questions regarding druid charming in permafrost pits

[bridgetroll]

This question is for druid vets who have charm solo'ed in permafrost pits.

Just hit 54 on my druid and got past that pesky magi giant to get to the bear pits in permafrost. Started to charm kill the bears, wolves and spiders in the pit and I have a couple of initial questions:

1. Do you use your highest level root (engulfing roots) when charming?

2. What is the best way to charm the bear pit (4 bear room and the 2 bear room)?

I've seen people say to stack them, charm a bear, let the other bears maul him down to around 5-10%, and then charm another. Question here is whether charming another bear to finish off the old pet (now at low health) would yield full exp provided that i've done 1 point of dmg to him (via root).

3. Is there one method you found to work best in general when clearing the pits? Whether it be an set order of spells you use or lower level spells, etc.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Norok]

Did this all through my 50's on my druid. Here is what I learned:


Give preference to wolves as pets. They are slightly higher level on average than the bears.

Use haste and thorns on your pet.

Snare EVERYTHING. Especially your pet (I refresh before each charm). Nothing ruins your cycle quicker than a runner that aggros tentacle terrors.

I used my level 24 root. I found it gave me enough time compared to mana efficiency.

Use Invis to Animals (quicker and mana cheaper than Camo) to break your charm. Any time charm is broken all damage is cleared to give you full exp.

< 5% health is your magic level that gives you enough time to cast invis to break charm, root, and ES vambraces to death anything. ES Vambraces are about 2% per cast IIRC. So you may need 3.

Once you have a mob down to 5% its snare should make it stay in place. Break your charm, run to the other end of the room, recast charm, then ES vambraces the mob before sending your re-charmed pet (which should be at about 60% life) on another mob. Let it work while you DoT your prior mob. That's your basic pattern.


Hope this helps.

[TWDL_Prexus]

Did this all through my 50's on my druid. Here is what I learned:


Give preference to wolves as pets. They are slightly higher level on average than the bears.

Use haste and thorns on your pet.

Snare EVERYTHING. Especially your pet (I refresh before each charm). Nothing ruins your cycle quicker than a runner that aggros tentacle terrors.

I used my level 24 root. I found it gave me enough time compared to mana efficiency.

Use Invis to Animals (quicker and mana cheaper than Camo) to break your charm. Any time charm is broken all damage is cleared to give you full exp.

< 5% health is your magic level that gives you enough time to cast invis to break charm, root, and ES vambraces to death anything. ES Vambraces are about 2% per cast IIRC. So you may need 3.

Once you have a mob down to 5% its snare should make it stay in place. Break your charm, run to the other end of the room, recast charm, then ES vambraces the mob before sending your re-charmed pet (which should be at about 60% life) on another mob. Let it work while you DoT your prior mob. That's your basic pattern.


Hope this helps.


Thorns.. maybe if you got the mana. But haste? Never. You want your pet to die as fast as possible. Pull to your snared pet and root npcs there. I usually had 2 roots up incase. Bind down there, and make sure you have a leatherfoot hat.

Snare, Glamour, Charm pet. Have it guard and pull to him so you don't have to battle with the pathing there. Get a few animals. I usually had 3-5 beating my pet at a time. Once he gets low hp invis, and es arms old pet. Get a new pet and rinse and repeat. As long as your new pet doesn't hit your old pet, or atleast not for much dmg you will get full exp.

[47shadesofgay]

Getting past magi is easy.. just train him out to zoneline then run back down before he resets.

[Waedawen]

Charm pet, have the other bears Mob him, break before he dies. Make sure all are rooted.

[Norok]

Thorns.. maybe if you got the mana. But haste? Never. You want your pet to die as fast as possible. Pull to your snared pet and root npcs there. I usually had 2 roots up incase. Bind down there, and make sure you have a leatherfoot hat.

Snare, Glamour, Charm pet. Have it guard and pull to him so you don't have to battle with the pathing there. Get a few animals. I usually had 3-5 beating my pet at a time. Once he gets low hp invis, and es arms old pet. Get a new pet and rinse and repeat. As long as your new pet doesn't hit your old pet, or atleast not for much dmg you will get full exp.

Both our methods work but I am going to disagree with you.

Glamour; I never load it. I have never found it to make much difference.

