Druid Charm Soloing

[Aksiom2k]

Legas' Guide to Druid Charming in OT

I just dinged 39 on my druid in OT where I charm kite soloed from 29-39. It was easy and it sometimes felt absurd that I could kill red con tigers so easily.

Here was the basic run down:

a)I bound in OT just inside the SF ramp.

b)I ported to EC, bought C2, Wis buff, and CHA (i know you're all saying it doesn't help at all but it's not hurting either) from a friendly enchanter.

c)Gated back to OT

1) Ran out west past the watering hole invis and searched on track for a light blue con rhino. Charm on LB rhinos holds alot better than dark blue cons.

2) Ran with my new pet back to the columns just south of SF zone and parked him there.

3)Ran out with flame lick loaded and tagged something that was even con or higher and brought it back to my pet.

4) Snared the inc mob and sicked the pet on him. Snare casting range and pet attack range seem to be very close so if you queue up your pet attack command on the inc target you will know right when to cast snare if you are watching your pet run out to engage.

5) Feared the mob. At first I was using the 10m fear animal spell because it was so efficient but later upgraded to the 30m fear because it lasts so much longer.

6) Dotted mob with highest rank of Stinging Swarm line that I had.

7) Sit, med, redot when needed.

8) Rinse and Repeat.

Notes:

a,b, and c are optional. If there is no c2 to be had, I would invite an LFG monk, rouge, mage, or necro to join me.

Neither snare nor fear land every cast, especially if you are pulling things that are yellow and red con. Be ready to run and recast. Fear only has the shared global cooldown with other spells but snares recast is a bit longer. When in doubt fear, then snare.

Never snared my pet and only buffed him with str and feral spirit.

Because of their duration, I always buffed myself with personal AC/Dmg Shield (spikecoat) and wolf form. Kept regen on myself as well but I felt as though other buffs were superfluous.

Spells Gems I had up

1) Nuke (Usually Ignite)
2) Heal or Regen (Gheal or Regeneration)
3) Creeping Crud -> Drones of Doom
4) Flame Lick
5) Animal Fear
6) Animal Charm
7) Snare (or Ensnare)
8) Root (Enveloping Roots)

I only ever unmemmed the 2nd or 4th spell slots for switching in buffs. In general, I like to keep spells up that will help me get out of trouble if something goes amiss.

In 10 levels soloing in this manner I only died once because I got cocky and thought I could AFK with charmed pet to make some pizza. I only had to have that lesson once. If you need to AFK, drop the pet, zone and med till you can come back.

Hope this helps someone. PST Legas in game if you have any questions.

*edit - Changed name of post

[Tappin]

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

Don't kill that one, he is on guard faction, not outer citizen faction or whatever. Just kill the two in the hut, the one at the tent, the ones by the docks. There are a couple more through out the zone, watch the faction hits. Fishing pole guy is a quest NPC I believe, a lot harder and bad faction.

Thanks for the info [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[wc4482]

Nice Guide

[aresprophet]

Now that I think about it I'm not sure that non-humanoid mobs should even be able to dual wield when given weapons. I'll have to research that.

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

Pet tanking is a lot slower in the long run. Yes, you are going to kill two mobs, but if you just keep a single pet and aggro or fear kite your mana will never run dry. I waste about 500 mana on charm, haste, and chloro. Plus 4pp per pet for daggers. Then I don't use any more mana for 10-20 mins depending on how nice of a pet I have.

Do you see the major flaws here?

You're sitting at full mana, doing nothing to speed up your killing process. Utilizing more mana to kill more mobs = more exp. Who cares if you're less efficient? You only need to be just efficient enough. Too much efficiency is time wasted. So I use 1000 mana instead of 500 over the same period, and in return I get 3 kills instead of 2. Both of us are using less mana than we're medding back, but the difference is that I'm getting more exp than you are. I also can stay in the same place for hours without having to find a vendor to buy daggers. Travel time to and from your killing spot that could be spent killing more mobs is not more efficient. Also I realized you're using Chloroplast, which I don't have to waste 200 mana on.

Your pet dps goes up possible 100 percent from dual wield, and an additional 70 pct from haste. Then you add in the fact that fear or aggro kiting takes away all of the target's mitigation, which is fairly significant since most of these mobs are high level warriors/tanks.

Kiting also takes away all of the target's damage, which is fairly significant since mobs hit much harder than warriors of their level.

Here's the math on why charm-tanking works:

Let's say you have a mob that has 1000 hp and hits for 50 every 2.5 seconds, doing 20 DPS (quasi-realistic figures considering misses, mitigated hits, etc.). You charm this mob, give it dual wield for a 40% damage increase (which is about what mage and necro pets get from dual-wielding, if charmed pets are getting more that's a bug), haste it for 70%, and now it's doing roughly 2.5x that damage for 50 DPS.

With my method, put haste on the pet so it's doing 34 DPS and pit it against another mob doing 20 DPS; slightly less because of dodge and parry, so we'll go with 30 and 16 DPS. Add in the DS: 24 damage every 2.5 seconds is an average extra 10 DPS (rounding is easier) so the pet is doing about 40 and the target mob is still doing 16, for 56 DPS total. The target will die in 25 seconds, and the pet will take 480 damage. In 50 seconds the pet will kill 2 mobs and have 40 HP left, netting me 3 kills after I tag it with ES vambs or a 100 mana root (for speed). You'll have 3 kills in 60 seconds; mine's faster in this scenario.

