Charisma

[strawman]

Curious about the effects of charisma on charming and wondering if High Elf is really the optimal enchanter race, I went on Github and looked at the source for EQEmu. In zone/spells.cpp starting on line 4594, I found this comment.


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).


I don't know if this code has been changed for P99's servers. If it hasn't, this suggests that stacking charisma beyond a floor of 75 isn't as important as the wiki suggests for enchanters (but that it is important for necromancers).

Searching this forum didn't turn up a lot of discussion on this topic. Is resist reduction on the initial casts of fear, charm and mez worth giving up the extra points of intelligence?

[Tecmos Deception]

Charisma's effect on lulls is worth it by itself. Anything more is frosting on the cake.

I mean. Even if you assume charisma does nearly nothing for you... can you even put into words why int would be important?

[Cen]

For an Enchanter, you don't need to be a High Elf to maximise Charisma. The gear choices are pretty good starting at the Solusek Era.

Its more of a big choice for Clerics / Lulls on non Enchanters / atone etc


Enchanters are going to jack the shit out of Charisma no matter what. Most go High Elf and Erudite for the Aggregate stats, and Dark Elf for a good aggregate plus Hide for breaks before kunark or before gobbo ring. Gnomes are fine even with their low base Cha and Tinkering. You can't go wrong with Enchanter.

[Boolius]

It's really a question for the individual. Which one gets you killed more often: resists or running out of mana? For the soloer, probably resists. In groups pushing the envelope, probably a mix.

I personally feel like resists are harder to control/mitigate. Mana issues are more controllable.

[strawman]

can you even put into words why int would be important?

From what I understand it's simply more mana = more spell casts

[Tecmos Deception]

From what I understand it's simply more mana = more spell casts

More spell casts in one flurry.

How often do you go full mana to oom in one battle and die because you didn't have more max mana? It was "basically fucking never" in the 1-60 1-60 1-54 enchanters I played on p99.


Mana regen is more of a limiting factor than max mana, especially in exping/farming type groups (as oppposes to raid or solo artist type fights). And it's charisma that increases your efficiency over time by lowering resists, aka mana needed over time, not int.

[strawman]

More spell casts in one flurry.

How often do you go full mana to oom in one battle and die because you didn't have more max mana? It was "basically fucking never" in the 1-60 1-60 1-54 enchanters I played on p99.


Mana regen is more of a limiting factor than max mana, especially in exping/farming type groups (as oppposes to raid or solo artist type fights). And it's charisma that increases your efficiency over time by lowering resists, aka mana needed over time, not int.

This is a pretty good argument in favor of charisma. Thanks!

[A1551]

I can dig back, i did some testing on this years ago and charisma does indeed have a big effect on charm duration. Additionally i am almost sure others have done research to further prove this. I can definitely find my thread on it when i have some more time.

My understanding is that the charm code here is not the stock eqemu code. I dont know this personally but i have been told it by people i consider reliable. Certainly that snippet you posted above does not match what ive seen here.

Granted this is all hearsay, the way it has been explained to me is that the check here is mob level then mob mr and then finally chanters charisma (vs other classes who dont get this) gives a chance to save on failures.

As an aside i recently did some empirical testing on charisma and critical resist rates on the lull line i can post that as well when i am not on my phone! The impact was very big and probably worth it all on its lonesome as tecmos mentioned!

[cd288]

CHA absolutely affects charm and whether or not it breaks. It’s one of the three saves you have to make every tick

[A1551]

First, as mentioned the thread on lull line and critical resist chance and charisma -- the effect was really quite large. As the thread went on I did more iterations of the test which were all very consistent.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=327383

Second, back to CHA and charm breaks, I know other posters have done REALLY GOOD, pretty much "take it to the bank" quality research over the years on CHA and charm durations, and I remeber reading them here, but I don't remeber the poster names now, or when I read them, but they're here somewhere if you're really curious and at a high level they found that CHA does in fact extend charm duration. I wanted to mention that because my testing was ok but had some flaws and is also like a zillion years old, but is posted in the thread below. It also found CHA noticably extended charm duration. It is buried inside another thread which makes it hard to find.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showpost.php?p=738889&postcount=52


Finally, for what it is worth, having done a chanter to 60 on blue and now doing another on green I dumped my points into CHA without a second thought. Especially kunark+ mana isn't really a problem for us, but lull criticals, charm breaks, etc always are. I can remember many corpse runs where I had to lull my way around 20 mobs naked and always wished I had dumped my starting points on Propo version I into CHA!

[A1551]

as an aside, I've never tested mez resist rates and charisma and honestly have no clue if they impact them here -- would love to hear if anyone has any insight on that beyond an asspulled guess!

[Tecmos Deception]

Tldr is charisma, charisma, charisma.

[Uuruk]

Tldr is charisma, charisma, charisma.

same for clerics?

[Bazia]

charisma is super important, have a high elf cleric lull for you then compare it to a dwarves success rate

you'll get the picture quick

[Uuruk]

charisma is super important, have a high elf cleric lull for you then compare it to a dwarves success rate

you'll get the picture quick

starting stats though

[Cen]

I always wondered if Atone actually has a charisma check. I know lulls do.

[Tecmos Deception]

same for clerics?

Nah. Charisma is great for clerics, but too situational to be the main stat like with chanters. That said, if I were playing a cleric, it'd be a high elf with 25 in wisdom and 5 in charisma (to hell with strength).

[strawman]

First, as mentioned the thread on lull line and critical resist chance and charisma -- the effect was really quite large. As the thread went on I did more iterations of the test which were all very consistent.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=327383

Second, back to CHA and charm breaks, I know other posters have done REALLY GOOD, pretty much "take it to the bank" quality research over the years on CHA and charm durations, and I remeber reading them here, but I don't remeber the poster names now, or when I read them, but they're here somewhere if you're really curious and at a high level they found that CHA does in fact extend charm duration. I wanted to mention that because my testing was ok but had some flaws and is also like a zillion years old, but is posted in the thread below. It also found CHA noticably extended charm duration. It is buried inside another thread which makes it hard to find.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showpost.php?p=738889&postcount=52


Finally, for what it is worth, having done a chanter to 60 on blue and now doing another on green I dumped my points into CHA without a second thought. Especially kunark+ mana isn't really a problem for us, but lull criticals, charm breaks, etc always are. I can remember many corpse runs where I had to lull my way around 20 mobs naked and always wished I had dumped my starting points on Propo version I into CHA!

This is really good info and does indeed show that P99 is not using the regular EQEmu code here. Nice!

[TheRusty]

This is a pretty good argument in favor of charisma. Thanks!

Yup.

My enchanter always has enough mana... except when I have resists and multiple breaks. I'm regretting not making charisma primary, but at level 13 with as tough as it is to scrape up XP, I feel like it's way too late for a reroll.

C'est la vie!