Importance of Charisma?

Back in the day charisma was important for enchanters and bards when it came to casting certain spells on mobs. (mez, lull, etc.)

Since a lot of core mechanics have changed since the early days, will it be important to pump an enc/brd's starting stats into charisma? What about charisma gear, can we avoid it or not?

There are a bunch of algorithms and percentage chances per tick etc etc for charm breaking, mez landing and other stuff related to charisma that isn't as relevant today as it was back in the day (or currently is on p99) - basically because a naked enchanter in 2015 can mitigate better than a hate geared warrior could in 2000 (slight exaggeration) it is no where near as big of a deal and (imho) not worth caring about.

Just secure your chin strap, put your head down, and helmet-ram your way to max lvl like everybody else is going to, then worry about gear.

However, 2 - 4 people will probably post after me telling you how much of an idiot I am and detail those fancy numbers and percentages... feel free to ignore them.

In todays EQ you could probably get away with maxing Wisdom and kicking the last 5 into STR and nobody would be able to tell you apart from any other enchanter in the game.

Now if you're playing a bard...















...don't play a bard.

Unlike the poster above, I find that every little bit helps. If you're an enchanter, its usually wise to try to hit the soft cap on INT and then start putting points into CHA. Since INT gear is easier to come by, most people will tell you to pump CHA at creatiion. It is proven that CHA does affect charm/mez/lull breaks/resistance...but nothing affects these things more than mob magic resist. Usually tashing a mob first will alleviate any resistances to mez and you will notice a significant affect on how often charm breaks.

Like I said, every bit helps, so there is no reason to not get some extra CHA when you are able, but its only really worth doing once you've hit the INT soft cap.

As far as bards, I've always thought that DEX was actually their most important stat followed by CHA. DEX helps with missing notes and weapon proc rate, and since bard songs try to recharm/remez a mob every tick, you can afford to get a resist now and then as opposed to enchanters that lose all the mana for the cast on a resist.

Doesn't CHA have no effect? I thought I read something from current chanters saying that any CHA above 120 (for vendors) is useless in charm and mezz.

You might want to head over to the enchanter boards. (No link. Last time it brought in too many jerks).

Charisma is generally the third check.

For mez the checks are:

1. Your level vs mob's level. The higher you are in comparison to the mob, the easier it is for spells to stick.
2. The mob's magical resistance.
3. Your charisma. This charisma check is different for necros and magicians compared to enchanters. 200 seems to be enough in most situations.

For pacify the checks are:

1. Your level vs mob's level. The higher you are in comparison to the mob, the easier it is for spells to stick.
2. Unknown? Mobs level? Magical resistance? It doesn't fail very often, except in some zones (like LDoN 65 hard).

When pacify doesn't work, there is now a save check. SOE has stated that the save check is entirely against charisma. Again, classes that can pacify/harmony have different charisma requirements. If your charisma is high enough, it will not create agro. If you fail the check, it will come after you. The cap seems higher. I have heard of people who say they have fewer agro-events when going from 280 charisma to 305 (using AAs).
For Charm:

1. Your level vs mob's level. The higher you are in comparison to the mob, the easier it is for spells to stick.
2. The mob's magical resistance.

Every tic (6 seconds) the mob gets a saving check. The saving check depends on:

1. Alternate Abilities of the charmer.
2. Your level vs mob's level. The higher you are comparison to the mob, the easier it is for spells to stick.
3. The mob's magical resistance.
4. Your charisma. This charisma check is different for necros and magicians compared to enchanters. Many enchanters believe a charisma of 305 (max with AAs at level 65) is much better than a charisma of 280 (max without AAs at level 65).

Some enchanters believe tzzze duration of the charm is determined at the time charm takes hold. Even if that is true, it still looks at the 4 things listed.

[quote="Redik2, post: 3210770, member: 412829"...
Just secure your chin strap, put your head down, and helmet-ram your way to max lvl like everybody else is going to, then worry about gear....[/quote]

This statement exemplifies everything that is wrong.

OK,m once you ram your way to max level (uber-phat-lewtz-thumb-twitch-much?), then what?

You simply quit. You won. yay! You "won" EQ. Ram your way to max level, then quit because there is nothing else to do. Yay!

BTW - that's exactly the opposite of what lore-filled RPG is. Thats playing Nintendo or Xbox, not ROLE-playing in a mmoRpg.

Massive, gigantic, enormous difference.

That race to the top is everything that is wrong and SOE caving in to that mentality is EXACTLY what caused the game to erode.

Okay I skipped reading all this mostly because as I skimmed no one put the real answer.

Charisma matters for several spell checks as already described. The 'cap' on what affects these is 255. Anything over that has no further impact. It's been stated by devs.

Heroic Charisma also has no impact on anything except a few factions (mainly SOF xpac and some random others) where it will give you +bonus points per X number of hCHA.

So, yes, it's important up to 255.

I'm just playing the game they are giving me, brah.

Sorry you were so offended by my strategy. One could also say the very nature of a SANDBOX MMO is to do exactly what you would like to do, when you would like to do it... you know, like you were in a sandbox.

So you telling me how to play my MMO "exemplifies" what is wrong, as well.

To the rest of the people who posted information based off enchanters from the year 2002... Like I said, it was 2002.

Post all the information you want off the runes website, it is perfectly accurate for mobs and raiders from 2002. It has no bearing on the game as it is in 2015. Please quote some mitigation, agility and back-stab stats from the safehouse while you are at it, too. Because I'm sure those forum posts from 2001 are spot-on in todays mob/class/raid scaling.

You're just populating this thread with worthless information for todays Ever Quest player and further confusing people.

It doesn't really matter. The effective difference between the average chanter charisma and the best you could hope to have in classic is minimal. Situational awareness is exponentially more important.

