Druids and clickies

[sacman08]

Serious question here. Saw again in a thread talking about charm kiting that its great to have the Goblin Gazughi Ring (http://wiki.project1999.com/Goblin_Gazughi_Ring) and it sorta of baffles me. Yes it's IvsA insta cast mana free but you are only saving 30 mana and 3 seconds. Why does that make it so desirable? Compare it to the Luminescent Staff (http://wiki.project1999.com/Luminescent_Staff) (which has obvious advantages for quading) the ring trades for more plat. What gives?

[Bergen]

You get to keep a spell gem.

[loramin]

It lets you break charm instantly. It's not that it's saving you mana vs. casting the spell, it's that it lets you let your charmed pet fight the monster to an even lower HP before you have to break charm.

[sacman08]

Hmm I guess I've always done it different. I get three types of outcomes: 1) Charm breaks early and I have to decide to switch to Lightning strike or recharm, 2) My stronger pet wins by a large margin and just use him again on a second foe, or 3) my weaker/half dead pet is losing badly and I nuke the foe before my pet dies.

[DMN]

Serious question here. Saw again in a thread talking about charm kiting that its great to have the Goblin Gazughi Ring (http://wiki.project1999.com/Goblin_Gazughi_Ring) and it sorta of baffles me. Yes it's IvsA insta cast mana free but you are only saving 30 mana and 3 seconds. Why does that make it so desirable? Compare it to the Luminescent Staff (http://wiki.project1999.com/Luminescent_Staff) (which has obvious advantages for quading) the ring trades for more plat. What gives?

The ring is also considered a must have/get for enchanters. That's the main reason for the price. It's still decent for a druid but I doubt anyone would consider it a must have.

[loramin]

Hmm I guess I've always done it different. I get three types of outcomes: 1) Charm breaks early and I have to decide to switch to Lightning strike or recharm, 2) My stronger pet wins by a large margin and just use him again on a second foe, or 3) my weaker/half dead pet is losing badly and I nuke the foe before my pet dies.

Well, that happens with charm fighting: ideally you get a bunch of mobs of the same level (like bear pits in Permafrost), but when you don't you have to make it work (the ways you mentioned).

But in either #2 or #3 you should still break charm. Ideally when charm fighting you want to break charm every time before anything dies, so you get full XP for both mobs.

Snaring things beforehand can make it a lot easier to break charm without the mobs killing you: ideally you can break when both are <20% and running (but snared and going nowhere), as that's completely safe. The ring helps make that happen. Honestly I know how lame the ring sounds, but there is literally no item I would recommend more (not even a Fungi Tunic) for leveling a Druid up to 45 ... and I say that having leveled a Druid with both.

[loramin]

The ring is also considered a must have/get for enchanters. That's the main reason for the price. It's still decent for a druid but I doubt anyone would consider it a must have.

ME!!!

... IF you are charming. Druids have multiple ways to level, and if you want to AFK root/rot or quad or group to 45 (ie. the point when Lumi Staff starts working) obviously the ring isn't worth it.

But charming is amazing solo leveling experience if you do it right, and the ring makes a huge difference in how well you can do it.

My druid was my first alt, so I didn't have tons of plat to twink him. I kid you not, more than half his slots were empty well past 45: I had like a velium fire wedding ring, a fungi (Loramin's old one), the goblin ring, and that everburning torch that procs at level 1, plus a couple of random small items.

Honestly, looking back I could level him again almost exactly as easily with just the goblin ring, at least starting at animal charm levels. Charming is so good, and the ring is the only thing that makes any meaningful difference in it.

[sacman08]

You get to keep a spell gem.

I use 5 spells when charming and have 3 to play with for buffs and what not. What spells am I missing?

[DMN]

ME!!!

... IF you are charming. Druids have multiple ways to level, and if you want to AFK root/rot or quad or group to 45 (ie. the point when Lumi Staff starts working) obviously the ring isn't worth it.

But charming is amazing solo leveling experience if you do it right, and the ring makes a huge difference in how well you can do it.

