When do you use charm? [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

View Full Version : When do you use charm?

Jark

11-10-2005, 05:56 PM

Charm seems to be a very situational spell, and I admit I haven't figured out which situations to use it in. When do you use it? <div></div>

WooTast

11-10-2005, 06:45 PM

Ive used it a little while soloing, but I do almost none of that at lvl 60. <div></div>

Claritin

11-10-2005, 07:12 PM

I use it sometimes. When I am in a small group and we get an add and I am 2 boxing charm seems to hold longer... you can't be the main healer and mezzer at the same time (my other acct is a fury) so I try to use whatever will cause me to mash less buttons. I use it when 2 boxing also... Because when the troub who charmed gets hit the pet attacks whatever hit you... sometimes you can pretty much step back and just let them fight. The last fight for shimmering citadel with the named naga lvl 56 2^^ group and the lvl 59 group (in my first run it was 2^^ but the 2nd run it was 4^'s) the first attempt... 2 boxing all by myself (58 troub 58 fury at the time) I charmed one of the 2 59 ^^'s... they came after me... unfortunately managed to kill me in my moment of panic (I had hoped to just get the lvl 56 encounter because none of it was aggro but they turned out to be social... I charmed the 59 after I had both groups pounding on me) oddly enough my charm held after I was dead... so my fury sat back and watched my troubs charmed pet kill the entire lvl 56 encounter... and had half killed the other 59^^... then charm broke... I killed the most wounded one and then died. In retrospect on that first attempt if I had KNOWN the mobs were social I would have pulled using charm (6 sec casting time is a PITA) and then started killing off the weaker ones ASAP... since both encounters were multiples... I would Precision and then AE DD, AE STUN, AE DEMORAL, AE OPPRESIVE, AE DoT, AE Zanders... that's about 2800 dmg to both members of the lvl 56 encounter... add to that my fury's starfire with Precision 4,300 dmg to both lvl 56's... plus in thier weakend condition my pet would have been living... then I would fully debuff the other member of the 59 encounter and SLOWLY hack away at it while the pet tanked.... which would have left me with 1 wounded 59^^ snake to finish off... which would have been doable. Killing a 59 and 56-NAMED group encounter at the same time using 2 lvl 58's in that situation I think was possible... I just didn't have all the info I needed and therefore screwed up.... and it wouldn't have been possible without Troub charm. The 2nd run... I had a guild mate with me... but with the 59 encounter being 4 ^'s instead of 2 ^^'s my pet would have been too crappy to tank... Keep in mind... I am not bragging... I lost because of my own lack of foresight on them being social mobs... I am saying I am 99% sure I could have won if I would have entered the battle prepared... and charm was the key... I gave specifics to give you a good example of exactly how charm would fit into the equation. BTW my Charm is at app1 because I never use it and it came out with DoF (combat revamp) its duration is not stable... it lasted long enough on the first run to kill the 56 encounter... but most of that was luck... I wouldn't plan any elaborate strats like those above INTENTIONALLY unless you upgrade it to atleast Adept 1... this should make the intermittant resist checks increase your average duration. Before anyone says "you shouldn't use app1 trash" I will point out that almost every 40+ spell is AD3 or M1... I just don't use this much and have not seen one for sale when I checked.... my cash goes for vanadiums and pearls... not rubies... I upgrade the stuff I use every night.... raid stuff first.... charm is at the bottom of my list of things to upgrade.

ShiroiOokami

11-10-2005, 11:36 PM

Charm is an incredibly useful spell for soloing, I use it all the time. I generally try to grab a shamman or other priest class as their DPS is much higher than anything else out there, higher even than the wizards I've been able to find. There are two things you need to take into consideration when using our Charm spell. First, is that you need to be damaged for the pet to start attacking. Second, if the pet grabs agro (and this can easily happen if you aren't careful) the charm will break quite quickly. The easiest way to hold agro now since the latest patch seems to be to use your Arrow stifle to pull with, then debuff like crazy, and hit all the damage spells. If you lose agro, immediately hit it with the stun and try to get agro back with more debuffs and damage. The shammy pets I like to drag around have a 1600 pt DD, and a 500 DOT they like to cast, and can easily out DPS you. The periodic resists don't seem to be much of a problem as long as you upgrade it. It's the chance to break on hit that usually breaks the spell. Keep agro, and this spell is well worth the concentration slot. If you have a low level of the spell, I've heard that casting mental debuff will keep it from outright resisting it. You can also mez the creature to give you time to charm it. In groups, you essentially have to be the pull if you're ever going to get it to attack. Generally, especially in full groups, its better to just buff. The ^^^ heroics also have a much larger chance to resist this spell, making mez a better alternative for crowd control. <div></div>

pera

11-11-2005, 12:47 AM

I think they did something to the way charm works(breaking early), because from what i have been seeing if the mob stays charmed for the first 30 seconds it almsot alwasy lasts the full duration. This is on solo blues and evens, and heroic greens. <div></div>

