally similar for all the classes (potentially400-500 additional healing amount per specialty spell), because shamanwards get used first, they realize the most benefit. Cleric reactivesmay expire before all triggers are used, but since they also recentlyincreased the heal amount as well as the trigger amount, itsituationally can be more than a druid's regeneration gain. Druids havea similar problem in that their heals often are not fully used, even ingroup situations, but at least each heal pulse is increased.

You may want to place it on templars in fights where Sanctuary is vitalso the reuse allows the spell to be available more often. It also aidstheir repent spell in reuse and casting, although it does nothing forthe ward/heal amount.

G. Empathic Aura

What it does: Increases heal crit by up to 16%.This includes power heals, and mana flow can crit. It is the thirdskill of the Stamina line in the Enchanter Achievement tree.

How it works: Heal crit works the same way as spell crit. Aheal that has more than a 1:1 range is increased to 100 to 130% on asuccessful crit. Wards are only increased 15%, as they have a 1:1ratio. This translates out similarly to spell crit in terms of plushealing: one percent heal is about 0.3% total increase in healing,roughly equivalent to +30 heal mod.

Since you can always keep it up, there's no reason not to cast it ifyou have it. One unfortunate fact, though, is that its range is only 20meters. This means the buff only applies when you're in heal range ofyour healers.

H. Empathic Soothing

What it does: Decreases group hate by up to 8%.

How it works: It works the same as how hate decrease isexplained under Peaceful Link, except it applies to every member ofyour group within 20 meters. Not too much to add.


Well, hopefully that helps you understand the benefits of your buffs,what buffs you usually want to have up, and on whom. If you havequestions, corrections, or other related discussion, please post so Ican address it. In the next article, I discuss the Achievement Points for Coercers in more detail.
Life is short, Play more!

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FACQ, part 2: Achievement Points

I) Raid AA Lines

In raids, you want to focus on improving your long-term dps as much aspossible, while also ensuring that you hit the key utility pointsavailable for coercers. Still, there's no one best AA line for everycoercer that is "the best." But, there's some obvious choices to startwith, and I'll add in information that should help you decide where tospend your extra points.

If you want to know how I spent my points, I am currently specced:

Enchanter Tree:
Agility: 4-4-8-8-1
Intelligence: 4-4-6-8-1
Stamina: 4-4-8-3

Coercer Tree:
Coercion: 5 Tyrannous Mind, 3 Peaceful Link, 2 Hostage, 2 Spell Curse, Coercive Healing
Resistances: 3 Dictate, 5 Obliterated Psyche, 5 Asylum, 1 Dispel Magic, Tashiana
Efficiency: 2 Intrepid Focus, 5 Shock Wave, 5 Ego Melt
Mana: 5 Mana Flow, 5 Mana Shroud, 5 Channeling. 3 Soothing, 2 Cannbalize Thoughts, 1 Mana Ward

Shadows Tree:
General: 5 Hearty Constitution, 5 Enhanced Mind
Mage: 5 Runic Protection, 5 Strike of the Mage, 1 Bewilderment
Enchanter: 5 Mental Torment, 5 Silent Thoughts
Coercer: 5 Arcane Hatred, 5 Depressed Thoughts, 5 Mental Blast, 5 Shield of Runes, 1 Psychic Blast, 1 Intellectual Remedy



1. Enchanter Tree

In order of recommendation, the best enchanter achievements for raids are:
a) Agility
b) Intelligence
c) Stamina
d) Strength
e) Wisdom



a) Agility

Casting faster gets you more spells per minute, additional chances toproc, and simply better reaction time. Although the stat of Agility andincreased Defense do nothing significant against raid mobs, Casting andRecovery haste do a substantial amount in a raid setting.

The average unhasted coercer casts 25 spells per minute, with anaverage cast time (without any prior cast haste) of 1.8 seconds and a0.5 second recovery between spells. With that info, we can beginmanipulating the math a little bit and compare the relative increasefrom these achievements.

First, let's examine Chronomotion. With maximum AA inChronomotion (48% Recovery Speed), you save about 4 seconds out of aminute of casting. With 4 points in the AA, you save over 3 seconds. In3 to 4 seconds, you can cast 2 or 3 additional spells. Let's say youhave 4 seconds - in that amount of time, you can cast 2 Hemorrhages and1 Shock Wave, which adds up to 7,500 to 12,000 damage. Or, you wouldhave enough time to cast a Stun and reapply Psyche and GorgingThoughts. In theoretical percentage terms, full Chronomotion equals a6% increase in effectiveness, while 4 points equals a 4% increase.

Now, onto Casting Speed with Chronosiphoning, Chronology, and the powerful Perpetuality.By common sense, you can see that per point, Casting Speed has a largereffect than Recovery, as Recovery only affects a percentage of the 0.5seconds between spells, while Casting affects a percentage of 1.7seconds. However, Casting speed is also easier to attain. Also, due tothe way haste is calculated, the more haste you have, the lesserreturns it provides.
Eight points in Chronology (14.4% Casting haste) will save you at least5 seconds over non-hasted casting, or a gain of between 7% and 9%effectiveness. Adding in Chronosiphoning at4 points will save another about 2 seconds (after subtracting the Casttime and Recovery time required to cast it twice, assuming no resistsand that you cast it early enough to affect enough of your spells).This amount of time saved equals 1.5% to 3%. So, you're gaining atleast 10% effectiveness just from these initial Casting achievements.
Once you throw Perpetuality inthe Mix, the numbers become a bit harder to calculate as you willrarely have Perpetuality V up an entire fight, especially due to stuns,stifles, and the like. Still, you can count on an average of 28 Castinghaste from this over a zone - or a savings of 9 seconds per minute ofencounter, or 11% to 15% effectiveness.

Although I recommend putting extra points in Recovery speed overCasting speed, it's basically raid-dependent. There are more sources ofCasting speed available (Bard AA at 8.0, Monk Raidwide Buff at 14.4,Cleric AA at 50.0 temporarily, Shaman AA Ritual of Alacrity at 33.0 andIllusionist Time Compression at 20.0), compared with few sources ofRecovery Speed available (Shaman AA and Time Compression). It's rarethat you'll get buffs with Recovery Speed, as they are single targetspells that will generally go to other classes that benefit more fromthem - while all of the other listed Casting Speed buffs aregroup-wide.
On a basic 4-4-8-6-1 setup, you can reach 65 Casting Speed based purelythrough AA's, or 87 in a group with a Bard and a Monk. Further Castingspeed bumps can be obtained via gear (while there's no equivalent forRecovery speed), with the cap at 100.
On a side note, if you're Strength spec, you may want to focus more onCasting speed and spend less points in Recovery. Since auto-attacksoccur during recovery time, shortening it may lead to further delays inauto-attacks. In practice, however, I did not notice that the extratenths of a second of recovery time affected my auto attacks.

Basically, you're looking at an average 27% increase in effectivenessfrom the Agility line - both in DPS and in casting in general,including debuffs, buffs, and mana flow. There's even more potential tobe tapped, as of you managed to maintain Perpetuality full-time, it'dbe a 43% overall improvement. I recommend at least 4-4-8-6-1 foragility, and also that you spend extra points in this line.


b) Intelligence

Base Damage and Spell Crit are the main draws of this line, but the other skills are useful as well.

Since I discuss Intelligence in the In-Depth Gear Analysisthread, I won't go into detail. Intelligence basically offers a smallpercentage increase in dps, and the amount you gain can gain here atbest is 0.02% damage per intelligence, or 0.08% damage per achievementspent.

For Nullifying Staff, your mileage will vary. My hitpercentage for this skill is about 90%. You have to be within meleerange to use this skill, and moving into range can take time away fromcasting. The damage portion is minor, at best 5-10 dps. The majorbenefit is from the Mental mitigation debuff, which lasts 10 seconds.The skill must connect for the debuff to land. At level 80, the debuffis about 1000 mental mitigation at 4 points, and 1189 at 6 points.Magical mitigation is on a diminishing returns scale, and at least frommy testing, works differently than mitigation does on a player.Basically, magicial mitigation offers a great decrease until 0 isreached - offering up to 40% damage increase if debuffing to 0. Magicalmitigation can be debuffed into the negative, but any amount into thenegative offers very small increases - at best, another 10% additionaldamage. But, with the increase in magical mitigation buff on raid mobsfrom GU43, additional debuffs can't hurt.

Savant's Insight is limited in its usefulness - it preventsinterruptions if you get hit, but it doesn't prevent you from movementinterruptions (by moving yourself too far or from knock back). At sucha 4% percentage per point to proc and with a duration of only 3seconds, the amount of fights that it's useful is fairly low. Only afew spells or AE's have interrupts only, and the many additionalcontrol effects (stun/stifle/knock back) will frustrate your spellcasting much worse than interrupts. Basically, the chance of thishelping you is highest when you are tanking something, and that shouldbe rare on raids.

Next is Savant's Channeling, a much better ability. SpellCrit follows a flat increase per point - for coercers, 1 percent SpellCrit is about 0.33% increase in damage. I discuss Spell Crit a bit morein the 4th FACQ, In-Depth Gear Analysis.  If you are curious how to exactly calculate Crit and damage increase, I recommend this threadfor an excellent explanation of how to calculate the boost from spellcrit (generally all our spells are 4:5, except Sonic Boom). With 8points in Savant's Channeling, you gain 11.7% spell crit - or about a4% increase in damage. (As an odd number, it rounds up to 12% andshould always display as 12%).

Volatile Magic adds base damage. Base damage is great as it isfairly difficult to obtain through gear or buffs. A 15% boost to yourdamage spells translates to a 15% boost in all spell-based DPS, andthus at minimum 12% of overall dps. As of GU45, there are no negativeeffects attached to Volatile Magic.

You're looking at about 18% increase in DPS from the Intelligence line from Savant's Channeling and Volatile Magic.


c) Stamina

The best skills in the Stamina are Empathic Aura and Sever Hate. But,the other abilities aren't horrible, although they're a bit redundant.

Stamina as a statistic offers about 3 to 2 points of healthuntil you hit the downward part of the diminishing returns scale at700. From there, you're looking at less than 2 health per stamina.Thus, there isn't much use to put extra points in the stat.

