Serious discussion about Charisma after Charm Nerf

[Fawqueue]

I'm just curious what everyone thinks of stacking Charisma after the charm nerf? It seems to play little part in charm breaks (many reports in the patch thread about having issues even with low-levels, as well as first-hand experience). So is there any reason to waste half the gear slots on CHA gear as opposed to simply stacking INT and STA at this point? It's a little disheartening to waste time and money getting 200+ CHA only to have it seem like it was all pointless. And if that's the case, I almost think the additional mana would help more in the long-run. Any thoughts?

[Trimm]

As a non-enchanter, my only question is how did charm work in Classic? Was it the overpowered-charm-reds-and-yellows-for-full-duration charm like we had, or this new 'nerfed' blues-only-last-about-60-seconds charm we have now?

While I personally think charm was hugely overpowered before, if that's how it was in classic then I guess that's what it should go back to.

[Danth]

My primary recollection with classic Charm was that the overwhelming majority of Enchanters regarded it as worthless/suicidal and rarely/never used it.

Danth

[vageta31]

Charm was never this powerful in classic. Period. On top of that other classes that usually had low charisma and could charm were able to do so based on purely your level vs the mob and it's magic resist. CHA was supposed to be the least important part of the 3 and what made enchanters have a small advantage over others, it was simply made the most important here. Charm may seem stupidly weak now, but it's only because it was so OP before. In classic you could never charm an even con or above and have it for very long. You had to focus on dark blues and debuff them well enough so it'd last. As a Shaman I used to charm Rhinos and such in The Overthere and I remember it lasting for about 2-3 fights max. In fact I never intended on keeping it long, I'd basically let the mob get beat up purposely so that by the time it killed 2 other mobs I could finish it off easily.

It seems a huge number of people rolled chanters to take advantage of the OP charm but are now upset because they don't get to. I agree it sucks, but if you were rolling a chanter just to take advantage of something obviously broken then that was a risk that didn't work out for you. It was quite funny to see how the CHA items that used to sell for so much, drop in price overnight :)

[Bakaris]

Charm was never this powerful in classic. Period. On top of that other classes that usually had low charisma and could charm were able to do so based on purely your level vs the mob and it's magic resist. CHA was supposed to be the least important part of the 3 and what made enchanters have a small advantage over others, it was simply made the most important here. Charm may seem stupidly weak now, but it's only because it was so OP before. In classic you could never charm an even con or above and have it for very long. You had to focus on dark blues and debuff them well enough so it'd last. As a Shaman I used to charm Rhinos and such in The Overthere and I remember it lasting for about 2-3 fights max. In fact I never intended on keeping it long, I'd basically let the mob get beat up purposely so that by the time it killed 2 other mobs I could finish it off easily.

It seems a huge number of people rolled chanters to take advantage of the OP charm but are now upset because they don't get to. I agree it sucks, but if you were rolling a chanter just to take advantage of something obviously broken then that was a risk that didn't work out for you. It was quite funny to see how the CHA items that used to sell for so much, drop in price overnight :)

Problem is now, that I cant charm a blue con mob for a whole fight. (lvl 29 enc, 212 cha) And yes I do tash. And agro on enc is just... retarded. Seems broken to me.

[excalis]

I had an Chanter and even with the nerfs on live was very successful with it soloing with charm. I used all of my abilities with nothing geared toward CHA and rocked it.

CHA to me was worthless and just focused on INT, STA. The only main thing I did not like was that you were unable to charm a PC when dueling after a charm change. I soloed my Chanter and most of it was using charm, then the better native pets with AA bouncing between the two depending on the situation.

I did have some good charm breaks that resulted in deaths but once I learned how to use what I had I hardly died, if I did it was my fault for not following my tactics correctly. Research is key, mob HP, resistance, level, etc all fall into place when charming and if they are worth using. Charm to me was just a random deal like invis, just have to be prepared for it when it breaks.

