http://www.fohguild.org/forums/90145-post124.html
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 6
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charm itsself is NOT broken. Charm is the victim of a changing environment and thusly needs to be modified to keep pace with that environment. I have been using charm for many years in much the same way I use it now.
Before any expansions were released,
enchanters were soloing the ghoul lord and fire giants area with charmed pets.
When kunark was released, we kept pets in groups in Sebilis that doubled the entire groups experience over a 4 or 5 hour experience grind. During Velious, we could charm giants in Kael that easily netted twice the exp normally recieved in an experience group. Velious is where the environments started to change and become much more favorable to charming. Once equipment and player stats started reaching the proportions they did in velious, the risk of charm became trivial. The only problem with Velious and Luclin was that there were not many areas where charm soloing was much more effecient then grouping. So most enchanters ignored the ability.
Now we have Planes of Power. There are quite a few things in this expansion that make charming too good to ignore.
- Zones typically have wide open spaces where you can outrun mobs
- Mobs are spaced farther apart making solo pulling trivial.
- Mobs dont summon
- Mobs have generally low hit points and defense.(This would seem to be the charm equalizer. But doesnt work)
- Mobs have extremely high ATK and max hits.
Because of these factors, the risk vs. reward is out of whack. When an enchanter can get an aa in 17mins by 2boxing a cleric outside of the group vs grouping and getting an aa every 1-2 hours, there is a problem with risk vs reward.(yes its possible. I have done it at a sustained rate).
Back before kunark, we would go solo fire giants for the thrill. IT was damn scary because a charm break at the wrong time meant about an 80% chance of death. With POP, a charm break at the wrong time means you cast the following spells: wom, run til spell gems refresh, mez your pet, retarget the prey, cast root. If it knocks your rune off, pop eldritch rune and root. ZERO risk. none, nada. You have to be a complete and utter idiot to die to a situation like that.
But bringing back the idea of summnoing mobs makes my skin crawl. It was a cheesy tactic. It would make charm mostly useless and not worth the time because it will only take 1 charm break to kill an enchanter. Granted, you may escape if charm breaks when no prey is in camp, but if there is prey in camp, you are dead. One wom resist on either your prey or the pet and your dead. Even if you do manage to get wom off, by the time you do, your hp will be so low, the prey will bloodlust onto you and you will be toast before you can do anything about it. If mobs were to summon again, to make charm useful, we would have to be compenstated with an instant low resist root or something.
So the real problem is not charm. We have been using charm exactly how it was designed since inception. The real problem is the environment.
Of the points listed above:
- Wide open spaces: Changing zone designs is out the the question
- mob spacing: Might be possible but would have unforseen consequences
- Summoning: Think I have covered this one
- Low hit points and defense: cant really do anything here. It would unbalance every other class.
- Extreme ATK: ding ding ding! We have a winner.
Typically enchanters haste their pets. Given a dual wielding pet with haste and a 2boxed druid for heal/snare, charming is the only way to experience!(Hello all you tactics people! And you know who you are :P). So Verants first idea with the 1% slow was a pretty good one but didnt go far enough. These mobs even without haste and dual wield, can tear through their brethren pretty easy. Especially with a botted druid or cleric to heal it. Dire Charm was limited in level for a reason. If you could of dire charmed an Illis and dual wielded and hasted it, a single enchanter could of cleared jugs in Sebilis and given the protector a run for his money. So Verant level limited Dire Charm to 47. The reason they did that was because mobs of that level and lower didnt have enough ATK to do amazing feats.
The reason I use Dire Charm as an example is simple. The risk vs reward of a high level pet that was perma charmed was deemed out of whack by Verant. Basically, given the environmental variables mentioned above, you have the same situation. Mobs that are permacharmed with very little risk. Even thoguh they do break, a broken pet in wide open pop zones is pretty trivial to recharm.
Given this logic, the reasonable thing to do would be to add an effect to charm that lowered a mobs melee level to a much lower level(I am thinking 57). Kind of like those ae's in the spell database that lower a characters spell casting level. This would greatly reduce their attack and defense. It would still allow us to dual wield and haste where it was allowed, but their average hit would be for much less. When charm broke, because the effect was part of the charm it would wear off and the mob would go back to its normal level. This doesnt increase the risk of charm but it lowers its overall effectiveness which is really the problem anyway. This would still allow enchanters that like to solo, to be able to solo. But you wont be able to earn AA at astronomical rates. I still think it should be faster then a group but only slighly so. MAybe 50mins or so per aa. It also addresses melee issues that an enchanter makes them somewhat worthless in groups.