My druid was my first alt, so I didn't have tons of plat to twink him. I kid you not, more than half his slots were empty well past 45: I had like a velium fire wedding ring, a fungi (Loramin's old one), the goblin ring, and that everburning torch that procs at level 1, plus a couple of random small items.

Honestly, looking back I could level him again almost exactly as easily with just the goblin ring, at least starting at animal charm levels. Charming is so good, and the ring is the only thing that makes any meaningful difference in it.

Well, at low levels it's some minor mana savings but a druid most likely picked a halfling or wood elf, who can just wait for hide to work. Get mob rooted, pet snared, just back pet off when it gets low enough and keep spamming til it works. Same story later levels... just back your pet off try one hide just in case it works, then 3 second cast for invis if not. What are the chances that in 3 seconds the root breaks and one round of combat will kill your charm off. it just should hardly ever pan out like that.

[loramin]

Well, at low levels it's some minor mana savings but a druid most likely picked a halfling or wood elf, who can just wait for hide to work. Get mob rooted, pet snared, just back pet off when it gets low enough and keep spamming til it works. Same story later levels... just back your pet off try one hide just in case it works, then 3 second cast for invis if not. What are the chances that in 3 seconds the root breaks and one round of combat will kill your charm off. it just should hardly ever pan out like that.

It's hard to explain in a forum post, and MUCH easier to see in real life. Again, I was not convinced "on paper" that the ring was worth it: I farmed it purely because everyone in the forum said how great it was. But before I did, I charmed without it, and then when I charmed with it I realized how huge it was.

Let's say you don't have the ring. You wait until your pet is at 5%. You hit Hide ... and it doesn't work. Now before you can do anything, your pet is dead, and you just got 0% XP from him instead of 100%.

Conversely, let's say you don't count on hide, and instead cast Invis yourself. Because of the delay, you now have to break when your pet is closer to 20%, to avoid the above scenario. Over the course of a lot of fights, having to use mana to do that extra 15% killing adds up, especially since sometimes it means breaking before the pet starts running vs. after.

But even putting the exact math aside, it's also just about control. It's just better to be able to break charm the instant you want to: any lag makes charm fighting overall harder.

[loramin]

P.S. And again, even if it only makes a 1% difference in efficiency (and I'd expect it adds a lot more than that) ... NO OTHER ITEM IN THE GAME ADDS TO CHARMING EFFICIENCY! There's no "charm focus items" or anything.

If you like charm fighting (and as a Druid it's amazing XP) you could buy a 50+k Fungi, but it would only help you a small fraction vs. how much the ring will help. Again, because I'm a weirdo and I gave Loramin's old Fungi to my Druid, I can actually speak to both.

[sacman08]

I guess my charm spots are not ideal? I have been charming on and off for many levels are its rare for me to see my pet and the mob get down to similar levels of health. The only time I can remember it being that easy was with gators in Cazic. Bears in Perma seem to be perpetually camped so never tried them. Typically my pet and mob are way different levels of health. For example, pet will stay well above 50% health while the mob gets destroyed, so I have to break and blow mana nuking my former pet OR let him finish, keep my mana and just get half the exp. Reverse is my pet gets destroyed and I use up my mana nuking mob and then either have none to break and kill pet or pet sometimes dies (as Loramin said).

[loramin]

I guess my charm spots are not ideal?

It does vary; not everywhere is as great as Cazic Thule/Permafrost. But that being said, check out the Druid set on https://wiki.project1999.com/Per-Level_Hunting_Guide for some good ideas.

And even if the mobs aren't equal, you can still make it work and get full XP. Depending on how big the difference is you can either:


pick a lower-level pet, put him against a higher level mob, and throw a DoT on the higher level to help your pet keep up (best when the mobs are close in level), or
charm a higher level, beat up a low level, break and recharm the higher level (to kill the low level for full XP), then go kill another low level (better when there are big differences in level)

[DMN]

Hide works about 50% of the time on woodies/halfers.

So half the time they wouldn't even need the ring.

Even if they fail hide, invis will only take 3 seconds to cast. The ticks are every 6 seconds, which means only a 50% chance the tick will overlap the invis casting.

So now we are down to a 25% chance of anything else occurring.

