Druids and clickies
 

Serious question here. Saw again in a thread talking about charm kiting that its great to have the Goblin Gazughi Ring and it sorta of baffles me. Yes it's IvsA insta cast mana free but you are only saving 30 mana and 3 seconds. Why does that make it so desirable? Compare it to the Luminescent Staff (which has obvious advantages for quading) the ring trades for more plat. What gives?

You get to keep a spell gem.

It lets you break charm instantly. It's not that it's saving you mana vs. casting the spell, it's that it lets you let your charmed pet fight the monster to an even lower HP before you have to break charm.

Hmm I guess I've always done it different. I get three types of outcomes: 1) Charm breaks early and I have to decide to switch to Lightning strike or recharm, 2) My stronger pet wins by a large margin and just use him again on a second foe, or 3) my weaker/half dead pet is losing badly and I nuke the foe before my pet dies.

The ring is also considered a must have/get for enchanters. That's the main reason for the price. It's still decent for a druid but I doubt anyone would consider it a must have.

Well, that happens with charm fighting: ideally you get a bunch of mobs of the same level (like bear pits in Permafrost), but when you don't you have to make it work (the ways you mentioned).

But in either #2 or #3 you should still break charm. Ideally when charm fighting you want to break charm every time before anything dies, so you get full XP for both mobs.

Snaring things beforehand can make it a lot easier to break charm without the mobs killing you: ideally you can break when both are <20% and running (but snared and going nowhere), as that's completely safe. The ring helps make that happen. Honestly I know how lame the ring sounds, but there is literally no item I would recommend more (not even a Fungi Tunic) for leveling a Druid up to 45 ... and I say that having leveled a Druid with both.

ME!!!

... IF you are charming. Druids have multiple ways to level, and if you want to AFK root/rot or quad or group to 45 (ie. the point when Lumi Staff starts working) obviously the ring isn't worth it.

But charming is amazing solo leveling experience if you do it right, and the ring makes a huge difference in how well you can do it.

My druid was my first alt, so I didn't have tons of plat to twink him. I kid you not, more than half his slots were empty well past 45: I had like a velium fire wedding ring, a fungi (Loramin's old one), the goblin ring, and that everburning torch that procs at level 1, plus a couple of random small items.

Honestly, looking back I could level him again almost exactly as easily with just the goblin ring, at least starting at animal charm levels. Charming is so good, and the ring is the only thing that makes any meaningful difference in it.

I use 5 spells when charming and have 3 to play with for buffs and what not. What spells am I missing?

Well, at low levels it's some minor mana savings but a druid most likely picked a halfling or wood elf, who can just wait for hide to work. Get mob rooted, pet snared, just back pet off when it gets low enough and keep spamming til it works. Same story later levels... just back your pet off try one hide just in case it works, then 3 second cast for invis if not. What are the chances that in 3 seconds the root breaks and one round of combat will kill your charm off. it just should hardly ever pan out like that.

It's hard to explain in a forum post, and MUCH easier to see in real life. Again, I was not convinced "on paper" that the ring was worth it: I farmed it purely because everyone in the forum said how great it was. But before I did, I charmed without it, and then when I charmed with it I realized how huge it was.

Let's say you don't have the ring. You wait until your pet is at 5%. You hit Hide ... and it doesn't work. Now before you can do anything, your pet is dead, and you just got 0% XP from him instead of 100%.

Conversely, let's say you don't count on hide, and instead cast Invis yourself. Because of the delay, you now have to break when your pet is closer to 20%, to avoid the above scenario. Over the course of a lot of fights, having to use mana to do that extra 15% killing adds up, especially since sometimes it means breaking before the pet starts running vs. after.

But even putting the exact math aside, it's also just about control. It's just better to be able to break charm the instant you want to: any lag makes charm fighting overall harder.