I remember when they nerfed charm and folks were complaining about it, I just said F"it and kept on trucking and proved chanters could solo well. I also used to charm mobs that could not be mezzed as a form of CC, course you can only have one mob at a time charmed but could use it to help DPS, etc. I recall once when raiding Vindi we had an add which I picked up and used to finish off the encounter.

Druid and Chanter combo was awesome when charming using their snare.

I am tempted to drop my necro I am working on and make another chanter, but wanted to try something new this time around. Good luck!

[vageta31]

I think chanters are just going to have to adapt their strategies and use charm differently. They've been spoiled into just finding the best mob to charm, then keep it as a pet as long as the group wanted. Now they will have to use charm I think more of the way it was intended, as a way to pull an additional mob out of a fight temporarily. You borrow it's DPS and let it tank so that when charm breaks (intentionally or unintentionally) it is already low on hps and ready for killing.

In this way charm is still great, just not meant for keeping a pet long term. With this method at least you're taking a mob out of the fight and getting extra dps and letting other mobs take down it's hps.

[excalis]

In groups i would keep a good pet and just have druid snare it and heal it. PoD had some worm type mobs I used to use and we were successful keeping the same mob. When soloing I would let my charmed mob get a certain level in HP then finish it off by breaking charm, or charming another mob and using it to kill my former pet.

Rune, distance, root, stuns, all helped. Ahhh the memories...

[OneTrueBru]

I'm a bit miffed, but only because I'm a colossal idiot and thought "Oh hey, CHA is awesome here? I'll just go ahead and dump all my bard's bonus points there". Hurf-durf.

Debating rerolling to STA, but honestly, I don't know if I can be bothered.

[excalis]

I'm a bit miffed, but only because I'm a colossal idiot and thought "Oh hey, CHA is awesome here? I'll just go ahead and dump all my bard's bonus points there". Hurf-durf.

Debating rerolling to STA, but honestly, I don't know if I can be bothered.

I hear ya, eventually since we are kind of following how live was with removals, etc the charm (and CHA changes?) nerfs will come. Sucks man, you can always try and make up STA with gear.

[guineapig]

I think the consensus is that lowering the importance of charisma (due to it being the last roll when checking for charm break)was a good thing.

However a tashed, malo'd blue con mob average mob should still be able to be charmed for 3-5 minutes without much problems. In fact, you should be able to do it with 130 charisma (maybe even less) instead of 200+.

I have not tested this since the patch but I will.
In theory, with around 130 charisma I should be able to tash and charm a green con mob and have the charm last almost full duration, light blue con mob I should be able to keep for over half duration on average. If I am unable to do either of these things without boosting my charisma to 200 then it's still not working as intended.

I will of course do multiple tests and suggest that other charm capable players do the same thing and compare their results here.

That's the only real way to figure out if the fix/nerf was good or too much.

Make sure you post name of mobs, level range of mobs as well as yourself, your charisma changes, and of course any debuffs you may have used.

[Taej]

Any updates on this from testing/experience?

Does having 200+ CHA effect anything anymore? Or do you just need 130+ as the previous poster mentioned?

My understanding was that there is still an Mob MR vs. Player CHA check to determine charm breaks even with the changes.

[Salty]

Charm was never this powerful in classic.

Charm was sweet up until PoP after they nerfed it because of the chanter soloing in PoV and Halls of Honor.

On combine enchanters would lock down swashbucklers in Timorous deep, Guks in lguk, ilis knights in sebilis, pirates in jaggedpine, or LDCs in solb. You had 3 kinds of enchanters, those that would buff and mez, those that would pull buff and mez, or those that would charm buff mez and maybe pull.

If you rolled around with nothing but scrub chanters than I could see you thinking that way though.

