ENC Charming Guide

[Yinikren]

This is a guide for chaming exp mobs (read: not farming named/high risk situations).

Charming is a simple, viable, and low mana way of soloing an ENC to 50+. It has a slight learning curve but it is not difficult, as long as you don't make it so.

A few points before we start:
1.) Pick low blue mobs. Don't go to OT at 30, charm a level 27 succulent, and complain that your charms are only lasting 7 seconds. You need to pick mobs that are, literally, only 2-3 levels away from being light blue for the fastest exp.

2.) Don't follow the CHA bandwagon.
There are a few things about CHA getting pushed around that really need to stop. You do not need 200+ CHA to charm. I charm with 147, buffed. CHA does not, in any way, affect the actual duration of charm spells. That is strictly through MR and has a chance, per the mobs resists, of breaking every 6 seconds. CHA only affects the initial resist (I.e., lower instances of "Your target resisted the Boltran's Agacerie spell."). I have seen people, literally, dozens of people drop their INT to the low hundreds to get their CHA as high as possible, yet I charm circles around them because I pick the right mobs and have an actual mana pool to spend on charming. You need mana for when shit goes down.

3.) Do not buff your freaking pet. The idea is to get two mobs to fight each other to <20%, and either pick them off with nukes, melee or a third mob. At 40, I was able to charm kite for more than an hour straight in places like OT because of my smart usage of mana.

Now, onto the guide:

Spell list:
1) Tash
2) Shallow Breath
3) Rune III
4) Slow
5) Mesmerize
6) Highest Color stun
7) Whatever charm is needed to charm the mobs you are killing, will usually* not be your highest level one
8) Root


1.) Grab a sow, jboots, anything. Casting distance helps.

2.) Find an ideal hunting ground with low DB mobs. Pull something with tash, mez it, med two ticks, and charm it. You will always use Mesmerize because you should not need to lock mobs down for any longer than 4 ticks.

3.) Pull something you know is equal level to your pet with tash. Don't pull something you know is going to wax your pet, because you are going to waste mana just trying to make the fight even. Using OT again as my example, don't charm a thorny succlent and then make it fight a sarnak knight, because the knight will own it. Zone knowledge folks, everyone should know OT mobs come in two tiers.

4.) Root the mob you pulled and let them fight. Your pet will probably never take agro from you otherwise. Sit at max casting distance.

5.) Compare HP values, they should be almost even. You want your pet to win, barely. Sometime around 40%, nuke the mob with Shallow Breath. Re-root as neccesary.

6.) If the mob is waxing your pet, you have two and a half options. Option 1 is to slow your mob, option two is to break charm and recharm the higher mob. You are a Dark Elf and can hide, or have a Goblin Gazugi Ring, correct...? Nuking the mob down to even levels will kill your mana pool. If it is a very close HP distance, you can always throw in a color stun to let your pet even it out. Mobs killing your pet nerfs your xp and you blew all that time for nothing.

7.) In the event of a charm break, color stun, run and recharm. You will only have your pet to contend with, because, well, you listened and the other mob is still rooted.

8.) So your pet killed the mob and is at 12% hp. Good Job! Now what, do you break charm and spend 160 mana nuking it down with Anarchy? Lol no. Leave it at your camp, break charm, find a new pet to kill it and then re-pull. Dont forget to hit the old mob with Shallow Breath so you pull the XP. It helps if your ex pet isn't undead and is thus fleeing as well.

9.) Those are the basics. Your pulls should be simple, fast, easy, with <200 mana spent per pull in decent circumstances.

[Klyre]

1.) Grab a sow, jboots, anything. Casting distance helps.

2.) Find an ideal hunting ground with low DB mobs. Pull something with tash, mez it, med two ticks, and charm it. You will always use Mesmerize because you should not need to lock mobs down for any longer than 4 ticks.
3.) Pull something you know is equal level to your pet with tash. Don't pull something you know is going to wax your pet, because you are going to waste mana just trying to make the fight even. Using OT again as my example, don't charm a thorny succlent and then make it fight a sarnak knight, because the knight will own it. Zone knowledge folks, everyone should know OT mobs come in two tiers.


