ENC Charming Guide

[Yinikren]

This is a guide for chaming exp mobs (read: not farming named/high risk situations).

Charming is a simple, viable, and low mana way of soloing an ENC to 50+. It has a slight learning curve but it is not difficult, as long as you don't make it so.

A few points before we start:
1.) Pick low blue mobs. Don't go to OT at 30, charm a level 27 succulent, and complain that your charms are only lasting 7 seconds. You need to pick mobs that are, literally, only 2-3 levels away from being light blue for the fastest exp.

2.) Don't follow the CHA bandwagon.
There are a few things about CHA getting pushed around that really need to stop. You do not need 200+ CHA to charm. I charm with 147, buffed. CHA does not, in any way, affect the actual duration of charm spells. That is strictly through MR and has a chance, per the mobs resists, of breaking every 6 seconds. CHA only affects the initial resist (I.e., lower instances of "Your target resisted the Boltran's Agacerie spell."). I have seen people, literally, dozens of people drop their INT to the low hundreds to get their CHA as high as possible, yet I charm circles around them because I pick the right mobs and have an actual mana pool to spend on charming. You need mana for when shit goes down.

3.) Do not buff your freaking pet. The idea is to get two mobs to fight each other to <20%, and either pick them off with nukes, melee or a third mob. At 40, I was able to charm kite for more than an hour straight in places like OT because of my smart usage of mana.

Now, onto the guide:

Spell list:
1) Tash
2) Shallow Breath
3) Rune III
4) Slow
5) Mesmerize
6) Highest Color stun
7) Whatever charm is needed to charm the mobs you are killing, will usually* not be your highest level one
8) Root


1.) Grab a sow, jboots, anything. Casting distance helps.

2.) Find an ideal hunting ground with low DB mobs. Pull something with tash, mez it, med two ticks, and charm it. You will always use Mesmerize because you should not need to lock mobs down for any longer than 4 ticks.

3.) Pull something you know is equal level to your pet with tash. Don't pull something you know is going to wax your pet, because you are going to waste mana just trying to make the fight even. Using OT again as my example, don't charm a thorny succlent and then make it fight a sarnak knight, because the knight will own it. Zone knowledge folks, everyone should know OT mobs come in two tiers.

4.) Root the mob you pulled and let them fight. Your pet will probably never take agro from you otherwise. Sit at max casting distance.

5.) Compare HP values, they should be almost even. You want your pet to win, barely. Sometime around 40%, nuke the mob with Shallow Breath. Re-root as neccesary.

6.) If the mob is waxing your pet, you have two and a half options. Option 1 is to slow your mob, option two is to break charm and recharm the higher mob. You are a Dark Elf and can hide, or have a Goblin Gazugi Ring, correct...? Nuking the mob down to even levels will kill your mana pool. If it is a very close HP distance, you can always throw in a color stun to let your pet even it out. Mobs killing your pet nerfs your xp and you blew all that time for nothing.

7.) In the event of a charm break, color stun, run and recharm. You will only have your pet to contend with, because, well, you listened and the other mob is still rooted.

8.) So your pet killed the mob and is at 12% hp. Good Job! Now what, do you break charm and spend 160 mana nuking it down with Anarchy? Lol no. Leave it at your camp, break charm, find a new pet to kill it and then re-pull. Dont forget to hit the old mob with Shallow Breath so you pull the XP. It helps if your ex pet isn't undead and is thus fleeing as well.

9.) Those are the basics. Your pulls should be simple, fast, easy, with <200 mana spent per pull in decent circumstances.

[Klyre]

Originally Posted by Yinikren [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

1.) Grab a sow, jboots, anything. Casting distance helps.

2.) Find an ideal hunting ground with low DB mobs. Pull something with tash, mez it, med two ticks, and charm it. You will always use Mesmerize because you should not need to lock mobs down for any longer than 4 ticks.
3.) Pull something you know is equal level to your pet with tash. Don't pull something you know is going to wax your pet, because you are going to waste mana just trying to make the fight even. Using OT again as my example, don't charm a thorny succlent and then make it fight a sarnak knight, because the knight will own it. Zone knowledge folks, everyone should know OT mobs come in two tiers.


4.) Root the mob you pulled and let them fight. Your pet will probably never take agro from you otherwise. Sit at max casting distance.

5.) Compare HP values, they should be almost even. You want your pet to win, barely. Sometime around 40%, nuke the mob with Shallow Breath. Re-root as neccesary.

