Druid Charm Soloing

[Tappin]

Hello everyone,
I recently came back to p99 and found a few changes to druid solo... mainly the reduced DoT damage on moving targets, making kiting extremely slow. I did root rot for a while and it works pretty well, but I heard that druids now are charming/fear/snare soloing now.

What level does this become ideal for druids to do? I'm level 34 now and I'm wondering which zones I should start at, with what mobs to charm and which to grind.

And I charm an animal type, then grind on other animals with my beast fear?

Thanks for the advice. I searched around on the forum but I didn't have much luck with finding locations for my level. Thanks!

[M.Bison]

quad kiting dwarfs at the butcherblock dwarves until u are like 48-49ish is your best bet for xp at your level. u can start charming raptors in TD at like 51, until about 55. then u can charm bears/wolves in the permafrost pits until 60.

hope that helps.

[judeau]

I've been quad-kiting in OT the last few nights (35-39). A Lot of fun. A little afraid to kill that many dwarfs. Isn't there a big faction hit? Been curious about this.

[Tappin]

Thanks for the info. What are you killing in OT? I'm not very familar with Kunark.

[judeau]

Just some of the trash. Mostly the cacti n birds. Rhinos get tricky if the snare runs out.

[Nirgon]

Is animal / undead only charm hurt as bad as enchanter charm?

[Tappin]

Are there any quading guides around? I've never done it and am not even sure which spells to use for efficiency. Thanks!

[Auvdar]

You simply find 4 mobs that don't cast, and who are generally the same (HP wise), and ensnare all of them. Run them around with SoW on in a semi-circle until they are "packed" together. Then just run out a bit, cast Lightning Blast (I think that's the 34 one), run again, cast again, repeat till dead.

Really quadding is your best bet till 51. After 51, you can quad raptors a bit ( I didn't find charm holding well until I was around 52/53), then at 54/55 you will want to flop down and bind in the bear pits, and just freeze to death down there until you hit 60.

[Handull]

If you are a woodelf druid you can easily quad spirocs in TD til 52 when you get the new charm spell (they aren't KoS to woodelves but seem to be KoS to halflings, not sure why, but this allows you to look around and pick out the dark blue ones (they still assist each other tho)). Then charming raptors is great. Bring plenty of rusty daggers or w/e you can find for pet weaps, snare the pet first for safety sake and root the mob u r fighting for added safety and so you do some damage and get the kill. I find it worth my time to DS/haste my pets and then break charm with invis v animal before they die so i can get a new pet to kill em (this part is much like charming for any class, so a chanter guide is basically the same, just with different spells).

You can start quadding spirocs really well at 49 when you get the new spell, but if you have a lumi staff hit em up sooner. They backstab, so watch out, but you can lumi them without getting hit. Otherwise before 49 they take a ton of mana to kill.

There are lots of places to quad, oasis works, FV along the coast and in the dvolrog village around 45 was nice for me and no one is ever there, DL/OT should work (never done it myself), if you search there should be other threads that give quading guides. if these places aren't in your lvl range

[Tappin]

Ok, thanks for the info! Will give it a go once I hit 35. I'm sure as I try it out I'll have more questions.

[Kevlar]

Then charming raptors is great. Bring plenty of rusty daggers or w/e you can find for pet weaps, snare the pet first for safety sake and root the mob u r fighting for added safety and so you do some damage and get the kill. I find it worth my time to DS/haste my pets and then break charm with invis v animal before they die so i can get a new pet to kill em (this part is much like charming for any class, so a chanter guide is basically the same, just with different spells).

That is a lot of unnecessary mana use.

The best thing about charm is the tiny amount of mana you use. Sitting for a couple tics per kill is all you need to stay at full mana.

Here are some tips I have learned from charming, and you can start at 14 and charm all the way to 60+

Always keep a backpack full of vendor bought daggers. Trying to look for rusty daggers would be mind numbing. Go to a weapon merchant and buy a backpack full of 'dagger'. Like 2pp each.

Always haste your pet. The extra dps combined with dual wielding will make him shred even cons without losing more than a bubble of health.

If you are pulling to your pet, have him sit between pulls. If you have a "good" pet that doesn't break charm often then toss him a chloro too.

Fear is awesome combined with charm, if there are lots of animal mobs in an area then always pull them first, even though they have crap loot. Your hasted dual wielding pet can kill an even con long before the first fear wears off. Use the level 19 fear, it costs 3x as much, but lasts 3x as long and doesn't have a recast cooldown in case you get a resist.