I prefer to invest the extra mana in a thorned, hasted pet that will be able to kill 3 mobs before it is at low life to be killed itself. You must manage a total of 4 mobs by the end either snared, rooted, or both. All while chain casting ES Vambraces on them, keeping charm broken and refreshed at proper times, and not letting anything run. Definitely harder.

TWDL_Prexus's method is good for the semi-AFK as you have short, limited, and safe kills. If you've got the time and attention you can maximize your exp using the method I've presented. Around 57 I was able to kill all 14 mobs in the cycle just before repop. That rate allows you to get through 57-60 in roughly 14-16 hours each.

[Norok]

Oh, and getting past Magi... Don't even waste your time trying to kill.

Load up your Magic Resists, Bind Affinity, Camo, and a TP somewhere safe.

Run past him, drop down. Invis and run to a corner. Bind affinity and teleport out. Gate back clear of aggro, invis, and then rebind in the top room against one of the safer walls.

[TWDL_Prexus]

Glamour is very much worth the 10 mana before you charm a pet.

[Rusl]

Should ask Dexs for pro perma pit tips

[Norok]

Glamour is very much worth the 10 mana before you charm a pet.

I usually don't have the spells slot for it; since I use thorns and haste.

[SamwiseRed]

be careful some people were just banned for charming down there

[Norok]

Why would they be banned for using a well known camp?

[bluejam]

The pathing is easily exploitable, that's why.

[Norok]

They will warp around but I have never had that work in my favor. Pathing on this server seems to err on the side of making sure the player dies before they find a hidey hole.

[Hinthek]

Pop for a gazughi ring and you can let em drop to 2% or so, before breaking. Saves ya a spell slot too.

[AexDestroy]

Charm pet. Send pet. Root pets target. Recharm if breaks. Reroot at 25%. Break charm at 5% life or less. ES arms for finish. Rinse repeat. I never snare, glamour, thorns, haste or anything. Works fine. Pathing is horrible, if you get a shitty break just run away and heal - you will have plenty of time before your mob gets to you. Gate if need be or re-charm. Ding 60.

[AexDestroy]

If you think that's cheating then just don't suck and have a gate pot or something for emergencies - they are quite rare.

[Lyra]

Bumping for friend

[aresprophet]

Both our methods work but I am going to disagree with you.

Glamour; I never load it. I have never found it to make much difference.

I prefer to invest the extra mana in a thorned, hasted pet that will be able to kill 3 mobs before it is at low life to be killed itself. You must manage a total of 4 mobs by the end either snared, rooted, or both. All while chain casting ES Vambraces on them, keeping charm broken and refreshed at proper times, and not letting anything run. Definitely harder.

TWDL_Prexus's method is good for the semi-AFK as you have short, limited, and safe kills. If you've got the time and attention you can maximize your exp using the method I've presented. Around 57 I was able to kill all 14 mobs in the cycle just before repop. That rate allows you to get through 57-60 in roughly 14-16 hours each.

This is the proper method

You can clear everything in the entire area (all 6 in the pit, the 4 pops in the ramp area and cave, the roamer and spiders in the big room, and 1 wolf from up the ladders) in the repop time.

Gazughi ring lets you get things to 1-2% instead on 5% which makes finishing far easier. Manastone speeds things up too (it comes out to around 4.5 mana per tick factoring in the cost of Regrowth and Skin Like Nature). I used the 56 root for the extra duration and for the damage sometimes as a quick finisher, when I had excess mana.

Spell lineup:

Regrowth
Thorns
Haste
Glamour
Charm
Root (of your choice, I prefer the 56 one when you get it)
Ensnare
Breath of Ro (for finishing mobs that refuse to dip below 10%)



Pit bears against bears and wolves against wolves whenever possible. Symmetrical fights are easier to control HP. When pitting wolves against spiders you can skip Thorns and it'll typically be a close enough fight to end with the wolf below 10% after killing another wolf in the top room. You'll get a feel for this. Pitting bears against wolves usually ends with a mess, with the pet either going down with the second mob at 30% or so, or the pet finishing with 20% and too buffed up to use another animal to fight it.

