Definitive proof of Lull and Charm being wrong on p99

[Zuranthium]

I recently figured out what classic era resists were. Sony left the server resist logic in the Kunark clients, which we can examine. Charm used to break over three times as often for NPCs within 10 levels of the player, because it had a resist floor of 10 and the resist rolls were 0-99 instead of 0-200. Furthermore the lull spell floors are also in the client, and resist rates of lulls were upwards of 50%; they were bad. The September 4 2002 patch buffed casters a lot more than I previously realized.

https://www.takproject.net/forums/index.php?threads/takp-tlp-voting-polls-boxing-limits.31691/page-4#post-130101

The day of reckoning has come for everyone who tried to naysay those of us who actually played during Classic and remembered this, along with the mountain of historical posts about how bad Lull was in classic and how it was improved in 2002. There are now concrete numbers to examine and they are far from what p99 has.

[Jimjam]

This much better reflects my memory of my dwarf cleric on live than my experiences here. Gaslit myself into thinking i was just exaggerating how bad i remembered it :)

[Duik]

Druid/ranger harmony (outdoors) was invaluable in comparison. My dru was actually invited to groups in outdoor dungeons MM KC etc.
I wouldnt have bet anything on my memory though, i was 35 in 2000 so im fucking old now and definately mnemonically challenged.
Good to know though that our chanter wasnt a big scaredy cat for preping for lulls and refusing to charm (in a group).

[Dolalin]

Wow nice. That plus the adjustments to channelling at low levels will make a big difference to the OP caster game here.

[loramin]

Awesome work!

https://i.imgur.com/49Grr1N.png

[Rygar]

Will lubricate myself with the salty tears come patch time (2032)

[Jimjam]

I’ll be rolling a new enc come patch to get that classic experience.

[azxten]

Good news, everyone!

[Goregasmic]

In the same thread a few replies down:

My experience on p99 is that lull is resisted frequently on anything above level 50, 50% sounds like it's in the ballpark. And then going from just 50 - 52 is a huge increase in danger of a critical resist. Likewise with charm pets -- 50 is manageable but in the 51+ range it's going to break a lot, summon, maybe resist a mez or stun (rip) and be a general pain in the ass.

That 10 level difference seems to be significant and works the other way. Mobs in the high 40s are my playthings, rarely get a resist and a critical resist is super unusual. I'm not saying p99 has classic mechanics obviously, just that's my experience over there playing 2 level 60 enchanters.


Most enchanters will note charming anything past ~50 will most likely be a short endeavor and trying to paci packs in HS wings is a death sentence, so this feels accurate.

Where I feel it might be a problem is when I started playing on p99 earlier this year I rolled a chanter that was self found until ~35 due to being broke and I could get somewhat reliable charms on mobs almost my level with basically character creation charisma. So maybe the curve is borked a bit but then again, it is much more easier to defeat even cons at lower levels in general and gets much harder as the game progresses so it might not mean much.

[Ciderpress]

IIrc charisma has the least influence over enchanter charm breaking, though it still has some.

Chantering here for a year or so and for charm breaks it seems to be (in order of most to least important):

Level difference between you and the mob
MR of the mob
Your charisma

CHA definitely seems to play a major roll in paci\lull success though.

Break\resist\crit resist rates seem to be pretty in line with what is described here already. When killing a named in chardok for example, I find it's more likely that something goes wrong (crit resists or charm breaks forcing a gate) than to have a perfect round of paci-charm-kill-gate. That rarely happens, though it's satisfying when it does.

[Zuranthium]

Break\resist\crit resist rates seem to be pretty in line with what is described here already.

No, lol. Resists/breaks on charm should be happening, at minimum, 2x as frequently as they currently do. For lull the chance is much worse.

When killing a named in chardok for example, I find it's more likely that something goes wrong (crit resists or charm breaks forcing a gate) than to have a perfect round of paci-charm-kill-gate.

Lull on those mobs in Chardok shouldn't work in the first place. Mobs level 50+ literally can not be lulled in Classic EQ, and mobs level 40-49 should resist lull 55% of the time at minimum!

https://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showpost.php?p=270611&postcount=9

The exception is for Bard lull, Kelin's Lugubrious Lament, which worked much better than the Enchanter/Cleric lull line (but of course, 18 second duration only).