Pull multiples to kill. If you have a hasted sabertooth tiger or trakasaur or similar pet quadding for 100+ dmg with 70% haste then you are going to rip through some stuff quickly. Ensnare 4 or 5 mobs, and train them around killing them off 1 at a time.

Pet control - You have sow. Do Not! snare your pet. Not until the lvl 39 charm do you even need more distance to cast than what the spell takes to get off. So just run to max range, and recharm. After you get to 39 or whatever and you can't cast without being hit then you just use lvl 1 root on your pet. Run, root, charm. When the target mobs catch up just strafe around your pet til root breaks and then kite away.

Mob control - Ensnare, flame lick. That combo is enough aggro to give your pet a chance to rip off a huge chunk of the target's life. At least for equal or lower con stuff. For higher level monsters you have to root them, then dot them, then when root breaks snare them, flame lick, sic pet and he should be fine. The trick there is working multiples at a time, don't send your pet on a rooted mob, its inefficient. He can do a lot more dmg from behind where he isn't dealing with dodge, riposte, etc, and he isn't getting hit back.

When you get snare gloves and ES arms charming becomes a joke. For some reason the item clickers don't give very much aggro, but for fear kiting aggro doesn't matter. For regular kiting I still use ensnare + flamelick, and click on the arms for a little extra dmg. You are literally using 2 tics worth of mana per kill.

The ultimate way to get no aggro on your pet? Break charm. It totally resets pet aggro, but you retain 100 percent of your aggro. If you are kiting multiple mobs you can't fear, have your pet knock a couple bubbles of health off each one, but not enough to pull aggro. Then break charm! Remember, your pet is balling a lot faster than the snared mobs, get some distance first. Give yourself enough room so that you can land root and recharm before the mobs show up.

My usual spell lineup is:

ensnare
charm, and you really never need your highest one
terrorize animal
regen/chloro
invis to animals (to break charm)
flame lick
grasping roots
pet haste

[LaZZer010]

How important is charisma for a charm kiting druid? Wonder if a pair of Opal Encrusted Steins (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=12035) are worth picking up.

[Kevlar]

How important is charisma for a charm kiting druid? Wonder if a pair of Opal Encrusted Steins (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=12035) are worth picking up.

Charisma seems to help a lot with higher con dark blues. But they still break often. Stick to lower con dark blues and you will get 10+ minute snares even with crappy charisma. I like to keep mine at 105 just like with vendors in case there is a penalty. I doubt there is a bonus for high charisma, but I am almost certain there is a penalty for low charisma. With my base 75 I get a ton of early breaks.

Opal steins don't exist yet, have to go club some bouncers and settle for a crude.

[aresprophet]

If you really want to maximize your charm solo efficiency there are 2 things you can do:

-Make your pet deal more damage
-Make your pet take more damage

Fear kiting is counterproductive: you could have 2 mobs killed for the mana and time it takes to kill 1, as long as you can control mob HP. This is easier somewhere like TD raptors or Perma bear pits (my experience is mostly those 2 places) where mobs are close to each other in damage and HP. At lower levels in OT or TT you might need to adjust your style, I quadded pre-Kunark through those levels.

So, a rundown of the best way to maximize your charm soloing exp:

-You want to kill as many mobs as possible in the time it takes for a repop, without using an unsustainable amount of mana. Given the vagaries of charm breaks and resists, this is going to require you to med out a pop on some cycles. This is OK as long as you aren't doing it too often (once every 3-4 cycles tops). Just try to never sit at full mana unless your pet is buffed and killing something.

-If you use Savage Spirit and Shield of Thorns you should be able to buff a pet just enough to have it kill 2 identical mobs (in the case of TD, buff a Vicious and use it against regular Raptors) with under 5% left at the end. Gauge the two mobs' HP as the fight progresses and use ES Vambs or a Lumi Staff to get the target mob lower if necessary due to randomness of melee; you want the first mob to die when your pet is between 50% and 55%. Keep Ensnare on your charmed pet as a safety (lets you med more and run around less, pays for itself) and pull targets to it using Flame Lick or Glamour of Tunare, then root when the target is close. That's all you should need to get a kill.

