Most of my EQ1 time has been with a necromancer, but I had an enchanter in the pre-PoP days who managed to group dungeon crawl to the then max 60. The only time I recall soloing was literally from 1 to maybe 5 or 6 in front of Neriak. Never really did it, and back then, never really needed to because groups were super easy to come by. But things have changed, pre-85ish is a ghost town with the occasional moloing tumbleweed rolling past, so I can see soloing or moloing being a pretty regular occurrence. And having prided myself back in the day on properly played enchanting as CC, puller, dungeon guide, cleric best friend, etc, I don't want to boost an enchanter with the heroic. And I will happily run with my /lfg toggled on because I can definitely run an enchanter in groups no problem. But per the inevitable soloing... 1) I've watched Vizier and Dandin's videos on reverse chamring, read all the back and forth etc, and without stirring the pot too much, my observation is that reverse charming is indeed a viable tactic, but only once you have the cool AAs that make charm, memblur, root, etc better. It doesn't seem like a good lower level tactic to me. When does reverse charming actually become viable? 2) Is normal charm soloing viable at lower levels, or is moloing superor? 3) For the enchanters who have done significant moloing...what was the preferred merc? I can logically make a case for any of the four, depending on how I want to play, but am interested to hear how other enchanters have put them to use prior to having a bajillion AAs and 3 dozen clicky items. Again, I'd be more than happy to never solo my enchanter, but I am aware of the reality of the current game, and with automagic 85 out there, lower level grinding can get lonely, so I figured I'd ask some solo questions. Thanks for any and all advice.
1) any zone after GoD era. Even before GoD era it can be done but specifically after GoD is where it became most popular. 2) Charm soloing works at pretty much any level, I remember as far back as charming in dawnshroud peaks. Sometimes I prefer to molo as long as I'm tanking, with a healer or caster merc, just depends on my mood. 3) As I said in #2 - healer or caster. We can output decent dps even while tanking. It makes use of lots of passive and activated abilities (color shock, phantasmic reflex, gift of hazy thoughts, ward procs, veil of mindshadow, eldritch rune, eradicate magic and banstriking between nukes - most goodies that you get much later in levels) and aggressive chaotic mez-line twincast nuking with supplemental rune casting. Use of a charm pet while you're tanking can be annoying as you may have to continuously keep telling your pet to attack each time you mez the mob or get a ward proc.
1) You can charm at any point after you get you first charm spell. Up until level 60 or so just use a tank merc and he'll hold the mobs off you (and grab your charm pet when it breaks). The DPS is well worth it. 2) I hardly ever charm without a merc out. It's just much faster to go ahead and pull one out to do some dps while you also nuke/send in your charm pet. Now there are faster ways that include using 6 or more 'buzz saws' to tear down mobs super fast. They work well, but are very dangerous. I prefer to just kill one at a time. 3) After level 60 I wouldn't pull out a melee or tank merc unless in a group and they need them. One can make a case for a cleric merc, especially up to level 90, but I prefer a wizard merc. Charm a mob, send it after another, wait a few seconds, set wizard merc to burn. Both of you nuke, mob dies very fast. I have done a good deal of progression doing just that.
Yes, you can charm solo with excellent results at low level without any of the high-level abilities. My experience was that you should plan on a long death fest of a few weeks, at least, and more probably more than a month of constant death and failures while you learn, regardless of whether you have the new abilities or not. Thus, Healer merc for rez is easily the way to go. You are probably better off in the long run learning without the newer abilities so that you become so good that you don't need them. I, for instance, don't use some of them, such as charm aura, which frees me to do other things instead. While it's fine that you don't go Heroic, you will be presumed to have done so when you hit level 85+ by those who don't know you. Good luck!
Well, I am going to do this the old fashioned way, and planned on dying a decent amount. Thinking of keeping a journal for future enchanters who seek to do it the hard way as well. Just need level 11 now so I can start the party. edit - not really the hard way...I'd need a time machine and pre-Luclin charming in Kael before they nerfed it for that. But harder than my necromancer...that's for sure.
From 20s-30s charm killing Karana, Gnome, and Dorf guards is good xp. Always use a tank merc til 60ish with any class. Their regen is higher than 3+reds on them at some levels. And each time you lvl they get their health restored.
