Enchanter - Why bother breaking charm?
 

I understand pets eat 50% exp if you don't break charm. I'm not sure that it matters that much. My experience lately has been mostly on 2nd floor of City of Mist. Looking for someone to correct me where I'm wrong in my thinking.

Scenario 1:

Charm two mobs, let them kill each other, and nuke both for full xp.

Mez a pet (20), tash it (30), charm it (195) = 245 mana
Tash a mob (30) and send pet = 30 mana
Break charm, nuke pet (160), nuke mob (160) = 320 mana

Scenario 1 Total: 595 mana

Scenario 2:

Charm pet, give it weapons and haste, and let it go to town on slowed mobs.

Mez a pet (20), tash it (30), charm it (195), haste it (275), and give it weapons = 520 mana
Tash a mob (30), send pet, and slow mob (100 for Tepid Deeds) = 130 mana

Scenario 2 Total: 650 mana

In scenario 2, however, I don't have to break charm, nuke, and then charm something new every fight. Let's conservatively assume charm lasts 4 fights. I usually get more like 5-6 mobs killed before having to blur pet to heal it or re-charm due to break.

Over 4 fights, I tash (30) and slow (100) every mob so that's (4x130) 520 mana. I'm not purposely breaking charm or having to spend mana on nukes so I have my initial mez (20), tash (30), and charm (195) spread out over those 4 fights. Pet haste (AQ) lasts 24 minutes so that's about 15-18 fights (275 mana / 15 fights = 18.33) and costs roughly 19 mana per fight (19x4 = 76).

Scenario 1 over four mobs killed (2 fights, kill both mobs) is 595 x 2 = 1190 mana
Scenario 2 over four mobs killed (4 fights, pet kills all mobs) is 520 + 245 + 76 = 841 mana

The 4 fights in scenario 2 are also a hell of a lot faster. A hasted, weaponized pet seems to be doing well more than 2x the damage of an unbuffed pet.

So if I let pet steal 50% exp then I have to kill 2x as many mobs, but that seems to be easy enough to do with a hasted pet and I get 2x more gem drops etc from killing more mobs. Am I missing something?

Scenario 1 grants 200% xp and scenario 2 50% so you’d need to kill 4 mobs with the charmed pet to get the same amount of xp

I'm fairly sure the hasted pet is killing 4 mobs in the time it takes for two unbuffed mobs to kill each other down and for me to nuke them and med the mana back. I might have to time some fights later. Thanks.

The whole cool "trick" of charm fighting is that you make the damage your pet takes work for you. When you stop killing your pet, all that damage it takes works against you instead, so you really have to kill A LOT more/faster if you want to keep the same pet.

But if you optimize things right, and based on the numbers you presented it sounds like you are, keeping a pet can make sense in some circumstances: it just needs to kill significantly faster.

A hasted pet also kills YOU much faster

That's another thing. On CoM second floor, with a hasted pet you clear more mobs so you actually have way more room to work with in the event of pet break. He never even gets close to me. It's counter-intuitive, but I feel safer with hasted pet.

If you are keeping the same mob charmed (over considerable time), you'll also have to deal with keeping him healed / at adequate HP-- especially if you have any -MR gear on him that you don't want to poof.

This is why the ENC + CLE duo is so powerful-- a cleric can cast CH (complete heal) on your uber-buff pet for just 400 mana, even if your charmed pet has 10k HP. This is the main situation in which it is very desirable to keep the same pet charmed over time

I think maybe my scenario only works in City of Mist, where charming a wraith and hasting it means it's healing close to 500hp per fight based on its own lifetap proc and Deadwood Stave procs. I only have to blur heal him once every 6-8 fights.

I havent tried it yet but read of a tactic he called "blendermob".

Basically charm, haste and weaponized a pet. Break charm, root it.

Then charm basic mobs, put them against the Blender Mob, let them best down to near death, release, kill, repeat. Kind of reversing it. Curious on how well that works.

None of you know how to do it right.

Charm a pet and use it to pull and tank 4-6 mobs. Root every mob it’s fighting on top of each other. When pet gets low, break charm and finish it off. Then charm a rooted mob and it’ll quickly get wasted by the pack of mobs surrounding it. Break charm before it dies and finish it off too.

Rinse and repeat until the pack is gone.