As far as the usefulness of the abilities in this line, Touch of Empathyis on the lower end as it is group-only, and you cannot cast it onyourself. If you cast it on someone continuously, it only averages outto 45 negative threat per second, which would be about 2% of the totalthreat output for an average raider. Generally, this amount won'taffect your group mate's hate position. Thus, at best, it's somethingto spam to keep up Perpetuality with the small chance that it willactually help people stay at the right hate positions, but it's notreliable due to the low amount and 30 second recast time. If you wantto set it up for general use, the most hassle-free method to use thisability is to use a custom UI's group button to /useability. Anotheroption is to simply fill out a target macro for someone who's in yourgroup, so you don't have to target your group mate every time.

Next, Empathic Aura and Empathic Soothing were discussed in the Buffing Your Raid thread.  Empathic Aurais highly recommended as it increases the healing strength of multiplehealers. Even if you only have one healer in your group, it's helpinghim or her. You're increasing their healing potential by about 5%, orby about 400 per heal cast. Even the best geared healers are not cappedon Heal Crit, and at 2% per point, it offers better gains than even ahealer's personal achievement lines.
Empathic Soothing, on the other hand, is not vital. As withTouch of Empathy, its usefulness varies with your group setup, but evenin a heavy dps group, it's not useful. It decreases your group's threataccumulation, but the low amount (1% per point) makes this abilityweak. At 5% hate decrease, you give a leeway of 100-200 average threatper second. However, you are better off (and usually able) to sparePeaceful Link for those allies who are regular threat-stealers, and youalso can use Touch of Empathy (the equivalent of about 2% dehate) as analternative should you lack the concentration slots, since you have topay 4 points for Touch anyway if you're down this line.
With both of these group buffs, it's good to remember that they onlyapply when you're in 20 meters - so you have to be wary of yourdistance.

Sever Hate
can be very useful - it lowers a friend's hateposition by 2, and can be used cross-raid. Hate position is much morepowerful than hate amount, and using this ability can save an ally andallow him/her to do more dps. When you use it, you want to cast it onan ally, and not through the mob, because there's always the chancethat you can sever the wrong person.
The only downside to this ability is that the dps potential is greaterwith Agility and/or Intelligence final skills, and even the highestdpser should not steal aggro except on the rarest of occasions if youhave a good tank and have a properly set-up raid.


d) Strength

So, if you're able to get in melee range for autoattacking, thenStrength is for you. Keep in mind that this line is difficult to keepat its full potential, and difficult to get any use out of the manyhigher end ranged encounters. However, if you are able to maintainautoattack for the duration of a fight, it can provide 600 additionaldps.

Spellblade's Counter and Counterblade are both combat abilities that won't offer much.  Spellblade's Counter will at best offer 2-4 zonewide dps, and is basically a waste to cast unless absolutely everything else is down.  Counterbladeis not much better - maybe a 5 dps skill - even with its specialability to counter racial/profession skills. Basically, you'recountering something like a Wild Swing if it hits within 12 seconds.It's not reliable, and not that significant even when it activates.

On the other hand, Quickening and Spellblade's Reflexes are abilities you want to sink points in.  For Spellblade's Reflexes,the primary aid is the additional Crush/Pierce mod. This will increaseyour hit rates - unfortunately I don't have an exact number, but 4points equates to about a 7-10% increase in hit rates. This is not asclose to as large an increase as Quickening offers per-point, but it'sstill an additional helpful source to maximize your melee output.
Melee weapon range increase is a bit deceptive, on the other hand.Normal melee autoattack range is only 2 meters, and thus 50% increasesthis to 3 meters, and 80% to 3.6 meters. But, our combat arts (racialand AA ones) max range are increased as well - so a 5 meter combat artis increased to 7.5 meters at 50%, or 9 meters at 80%. As for theriposte/parry portion, it's not helpful in a raid setting, but it'snoticeable in a solo setting.

If you're going to do the strength line, you need to max Quickening.Even with the worst weapon, you quadruple its base damage output at 8points. With the mythical epic, you're looking at 148% increase fromdouble attack, 158% increase from melee crit, and about 150% each fromhaste and dps - or about quintuple the normal base damage. Intheoretical terms, this is a potential of 550 dps (if you landed everyhit). At best, though, on raid mobs, hit rates are 60-70% - thus,330-400 dps is a more realistic increase with just quickening. Furtherimprovements can be made through buffs and gear, although it's notrecommended to lose spell-based dps increasers.

As a negative to Strength line, you have to remember that each secondit takes to position yourself is potential dps lost. While you can moveduring the recovery period without penalty, it's not easy to positionyourself in this limited amount of time. Each full second ofspellcasting interruption is a loss of about 65 dps for that fight -either if you're moving or if you're dead.


e) Wisdom

Wisdom is the least useful line for raiding. Wisdom as a stat doesnothing, Daydream does nothing useful, Dream Barrier does nothing, andHypnosis does nothing that you can't already do. You will rarely tonever mez in raids, so Dreamweaver's Trance will increase focus andSubjugation. If you're having trouble landing spells, you would bebetter off trying to reduce your target's magical mitigation ratherthan trying to raise your subjugation.


2. Coercer Tree

In order of recommendation, the best coercer aa for raids are:
a) Coercion
b) Resistances
c) Efficiency
d) Mana

Since the names change each time you obtain the upgraded spell, I'll offer the lowest version of the spell in parenthesis.  

a) Coercion

The Coercion line offers the greatest increase in DPS potential.  Tyrannous Mind (Destructive Mind),  Hostage (Sibyllant) and Spell Curse (Spell Lash) are all necessary for good dps, increasing the damage output of all 3 spells significantly.
The Peaceful Link upgrade is also useful, increasing the hate decrease amount by 1% per point.

The final ability, Coercive Healing, is also very useful.As mentioned in the Buffing Your Raid thread, it increases yourhealer's specialty heals by about 400-500, and stacks with otherbeneficial healing effects.

Recommended Configuration: 5 Tyrannous Mind, 2(6 points) Hostage, 2(6 points) Spell Curse, 3 Peaceful Link, 1 Coercive Healing

b) Resistances

Resistances is the second best line for coercers due to the usefulnessof the end line ability, Tashiana. Decreasing magical mitigation hasbecome more important since Game Update 43, as it decreases resistancesto spells as well as offers greater damage output.

Asylum (Gloom) increases the divine/mental/magic debuff amount by about 525 from the base, while Obliterated Pysche (Damaged Psyche) increases all magical mitigation debuff amount by about 250 from the base.  Brigands' Thieves Guild stacks with these.  

Unfortunately, I do not have enough data to conclusively state how muchthis amount of debuff affects dps exactly, and may never come to afinal conclusion because of the difficult of created a controlledenvironment. From what I do understand, resistance debuffs offer agreat amount of damage increase until a mob reaches theoretical levelof "0" mitigation, thereby increasing damage up to 40% of itsnon-debuffed amount. After it reaches this limit point, the increase ofdamage is calculated along a negative limit curve where only about 10%more damage can be obtained at maximum (to a final total of 150% ofyour normal damage).

The end line ability, Tashiana, while having a very shortduration, is very useful to help land additional debuffs and spells toease the start of the fight, or increase damage mid-fight. Since GU45,it rarely resists, and can be easily cast on pull due to its 35 meterrange. While spell resists are still fairly common on aTash-only-debuffed mob, preliminary data shows that resists are about13% less likely to occur with Tash on pull than without on an orangemob.

As far as the damage increase, pre-GU43 data indicates that Tashianaincreased my damage by an average of 20% during the time it was up, butsince it's only up at most 1/6th of the time, this rounds out to about3% damage increase zone wide. For an imperfect comparison, additionalresistance debuff from the Asylum and Obliterated Psyche achievementsadded together (800 points) are about 20% of the mitigation amount butup all the time, and by ratios would offer about 1% zone wide towardsarcane damage, or 0.3% towards other magical raid damage.

Dispel Magic
is almost worthless, as the druids in yourraid likely are specced to dispel. Your dispel's are limited to bardand enchanter-type buffs. Basically, you can dispel "Troubadour Songs,""Dirge Songs," "Empathic Link," and "Intensity" from mobs should yousee them, and that's it.

Charm has no utility in raids except for a few easy mobs inoverland zones. Even then, your charming ability is determinedprimarily by your spell quality and not whether you have points inCharm or not.

Even with the low-raid-utility points in Dispel Magic and Charm, sincethe Resistances line only requires 15 points for the end line ability,the overall line is recommended for raids.

Recommended Configuration: 5 Obliterated Psyche, 5 Asylum, 3 Charm, 1(2 points) Dispel Magic, 1 Tashiana

c) Efficiency

Efficiency is a useful line, as it increases both utility and DPS potential.  All skills are recommended except for Cortical Hesitation (Hesitate), which offers little raid or solo utility.  
As for the other skills, a 0.5 increase in casting speed (which stackswith normal Casting speed) increases the damage per second of Ego Melt (Ego Shock) by 33% and Shock Wave (Psychic Wail) by20%. What's more significant is the 7.5 reuse reduction, allowing youcontrol groups of mobs much better and also increase your dps withShock Wave and Ego Melt even further - assuming you cast it as often asyou can, the reuse amount of Ego Melt increases your dps by about 1%(or roughly 11 dps), and Shock Wave by about 5% (roughly 80 dps).

Intrepid Focus also sees a dps benefit, more than Ego Melt, but lessthan Shock Wave. Overall dps increase from the aa should be about 3% ifyou are able to apply Focus in time for its damage to land.

The benefits to your single target and group stuns are most noticeablewhen in a multiple-add encounter, and lowering the time on your groupstun makes it a one second cast or less.

The final ability, Thought Snap, is useful depending onyour group, but buggy as of Game Update 43. If the target you snap itto dies or is dead at the time of casting, it will break the encounter.Still, it can help redirect a mob when your tank is stunned or out ofrange to increase his threat.

Recommended Configuration
: 5 Shock Wave, 5 Ego Melt, 5 Intrepid Focus, 5 Dysphoria, 1 Thought Snap

d) Mana

Mana is the least useful line, but still has valuableskills - Mana Flow and Channeling - to spend extra points in. As ofGU45, Mana Ward is a very useful end line ability, but the other skillsin the line have not changed.