There is never a "i won´t die anymore" You just die less. Sometimes if i had a very precious pet, that was equiped with mage toys, i´d rather die than let it perish. Regular charm was abandoned after GoD, because of the charm nerf. However it is still useful in the right spots. The last spot for regular charm is jewel of attikii in TBS. After that the nerf is beyond belief and reverse charm basically the only option.
i use regular charming with a healer merc quite offten and have moloed several T1 HAs & T1, T2 and thulisaur island named this way. So its not quite as dead as you think, just harder to do
regular charmed pet, even softened by modern charm, isn't weaker than mage/necro pets that are used to tank all over
A charm pet does not tank well at all, a merc can't keep a charmed pet topped off at all. Where it can a mage/necro pet. But a charm pet probably out damages them (or at least ties.)
Well, I guess the "get ready to die a lot" thing was not said in vain. With Jmerc tank, a gnoll shaman I charmed to speed up killing his buddies refused to take me off the top of his aggro list, and yep, I found out why I shoulda bought Memblur and Root. Whoops. I also had not yet done the defiant gear thing, so the initial mana pool was pretty feeble, and I was spamming like I was on my necro with Lich. Whoops. So lesson learned in the midteens for charm soloers - Root/memblur are your friends, watch that mana pool. More updates to come as I continue to screw up charm soloing and give enchanters everywhere a bad name. =)
Your learning, trying to fix your screwups, and trying something outside your comfort level, thats the enchanter way so no bad name given. Aslo since it wasn't mentioned here you can join serverwide.enchanter:enchanter and ask in there, most people in the channal are nice and will talk if there not afk. . . among other things
Don't forget runes. At lower levels you can still rune yourself with targetable ones and that will help you survive a little more.
Speaking of runes, and maybe I am just being dense in my searches, but when do runes not require reagents? Is that an AA thing or a level thing?
Starting at level 66 you get your first self only rune that has no reagent requirement. However the really good ones start in the 70's range (71 you get regular self rune and 75 you get stun proc self rune) and lvl 90+ (lvl 90, 95, 100 and 105) the stun proc rune and self rune lines are combined into the unity line. All of which do not require any reagents.
Answered my own questions tonight. Low level charm moloing with tank jmerc was very efficient, fun, and I got a few techniques wired up pretty well. Took maybe two spawn cycles and it felt like I had a good rhythm and pace. Charm is about as fun as it gets, no doubt.
The indestructible tank merc who instantly taunts the broken charm pet may be the greatest tool ever for making charm easier and safer. If you have room in your group, you may want to keep a tank merc just for that purpose. Beware however that a real player tank is not only likely to die from being attacked by your ex-charm pet in addition to what he/she was already tanking, but also cannot have the instant taunt reflex of the computer-run merc no matter how strong a player they are.
Understood. My buddy is making an SK to duo with me (and I think SK/ENC beats SK/SHM for a two player duo), and we will be watching that mechanic very closely. Not sure we'll be using a tank merc with the healer merc, and might opt for the DPS merc instead. So yeah, aggro mechanics will be closely watched, and charm will take a while to iron out in that setting.
Unfortunately, an SK is a sub-optimal companion for an Enchanter. At low levels, tanks are outdone by the tank merc...and the DPS merc for that matter. At mid levels, tanks are OK, but generally lack the skill to really outdo the tank merc. At high levels, the Enchanter becomes tank-y enough for most group named that the merc can't handle, while the merc can handle trash fine. The best companions for an Enchanter are Druid (most capable) or Magician (fastest-leveling) followed by Wizard (empowered by the Enchanter).
Yeah, he wanted to be a tank, and chose SK. I meant that I like the ENC as an SK teammate better than a shaman. We hammered out ~40 levels this weekend, and for a team that has one person who really likes cloth casters and another who really likes plate tanking...SK-ENC is working pretty well for us. As far as using charm in the group setting, it's Charm on the normal setting like I remember from back in the day. When it broke, it was my problem entirely, no more instant lock from the tank merc, since I was using the rogue merc to add dps. No worries though, I was using it to get a handle on the mechanics of chaos, since good enchanting requires calm in the face of chaos. It ended up being break even for the trouble, so we just went with me playing more utility. The 50s are still as weird and clunky for enchanters as I remember. Looking forward to the 60s and beyond.
