This is going to be a complaint of sorts. Just wanted to get my feelings off my chest and see if anyone else feels the same or has advice for me. I returned during the promotional CotF event. My main character has always been an Enchanter, level 76, and always will be. I love the class, but I feel like SoE doesn't share my sentiment. The problem is getting levels, and has been for a very long time now. I was in a high-end raid guild on my server and played often many years ago, I'd say I was at my peak in GoD. Life got busy and I stopped playing for 2-3 expansions. My life got less busy and I wanted to return so I would download the game and check in on everything once a year or so since then. Each time I find myself at dead end, one that seems more and more insurmountable each time. Why is there no solo content in this game? I know EQ strives to be more difficult and caters to more hardcore players. But it is almost ridiculous now. I also played WoW which is the opposite. I'm not a fan boy, I left that too awhile ago after it went too far to the opposite extreme of the spectrum where it spoon fed the game to everyone. But one thing to take away from it is the inclusion of ample solo quest content, or group dungeons for those more interested in grouping to level. Why must I be pigeon holed into grouping for experience? It just seems obvious to me that this has been the one serious issue for this game, but one that the developers simply refuse to address. They have attempted to fix the symptoms by creating mercenaries, which seem to be getting more and more attention each expansion because they were so needed for so long. Mercenaries seemed to improve the lives of everyone except me it seems. All classes can seemingly grab a mercenary and go level through content to get where everyone wants to be. The new expansion content where grouping and raiding happens. The main draw of EQ for me has always been the social and community aspects. But since there's not a large influx of new players and all the old veteran players are doing the new content or blasting through old content with friends, there's just no draw while in this state of limbo. I want to get back to being involved in the community, but that requires I be higher level, which means I need to level up, in turn meaning I need to solo or group, neither of which I can do because there's no groups at my level due to a lack of new players grouping for content with veterans grouping among each other or soloing. Soloing also not being an option since for enchanters, at least mine, I lack any tools to be successful. No heals, no tankiness, and not much dps. A lot of mobs can't be charmed, and when I do try and charm solo things often end up going terrible and I lose more exp than I gain. I would need more than one mercenary. I've always grouped for exp, and without that, I feel lost and failed. The enchanter is a support archetype, built to thrive in a group setting. So what do I do when I can longer be in that setting? That was much longer than I thought it would be, but it's off my chest now. Thanks if you actually read all of it.
Dear Frustrated enchanter. Have you used the tank mercenary much? with your ability to stun lock for a good portion of a fight and a journeyman 1 tank merc you should be able to slowly crawl your way back. You should only need that merc and a roughly equal level group sitter (someone who sits afk in PoK or the guild lobby so you can get group quests) and do the progression to get journeyman 2 mercs alone. Beyond that you will need some help but also depending on your server finding a good guild can help you catch up. Often getting in to the community is where you will find the help these days. Worst case you can cash in loyalty points for money and hire a ranger to headshot you to level 80ish where you may be able to find more players. I know in the farm in DSH there is groups often at the mid 60's to the 80's as well and at 76 your merc can destroy that camp alone. Hope these suggestions help. If not message me at my twitch tv account as I am trying to build the community up a bit. http://www.twitch.tv/ryokoryu/profile
As a chanter you have a few choices: 1. You can charm something and use it to kill others. With skill and knowledge of your spells, this will become easy and will net you massive experience in a short amount of time. 2. You can get a group and help them to blow up creatures at an incredible speed. By chain pulling or pulling 4-5 at a time, you can keep the group killing constantly for hours. 3. You can get someone to power level you to 95-100, at which point charming becomes so easy skill isn't really needed, just a basic knowledge of our AA's, runes, and spells. I advise number 2. Make some friends. Get a group. Learn the ins and out of our class. Learn to charm in a group. The DPS a good charm pet provides + your ability to CC and regen mana makes grinding much less tedious and much more an experience I can live with (and as my signature says, I don't like to sit around not getting experience.) We are in a VERY good spot right now as enchanters. Will that last? Probably not. We've had our ups and downs over the years, but right now we are not hurting at all. If they fix the BDB root stacking issue I'd be almost 100% happy with our class.
