A Statistical analysis of Charm Duration

[Goregasmic]

Disclaimer: I suck@stats so honest questions here.

Outside of visualization none of those graphs are helpful?

What are we trying to figure out here exactly?

I understand average isn't very relevant, especially in the context of charm where it is a bit all over the place but isn't the probability of charm breaking kinda useless too?

We already know level and MR are the big variables and outside of tash and mob choice you have no control over those two so the only actionable parameter is charisma if it has any impact at all. Just run a low cha and a high cha dataset, compare average time and then calculate the statistical significance of the difference. We've seen with the AC parsing thread that there's a point where AC completely squelches the mob attack and you get no return for going above a certain point. Since cha is the stat that would matter the least, we'd have to run tests with non trivial mobs and probably no tash to make sure the effect of cha isn't buried by a mob that has an already bottomed out charm resistance.

I'm very curious to see if cha is useful for charm but we do know cha has a significant impact on lull and that spell is integral to the chanter life so unless you're grouping all the time you'll want maxed cha no matter what, especially knowing a lull nerf is coming.

The other thing that is a big deal is mob level difference so for this to be useful you'd have to come up with a chart that shows probability by mob level for a level 60 player. That would show us at what point mobs become non-trivial charm targets. As Loraen shows, I suspect around 50-51.

In the end, outside of curiosity, there's no use to knowing if charm has a 95% or 98% chance to break on tick because on the field it will break when it will break and you'll have to deal with it. And it isn't like you have alternative options to compare efficiency against. The only time where breaking probability would be useful is if you could come up with something like "an ilis shaman has a 80% chance to break in the first 10 ticks" which lets you figure out if that's too unruly for you or not but you'd know that with a cursory glance at the dataset.

I'm not dissing any effort at understanding the game here, these are some of the questions I have relating to charm. I'm currently 59 and I planned on running those tests when I hit 60 because I'd also like some answers too.

[charleski]

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

In the end, outside of curiosity, there's no use to knowing if charm has a 95% or 98% chance to break on tick because on the field it will break when it will break and you'll have to deal with it. And it isn't like you have alternative options to compare efficiency against. The only time where breaking probability would be useful is if you could come up with something like "an ilis shaman has a 80% chance to break in the first 10 ticks" which lets you figure out if that's too unruly for you or not but you'd know that with a cursory glance at the dataset.

It's certainly true that we see a massive amount of variability in practice. A pet can start out causing a lot of trouble with constant breaks and then suddenly settle down and produce several runs where the charm lasts for many minutes. The overall charm duration will only show its underlying distribution when you collect many hundreds of individual charm attempts (the graph in my first post was from data collected over more than 2 weeks).

On the other hand, the exponential nature of the cumulative duration probability does mean that relatively small differences in the underlying per-tick probability would end up leading to quite dramatic changes in duration:
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Though as I noted, you're only going to really see this when looking at very large numbers of different charm attempts.

There is, possibly, an additional factor in play when it comes to maximum charm duration. I've attached a zip file containing the parsed data from the L2 orc pawn (CHA 115) and an apparition in CoM (still buffing my CHA back then, so CHA was 189 if I remember correctly). The apparition charm data is from when I was L48 and doing the moat area. Unfortunately at this point I was routinely casting Cajoling Whispers, so I'm not sure if it was above or below L37, but it hit for a max of 88, if that means anything.

If you just eyeball then orc pawn data first, you'll see a surprising number of charms lasting 142 or 143 ticks (as I mention in the code, the log's precision is limited to 1second, which means that some error is introduced by the need to account for casting time of the charm spell). Out of the 31 charms, 6 last 142 or 143 ticks, which doesn't fit an exponential distribution and suggests that there's a hard limit being imposed which rolls up the long tail and caps it at 143 ticks. I didn't see the same effect on the data from the greater spurbone, and at first wondered if this was evidence of a level effect. But then I went through my old logs and found the data on the CoM apparition, in which you can see a very similar effect, only now the hard cap seems to apply at 155 ticks (5 of the 25 charms recorded have this length). Comparing these data is hard, as there's a difference both in mob level and my own CHA. I've also seen evidence that the cap can go even longer, with at least one charm from CoM when I was L49 (also with 189 CHA) lasting 161 ticks.

So, it's possible that there is indeed a hard cap on charm duration, and I can't rule out the possibility that the length of this cap is at least partially determined by CHA. I really haven't tested this, though, and looking at the sort of design that a proper test would need - studying the maximum length of 15+minute charms - something like that is going to be very gruelling.

