New/Low Level Enchanters, Read this post about Duoing

[gobbosnobbo]

Hi, I'm Boozen, level 31 cleric among other classes, and a veteran of P1999. I wanted to write this small tsa for new Enchanters who may not know the power of a cleric/enchanter duo team, nor know that the combo can be the best and fastest xp in the game, bar Bard AoE kiting (called swarm kiting here), and AoE groups, which surprise, will include a cleric in your composition again.

Lately, I've encountered a gross number of Enchanters who either don't know the benefits of the combo or are misinformed that solo xp is the best for them, so I'll take a moment to brush over some mechanics on P1999 that you may not know about soloing with a pet.

On P1999, when soloing as a Mage or Enchanter, your pet takes a large portion of experience from every kill you make while your pet is tamed (around 50% I believe it was). There are a few ways to avoid this and yes, one is by summoning/invising/hiding to break charm with your pet and nuke both down for full experience.

However, grouping is a far more mana efficient, time saving, safer, and easier way to avoid the the pet penalty; grouping with another member, in this instance the cleric.

Now you may point out that the experience is shared instead now with the cleric, and this is true, but you have to sit down and analyze what the cleric brings to the table, and how he will actually exponentially increase your efficiency for experience per hour much more than you can could get alone.

Clerics have the best AC/HP buffs in the game, combined with the best heals in the game (Complete Heal), in addition to their own cc (roots/stuns, etc).

Grouping with the Cleric, now allows you to buff your pet to the extreme, with both his and your buffs (haste, etc), while now being able to debuff the opposing mob with slows, etc.

A buffed pet is one of the scariest, more ridiculous, DPSing machines available in the game. Buffed pets make epic rogues whine about their dps, that is how good a buffed pet is.

This means that your pet kills MUCH faster than it could if you had just charmed an unbuffed pet and set it against another mob, and it also allows you to get a long distance out of the mana you spent buffing the pet as you can continue to clear the entire zone with your beast of a minion all the while the cleric follows along and heals him and you. You may be splitting the experience with the cleric now, but you're killing exponentially faster, and thereby actually getting a much higher experience per hour rate.

Unlike soloing, the cleric adds the additional safety of being able to heal YOU, if charm breaks, and can rely on his CC to help you get the pet under control, unlike the usual panic that ensues after charm breaks (especially in dungeons where you have no where to kite/run for distance if stuns resist), and you have both your pet and the mob beating on your face.

In the event that you die, which is unlikely with a cleric, yet very likely when soloing as an enchanter (trust me, enchanters die a lot when charming solo, ask any enchanter pro who does sebilis - high risk, high reward), your cleric is there with rezzes to save the day and continue on with reduced or penalty free deaths (96% is nearly penalty free).

The point is, duoing with a cleric is the single best thing you could possibly do for yourself. You can do much more difficult cash camps with one and get much better exp. Ultimately, if you make a friend with a cleric (one of the most important classes in the game to be friends with, because again, resurrection and heals), you also now have a buddy you can call on later to help heal AoE experience groups, which you will be doing a lot of, and clerics are always very sparse when attempting to find a replacement for your cleric that now needs to leave.

Point in case, you should find a cleric duo right away if both your time and gear permits. There is no better alternative to exping for your until 50+.


TL;DR - Stop being a flake/scrub, and find a cleric to duo with. Safe xp with a super buffed pet. You get more experience per hour than soloing by a long shot. You can also do insanely hard cash camps duo with a cleric that people normally couldn't do solo, or even in small groups.

[Estu]

Just wanted to be a pedantic math nerd and point out that your use of 'exponentially' is nonsensical. Exponential growth is a certain kind of function that is multiplied by some amount every step, e.g. the y-value doubles for every unit increase in the x-value. You are saying that one data point (the EXP rate in an enc-cleric duo) is exponentially greater than another data point (the EXP rate in an enc solo). This is nonsense because you can't suss out a function from two points; you could just as well say that it's linearly greater, or quadratically greater, or sinusoidally greater, because you could fit practically any kind of function to two points. If you were saying something like "as you keep adding clerics to your group, your EXP rate increases exponentially", that would make sense (though it would be incorrect); you would be saying that every time you add another cleric, you multiply your EXP rate by a number (maybe you double it, or multiply by 1.5). But then you'd be making a statement about more than two data points; you'd be saying here's what happens with no clerics, one cleric, two clerics, etc.

Also, I don't think calling people flakes and scrubs makes them want to group with you more.

[Daldaen]

LF 3 Cleric 3 Enchanter group.

[Crosswind]

I TTOALLY AGREE WITH THIS POST. Grouping is way more fun than soloing.

...but...

"This means that your pet kills MUCH faster than it could if you had just charmed an unbuffed pet"

Thaaat's actually super untrue. Because when you're charm soloing, you're effectively getting 2 pets worth of damage. The damage your pet is doing is going onto a mob that you're going to kill. The damage that is being done to your pet is going onto a mob that you're going to kill. So 2 monsters are DPSing their way towards you getting XP.

I forget the exact calcs, but at mid-levels, a hasted, dual-wielding pet does not do 2x as much damage as a pet. Ergo, you do not kill monsters faster keeping the same pet.

-Cal

[gobbosnobbo]

Just wanted to be a pedantic math nerd and point out that your use of 'exponentially' is nonsensical. Exponential growth is a certain kind of function that is multiplied by some amount every step, e.g. the y-value doubles for every unit increase in the x-value. You are saying that one data point (the EXP rate in an enc-cleric duo) is exponentially greater than another data point (the EXP rate in an enc solo). This is nonsense because you can't suss out a function from two points; you could just as well say that it's linearly greater, or quadratically greater, or sinusoidally greater, because you could fit practically any kind of function to two points. If you were saying something like "as you keep adding clerics to your group, your EXP rate increases exponentially", that would make sense (though it would be incorrect); you would be saying that every time you add another cleric, you multiply your EXP rate by a number (maybe you double it, or multiply by 1.5). But then you'd be making a statement about more than two data points; you'd be saying here's what happens with no clerics, one cleric, two clerics, etc.