Ensnare to pull, Glamour then Charm, Thorns/Haste and sic pet. Keep target rooted (so an unlucky charm break doesn't turn into a clusterfuck). Med while the beatings continue. Around 40% target health, go pull another mob and root it nearby. At 5% target health (1-2% with Gazughi) /pet back (leave the first mob alone) and sic on the backup mob. Med and watch. If your pet disengages the first target with under 50%, use ES vambs to soften up the fight. If your pet disengages over 60%, you can rig the fight by making your pet stand guard then /pet back to let its opponent get in some whacks 1 for 1 instead of 1 for 1.65. Reroot the first mob at some point before it breaks, but make sure it has the HP to survive this.

When your pet is below 2% you must end the fight no matter what. Hopefully its target is below 5% as well. You can use ES vambs on the first mob while the second target dies to keep it from regening too high; it'll take about 2% off bears and 3-4% off wolves and spiders. Invis to stop the fight, root the pet, and use vambs/root/Breath of Ro to mop up as necessary. 3 mobs die within a very short time frame, which is crucial to maintaining a good respawn flow. You should be at 80%+ mana and should move on to the next mob immediately.

Your killing method is only half the trick. The other is keeping mobs either fighting or dead for as much as possible. If a mob is alive and not losing HP, you are wasting experience. Pulling order is critical:

-Begin with the bear at the top of the ramp (Bear Zero). Pathing here will generally not let mobs path down the ramp properly, only toward the big room. Pull with ensnare and charm as above. First opponent is the spawn at the rock by the small cave, either a spider or bear. Second pull should be the bear from the bottom of the ramp during the first kill (toward the end, to maximize root duration). Drag it up to the hallway for your second target. Mop up. Make a note of time of death on Bear Zero.

-Next pet is the wandering wolf in the big room. This is an easy fight. Pull it, buff it, sic it on the spider below the ladder. You may opt not to use thorns here, and use some ES vamb casts to make it a fairer fight. Pull the other spider at the end of the room (IIRC this can also be a wolf sometimes) for your second target. Manipulate the fight as necessary, invis when pet is low, mop up.

-Third pull is the wolf at the top of the ladder. Pathing here can suck, but it'll work fine AS LONG AS you stay close enough to it. Get to far out of range and it may wander off toward Lady Vox. Pull it down, ensnare it, and buff it. Next targets are the two wolves in the small cave off the side of the hallway above the ramp, where you killed the spider/bear. Splitting these is messy, but the easiest way is to sic the pet on one wolf, let them both aggro, root one and /pet back until it's out of melee range. Proceed as normal. You may have to soften up the targets with ES vambs depending on how messy your split was. Otherwise a straightforward fight.

-Fourth pull is the bear pit. This can get ugly; I prefer to Ensnare the one off to the side and use it, but there's very little room to give yourself the 5 second cast time of Charm. You can do it if you're careful but you risk getting within aggro range of the other bears. You also can use Grasping Roots to buy yourself a few seconds to do your thing (since it doesn't have to move for a bit after charming anyway while you buff it). Once you have your contender, sic it on one bear and root the other. Watch the beatings commence. Remember to reroot here! Simple fight, just some hot bear on bear on bear action.

-The last fight is your med break, during which you'll kill two mobs in 5 minutes for a net gain of mana. This is the trickiest room, because you're going to have a full speed bear running at you no matter what you do. Two options:

Option A: pull with Charm, sic the pet, pray that it holds. You can root the pet's target, but you're going to want to sit out in the bear pit out of LoS while the fight goes on, and duck back into the cave to reroot because this is about a 5 minute fight. In my experience the only time Charm likes to break in this entire zone is the exact moment when you come back in line of sight of two unrooted, unsnared bears. Murphy's Law and all that. If it doesn't, and your reroot goes without a hitch, this is 4 minutes 30 seconds of medding and 350 mana spent for two kills.

Option B: pull with a root, run like hell, Ensnare and send the pet in. Here you're guaranteed to take a hit or two, but sometimes that's preferable to taking a gamble on being hit a lot more. This fight is a long, boring unbuffed cage match between two cellmates who hold a grudge and aren't afraid to fight dirty. Don't forget to reroot!