[Fawqueue]

The internet is a funny creature, the original intention of this post got sidetracked REALLY quickly. But I understand that there is strong feelings on both sides of the great charm debate. I will say this in regards to charm and the nerf: what we already know is pretty much true. CHA doesn't affect it GREATLY, but does affect it. If you are really trying to squeeze the most out of the charm durations regularly, then stack CHA to at least 200. I haven't noticed a huge difference after that point (at 217 now). And yes charm was "overpowered" if by that definition you mean it was too reliable. I used to be able to keep a blue/even around for full duration all the time, and yellows/reds long enough to make use most of the time. Now it's still viable to do some crazy things (even post-nerf I've been able to keep red Oggok guards around long enough to make them slaughter each other) but it is more akin to a dice roll than it was previously (which is the intention). It's still very viable, I use charm in dungeons solo and in groups as a great DPS tool and as long as it's blue by a few levels, it's manageable.

Now, as for my original intent with this post. I was just curious if I was the only one who suddenly realized that all the time and money spent acquiring my CHA gear was suddenly pointless. Unlike live, CHA doesn't affect merchant pricing for buying/selling on this server. If so, I'd still be pretty content as it'd save me a ton of money in my Jewelcrafting. At this point INT and STA just seem like the more efficient choice (which I know was mentioned above). And it seems like others agree.

[guineapig]

All I can tell you for certain is that in Plane of Fear for example, we often use charm as an additional means of crowd control. I used to have to change gear around so I had at least 200-203 charisma in order to be able to hold the mobs, is my charisma spell dropped for example the duration of the charm was noticeable immdeiately.

Since the nerf I can still hold mobs in Fear for a couple minutes when I need to, the only difference is that My charisma is usually in the 160's to 180's now. I have not attempted to keep a pet for full duration on raids as we don't need the extra DPS and the risk simply isn't worth it. It's noteworthy to mention that Planes mobs have a pretty high resist I'm generally charming something that is at most 1-2 levels below me.

I haven't tried really going below 130 charisma to test things out yet, sorry. Been concentrating on alts when not raiding.

I'll let you know if I make it to SolB and see how long charm lasts with different levels of charisma...

[Vermatrax]

Charm was never awesome in live until Direcharm AA.

[faenyar]

I used to use charm heavily as a secondary means of CC back in the day. In classic, charm was untrustworthy and you had to stay on your toes constantly when using it (and I had pushed my CHA easily over 200). In fact, I was often told by other enchanters that I was a lunatic for using charm and that all it would do was to get me killed. In return, I sometimes salvaged us from wipes with judicious use of charm and had people asking me constantly how I managed to do it. There was no secret other than keeping on your toes and operating under the assumption that whenever the worst possible moment for charm to break was, that was when it would happen and to make sure you were ready for it.

I agree with the "scrub 'chanters" comment I saw earlier. Most of the time there were two things that I saw that differentiated top tier enchanters from mid tier ones (for me anyway) and that was whether the only CC they had was mez and how well they kept their cool when everything went pear-shaped. Root, fear, charm, mez, stun, blindness, lull, slow, etc are *all* forms of CC and a good enchanter won't limit himself or herself to just mashing mez and handing out crack.

Playing a 'chanter is 99% about remaining cool under pressure because you are almost always in the hot seat. The other 99% of playing a 'chanter is being able to use every crayon in the box instead of just two or three stubby broken off ones. Don't be loathe to bounce in and out of your spellbook swapping out spells constantly in the middle of fights and adjusting your tactics to the situation and the resources at hand.

[guineapig]

Playing a 'chanter is 99% about remaining cool under pressure because you are almost always in the hot seat. The other 99% of playing a 'chanter is being able to use every crayon in the box instead of just two or three stubby broken off ones. Don't be loathe to bounce in and out of your spellbook swapping out spells constantly in the middle of fights and adjusting your tactics to the situation and the resources at hand.

This is the most common cause of me getting aggro on raids. I'm constantly having to sit to swap spells in my spellbook. 8 slots are never enough. :o

[Ermonican]

Not to Necro this thread or anything but I was wondering if any definitive results were found in regards to how Charisma effects charm? Reason I was asking was because I was thinking of making a DE Ench but did not want to gimp myself.