Also, I don't think calling people flakes and scrubs makes them want to group with you more.

Except I'm using the term in a philosophical and analogous concept, which means much like word usage in written editorials, it can have a similar concept without referring directly to an exact mathematical term.

There is a difference though, and I apologize now for being rude, but making such a pedantic remark serves no purpose in proving a point that is actually relevant to the topic. Please react less emotionally to such silly and benign quips and lets stay on target.

[gobbosnobbo]

Thaaat's actually super untrue.

It is completely true. Slowing enemy mobs and hasting / buffing a pet is always faster than just using two to kill each other off.

Its been proven time and time again and which is why the duo is so effective. The effects are even more noticeable in higher levels.

At this point, the knowledge is old hat, though I would be interested in seeing the calculations you've stated if they are indeed true.

I'm guessing you're not accounting for time in between finding a new pet, recharming, finding a new target, and pulling again, nuking both down, running out of mana, and then meditating.

The total process is much slower than just charming a pet, buffing it, slowing a mob and just running in between mobs and /sitting the whole time without the expenditure of breaking charm and nuking targets down using highly mana-inefficient nukes.

[Daldaen]

That is level dependant.

I guarantee you 12-30, killing off your pet is far more efficient than buffing and healing it.

[Crosswind]

finding a new pet, recharming, finding a new target, and pulling again, nuking both down

This thread makes a lot more sense when it was revealed that you don't know how to charm solo properly.

-Cal (There's a thread around here somewhere where you could learn, do a search for it. Spells it out very clearly.)

[gobbosnobbo]

@Crosswind: Giving good justifications of your argument rather than insulting another person on topic actually helps your argument a lot more.

There is absolutely no way you can justify having to nuke down two targets at the same time is somehow better than just keeping one the entire time and not having to blow 2-6 nukes (depending on resists and also if your nuke does enough damage to kill the mob in one hit, which we all know, is not always the case) to kill them. The mana expenditure alone in this situation is vastly inferior in the trade of just keeping your pet.

You and I both know very well Enchanter nukes are not the best ratio in the game.

As for Daldaen, sure at very low levels of the game, before clerics get their efficient mana to health heals it may be true based on mana efficiency alone; however, that is a very small section of the game considering the bulk of leveling is all in the higher levels.

Spoiler @Crosswind: I've played an enchanter too, I kind of know how it goes, especially at low levels when charm doesnt always hold, or you have to break charm early because one mob is bashing the other far more, and now having to break charm every time you want to kill one monster, instead of two because of the lead demolishes your mana. Either that or having to dump even more mana into blowing up the remaining quarter to half health mob that remains, or now having to amnesia the remaining mob and losing the experience all together.

There is simply too much variance to say that the solo way is somehow superior to the duo. I guarantee the results of keeping one mob and buffing/healing it, while slowing/debuffing the other is a much more reliable, and over the long term a better means of acquiring experience.


And Crosswind, about that advice you gave earlier on another thread, coming from a previous bard player, necro bard has much more synergy with root rot than wizard bard does as nukes break root, and there is absolutely no real justification outside of charity to take a wizard with you to aoe kite and halving your xp just to speed up the process a little bit. That and you can always shout for a port. Just thought you should know.

[Tecmos Deception]

Just wanted to be a pedantic math nerd and point out that your use of 'exponentially' is nonsensical.

Lol. That word was the first thing that made me pause while reading the op, also.

That aside, yes, enchanter+cleric is awesome. I didn't duo much at all leveling tecmos, though it was mostly because of the convenience of solo, not because solo XP is actually better.

[Crede]

Point in case, you should find a cleric duo right away if both your time and gear permits. There is no better alternative to exping for your until 50+.


Are we talking about raw xp here? Because if we are, it's actually quite the opposite of the above statement. Cleric/Enc is best imo at 50+ (Except maybe a 60 shaman). Before that, Necro/Enc blows it away in terms of kill speed. Even Druid/Enc is better until 50+.

[Crawdad]

Are we talking about raw xp here? Because if we are, it's actually quite the opposite of the above statement. Cleric/Enc is best imo at 50+ (Except maybe a 60 shaman). Before that, Necro/Enc blows it away in terms of kill speed. Even Druid/Enc is better until 50+.

Only played an Enchanter to 35 on Live, but duoing outdoors with my baby Ench right now, my go-to partners are 1) Druid and 2) Necro, only because I like the crutch of Heals, SoW and Ports more than an easier-to-deal-with pet and better damage.

I will say though that more Necros know how to duo with an Ench than Druids.. it seems most Druids just want to Snare and DD til OOM rather than aggro/fear kite and let pet(s) handle things.

Indoors is a horse of a different color and I can see wanting a Cleric or Shaman instead for sure.

[Splorf22]

I don't wanna come down too hard on the OP, but Cleric/Enchanter is a well known power duo. And you are wrong about most of the details - Enchanters will get better solo xp (if they are good), and the duo doesn't really take off tilll 50ish anyway.

[Tuljin]

THE HAMMER OF LORAEN HAS FALLEN

[Asap]

I don't wanna come down too hard on the OP, but Cleric/Enchanter is a well known power duo. And you are wrong about most of the details - Enchanters will get better solo xp (if they are good), and the duo doesn't really take off tilll 50ish anyway.

I expected a wall of text from you, kind of surprised