Congratulations, you've killed 14 mobs in under 30 minutes. You should have a minute or two for Bear Zero at the top of the ramp to respawn (I forget the exact timer but its 30 minutes or so), he may already be up if your cleanup took a while due to imbalanced fights. You should be able to be north of 80% mana by the time he pops, and his repop should very nearly coincide with that of the first two mobs you used him to kill. Pull as soon as he pops (if you have the mana) and repeat the cycle for 50 hours straight.

If you need a med break you just wait until you're ready to pull Bear Zero, and during this clearing cycle forget the last two bears in the pit. Even at maximum efficiency and with a Manastone, I had to do this once every 3 or 4 cycles due to Charm breaks, root resists, or the RNG deciding that one bear is going to Hulk out and sit there at 30% when the other two are next to dead. It's EQ, you can't totally eliminate the random, you can only try.

I should also mention that I used this method (although I gave up EQ partway through 59 for other reasons, the boredom didn't help though) with my bind point at the TD firepots, and I didn't want to give that up because the only thing more awesome than a druid is a druid with a firepot bind. Which means that I had to do this without the benefit of porting/gating to clear aggro, because even from Halas the run is a bitch. I never had to do that once. Worst case scenario you have one snared bear running at you with two rooted ones staring at you, so it's always easy to reassert control over the situation.

Considering the limitations on mob spawns down here this is, without question, the maximum amount of experience you can give yourself in this camp. You're leaving only one wolf up at the top of the ladders, which has pathing problems and likes to come with icy terrors. Other methods of killing bears in the pit involve excessive risk, excessive med times, or plain and simple do not kill as many mobs during each cycle. This is predictable, efficient, low-risk, boring as hell, gives next to zero loot, and will get you to 60 faster than any other solo druid camp in the game.

Welcome to Permafrost.

[Handull]

This is the proper method

You can clear everything in the entire area (all 6 in the pit, the 4 pops in the ramp area and cave, the roamer and spiders in the big room, and 1 wolf from up the ladders) in the repop time.

Gazughi ring lets you get things to 1-2% instead on 5% which makes finishing far easier. Manastone speeds things up too (it comes out to around 4.5 mana per tick factoring in the cost of Regrowth and Skin Like Nature). I used the 56 root for the extra duration and for the damage sometimes as a quick finisher, when I had excess mana.

Spell lineup:

Regrowth
Thorns
Haste
Glamour
Charm
Root (of your choice, I prefer the 56 one when you get it)
Ensnare
Breath of Ro (for finishing mobs that refuse to dip below 10%)



Pit bears against bears and wolves against wolves whenever possible. Symmetrical fights are easier to control HP. When pitting wolves against spiders you can skip Thorns and it'll typically be a close enough fight to end with the wolf below 10% after killing another wolf in the top room. You'll get a feel for this. Pitting bears against wolves usually ends with a mess, with the pet either going down with the second mob at 30% or so, or the pet finishing with 20% and too buffed up to use another animal to fight it.

Ensnare to pull, Glamour then Charm, Thorns/Haste and sic pet. Keep target rooted (so an unlucky charm break doesn't turn into a clusterfuck). Med while the beatings continue. Around 40% target health, go pull another mob and root it nearby. At 5% target health (1-2% with Gazughi) /pet back (leave the first mob alone) and sic on the backup mob. Med and watch. If your pet disengages the first target with under 50%, use ES vambs to soften up the fight. If your pet disengages over 60%, you can rig the fight by making your pet stand guard then /pet back to let its opponent get in some whacks 1 for 1 instead of 1 for 1.65. Reroot the first mob at some point before it breaks, but make sure it has the HP to survive this.

When your pet is below 2% you must end the fight no matter what. Hopefully its target is below 5% as well. You can use ES vambs on the first mob while the second target dies to keep it from regening too high; it'll take about 2% off bears and 3-4% off wolves and spiders. Invis to stop the fight, root the pet, and use vambs/root/Breath of Ro to mop up as necessary. 3 mobs die within a very short time frame, which is crucial to maintaining a good respawn flow. You should be at 80%+ mana and should move on to the next mob immediately.

Your killing method is only half the trick. The other is keeping mobs either fighting or dead for as much as possible. If a mob is alive and not losing HP, you are wasting experience. Pulling order is critical:

-Begin with the bear at the top of the ramp (Bear Zero). Pathing here will generally not let mobs path down the ramp properly, only toward the big room. Pull with ensnare and charm as above. First opponent is the spawn at the rock by the small cave, either a spider or bear. Second pull should be the bear from the bottom of the ramp during the first kill (toward the end, to maximize root duration). Drag it up to the hallway for your second target. Mop up. Make a note of time of death on Bear Zero.

