Now with that said....if your white con trashed mob has a 5% chance to break charm on tick and your cha reduces that chance by 20% ur still looking at a 4% chance to break charm on tick, which is 1/25 instead of 1/20 so it can be argued that it's not terribly effective at performing it's stated function, since it doesn't scale to more than a 1% less net chance or come close to bringing the net%chance to break charm to near-zero
Actually I was just going to test it on LJ. I know there are spell differences I just want the practical and forget about what I do not use. Mem blur on mez... meh... lull meh...charm...AH HA! Not extensively but enough to notice the practical difference if any. Again far more important is MR which absolutely matters. Otherwise we are picking nits. Like everyone keeps saying, with all the changes to EQ and TLPs a dev should kick in the truth of the matter and stop being so secretive about the matter before someone up there gets a wild hair and makes it matter.
Makes sense Then also if your blue con mobs has only a 3% chance to begin with then that comes to only 2.4%. Would we notice this? Nope Also the red con mob has 20% chance and now has a 16% chance again we may not even notice it since they are such a bad deal anyway. I can live with the current truth rather easily if only someone at DBG would sate flat out so we can make our own calls.
Here's a thread from when this came up on Ragefire - The effect of CHA on mez/charm/lull Old thread with dev quotes in it - spotlight on Charisma
Well yeah, but if ur talking white or above and the base chances are on par then you have a situation where the difference between 1/20 and 1/25 then you have an avg duration centered around 2:00 (20 ticks) vs 2:30 (25 ticks)... and at yellowx1, assuming 7.5% reduces to 6%, and 10 to 8% u should see more divergence on avg lengths against aggressive charming of white to yellow mobs returning significant benefits in avg duration increases
Trials would have to involve an Anova analysis over very large test samples to flush out the assumptive numbers along with a look at the standard deviation of each sample (std deviation would theoretically be similar between both sets as a % of mean duration under each test.)
Also of note: even a chanter in classic with no thought towards cha is going to have at least around 100 cha in random chanter wearable gear so they're netting at least half of that benefit already (aka a 10% improvement on the base chances of a bear zero cha test sample) So at the assumed base 5% chance of even con the uncaring chanter is averaging 22.5 ticks vs 25 a difference of 2 to 3 ticks at best
There is a lot to consider for good charming. I'd break it down into the following: stat priority, knowledge of charming mechanics, knowledge of mobs, and technique. Stat priority: CHA up to 150 > stamina > intelligence = 150+ cha > agility. Some might disagree on the specific number on CHA, but most agree that 150 to 200 is the sweet spot where more health will be more beneficial. A special note about agility -- if you roll as an Erudite your starting agility is below 75 agility, which at least on Project 1999 results in a mitigation penalty. Not sure if that's a problem here. Take advantage of your buff arsenal. Use your shielding line, AC line, CHA buff line, and runes are great too. Charming mechanics: Some have already said it, but level of the mob and magic resistance level of the mob are going to be the prime determinants of how reliable your charm will be. Obviously keep tash up, request your shaman / mage group mate to malo on charm break, and if you want to be super cool, trade your pet negative magic resist gear. It all helps. Knowledge of mobs: Guards in High Keep are charm immune. Wisps are magic resistant. Rogue mobs backstab. Ghouls proc a root. Allakhazam beastiary is your friend if you're going into unknown territory. Find out which mobs dual wield, charm those mobs and hand them weapons for more damage. Animals typically don't dual wield as a rule of thumb. Technique: When charm breaks early, what you do depends on the circumstance: If you need to re-tash or re-malo, AE stun + short term mez is a good typical response. If there is a large pull in camp that is not already locked down, skip AE stun and opt to immediately mez your pet, and then lock down the rest. This is because if stun is resisted you immediately become a target + your pet will join in. If you don't need to re-tash (super early break), you can AE stun and then re-charm immediately. This is risky, but gets you back into the game quickly. The key here is that your AE stun needs to last long enough for the global cooldown and your charm cast time. Our earliest level charm is a pretty fast cast, and you can do this no problem. The ability to do this fluctuates as you level and durations on stun and casting time on charm changes. If you play on a pizza box with crap latency you may want to avoid this technique. Obtain an instant charm item at some point for those near death moments. Puppet strings off Cazic Thule is a good example. 2. When charm lasts full duration: A few seconds before your charm breaks, or when you are intentionally going to break your charm, have your pet sit down. This will give you a few extra seconds after the break, as the mob has to stand back up before attacking you. You can use invisibility or the hide racial (if Dark Elf) to break charm at a more opportune moment. You can begin casting mez ahead of the break if you need to re-tash/malo. 3. Use audio triggers and proper hotkey setup. Make an audio trigger for "charm spell has worn". Replace the word charm with actual name of the charm as you level. Our first charm is conveniently called charm, though. This audio queue makes charm break surprises less of a problem. Make an audio trigger for "tells you" or your pet's attack message. The primary reason for this is because if your pet somehow becomes aggro on something unintentionally, you can immediately react to call the pet off. A good example is dragon AE. Take note that if you use "tells you" that you will hear the trigger every time someone sends you a tell. Personally, I like that anyway. Make hotkeys for Pet Attack and Pet Back Off. Clicking attack and back off with your mouse is no bueno. That requires constant dexterity on your part, and at some point it will fail you. Make a hotkey for target nearest NPC. EQ is awful for targeting, and you need to be able to target your pet without depending on clicking on them. This info is a good start. It's late so I can't really think of much else to say right now. Charming is a lot of fun. It just takes practice. Happy hunting fellow chanter.