-Use Hide, a Gazughi Ring (if you're rich) or Camo to break charm when your pet falls below 5%. If you root the target mob (which you should) you can use the Pet Back button to get it out of range just before it dies; judicious use of the Pet Guard and Pet Back button can also let the target mob hurt your pet a little more if it's going to survive with >10% hp when the target dies. Use ES Vambs or Lumi to finish off the target and the pet. You can usually begin your next pull as the ES Vambs dot is finishing off the previous mobs, speeding up your overall killing. I keep Breath of Ro up to finish off pets that survive with >10%, it's more effective than having a hasted mob take a chunk out of the next mob you charm.

-In situations where a 2v1 is not possible you can use a charmed pet 1v1 without Savage Spirit or Thorns and med back a little mana, but since this lowers the overall DPS being done by both mobs you want to avoid it. There are a few pulls in Perma you can't help but do 1v1 due to pathing bugs, and if you're sharing raptors you may have to do a 1v1 now and then.

-You could use the dagger method mentioned above to push DPS higher but I can't imagine doing that for any sustainable amount of time before it drove me crazy. It might let you take a single buffed pet through 3 mobs in one go, though.

This charm-tank method is far more efficient than charm-fear kiting because it effectively increases the DPS you do by 50%, allowing you to fit more kills into a pop cycle. Once you have the method down you can clear 9 pops on the big raptor isle in the ~15 minutes it takes for one to repop and die again. Prior to the big nerf to charm breaks a few months ago I was only getting 6 per cycle tops using fear and a single buffed Vicious pet.

[Estu]

Charisma does not affect Druid or Necro charming.

[Auvdar]

Charisma means nothing, if not very little. Lvl difference between you and your pet is what matters. Then Pet MR

[Kevlar]

-You could use the dagger method mentioned above to push DPS higher but I can't imagine doing that for any sustainable amount of time before it drove me crazy. It might let you take a single buffed pet through 3 mobs in one go, though.

This charm-tank method is far more efficient than charm-fear kiting because it effectively increases the DPS you do by 50%, allowing you to fit more kills into a pop cycle. Once you have the method down you can clear 9 pops on the big raptor isle in the ~15 minutes it takes for one to repop and die again. Prior to the big nerf to charm breaks a few months ago I was only getting 6 per cycle tops using fear and a single buffed Vicious pet.

Fear kite is way faster. Not even close, if there are a lot of animal mobs around. A charmed, 70% hasted, dual dagger wielding tiger or raptor will mow down 10 mobs before the charm breaks easy, he kills feared mobs in litterally seconds. And even with the odd break you only lose him for a couple seconds. Any caster who isn't an idiot doesn't need root to med, I never miss a med tick while kiting. It ain't hard to count to 5 mississippi.

[M.Bison]

I've been quad-kiting in OT the last few nights (35-39). A Lot of fun. A little afraid to kill that many dwarfs. Isn't there a big faction hit? Been curious about this.

No, only faction hit u get is from CitizensofKaladim. which is exclusively the dock dwarf faction. You can still go into kaladim and use all the vendors/bank.
so basically u only drop your faction with about 12mobs in the entire game killing dwarves

and wtf is with all this talk about Invis to animal rings...youre a druid use hide, its free and instant.

[Kevlar]

and wtf is with all this talk about Invis to animal rings...youre a druid use hide, its free and instant.

There are human druids, who chose not to look like stupid little cartoon characters.

[aresprophet]

Fear kite is way faster. Not even close, if there are a lot of animal mobs around. A charmed, 70% hasted, dual dagger wielding tiger or raptor will mow down 10 mobs before the charm breaks easy, he kills feared mobs in litterally seconds. And even with the odd break you only lose him for a couple seconds. Any caster who isn't an idiot doesn't need root to med, I never miss a med tick while kiting. It ain't hard to count to 5 mississippi.

TD raptors have up to 4k hp (Vicious even more), it takes far, far longer for them to die using fear. I can sustainably kill a lot more mobs in a cycle letting the pet tank than by fearing. I did levels 50 through 55 at raptors and tried both methods extensively. Charm durations being what they are, it doesn't work very well to rely on the same mob for too long.

and wtf is with all this talk about Invis to animal rings...youre a druid use hide, its free and instant.

And it doesn't work every time. I use Hide myself but I could see how the invis ring would make life easier, you can go 8-9 clicks in a row and not break charm some times. If 10k is nothing to you I'd recommend the ring.