[Goregasmic]

By floor they mean base value or absolute minimum? Because with charisma you'd get -10 or -25 depending on the era.

This is also resists and not crit resists. It is better on p99 but naked in high end group dungeons you still get a lot of resists. And even geared, 51+ it isn't pretty.

I'd still like to know these people's charisma setup. They say lull has low aggro so they're pulling with it but unless it is another p99 thing, they seem to be unaware that initial aggro gives little aggro no matter which spell you use.

[Zuranthium]

By floor they mean base value or absolute minimum?

That's the absolute minimum. Doesn't matter what your CHA is or what debuffs are used or what the level gap is, the roll can not be improved beyond that number. Not only that, but it applies every tick for ending early. Lull absolutely never meant you were free to roam around a certain area for minutes at a time, and even just for breaking a camp you pretty much were never going to fully lull a group of Level 40+ NPC's (and literally impossible to even land on Level 50+ NPC's).

Also, all non-damage spells in Classic EQ that weren't unresistible had a minimum 3% chance of resist no matter what, and it was minimum 11% chance if you weren't at least 11 levels higher than the target.

[Goregasmic]

Lull absolutely never meant you were free to roam around a certain area for minutes at a time, and even just for breaking a camp you pretty much were never going to fully lull a group of Level 40+ NPC's (and literally impossible to even land on Level 50+ NPC's).

Honestly at 40-49 charm is stable enough in that level range that it is almost less work to just mess them up. Mobs start having enough HP that calm won't last long enough.


Also, all non-damage spells in Classic EQ that weren't unresistible had a minimum 3% chance of resist no matter what, and it was minimum 11% chance if you weren't at least 11 levels higher than the target.

Yeah that's messed up. Last time I had a resist was fighting 38-42 mobs at 45 and the resists were rare. I tash almost everything but still. Pretty sure I had more resists on live on my wizard and IIRC their nukes are -10.

[Keebz]

https://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showpost.php?p=270611&postcount=9


Torven rules so hard. That whole thread is amazing.

[Renault]

No, lol. Resists/breaks on charm should be happening, at minimum, 2x as frequently as they currently do. For lull the chance is much worse.

The exception is for Bard lull, Kelin's Lugubrious Lament, which worked much better than the Enchanter/Cleric lull line (but of course, 18 second duration only).

Does this mean Bard's lull is basically untouched here, giving them a real dungeon pulling specialty?

[WarpathEQ]

Does this mean Bard's lull is basically untouched here, giving them a real dungeon pulling specialty?

Yes bard lull works effectively on P99 just as I recall it working back on classic live, resists are uncommon but happen, crit resists are very uncommon, mob con matters a lot. As indicated its short duration (18 seconds) so likely didn't have the extra layers of resist checks that seems to be missing from P99 on other class lines.

[Goregasmic]

Does this mean Bard's lull is basically untouched here, giving them a real dungeon pulling specialty?

The song Kelin`s Lugubrious Lament was hardcoded to be special. What this song did was halve the target's effective resist value, and it had a floor of only 5 MR. This made it the best lull spell by far and the only one that could be used on level 50+ NPCs. It's only a few ticks and I suppose Sony wanted to give bards something unique so that's probably why they made this exception.

Can't say for sure because we don't know how bard lull is coded on here but it seems like if it changes it won't change much and will be leagues ahead of regular lulls.

Presently lull lets enchanters bypass a lot of content but the 18sec bard lull has limited use so it kinda makes sense to leave it mostly untouched. The pacify nerf from 7mins to 3.5mins alone made some camps more complicated and some impossible. Bard lull makes you calm like 2 mobs for a quick pull I guess, nothing gamebreaking.

[Jimjam]

The existence of a floor, and that for bard lull it was apparently notably low at 5 has very interesting connotations for other spells. Interesting.