6.) If the mob is waxing your pet, you have two and a half options. Option 1 is to slow your mob, option two is to break charm and recharm the higher mob. You are a Dark Elf and can hide, or have a Goblin Gazugi Ring, correct...? Nuking the mob down to even levels will kill your mana pool. If it is a very close HP distance, you can always throw in a color stun to let your pet even it out. Mobs killing your pet nerfs your xp and you blew all that time for nothing.

7.) In the event of a charm break, color stun, run and recharm. You will only have your pet to contend with, because, well, you listened and the other mob is still rooted.

8.) So your pet killed the mob and is at 12% hp. Good Job! Now what, do you break charm and spend 160 mana nuking it down with Anarchy? Lol no. Leave it at your camp, break charm, find a new pet to kill it and then re-pull. Dont forget to hit the old mob with Shallow Breath so you pull the XP. It helps if your ex pet isn't undead and is thus fleeing as well.

9.) Those are the basics. Your pulls should be simple, fast, easy, with <200 mana spent per pull in decent circumstances.

3-4 Pull with Shallow Breath instead its lower agro then Tash and your pet will quickly gain Agro, it's even possible to not root at all if you can stand to have the mob hit you once or twice. Better yet if the option is open just have Pet attack Mob and Shallow Breath after to gain XP, Mob won't even look at you for such a small hit. Saves Mana but riskier


6. Other option root Mob, let it smash your pet down to almost dead, break charm and nuke it yourself or find 3rd mob to be new pet to take down both.

[Vohl]

I'm a fan of opening with mez, then tashing and charming. For the victim, open with mez, tash, root, DoT.

Root is pretty important, since CCing with two mobs pounding you can get pretty hairy, especially in close dungeon settings.

[Galanteer]

of course depending on location/creatures sometimes opening with root-tash-charm then tash-root on victim. You'll get the initial hit, but that'll be absorbed by rune. In many outdoor locations its easy to tash-root the charmie since you can get the distance on it.

I like this over mezz at the start since you don't have to wait out mezz (or have a long and short one memed) and your pet is rooted incase of early break.

Another thing to look for are undercons and low mr critters. (and avoid high mr critters).

edit in: if the area works I like to have both rooted.

[Yinikren]

You always want the other mob rooted. Who cares about agro? 2 mobs on you = bad, no matter what.

[beentheredonethat]

so for enchanter it doesn't make sense to spend more stat points on CHA than INT since it won't help make it last?

[vageta31]

I'll also add in that you want to tell your charmed pet to taunt as he won't do it automatically. Once I realized that and turned on taunt my pet kept aggro far easier.

As for charisma I've noticed a similar phenomenon. I began my charming career at level 12 without a single piece of charisma gear, and it was sitting pretty at 95. I've found that even with my new 209 buffed charisma I don't see much difference in charm legth. It can break in one tick with the 209 or it can last for minutes, and this is with the same level of mob.

Mob level definitely seems to have the greatest affect on charm length, and I'll also throw out there that I think there is some variability in a mob's resists even at the same level. I started charming the Miller's out in Qeynos Hills at level 25, in which they were white to me. They always spawn at level 25, but sometimes they seemed to have super resists that made spells bounce on them over and over, while other times everything stuck on the first try. Not just resists, but their damage output as well seemed to be boosted. I've charmed Baobob where he was so powerful he ripped through Chanda and both guards before his hit points ran out. While other times he gets his arse handed to him by his sister.

My guess is other mobs may have this variability built in so even though they are supposedly the same level, they are far more resistant to spells than usual. The other night I was charming gnolls in SK and making them fight against Centaur Chargers. I used the gnolls because they were lower level and seemed to have more damage output than the chargers did. One of my pull the DB gnoll broke charm 3 times so I finally said screw it and charmed the Charger (who was an even con) and it never broke once.

I keep an entire second set of gear in my pack. One for taking my cha to 209 buffed, and another set which boosts my mana/hps by 300/200 respectively. I'm beginning to notice there doesn't seem to be much different between the two for charming other than I have more mana/hps at my disposal with the 2nd set. Maybe things will change at higher levels, but at level 30 the cha just doesn't seem to be making that big of a difference. If it's helping it's not helping enough to warrant the loss of hp and mana. If charm breaks then I have 300 more mana to simply recast it, whereas when charm breaks with my cha gear I don't have the extra mana to make up for it.

[Yinikren]

Vageta sums up charming perfectly - its level dependant, not CHA. Way to often I see people with <110 INT because they went full CHA, and their mana pool is half of mine - they med 2x as much as I need to. My priority is efficiency and safety > risks for slightly more xp. This is why I pull with a tash and a root, I don't care who has agro, the mob will be attacking my pet because 2 mobs on a caster = bad.

