The effect of CHA on mez/charm/lull

You have no idea how much I would love to read those tests. Any chance you could clue me in on the year/place/person to search for?

I actually used to have them in a favorites folder if I can find said folder ill try to send you to wayback
p99 had some info on it as well and the fact cha was useless for druids and any other class besides faction for buying

The issue is that with the mob 5 levels higher than you there's systems in the game to naturally increase the amount resisted, regardless of other factors.

A more accurate test would be a white con mob and see if it's affected.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that's the case if I can get around to do a few more tests.

Everyone seems to know that both a) charisma lowers resist rates and b) charisma does not lower resist rates against very high conning mobs. I never heard b) before, so I've learned that much.

The way stats work for me in Everquest is as follows...
STR = Carry more stuff
STA = More HP better for melee then casters
INT = More mana for INT casters
WIS = More mana for WIS casters

AGI, DEX, CHA generally have little impact other then having over 75 is nice but that's about it. Some classes indicate these 3 are important for various reasons but I think the top 4 are the most important ones by far. If your melee ignore Int and Wis, if your a caster ignore INT or WIS whichever you don't use and STA. If your a hybrid get STR and INT or WIS for more mana. That's how I have always done it and have no regrets.

For me the only thing CHA impacts with a certainty is vendor prices.

I do like to keep AGI and DEX above 75 so you don't get penalties which are much harsher then any benefit seems to be.

You're pretty much right. Cept Dex is a bit more useful than that. If you care about ranged attacks, it affects the damage roll in the same way STR does for melee. And you definitely can tell a difference when you have the werewolf +100 DEX buff when it comes to proc rates.

I've run a chanter in box teams and solo for a very long time (since release off and on). RNG is king in EQ, everything else is such a small bonus, that it might as well be non existent.

I've spent quite a bit of time charming even cons with maxed cha, and no added cha, stuff still breaks after 10 seconds with max, and last full duration with no added cha....so....bleh. RNG in EQ is such an overpowered mechanic, that it negates everything else.

/shrug. Go charm 1000 mobs with max cha, and no added cha, see if there is a statistical difference in the time it stays charmed. I've never done it, but I've played a chanter enough to know that it's not consistent enough to worry about. For something to be worthwhile (to me) it has to be noticeable, and not just some .035% theory craft.

In my many years of playing EQ I've come to the conclusion that 2 things matter, hit points, and ability to carry stuff. This is true x100 on early expansion servers, where stats are *almost* utterly meaningless. Your level vs the mobs level, even 1 level, has a much bigger influence than being naked vs being full geared.

TLDR: If you can get it, take it, but I wouldn't sacrifice INT or hit points for it, or even str for that matter.

Due to a lack of access to ragefire I went ahead and did a quick 100 mezzes on a level 4 thorn drakeling (white con)

Code:

Con CHA  Casts Resists
+5  70   100    49
+5  185  100    50
+0  70   100    16
+0  185  100    4

I don't want to do 500+ casts on the same target for each CHA and level difference. I really don't have the mental endurance for that kind of task.

This discussion is a tricky one and it has been going on for years!

I know that opinions will vary, but I'll sum up what I'm doing for Ragefire:

Gear for charisma until around the Shadows of Luclin expansion, no later than Planes of Power.
After that, the stats to focus on, in order of importance, are:

Heroic Agility
Heroic Intellegence
Armor class
Spell Damage.
Hit points.
Mana
Heroic Stamana


Now, I realize this doesn't translate well to our progression server, as the Heroic stats are for much later, but it's a starting point for me to play with. It's based on a post by Dandin (#6 in the thread linked in the next paragraph).

I came to this conclusion by reading this thread, among others;
Enchanter Question - https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/enchanter-question.205928/

In that discussion thread, you'll probably want to check out post #38 specifically, where TLP servers were given consideration:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/enchanter-question.205928/page-2#post-3024466

Well that sucks... i put all my points into charisma when i made my bard on Lockjaw.... what a waste.... wish i could reroll it...

Wouldn't this suggest that CHA does matter for even cons?

Wow, Not quite sure how I scrolled past that. Thanks for that, now I don't feel so bad! Back to stacking charisma on my bard

From this thread: (I didn't write this, quoting circa 2002)

Charisma effects:

1. Lull resists (determines whether you aggro the mob or not)

• Is the effect resisted?
• If the effect is resisted, will the NPC get angry and tell its friends that it's time for a BardSnack(tm), or will it ignore what just happened?
• Charisma is the sole determinant in the second check. It doesn't affect (resists).

2. Charm

I checked with GZ (Geoffrey Zatkin - EQ spell dev) this morning regardng the effect Charisma has in charming. The answer is that its effect is twofold.

Firstly it effects the chance at resisting the initial charm cast. Secondly, and more importantly, it makes it harder for the charmed NPC's save to successfully roll. This basically means it does effect duration.