Channeling (Channel) is your best choice in this line, althoughyou have to spend points in other abilities to get it. Your reuse forChanneling is reduced 1 minute per point, which stacks with otherability-reuse reducers. Although you may not use it every time it's up,you will definitely feel more comfortable using it if you know it willbe back up sooner. On very long fights, the recast is lowered enough sothat you can use Channeling twice. Channeling returns approximately120% power, which is enough to make one caster or two melee full powerfrom empty.

Mana Flow is a good option. Mana Flow's duration and recast areboth reduced by 2 seconds per point, thus allowing your power heals toapply faster and be ready faster. This equates to about a 5% boost inpower healing per point. The mythical epic reduces the duration by 15seconds alone, but does not affect the recast - thus still making thisaa worthwhile. With the removal of any power percentage requirements,constant flows across the raid is highly recommended to help others'power and your own power.

Shift Mana (Consume Ego)
offers a good gain, but selfpower regen shouldn't be necessary in the current mechanics. At 5points, you get 180 additional power per cast, or potentially 540 morepower per minute if you cast it consistently (1530 versus 2070 power).Shift Mana takes 2 seconds to cast, though, and generally you shouldn'tneed to cast it more than twice a minute. If you're geared properly,you don't need to cast it at all except in emergencies or a long chainpull without your mythical epic.

Mana Shroud (Mana Cloak), Soothing (Breeze), Third Eye (Mind's Eye) and Cannibalize Thoughts (Consuming Thoughts)are all not recommended. For each point, you gain about 2-2.5power/tick. So, for 5 points, you're looking at an additional 10-12power/tick, or 60-72 power/minute for your group, or 105 power/minutefor Mana Shroud if you use all the triggers. This amount is barelyenough for someone in your group to cast one additional spell. WhileCannibalize Thoughts' and Mana Shroud's power regeneration doesn'tcount towards the cap, it still is paltry. In any case, you and yourgroup members probably aren't at the cap (120 in-combat power regen)unless you're grouped with a bard, and if you are grouped with a bard,why do you need more power anyway? If you want to get to channel, ManaShroud is the better option.

Mana Ward is offers a hitpoint ward of at least 6,000 points.It's calculated by a 1.5 power to 1 health ratio, using 95% of yourpower in the conversion. The big negative is the long recast, 5 minutes.

Recommended Configuration: 5 Channel, 5 Mana Flow, 5 Mana Shroud, 5 anywhere else, 1 Mana Ward

3. Shadows Tree

Unlike the previous trees which had direct prerequisitie skills, toprogress to the next tree you must spend 10 points in the previoustree. In addition, you must spend 120 points to open up the ShadowsEnchanter Tree, and 170 points to open up the Shadows Coercer tree. Anypoints spent in the shadows line do count for these requirements.

General

Most of the general skills are self-explanatory. Several skills relateto tradeskilling and harvesting. The only ones that apply any utilitytowards raiding are Hearty Constitution (Max Health) and Enhanced Mind(Max Power), while runspeed bonuses are an alternate choice, so spentthese 10 points here to open the mage tree.

Mage

The mage tree offers better choices than the general tree for raiding purposes, but not by much.  

Strike of the Mage is the most useful skill in this subtree. Itimproves Hemorrhage base and critical damage by 10%, adding a potential100 dps.

After Strike of the Mage, Runic Protection is the next best choice.Runic Protection adds approximately 218 hitpoints and 11 defense toMagi's Shielding. Master's Strike is a viable alternative, but isdifficult to fully recommend because of the race restriction. In raids,less than half of encounters are susceptible to Master's Strike, andhaving the spell up more quickly becomes pointless when you can onlycast it once or twice on the mob that you can use it against, with orwithout points in this skill.

The other skills in the Mage tree offer no real raid utility. Root isstill unused in the raid setting, Coruscation is a horrible use for aconcentration slot, and Insivible-runspeed is simply unnecessary.

Bewilderment is a useful final line skill, offering a fast-casting,higher-damage nuke which may be cast while moving and also reduces hateposition by 1. It lands reliably on a debuffed mob, and is recommendedto be cast early in the cast order both because it adds solid dps andalso because it helps ensure that you won't peel aggro at the beginningof an encounter. If cast within the first 5 damage spells, it has thepotential to add 200 dps.

Enchanter

The best options are more dps-related skills, which is a theme of the Shadows line of achievements.  

The first option is Mental Torment, which improves Brainshock's dps.  The DPS gain from this skill is up to 70 dps.

The second option is Silent Thoughts, which improves Abolute silence.Similarly, you should recieve up to a 65 dps improvement through thisskill.

The other skills in the enchanter line aren't terrible exciting. Morehealth is always useful, but only in most dangerous situations. Becauseof diminishing returns on DPS in conjunction with the improvedberserker raidwide skill, DPS adornments, and widely available gearwith DPS on it, Spellblade's Enchantment is not highly recommendedbecause the actual gain is not significant, although it is an option tospend points in when you are reaching maximum achievement points.Dreamweaver's Focus offers disruption and subjugation which helps onspell resists, but spell resists are not an issue in a raid with aproperly debuffed mob except right at the beginning of a fight.Further, direct spell resistability on gear (Ensorcelled Vulnerability)offers a better choice for dealing with spell resists and is readilyattainable in TSO.

Peace of Mind, the enchanter end-line ability, is an incredible DPSskill which can add an average of 400 dps over a zone to eachindividual in your group, and up to 1400 dps on a single encounter. Itcan also be cast while moving, and with its 20 second duration, can betimed to be cast before a pull for maximum usefulness.

Coercer


The coercer line has the best options out of the Shadows tree aa,although partially that's due to a lack of great choices in theprevious trees.

The first recommendation is Arcane Hatred, which increases hate gainand transfer by 5%. While hate gain is max on the main tank in mostsituations, the increased transfer is very valuable and allows you abit of leeway in terms of your personal dps, as well as for the raid.Also, the increased hate gain can be useful in certain situations whereyou have multi-tank requirements.

The second recommendation is Depressed Thoughts, which increasesAsylum. Like Mental Torment and Silent Thoughts, maximum points in thisskill has the potential to increase DPS by 70.

At this point, the end line abilities will be available. The priorityshould be for Psychic Blast, which improves all spells base andcritical damage.

After you've achieved your goal of Psychic Blast, Mental Blast is thenext recommended skill to improve. Although Shock Wave is sometimeshindered by its 10 meter range, the DPS gain from the spell is higherthan the other DPS improving skills (up to 100 dps improvment),assuming you were able to cast this spell all the time.

At this point, you have several options to go back and improve skillsyou bypassed to get to this point, which would be my recommendation ifyou did so. Once you've filled up your previous Enchanter Tree andCoercer Tree skills, I would recommend buying Shield of Runes toimprove survivability against physical-based AE's, Intellectual Remedyto help heals on pulls, and finally dumping extra points into eitherSpellblade's Enchantment or Defensive Enchantment for either a minorDPS or minor self-HP improvement.


II) Soloing and Leveling Up

When you're soloing and leveling up, you're not going to see the sameimpact through AA as you do through longer fights at higher levels withnon-stop casting that someone who raids or groups constantly does. Itwould not be surprising if you did not notice any significantdifference with any of your AA while soloing at low levels. Still, youhave to spend the points somewhere, so you might as well start withsomething that you likely do alot of while soloing: Charm.

To this end, you want to spend your first 5 points in Charm in theCoercer AA tree, and then choose the Enchanter Starter, Mana Flow, andthen Agility line to improve your casting speed. It takes 24 points toget through the Agility line all the way through Perpetuality(4-4-8-6-1). After this, if you're still primarily soloing forexperience, I recommend building the Efficiency tree so you have yourcontrol skills available more often. For the Efficiency tree, you'llwant to work on the skills you use most often and obtain first, so yoursingle target stun, root, and group stun. Going for the entire line orgetting the final ability, Thought Snap, isn't necessary; you just wantenough points to stun comfortably.

After those skills, you can choose to build the Coercion orIntelligence line of the Enchanter tree. For Intelligence, you'll wantto go to the end skill, 4-6-4-8-1, in order to obtain maximum spellcrit and base damage, which will help increase your damage. TheCoercion tree offers the single biggest boost in dps, but most of theskills are only available at later adventure levels (level 23 forSibyllant, level 28 for Mind, and level 40 for Spell Lash), or thiswould be recommended earlier. If you're just soloing mostly, you canbuild with Mind, Sibyllant and Spell Lash to give your DPS a boost, butif you group often or duo with a healer, Coercive Healing isrecommended because it makes their job much easier.

Note that I wouldn't bother with the Shadows tree until you've filledthese primary trees. In Shadows, you have to spend 10 points in thegeneral line to get to anything really useful, while you get immediatereturns from the AGI, INT, and most Coercer tree skills.

Once you hit adventure level 70, you are able to spend 70 points pertree instead of 50. After getting AGI, INT, Coercion, and the line ofyour choice, I would try to obtain Peace of Mind in the ShadowsEnchanter line. This requires 120 points spent, as well as anadditional 11 points to buy skills in the Enchanter line, so you maynot be able to afford it quite yet. You'll probably be level 80 by thetime you obtain this, as well.

Remember, you can change your achievement spec for pretty cheap, andthere's always a Mirror of Reflected Achievements should you want tosave something while trying out another spec.
Life is short, Play more!

TOP

FACQ, part 3: Improving DPS - Spell Priority and Casting Order

Your spell casting order, like your achievements discussed in the previous article,shouldn't be exactly the same from coercer to coercer. Your castingorder should change greatly based on gear - more specifically yourspell haste and your spell reuse may greatly change how you do things.Even your spell damage and your spell crit affects your spell order,although to a lesser extent.
Thus, since I can't give you your optimal spell casting order withoutmaking my brain explode for every variance of gear, I'll do the nextbest thing and offer data and tips that should guide you should youwant to maximize your dps with your own spell order.
And since I know most people don't want to deal with the math, so I'll offer a basic template as well.


I. Basic Spell Priority

The first step is to figure out a spell priority - what spells do themost potential damage? Do the most practical damage? How do debuffs fitin?
I'll start off by listing the maximum damage each spell can do in orderfrom highest to lowest for a single target fight on a normal spellrotation. (Assumes master versions of all spells).