Of the points listed above:
- Wide open spaces: Changing zone designs is out the the question
- mob spacing: Might be possible but would have unforseen consequences
- Summoning: Think I have covered this one
- Low hit points and defense: cant really do anything here. It would unbalance every other class.
- Extreme ATK: ding ding ding! We have a winner.
Typically enchanters haste their pets. Given a dual wielding pet with haste and a 2boxed druid for heal/snare, charming is the only way to experience!(Hello all you tactics people! And you know who you are :P). So Verants first idea with the 1% slow was a pretty good one but didnt go far enough. These mobs even without haste and dual wield, can tear through their brethren pretty easy. Especially with a botted druid or cleric to heal it. Dire Charm was limited in level for a reason. If you could of dire charmed an Illis and dual wielded and hasted it, a single enchanter could of cleared jugs in Sebilis and given the protector a run for his money. So Verant level limited Dire Charm to 47. The reason they did that was because mobs of that level and lower didnt have enough ATK to do amazing feats.
The reason I use Dire Charm as an example is simple. The risk vs reward of a high level pet that was perma charmed was deemed out of whack by Verant. Basically, given the environmental variables mentioned above, you have the same situation. Mobs that are permacharmed with very little risk. Even thoguh they do break, a broken pet in wide open pop zones is pretty trivial to recharm.
Given this logic, the reasonable thing to do would be to add an effect to charm that lowered a mobs melee level to a much lower level(I am thinking 57). Kind of like those ae's in the spell database that lower a characters spell casting level. This would greatly reduce their attack and defense. It would still allow us to dual wield and haste where it was allowed, but their average hit would be for much less. When charm broke, because the effect was part of the charm it would wear off and the mob would go back to its normal level. This doesnt increase the risk of charm but it lowers its overall effectiveness which is really the problem anyway. This would still allow enchanters that like to solo, to be able to solo. But you wont be able to earn AA at astronomical rates. I still think it should be faster then a group but only slighly so. MAybe 50mins or so per aa. It also addresses melee issues that an enchanter makes them somewhat worthless in groups.
some quote with link :
SPell allure
http://replay.web.archive.org/200207...?Id=142&Page=1
Quote:
Unbelievable - Brainslayer
(1/28/2001)
Due to having multiple enchanters in our groups, I was able to play around with this spell on a recent fire giant raid in solusek b. I never relized how powerful it was before until I casted it on Warlord Skarlon. He was charmed for atleast 5 min. It was the funniest thing when when a fire giant warrior began to summon him, the entire dungeon nearly died laughing, but so did I when he broke the spell.
Quote:
WOW - Cassie
(1/28/2001)
I cast this on a Dark Ritualist in the MM tower the other day for grins, and it was lasting upwards of 5+ minutes. To give you an idea of how long this lasts, two of my buds had time to duel, the loser got rezzed, and then medded to full all w hile the pet remained charmed. This wasn't a one-time shot either. I've noticed this routinely lasting for 4 to 5 minutes before breaking (though I've sometimes had it break after 20 seconds LOL) Not only that, in the new patch as of today we will get a message when Charm is going to break. WOOHOO!!!!! No more sudden surprises when that Hill Giant or Seafury is about to turn on you The run of chanter twinks with each patch continues.
seafury 38-42 and dark ritualist 33
Quote:
XICOTL, By Ordeith
(1/28/2001)
Xicotl in MM is a wonderful target for this spell, hits for 100 max, casts spells, tons of HP...*grins* I charmed him and he was soloing half of the garden area around the damph, spell held for around 10 mins also, with 200 cha of course.
Now,
Remember 1 thing : First charming at low lv is more dangerous and thus charm breaking will occure more often due to the fact the a blue mob will be within the range of only 6 level below you.
At higher lv charm is holding more steady due to the fact that a blue mob range from 1- 12 lv below you. a good exemple of that is sebilis.A lv 55 enchanter charming a dar knight wich is lv 44-49 make the duration of the spell more realible. That is why it is often goes up to the full duration.
http://eqbeastiary.allakhazam.com/search.html?id=5013
When i tested charm in beta i was soloing in sebilis with a lv 50 enchanter and i couldnt solo at all because charm was breaking too often. Yes i could kill a few mob but the risk was too great to make solo viable.
It eventually became more realible around lv 52 and higher.