Balmung of the Azure Sky

11-11-2005, 07:50 AM

Charm is a fun spell to use once you figure a science on using it in your style of play. You can definitely by the best means take down a group of 3 single up mobs (light blue and lower) 2 double up mobs (mostly green with the occasional light blues) or a group of 4 non arrowed mobs (even con and lower, 1-2 lvl higher yellow con for much more skilled players. Start off by picking out your target(s) and simply lead with your charm since it has a long cast that can be your quick death in the end. In this case I'll use 4 non-arrowed even con mobs. -Lead with your charm and take note of which NPC the charmed has picked off and taken the attention of. -Mezz a target that is currently attacking you and cheap shot the remaining. -With these 2 out off the way it will give just enough time for your mezz to repop and snag the other hostile (the one you stunned) -Given that you have now locked down 3 targets you can pound on the same target as your pet trying as hard as you can to steal the aggro because each hit the pet takes is considered a resistance check to break the charm. -Be mindful to keep up on the mezz's and take the time to cancel the charm, stun, recharm your pet as needed. Better safe than sorry. This technique is difficult to master because when I started (now that our mezz and charm are easy to stack on in a group) it was a bit overwhelming till I worked my groove into it. Then it became a soft spot and comfort zone when I solo now ^_~ You can find yourself a decent camp with a named that you can take and all the loot is yours >.< Oooh it's great to be a little greedy haha. Good luck fellow troubs and may the looting be great.

Snublefot

11-11-2005, 06:09 PM

Its also a very nice way to run out of power <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I've worked on a similar rythm, and its most certainly challenging. Just remember to take off your pants if you have to /yell :p<div></div>

pera

11-11-2005, 08:33 PM

Oh by the way I just noticed last night they increased the duration of our charm to 5 min. <div></div>

Jehannum

11-12-2005, 04:26 AM

Nice, didn't log in to notice that myself... What I do know though is that I'd have had a heck of a time doing the Moon instance for PP access without charm. Since charm has a longer range (though not by much) than most mobs' aggro radius, it can usually be targeted at the strongest member of a group-solo, who at vv is often capable of taking down one of his erstwhile vvv companions without too much trouble (those Sha'ir initiates shredded the guards hehe) and a little planning (in my case, cranking up avoidance, swan song and arcane resists) allows you to improve your pet's odds of avoiding, successful casting while petted, and your chances of surviving the charm break. It's also great for taking down yellows with a little more ease than normal - mez one of a pair of yellows, charm the other while circling the first, lay a couple of debuffs on the mezzed mob and - paired with your pet - go to town. Once done, cancel, stun, mez, debuff and annihilate. Personally unless they're for a quest I won't bother taking down heroic 4-mob groups because they're more trouble than they're worth, but charm would definitely make that a much more likely win.

Greatscate

11-12-2005, 06:50 AM

Simply.......never. Its now fixed somewhat now but I cannot see the benefit of a song that can hurt you equally as much as it can help. I've never had a charm last its full duration, both before AND after the fixes. Therefore in a close fight it just doesnt seem to me that its very useful to have a pet around thats not controlable and/or 100% "loyal" to me. <div></div>

AndyTheSlay

11-14-2005, 02:36 AM

I use it for either soloing when its a bigger group or when Im in a group and we pull a add. For solo I use it when I pull a group of any sort, just to take out one thing beating on me, then for groups I use it to mezz an add and pull it away from the group and make it stay over away from the rest of the group. Then when we are ready to kill it, I un charm and cast evad and pass it to the tank <div></div>