Now, you never really try get mobs down so low they could die in only one more round of combat because the damage is so variable from round to round that almost everyone charm killing for exp leaves a little buffer to avoid losing exp. In fact, it's usually the case you drop charm when you have the life low enough to kill the mob with one cast from whatever DD you you have slotted.

All said and done the chance you lose exp on a mob as a druid I'd estimate is less than 5% chance on any given charm/kill. And you are only losing 1 mobs exp,so it's actually closer to a 2.5% exp loss over time.

Like I said I think it's good for druids and all but not a must have. It's not nearly as important as it is for enchanters and to some degree a necro who can't get a CoS. Those classes usually have far more need gem-intensive spell setups.

[loramin]

Hide works about 50% of the time on woodies/halfers.

So half the time they wouldn't even need the ring.

Even if they fail hide, invis will only take 3 seconds to cast. The ticks are every 6 seconds, which means only a 50% chance the tick will overlap the invis casting.

My Druid is a Halfling and has Hide, but IMHO it's worthless for charm fighting, because it doesn't matter if half the time Hide lets you break when you need it to ... if the other half the time you get 0% XP because you broke too late. You can save a tiny bit of meaningless mana if you use it just before you manually cast invis ... but even doing that is sub-optimal, because you won't know whether the charm will break immediately, or in the casting time of one invis (or possibly more if you get a fizzle or move or something).

When you're charm fighting the entire idea is to get 100% of 2 mobs worth of XP, and that means engaging two mobs at once ... which is dangerous as a Druid (and not a tank). To survive and get all the XP you have to break charm when you need it broken. There is a very small window between breaking too early, and having two mobs beating on you, and breaking too late, after one mob dies (if it wasn't your pet you just lost 50% XP, and if it was your pet you lost 100% ... and now one mob is now beating on you).

Casting Invis lets you hit that window, but with less precision; the ring let's you do it exactly. Like I said before it's hard to convey that value "on paper": mobs don't usually go from 20% to 0% in 3 seconds, so it sounds like this shouldn't matter, but in the chaotic practice of reality it really is a big deal. I highly recommend people don't try to forum-craft it, and just try doing some animal charming with it on a Druid. You will see the difference.

[DMN]

I don't think you understood what i wrote. You fail half the time to hide, you don't instantly lose the mob at that point. You should have backed it off, not just let it die. Then the only issue is the very small chance of a root breaking in the next 3 seconds.

And i don't need to play a druid with one. I played a necro charming the entire way from 30 to 58 without a CoS or gaz ring.

[loramin]

I don't think you understood what i wrote. You fail half the time to hide, you don't instantly lose the mob at that point. You should have backed it off, not just let it die. Then the only issue is the very small chance of a root breaking in the next 3 seconds.

And i don't need to play a druid with one. I played a necro charming the entire way from 30 to 58 without a CoS or gaz ring.

Have you tried charming with a CoS? If not I can lend you my Necro's for a week (he's busy murdering the residents of the Karanas right now, he won't mind ;)).

[DMN]

Have you tried charming with a CoS?

yes.. i have. Quite a bit. But it's apples and oranges. Druids are not nearly as gem hungry when soloing with charm, nor do Iksar get hide.

[loramin]

Well, all I can say is that as a Halfling Druid the ring made a huge difference for me from 15-45, and 55-60 (45-55 were my quadding levels).

If you feel otherwise we'll just have to agree to disagree ... but I'd still encourage you to try it on a Druid with Hide before you assume anything just from crunching numbers.

[DMN]

It did not make a huge difference in efficiency. It might have made a huge difference for your effort to perform the task efficiently.

[Snaggles]

Because the lummi staff only works outdoors and ideally for quadding (or it’s just a lackluster beach party JBB). The ring works outdoors or indoors but only for animal charming situations.

With those two tools you have a much larger solo tool kit. Arguably since charm scales better the Lummi caps lower. Once mobs have even 4K+ hps it’s just a painful amount of clicking.

Yea tho, 3 seconds faster is a ton. Especially when one is instant and the other is 3 seconds. You can let the pet get lower health and waste less time (epic) or mana (no epic) finishing.