Lv. 14 v. 24 Druid charms
 

Level 18 druid on Blue here. I'm a new player trying to figure out how my spells work.

The wiki states that the durations for Befriend Animal and Charm Animals work very differently. Befriend Animal has a random duration between (3-5s, depending on level) and (5-8min, depending on level). Charm Animals has a fixed duration between 8.2 minutes and 20.5 minutes, depending on level.

I have a few questions:

(1) Is this accurate? If so, it would make charming after 24 a lot more consistent, since the duration would not be random. Is this something I have to look forward to? (I have had charm break upwards of four times in a minute on the wolves in EK.)

(2) Is there, in addition to the random duration for Befriend Animal and fixed duration for Charm Animals, a chance for the charm to break during their respective durations; or does the chance to resist only occur at the initial casting of the spell? (If there is an addition chance to resist after the spell connects, that would make Charm Animals less consistent and Befriend Animal even more inconsistent.)

(3) Do higher level charms have a lower chance to be resisted?

Thanks!

1. No. Someone just decided to write it a bit differently numerically on the wiki entries. One person decided to simply list the maximum durations, while the other decided to include the possibility of it breaking early(though a charm can break the very instant you land the spell-- there is no 3 second min duration).

2. They both will randomly break but they have fixed maximum durations, and that fixed maximum duration scales based on your level.

3. No. Not for druids, and generally not for other charming classes either. There some specific spells that are nearly unresistible and have fixed durations for necs and enc, but those durations are all quite short. 99.9% of the time you will only be using a higher level charm spell because the mob you want to charm has a high enough level . AKa you will essentially always want to use the lowest level charm spell possible for the mobs you are trying to charm.

DMN is dropping knowledge, as usual.

Thanks DMN, that is very helpful and clear. It makes sense that the spell durations don't work completely differently.

FYI, Druid's do get one extended duration charm (3+ hour): https://wiki.project1999.com/Tunare%27s_Request. It's not quite a "fixed" charm, but it is much more likely remain unbroken than the normal charm line. Also, if the charm breaks, the animal won't instantly agro you, the way other charms will when broken, which is pretty handy except ...

... it only works on mobs up to level 35 (as a level 55 spell) :( So you'll virtually never use it (you'd have to want a crappy/long duration pet AND not want to use your crappy summoned pet).

It would work good for slaughtering lots of low level mobs or something.

True but not really relevant to the question.

Relevant but false.

For druid you just want to look at 3 things: mana cost, casting time, and max level mob.

So in your instance, you're looking at 70 mana / 4 seconds vs. 120 mana / 5 seconds.

Absolutely use Befriend Animal until the mobs you're fighting are too high level, then you're forced to go up to Charm Animals.

Same as the jump from charm to beguile at level 34. Only use beguile when charm stops working.

The only exception to this rule is when you finally get Call of Karana at 52. Same mana cost as Allure, but takes 5 seconds instead of 9 to cast. No brainer to use immediately at 52.

What makes you say that? I certainly haven't done extensive testing, but on the few occasions I used that spell, ie. when I was:

it certainly seemed to break far less often. Maybe I just got lucky with the RNG, but I suspect that spell does less frequent charm checks ... unless you or someone else has actually tested it?

Most likely the reason why you see less charm breaks on Tunares Request is because of the level difference between yourself and the mob, rather than custom spell logic. Due to the max level of the pet being 35, you have at least 20 levels on the mob. Level difference is a huge factor for the resistance checks. All of your spells should land much more often on a mob 20 levels or more below you, and break less when applicable like roots, charms, etc. Obviously the exception here is if the mob is immune to certain spells.