Now for a real situation: TD Raptor numbers (average 116 damage hits, average 3500 HP) where mobs take much longer to kill each other and repop quickly relative to how long the kills take. I won't run the math on it because I can rely on experience. You can get 9 kills in 3 cycles by charm-tanking and then, because of one or two bad charms, settle for 6 on the 4th cycle to gain back the mana you lost from being inefficient; you've done 33 raptors in one hour (if I'm lucky I can keep going with 9-kill cycles for longer, netting even faster exp, but we'll be pragmatic). I've also done 6 in 15 minutes using fear, for 24 in an hour, with Charm lasting up to 20 minutes which it doesn't do anymore.

Your method is "more efficient" but I'm the one getting 35% more experience. I also don't ever need a charm to last more than about 3 minutes, allowing me to recast it less overall and keep mobs wailing on each other for a larger amount of time. Faster exp, less prone to bad luck, and no wasted time and bag space getting daggers for your pet.

[Tappin]

Ok, I just tried the dwarves again.. I grabbed the 3 females just to try... They are all 3 white con to me atm. Anyways, the snares all went on just fine, but then my AoE (my evo is capped atm) was resisted twice... One of them mitigated the damage, she took like 34 damage instead of the normal 175 damage. Is this a gear problem? Level problem?

Thanks again.

[citizen1080]

Dock Dwarves are best saved for 40+

[Handull]

Here's why I like pet tanking with haste/DS and rooting the mobs...its just less work and risk than fear kiting and counting ticks. I enjoy watching a movie while soloing, and if charm breaks having only one mob run at me slowly is much easier to deal with while casually paying attention then having two running at me, one at full speed.

On top of that, I find it very efficient. If I'm charming at raptors and pet tanking I can clear the entire big island by ONLY charming the two vicious raptors (and its very easy to single pull the south one, charm it, kill some raptors, and then be able to single pull the other one). If i'm lucky with the mobs levels, I can even pull one or two off the other island before killing my 2nd pet. Then I can head over to the other island and just charm the vicious there and either clear or nearly clear it. By this time the big island is just starting to repop, which is perfect.

But what about mana? If I root EVERY mob I fight on the big island then I'll have enough mana to charm the small island, but I won't have enough to keep going non-stop. This method is helpful, in my opinion, if I'm trying to do something IRL (like eat a meal) and won't have the fastest reaction time to a charm break. Otherwise, you really don't need to root every mob you fight and can save a ton of mana by not doing so and just being at a safe distance, ready to snare the mob if charm breaks. With this method I've been able to fight continuously, leaving maybe one or two raptors alive each cycle, depending on luck with the fights and with timing. (That one raptor is kinda by itself and is a pain to pull sometimes before repops.) Might have to skip the small island once in a while if I get a bad string of charm breaks or an add or two, but otherwise it goes pretty well.

When I said get rusty daggers I don't mean go farming them. But if you just check the newbie area vendors you will find a ton of rusty weaps, daggers included. Found enough to fill my bags just outside kaladim last time I went into TD (this only doesn't work right after a server reset, and since you are a druid you can port to any newbie area to buy the weaps you need for cheap). Or just find a mage sitting around to summon you some up.

Either way (fear kiting or pet tanking), charming is definately the best bet for exp at the high end. I think that fear kiting has much more risk to it, but just do whatever you like. They are two different styles for sure. Just don't bother healing your pet or nuking the mobs. If you need do to small damage (like to finish a mob off) use a lumi staff/ES vambs, if you have a ton of extra mana and are constantly sitting at full, use your DoTs, which are much more mana efficient. Either way, have fun with it.

PS, use wolf form for long lasting sow and +mana regen at higher lvls, I like keeping skin up for added security and the +hp regen so I don't have to heal if I take a hit, and lastly, bring plenty of bat wings for levi!

[Rasah]

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

Ok, I just tried the dwarves again.. I grabbed the 3 females just to try... They are all 3 white con to me atm. Anyways, the snares all went on just fine, but then my AoE (my evo is capped atm) was resisted twice... One of them mitigated the damage, she took like 34 damage instead of the normal 175 damage. Is this a gear problem? Level problem?

Thanks again.

It's a level problem. These will go away when you are 4 levels higher than what you are trying to kill. I say go out and kill mobs ~level 30 and rip through them, and come back at 39 or 40.

Minyin probably gave good advice based on his experience. But here's what I can tell about him - 1) he's in TR, so he's a hardcore player. 2) he joined in September 2010. So he was at least a month ahead of me, and it wasn't until we were both beyond that level that they started tinkering with resists on this server. So while 35 might have been a reasonable level back then, it isn't now unless you have godly equipment.

[bwe]

How effective is charm soloing from level 14 on? Could I make a druid that does (essentially) nothing -but- charm soloing from 14-end?

[Handull]

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

How effective is charm soloing from level 14 on? Could I make a druid that does (essentially) nothing -but- charm soloing from 14-end?

I think its been mentioned in other threads that this works. The trick is to find mobs that are evenly matched with each other and that are barely dark blue to you (on the low end). If a mob is an even con or just one or two levels below you then charm will not last long and you will waste tons of mana recharming, assuming you live. Also, if you sick your pet at a mob that is too high a level (or just has a ton more hp), then he will die quickly and do little damage to the other mob, which is a waste of your time. You can try it out, but there might be better ways to solo at that level. The Karanas might be a good place to look for mobs 14+.