4.) Root the mob you pulled and let them fight. Your pet will probably never take agro from you otherwise. Sit at max casting distance.

5.) Compare HP values, they should be almost even. You want your pet to win, barely. Sometime around 40%, nuke the mob with Shallow Breath. Re-root as neccesary.

6.) If the mob is waxing your pet, you have two and a half options. Option 1 is to slow your mob, option two is to break charm and recharm the higher mob. You are a Dark Elf and can hide, or have a Goblin Gazugi Ring, correct...? Nuking the mob down to even levels will kill your mana pool. If it is a very close HP distance, you can always throw in a color stun to let your pet even it out. Mobs killing your pet nerfs your xp and you blew all that time for nothing.

7.) In the event of a charm break, color stun, run and recharm. You will only have your pet to contend with, because, well, you listened and the other mob is still rooted.

8.) So your pet killed the mob and is at 12% hp. Good Job! Now what, do you break charm and spend 160 mana nuking it down with Anarchy? Lol no. Leave it at your camp, break charm, find a new pet to kill it and then re-pull. Dont forget to hit the old mob with Shallow Breath so you pull the XP. It helps if your ex pet isn't undead and is thus fleeing as well.

9.) Those are the basics. Your pulls should be simple, fast, easy, with <200 mana spent per pull in decent circumstances.


3-4 Pull with Shallow Breath instead its lower agro then Tash and your pet will quickly gain Agro, it's even possible to not root at all if you can stand to have the mob hit you once or twice. Better yet if the option is open just have Pet attack Mob and Shallow Breath after to gain XP, Mob won't even look at you for such a small hit. Saves Mana but riskier


6. Other option root Mob, let it smash your pet down to almost dead, break charm and nuke it yourself or find 3rd mob to be new pet to take down both.

[Vohl]

I'm a fan of opening with mez, then tashing and charming. For the victim, open with mez, tash, root, DoT.

Root is pretty important, since CCing with two mobs pounding you can get pretty hairy, especially in close dungeon settings.

[Galanteer]

of course depending on location/creatures sometimes opening with root-tash-charm then tash-root on victim. You'll get the initial hit, but that'll be absorbed by rune. In many outdoor locations its easy to tash-root the charmie since you can get the distance on it.

I like this over mezz at the start since you don't have to wait out mezz (or have a long and short one memed) and your pet is rooted incase of early break.

Another thing to look for are undercons and low mr critters. (and avoid high mr critters).

edit in: if the area works I like to have both rooted.

[Yinikren]

You always want the other mob rooted. Who cares about agro? 2 mobs on you = bad, no matter what.

[beentheredonethat]

so for enchanter it doesn't make sense to spend more stat points on CHA than INT since it won't help make it last?

[vageta31]

I'll also add in that you want to tell your charmed pet to taunt as he won't do it automatically. Once I realized that and turned on taunt my pet kept aggro far easier.

As for charisma I've noticed a similar phenomenon. I began my charming career at level 12 without a single piece of charisma gear, and it was sitting pretty at 95. I've found that even with my new 209 buffed charisma I don't see much difference in charm legth. It can break in one tick with the 209 or it can last for minutes, and this is with the same level of mob.

Mob level definitely seems to have the greatest affect on charm length, and I'll also throw out there that I think there is some variability in a mob's resists even at the same level. I started charming the Miller's out in Qeynos Hills at level 25, in which they were white to me. They always spawn at level 25, but sometimes they seemed to have super resists that made spells bounce on them over and over, while other times everything stuck on the first try. Not just resists, but their damage output as well seemed to be boosted. I've charmed Baobob where he was so powerful he ripped through Chanda and both guards before his hit points ran out. While other times he gets his arse handed to him by his sister.

My guess is other mobs may have this variability built in so even though they are supposedly the same level, they are far more resistant to spells than usual. The other night I was charming gnolls in SK and making them fight against Centaur Chargers. I used the gnolls because they were lower level and seemed to have more damage output than the chargers did. One of my pull the DB gnoll broke charm 3 times so I finally said screw it and charmed the Charger (who was an even con) and it never broke once.