[Aeolwind]

I only remember, classically, one enchanter on Emarr ever using charm consistently, and that was Enki Xanadu. He was psychotic in his zeal however and could manage to keep a charmed FG through most of a raid. However, he died a lot as a result. Up until the first charm change, and then the addition of dire charm you rarely saw enchanters. After that it started to ramp up.

Generally speaking regarding game balance; if you have an awesome power, it in general will & should have an equal drawback.

[Ajax]

I have a distinct memory of Gaylen on EMarr grinding hell levels (54 or 59)in Burning woods charming the named wurms.

I would trade druid buffs for crack and, I remember being a bit pissed that he was making better xp than i was quad kiting.

No clue how long his charms were lasting just saying that he was very successful at it.

For time ref this would be a month or two after Kunark release.

[Finawin]

Charm was sweet up until PoP after they nerfed it because of the chanter soloing in PoV and Halls of Honor.

On combine enchanters would lock down swashbucklers in Timorous deep, Guks in lguk, ilis knights in sebilis, pirates in jaggedpine, or LDCs in solb. You had 3 kinds of enchanters, those that would buff and mez, those that would pull buff and mez, or those that would charm buff mez and maybe pull.

If you rolled around with nothing but scrub chanters than I could see you thinking that way though.

Combine isn't classic.

That whole post is irrelevant.

[Hasbinbad]

My primary recollection with classic Charm was that the overwhelming majority of Enchanters regarded it as worthless/suicidal and rarely/never used it.

Danth
You're right, that WAS the overwhelming majority opinion. However, NONE of those enchanters had 255 charisma. I played an enchanter when that mindset changed, and after that charm was used much more often.

Same story with any of a slew of techniques that have been discovered SINCE classic, that allows classes to be played NON-CLASSICALLY by classic rules.

CHA 255 enchanters should be able to viably charm pets. It should always be hit and miss, and a dangerous proposition, but in a somewhat controlled environment, it shouldn't be an issue.

[Ermonican]

CHA 255 enchanters should be able to viably charm pets. It should always be hit and miss, and a dangerous proposition, but in a somewhat controlled environment, it shouldn't be an issue.

Ahh an opinion in regards to how CHA effects charm based on personal experience! This is what I was looking for, thank you Hasbin.

I really want to make a DE chanter, because they are the coolest ever :cool: but I dont want to gimp myself with the CHA thing.

[Hasbinbad]

My live chanter was a DEF.
Only chanter on the server in full chainmail :D

[guineapig]

Ahh an opinion in regards to how CHA effects charm based on personal experience! This is what I was looking for, thank you Hasbin.

I really want to make a DE chanter, because they are the coolest ever :cool: but I dont want to gimp myself with the CHA thing.

As a chanter I strongly recommend you put all your points into Stamina. It's the only important stat you will not be able to max out via gear (and possibly a self buff) for a long time. For int and charisma, you should be able to hit 200 without much difficulty by the time you hit 50 and that's before Kunark is released.

[Lyssia]

Agree with guineapig here. I made the mistake of maxing cha at creation and now wish i had done stamina also. Without planes gear and only using self buff though i now have a 255cha, my int only sits at 166. Manapool sucks until i get into planes raids and upgrade gear. Great for charming, but anything other then that your manaool wont support much


Lyssia

[Aeolwind]

I have a distinct memory of Gaylen on EMarr grinding hell levels (54 or 59)in Burning woods charming the named wurms.

I would trade druid buffs for crack and, I remember being a bit pissed that he was making better xp than i was quad kiting.

No clue how long his charms were lasting just saying that he was very successful at it.

For time ref this would be a month or two after Kunark release.

Gaylen was just as nuts as Enki, he rerolled beastlord at some point through there. I did a Royal Run in chardok with him, he kept that one golem up top charmed the whole run lol. He had Yenom backing him up though when charm broke though.