Charm is too strong

For those wanting to re-balance the game - I am all for it - but the devs should re-balance all the other OP abilities as well; I personally don't see this happening, especially on a TLP.

In the meantime, for the very vocal minority who "want more challenge" (and to change the game how they personally like it), I suggest you skip these TLP and setup a private server; then you can tweak to your hearts content.

Yes charm is very powerful. Yes, there are probably isolated cases of enchanters being able to solo with it, like the king room in live side Guk example - though I would hazard that my monk could have split and killed the room solo too, definitely with my wife on her cleric.

However in most cases, unlocking the full power of charm seems to require at least one other class to support them. As has been pointed out, no cleric or Druid means that when you get a charm break the damage you take is not completely trivial to heal, though I grant that potions do exist and would help (but they are generally out of era due to being related to the alchemy revamp). If you die you will need a Rez, or you will be taking two steps forward and one step back in regards to XP. One of the reasons charm is more survivable is also due to buffs like cleric buffs or druid/SHM buffs etc.

When something is very strong and it takes at least two toons to make it Uber, that enters the territory where it is less of a concern to me.

Death touch was in the game. It was called 15 sk's sitting around a spawn point waiting on the mob to pop. They fixed that. Why not fix charm?

You hit on it here, for charm to be powerful the charmer needs support

Fair - but in a group-centric game...shouldn't the game be focused on balancing groups, not individual classes?

All charms, except bard-charm because it has such a short duration, completely distort the capabilities of a group. If you're paying attention, keeping up rune, rooting the mob you're attacking, having multiple PBAOE stuns memmed, having low level mez memmed, and standing a decent distance away from your charm pet...you should never need heals other than the rare pet-break-root-and-stun-resist combination. This is not high-level gameplay by any stretch of the imagination.

I get the risk-reward aspect, but it's completely out of proportion. Classes entirely devoted to DPS can't hold a candle to any class using a charm pet. Classes entirely devoted to tanking can't hold a candle to any class using a charm pet. L53 mobs in Chardok quad for 218 and have about 15k hp...your epic monks are coming in around 1/2 that DPS and raid geared tanks come in around 1/3rd the HP. Even if warriors have more AC, the three-fold HP increase blows that out of the water.

There's a point to be made that enchanters suck on most raids - but it shouldn't change the fact that long-duration charms are just way too powerful in the group-game. The easiest proposal I can think of would have all charm spells (read: not songs) come with a 50% DPS debuff, 100% increase damage taken debuff, and disallow any buffs - this way they are like having a pet ranger.

You make some compelling points. I don’t think we are really that far apart. It’s a matter of degrees I guess. I don’t think the game should be balanced around full knowledge and ideal play. It should be balanced around the average joe. There were around ten things listed that were necessary or helpful for charm to be really strong. Not to mention that it requires cat like reflexes, good UI setup and keybindings, audio triggers for breaks and watching things like a hawk while never going AFK to achieve. Can it be done? Sure. Can more people do it now than ever before? Ok sure that’s true too. I don’t think this adds up to a real problem.

As for the degrees I mentioned, for example I am ok with two person groups. Apparently in WoW groups are five person not six. In my opinion, more than one person is a group and I am ok with powerful duos existing. You can still have a social game in such a scenario. It appears that you would prefer to look at groups as six people and balance around that. That’s ok - I just don’t agree.

Another one of these degrees we all see slightly differently is how much DPS is ok. I personally have tolerance for a very large range of possible DPS for ‘groups’ which is one of the reasons I mentioned three rangers vs six clerics. There is already a wide range of DPS in groups even without charm. I think that narrowing the possible variation there reduces options and makes the game less interesting.

So I am ok with charm being strong and for strong duos to exist, and don’t think charm needs to be reigned in. YMMV.

As for the comment about 15 SKs being a death touch from Gnot... seriously man that was fifteen toons not one and the refresh is something around an hour. And it got fixed because bosses dying before they render in game was just lame.

Well here's my 2 cents.

Prior to the buffs to charm (the big one being the charmed mob able to hold aggro so other player classes could attack without it turning on them)

Made the ability for melee DPS to get in and hit the mob without having to tank. So, by nerfing charm you are also nerfing several melee DPS, the biggest of which is Rogue.

So I don't understand the thought process here? You are advocating to make Enchanters and Rogues less wanted in a group.

Like rogues need any help in not getting a group spot as it is.

If we’re going to keep posting threads of ridiculous requests, devs please also allow bards to have double and triple
attack prior to Lvl 65.

Oh I forgot to mention that making charm pets have a 50%.DPS debuff and a 100% increase in damage taken would not fix charm being powerful. Enchanters would just go back to using a pet until it drops to 10% then click their invis clicky to break charm, they would then charm another mob and kill their old pet that was left at ten percent.