I keep an entire second set of gear in my pack. One for taking my cha to 209 buffed, and another set which boosts my mana/hps by 300/200 respectively. I'm beginning to notice there doesn't seem to be much different between the two for charming other than I have more mana/hps at my disposal with the 2nd set. Maybe things will change at higher levels, but at level 30 the cha just doesn't seem to be making that big of a difference. If it's helping it's not helping enough to warrant the loss of hp and mana. If charm breaks then I have 300 more mana to simply recast it, whereas when charm breaks with my cha gear I don't have the extra mana to make up for it.

[Yinikren]

Vageta sums up charming perfectly - its level dependant, not CHA. Way to often I see people with <110 INT because they went full CHA, and their mana pool is half of mine - they med 2x as much as I need to. My priority is efficiency and safety > risks for slightly more xp. This is why I pull with a tash and a root, I don't care who has agro, the mob will be attacking my pet because 2 mobs on a caster = bad.

[Werlop]

This is a guide for chaming exp mobs (read: not farming named/high risk situations).

2.) Don't follow the CHA bandwagon.
There are a few things about CHA getting pushed around that really need to stop. You do not need 200+ CHA to charm. I charm with 147, buffed. CHA does not, in any way, affect the actual duration of charm spells. That is strictly through MR and has a chance, per the mobs resists, of breaking every 6 seconds. CHA only affects the initial resist (I.e., lower instances of "Your target resisted the Boltran's Agacerie spell."). I have seen people, literally, dozens of people drop their INT to the low hundreds to get their CHA as high as possible, yet I charm circles around them because I pick the right mobs and have an actual mana pool to spend on charming. You need mana for when shit goes down.


This part isn't true; charm works by making a zone-wide check every 6 seconds in which the server rolls dice and checks for breaks based on 1. (your level / mob level), 2. Mob MR, and 3. your CHA in degree of magnitude. You need to pass one of the 3 saving rolls to maintain the charm. This is a random roll; you can charm a mob 45 levels below you and have it break on the first tick, you can charm a mob 1 level below and have it last 10 minutes.

Proof: http://www.therunes.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=102&highlight=charming
If you scroll down a bit, you get quotes from an interview with SOE about charm affecting lull and charm duration. The link to the original interview is sadly broken.

I do know that cha makes a MASSIVE difference in the initial resist check on the spell- some mobs that are nearly impossible to mez even at 60 due to their crazy innate MR will be charmed for a few seconds, even if they break very quickly thereafter.

For those who are experiencing bad luck despite the cha, keep in mind that MR and level save checks are much more important. I heard somewhere that 10 CHA was roughly equivalent to lowering the mob's MR by one; it's not a large impact in any case unless you are charming mobs at or very near your own level. So the level 20 enchanter charming a level 17 scarecrow will have much more difficulty than the level 55 enchanter charming a level 45 skeleton, and the enchanter who needs the extra cha more will probably be less geared. This is why charm seems so unreliable at lower levels; not only does the Tash line improve over levels, but the level difference between you and low dark blue mobs increases and your access to good gear increases. All 3 of your saving throws improve.

edit: Also, the interview is supposedly from January 2000 and thus very classic.

[vageta31]

This part isn't true; charm works by making a zone-wide check every 6 seconds in which the server rolls dice and checks for breaks based on 1. (your level / mob level), 2. Mob MR, and 3. your CHA in degree of magnitude. You need to pass one of the 3 saving rolls to maintain the charm. This is a random roll; you can charm a mob 45 levels below you and have it break on the first tick, you can charm a mob 1 level below and have it last 10 minutes.

Proof: http://www.therunes.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=102&highlight=charming
If you scroll down a bit, you get quotes from an interview with SOE about charm affecting lull and charm duration. The link to the original interview is sadly broken.

I do know that cha makes a MASSIVE difference in the initial resist check on the spell- some mobs that are nearly impossible to mez even at 60 due to their crazy innate MR will be charmed for a few seconds, even if they break very quickly thereafter.

