I basically started off using the highest charisma options off of that list (as a +25 charisma dark elf enchanter), and then as my charisma buffs got better and put me over 255, I would swap out charisma gear for a mix of int/mp and hp/ac gear.
Hp/ac gear is great if you're in very tight quarters or fighting mobs that summon you, but I found I tended to level in outdoor areas or in spacious dungeons (like city of mist), so I usually could just kite when I had a charm break or a resisted root or something, making survivability gear pretty unimportant.
Int/mp gear is great if you doing very difficult fights, where it is likely you'll use 80+% of your mana during the course of a single battle. But it is very rare that you get into fights like that while leveling. So long as you med up near full mana before starting a new fight, gear that gives you more max mana is pretty unimportant.
My stance on charisma (for leveling) is that it saves you mana by making most of your key spells more reliable. It reduces the chance of aggroing mobs when lulling, it reduces the resist chance on your mez spells, and it increases your average charm duration. All of these things mean you'll be spending less time running from bad pulls, you'll be getting fewer resists, and you'll be casting fewer charms to kill the same number of mobs. Spending less mana is the equivalent of having more regen, basically, and THAT is the key to leveling speed: mana regen.
If you are going to do any grouping where you aren't charming, it would be ok to sacrifice some charisma for hp/ac/int/mp, because you never know when a group is going to be pulling more than they should and you'll end up taking hits and needing a lot of mana in a short period of time, etc.
|