Coercer Pet Strategies

Charm or Possess Essence
One of the decisions a higher level coercer (65+) will need to make is whether to use Possess Essence or Charm. A possessed essence has a huge amount of hit points for your level, and will never break. A charmed pet, on the other hand, will have significantly fewer hit points but its damage capabilities are superior, particularly for mage pets. Which one to take depends on your play style. If you use the stunlock scenario below, you can get more out of a mage pet nuking for high damage while you keep the mob locked down with your abilities. However, it requires patience and timing to use. On the other hand, you can make a possessed essence into a passable tank when you solo. Buff him with enraging demeanor to increase his hate and manage your aggro closely, and he should be able to tank just about anything for you, even heroics, due to his large amount of HP.

Using Possess Essence
Part of the fun of Possess Essence is selecting a pet that has a class which complements your needs. To tell what class you are getting, look at the buffs the mobs have on them when you target the mob.

Regardless of the possessed essence's class, it's default attack is called Confound, and it strikes for Mental Damage. Thurs, using your abilities with arcane debuffs will help it do more damage. In addition to Confound, your essence will default to a set script of activities depending on its class. This means it may not use abilities you saw it using a second earlier as a live mob, but instead will gain a set number of abilities and use them according to a predefined script. A possessed essence of any particular class appears to be the same as any other PE of that class, other than its different appearance. So, a PE berserker that is a tiny fish is the same as one that is a towering Sarnak. Note that this is different than Charm, which tends to preserve the mob's original abililties and scripts will vary per mob, even when they have the same class.

In general, the strength of its abilities depends on your level and the level of mastery for Possess Essence. Here is a partial list of the mob buffs and the classes they indicate, as well as some of the abilities you can expect to see them perform.

Warrior Mage Priest Scout
 * Guardian - Buff is Hunker Down - they will occsionally cast Overpower, Sever, and rarely use Sentry Watch
 * Berkerker - Buff is Berserker's Rage - they will occasioanlly cast Rupture, Rampage, Stunning Roar, and Berserk Onslaught
 * Shadow Knight - Buff is Innoruk's Caress - Will use Unholy Strength, Siphon Strength, Death Cloud, Painbringer and rare use Shadow Coi
 * Paladin - Has a Blessed Weapon buff. Rarely will cast Consecrate and start AoE exploding for about 30 seconds.  Watch for room pulls.
 * Bruiser - Has a Bob & Weave buff. Will use Pummel, Lightning Fists, Beatdown, and rarely use Savage Assault and 100 Hand Punch.
 * Monk - Has an Inner Calm buff. Will use Waking Dragon, Striking Cobra, Crescent Strike and Jolting Strike.
 * Illusionist - Buff is Synergism - They will use Ultraviolet Beam, Paranoia, Entrance, and Dismay
 * Coercer - Buff is Peaceful Link, they typically open with a Hemmorage nuke
 * Necromancer - doesn't typically have a buff but has a necro pet. It will summon a pet and you'll have two pets. This helper pet will only engage when its master is attacked, so if you send the master pet in first his helper will aggro for more DPS.  The type of pet it summons seems fixed at the time you grab the mob; all other similar mobs will summon that type of pet.  However, if the helper pet dies a pet of another type might be summoned.  If you come back another day and charm/possess he same mob, however, his pet may be different
 * Conjuror - As above,and it will sometimes cast Earthshaker which is a big unfocused AoE knockdown
 * Warlock - Typically have no buff. Occasionally uses a group debuff, and does not use AoE nukes much if at all
 * Wizard - Typically has no buff. Casts Solar Flare, Incinerate, Magma Chamber, Firestorm and Frost Armor
 * All priests - At 50% life or lower, a self-healing script will kick-in and they will occasionally cast a healing spell on themselves only.
 * Defiler - Occasionally has Torpor as a buff. Will cast Abomination, Atrophy, Imprecate and Fuliginous Whip.  When it's below % life it iwll cast Dire Balm and rarely Sacrificial Restoration on itself.
 * Fury - Has Thornskin as a buff. Will cast Death Swarm, Maddening Swarm, Tempest and Fae Fire.  When under % life it will cast Nature's Salve and Nature's Elixir on itself.
 * Warden - Has Thorncoat as a buff. Will cast Dawnstrike, Root, and Undergrowth.  When under % 50 life it will cast Sylvan Bloom and Nature's Embrace on itself.
 * Mystic - Typically has no buff. Will cast Velium Winds, Haze, Touch of the Grey, and Lethargy.  When under 50% life it will cast Rejuvenation and rarely Ritual Healing on itself.
 * All Scouts - Have a poisoned weapon buff, with the exception of Bards (see below). They can also use abilities which require stealth whether or not they are actually invisible.
 * All Bards - Provide the group with the buff "Bard Songs." This is an extremely powerful buff that combines several bard buffs into one, and which scales with your level. Not that this buff is not visible until you actually possess the mob.
 * Dirge - Uses Luda's Nefarious Wail, Disheartening Descant, Thuri's Doleful Thrust and Daru's Dull Blade. Bard song is "Dirge Songs" and provides increased STA, AGI, DPS, Parry, and a proc for damage on combat hit.
 * Troubador - research needed.
 * Ranger - If at Ranged distances, will use Searing Shot or rarely use Natuarl Selection. Otherwise uses Sneak Attack, Lightning Strike and Ranger's Blade.
 * Assassin - Has a large selection of attacks for a PE. Can use Quick Strike, Eviscerate, Stealth Assault, Massacre, Masked Strike, Torture, and Jugular Slice.

Soloing Heroics
Easiest method to soloing heroics is to charm a caster pet, root, then mezz the enemy, as soon as mezz refreshes attack with pet, as long as they start casting toss out your mezz, your mezz should land just after your pets nuke hits, back pet off as soon as they finish casting. Keep a close eye on pet, if they start to rush in back them off fast. As long as your timing is good on keeping your victim mezzed and rooted you should be able to take down almost any mob without ever getting hit. For caster enemies you should expect your pet or you to get hit, you can toss in stifles to keep this to minimum but it is going to happen.

In order to bring victims out from roaming areas I like to root the mob and run to where I want to fight them, then cancel root and start tapping mezz until they get into range, its a fairly safe way of getting a mob to an open area where you can do your thing.

An alternate method is a little trickier and requires more timing but can be a lot quicker. First thing to do is get a priest pet, preferably at least 2 levels higher than the heroic you are fighting, next send your pet into battle, let them take a hit or two then start cycling your stuns, should buy you at least 10 seconds of no damage, throw out your wee little nuke and daze, if you have room use your AOE stun as well, as soon as your stuns run out and pet is low on health back him off and mezz the heroic, you can either wait for your pet to regen on its own now or do the pet attack/pet back off method to get it to throw a heal on itself as long as it is under 40% health. As soon as your pet is healed up send it back in and repeat as needed.

Using these two methods I have taken down some good heroics though I have always made it a point to fight a heroic lower level than me with a pet higher level than me, the first method has definitly proven to be safer, especially when a pet breaks charm, I have time to deal with it, the second method is a lot riskier but can be significantly faster if done right. These are not the only methods so try some alternates out and have fun.

Debuffing is also an important technique for fighting heroics. Use the Psyche line of debuffs to increase your pets damage. Cast it after mezzing the mob.

If you are not an Erudite with Aura Sense, then I would strongly suggest getting a pair of Thaumatoscopic Goggles. These will enable you to see which mobs are casters etc. when in an unfamiliar zone. (The goggles are currently described as head slot leather armor, but that's incorrect, the item is actually cloth armor).