Believe what you want, but just about every Enchanter playing on either Ragefire, Lockjaw, or Phinny will tell you otherwise.
Soooo.... the next question is... Is there a way to change our base stats? I totally forgot about the hidden stats window at character creation (haven't played in a looong time) and so I have the default +Charisma. Now I'm kinda worried how much that will screw me over the next couple years. Is there a way to change our base stats? Something that can be bought from the cash shop or otherwise?
To my knowledge, no, no way to change the stats. Even a race change through DBG just defaults to the auto allocation of stats. That being said, don't stress it. In due time you'll be able to max both your int and charisma through gear (albeit not till velious)... I would say it's not critical enough to reroll. You'll be fine. If anything you can focus more on int rather than cha in the meantime until you can max both, and still be roughly nominal.
Dont worry about your base stats or charisma for that matter. What matters for just about all levels of play as an Enchanter is your damage mitigation. I'd highly recommend focusing on AC > HP > INT as your primary stats.
Not going near the charisma debate with a 10 ft pole. As others have said, audio triggers, reducing MR (tash, malo, giving the pet gear with - MR on it, etc). The charm "buff" on the pet window may be desynced with the actual buff time for max duration charms, however the buff is accurate if you actually target the pet. This is useful for timing your stuns for max duration charms so you can recharm without a scratch You only need to give the pet 0-1 weapons, 2 is overkill. Some charms can quad without weapons, others cannot. Any charm can quad (assuming it is high enough level to have the skills) if you give it a single one handed weapon*. If you give it two weapons then it will quad when it is not charmed which is bad news for you on breaks. For rogue class mobs giving it a single weapon will allow it to backstab from the front. Some rogue mobs refused to wield weapons though (probably for this reason). The best charm pets tend to be rogues/monks > warriors > casters both in how easy they are to keep charmed and their damage output. To contradict the last statement if you have 2 charm pets (2 charming PCs), if one of the pets is a healer it will heal the injured pet. If you need a heal casting a charm on a mob when it is trying to heal another will redirect the heal to you. This tends to be more feasible on cleric mobs that use Complete Heal as you have a few seconds leeway to notice and react. The reverse is also true which means eventually this will come back to bite you. If you need to heal the pet yourself break charm, mez, and memblur it. It will proceed to use the NPC out of combat regeneration rules. This can vary from 2% a tick to for example Froggy in Seb who heals 1/4 of his total health a tick. In general my priority for gear grouping is Spell Haste > HP/AC/Con > Mana Preservation > Mana Regen > Int/Mana. Raiding I'd rate Int/Mana higher simply to go through buff cycles over multiple groups. As a final note carry your own gear for your charm pet or have people hand you the gear first. I've had mages "helpfully" proceed to give a charm pet 2 +MR weapons they summoned up. *This is simple to test. Give the pet a single slashing weapon and watch the combat log, you'll see it slashing, hitting, and bash/kicking. Then give it a single piercing weapon and you'll see the hitting portion is replaced by piercing attacks.
+1 When your MGB is down. You're the only Enchanter in the raid. You just wiped and now you have to rebuff all groups.
As a sidenote to the charm tips here: With the tutorial gear or a mug or two, you should have 150-200 cha. After that I would prioritize AC/HP/Agi items instead of traditional int/mana gear. Enchanter is in an odd position for casters, as you're often beat on in order to get everything mezzed, slowed, or recharmed; meanwhile your personal damage spells are pretty terrible. More int isn't terribly important, as worst-case scenario you mana drain some targets with Theft of Thought or Scryer's Trespass. My defense ended up capped every level, despite being a caster, for example.
