When are they Implementing the Charm Nerf?

[commongood]

I've kind of lost track of the different directions this debate is going.

Are the pro-nerf people saying that the effect of (or even existence of) a charisma check on charm break should be reduced or removed?

Or is it that channelling doesn't work correctly? (this would affect all classes I suppose)

I have both a 60 chanter and a 60 shaman and I frequently farm in places like PoM (both), OT (both) and Velketor (chanter).

Soloing with chanter is much faster. Soloing with shaman is much safer. People saying it's "god-mode" or "fool-proof" to charm solo as chanter are incorrect in my opinion. The ceiling for charming is obviously ultra high in terms of what you can do, but you have to be ready to soak up deaths. If you have good gear this can off-set the number of death's but there will still be many more death's than if you are on the shaman.

So I suppose people wanting a chanter nerf either want it to be impossible to charm solo stuff beyond a certain threshold or for it to be much riskier than it already is?

And this is because it may or may not have been different back in actual 1999-2001? But the evidence is not completely compelling? Or it would have already happened?

[PatChapp]

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

I've kind of lost track of the different directions this debate is going.

Are the pro-nerf people saying that the effect of (or even existence of) a charisma check on charm break should be reduced or removed?

Or is it that channelling doesn't work correctly? (this would affect all classes I suppose)

I have both a 60 chanter and a 60 shaman and I frequently farm in places like PoM (both), OT (both) and Velketor (chanter).

Soloing with chanter is much faster. Soloing with shaman is much safer. People saying it's "god-mode" or "fool-proof" to charm solo as chanter are incorrect in my opinion. The ceiling for charming is obviously ultra high in terms of what you can do, but you have to be ready to soak up deaths. If you have good gear this can off-set the number of death's but there will still be many more death's than if you are on the shaman.

So I suppose people wanting a chanter nerf either want it to be impossible to charm solo stuff beyond a certain threshold or for it to be much riskier than it already is?

And this is because it may or may not have been different back in actual 1999-2001? But the evidence is not completely compelling? Or it would have already happened?

It really won't affect much at lvl60,moreso the leveling process. I die a lot at 60 if im doing hard content anyway. My favorite camps are dictate camps and won't be affected by a nerf at all.

[-Catherin-]

Thing is, the side effect of "nerfing" charm to remove CHA would actually make it more powerful. The reason is because that "nerf" also includes a change to the enchanter charm spell that gives it a +4 level modifer. Basically if you are level 60, its like you are casting with the resist check of a level 64. Your level far outweighs CHA when it comes to charming. Chanters would also be able to dump all of their CHA gear for gear with HP and resists, making it easier from that aspect too. So the "nerf" would actually be a buff.

And here I am arguing against it lol.

[loramin]

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

So I suppose people wanting a chanter nerf either want it to be impossible to charm solo stuff beyond a certain threshold or for it to be much riskier than it already is?

And this is because it may or may not have been different back in actual 1999-2001? But the evidence is not completely compelling? Or it would have already happened?

People want classic EverQuest: the thing in the upper-left corner of this site.

Classic evidence is hard to find: we've had things unclassic here for over a decade though, which finally got fixed ... because again, the goal of this place is to make it classic.

Enchanters are clearly not classic here. Simple proof: go to a CT raid. On P99 it's all about charm pets, with guilds racing to collect the most pets when CT is contested ... but then go look at the Wayback archive of CT's page on Allakhazam. Even in 2003 you won't find a single mention of charming.

Here's how people fought CT in classic:

To prepare, cancel all the buffs you have on and, when given the signal, place 4 disposable buffs (or "crap buffs") on yourself. My personal preference is to use J-Boots first, as you can quickly reactivate them after they are debuffed. At the command, begin normal buffs. Put Dead Man Floating or Levitate on as the final buff, as this negates his Gravity Flux damage. Wait for the call, and charge him and kill him. Not really much to it. Like dragons, casters want to wait until the halfway mark to begin casting on Cazic Thule while the tanks work it down for the first half. Cazic isn't very magic resistant, so casters are going to do really well here. He hits for 400 sometimes so he's a pretty rough melee MOB. He also death touches people every 30 seconds. If you have a lot of magic resistance, they're a slim chance you could survive this, but it's not bloody likely. Tanks are essential. They MUST interrupt him using bash, stun, etc. Casters, when not casting, have to stay out of melee range. Healers are an absolute must considering how much damage Cazic will do to the tanks and how long they have to fight him. He has the ability to dispell buffs as well, but the worst part of this is the MOBs in the zone running at you. That's right. The moment he's attacked, he will summon everything left in the zone at you. This is why you want to do Cazic last. You want to clear all the MOBs in the zone that you can away before taking him on. There's a big trick to doing Cazic though, and that's Fear. Cazic is extremely susceptible to Fear spells. If you keep him Feared and just plow him with large scale DoTs and such, you can't fail.

Now I know the excuses: "Enchanters didn't try using their spells back then". Not true. Everyone had terrible Internet connections. Also not true: the top guild on my server (Club Fu of Bristlebane) mostly played out of a cyber cafe with a T1 connection.

People could have charmed tons of mobs for the CT fight ... and for lots of other fights (eg. in every group they were in) ... but they didn't because charm was dangerous in classic.

Whatever the fix, whether it's with channeling, charisma, or whatever ... something needs to be done to make the Enchanter class classic here. Otherwise it's like we're playing a completely different game from the '99-'01 one.

[loramin]

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

So I suppose people wanting a chanter nerf either want it to be impossible to charm solo stuff beyond a certain threshold or for it to be much riskier than it already is?