3. Mez and Blur

Spoke with GZ this morning regarding Charisma and its effect in relation to resists.

In summary Charisma effects the resists of Charms, Mesmerises and Blur-Type Spells across all classes.

Is Charisma actually taken into account on mesmerizations and charms?

Yes it is. It varies on a number of spells to its actual usefulness but it does have a use. There are different levels of charisma for different classes. The system does take into account that an Enchanter should have a higher charisma than say a Necromancer. Its unfair to expect masters of the undead to be entirely charismatic.

CHA and softcaps:

For those unfamiliar with how a soft cap works, once a stat goes over 200 the actual real benefit diminishes. In practical terms this means an increase of a stat from 190 to 200 gives greater benefit than increasing it from 200 to 210.

What spell types are affected by Charisma?

Charisma does not directly affect any spell. Charisma affects what are known as 'saving throws' or 'secondary throws'.

When you cast a charm spell or mesmerise spell, the monster first checks against your level v it's level, then it checks against its resistance, then it checks against your charisma.

With duration spells such as charms, each tick the monster gets a saving throw and this process is repeated. If any one of these checks is successful (ie: you win the roll) then the spell holds.

Be aware thought that each of these checks is not just a 50 - 50 chance, formulas are in place which give each of these checks more or less of a chance for you to succeed.

Charisma has the smallest chance of succeeding. You Level and the resistance type check have the greatest chance of you succeeding.

Mem blur (from this post by Mykaylla, referenced above):

Huh so get to 150 CHA and then you're done as far as memblur is concerned. I had a feeling there was a cap, but not a hardcap like that. Though the information could be on the older side, especially since on Live its not hard to get over 500.

What that is telling me, don't stack past 140-160ish.

Dersk's test is showing it does make for a good factor in reducing resists on memblurs. From his little test (we need more than 100 casts to prove it) it's implying that 185 CHA vs 70 gives you 75% less resists.

What I'd like to see is the percentage at 70, 100, 125, 150, 200, and 250. Then we can see a trend or an indication of the soft or hard cap.

I've been doing some more reading on this topic, and re-reading the thread I linked earlier.

This info quoted above is incorrect, according to this thread:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/enchanter-question.205928/

Note that a few well known Enchanters/players can be quoted from there (Fanra, Dandin, Cicelee, Qest). I'm not asking you (the reader, not Sirene specifically) to take my word, I'm asking you to take their conversation into consideration so we can stop perpetuating this useless information about charisma.

After painfully reading through that entire thread, it seems to me that as an Enchanter you only need 120 charisma. That's it. (See post #32 by Piestro in the thread linked above: "Charisma affects resists against Mez, Lull, Charm. Outside of a dev coming in and saying they have changed things, this is a fact and can not be assailed. Now, the cap is so low and so easily passed that in today's game it is relatively pointless to gear for Charisma. Lowering magic resists will still give you better bang for your buck on these spells.")


So, beyond 120 Charisma, this means:

• CHA does not effect Charm. Charm, and the "Chance to break", is determined by a NPC's Magic Resist, that is all. This is why Tash is important to cast on Charmed targets.
• CHA has nothing to do with mez.
• Heroic Charisma, and any point of Charisma above 120 is utterly useless.

Back in 1999. Resist base for an even con was like 30mr and then went up 10mr per level. Essentially when you got above 4 levels above you it was nearly impossible to land anything on a consistent basis. 100MR was about base cap. Most PvPer's(VZ) went to 130MR to be sure and I ran with 150MR. The resists today may be close to what they were for some spells. The difference is that some spells seem to have initial modifiers that were not present back then.

One BIG thing that I overlooked in my previous 2 posts in this thread is that CHA does have an affect on lull (pacify line of spells) checks. The cap for this is 200 and from all that I can tell, is all the CHA an Enchanter ever needs, for anything. Raising it above this cap does absolutely nothing.

The 120 CHA I mentioned previously was the cap for getting discounts from vendors.

So, yeah - it looks like I need to complete my grind for a set of CHA gear like all the good Ragefire Enchanters are.

Are you 100% certain its 120? I remember testing this a little over a decade ago and it being an odd number around 113, 115, or 123 or something like that. My memory could be a bit fuzzy on that.

If I can nab some more CHA items when the servers stopping fritzing out I can test it.

I am not certain that it is exactly 120, I only read that number quoted in numerous posts, the majority claiming that number, and one or two saying "like 120 or such", or similar.

I have done absolutely no testing on any of these numbers - just reading a lot of forums posts during downtime.

Agreed there, Dex is particularly important to Rangers but not so much in classic. This will be true down the line when ranged DPS using a bow actually becomes viable after AA's. For classic and Kunark it's still mostly a wasted stat in my opinion.

Though if your planning a Ranger for the long haul having DEX isn't a bad thing. A painful waste of points now for a happily ever after later once you start using Bows as often melee.