I still have no intention of playing an Enchanter, so still in the end I have no skin in the game whichever way it goes, but it made me curious as to whether I'm remembering accurately.
Earliest snapshot I could find of EQ Caster's Realm was November 7 1999, and yeah that's what I remember, enchanters being excited to charm mobs 6 levels below theirs for four minutes. I poked around a bit, first mentions I see of consistently using charmed mobs as a replacement pet of DB stature start around the time of Kunark. Not sure if it was items or spell changes that pushed out the duration, but something must have. As per the comments below, and this is what I remember from the early months, was that it was possible to charm a DB mob but with a short end on the duration being possibly shorter than a single pull, it was a no-go for groups.
Also the comments show it was known how to break charm at a time of the caster's choosing.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010108...asp?SpellID=43
Spell description:
This spell charms the target and turns it into a pet of the caster. Normal pet commands will work on this pet, unlike animations. Note that when the charm breaks, the formerly charmed creature will be extremely aggressive towards the caster. Many tactics for Enchanters involve the use of this spell, which has been responsible for both incredible victories and abject defeats. Use with awareness of the randomness of the spell's duration.
Comments:
Careful with this one - Mecha Spectre
The duration is unstable, but it's always reliable in one way -- It's short. It won't last long. And then you'll have two things to fight. It's also fairly hard to charm ... well, anything white or above, from my experience. They break out of it alot faster, as well.
Extending Charm duration -
Hi, I did a little research involving Orc Centurions in GFay to find out about the duration of this spell. That time I was lvl 12 or 13, I do not remember. My charisma is 115. This seems to be important for success as well as duration. Anyway, I did quite extensive experiments with about 15 to 20 orc cents. in all cases, the spell lasted around 30 seconds to 1 minute. But in the cases where I used Tashan first, the shortest duration I had was more than 4.5 minutes! One was well over 8 minutes, if I remember correctly. You should be aware that with higher lvl opponents, like the Nybright sisters, the effect of Tashan is still quite obvious, but of course the duration is not as good. With them, I had duration times of about 2 to 5 minutes, while without Tashan they break the charm almost instantly (less than 30 seconds in most cases). One last comment: This whole thing was about a month ago, and it can very well have changed since then. Anyway, perhaps this helps. I didn't see it in the comments on this spell. Nagisa
The duration isint really random - Asmodan
charm is based on the resistance of the creature but any creature will break free eventually so i guess the testing agianst the charm gets stronger the longer it is. my suggestion is charm griffawns you can use green griffawns to kill red crag spiders and the griffawn dies from poison so remember to cast taishan before charm
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Easy pet release for dark elves - Nincarnas
It's easy to release your charmed pet when *you* want with a dark elf - you just need to hide, which is one of the dark elves natural abilities. To give yourself more time for whatever you wish to do with your former pet, make it sit down first (/pet sit down) and move away from it.
Pet release for non-Dark Elves. - Miria
Invisable will also release a charmed creature. Useful when you want to use charm to just to move the creature to a more suitable area to fight.