No, people just want classic EverQuest: the thing promised in the upper-left corner of this site.

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

And this is because it may or may not have been different back in actual 1999-2001? But the evidence is not completely compelling? Or it would have already happened?

Classic evidence is hard to find, and that means things can go for years here before they finally get fixed. But even if it does take years, as many things have, they do get fixed! Because (again) ... the whole goal of this place is classic EQ.

Charming is clearly not classic here. Simple proof: go to a CT raid. On P99 it's all about charm pets, and I can't even imagine a guild fighting CT here without an army of pets ... but then go look at the Wayback archive of CT's page on Allakhazam. Even in 2003 you won't find a single mention of charming.

Here's how people fought CT in classic:

To prepare, cancel all the buffs you have on and, when given the signal, place 4 disposable buffs (or "crap buffs") on yourself. My personal preference is to use J-Boots first, as you can quickly reactivate them after they are debuffed. At the command, begin normal buffs. Put Dead Man Floating or Levitate on as the final buff, as this negates his Gravity Flux damage. Wait for the call, and charge him and kill him. Not really much to it. Like dragons, casters want to wait until the halfway mark to begin casting on Cazic Thule while the tanks work it down for the first half. Cazic isn't very magic resistant, so casters are going to do really well here. He hits for 400 sometimes so he's a pretty rough melee MOB. He also death touches people every 30 seconds. If you have a lot of magic resistance, they're a slim chance you could survive this, but it's not bloody likely. Tanks are essential. They MUST interrupt him using bash, stun, etc. Casters, when not casting, have to stay out of melee range. Healers are an absolute must considering how much damage Cazic will do to the tanks and how long they have to fight him. He has the ability to dispell buffs as well, but the worst part of this is the MOBs in the zone running at you. That's right. The moment he's attacked, he will summon everything left in the zone at you. This is why you want to do Cazic last. You want to clear all the MOBs in the zone that you can away before taking him on. There's a big trick to doing Cazic though, and that's Fear. Cazic is extremely susceptible to Fear spells. If you keep him Feared and just plow him with large scale DoTs and such, you can't fail.

Now I know the excuses: "Enchanters/Druids/Necros didn't try using their spells back then". Not true: of course they did. "Everyone had terrible Internet connections." Also not true: the top guild on my server (Club Fu of Bristlebane) mostly played out of a cyber cafe with a T1 connection.

People could have charmed tons of mobs for the CT fight ... and for lots of other fights (eg. in every group they were in) ... but they didn't because charm was more risky and dangerous in classic.

The fix might be to change channeling, or charisma, or it may be to add something like the 25 mob AoE limit (ie. an "unclassic to make things more classic" change): I don't know. But something needs to be done to make charming classic here: otherwise it's like we're playing a completely different game from the '99-'01 one.

[commongood]

So you want “classic” but when it’s impossible to prove you want an interpretation of classic that matches what you remember?

Using examples of how raiding is done on p99 and comparing it to descriptions of raiding from the early 2000s seems of very little use. Each player in 2000 didn’t have access to 2-6 lvl 60s. Raiding guilds didn’t have access to an army of cleric bots. Using a description of a CT raid which doesn’t entail 5-10 encs, druids and necros charming doesn’t prove much.

[DMN]

iterestingly enough, the general guide provided from that exact link says this about druids:

"Druids are essential for the raiding party. They can charm animal MOBs that enter the camp without invitation, turning a foe into a nice level 50 pet."

thats all they say, which is to say that they were essential but seemingly only essential for one reason alone -- because they could charm.


Giant swing and a miss on this one loramin. Kek.

Loramin's concerns about enchanters and how they play on p99 being "non-classic" is of course a giant crock of shit. as ive already mentioned if someone was concerened about "classic" and actually played in the period considered "classic' on p99, shaman would be at the very top of the list of non-classicness, bards would be next with bullsht swrm kiting that never existed in "classic" time period. even having a good connection you still you get dc'ed frequently and still get the occasional server hiccups that would destroy any bard dumb enough to spend 15 ius rounding up 40+ mobs to kill. which is why none of them did.

[eisley]

dire charm was added for a reason

[-Catherin-]

I mean if we are talking about CT literally everything on that encounter on P99 is done in a not classic way. And on that same subject, player hardware limitations aside, the SOE servers themselves could not handle that amount of stuff going on.

There is a lot more going on than charming there, and it’s all driven by the envelope being pushed to the very limit to defeat the competition. You are just cherry picking charming to suit your narrative without even really understanding what it’s actually like having to use it there.

I’ve been on a lot of these CT raids you speak of. Every single one of them are absolute chaos. And those charmed pets are not a free ride. They are breaking all over the place and it can get to the point where they will wipe your own raid if there is not a coordinated efforts from others to support the charmers.

Your idea of these kind of things trivializing content couldn’t be more false. If we could just casually clear the entire zone and then take down CT without any of that and be able to prep it would be SO much easier.

But in the competitive environment that we are on, we are all forced to go as hard as we can and take major risks to win. CT isn’t easy CT is a shitshow.

Edit: when I think about it now. I did a lot of CT in classic too. It was actually a lot easier back then than it is now. It’s quicker here. Because we have no choice

[whydothis]

This poh guide from 2000 literally talks about charming
https://thesafehouse.org/forums/foru...-plane-of-hate

Very low magic resists - enchanters favorite target for charming.

Just because you didn't see enchanters charming, or don't remember, doesn't mean they didn't.