[aresprophet]

Just to be clear, even pre-nerf when charm was outlasting the 14 minute duration of Ensnare on most casts I was still killing Raptors slower by fear-kiting them than by having the pet tank. I spent most of that charm duration sitting on my ass at full mana wishing I could do something other than cast Breath of Ro every so often to speed things up. Utilizing twice the mana to get a 50% increase in DPS, I can kill far more mobs in the same period of time without having to take breaks; my "med break" consists of leaving up 3 mobs I would have otherwise killed in one cycle out of 4 or 5.

[Zapatos]

The amount of bad information in this thread is making me cringe...

I'll do this assuming you're at raptors:

First. Forget charisma. That does nothing for you druids, read the patch notes.

Letting your pet tank? That's a huge waste of mana with all the thorns, heals, re-charms you have to do with each pet.. especially a waste if you're giving your raptor weapons.. and seriously, rusty daggers? Have some dignity, go get yourself stun whips!

To the comment about never snaring your pet? Terrible! Keep your pet esnared, or you certaintly won't be able to re-charm without being wrecked by your full run speed, hasted, stunning, w/e pet. Re-ensare (and glamour if you have it) after every time charm breaks.

Your clicky snare is awesome for pulling your next raptor.. do it. That, a cast of your level 1 nuke, and panick animal is all you need..when fear wears of, thats only 10 more mana, not a big deal... and clicking your ES vams is otherwise just a waste of a big cast bar for damage your pet can do for free in a few seconds, take the time to med. You'll need that mana when you find charm breaking randomly and often. If you have extra mana, awesome, throw in a dot if you want, but otherwise focus on your pet.

[aresprophet]

Letting your pet tank? That's a huge waste of mana with all the thorns, heals, re-charms you have to do with each pet.. especially a waste if you're giving your raptor weapons.. and seriously, rusty daggers? Have some dignity, go get yourself stun whips!


It's obvious you didn't read my post on how to make your pet tank efficiently. You never heal it.

Shield of Thorns does 24 damage every hit; killing 2 mobs with one hasted/DSed pet, it gets hit about 70 times total on average. 1700ish damage for 120 mana? Yes please. Add your haste spell and you're spending as much mana as you would on another charm (220) in order to make your pet kill twice as fast. As long as you can med enough to make up the mana you're going to kill more mobs in the same amount of time.

Fear kiting is slower than letting your pet take the damage and then killing it. Period.

[Zapatos]

As long as you can med enough to make up the mana you're going to kill more mobs in the same amount of time.

Of course a pet with thorns will kill a mob faster, but it's all about how your mana holds up over the long run. You can nuke your mob down even faster, but then that would be incredibly inefficient. For raptors specifically, you can fear kite and keep the entire island you're on clear. I've done it, and I've seen other Druids do it, with even a few claiming they could clear both isles (though I wasn't to willing to back off to see it in action :)

The bottom line is charm, while awesome, can be incredibly unreliable. You'll occasionally get breaks barely a minute apart, and for that you'll have to play as efficient as you can to keep the exp flowing over the long run.

[Tappin]

I just tried the dwarves in BB... O_O I tried the 4 at the small camp area before the docks, close to the goblin camp... One of them resisted ensnare 7 times and root.... took forever to escape him.

Is that normal? :(

[Tappin]

It was one of the male dwarves, the one standing right on the coast with a fishing pole.

[citizen1080]

Best way to solo as a druid is reroll to bard

[Tappin]

Let me get the first 4 mobs in quad down first, then maybe bard :D

No but seriously, does wisdom effect resist chance? I have probably the worst gear for a level 35 druid of anyone in the game... I have gear in I think 5 equipment slots, and the rest is empty. Of those 5 items, a couple give no stats other than AC, I believe. So my mana pool is extremely small, so resists or fizzles are fatal... or result in me running to zone. Wisdom increases my mana pool size right? Does it help with resists?

[Kevlar]

It was one of the male dwarves, the one standing right on the coast with a fishing pole.

Don't kill that one, he is on guard faction, not outer citizen faction or whatever. Just kill the two in the hut, the one at the tent, the ones by the docks. There are a couple more through out the zone, watch the faction hits. Fishing pole guy is a quest NPC I believe, a lot harder and bad faction.