For those who are experiencing bad luck despite the cha, keep in mind that MR and level save checks are much more important. I heard somewhere that 10 CHA was roughly equivalent to lowering the mob's MR by one; it's not a large impact in any case unless you are charming mobs at or very near your own level. So the level 20 enchanter charming a level 17 scarecrow will have much more difficulty than the level 55 enchanter charming a level 45 skeleton, and the enchanter who needs the extra cha more will probably be less geared. This is why charm seems so unreliable at lower levels; not only does the Tash line improve over levels, but the level difference between you and low dark blue mobs increases and your access to good gear increases. All 3 of your saving throws improve.

edit: Also, the interview is supposedly from January 2000 and thus very classic.

This doesn't however guarantee that this is the same way that it works on P99. I have no doubt that cha has "some" effect charm, the question is just how minimal the cha effect is and is it worth losing mana/hps in the majority of your slots for. In my experience at my current level, the extra mana/hps seem worth far more than what little benefit all the extra cha is giving me. Perhaps at high levels this is a bit different. For now I prefer a simple mix of both, using the highest cha items in their respective slots, and swapping out the minor ones for more useful pieces as well as using any items that have a mix of both. Ie; I still equip tranix crown and wand of insidious glamour, but I use 55hp rings instead of the cha ones. Instead of the 9 cha neckpiece, I use the sarnak one that has a bit less cha but also give a nice int boost.

[Yinikren]

Anything like that is, unfortunately, taken with a grain of salt because the charming mechanics on this server are not classic. Thus, the reduced need for cha. And in my OP, it clearly states that cha affects merely the initial resist. Once the mob is yours on this server, its yours until its MR forces a resist, it seems. There are many anecdotal posts stating the reduced need for cha, including my own, but if you want to nerf your mana pool, by all means go for it. I'm sure someone could take the time and make the formulas for how much cha helps, but it certainly isn't enough to lower your int to the ground for it.

[Yinikren]

Funny story on cha gear: someone read the forums and decided to just jump on the enc charming boat, so of course he just loaded up on cha gear. At 20, he charmed and hasted a warbone in LOIO which lasted for about 8 seconds before he got, literally, 2 rounded from using no HP gear. Cha worked wonders there. I watched it happen and laughed.

[pickled_heretic]

Funny story on cha gear: someone read the forums and decided to just jump on the enc charming boat, so of course he just loaded up on cha gear. At 20, he charmed and hasted a warbone in LOIO which lasted for about 8 seconds before he got, literally, 2 rounded from using no HP gear. Cha worked wonders there. I watched it happen and laughed.

not that i'm disagreeing with you, but with the volatile nature of charms, that anecdote really doesn't prove anything.

[choklo]

A few more tips: Use illusion troll for regen because you will get hit(but be careful as this will cause you to aggro npc/mobs that are hostile to evil races.
2) Tell your pet to sit if you want to keep it, as it heals faster.
3) Use your 11 damage shield on your pet, as this is usually enough to tip the scales in his favor.

As a side note, as a level 60 ench with 255 CHA, I can charm the same pet repeatedly and have it last from one second to 20 minutes or so. I use the highest level tash and malo, and get widely different charm durations.

[Yinikren]

My funny story wasn't an anecdote about charm durations, it was just amusing that since he was wearing no hp gear, he got 2 shot.

[pickled_heretic]

My funny story wasn't an anecdote about charm durations, it was just amusing that since he was wearing no hp gear, he got 2 shot.

fair enough and i agree, HP is an important stat that cannot be neglected

[Kika Maslyaka]

I want to add that - if your looking for another class to charm-duo with - pick a druid - their 14 min Ensnare is a awesome addition to control of the mobs (have druid snare the mob you about to charm - you will thank me later), and druid also comes with SoW, and some DPS contribution in form of dots, and heals when needed.
Druid will also make a great puller for you in the outdoors, so you don't have to run around looking for mobs.
I have seen a set up, where chanter sits in one place and druid ensnares and drags mobs to him, dragging in a new mob just as chanter kills the previous one. Their kill efficiency was just as high as would be of a full group who would try to tank/heal through same mobs.

[Caravelle1]

I'm nearly level 60 now, so I want to list a few places I "exploited" to gain levels pretty fast with charm.