[Goregasmic]

One thing I'm not sure I understand, from the link above:

The resist rates for lulls in classic were the following: (assuming the NPC did not have higher MR than these floors)

On targets level 1-14: 11% (10 MR floor)
On targets level 15-24: 21% (20 MR floor)
On targets level 25-34: 34% (33 MR floor)
On targets level 35-39: 43% (42 MR floor)
On targets level 40-49: 55% (54 MR floor)
On targets level 50+: 100% (100 MR floor)

To be clear: this is a tiered floor, not an override. If you cast Lull on a level 1 NPC as a level 1 player, the resist rate would be 26% because the standard MR at level 1 is 25. So even at lower levels the spells weren't that good.

Says mob MR at lvl1 is 25.


This link apparently states 50+ mobs have 26+ MR and scales slowly:

https://docs.eqemu.io/server/npc/npc-scaling/

Considering a level 1 mob supposedly has 25MR (seems high?) the above table could be wrong?

If it is right, this would mean the whole tash line would be mostly useless until you face certain raid targets and its main use would be to help slow land.

[Zuranthium]

One thing I'm not sure I understand, from the link above, Says mob MR at level 1 is 25.

If it is right, this would mean the whole tash line would be mostly useless until you face certain raid targets and its main use would be to help slow land.

What a bizarre conclusion to draw. There would be a 26% chance of resist when casting something like Root on an even con MOB with 25 MR, and casting tash lowers that resist chance to 11%.

[Goregasmic]

What a bizarre conclusion to draw. There would be a 26% chance of resist when casting something like Root on an even con MOB with 25 MR, and casting tash lowers that resist chance to 11%.

He says:

(assuming the NPC did not have higher MR than these floors)

He seems to imply MR generally wasn't over the floor.

The above table says a level 50 trash npc has 26MR so the MR of mobs below 50 would be a flat 25 value outside exceptions?

[Zuranthium]

The above table says a level 50 trash npc has 26MR so the MR of mobs below 50 would be a flat 25 value outside exceptions?

Maybe? But why does that make you think Tash is useless.

[Goregasmic]

Maybe? But why does that make you think Tash is useless.

Tash won't be helpful for lulls. On shit that's hard to lull I'll sometimes pre tash. Or mez/tash/lull/blur adds. But I just remembered you won't be able to lull 50+ mobs anyway.

[magnetaress]

I remember charm being kinda bad, especially without the support of a full group. And also remember people begging me to not use soothe because it resisted a lot, then using it, and immediately getting a critical resist, without cha buffs, on a lizard around the big pyramid after the maze in CT.

[Goregasmic]

And also remember people begging me to not use soothe because it resisted a lot, then using it, and immediately getting a critical resist

So far there is no indication different lulls have different resist rates, unless they meant don't lull at all.

[Jimjam]

So far there is no indication different lulls have different resist rates, unless they meant don't lull at all.

Lower level spells experiencing fewer rests than higher level counterparts was an inherent quality of using under-levelled spells in Everquest:
“If you use a lower level spell … we knock a bit off of the creatures resistance”

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=441395

[Goregasmic]

Lower level spells experiencing fewer rests than higher level counterparts was an inherent quality of using under-levelled spells in Everquest:
“If you use a lower level spell … we knock a bit off of the creatures resistance”

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=441395

My bad.

Part of the fun as a caster is getting new spells. If your desincentivized to do so that's kind of a dumb mechanic especially since you're already rewarded for using the lower versions (less fizzles and generally less mana). Doesn't work for nukes/buffs but for utility it is a different story.

[Zuranthium]

Lower level heals, perhaps unintentionally, end up being like that too. Inner Fire and Skin Like Wood are the most mana efficient Shaman/Druid heals until Level 38, when specializing in Alteration finally pushes Greater Healing into being slightly more mana efficient.

This also makes Shaman and Druids better healers than Clerics at the lower levels, as the Cleric version of Inner Fire / Skin Like Wood costs 12 mana instead of 10 (Courage). Rangers are good healers for a bit too, outright more efficient than a Cleric on p99 if the lower meditate skillcap for hybrids was never coded correctly (someone please go check and see what the meditate skillcap progression is for hybrids on p99).