Charm - Charisma - ENC/DRU/NEC

[commongood]

I apologize as this has no doubt been addressed (likely numerous times) in the past, but after dredging around the search function of this forum for a while now I gave up and decided to post this.

I would like some clarification on charming in EQ.

1) What checks are made each server tick that can cause charm to break? MR, level of charmer vs level of charmee and charisma? Anything else? What matters more?

2) What effect does charisma alone have on the likelihood of a charm break for an enchanter?

3) What about charisma for non-enchanter charmers like necromancers and druids? Does charisma matter here and if so is it to the same extent as with encs?

[branamil]

I don't have the exact formula, although I bet it could be reverse engineered with some tests; but my feeling is that charm duration is 85% level, 10% MR, and 5% charisma

[thebutthat]

After spending quite a bit of time as Necro/Bard/Enchanter and from what I've researched and observed here's how I understand it:

Necro's get 2 roll checks. Level and MR. If the mob doesn't roll over both checks, then the mob stays charmed.

Enchanter gets an additional roll check, with charisma. The mob has to roll over MR, Level, and the charisma check to break the charm. The third check, is just an additional chance the enchanter has for the charm not to break, making their charms more efficient. Bards work under the same formula, but since there charm is only a short duration the additional cha check is less important.

The cha check isn't applied to druids/necro's so there's a higher chance for their charms to break per tick. Level range is the biggest factor for any charm class as the MR and Cha checks respectively, seem to be easier to be passed.

What I'm unsure of is if charisma checks are applied to necro lulls, because mine crit fail a ton as a necro. I've haven't cared enough to throw on a small cha set and test it but if it did effect it, it might be worth throwing on some cha when soloing some higher end stuff like HS south on a necro.

Again, this is just info I've gathered from other players or browsed through on the forums. In no way am I claiming it as fact, but it's the assumptions I've operated under.

[commongood]

After spending quite a bit of time as Necro/Bard/Enchanter and from what I've researched and observed here's how I understand it:

Necro's get 2 roll checks. Level and MR. If the mob doesn't roll over both checks, then the mob stays charmed.

Enchanter gets an additional roll check, with charisma. The mob has to roll over MR, Level, and the charisma check to break the charm. The third check, is just an additional chance the enchanter has for the charm not to break, making their charms more efficient. Bards work under the same formula, but since there charm is only a short duration the additional cha check is less important.

The cha check isn't applied to druids/necro's so there's a higher chance for their charms to break per tick. Level range is the biggest factor for any charm class as the MR and Cha checks respectively, seem to be easier to be passed.

What I'm unsure of is if charisma checks are applied to necro lulls, because mine crit fail a ton as a necro. I've haven't cared enough to throw on a small cha set and test it but if it did effect it, it might be worth throwing on some cha when soloing some higher end stuff like HS south on a necro.

Again, this is just info I've gathered from other players or browsed through on the forums. In no way am I claiming it as fact, but it's the assumptions I've operated under.

Thanks a lot Butthat. Was under the impression that this was how things worked but nice to get someone that can back it up. Would be nice if anyone with more data on necro undead-lull can chime in?

[Xap]

I can't speak for ENC/NEC, but Druid charms are rolled on level/MR only I believe.

[Triiz]

I don't have the exact formula, although I bet it could be reverse engineered with some tests; but my feeling is that charm duration is 85% level, 10% MR, and 5% charisma

This seems about right to me, close anyways. I would maybe guess 75% level, 15% MR, 10% CHA. The difference between low 100's CHA (charming on a CR) and 255 CHA is pretty noticeable, at least 10% difference I would guess.

Enchanter charm seems to pretty much always land on a blue con tashed charmable trash mobs if it's not above the spells max level i.e. Allure (charm up to 51) seems to only get resisted on lvl 52+ mobs, but it may land on a lvl 51 mob and break in a few seconds on the next tick based on Level/MR/CHA. There are probably exceptions, but for 99% of blue con trash mobs that's been my experience. Obviously probably different if you're level 49 trying to charm a level 51 but I never tried that.

Druid charm is just Level/MR as far as I know, otherwise Halfling druids with like 50 CHA would be terrible charmers. I think Necro is also just level/MR but that's just what I've been told.

Bards work under the same formula, but since there charm is only a short duration the additional cha check is less important.


I said it in another thread a few days ago, but I disagree with this. I know it was like that on Live, but I've only played a bard on p99. I have a 60 bard with low CHA in regular gear and over thousands of charms of lvl 45+ mobs I've never once had charm break on the first tick like it does sometimes on my 255 CHA Enchanter. Hard to say if there's a CHA check to see if the initial charm gets resisted or not.

[thebutthat]

I said it in another thread a few days ago, but I disagree with this. I know it was like that on Live, but I've only played a bard on p99. I have a 60 bard with low CHA in regular gear and over thousands of charms of lvl 45+ mobs I've never once had charm break on the first tick like it does sometimes on my 255 CHA Enchanter. Hard to say if there's a CHA check to see if the initial charm gets resisted or not.

I have. It's less noticeable usually, but I have had mobs drop after one tick on the charm. Most memorably it happened to me in the hole. I kept getting charm breaks after a tick or two.

Related note, I'm under the impression a CHA check helps your chances to successfully hold. Since the target that's charmed has to beat a Level check, a MR check, and a charisma check. Having the extra check in place gives you an additional chance for the mob to night beat the check and remained charmed. So not having a CHA check would mean more breaks, not less. Maybe there's something fundamentally different about bard charms, but in my experience they do sometimes break early.