The problem is not your class, but rather your attitude. Do you really want to solo or group? If solo, you need more practice charm soloing. Yes, you'll die a lot learning. Eventually, you'll get good at it. Other options for soloing include multi-boxing, or, if you just want another merc, pick an FD class, set them to Puller, and they can FD while you and the 2 mercs do your thing. I highly recommend asking for help to get your J5 mercs. If you're on Bertoxxulous, I'll help you. If you want to group, all you have to do is click the billboards in the corners of the Guild Lobby. There, you can search for a helpful guild in your time zone. Make sure to ask the guild recruiters about how many players they have at your level during your usual play times.
Dear disenchanted enchanter, To be successful you are going to have to roll up your sleeves and dive in. There was a pendulum swing in the way charm worked after the GoD Tipt era. Charmed mobs take a pretty large debuff while charmed. This change requires a shift in tactics. There are several techniques -- all damage is good damage (aka my pet will die now), the buffed blender (root, charm and buff a mob, break. Charm and attack the blender until near death, break and get the kill shot), swarming (attack a group of mobs with charmed mob, break near death, charm another and repeat until the group is demolished), etc. Depending on your comfort level you are going to have to find a technique that works for you. For me at your level I pretty much did all damage is good damage: Pull mob, root, charm, pull mob, attack, root mob, when near death invis (AA or clicky), charm new mob (25-75% health vs. <10%), kill original charmed pet, repeat. Using this technique you can really pile up the corpses. Don't forget to haste your pets. I used to use the snake stick. Level is important: 77, 80, 82, 85, 87 etc. are the power charming levels where you can maximize experience gain -- especially if you are going for AA. At higher levels, the charm spells include haste and the 90/95/100 versions include a stun on break. Both of these make charming a whole lot safer. The key to charming effectively is to set up your desired scenario, watch for expected/unexpected chaos and regain control. With some of the higher level AAs enchanters get it is much more difficult to be killed. Expect to die a lot until you master a camp. I think I may have been doing Hive missions at 77 and Fortress Mechanotus at 80. There may be more options these days. Like you I took a long break and returned this past December. I spent a lot of time in Field of Scale leveling... Experiment with mercs and see how they can help. A tank merc will snap agro from you to give you more time to get matters under control. A wizard merc can make the kills go faster. Cleric mercs can help you rez when things go wrong. Keeping the mercs under control is a new art. With free to play, boxing is an option for additional fire power. ENC/TANK, WIZ/CLR is a pretty capable killing machine and pretty easy to manage alone. Many other combos will work.
They are right you have to learn how to fully utilize charm. At your level, Katta is a great place to practice charming techniques of all kinds. The shissars & efreetis are slow and hit hard. The shissars are in nice convenient camps too. Don't charm a mob and try to keep it alive. You'll get too frustrated. You have to look at it this way - the faster your pet dies, the quicker you get to deliver the finishing blow on your own pet. Throw your pet against multiple mobs for the best effect, then invis right before it dies. Use root for control and you can get a conveyer-belt type system going. After you learn that, you can solo anywhere you can charm and usually get better exp than most groups. The grind to 100 is a long one though no matter how well you can charm.
I thank you for the responses and input. I don't know know what to say but I've tried... last few hours I've spent with LFG tag up and asking in general chat every 5-10 mins that 76 Enchanter LFG and have not had a single response. I like grouping like I said earlier. I really do, I would prefer to group always. But I haven't been able to get any. Not through general, LFG, or even the guild I joined, which the leader assured me would be great for finding groups. They just aren't there and it's not happening so I am going to forget grouping as an option. That leaves solo. And I'm trying. I'm trying so hard. I went to do the daily like a guild member said in oceangreen hills with my merc. I only have an apprentice merc because I am silver not gold. Are journeyman mercs noticeably better? I had 2 dark blues aggro after zoning in and they tore through my tank merc in ~15 seconds, then ran me down and I couldn't react it was over so fast. I tried again and got off a charm but broke after a few mere seconds. Died again. Gave up on oceangeen. Moved to field of scale and the mobs were weak. Me and my tank almost killed a red. But he eeked us out by abit and I had to run. Nothing was charmable. Finally went to head over to Katta like was suggested but there was 2 katta so judging from the level range I assumed katta casteum. Got killed running there once but a mass of greys which was embarrassing. Went back and couldn't find any shissir or effrits. So I guess I should've gone to the other one. It just very frustrating. No one would rez me so I hired a cleric merc with 90% rez and I still ended up losing alot of exp from all those 10% loses. I guess I just don't have the skills to charm solo. Maybe I'm a bad chanter but I don't have the time or patience to master charm soloing at this rate. I just don't see it happening. I also don't feel it's fair or approachable to expect this out of someone returning. It is daunting and there's just too many other options. Like I said, I don't see why solo content has never been developed for EQ. It would definately get me to open my wallet up to them. For now I'll just make a melee newbie char like SK or bard that I'm told can solo with ease.