Theoretical DPS Chart

1. Hostage
2. Peace of Mind
3. Tyrannous Mind
4. Spell Curse
5. Bewilderment
6. Asylum
7. Brainshock
8. Master's Strike
9. Absolute Silence
10. Shock Wave
11. Hemorrhage
12. Ego Melt
13. Puppetmaster
14. Intrepid Focus
15. Dissecting Gaze

For an encounter fight, Spell Curse is the highest damaging spell inany group encounter of 2 or more mobs, unless you have the Robe ofSpectral Coercion, in which case it's the highest only when there are 3or more mobs. Shock Wave beats Tyrannous Mind on any encounter with 4or more mobs. Ego Melt and Dissecting Gaze do more damage than singletarget spells if there are 3 or more mobs.

Other notes:
Intrepid Focus hits 2.8 seconds after initially landing on epic mobs.
Absolute Silence ticks in 5.3 seconds after intially landing on epic mobs, with approximately 1 tick per second.
Asylum and Brainshock both require 24 seconds to reach their fulldamage. With the spell order recommend below, the first casting reachesseveral ticks, but the subsequent ones average only 1 tick per cast.

Thus, even taking all of that into consideration, a practical DPS chartwould look very similar or the same as this theoretical chart, asidefrom lowering Intrepid Focus if heroics mobs are involved andPuppetmaster when either fights are short or ae's are involved.

-> Is it better dps to reapply dots after GU45?
It's better to reapply dots because in most cases the dots still willdo more damage than Ego Melt, Dissecting Gaze or Intrepid Focus whentaking into account the damage delay. Most fights you will cast theseother spells, but reapply your dots first and it will net you slightlybetter results. This strategy is recommended because with their shortreuse time and their instant damage, your spell cycle will have morespells available and also will make it much easier to manage your spellcasting. The termination damage loss is minimal when looking at damageover longer periods of time.

Debuff->DPS Chart

1. Obliterated Psyche
2. Tashiana
3. Chronosiphoning

Obliterated Psyche will do anywhere from 14% to 1% increase in totalraid spell-based dps, not including reducing outright resists, whichboosts its usefulness. As an estimate, it probably falls closer to anaverage of 6%.
Tashiana is approximately a 15% damage increase for the period that it's up, not including reducing outright resists.
Chronosiphoning is approximately a 1.5% personal damage increase over30 seconds, assuming you are not capped. If you wear more than 12%casting haste and have a monk and bard's buffs, then you will not seeany benefit.

Because debuffs are still in the realm of theoretical DPS, it'sdifficult to place them accurately a practical DPS chart, especiallybecause the mechanics aren't completely uncovered/understood, at leastin numerical terms. They also completely depend on people hitting thedebuffed mob with spells. With that disclaimer noted, there's no use toignoring that they do something, so I'll work with what deductive dataI have, assuming an average raid situation.

If you tried to do a numerical version based on dps averages, the twomagical mitigation spells would fall somewhere between Tyrannous Mindand Asylum (sometimes more than Spell Curse, sometimes less). Anaverage calculation would be Obliterated Psyche is equal to a 250-500point DoT with 1 second ticks that lasts as long as the encounter'sduration, for example, or 5000-10,000 damage over 20 seconds. With it'slong duration, Obliterated Psyche can add up to a very large amount ofdamage. Tashiana is double this amount but limited to a 13 secondduration, or about 6500 damage. If you look at the appendix, you'llnote that these damage amounts are at least as good as Spell Curse.
Chronosiphoning's damage increase would be equivalent to Intrepid Focusin that it's delayed - because of its casting time, it only grantsadditional damage after 20 seconds (and actually has a negative dpsimpact before then), it increases damage by about 60 points per 1second until its termination, or conceptually a 1200ish nuke delayed by30 seconds.
As a side note, using this same method of calculation for the t8 hexdoll debuff, for a fight that is 2 minutes long, it's equivalent to a8000 damage nuke. However, because of its long cast time, any encounterless than a minute is a significant loss of overall dps.


II. Casting Order
Alright, now that we know the best spells, it'll be a lot easier tobuild a casting order. I'll provide an example based around 15% Reuseand 30% Reuse for the first 30 seconds of a fight. You probably willnotice there are not many differences in that first 30 seconds betweenthe two.

Casting speed adjustments assume a bard, monk, and agility line, andare applied at the time of casting next to the spell. Total spell timesare included to help track reuse timers. In some cases you havemultiple options; the recommended one is the first one listed.
With GU45, we have to adjust the Hemorrhage-spam cycle mentality byadding the set of Tyrannous Mind/Hostage/Spell Curse spam cycle. It'smore difficult to break these larger periods of time, and thus I havereverted to my old spell order listing method of just a straight line.
At the start, for maximum dps, precast Tyrannous Mind on yourself. Ittakes an average of 6 seconds to proc all 3 charges, so you want toleave yourself at least that much time, if not about 10 seconds on thespell's duration just to be sure. You may also want to try to startwith higher perpetuality by casting a group buff. The start assumes youdon't carry on the Perpetuality boost (especially hard nowadays withthose spell resists), and instead start at 56% Casting Speed.

Starting on the left is the overall encounter time, then the spellname, followed by the amount of time taken to cast that spell. Finally,notes if there are any important things to remember.

At 15% Reuse:
Key spells to remember:
Tyrannous Mind, 13.0 s recast
Hostage/Spell Curse, 17.4 s recast


At approximately 10-15 seconds pre-pull:
-10.00 s Tyrannous Mind *next available: on pull
-5.00 s Peace of Mind (if available)
On inc:
0.00 s Tashiana  +0.94 (or skip if unavailable)
0.94 s Obliterated Psyche +0.94
1.88 s Hostage +1.20  *next available: at  20.48 s
3.08 s Spell Curse +1.43 *next available: at 21.91 s
4.51 s Bewilderment +0.67
5.18 s Tyrannous Mind +0.85 *next available: at 19.03 s
6.03 s Hemorrhage +0.85
6.88 s Asylum +0.85
7.73 s Absolute Silence +1.36
9.09 s Hemorrhage +0.85
9.94 s Brainshock +0.85
10.79 s Master's Strike +1.36 (or Dissecting Gaze +1.36)
  12.15 s Hemorrhage +0.85
13.00 s Asylum +0.85
13.85 s Shock Wave +1.62
15.47 s Hemorrhage +0.85
16.32 s Dissecting Gaze +1.36 (or Puppetmaster+1.36)
17.68 s Ego Melt +1.11
18.79 s Brainshock +0.85
19.64 s Tyrannous Mind +0.85 *next available: at 33.39 s
20.49 s Hostage +1.11 *next available: at 39.00 s
21.60 s Hemorrhage +0.85
22.45 s Spell Curse +1.36 *next available: at 41.21 s
23.81 s Asylum +0.85
24.66 s Hemorrhage +0.85
25.51 s Dissecting Gaze +1.36
26.87 s Hemorrhage +0.85
27.72 s Brainshock +0.85
28.57 s Puppetmaster +1.36 (or Intrepid Focus +1.36)
29.93 s Hemorrhage +0.85
30.78 s Asylum +0.85
31.63 s Absolute Silence +1.36
32.99 s Hemorrhage+0.85
33.84 s Tyrannous Mind +0.85 *next available: at 47.69
34.69 s Dissecting Gaze +1.36
36.03 s Brainshock +0.85
36.88 s Hemorrhage +0.85
37.73 s Asylum +0.85
38.58 s Brock's Thermal Shocker +0.85 (or Chronosiphoning +0.62)
39.43 s Hostage +1.11 *next available: at 59.74
40.54 s Hemorrhage +0.85
41.39 s Spell Curse +1.36 *next available: at 60.15

At 30% Reuse:
Key spells to remember:
Tyrannous Mind, 11.6 s
Hostage/Spell Curse, 15.4 s

At approximately 10-15 seconds pre-pull:
-10.00 s Tyrannous Mind *next available: on pull
-
5.00 s Peace of Mind (if available)
On inc:
0.00 s Tashiana  +0.94 (or skip if unavailable)
0.94 s Obliterated Psyche +0.94
1.88 s Hostage +1.20  *next available: at  18.48 s
3.08 s Spell Curse +1.43 *next available: at 19.91 s
4.51 s Bewilderment +0.67
5.18 s Tyrannous Mind +0.85 *next available: at 17.63 s
6.03 s Asylum +0.85
6.88 s Brainshock +0.85
7.73 s Hemorrhage+0.85
8.58 s Absolute Silence +1.36
9.94 s Master's Strike +1.36 (or Puppetmaster +1.36)
11.30 s Hemorrhage +0.85
12.15 s Shock Wave +1.62
13.77 s Asylum +0.85
14.62 s Hemorrhage +0.85
15.47 s Brainshock +0.85
16.32 s Dissecting Gaze +1.36
17.68 s Tyrannous Mind +0.85 *next available: at 30.39 s
18.53 s Hostage +1.11 *next available: at 35.30 s
19.64 s Hemorrhage +0.85
20.49 s Spell Curse +1.36 *next available: at 36.67 s
21.85 s Ego Melt +1.11
22.96 s Hemorrhage+0.85
23.81 s Brainshock +0.85
24.66 s Dissecting Gaze +1.36 (or Puppetmaster +1.36)
26.02 s Hemorrhage +0.85
26.87 s Asylum +0.85
26.36 s Puppetmaster +1.36 (or Intrepid Focus +1.36)
28.32 s Hemorrhage +0.85
29.08 s Brock's Thermal Shocker +0.85 (or pause)
29.93 s Absolute Silence +1.36
31.29 s Tyrannous Mind +0.85 *next available: at 43.23 s
32.14 s Hemorrhage +0.85
32.99 s Brainshock +0.85
33.84 s Intrepid Focus +1.36 (or Dissecting Gaze +1.36)
35.20 s Hemorrhage +0.85
36.05 s Hostage +1.11
37.16 s Spell Curse +1.36

-> No chronosiphoning?
With top end gear and keeping perpetuality up, a coercer can easilyreach the cap of casting speed, so for those coercers, obviously theyhave no need for Chronosiphoning. However, the same is mostly true fornon-raiding coercers or beginning coercers. Given a normal raid setupwith just a bard and average gear, a coercer should obtain around85-90% casting haste.
I do not recommend casting Chronosiphoning because to see a benefitfrom the additional Spell Casting haste, at least 20 seconds offighting has to occur for the time lost casting the spell to be "madeup" before gains can be seen. Thus, on shorter fights, there's littleto no gain at all. Further, we now have many more damage spells to loadin up, all of which would net more overall dps than from the dps boost.To translate the potential dps gain into terms one can compare withother spells, Chronosiphoning is like casting a heavily delayed 600-900damage nuke; far weaker than our other options. Even in longer fights,it's only useful when as a perpetuality stopgap when you have run outof other direct damage spells to cast.