Balmung of the Azure Sky

11-14-2005, 03:22 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Snublefot wrote: Its also a very nice way to run out of power <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I've worked on a similar rythm, and its most certainly challenging. Just remember to take off your pants if you have to /yell :p <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> I've never ran out of power when using charm and lullaby. Even frantically keeping up with mezzs and having to constantly remezz I have never run out of power. Sometimes the best bet is to hold off on attacks and keep the mobs mezzd for a bit which will give a few seconds of time per round of remezz to gain more power back. I have the master1 of Lullaby so it very rarely gets resisted, but if you time it just right to land the remezz on the termination of the previous one you wil gain an extra tick of power usually when you regen. Of course this proccess is long and really boring at times but overall in 1oo% loot rights on a mezz-kiteable Gx2 encounter... it helps. Make sure you have on your jewelry side a good balance of int/agi/sta when soloing. Most of our damage comes from magical attacks so the str hit won't really matter. Big key is to have the highest power bonus to your equipped items as possible; combined with the stat attribute increases will give you a beefy power pool. Adept1/3/ or Master 1 of your newest regen is an obvious thing even if you can splurge the coin to upgrade to ad3 from adept1, the 4pts. per tick is extremely helpful in th long run. Being able to judge if it's over your head or not is a great deal as well. When I first started to develop my group and solo style from this expansion I would frequently yell off encounters to get that added regen from breaking it but still sit there and see if I could get a little closer. Then rethink and go again on repop. Chalenging...? Definitely. Although with the right gear equipped we *can* take down quite the beast of things. I do believe that even the most casual players can bounce around this technique and master it with ease, I took it real slow the first few times then sky-rocketed to the hardest I could do efficiently. There's a great deal of power consumption and only with the instinctive sense to know when to hold back and pace yourself with a break for power and cool of on attacks, it will become much easier to conserver your manapool. I use a different set of gear for certain combined resistance encounters, and HP set, and MP set, special solo gear and group gear for offensive and defensive structured plans. I realize that most don't have the coin for all these sorts of sets of gear but uniquely tailored gear sets will go a long way and once you find what you like, you can either buy it out right or mentor down to someone letting them know of the piece you want to snag if it drops. Number one weapon still is the polished granite tomahawk. If you look at it and use it enough, you will discover that it places an effect in your window allowing you to proc it from any melee attack. Sometimes I don't hit with the PGT but with the other weapon I have equipped it procs the Might of the Land enough to give me a sweet boost of power often. Remember when soloing a troubadors melee output sucks really really bad unless for some reason you go all str then you maybe might be able to match any other scouts auto-attack that is 8 levels below you o.0 Another really crappy weapon all around is the Darklash. A whip with no stats but a pretty decent power siphon on it. If you equip these 2 or one of these (preferrably the pgt for the ward as well) and a really good secondary/primary weapon then you will also maintain a great deal of power. Then there's always the ole... "/ooc WTB kai pst" =)

Aienaa

11-14-2005, 01:49 PM

I was playing around with charm a bit in PoF today... considering that i'm only level 51 right now, I was rather surprised with what I was able to do... I was at Prophet's Peak soloing the Lunitics and Prophets there.... The single mobs were no problem to solo as they were all yellow cons (level 55).... But the groups of 2-3 at the tents were for the most part orange con (level 56) .... This is where I started playing with charm.... Rather than pulling, then trying to mez or charm, I would just barely get inside charm range and charm one of them... Of course this agros the group... The one I didn't charm would hit me and my pet would imidiatly start attacking.... 9 out of 10 times, the pet would pick up agro, which is what I wanted, since they were orange to begin with... If it was a group of 2, I would make sure the pet had decent agro before I started killing the other... It would pretty much hold agro the whole fight, and if it lost agro, I would just use the evade line and the pet would get agro again... Once the one I was killing was dead, I would make sure I was at full health and power, then drop charm and kill my pet... NOTE: I would charm the weakest opponent, as it had no problems killing the stronger ones.... If it was a group of 3, I would begin the same way... Charm 1 from max range, and let the pet pick off which ever attacked me first.... Then, while my pet was fighting the other, I would kill the one that was on me... Starting with a few melee attacks, allowing the pet to get good agro, then hit it with the debuff and dots (I would snare and mental debuff the one on me first to make it easier to fight).... Once one of the 2 was dead, either the one I was fighting or the one the pet was fighting, I would then kill the other.... Once all are dead, I would wait to make sure I was full health and power and then break charm and kill the pet... The down side to this was if charm broke mid fight... Some times I could get charm back on and the mob off me (evade line) without too much problems, but every once in a while I had to yell and run them off... For the most part, I had no problems with charm breaking mid fight, but I never trusted charm to last a long time, so I always killed my pet after each fight... (used to play an Enchanter in EQ1 and remembered how sketchy charm time was with the exception of Dire Charm).... Did not have any problems with power or health (aside from the orange cons beating on me pretty good), so I could pretty much pull consistantly... I do have my charm spell at AD3... I only have a handfull of AD3 spells right now, as this is my alt character and was never a priority over my main, but now that my main is lev 60 with all AD3 or better, I can concentrate on better equiping my Troub.... Gwern - 60 Assassin / Parody - 51 Troubador (Kithicor Server)

Jehannum

11-14-2005, 09:54 PM