In NeriakB there is a level 35 warrior guildmaster that hits for 190 per pop, guildmasters are also coded to accept and equip items you give them, but return the item after doing so. Charm the guildmaster (in the duel pits of the warrior guild) give it a haste item and some nasty proccing weps, also you can deck it out with gear, even your own gear if you want.
Keep in mind I did this before the nerf to whirl till you hurl, Quadding and hasted the mob will kill the level 40 guards in neriak in a few seconds, in particular there are 2 casters types on a 5 minutes respawn, you can usually kill both of these, and 2-3 guards in a matter of 5 minutes. Then zone out, med for 30 seconds, and go recharm the mob (it will be full health again and fully geared still as ar esult of clearing agro.
I went from level 40-50 in a few days doing this, a few hours a day.

Another thing to note about charm is that caster mobs will duel wield and do more dps than warrior type mobs. The dps is noticably higher on Shaman and wizard type mobs. I believe that in an effort to balance they simply lowered the duel wield skill of all warrior type mobs and excluded the other classes.

When duoing with a healer, a nice way to play is to duel the druid/shaman/cleric so they have access to root your pet. When fighting a mob you can have the person "level out" the hitpoints of both mobs so that as the one that isn't charmed dies your own pet only requires one nuke to finish off. Dueling also allows your partner to kill your pet seamlessly. I did leveling with a shaman for awhile and as my pet beat down a mob, if it was winning, he would just sick his wolf on my rooted charm to even things out. It also allows for very easy snare/malo casting.


I leveled in Halas awhile, the warrior guildleaders there have 32,000 hitpoints and melee's for 197 near the arena. whereas the other guildleaders have normal level 50 mob amount, 8-10k. Using the same strat as I outlined with the neriak guild leader you could equip the npc fully and easily kill a cycle of level 50 guildleaders, I believe there were 5 that were single pull all on a 5 minute spawn timer. The halas guards are on a 27 minute timer? maybe less. and will give exp until 60.


NerakA, in the troll area, there are 7 trolls there ranging from level 41, 44, 46,47,48,50,50 (a close guess). Very nice spot to duo with a healer type as neriak has a high exp modifier.



Notable charms:
Death beetle in SolB, procs a 2 minute, 50 damage per tick DoT. (low MR)

Ak'Anon - Very fun area to raid with a healer buddy, very easy pulls and guard mobs range from level 33-40, about 10-12 pulls.

KaladimA - it may not still work, but before the charm nerf I used to trip with Chanter/Chanter/Cleric, we would charm level 49/50 mobs from the king area. It was very easy to single pull 3 level 61 guildleaders over by the arena. These mobs had about 20k HPs and would get destroyed by the 2 charms, requiring about 1 Cheal per fight. As long as both charms did not break similtaniously, the mob stayed agroed on the current charm. Chain killing level 61 mobs in a high exp mod zone is VERY good exp.

Guild leaders in Neriakb and Halas.

Kizdin Gix - level 50 skeleton mob in Burning wood. When charmed and hasted he can easily kill almost nonstop in a very easy to kite area for 10-15 mobs before running low on health. I used mem blur to heal him up when he got low.

"a guard" in Highhold keep hits for 150+ at levels 25-35, I never charmed these though.

-Always carry Rusted Shoulderpads from blackburrow for an additional -10 magic reduction.

-Always go for the charm on Caster types if you are looking to maximize the dps the mob does, mostly for group settings.

[Frootloop]

As a fellow enc derptard I just took, Cha = god the higher it is.
I decked my 20 enc with full cha gear I think with buff it's around 230 and figure I would just replace cha gear with hp/int gear
To stay at 200

Was under assumption anything higher than 200 is useless pre 50 or 51
Still not sure if ^^^^ is true


Well before I read this post I was already getting frustrated and started changing the gear around to have more hp\mana seems a lot better

My preferred method is to get a blue con which seems to hold pretty decently.I kill what I want up to a yellow and just hold aggro and do circles once my charm is around 50% hp. Then before my target starts to flee. I root and let him beat my charm down then pull him back let him flee, re engage hit a few times and EXP then goblin ring and 1 dot to finish. Repeat