My number is from 2014 FYI

Wait? What? I was supposed to quit EQ when I got to 105 and max AA??????

WHY DID NO ONE TELL THIS!!!!!!!!!!

Does anyone have any experience with Druids and charisma? Does it affect charm? I've had a hard time finding answers.

Would a halfling struggle to charm compared to a wood elf in classic? Or would the difference be unnoticeable?

So I've seen a lot of guesswork and posts about Charisma's effect on various (mostly chanter) spells.

I've gathered a lot (most?) of the classic-era posts/tests around this issue, in the hopes that it helps get us a little closer to classic. Apologies in advance for the formatting and various broken links from long ago...


1 - The following post-classic-era thread links to several classic-era discussions (although those classic sub-links no longer work :/). It gives a very good summary (with comments from Verant itself!) of what impact CHA had on charms, mezzes, and lulls...

http://www.brellrants.net/brell/viewtopic.php?t=3315&sid=95decf464c1c271a163c072341d4df83
Charisma has impact on...

1. Lull Resists (helps determine if you aggro or not)
http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=4882
Quote:

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
http://eq.crgaming.com/archives.asp?Day=8&Month=10&Year=1999&ID=4660&Action=View
Quote:

I checked with GZ 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
http://eq.crgaming.com/archives.asp?Day=10&Month=11&Year=1999&ID=431&Action=View
Quote:

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.



Boston Fanfaire
http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=4451
Quote:

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. It�s unfair to expect masters of the undead to be entirely charismatic.



GZ ON CHARISMA (SOFT) CAP
http://eq.crgaming.com/archives.asp?Day=19&Month=1&Year=2000&ID=675&Action=View
Quote:

GZ confirmed that the soft cap on Charisma is 200

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.


GZ = Geoffrey Zatkin


2 - http://www.therunes.net/startingguide.htm (Date: 2000-2002)
Cha- This not only gets you the best prices from vendors, it directly effects things such as Charm, Mezz and Lull. I know there is a lot of debate on the effect of Cha for enchanters, however it was finally confirmed by that company.


-=Webarchive link EQCR=-

October 8, 1999

CHARISMA - THE NATURE OF CHARM
I checked with GZ 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.

Also charm does have a maximum duration. The higher level charm spell you use the longer the maximum duration can be. So there is a good reason to use that Allure spell even though its more mana.

Submitted by Baelish, 6:25 PM


November 10, 1999

WHY DO I NEED CHARISMA?
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.

Charisma will not lower resist rates of debuff spells, slow spells, direct damage spells, or DoT's.

Submitted by Baelish, 3:26 AM


NOVEMBER 5, 2002

CHARISMA & LULLS
Source: The Concert Hall.


3 - http://www.therunes.net/rguidehighlevel2.htm
EQ has always been mysterious in the mechanics department. It took a year before it was even acknowledged that Charisma played a role in Mez and Charm resists. Here are some facts that have been discovered (thanks goes out to Nanyea for this info) on the role that Charisma takes:

"Charm does an initial check that consists of a level of caster vs level of mob modified by MR.
Charisma affects this by adding a modifier to the MR approx 10 percent of your total charisma.. so a 300 chr enchanter gets a bonus neg 30 check. After the initial charm land..theres a per tick check based off the server clock.. ie the clock checks every 6 seconds according to the server and say your charm lands on second 4 of that 6... the mob gets a chance to break again in 2 seconds.. that's how you get instant or early breaks that don't last a full tick."


4 - Also, for the following *limited* test, which was unfortunately PoP-ERA :/, the data indicates the following...

With a 305 cha, and then, a 130 cha - and everything else that is relevant unchanged...

1 - Charm lasts ~10% longer with a 305 cha vs. 130 cha.
2 - Charm cast is completely RESISTED, MUCH more often with a lower cha (this surprised me).
3 - The guy's conclusion that #1 above corresponds to "almost no effect" is bogus imo. 10% is huge over time.

http://www.therunes.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1148&sid=2e6bca7945bf6bcb2b735fa34e9b4a0f

you people are stupid, verify your information, i doubt anyone knows the mechanics of the game more than ---> Geoffrey Z<---

You should be aware that just because a dev posted something in 1999 does not mean the checks still work the same way in 2018.

CHA currently affects:

• how much merchants will charge you
• bard fizzle chance
• Chance of an NPC aggro'ing you when you cast pacify
• Chance for SPA 63 to successfully blur your target
• Chance for DI spells to heal for their full amount
• Chance for SPA 22, 31, 34, 63 to be resisted, you hit this cap at 200 CHA
  • Note SPA 3, 20, 22, 99 have a minimum 5% chance of breaking every tick regardless of how much CHA you have. (only 22 gets a CHA bonus)

Edit: If you have 342 or greater CHA you have capped your bonus chance to all of the above.

Re: Niente

The amounts needed to cap those things is ridiculously low like 200 or 255 or something such that everyone has the maximum effectiveness except in maybe classic.

So you're saying CHA having an affect on charm duration? Is this like super super super minor or something? People who I've talked to that did significant parsing on the affects of CHA on charm breaking they didn't notice anything. So I guess, is this not working or just stupid small?

Dude, while we have you here, please tell me what Agility does? Everybody says absolutely nothing (as long as it's above 75). I cannot find a resource for the specific stuff you could have listed here.

(and maybe if you're super lovely and nice, you'd just lay out what all stats do , maybe that's asking too much )

Every 20 agility gives you 1 avoidance ac.

Google AC vs AC2 and read the dev posts about it.

I just tried reading the post.....then I blacked out and pissed my pants. Do you know of anyone that put together a calculator using these formulas?