[Kevlar]

To the comment about never snaring your pet? Terrible! Keep your pet esnared, or you certaintly won't be able to re-charm without being wrecked by your full run speed, hasted, stunning, w/e pet. Re-ensare (and glamour if you have it) after every time charm breaks.


The problem with snaring your pet is it makes aggro kiting impossibe. I have yet to find a mob that I can't get enough distance from to get off a grasping root unmolested. Plenty of time to recharm, then he is back to full speed in a minute or less.

If all you are doing is fear kiting snare will work, but for more difficult zones where there are lots of non-animals to deal with, aggro kiting is the way to go. Ensnare 4 or 5 victims and let your pet rape them from behind.

Pet tanking is a lot slower in the long run. Yes, you are going to kill two mobs, but if you just keep a single pet and aggro or fear kite your mana will never run dry. I waste about 500 mana on charm, haste, and chloro. Plus 4pp per pet for daggers. Then I don't use any more mana for 10-20 mins depending on how nice of a pet I have.

Your pet dps goes up possible 100 percent from dual wield, and an additional 70 pct from haste. Then you add in the fact that fear or aggro kiting takes away all of the target's mitigation, which is fairly significant since most of these mobs are high level warriors/tanks.

[Aksiom2k]

Legas' Guide to Druid Charming in OT

I just dinged 39 on my druid in OT where I charm kite soloed from 29-39. It was easy and it sometimes felt absurd that I could kill red con tigers so easily.

Here was the basic run down:

a)I bound in OT just inside the SF ramp.

b)I ported to EC, bought C2, Wis buff, and CHA (i know you're all saying it doesn't help at all but it's not hurting either) from a friendly enchanter.

c)Gated back to OT

1) Ran out west past the watering hole invis and searched on track for a light blue con rhino. Charm on LB rhinos holds alot better than dark blue cons.

2) Ran with my new pet back to the columns just south of SF zone and parked him there.

3)Ran out with flame lick loaded and tagged something that was even con or higher and brought it back to my pet.

4) Snared the inc mob and sicked the pet on him. Snare casting range and pet attack range seem to be very close so if you queue up your pet attack command on the inc target you will know right when to cast snare if you are watching your pet run out to engage.

5) Feared the mob. At first I was using the 10m fear animal spell because it was so efficient but later upgraded to the 30m fear because it lasts so much longer.

6) Dotted mob with highest rank of Stinging Swarm line that I had.

7) Sit, med, redot when needed.

8) Rinse and Repeat.

Notes:

a,b, and c are optional. If there is no c2 to be had, I would invite an LFG monk, rouge, mage, or necro to join me.

Neither snare nor fear land every cast, especially if you are pulling things that are yellow and red con. Be ready to run and recast. Fear only has the shared global cooldown with other spells but snares recast is a bit longer. When in doubt fear, then snare.

Never snared my pet and only buffed him with str and feral spirit.

Because of their duration, I always buffed myself with personal AC/Dmg Shield (spikecoat) and wolf form. Kept regen on myself as well but I felt as though other buffs were superfluous.

Spells Gems I had up

1) Nuke (Usually Ignite)
2) Heal or Regen (Gheal or Regeneration)
3) Creeping Crud -> Drones of Doom
4) Flame Lick
5) Animal Fear
6) Animal Charm
7) Snare (or Ensnare)
8) Root (Enveloping Roots)

I only ever unmemmed the 2nd or 4th spell slots for switching in buffs. In general, I like to keep spells up that will help me get out of trouble if something goes amiss.

In 10 levels soloing in this manner I only died once because I got cocky and thought I could AFK with charmed pet to make some pizza. I only had to have that lesson once. If you need to AFK, drop the pet, zone and med till you can come back.

Hope this helps someone. PST Legas in game if you have any questions.

*edit - Changed name of post

[Tappin]

Don't kill that one, he is on guard faction, not outer citizen faction or whatever. Just kill the two in the hut, the one at the tent, the ones by the docks. There are a couple more through out the zone, watch the faction hits. Fishing pole guy is a quest NPC I believe, a lot harder and bad faction.

Thanks for the info :)

[wc4482]

Nice Guide

[aresprophet]

Now that I think about it I'm not sure that non-humanoid mobs should even be able to dual wield when given weapons. I'll have to research that.