Just a quick recap of above post tho
I should always be tashing my charm ? :D

[vageta31]

There are other methods of keeping pet alive if your target is winning. The simplest thing is to simply run up and flank, then stun lock him. Cast your quick stun, followed by the longer one. That's almost a good 8 seconds of the mob not doing anything. If you can charm a rogue then it's free backstabs and the mob goes down quick. I did this with the Millers in Qeynos hills. Anytime Chanda spawned with a dagger I would charm her instead of Baobob. By stun locking and keeping aggro she could tear through just about anything with her 150 damage backstabs. You can also simply root the mob and have your pet back off if he's getting worked.

What I've found is that duoing is the best time to keep a charm for longer. Fear kiting with a necro using your hasted, dual wielding pet is just nasty. And if charm breaks you can recharm, or simply kill him off and find another. Enchanters make great duo partners in a variety of situations and are versatile enough to work with just about any class.

As a fellow enc derptard I just took, Cha = god the higher it is.
I decked my 20 enc with full cha gear I think with buff it's around 230 and figure I would just replace cha gear with hp/int gear
To stay at 200

Was under assumption anything higher than 200 is useless pre 50 or 51
Still not sure if ^^^^ is true


Well before I read this post I was already getting frustrated and started changing the gear around to have more hp\mana seems a lot better

My preferred method is to get a blue con which seems to hold pretty decently.I kill what I want up to a yellow and just hold aggro and do circles once my charm is around 50% hp. Then before my target starts to flee. I root and let him beat my charm down then pull him back let him flee, re engage hit a few times and EXP then goblin ring and 1 dot to finish. Repeat

Just a quick recap of above post tho
I should always be tashing my charm ? :D

[greatdane]

I did like 44-51 in Grobb. It's an amazing place, assuming nothing has changed. You never become KoS with troll illusion for some reason, just dubious at worst, plus you can vendor and bank there. The guards each drop a sword, shield and necklace that can be sold for a total of like 12p, plus a bit of cash loot, and you never have to miss out on any because you can sell+bank every 15 minutes if you want. There's enough guards to perfectly match a cycle of clearing them out over and over. A few guards are tougher than the rest and hit for like 190, twice as many HP, but the same level and crappy low resists as the rest of the guard. They seriously seem to have 0 resists, I didn't get a single resist the entire time I was there. That seemed like a bug, so there's always that. Anyway, I made something like 7k leveling from 44 to 51, and I think I died only once due to carelessly letting myself getting encumbered and subsequently having an unlucky charm break. Get used to the pathing patterns, figure out which are the uberguards - there's about three of them, plus one in the bar that's not worth touching, it's level 50 or something and nearly immune to magic. One paths around down by the shadowknight place and stops near the bridge (Basher Wisthak?), one goes from the shaman guild to the middle area with the vendors (Basher Kigak) and one spawns up on the ledge near the open area by the warrior guild (Basher Ganbaku maybe? Not sure now). The XP is incredible because you're non-stop killing and a charmed uberguard will take out 4-5 regular ones or so. You can then zone out to let it heal to full or, as I did, just kill it and go charm the next uberguard. Only guards will assist, none of the vendors or guildmasters should interfere as long as you keep troll illusion up. Remember there's a few guards in out of the way spots like the froglok prison tunnels near the herbalist vendors, one on top of that little weapon/armor mall in the middle of town, two in the bank, and one in the shadowknight guild at the end of the first tunnel. You can also kill Carver Cagrek or whatever (by the butcher thingy outside the bank). He has the HP of an uberguard and the damage of a normal guard, doesn't drop as good loot, and is only worth killing if you ran out of regular guards. Towards the end I was clearing out every guard in the zone, making a level every 2-3 hours all the way up to 51. The hellish level 45 took an afternoon.

[Frootloop]

This thread needs to be cleaned up a bit and thrown on the wiki!
with &bull;'s and everything! Haha

[bakkily]

greatdane, grobbs still a good choice, though its hardly camped anymore, but then maybe it is a better choice then what i was going to type, but if you want the fastest solo exp, head o gobs in bottom of the lake in loio