[Goregasmic]

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

If you just eyeball then orc pawn data first, you'll see a surprising number of charms lasting 142 or 143 ticks (as I mention in the code, the log's precision is limited to 1second, which means that some error is introduced by the need to account for casting time of the charm spell). Out of the 31 charms, 6 last 142 or 143 ticks, which doesn't fit an exponential distribution and suggests that there's a hard limit being imposed which rolls up the long tail and caps it at 143 ticks. I didn't see the same effect on the data from the greater spurbone, and at first wondered if this was evidence of a level effect. But then I went through my old logs and found the data on the CoM apparition, in which you can see a very similar effect, only now the hard cap seems to apply at 155 ticks (5 of the 25 charms recorded have this length). Comparing these data is hard, as there's a difference both in mob level and my own CHA. I've also seen evidence that the cap can go even longer, with at least one charm from CoM when I was L49 (also with 189 CHA) lasting 161 ticks.

So, it's possible that there is indeed a hard cap on charm duration, and I can't rule out the possibility that the length of this cap is at least partially determined by CHA. I really haven't tested this, though, and looking at the sort of design that a proper test would need - studying the maximum length of 15+minute charms - something like that is going to be very gruelling.

The cajoling whisper page says:

"Duration: 12.7 minutes @L39 to 20.5 minutes @L65"

There's a good chance those repeated tick numbers was the hard cap on cajoling whispers for that level. Were you L50 for the pawn? On mobile, not gonna bother with opening zip files right now. Makes no sense that an orc pawn would cap lower than an apparition/spurbone. You were at 115cha for the pawn so maybe charisma affects max duration which makes it hard to detect considering the exponential nature?

I've wondered for someone doing the charm double kill routine if you really need more than 200cha self buffed since you only need your charm to last 2-3 minutes at best. A significantly bigger mana/hp pool could be more helpful depending on where you're leveling.

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

It's possible to have changed but there used to be a marked difference at >200 versus <200.

I'm not going to do the work to verify this but there was a hard line at 200 with diminishing returns afterwards. It was particularly evident on my SSF characters.

The wiki entry for the charisma stat says

"Max (hard-cap): 255
Soft-cap: 200"

Past 200 the returns are probably axed in half.

[charleski]

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

There's a good chance those repeated tick numbers was the hard cap on cajoling whispers for that level. Were you L50 for the pawn?

Ah. Yes, I think you have the answer there. The orc pawn data was collected when I was level 44, the data with a cap at 155 when I was 48 and the data capped at 161 ticks when I was 49. So you're right, this is probably simply an effect governed by caster level. Though the increase doesn't seem linear (+12 ticks from L44 to 48 vs +6 ticks form 48 to 49).

[Goregasmic]

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

If you start with the most important stat as high as possible, though, it gives you more wiggle room to get more HP and MR.

Yeah I read guides saying cha is easy to get so go full sta or cha/int split, I went for a 15/15 split and regret it. Not a fatal mistake but I wish I went full charisma. Not all slots have interesting charisma options so going full cha frees up a bunch of those for more interesting gear.

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

Ah. Yes, I think you have the answer there. The orc pawn data was collected when I was level 44, the data with a cap at 155 when I was 48 and the data capped at 161 ticks when I was 49. So you're right, this is probably simply an effect governed by caster level. Though the increase doesn't seem linear (+12 ticks from L44 to 48 vs +6 ticks form 48 to 49).

That means a noticeable amount of pets will make it to the end, that's nice to know. Never noticed since I kill my pet after every fight for leveling but when you reach farming status it is sometimes more interesting to keep one around for a bit.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

So, it's possible that there is indeed a hard cap on charm duration, and I can't rule out the possibility that the length of this cap is at least partially determined by CHA. I really haven't tested this, though, and looking at the sort of design that a proper test would need - studying the maximum length of 15+minute charms - something like that is going to be very gruelling.

There is a hard cap on charm duration:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Charm - 4.6 minutes (Level 12) to 19 minutes (Level 60).

https://wiki.project1999.com/Beguile - 8.2 minutes (Level 24) to 19 minutes (Level 60).

https://wiki.project1999.com/Cajoling_Whispers - 12.7 minutes (Level 39) to 19 minutes (Level 60).

You gain 0.3 minutes (3 ticks) per level. All three spells follow the same scaling pattern, they just have a shorter initial duration. So you are capped at 16.3 minutes (163 ticks) on all three spells at level 51. If you gathered data at earlier levels, you need to subtract 3 ticks per level from 163 ticks.