Warning! Math ahead.

Appendix I: Spell Damage Cap Chart
Spell Damage Caps at 1008 intelligence.  Hemorrhage Master 2, the rest Master 1.

Hemorrhage 385-521
Forceful Headache 362-604
Spell Curse 491-600
Dissecting Gaze 542-662
Ego Melt 561-686
Hostage 621-758
Intrepid Focus 642-784
Asylum 725-885
Tyrannous Mind 896-945
Bewilderment 553-1027
Brainshock 978-1195
Absolute Silence 1134-1386
Shockwave 1208-2012
Master Strike 1449-1771

* Shockwave, Ego Melt and Dissecting Gaze apply only 1/3 of the spell damage total due to cap for AE spells
** Tyrannous Mind, Spell Curse, and Hostage apply only 1/3 of the totalspell damage per trigger due to reactive. However, if more than 3reactives are triggered, the gain is actually more than 100%.

Appendix II: Average DPS
How I calculated these:
Average Damage / ( Base Casting Time + Recovery Time in seconds) = Average Damage per Second
1. Damage calculated with Intelligence at 1200.
2. Damage calculated at 25% worn Base Damage; 15% from achievements and 10% from Bloodthirsty Choker.
3. Tyrannous Mind, Ego Melt, Shock Wave, Hemorrhage, Brain Shock,Asylum, and Abolute Silence assume speed bonuses and base/crit damagebonus from Achievements, except for Intrepid Focus. Otherwise, 5 SpellCrit Bonus was used.
5. Casting speed is averaged to 85%, although you can easily obtain100% by keeping perpetality up. Recovery speed is set at 48%. In raids,you should be at about 61% haste before perpuality kicks in, dependingon your gear and raid makeup.
5. Peace of Mind is is calculated at either 10 triggers if castimmediatley before the pull, or 12 triggers if cast during the fightover its 20 second duration. The actual trigger count can reach 16 ormore depending on your casting order and casting speed.
6. If you take the numbers below and divide them by their respectivespells' reuse speed, you're going to get the average "EXT DPS"(equivalent to ACT) for that spell (at a no debuff, no resisted spells,controlled environment). If you add all those amounts, you'll get yourtotal damage for a given fight.

I have prepared only 2 versions below, with varying spell Crit. SpellDamage for coercers should remain steady, so I chose a relatively highamount.

At 75% actual Spell Crit, 780 Spell Damage

Hostage, 8 triggers 17068
Peace of Mind, precast with 10 triggers, 12470
1. Hostage, 5 triggers 10670
2. Peace of Mind, 12 triggers cast during fight, 10538
3. Tyrannous Mind, 9363
Asylum, Pants bonus, 4 ticks, 7056
4. Spell Curse, 6327
5. Bewilderment, 5809
Brainshock, 4 ticks, 4897
6. Master Strike, 3759
7. Shock Wave, 3519
8. Absolute Silence, 3420
9. Asylum, Pants bonus, 1 tick, 2225
10. Brainshock, 1 tick, 2590
11. Hemorrhage, 2576
12. Ego Melt, 1955
13. Intrepid Focus, 1627
14. Dissecting Gaze, 1406

At 100% actual Spell Crit, 780 Spell Damage

Hostage, 8 triggers 18148
Peace of Mind, precast with 10 triggers, 13500
1. Peace of Mind, 12 triggers cast during fight, 11408
2. Hostage, 5 triggers 11342
3. Tyrannous Mind, 9947
Asylum, RoK Pants Bonus, 4 ticks, 7372
4. Spell Curse, 6735
5. Bewilderment, 6311
Brainshock, 4 ticks, 5233
6. Master Strike, 3989
7. Shock Wave, 3852
8. Absolute Silence, 3657
9. Hemorrhage, 2806
10. Brainshock, 1 tick, 2758
11. Asylum, RoK Pants bonus, 1 tick, 2685
12. Ego Melt, 2080
13. Intrepid Focus, 1730
14. Dissecting Gaze, 1490

Appendix III: Casting
Base Casting speed for basic Coercer Spells and Abilities. To get youractual casting speed, take the Base Casting Speed and divide it by 100%plus your current Spell Cast haste.
Spells modified by achievements calculate based on the modified number.(Base cast time - achievement reduction) / (100% + Casting speed).

Base casting Speed
Bewilderment, 0.5 s
Chronosiphoning 0.5 s
Nullyfing Staff 0.5 s

Asylum 1.0 s
Brainshock 1.0 s
Brock's Thermal Shocker 1.0 s
Cataclysmic Mind 1.0 s
Channeling 1.0 s
Dysphoria 1.0 s (1.5 s without aa)
Hemorrhage 1.0 s
Manastone 1.0 s
Obliterated Psyche 1.0 s
Tashiana 1.0 s

Ego Melt 1.5 s (2.0 s without aa)
Hostage 1.5 s
Intrepid Focus 1.5 s (2.0 s without aa)

Absolute Silence 2.0 s
Cannibalize Thoughts 2.0 s
Dissecting Gaze 2.0 s
Master's Strike 2.0 s
Mana Flow 2.0 s
Mana Shroud 2.0 s
Puppetmaster 2.0 s
Shift Mana 2.0 s
Spell Curse 2.0 s

Shockwave 2.5 s (3.0 s without aa)

At 75% Casting Speed
0.5 s base => 0.29 s
1.0 s base => 0.57 s
1.5 s base => 0.86 s
2.0 s base => 1.14 s
2.5 s base => 1.43 s

At 85% Casting Speed

0.5 s -> 0.27 s
1.0 s -> 0.54 s
1.5 s -> 0.81 s
2.0 s -> 1.08 s
2.5 s -> 1.35 s

Appendix IV: Reuse
Reuse speed for most Coercer Spells and Abilities. The same basic formula applies for Reuse speed as for Casting speed.
Spells modified by achievements calculate based on the modified number.(Base reuse time - reuse reduction) / (100% + Reuse haste).
Achievements are abilities, which are generally not modified by thereuse items available to coercers. Most items affect only spells.

There are several ways to calculate the benefit of Reuse. Assuming youwere able to recast your spells as soon as they were up, Reuse wouldincrease the damage of one as listed on the table below. However, youhave to take into account the normal damage lost by casting one spellinstead of another, and thus you must subtract the amount of damageyour average spell would have done if not for the reuse. In an averageraid for the average coercer, this value is between 98 and 118 damageper second of cast time of the replacement spell. In addition, reuseonly benefits spells which you cast the moment they are up, and thusdoes not benefit dots or other spells you don't attempt to recastinstantly. Finally, reuse only shows benefit if you can cast a spellmore than once that encounter. Thus, on short fights reuse has verylittle use. Thus, it is wise to adjust gear accordingly (if possible),but more will be discussed in the next article.

Certain items do affect "abilities," or skills/spells obtained from AA.These items include the VP Set Pants, Cloak of Unrest proc, Earring ofUnkempt Power proc, and Earring of Unkempt Energies. However, sincemost items do not affect these, they are left unmodified in thecalculations in most cases.

Spell Reuse Timers
0% Reuse
Hemorrhage 3.0 s
Asylum 6.0 s
Brainshock 8.0 s
Dissecting Gaze 9.0 s
Obliterated Psyche 10.0 s
Tyrannous Mind 15.0 s
Hostage 20.0 s
Spell Curse 20.0 s
Shift Mana 20.0 s
Absolute Silence 25.0 s [Epic Immunity 48 s]
Chronosiphoning 30.0 s (ability)
Intrepid Focus 30.0 s (25.0 s with max aa) [Epic Immunity 25.5 s]
Nullifying Staff 30.0 s (ability)
Cannibalize Thoughts 45.0 s
Dysphoria 45.0 s (37.5 s with max aa) [Epic Immunity 19.1 s]
Ego Melt 45.0 s (37.5 s with max aa) [Epic Immunity 27.0 s]
Puppetmaster 45.0 s
Shockwave 45.0 s (37.5 s with max aa) [Epic Immunity 15.0 s]
Bewilderment 60.0 s (ability)
Mana Flow 60.0 s (50.0 s with max aa) (ability)
Tashiana 60.0 s (ability)
Master's Strike 120.0 s
Peace of Mind 120.0 s
Brock's Thermal Shocker 180.0 s

15% Reuse
Hemorrhage 2.6 s
Asylum 5.2 s
Brainshock 7.0 s
Dissecting Gaze 7.8 s
Obliterated Psyche 8.7 s
Tyrannous Mind 13.0 s
Hostage 17.4 s
Spell Curse 17.4
Shift Mana 17.4 s
Absolute Silence 21.7 s [Epic Immunity 48 s]
Intrepid Focus 26.1 s (21.1 s with aa) [Epic Immunity 25.5 s]
Nullifying Staff 30.0 s (ability)
Chronosiphoning 30.0 s (ability)
Cannibalize Thoughts 39.1 s
Dysphoria 39.1 s (31.6 s with aa) [Epic Immunity 19.1 s]
Ego Melt 39.1 s (31.6 s with aa) [Epic Immunity 27.0 s]
Puppetmaster 39.1 s
Shockwave 39.1 s (31.6 s with aa) [Epic Immunity 15.0 s]
Bewilderment 60.0 s (ability)
Mana Flow 60.0 s (ability)
Tashiana 60.0 s (ability)
Master's Strike 104.5 s
Peace of Mind 120.0 s (ability)
Brock's Thermal Shocker 156.5 s

30% Reuse
Hemorrhage 2.3 s
Asylum 4.6 s
Brainshock 6.1 s
Dissecting Gaze 6.9 s
Obliterated Psyche 7.7 s
Tyrannous Mind 11.6 s
Hostage 15.4 s
Spell Curse 15.4 s
Shift Mana 15.4 s
Absolute Silence 19.2 s [Epic Immunity 48 s]
Intrepid Focus 23.1 s (18.1 s with aa) [Epic Immunity 25.5 s]
Chronosiphoning 30.0 s (ability)
Nullifying Staff 30.0 s (ability)
Cannibalize Thoughts 34.6 s
Dysphoria 34.6 s (27.1 s with aa) [Epic Immunity 19.1 s]
Ego Melt 34.6 s (27.1 s with aa) [Epic Immunity 27.0 s]
Puppetmaster 34.6 s
Shockwave 34.6 s (27.1 s with aa) [Epic Immunity 15.0 s]
Bewilderment 60.0 s (ability)
Tashiana 60.0 s (ability)
Master's Strike 92.3 s
Peace of Mind 120.0 s (ability)
Brock's Thermal Shocker 138.5 s
Life is short, Play more!

