I'm a Chanter and wish they would massively nerf charm

I'm a very (very) long-time Enchanter. I'm always told I am very good at it (I only say that to illustrate that I am not speaking from lack of experience or from ignorance).

The game has become about nothing but a DPS race-to-the-top.

For 18 years I played an Enchanter really, really well and was crowd control, buffing, slowing, etc. Saving groups and making order out of chaos.

I never liked charming mobs. Sure I do it but it's not fun. These days, it is a "given" that Enchanters will charm mobs. Every single group I get in, they immediately ask which pet I want or bring a mob and park it in front of me like some cat dropping a dead mouse on your doorstep.

I never played an enchanter to be a DPS class. That's not at all why I'm an Enchanter. The culture of the game has become so different that it's not about anything BUT being a DPS class.

And if you try to discuss this, you get "tarred and feathered" because you are holding these players back from their race-to-the-top-uber-phat-lewtz-lolz.

SO, in the next TLP, I would love to see Enchanters being Enchanters. Sure they could charm a little in a pinch, but they need to get back to CC and out of the DPS field.

I seem to have no problem charming and CCing at the same time and I've only played an Enchanter occasionally?

The best form of CC available is dead mobs.

The second best is mobs dying while beating on something besides player characters.

So you want to cripple the enchanters ability to provide those superior forms of CC in favor of depending on people not breaking your mezz????

I never said I had trouble with it. I'm actually quite good at it. I said it's not what an Enchanter was.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with the way that enchanters function today on TLP servers in the level 1 to 60 range.

By the way, we could throw a stone and hit thousands of people that have mained an enchanter for many years. That does not make your opinion have more weight than anyone else.

The opening line is exactly the problem. In that argument the entire EQ world is not about the rich texture of all different classes doing very different things - it's about nothing but Call of Duty style combat-and-nothing-else.

Those are not superior methods of CC. They simply avoid CC (and remove it from gameplay) and replace it with more/faster/better combat. You can get that on an Xbox.

The game evolves. Roles shift and change. This is a good thing.

What you are arguing is not a forced mechanic of the game. People can play EverQuest how ever they choose to do so, and that includes HOW they handle CC.

If you prefer not to have a charm pet (considering you said you do not like charming pets in your original statement above), then don't charm a pet. If the groups you run with have an issue with you not charming a pet, find a group that fits your play style.

Rather than asking the developers to change the game mechanics to meet your desired play style, change the way you play to fit your desired play style. Asking the devs to change the game mechanics does nothing but TAKE OPTIONS AWAY from the players.

18 years ago, charm was the best dps in the game. In fact it would be nerfed shortly after due to just how broken good it was, from hurling giants at aow to faction war abuse in velious or tactics... even in original GoD renown for its dangerous perils, charm was nerfed out of many places like ikkinz group trials and remained the single best xp source where it survived, such as pofire or xved.

Basically, enchanter was always potentially a charm dps class, and among the top players this was always the culture. The only things that changed are awareness of how good it is by the general masses, and a more lopsided top end game versus the heavier casual/rp crowd pre wow. Nerfing charm now would not return the class to how it was. Charm IS how the class was back then.

Starting in oow, charmed mobs are nerfed to have considerably reduced damage. As you move forward in expansions, the dps of actual dps classes starts to really shine such that charm isn't the magical dps tool that it was 50-65 by comparison.

So in short, please don't ask them to nerf a key component to enchanters that has always existed for them just so that everyone can accept a suboptimal playstyle as "normal" in this age of hyper-aggressive xp grouping where everyone acts like only the top guild or two used to act. Instead, much like the similar complaints against pbaoe stuns for the same class, the solution is the same: keep playing expansions past level 65.

This is always an interesting topic. In my opinion, the problem is that charm pets are too good for their risk.

If they are truly meant to be the best DPS, then they need to be more volatile. They should be breaking and resisting charm more often in addition to pumping out the same DPS against PCs and NPCs alike (you know, the ole 1-sword trick) so when they break, they hurt.

If they are meant to be fairly reliable DPS with minimal upkeep, they need to have some DPS reduction in the form of a debuff upon charm, or maybe just an inability to be buffed once charmed. Additionally, there could be a "charm recourse" buff that stays on the pet after charm breaks that doesn't let it be re-charmed for like 4 minutes. Really anything to just put a dent in their insane sustained DPS.

In any case, I agree insofar as Enchanter charming is too powerful for how easy it is. If they reduce one or the other, I'd be fine with it, but as it stands - it's a bit too strong for my liking.

Liking charming and being a good enchanter are mutually exclusive.

Like for reals though why do people always want to change the classic portion of the game. You don't like it go play live where enchanter are boring retired class that does what is "balanced"

Leave the TLPs too those of us that actually want to play the Old school game.

All of these suggestions to nerfing charm start appearing in oow. Do enchanters in modern eq top group dps charts? No? Why not?

Meanwhile, charm WAS this good when these tlp expansions were modern. The only true added dangers vs now were connection speeds and corpse runs. People just weren't aware of it.

This has to be the first intelligent thing you have ever said in your life

I've been an enchanter since the first set of progression servers back in '05. I can assure that many enchanters have been charming while CC'ing for a long time. I will say that definitely back then most groups didn't expect you to because there were so many horror stories out there about charm pets wiping whole groups in a few seconds. The ONLY reason I play an enchanter is because of the ability to charm and have it be great dps. As Risiko stated, it's not a forced mechanic. If your groups get upset that you're not charming, find another group. That being said, I've always been annoyed when I group with other enchanters and they aren't charming because they're not even coming close to their full potential. It's very possible to be the main puller, CC, and dps. The trade-off to that power is that you have to constantly pay a lot of attention.

In the end, an enchanter may not be the class for you anymore. I'd highly recommend a bard because they can do EVERYTHING that you want to do on your enchanter and they're rarely charming. Plus depending on what era you're playing in, they really get to be the kings of soloing post TSS.

What you want to nerf is player power overall compared to mob power.

Overall the game is so much easier now that if you nerfed charm to only last 2 minutes, everyone would still charm because the breaks are a non-issue.

Only time I ever died to a charm pet was back on Phinny, 5 enchanters + pets + 1 cleric in the hole and it was stupid easy until we just overdid it after hours of killing half the zone.

Wanting to change a class because it no longer serves the play style you once liked is insane. Play another class then.

Indeed, the developers took a massive detour in general game mechanics sometime around PoP where they basically took all of the fun mechanics of the game (charm, fear-kiting, aggro-kiting, slowing, AoE stunning) and made them incredibly limited. They made a lot of classes not-as-fun.

You're right that charm was this good back in the day, but as you also mention, a LOT of other factors were different - player power, gear, game knowledge, corpse runs, lag...etc. Those factors made charming wayyyy more dangerous than it is today - justifying the power.

For modern TLPs, none of those problems exist, yet charm pets are still insanely OP. They should be dialed back in DPS to align with their relative minimal effort, or, they should be dialed up in volatility to align with their relative power.

But I do sort of agree with what you seem to be eluding to in that when "fixes" seem to be made, they get made in a ridiculous fashion that fixes one problem but creates a dozen new ones.

Based off this post, sorry, but you were never a good Enchanter, and for those 18 years you did not play an Enchanter "really, really well". You want to coast through exp groups and raids at 90%+ mana because your only role is to buff people every 30 minutes (or more come AA's and longer duration spells), and CC the occasional mob that adds.

P99 is still a thing if you want classic.

The proof that this is classic is that in P99 you can and likely will still go 11-60 charming, heh.