Charm and my experiences

[Rikini]

<DIV>Hi all. I started EQII on the day of release, then about 4 months ago, I went to another game to try it. I liked that game up until the developers just, well, ruined it. So I'm back. My main was 38 last Thursday, and I wondered what I should do. Well, I made the (very scary) run out to RunnyEye. I've basically been living there the last week or so and loving every minute of it. Well, one day, I think Saturday, I was sitting at the entrance with my LFG tags on. It was very early East Coast time, and there was a group in, but in deep, so I was basically alone.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In come a pair of casters. I'm sorry, I don't remember their names, but one was a healer and one a nuker. They invite me and there we sit for about 3 minutes, RP'ing back and forth. (I'm a Ratonga, if I'm not being figuratively kicked, I know something is wrong <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ). Well, we get bored and head out into the first room and go around, no problems, the minos and gobbys were all green and blue at that time. We then decide well, let's start heading up, we'll go as far as we can, with me tanking, at least until the first main room with the groups of 4 and 5 gobbys.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We're doing alright, when we take on a green warthog. Then a wandering hog comes down the hill, and the healer says get ready to run. Well, I take off my last song, the slot I keep for odds and ends, depending, you know what I mean. Soon as the hog gets close, I tell my group mates to stop targetting off me, and I switch to the add. I charm him. Then we all start beating on the first one, which is beating on me, which of course, causes the 'pet' to beat on his race-mate. The two casters were simply in awe. That's the best way I could describe it. Neither of them had seen crowd control before, in EQII, and liked what they saw.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So we moved on up the hill. They were still nervous. We got to the first big gobby room. I told them I would pull a group with a charm. I did, it worked. We then had the three of us and one gobby beating up on 4 gobbys. Man, they could not stop going on about it. I could do no wrong from then on for that group. If I lost lock, I would simply stop fighting, and recharm. We stayed where I knew my charms wouldn't get resisted.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>OK, that was that.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Then night before last, I was in a group. It was an eclectic one. I don't remember the make-up of it, but it wasn't an 'optimal' group. We were missing something, I think we had 4 scouts and two healers or something like that. Well, we were doing great, until one group of 5 mobs was added by a second by one of the scouts. I was the only bard line, and I simply charmed one and kept on going.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Again, they were all like "wow, you can DO that? COOOOOOL"</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So, I guess my point is sort of a question.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I know Troubs and Dirges are rare, and I know of us rare breeds, we tend to not like our charm, because, well, it has issues. But don't ANY of us ever use it? I've started soloing with it all the time now.</DIV>

[Sanju]

I didn't read your whole post, but to answer your question ... no I never use charm, but I'm a raider. <div></div>

[Aegol]

<P>To answer your question: yes I do use charm quite a bit but basically only when I am soloing or duoing. In combination with mez that makes us capable of handling groups easily. Those that think charm sucks have either never used it properly or tried it on epic mobs :smileywink:</P> <P> </P>

[Kulaf]

<P>I'd use it a lot more if there was a way to raise Subjugation other than just charm. Perhaps they could change Sybil's Shuddering Sonnet which has a snare component to use Subjugation.</P> <P>Right now it is a total pain to raise with just charm.</P>

[osaka]

<DIV>The bellow line uses subjugation, and is a much easier way of increasing your subjugation skill.</DIV>

[Kulaf]

Yeah but isn't the first Bellow level 40?  My Troub is only level 28 and the only thing I have that uses Subj is charm, unless I just missed seeing it somewhere. <P>Message Edited by Kulaf on <SPAN class=date_text>12-02-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>01:11 PM</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by Kulaf on <span class=date_text>12-02-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:12 PM</span>

[Rikini]

Yep, I just got 40 last night, and got the first Bellows. I'm using it as much as I can to get subjugation up. Good stuff babe. Can't wait for the Mez.

[ShiroiOokami]

Charm is a very useful spell, but unfortunately it had some severe drawbacks. First off, it takes a con slot. Depending on your buff layout you could be hurting yourself or your group more by dropping mana regen, health regen, or agro reducer when you go to cast it. Second, at least in my experience with a Master 1 version of the level 48 charm, it tends to break very easily - and the duration is pretty short to begin with. Not that big a deal in a group, where you can just stop to recharm it, but it gets annoying to have your groupmates all stop when you're moving between pulls to wait for you to recharm a pet. When you're soloing, suddenly having two enemies pounding on you at once can and will kill you. Lastly, you need to be hit for the pet to start attacking - troubs have gone from being the 2nd best tank in the game pre-CU to being the worst tank of any fighter or scout, so getting hit isn't something that should be going on in your group. Overall, I'd say this spell is best for soloing. Many creatures, especially the Shaman and other priest types, tend to do incredible amounts of DD damage when you charm them. When I was leveling from 52-60, when I didn't have a group, I started to solo using charm at the goblins in PoF. I'd pull with strong debuffs and Shrill Master 2 for some strong hate at the beginning. Then let the pet finish it off with 1800 point smites, and 500 point contagion dots. Charm does work for a group, and you CAN use it to peal off an extra mob that's threatening your group, but once you hit 50 you gain a much easier to use Mez spell. The faster cast time, and guaranteed duration of the Mez make it much better to use in groups for crowd control. Combined with Ventrillo or Teamspeak to let your group know you've got it under control, and Mez will rarely break. <div></div>

[Aegol]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> ShiroiOokami wrote:<BR>Not that big a deal in a group, where you can just stop to recharm it, but it gets annoying to have your groupmates all stop when you're moving between pulls to wait for you to recharm a pet. <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>The nice thing of charm is that you don't have to stand still to cast it and you don't have to stop attacking a target. Just follow your groupmates and recharm on the way.</DIV>

[Balmung of the Azure Sky]

<P>hey man grats on learning that charm is a killer friend to utilize. Once you get your mezz at 50 you can really start to own in groups. You can act as a semi-enchanter/tank/dps enhancer. It takes a bit of practice but makes the class fun. Soon you can take on group of mobs without too much trouble on your own.</P> <P>The charmed mob will only attack though, if you have been attacked by the mob directly. soon, you can drop charm and mezz things to make it all equivelant to a solo experiance. And duoing with another troub 50+ is on hell of a wild ride. Can we say... untouchable?</P>

[drewz21]

I love charm!  It's only 2 1/2 minutes max but it has proved to be very useful and for me it hasn't really dropped very often during a fight.  Usually only about 15-20% of the time.  If I can't recharm it then I just break the encounter and then come back to it.  I've not had problems taking on multiple encounter mobs that way.

[Sean_Eisman]

<DIV>I use charm Extensively when I'm soloing.  Works great to come against a 3-6 mob group.  Charm one... mez another one or two and take the rest out one at a time.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I don't use charm in a group though... much better to spend my power mezzing when necessary, debuffing and mini-nuking than worrying about that extra DPS friend becoming an enemy again at a bad time.</DIV>