TOP

FACQ, part 4: In-depth Gear Analysis

Understanding Gear choices, like the thread about understanding spell order,is vital to attaining the best dps. In this article, I'll discuss myrecommendations for gearing up a raiding coercer. If you just wantadvice on specific pieces (where to find them or what to wear), look atthe recommended RoK gear thread.Still, I recommend reading this article, as it will supplement thatthread by answering most questions as to how the ranking of those itemswas decided.

Every number used to calculate damage is dependent on another in someway - either making something more useful in conjunction, less usefulin conjunction, or simply screwing around with the ratios. Thus, this"simple" formula is only used for a quick guide, but does not work forcalculating actual damage ouputs. Still, it's good enough to help makequick decisions on whether a piece of loot is an upgrade for you or notfor your average level 80 coercer:

For TSO, 1% DPS Boost is equal to:
95 Intelligence (until 1220 Int)
27 Spell Damage without the Robe of Spectral Coercion or 19 with, until 750 total Spell Damage without any base damage modifers
81 Spell Damage between 750 and 950 Spell Damage no matter what gear without any base damage modifiers
3% Spell Critical Chance (vs. orange mobs)
1.3 Spell Critical Bonus if at 100% Spell Critical Chance, 1.4 at 90%, or 1.7 at 75%
1.2 Base Damage
5% Reuse
5% Casting Speed (until 100%)
50 dps from Spell Procs items (see Appendix)

Or, from a Spell Critical Chance perspective:
1% Spell Critical Chance = 32 Intelligence = 0.4% Base Damage = 0.5%Spell Critical Bonus if at 90% Crit Chance = 7-10 Spell Damage until750 = 27 Spell Damage between 750 and 950 = 1.8% Casting Speed = 1.8%Reuse = 17 dps from Spell Procs = 0.33% DPS Boost

Some assumptions: the calculations assume 1000 Int. Low resist rate (nogreater than 10%) was assumed. Spell Damage's calculation assumes 75%average Casting Speed. Base Damage assumes 750 Spell Damage. Procs(bothworn and buff-based) were assumed to be about 20% of your overalldamage.

How Damage Is Calculated


Damage is calculated the following way:  

1. base damage calculation
2. weapon attacks add in dps and weapon multipliers
3. spell and weapon tier multipliers
4. attribute modifiers
5. base damage multipliers
6. normalized damage ( +spell/ca/heal amounts )
7. critical multiplier

What this means:
Base damage increases the cap for spell damage, be it overall basedamage or individual spell base increases. Intelligence does the same.

Spell Damage
Spell Damage is affects each spell differently, but all of the gainscan be totaled to get a good perspective of the overall gain that itdoes. Since I'm trying to write this for the perspective of an averagecoercer and gear comparison purposes, I'll focus more on the higher endof Spell Damage.

The first step to figuring out how to apportion additional damage fromSpell Damage is to determine the percentage of overall damage eachspell does on average. (This assumes an optimal or near-optimal spellorder). Taking a ratio of the cap to each of those individual spells,we can multiply out the percentage of overall damage by the percentageof that spell's damage that is affected by Spell Damage. (That sentenceis a logic nightmare, isn't it). After that, the additional damage isdivided by that spell's casting time to normalize it to damage persecond. Finally, adding up all of the individual damage bonuses, anddivide that total damage increase by the amount of Spell Damage youhave to get the number of Spell Damage per 1% DPS boost.

When you take the added damage over cast time, and then apply that bythe portion of damage that spell usually does and then add it alltogether, you can determine how much benefit spell damage will do foryou overall.

Convulsions and Lash, the damage from Hostage/Spell Curse, benefit themost from Spell Damage. This is because of the extra triggers availablefrom achievement points and the further additional triggers from theRoK set robe. At 5 triggers, damage is increased by 83% instead of thenormal 50% of most spells. At 8 triggers, Hostage gains a maximum of133% damage from its base value. Considering these two spells do amajority of a coercer's damage, it's vital to try and cap these spells.Spell Curse caps at 600 Spell Damage, and Hostage caps at 750 SpellDamage. Since the values change drastically between whether you havethe Robe of Spectral Coercion or not, I'll do math for both.

So, while some spells gain more than 50% damage, other outgoing damageis totally unaffected by Spell Damage. Procs and melee add up to about15-20% of a coercer's parse and see zero benefit. Further, area effectspells are also reduced, so on single target mobs they only see 1/3 ofthe 50% increase, or about 17% damage increase. However, area effectspells usually only account for about 5% of a coercer's parse due tothe lack of good ae encounters in RoK, so the negative impact is small.Overall, coercers see a potential DPS increase of 45 to 55%, but that'spurely theoretical; gear selection has to be smart to actualize it.

To get the best comparison per point of Spell Damage for gear choices,I'll focus on the benefit above 600 Spell Damage, or the minimumrecommended amount (and the cap of Spell Curse). Past 600, about 20% oftotal damage is capped at full potential, while the other 60% of acoercer's outgoing damage sees about 62% of the total potential gain.In other words, at 600 Spell Damage, coercers realize about a 34.8%total actual DPS Boost out of a maximum potential of 44.8% DPS Boost.
At 8 triggers of Hostage, the maximum potential gain rises to 55.4% -an additional 10.6% potential DPS gain from 3 triggers of cappedHostage. Since proportional damage doesn't change, coercers see 43.6%actual gain out of the 55.4% total gain at 600 Spell Damage.
Thus, the maximum remaining gain in either case after 600 Spell Damage is 10-11% more DPS.  
How I calculated this: although the maximum gain per spell is 50% dueto the caps, Convulsions and Lash see more than 50% gain as notedabove, while area affect spells see only a 17% gain, and 15-20% ofdamage is unaffected, or a 0% gain. These amounts are averaged outtogether according to their contributing percentage amount to theoverall parse, collected from data over several zones. Then, the damageboost calculated from the parses are converted into seconds (and thusdamage per second) by dividing by individual spell's casting times.

With those numbers, we can figure out amount of Spell Damage it takesfor 1% DPS Boost. Without the Robe of Spectral Coercion, until 600Spell Damage, 18 Spell Damage is equal to 1% DPS Boost. With the Robeof Spectral Coercion, 14 Spell Damage is equal to 1% DPS Boost.

Now, we need to figure out how best to choose gear to attain the mostof the remaining 10% potential bonus while sacrificing the least fromother sources of damage. So, we'll begin by calculating out the gainper point above 600 Spell Damage.

The next milestone is 750 Spell Damage, which caps our best spell,Hostage. At 750 Damage, coercers gain an additional 7.25% without theRobe or 9.9% with and thus realize 42.3% of the total 44.8% without theRobe, or 53.5% of 55.4% ("capping" 95% of potential Spell Damage gain).Between to 600 and 750 Spell Damage, 27 Spell Damage is equal to 1% DPSBoost without the Robe, or 19 Spell Damage with the Robe. (How the mathworks: About 23-28% of our damage comes from Hostage, and that amountis increased by either 83% or 133%. 150 Spell Damage is 20% of the capfor Hostage, 25 * 83% or 133% * 20%.) That is hardly a drop off at all,especially in comparison to the drop off from pre-GU45 mechanics whereit took at least twice as much.

95% of coercer damage is capped at 750, which means there's another4-5% more damage coercers can attain. The next best place to look wouldbe at the 950 Spell Damage mark, which is the cap for Tyrannous Mind.By increasing this extra 200 damage, coercers increase Tyrannous MindDPS by 20% (which equals 2% increase to overall DPS), and approximatelyanother 13% of your total parse damage by about 25% DPS (Brainshock,Shock Wave, Silence, and Master Strike, or another 2% DPS totalpotential increase if max). Because 950 only caps Tyrannous Mind andnot the rest, only about 2.5% out of the total remaining 4% possiblegain is realized. Plugging in the math again, about 81 Spell Damage isequal to 1% DPS boost between 750 and 950 Spell Damage. Thus even until950, Spell Damage is a feasible method of attaining additional DPS, butonly when balanced carefully with the other sources below.

Past 950, the amount necessary to increase overall damage is too largeto be considered practical. At this point, Coercers have already cappedabout 99% of Spell Damage gain, leaving only 1% of potential gainunrealized, with, hundreds of Spell Damage necessary to reach it. Thus,950 is the basically the Spell Damage "cap" since 99% of the gain fromthis area is reached.

To recap,
600 Spell Damage = 77% of Cap = 14-18 Spell Damage per 1% DPS boost
750 Spell Damage = 95% of Cap = 19-27 Spell Damage per 1% DPS boost
950 Spell Damage = 99% of Cap = 81 Spell Damage per 1% DPS boost

This must be modified by your effective base damage mod, however. Sincethe cap is already halved, your base damage increases the cap by theamount listed, i.e., if you had 30% base damage increase, then yourideal cap would be 130% of 750, or 975. If you had 50% base damageincrease, then your ideal cap would be 1125.

Base Damage
Base Damage's gain is linear. There is no known cap to Base Damage, butthe sources of Base Damage mod are less plentiful than other damagemodifiers. Base damage affects all your spell-based damage output,which is at least 80% of a coercer's total damage. Since Base Damage isso rare and vital in that it stacks without a cap and offers the bestreturns on a per-point basis, there's no reason not to get as much aspossible, but in certain cases you do have to measure its value againstother items.

Taking into account that a coercer has at least 750 Spell Damage, you can treat 1.2% Base Damage for 1% overall DPS Boost.