Have I mentioned that my 50 necro alt can solo all of AM Hand and Lord this way? It’s not really easy to fix charm without just nerfing it into oblivion which is one of the reasons I am leery of changing it.

And yet when I did respond to all of your post you started crying & begging me to stop.

By the way if you haven’t tried playing a 50 necro in Guk dead side you should. It’s one of the many really fun things in this game.

Don’t kill the fun!

Classic mobs have so few HP almost any duo can hold down large portions of zones. My cleric could hold down frenzy and be bored waiting for repops....solo. No one has bothered to actually pull out parses to prove how OP charm is supposed to be (cause parse is all that matter), but when mobs die in 10 seconds no one is parsing well.

A week into the servers everyone who cares and tries and isn't awful at life and everquest is going to be 50, at which point charm pets are NOT really the masters of holding down named camps and people prefer dps casters or a shadowknight. Necros and druids dump all over enchanters for leveling to 60 in kunark. Charm is not particularly useful for raid dps on most velious+ raid content. Enchanter charm is a really fun and powerful niche for side projects, soloing/duoing, powerleveling people, etc. The only place it REALLY makes a difference that is actually competitive is a level race - and competitive people would throw an enc into a classic era level group even if charm was fully removed.

Nerfing charm won't really change raids, won't really change the big money camps like efreeti people always cry about, won't impact your giant farmers, and will fix itself in omens. Let enchanters charm and do the crazy things that people could and did do back then if they want to; everyone else has 3 very long months giving more than enough time to level without an enchanter or as one who refuses to charm.

No you're just calling for it to be made basically useless so enchanters have exactly zero options to be useful without being a buff bot in a group. As it is, Charm is only effective for the first few expansions and then it's useless. If you don't like charm, don't play a class that has that ability. Stop calling for classes to be nerfed just because you don't like or don't have their ability.

You keep doing this, you deflect with no mention of what these other abilities are. There is nothing as strong as charm. If there was, enchanter/cleric wouldn't be the strongest combo for clearing content with 2 characters. What are you trying to argue? That SKs can HT once in a blue moon and KS a blue mob? Rangers can track entire zones?

Once again, no one is calling on it to be made useless, but maybe it shouldn't be equivalent to 4 or 5 6ths of an entire group. And those few expansions you mention are what everyone is going to be playing for the next 9 months, so they are relevant right now. I wouldn't complain about it if I didn't think it was genuinely bad for the game.

Two things. Enchanters still own exp in kunark if they can get the right pet. Go to sebilis and if an enchanter takes the illis wizard, he is insane and clears more than one camp. That is in era.

As for charm not being useful for raids on velious + content, not sure what you are basing that on. A charmed pet is great for a lot of bosses as long as they don't dispel, silence, or stun.

Personally, I would like to see charm changed to something like a one or two minute duration, either that or a damage reduction and built in slow, but something. Make it so that if an enchanter chooses to be dps, that is what they will be doing. They won't be charming, buffing, mezzing, slowing, and about nine other jobs.

For all the people saying how we shouldn't take away the enchanter's fun. Oh noes! What will they do if they can't be top dps? What other possible jobs could they have in a group? Also, I'm pretty sure the mages were asking to be left alone too, but the majority of people on these forums pushed to have their pets nerfed. I'm not talking about on raids either. Mage pets are horrible now. I have seen the epic pet get demolished by mobs it could have tanked two or three of before.

I have a suggestion Gnot. Roll an enchanter and play it without charm to level 70. Just don’t scribe the spell. Then get back to me about whether it was fun being the guy people pester for KEI so they can go off and level, or being the guy who refreshes haste and KEI on the groups you manage to get.

There has been a lot of concern about other classes not being able to get groups because charm is a thing. It’s BS but whatever let’s entertain that notion. Do you care about making it so that nobody has a reason to bring a chanter when they could bring a shaman instead? Groups could just beg a KEI and go level for two hours with your better slower that can also haste buff heal dot tank adds and more.

Don’t bother telling me that enchanters can join a PBAE group instead because we all know there are a bunch of PBAE haters that want that nerfed too. PBAE is another one of the cool alternate ways to play this game that enable what was originally a weird group combination to do something really awesome.

TLDR= buff bots that slow stuff and occasionally mez something are boring and you would kill the class entirely if you break charm by nerfing it. Try playing that way and you’ll see.

By the way if your initial reaction to my proposal to level a chanter to 70 without scribing charm is ‘that’s gnothappening why would I want to do that?’ then you have proven my point.

I love to play enchanter wihout charm, only problem to that is people has gatten used to and now expect enchanters to charm for groups, which I don't blame people in those groups for but rather how silly OP charm is IMO

the classical statement: "an enchanter with shinybob out is a bad enchanter" which IMO is one of the most silly things "some" people say.. but have become a general understanding.

so should a cleric be top dps now also, cause "healing!" come on thats boring ;O) hah, people played enchanter for years long before charm became as strong as it is now.