-Next pet is the wandering wolf in the big room. This is an easy fight. Pull it, buff it, sic it on the spider below the ladder. You may opt not to use thorns here, and use some ES vamb casts to make it a fairer fight. Pull the other spider at the end of the room (IIRC this can also be a wolf sometimes) for your second target. Manipulate the fight as necessary, invis when pet is low, mop up.

-Third pull is the wolf at the top of the ladder. Pathing here can suck, but it'll work fine AS LONG AS you stay close enough to it. Get to far out of range and it may wander off toward Lady Vox. Pull it down, ensnare it, and buff it. Next targets are the two wolves in the small cave off the side of the hallway above the ramp, where you killed the spider/bear. Splitting these is messy, but the easiest way is to sic the pet on one wolf, let them both aggro, root one and /pet back until it's out of melee range. Proceed as normal. You may have to soften up the targets with ES vambs depending on how messy your split was. Otherwise a straightforward fight.

-Fourth pull is the bear pit. This can get ugly; I prefer to Ensnare the one off to the side and use it, but there's very little room to give yourself the 5 second cast time of Charm. You can do it if you're careful but you risk getting within aggro range of the other bears. You also can use Grasping Roots to buy yourself a few seconds to do your thing (since it doesn't have to move for a bit after charming anyway while you buff it). Once you have your contender, sic it on one bear and root the other. Watch the beatings commence. Remember to reroot here! Simple fight, just some hot bear on bear on bear action.

-The last fight is your med break, during which you'll kill two mobs in 5 minutes for a net gain of mana. This is the trickiest room, because you're going to have a full speed bear running at you no matter what you do. Two options:

Option A: pull with Charm, sic the pet, pray that it holds. You can root the pet's target, but you're going to want to sit out in the bear pit out of LoS while the fight goes on, and duck back into the cave to reroot because this is about a 5 minute fight. In my experience the only time Charm likes to break in this entire zone is the exact moment when you come back in line of sight of two unrooted, unsnared bears. Murphy's Law and all that. If it doesn't, and your reroot goes without a hitch, this is 4 minutes 30 seconds of medding and 350 mana spent for two kills.

Option B: pull with a root, run like hell, Ensnare and send the pet in. Here you're guaranteed to take a hit or two, but sometimes that's preferable to taking a gamble on being hit a lot more. This fight is a long, boring unbuffed cage match between two cellmates who hold a grudge and aren't afraid to fight dirty. Don't forget to reroot!

Congratulations, you've killed 14 mobs in under 30 minutes. You should have a minute or two for Bear Zero at the top of the ramp to respawn (I forget the exact timer but its 30 minutes or so), he may already be up if your cleanup took a while due to imbalanced fights. You should be able to be north of 80% mana by the time he pops, and his repop should very nearly coincide with that of the first two mobs you used him to kill. Pull as soon as he pops (if you have the mana) and repeat the cycle for 50 hours straight.

If you need a med break you just wait until you're ready to pull Bear Zero, and during this clearing cycle forget the last two bears in the pit. Even at maximum efficiency and with a Manastone, I had to do this once every 3 or 4 cycles due to Charm breaks, root resists, or the RNG deciding that one bear is going to Hulk out and sit there at 30% when the other two are next to dead. It's EQ, you can't totally eliminate the random, you can only try.

Considering the limitations on mob spawns down here this is, without question, the maximum amount of experience you can give yourself in this camp. You're leaving only one wolf up at the top of the ladders, which has pathing problems and likes to come with icy terrors. Other methods of killing bears in the pit involve excessive risk, excessive med times, or plain and simple do not kill as many mobs during each cycle. This is predictable, efficient, low-risk, boring as hell, gives next to zero loot, and will get you to 60 faster than any other solo druid camp in the game.

Welcome to Permafrost.

Sounds legit. Definitely don't listen to that other guy who said not to use glamour, haha.

[Hinthek]

Was anyone else more excited to be able to leave the pits, than actually hitting 60?

Man that place felt like a job.