Spell Critical Chance

Spell Critical's gain is linear. No matter what your current Spell CritChance, the damage increase is the same for each point until 100%.There is a discrepancy, however, in how often a spell actually critscompared to how much your worn Spell Critical Chance is, due to themitigation effects of mob levels.

Spell Crit affects all spells, which includes nearly all forms of Procdamage. Thus the amount of procs you have on your gear and outsideprocs you get (PotM, Tandem, and etc) will affect the final dps boostvalue of Spell Crit; this is discussed a bit more under the Spell Procsection.

Spell Critical Chance is affected by the level of your encounter. Theshown number is the average chance only against an encounter of thesame level as you are. Fighting lesser mobs results in a higherCritical Chance than shown, and fighting tougher mobs results in alower Critical Chance than shown. Since on raids we're only fightingyellow or orange mobs, these numbers are what I'll focus on.

On orange mobs, Spell Critical Chance decreased to 89%-90%effectiveness, or a ratio of 9% worn crit to 8% actual Critical Chance.On yellow mobs, Spell Critical Chance is 96%-97% effective, or a ratioof 24% to 25%. Thus, the Critical Chance "cap" against a yellow mob is104% shown Critical Chance while on orange mobs, the cap is about 112%shown Critical chance.

When a spell successfully crits, the spell's damage is increased tomaximum base damage + 1 to maximum base damage * 1.3. Due to thismechanic, spells with larger damage spreads gain larger damageincreases. Averaging out from a good coercer's spell order, the actualdamage increase is 33% at 100% actual Spell Critical Chance. Thisnumber is increased with the introduction of Spell Critical Bonus ongear as described below.

Spell Critical Bonus
With the Shadowed Odyssey, a new mechanic was added, Spell CriticalBonus. As the name implies, Spell Critical Bonus is tied closely toSpell Critical Chance and should be looked at in conjunction with it.

As described above, a successful Critical increases a spell's damage toa range between it's maximum base damage + 1 and maximum base damage *1.3. With Spell Critical Bonus, both the lower and upper range ofCritical Damage is increased. So, on a successful critical, the damagerange would be maximum base damage * (100% + Spell Critical Bonus) + 1to maximum base damage * (130% + Spell Critical Bonus).

Thus, Spell Critical Bonus is similar to Base Damage, with theexceptions that the spell must Crit for the Bonus to apply, and also,because Base Damage is calculated earlier in the damage order, itoffers a greater overall increase when looked at in a straightcomparison basis. For comparison purposes, 1.3 Spell Critical Bonus canbe calculated as 1% overall DPS boost when at 100% Spell Crit Chance,1.4 at 90% Spell Crit Chance or 1.7 Spell Critical Bonus when at 75%Spell Crit Chance.

Reuse

Reuse's gain is on a diminishing returns scale. Thus, you get a lowergain per point of Reuse as you increase your total Reuse hastepercentage. However, this slope is relatively mild, due to the postGU-45 coercer mechanics increasing the recast of our highest damagespells, Hostage, Spell Curse, and Tyrannous Mind. The reduction fromReuse is calculated in a similar fashion to Casting Speed, with half ofa spell's normal recast timer being the maximum reduction. The reusecap is 100% which makes recast half of the time.

To calculate your boost from Reuse, you have to only factor in spellswhich you recast immediately when they are up, subtracting the spellthat you would have cast in its place. Also, you must factor in whetheryou actually recast the spell or not; if no recast is made, then nogain has taken place. Further, reuse only increases damage if the spellyou cast has higher damage amount per second than your average spell.

Further, there is "hostile" reuse, "beneficial" reuse, "spell" reuse,and ability reuse. For purposes of dps, spell reuse and ability reuseare equal in value. However, hostile reuse provides only 0.75% of thedps increase from reuse, while beneficial reuse is only 0.25% of thatamount. This is because hostile spells makes up nearly all our dps butnot entirely; Tyrannous Mind is affected only by beneficial spell reuseand thus taking this into account, the increases must be split.

Because of the spell recast timers for Hostage, Spell Curse, andTyrannous Mind, the maximum potential is reached in fights around the20 second mark and every 20 seconds thereafter. For fights shorter than20 seconds, 1% Reuse is only about 0.12% DPS boost at best. For fightsright around 20-25 seconds, 1% Reuse increases DPS by 0.28%. AlthoughReuse's exact amount will vary for you based on your raid's dps, anaverage of 0.20% DPS boost per point of reuse can be used for basicgear calculations, or 0.15% hostile, and 0.05% beneficial. Thus, 5Spell Reuse = 1% DPS boost, or 7 Hostile Reuse, or 20 Beneficial Reuse.

Casting Speed
Casting Speed is on a diminishing returns scale. The cap for CastingSpeed is 100%, or half of a spell's Cast time. The average gain perpoint from 0% to 100% is 0.3% damage increase. Thus, roughly 3.3%casting speed would increase your damage by 1% until you reach the cap,starting from 0%. However, since Casting Speed gives diminishingreturns, and coercers should have a good base Casting Speed fromagility line and raid buffs, we need to look a bit closer at the upperend Casting Speed increases.

Casting Speed from agility line, plus a bard and monk in raid, shouldbring you to at least 50% Casting Speed on average over a fight, or upto 75-80% for a normal fight without major interruptions. From 50% to100% Casting Speed, the DPS gain is between 0.23% per point and slowlydeclines until 0.18% per point. Any points over the cap provide 0%increase of course, and most coercers should have less than 20% CastingSpeed until the cap. So, although the window is small, and the gainfluctuates based on whether you are able to cast full time or not, theDPS gain past 50% Casting Speed is 5% Casting Speed to 1% DPS boost.

Spell Procs

Your dps boost from Spell Procs is hard to narrow down to a singlenumber, because of the nature of chance. However, over long periods oftime, the damage is fairly reliable, and are collected in Appendix V interms of raw DPS numbers.

The main draw of Spell Procs is that they offer additional damage withno additional time. Procs are not affected by Spell Damage or Reuse,but are affected by the other damage boosting sources. AdditionalCasting Speed increases the proc chances as well, since each spell iscalculated off its base time.

In the table I've provided below in Appendix V, 80% Spell Crit and 75%Casting Haste are calculated into the figures. The figures also factorin normal magical mitigation debuffs and resists.

Since Spell Procs are not affected by anything other than Spell Crit,the amount of Spell Proc items you wear also increases the value ofeach Spell Crit percentage point. This is because the more Spell Procyou wear and gain from outside buffs, the larger the overall dps gainis from Spell Crit. For a regular fight, Spell Proc damage accounts forabout 15% of a coercer's total damage (including both worn spell procsand outside spell procs).

Every 31-40 dps from Spell Procs is equal to 1% DPS Boost. We can usethe average of 36 dps as a basis of comparison. This is calculatedsimply by taking the average dps and finding what portion of your dpscomes from procs. The better damage you do through your spells, theless gain Spell Procs provide.

Intelligence

Intelligence's damage increase is on a diminishing returns scale.  
Intelligence is available in large amounts, so there is no need to seekitems (or buffs, for that matter) for additional Intelligence. But justin case you were curious, I'll explain how Intelligence affects yourdamage.

The cap for Intelligence for a level 80 spell is 1220. The formula (15* Level) + 20. A spell's Int cap is affected by its level; for example,Hemorrhage, as a level 71 spell, will cap its damage at 1065 Int,Hostage at 1155, Spell Curse at 1170, and Tyrannous Mind at 1220. Thus,70% of a coercer's damage spells actually require lower than maximumInt, and thus the gain decreases even further at the upper end.
At 1220 Int, you will see approximately a 38% increase in damagecompared to 0 Int, while at 900 int, you will see a 36.5% increase indamage. Raiding coercers should be at 900 Int self-buffed no matterwhat gear they've selected, so further gains will only lead to anothermaximum 1.5% DPS improvement.

Another way to look at Intelligence is to figure out what amount is necessary for a 1% DPS Boost.  
From 0 to 400 Intelligence, approximately 20 intelligence = 1% DPS Boost.
From 400 to 800 Intelligence, approximately 33 intelligence = 1% DPS Boost.
From 800 to 1000 Intelligence, approximately 50 intelligence = 1% DPS Boost.
From 1000 to 1220 Intelligence, approximately 110 intelligence = 1% DPS Boost.

Robe of Spectral Coercion/Extra Triggers
This deserves its own section because it's a separate method ofdamage increase that doesn't fit in the other sections. Most of themath was already covered in the spell damage section. This robe isequivalent to a 10.6% DPS boost. Further, it improves the value ofSpell Damage as listed above in that section.

The old increase in dps from the Vest of Force is equal to about halfof the increase from the Spectral Coercion robe, or a 5.4% DPS boost(when using capped Auspex). Since Auspex caps at fairly low, it doesnot significantly alter the value of Spell Damage or other damagesources, unlike the Robe.

Extra triggers from the coercer Achievement line increase damage by3.5% DPS per point of Hostage and 2.0% DPS per point of Spell Lash onaverage. Tyrannous Mind at a 25% increase is about 1.9% DPS overall.These aa's are basically no-brainers.


-> How about Casting Skills/Resistability?  Are they worth anything?

My answer is that Casting Skills are not useful in their current state,and Resistability is not far behind except when mezzing or memwiping.

Casting Skills will affect hostile spell resists. They are on adiminishing returns curve, with a maximum of 520. At 520 skill (+120skill from base), spells using that skill will have their resist chancedecreased by 20%.
I'm not sure of the actual curve, but some assumptions can be made:it's likely the first +40-50 skill is equivalent to -10% resist chance,while next 70-80 skill points (440-520) is equivalent to the second-10% resist chance. Most items have +4 or +5 skill on them, thusdecreasing resist chance by 1-2% per item.
But, this still leaves a big unknown variable: what's a mob's basechance to resist? On yellow mobs, it appears to be somewhere between 5and 10%, different depending on zone. But on orange mobs, it'sdifficult to calculate with the added variable of high spell mitigationdebuffs that also affect spell hit rates. Even with Hemorrhage at +50disruption (presumably 45% harder resist chance) or a skill with base56% harder resist chance, non-debuffed orange mobs have about a 50% toresist. For a marginally debuffed orange mob (about -3000 magicalmitigation), this drops to about 25% chance to resist, and at -7000, itdrops to about 2% chance to resist. Since most mobs get debuffedquickly, the value of disruption helping land that first spell isn'tapparent (because the resists are still extremely high), and the valueof disruption on a debuffed mob is extremely low (since resists are solow at that point already). Thus, in neither case does casting skillsprovide a useful boost.