[Werlop]

Originally Posted by Yinikren [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is a guide for chaming exp mobs (read: not farming named/high risk situations).

2.) Don't follow the CHA bandwagon.
There are a few things about CHA getting pushed around that really need to stop. You do not need 200+ CHA to charm. I charm with 147, buffed. CHA does not, in any way, affect the actual duration of charm spells. That is strictly through MR and has a chance, per the mobs resists, of breaking every 6 seconds. CHA only affects the initial resist (I.e., lower instances of "Your target resisted the Boltran's Agacerie spell."). I have seen people, literally, dozens of people drop their INT to the low hundreds to get their CHA as high as possible, yet I charm circles around them because I pick the right mobs and have an actual mana pool to spend on charming. You need mana for when shit goes down.

This part isn't true; charm works by making a zone-wide check every 6 seconds in which the server rolls dice and checks for breaks based on 1. (your level / mob level), 2. Mob MR, and 3. your CHA in degree of magnitude. You need to pass one of the 3 saving rolls to maintain the charm. This is a random roll; you can charm a mob 45 levels below you and have it break on the first tick, you can charm a mob 1 level below and have it last 10 minutes.

Proof: http://www.therunes.net/forums/viewt...light=charming
If you scroll down a bit, you get quotes from an interview with SOE about charm affecting lull and charm duration. The link to the original interview is sadly broken.

I do know that cha makes a MASSIVE difference in the initial resist check on the spell- some mobs that are nearly impossible to mez even at 60 due to their crazy innate MR will be charmed for a few seconds, even if they break very quickly thereafter.

For those who are experiencing bad luck despite the cha, keep in mind that MR and level save checks are much more important. I heard somewhere that 10 CHA was roughly equivalent to lowering the mob's MR by one; it's not a large impact in any case unless you are charming mobs at or very near your own level. So the level 20 enchanter charming a level 17 scarecrow will have much more difficulty than the level 55 enchanter charming a level 45 skeleton, and the enchanter who needs the extra cha more will probably be less geared. This is why charm seems so unreliable at lower levels; not only does the Tash line improve over levels, but the level difference between you and low dark blue mobs increases and your access to good gear increases. All 3 of your saving throws improve.

edit: Also, the interview is supposedly from January 2000 and thus very classic.

[vageta31]

Originally Posted by Werlop [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This part isn't true; charm works by making a zone-wide check every 6 seconds in which the server rolls dice and checks for breaks based on 1. (your level / mob level), 2. Mob MR, and 3. your CHA in degree of magnitude. You need to pass one of the 3 saving rolls to maintain the charm. This is a random roll; you can charm a mob 45 levels below you and have it break on the first tick, you can charm a mob 1 level below and have it last 10 minutes.

Proof: http://www.therunes.net/forums/viewt...light=charming
If you scroll down a bit, you get quotes from an interview with SOE about charm affecting lull and charm duration. The link to the original interview is sadly broken.

I do know that cha makes a MASSIVE difference in the initial resist check on the spell- some mobs that are nearly impossible to mez even at 60 due to their crazy innate MR will be charmed for a few seconds, even if they break very quickly thereafter.

For those who are experiencing bad luck despite the cha, keep in mind that MR and level save checks are much more important. I heard somewhere that 10 CHA was roughly equivalent to lowering the mob's MR by one; it's not a large impact in any case unless you are charming mobs at or very near your own level. So the level 20 enchanter charming a level 17 scarecrow will have much more difficulty than the level 55 enchanter charming a level 45 skeleton, and the enchanter who needs the extra cha more will probably be less geared. This is why charm seems so unreliable at lower levels; not only does the Tash line improve over levels, but the level difference between you and low dark blue mobs increases and your access to good gear increases. All 3 of your saving throws improve.

edit: Also, the interview is supposedly from January 2000 and thus very classic.

This doesn't however guarantee that this is the same way that it works on P99. I have no doubt that cha has "some" effect charm, the question is just how minimal the cha effect is and is it worth losing mana/hps in the majority of your slots for. In my experience at my current level, the extra mana/hps seem worth far more than what little benefit all the extra cha is giving me. Perhaps at high levels this is a bit different. For now I prefer a simple mix of both, using the highest cha items in their respective slots, and swapping out the minor ones for more useful pieces as well as using any items that have a mix of both. Ie; I still equip tranix crown and wand of insidious glamour, but I use 55hp rings instead of the cha ones. Instead of the 9 cha neckpiece, I use the sarnak one that has a bit less cha but also give a nice int boost.