Pet tanking is a lot slower in the long run. Yes, you are going to kill two mobs, but if you just keep a single pet and aggro or fear kite your mana will never run dry. I waste about 500 mana on charm, haste, and chloro. Plus 4pp per pet for daggers. Then I don't use any more mana for 10-20 mins depending on how nice of a pet I have.

Do you see the major flaws here?

You're sitting at full mana, doing nothing to speed up your killing process. Utilizing more mana to kill more mobs = more exp. Who cares if you're less efficient? You only need to be just efficient enough. Too much efficiency is time wasted. So I use 1000 mana instead of 500 over the same period, and in return I get 3 kills instead of 2. Both of us are using less mana than we're medding back, but the difference is that I'm getting more exp than you are. I also can stay in the same place for hours without having to find a vendor to buy daggers. Travel time to and from your killing spot that could be spent killing more mobs is not more efficient. Also I realized you're using Chloroplast, which I don't have to waste 200 mana on.

Your pet dps goes up possible 100 percent from dual wield, and an additional 70 pct from haste. Then you add in the fact that fear or aggro kiting takes away all of the target's mitigation, which is fairly significant since most of these mobs are high level warriors/tanks.

Kiting also takes away all of the target's damage, which is fairly significant since mobs hit much harder than warriors of their level.

Here's the math on why charm-tanking works:

Let's say you have a mob that has 1000 hp and hits for 50 every 2.5 seconds, doing 20 DPS (quasi-realistic figures considering misses, mitigated hits, etc.). You charm this mob, give it dual wield for a 40% damage increase (which is about what mage and necro pets get from dual-wielding, if charmed pets are getting more that's a bug), haste it for 70%, and now it's doing roughly 2.5x that damage for 50 DPS.

With my method, put haste on the pet so it's doing 34 DPS and pit it against another mob doing 20 DPS; slightly less because of dodge and parry, so we'll go with 30 and 16 DPS. Add in the DS: 24 damage every 2.5 seconds is an average extra 10 DPS (rounding is easier) so the pet is doing about 40 and the target mob is still doing 16, for 56 DPS total. The target will die in 25 seconds, and the pet will take 480 damage. In 50 seconds the pet will kill 2 mobs and have 40 HP left, netting me 3 kills after I tag it with ES vambs or a 100 mana root (for speed). You'll have 3 kills in 60 seconds; mine's faster in this scenario.

Now for a real situation: TD Raptor numbers (average 116 damage hits, average 3500 HP) where mobs take much longer to kill each other and repop quickly relative to how long the kills take. I won't run the math on it because I can rely on experience. You can get 9 kills in 3 cycles by charm-tanking and then, because of one or two bad charms, settle for 6 on the 4th cycle to gain back the mana you lost from being inefficient; you've done 33 raptors in one hour (if I'm lucky I can keep going with 9-kill cycles for longer, netting even faster exp, but we'll be pragmatic). I've also done 6 in 15 minutes using fear, for 24 in an hour, with Charm lasting up to 20 minutes which it doesn't do anymore.

Your method is "more efficient" but I'm the one getting 35% more experience. I also don't ever need a charm to last more than about 3 minutes, allowing me to recast it less overall and keep mobs wailing on each other for a larger amount of time. Faster exp, less prone to bad luck, and no wasted time and bag space getting daggers for your pet.

[Tappin]

Ok, I just tried the dwarves again.. I grabbed the 3 females just to try... They are all 3 white con to me atm. Anyways, the snares all went on just fine, but then my AoE (my evo is capped atm) was resisted twice... One of them mitigated the damage, she took like 34 damage instead of the normal 175 damage. Is this a gear problem? Level problem?

Thanks again.

[citizen1080]

Dock Dwarves are best saved for 40+

[Handull]

Here's why I like pet tanking with haste/DS and rooting the mobs...its just less work and risk than fear kiting and counting ticks. I enjoy watching a movie while soloing, and if charm breaks having only one mob run at me slowly is much easier to deal with while casually paying attention then having two running at me, one at full speed.

On top of that, I find it very efficient. If I'm charming at raptors and pet tanking I can clear the entire big island by ONLY charming the two vicious raptors (and its very easy to single pull the south one, charm it, kill some raptors, and then be able to single pull the other one). If i'm lucky with the mobs levels, I can even pull one or two off the other island before killing my 2nd pet. Then I can head over to the other island and just charm the vicious there and either clear or nearly clear it. By this time the big island is just starting to repop, which is perfect.