[Troxx]

Bard charm is so incredibly short (3-4 ticks) that charisma really doesn't matter. In regular gear my bard's charisma is in well below 150. I can remember only a very few instances that that charm broke before duration expired. I expect there is a charisma check, but given the short duration your chances of failing level + resist + charisma check in 3-4 ticks is so improbable that you can count on it happening so infrequently that it's completely negligible.

[Izmael]

For encs, I'd say CHA matters for charms of course but not nearly as much as it matters for lulls.

Lulling your way around level 45+ mobs while naked is teh suck from hell.

[Barm McLir]

We can glean a bit from the source code to EQ EMU. Here's the spells code(in C++);

https://github.com/EQEmu/Server/blob/487dcc445937129ab9b99c7dcf045b9ca956774c/zone/spells.cpp

Now, it's critical to note that Project 1999 is a custom fork that endeavors to mimic a much earlier version of the game so potentially that file is far different here. The devs do not (and are not required to) make that source available.

Assuming that it is close, then these comments from the function isCharismaCheck() (line 4637) are very helpful:


/*
Charisma ONLY effects the initial resist check when charm is cast with 10 CHA = -1 Resist mod up to 255 CHA (min ~ 75 cha)

Charisma less than ~ 75 gives a postive modifier to resist checks at approximate ratio of -10 CHA = +6 Resist.

Mez spells do same initial resist check as a above.

Lull spells only check charisma if inital cast is resisted to see if mob will aggro, same modifier/cap as above.

Charisma DOES NOT extend charm durations.

Fear resist chance is given a -20 resist modifier if CHA is < 100, from 100-255 it progressively reduces the negative mod to 0.

Fears verse undead DO NOT apply a charisma modifer. (Note: unknown Base1 values defined in undead fears do not effect duration).
*/


And just below that;


//Lull spells DO NOT use regular resists on initial cast, instead they use a flat +15 modifier. Live parses confirm this.

//Regular resists are used when checking if mob will aggro off of a lull resist.



Personally, I play my enchanter as a 'charisma over everything' junkie and I can feel when adorning grace wears off and I drop from 255 to 216 charisma.

[Jmcwrestling]

I don't have the exact formula, although I bet it could be reverse engineered with some tests; but my feeling is that charm duration is 85% level, 10% MR, and 5% charisma

After many hours spent enchanting I would highly agree with this.

I rarely even bother to tash my pet honestly and I don't feel it makes a big difference until the level gap is smaller.

That being said, I do always run 255 cha but have had many times where I forgot to recast and didn't notice a change

[thebutthat]

[QUOTE=Barm McLir;2587579]
Assuming that it is close, then these comments from the function isCharismaCheck() (line 4637) are very helpful:


/*
Charisma ONLY effects the initial resist check when charm is cast with 10 CHA = -1 Resist mod up to 255 CHA (min ~ 75 cha)

Charisma less than ~ 75 gives a postive modifier to resist checks at approximate ratio of -10 CHA = +6 Resist.

Mez spells do same initial resist check as a above.

Lull spells only check charisma if inital cast is resisted to see if mob will aggro, same modifier/cap as above.

Charisma DOES NOT extend charm durations.

Fear resist chance is given a -20 resist modifier if CHA is < 100, from 100-255 it progressively reduces the negative mod to 0.

Fears verse undead DO NOT apply a charisma modifer. (Note: unknown Base1 values defined in undead fears do not effect duration).
*/


And just below that;


//Lull spells DO NOT use regular resists on initial cast, instead they use a flat +15 modifier. Live parses confirm this.

//Regular resists are used when checking if mob will aggro off of a lull resist.



Interesting. So if I'm understanding this right, Cha only effects the initial cast and not the individual checks after? Or am I completely off on that? Regardless, informative, thank you.

[Izmael]

I think it's fairly safe to assume that CHA works differently with charms on P99 as opposed to the vanilla EQEmu code.

In my experience, higher CHA does indeed extend the average charm duration.

[Barm McLir]

I think it's fairly safe to assume that CHA works differently with charms on P99 as opposed to the vanilla EQEmu code.

In my experience, higher CHA does indeed extend the average charm duration.

I'm pretty sure the comment meant that CHA doesn't extend the fixed duration of the spell. For example, the best you can get from Charm at level 12 is 276 seconds regardless of CHA.

Holding off on this comment until I read the source a bit more. I may have this wrong.

[Izmael]

The comment is taken from the vanilla EQEmu code. P99 runs a modified version of this code and nobody but the P99 devs know what exactly they modified.

[Canelek]

Interesting code comments.

I believe they mean that while it doesn't extend the maximum charm duration, it does indeed affect the checks upon server ticks. So, you can indeed have longer duration charms as opposed to a lower CHA whch would yield more charm check fails.

Something like that... er

[Barm McLir]

The comment is taken from the vanilla EQEmu code. P99 runs a modified version of this code and nobody but the P99 devs know what exactly they modified.

I said this in my first post.

[Sinadin]

I'm still not convinced that there are different charm modifiers for the different, currently available, classes. From a developers point of view, I'd make them all the same probably. It's simply too hard to measure.

Maybe a developer can enlighten us please :-)

[planarity]

What I'm unsure of is if charisma checks are applied to necro lulls, because mine crit fail a ton as a necro. I've haven't cared enough to throw on a small cha set and test it but if it did effect it, it might be worth throwing on some cha when soloing some higher end stuff like HS south on a necro.

This is exactly what I observed. With all the -cha necro items, it's easy to have zero or negative cha. If you do this, you'll see that virtually every lull resist is a crit. I am certainly convinced that cha affects necro/sk undead lulls, and presumably druid/ranger animal lulls as well.