Yes, Journeyman mercs are much better. I'm not sure if you need a different guild, but you should consider it if you can't get groups. Sounds like they're trying to be helpful, at least. Charm soloing, especially the reverse-charming techniques above, is definitely painful to learn. I'm not surprised many give up before mastering it. Personally, I don't like to solo, but I mastered it just so I could have the techniques at my disposal when necessary. It was about two weeks of near-constant death, followed by two weeks of fewer and fewer deaths. After a month I plateaued for a couple months at ~1-2 deaths per session. After about 3 months I decided I was "good at it." It's certainly not for everyone.
Katta is huge but the Shissar are outside the city walls on the right side of the map. So much room to run around that you should never get caught up. Charm takes more than 4 hours to master so I'm not sure this is the class for you. Maybe something easier like a necro?
I did a search on this forum for 'charm' and here are some links which should help explain how to do this (or go through issues had and how folks suggested they resolve it). Something here should help teach you more of today's charm and reverse charm styles. Enchanter charming Soloing at level 74 New old enchanter Reverse charm solo spots 90+
Ok this is a little suggestion. I will show you a place where you can try to learn the ropes again and at what should be a relatively easy place to re-learn how to do this. It is a lower level enchanter than yours but the area is still good xp til level 80 albeit a little grindy. if your willing to put the time in you should be fine. if you start a new character for soloing bards fall off in the 67-85 range, and SK's will be slow until you get your epic 1.5 and then slow after 80 until you get the 2.0. If you have any other questions let me know.
I am returning as well. Started a newbie chanter with 2 bards. I am dropping the bards so I can master the class. I am going to follow this post religiously. If you need help let me know, it will take me some time to get to your level range. But I can tell you at this point, level 22 (about to hit 23 tomorrow night) the xp is phenomenal because the pets will just slaughter with my tank tanking. I have also been streaming so if you want to watch me fail go to twitch.tv/truwen I usually stream starting around 630-7pm PST until anywhere between 930-11pm PST. I got bored tonight because I was really debating on ditching the boxes (they just make it that much harder to learn and be "Good" at my class because of the micromanagement stuff. I don't promise that I am any good, but practice will make me better. And if you are still interested in charm killing maybe I will learn some tricks that will help at higher levels. Of course, I am a little one still so it will take a bit to get into that range where it will make a difference. I am also working on the Drakkin Breath quest, so I might not be doing an interesting charm soloing till I get that all caught up. Otherwise, I will stream those hours during the week and usually all weekend with a few breaks here and there. Good luck to ya.
What the hell? Didnt expect such a posting from you - we didnt have convergence in opinion often over the last years. Least nobody cant say im not fair. THAT and THAT a hundred times. Thumbs up
i am not an enchanter, if you like to group you only really need one more peep why if you have a tank merc the 2nd peep can have a healer merc with single pulls your group of 4 should be able to kill normal mobs. might look for that 2nd peep while doing the hotzone quests from POK. below or around your level. kill 5 mobs and get pp gear.
I just dislike this continually complaining and whining about enchanters are so poor, unloved, never get groups yada yada ... Most of the complaints are simply because players want to play the enchanter in a special way but dont want to carry the consequences resulting out of it. And for the presentation - truth never should need marketing to be accepted.
There's a difference between marketing and having a little tact and some manners. Listening to people complain about how Enchanters are not in a good enough place isn't any worse than listening to people talk about how much everyone sucks but them in almost every other post.
