charm: some actual evidence rather than QQ

[Splorf22]

http://wiki.project1999.org/index.ph...nchanter_Guide and
http://wiki.project1999.org/index.ph...er_Spell_Guide

These were stolen from a Tripod page. It looks like Xornn started in late kunark (he had breeze), hit 50 around Velious, and took a break until Luclin at 56.

Some quotes:

Under charm soloing he says 'honestly I usually get 2 fights in easy using attack slow as the edge'.

'That's all there is to it, really. Charm sometimes holds for 5 minutes. Other times it holds for 5 seconds.' [note: that was about the L12 spell even!]

'Charm soloing is very dangerous now, and if you do choose to fight this way, it's important to consider this factor--if the average charm is 2.5 minutes (reasonable with my experience), can your pet finish the fight with your pull in that time? At one point in charm soloing, about 40 to 50, mobs you charmed could kill two other mobs before charm broke. You will find with the colossal increases in total hit points of the mobs, even the heavy hitting charmed pets have trouble finishing a fight in under three minutes. Dealing with a charm break is practically expected at this point, unless you are able to locate a set of low hit point mobs that will carve each other up quickly. I no longer recommend using slow on the enemy mob, as you will rarely hold a pet that can survive two fights in a row, and losing your pet can often mean zoning because you don't have the mana to nuke finish a mob. Successful charm soloing usually involves a pair of mobs spawning together, rooting one, charming the other and letting them battle it out, doing your best to make sure your pet barely wins, allowing you to break charm and have a fleeing mob left to finish off with nukes. You may even consider hasting your pet, to make for a reliable kill time. If you choose this route, then I suggest slowing the enemy, and going for a two mob kill before charm breaks. A strong haste is often enough to pull this off, but you can go from full health with Rune V up to very dead in seconds in this situation.'

So, here we have:

1) He could kill 2 L50 mobs reasonably frequently with charm if he hasted the pet. A L48-50 Sarnak Myrmidon has ~10K hp. I remember parsing it once, and it did about 100 dps with DW and haste, so probably 50 base dps and 75 with haste. 2 of them would be 20K hps @ 75 dps or 250 seconds plus 10-20 seconds to find mob #2. This would require a 4.5 minute charm. Without haste, it would require 400 seconds or 6.5 minutes.

2) He could kill 2 L40-45 mobs reasonably frequently with charm without haste at L50. A L44 Lava Duct Crawler has ~4.5K hp and does maybe 40dps without haste. That gives us 225 seconds, or just under 4 minutes of fighting time.

3) He claims the 'average charm' is 2.5 minutes. I assume this is counting all the breaks. I don't trust this as much as the calculations since we humans are very bad at averaging this kind of stuff in our heads.

So what I get from the guide is that at 50+, on mobs 5-10 levels below the enchanter, with tash but without malo, charm should last 4-5 minutes fairly frequently, break early some of the time (maybe 20-25% of the time), and generally break before 5-7 minutes.

If you believe in Xornn's memory over raw calculations, you get a 3-4 minute charm fairly frequently, with some early breaks, and the occasional 5-6 minute charm, which works out to an average of 2.5 minutes.

This is somewhat less duration than charm before patch, but clearly more than we are getting now. Kind of amazingly, I actually agree with Verant's balancing there. Keep in mind that the risk of charm soloing with a hasted L49 pet is really, really high. As he says, 1 bash = dead enchanter.

P.S.

With all that said, I had a great time in Sebilis last night with TMO (their reputation on this board seems totally undeserved) doing stuns and slows. So I am still enjoying my enchanter, even without my froggy pets. And if you guys can find better evidence that the current charm is classic, I'm not going to ragequit.