Question about Charm

[Dnelle]

<DIV>Is charm difficult to use? I was thinking of having my illusionist betray.  What are the cons and pros of charm vs the illusion pet?   Do your charmed pets break off and attack you alot? Can it be hard to find pets to charm?</DIV>

[Wrapye]

<div></div><div></div>A few things to consider about charm:1)  When you charm a pet that is ^ to ^^^ (up arrows), the mob gets reduced in HP to be the same as a mob that has no arrows.  They will be much easier for the mobs you are attacking to kill that if they were not charmed.  However, when it breaks, it will go back to its normal strength.  If a charmed ^^^ is near death and breaks charm, it is back at ^^^ with about 50% health.2)  Charm is highly dependent on quality of the spell, possibly moreso than any other spell line in the game.  A nuker mob charmed with Master 1 version of a charm spell will deal out about x3 damage than one charmed with the adept 3 version of charm.3)  The more a charmed mob takes damage, the more likely it is to break charm.4)  Cure Arcane removes charm, so if you are in a group with a Templar and they do a group cure arcane after an AE DoT of some arcane sort lands....That said, charmed mobs can be incredibly useful, particularly if you like to solo.  An illusionist I know has said if you ever want to feel useless, group with a coercer in Halls of Fate.  Charmed mobs there can dish out 5K+ hits.  I know of some that have solo'ed HoF.You just have to be prepared for your pet to break charm and try to kill you at any moment.  You now get a warning when it breaks and three seconds on mez on the mob.  It was a more challenging thing before they added that  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><p>Message Edited by sacremon on <span class=date_text>07-14-2006</span> <span class=time_text>05:22 PM</span>

[JackAll]

<P>Haow much damage a pet takes does not influence the chance to breake and cure arcane no longer removes a benificial charm.</P> <P>Some mobs now cures charm if you charm in encounter.</P>

[nscragg]

<P>Since you brought up HoF... below is a parse from a recent fight in there.</P> <P><FONT color=#ffff99><STRONG>Allies: (00:16) 235815 | 14738.44 [a Doomwing Skarize centurion-Whirling Strike-6772]<BR>a Doomwing Skarize centurion 208210 | 13013.13</STRONG></FONT></P> <P>As you see, I took a centurion as my pet.  In this particular encounter, he had a high hit of 6772.  However, this encounter was grouped, so his AE did massive damage to the encounter.  The length of the encounter was 16 secs, with my pet dishing out 208k total damage or 13k DPS.  It's a known fact that a Necro and Coercer can DUO HoF given enough time and patience.</P> <P>This btw, this fight was post LU24 (after hof abilities were nerf'd).  I also was using Domination Adept III.  I'd like to have seen this same parse with a M1.</P> <P> </P>

[JackAll]

<P>Those parses are from the drake room and not really a fair display of how much dps a charmed pet does in there.</P> <P>But sometimes you get lucky and a cent can clear the hole room with 1 spell.</P> <P> </P>

[nscragg]

Yes, true.. I wasn't insinuating that this is the norm.  It is the exception, but nonetheless, that particular pet consistently belts out extremely high damage.

[Andu]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>nscragg wrote:<div></div>Yes, true.. I wasn't insinuating that this is the norm.  It is the exception, but nonetheless, that particular pet consistently belts out extremely high damage.<hr></blockquote>That was really a poor example. I'd go further than saying it was the exception, I'd say it was a unique case. Chucking a Centurion in the pit is very funny but can hardly be considered typical. Those mobs in HoF are excellent pets, probably some of our best, but will still only do similar DPS to a good assassin except in some freaky circumstances.Frankly, I wish people wouldn't post those sorts of figures, they will just be requoted elsewhere by the ignorant as a reason for a nerf.As to the original posters questions...a) Charmed pets do break off and attack us a lot. It depends on their mental resistance but it seems SOE (whether by luck or judgment) have managed to make it so the good pets will typically break charm more regularly and usually at the worst possible moment.Someone speculated in another thread that Coercers on average will have the worst kill/death ratio of all the classes and I think that's pretty likely <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />b) Yes it can be hard to find pets. HoF is great for pets. However, SoS sucks for a decent pet in comparison, as do other zones. You are at the mercy of the zone population and what sorts of spells you can get your pets to cast.<div></div>