Skills do a few other things than resists as well. Ministration andordination reduce power cost of spells, but by a minuscule amount.Focus prevents interrupts. At 520 skill, Focus has a maximum of 20% toprevent interrupts from taking damage. These benefits are much worsethan spell resist chance as far as their potential to be useful.

Straight Resist chance increase is basically in the same boat, althoughit is better than Casting Skills. The gain is very minor for thereasons stated above, and other sources of damage are large enough toovershadow any gain. If the situation requires mezzing or memwiping orotherwise attacking an undebuffed mob (or dispelling debuff mob),however, Resist chance becomes useful in those situations.

Conclusion
So, now that we have all this information, we have to apply it to the gear selections we make.  

The first priority should be Base Damage. This is because Base Damagehas a very high reward per-point. Since there are few sources,basically this comes down to trying to get a Dark Orb of the Mind (or aWand of Crystallized Plasma in the meantime) and a Bloodthirsty Choker.

The second priority is to increase your Spell Damage with items thathave high values on them until you reach at least 750 Spell Damage.This is because these items are plentiful and items with Spell Damagegenerally have very high amounts. In fact, many of the highest SpellDamage items can be obtained through grouping or questing, and thusyour DPS is increased the quickest/easiest by focusing on it here.

After that, you have to do some work in comparing your gear to see whatthe potential benefit is compared to your current gear setup. There isno longer a recommended peak Reuse amount, unlike pre-GU45, becausegains continue through 50% (although it is difficult to obtain morethan this, if you do continue going, the per-point increase keepsdwindling). As for Crit, the more you get until 100%, the better.

As you obtain more gear, you should be able to keep switching out SpellDamage for more Crit, Reuse, and procs. The easiest way to makepractical use of this information is to calculate the DPS boost for onepiece of your gear using the formula given above, and then calculatethe DPS boost of the item you wish to replace it with, and see whetherit's worth it to replace your item. Once you get over 50% crit, buildyour spell damage closer towards 750 to gain the max benefit fromHostage. That way, you will realize the best benefit from having highspell damage.


Appendix I: Spell Damage Cap Chart
Spell Damage Caps at 1008 intelligence, and Hemorrhage M2, the rest M1.

Hemorrhage 385-521
Forceful Headache 362-604
Spell Curse 491-600
Dissecting Gaze 542-662
Ego Melt 561-686
Hostage 621-758
Intrepid Focus 642-784
Asylum 725-885
Tyrannous Mind 896-945
Brainshock 978-1195
Absolute Silence 1134-1386
Shockwave 1208-2012
Master Strike 1449-1771

* Shockwave, Ego Melt and Dissecting Gaze apply only 1/3 of the spell damage total due to AE
** Tyrannous Mind, Spell Curse, and Hostage apply only 1/3 of the totalspell damage per trigger due to reactive. If more than 3 reactives aretriggered, gain is actually more than 100%.

Appendix II: Recommended Reuse Items Again

15%, proc Earring of Unkempt Power
10% Eye of the Siren, Mythical
10% Pantaloons of Spectral Coercion
10%, proc Cloak of Unrest
5% Earring of Unkempt Energies
5% Ring of the Four Winds
5% Eye of the Siren, Fabled
4% Drape of the Emerald Council (hostile only)

Appendix III: Equippable Base Damage Items

\aITEM -1296654864 -198550402:Bloodthirsty Choker\/a - (Terror, Shard of Fear) - +10% Base Damage
\aITEM -879661432 -1038638506ark Orb of the Mind\/a - (MayongMistmoore, Castle Mistmoore) - +10% Base Damage (1.8, 16s duration)
\aITEM -287751671 1889557559:Sash of the Volcanic Throne\/a -(Trakanon, Trakanon's Lair) - +12% Base Damage (clicky 15 s duration, 3min base recast)
\aITEM 203051263 227577098ristine Majestic Swiftcloth Cloak\/a - (crafted T8 Cloak) - +2% Base Damage
\aITEM 335135119 256208155:Wand of Crystalized Plasma\/a - (Hemogoblin, Unrest) - +8% Base Damage (1.8, 12s duration)


Appendix IV: The (not really necessary) Power Proc Table
Unfortunately, power amounts are not affected by intelligence. There isno current way to track them, so I do not know crit rates for certain,and all the power/minute calculations are estimations only. Most powerprocs cast on the caster only, and thus do not resist. Some power procscast on the target, and may get resisted, resulting in an average92-96% hit rate. Since the non-hostile procs do not show up in ACT, Idid not put the spell names for each proc. For multiple triggers, Iassumed no overlap, so those procs may average out a bit less than Icalculated.

Perceptor's Pants of Power [1.8, 203-248 x4] = 5100 power/min
Earring of Unkempt Energies [1.8, 113 x5] = 3200 power/min (group)
Hoop of Dimensional Power [2.0*, 365] = 2200 power/min
Chain Necklace of Pain [1.8, 325-397] = 2100 power/min
Robe of Forgotten Dreams [2.4, 253] = 1900 power/min
Necromantic Orb of the Death Reveler [1.8, 316] = 1900 power/min
Pantaloons of Mystical Silk [1.8, 130 x2] = 1500 power/min
Hoop of Planar Power [1.8*, 256] = 1400 power/min
V'Ncenzi's Voluminous Cape [1.8, 222] = 1400 power/min
Necklace of Pain [1.8, 182-223] = 1300 power/min
Girdle of the Di'zok Spirit [2.0**, 105] = 1050 power/min (group)
Slippers of Zal'Naz [2.0*, 42x4] = 1000 power/min
Pantaloons of Volatile Power [2.0, 143] = 950 power/min
Lava Forged Manacle [2.0, 139] = 925 power/min
Soulsiphon Leggings [2.0, 130] = 860 power/min
Cane of Trickery [3.0***, 150] = 750 power/min (group)
Circlet of Dark Thoughts [1.8, 127] = 700 power/min
Mantle of the Clairvoyant [1.8*, 100] = 550 power/min
Leggings of Lucidity [1.8, 81] = 400 power/min

*Proc on Spell attack only
** Proc on all spells
*** One of three effects that have an equal amount to proc

Appendix V: The Big Damage Proc Table

Proc data taken at 1000 intelligence.
Individual procs have their own resist rates, and generally hit from 82-96% of the time.
DPS amounts are average amounts collected or calculated for a Coercerwith 80% crit and 1000 intelligence at normalized at approximately 75%average casting speed casting nonstop. Damage on your personal zonewidewill vary from 66% to 150% of the amount listed. For procs that inflictdamage over time, no overlap was assumed; thus the amount gain may besmaller than listed.

Wicked Wand of Malice, Malefic Fury [100%, 225] = ~240 dps (plus 1000 additional threat per second)
Staff of Unchained Magic, Fiery Countenance [2.0, 1152-2140] = 230 dps
Hood of Dark Dealings, Obsidian Chaos [100%, 1-150 or 1500] = 140 dps
Blackened Band of Devastation, Long Road to Ruin [2.0, 228-4560 depending on mob hp%] = 140 dps
Signet of Betrayal, Dire Consequences [2.0**, 1125] = 125 dps(plus 250 additional threat per second)
Frigid Piercer, Frigid Burst [2.0, 568-1055] = 100 dps
Death Chimes, Deathmarch [33% if under 15% hp, 2025] = 75+ dps
Staff of the Impaler, Acute Necrosis [1.6, 1085] = 70 dps
Bone-Clasped Girdle, Burning Affliction [1.8, 470-783] = 60 dps
The Praetor's Guard, Praetor's Strike [1.8, 672] = 60 dps
Chain Necklace of Pain, Essence Conversion [1.8, 526-643] = 51 dps
Vzee'rist's Sash of Draining, Essence Drain [1.8, 268-408 + 85-128 x2]  = 48 dps
Necromantic Orb of the Death Reveler, Spirit Feast [1.8, 521]= 46 dps
Grizzfazzle's Walking Stick, Grizzfazzle's Rage [2.0, 337-626] = 46 dps
Mystical Orb of the Invoker, Char [2.0, 377-565] = 45 dps
Gloves of Sagacity, Harrowing Strike [1.8*, 537] = 42 dps
Blood of the Brood Watcher, Wrath of the Brood Watcher [1.8, 451-551] = 42 dps
Usla's Magickery (Runnyeye jewelry set bonus), Goblin Bane[1.6**, 380 or double if goblin] = 40 dps if 2 set; 48 if 3 set? (notsure if bonus is applied once or twice); 56 if 4 set
Staff of Light, Flaming Justice [1.8, 325-604] = 38 dps
Wristbands of Knowledge, Channeling Force [100%*, 41] = 39 dps
Bracelet of Thule, Thule's Temper [1.8*, 426] = 32 dps
Soulfire Staff, Absolve Vitae [1.8, 378] = 30 dps
Fitzpitzle's Misty Protector, Fitzpitzle's Necromantic Restoration [2.0, 166-497] = 28 dps
Malign Mantle, Clandestine Attack [100% for 30 seconds on 3 minute recast, 228] = 27 dps
Wraith Touched Necklace, Wraith Touch [1.8, 304-371] = 25 dps
Necklace of Pain, Essence Shift [1.8, 298-365] = 25 dps
Breath of the Destroyer, Thought Hemorrhage [1.8*, 380] = 25 dps
Ring of Supremacy, Disparaging Affliction [1.8, 171-291] = 24 dps
Finger Bone Manacles, Beguiling Siphon [1.8, 160-266] = 18 dps
Necklace of Natural Power, Natural Spark [1.8, 170] = 15 dps
Circlet of Living Fire, Strike of Living Flames [1.8, 139-231] = 12 dps
Smoldering Arcane Clasp, Arcane Feedback [1.0, 61 + 33x4] = 10 dps

*Procs only on Spell Attack versus Hostile Spell. The class of SpellAttack spells are those spells that contain damage, while the class ofHostile Spells include the debuff class of spells.
** Any attack, includes all damage-based spells, melee, and abilities (but not debuffs).
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