But what about mana? If I root EVERY mob I fight on the big island then I'll have enough mana to charm the small island, but I won't have enough to keep going non-stop. This method is helpful, in my opinion, if I'm trying to do something IRL (like eat a meal) and won't have the fastest reaction time to a charm break. Otherwise, you really don't need to root every mob you fight and can save a ton of mana by not doing so and just being at a safe distance, ready to snare the mob if charm breaks. With this method I've been able to fight continuously, leaving maybe one or two raptors alive each cycle, depending on luck with the fights and with timing. (That one raptor is kinda by itself and is a pain to pull sometimes before repops.) Might have to skip the small island once in a while if I get a bad string of charm breaks or an add or two, but otherwise it goes pretty well.

When I said get rusty daggers I don't mean go farming them. But if you just check the newbie area vendors you will find a ton of rusty weaps, daggers included. Found enough to fill my bags just outside kaladim last time I went into TD (this only doesn't work right after a server reset, and since you are a druid you can port to any newbie area to buy the weaps you need for cheap). Or just find a mage sitting around to summon you some up.

Either way (fear kiting or pet tanking), charming is definately the best bet for exp at the high end. I think that fear kiting has much more risk to it, but just do whatever you like. They are two different styles for sure. Just don't bother healing your pet or nuking the mobs. If you need do to small damage (like to finish a mob off) use a lumi staff/ES vambs, if you have a ton of extra mana and are constantly sitting at full, use your DoTs, which are much more mana efficient. Either way, have fun with it.

PS, use wolf form for long lasting sow and +mana regen at higher lvls, I like keeping skin up for added security and the +hp regen so I don't have to heal if I take a hit, and lastly, bring plenty of bat wings for levi!

[Rasah]

Ok, I just tried the dwarves again.. I grabbed the 3 females just to try... They are all 3 white con to me atm. Anyways, the snares all went on just fine, but then my AoE (my evo is capped atm) was resisted twice... One of them mitigated the damage, she took like 34 damage instead of the normal 175 damage. Is this a gear problem? Level problem?

Thanks again.
It's a level problem. These will go away when you are 4 levels higher than what you are trying to kill. I say go out and kill mobs ~level 30 and rip through them, and come back at 39 or 40.

Minyin probably gave good advice based on his experience. But here's what I can tell about him - 1) he's in TR, so he's a hardcore player. 2) he joined in September 2010. So he was at least a month ahead of me, and it wasn't until we were both beyond that level that they started tinkering with resists on this server. So while 35 might have been a reasonable level back then, it isn't now unless you have godly equipment.

[bwe]

How effective is charm soloing from level 14 on? Could I make a druid that does (essentially) nothing -but- charm soloing from 14-end?

[Handull]

How effective is charm soloing from level 14 on? Could I make a druid that does (essentially) nothing -but- charm soloing from 14-end?

I think its been mentioned in other threads that this works. The trick is to find mobs that are evenly matched with each other and that are barely dark blue to you (on the low end). If a mob is an even con or just one or two levels below you then charm will not last long and you will waste tons of mana recharming, assuming you live. Also, if you sick your pet at a mob that is too high a level (or just has a ton more hp), then he will die quickly and do little damage to the other mob, which is a waste of your time. You can try it out, but there might be better ways to solo at that level. The Karanas might be a good place to look for mobs 14+.

[M.Bison]

Dock Dwarves are best saved for 40+

/shrug i quadded dwarves from 35-48, but that was like 1.5 years ago. I guess resists and stuff might have changed since then.

[Tappin]

It's a level problem. These will go away when you are 4 levels higher than what you are trying to kill. I say go out and kill mobs ~level 30 and rip through them, and come back at 39 or 40.

Minyin probably gave good advice based on his experience. But here's what I can tell about him - 1) he's in TR, so he's a hardcore player. 2) he joined in September 2010. So he was at least a month ahead of me, and it wasn't until we were both beyond that level that they started tinkering with resists on this server. So while 35 might have been a reasonable level back then, it isn't now unless you have godly equipment.

Thanks again! Any suggestions on mobs? I'm level 35 atm, half way to level 36.

[Rasah]

judeau had it right. Head to south side of OT and quad cockatrices and succulents. Look on Illia to find the names of the ones that are in the 28-32 range. They will have approximately 1100 hitpoints. The ones in the 33-37 range will have 1700 hitpoints.

[Daldaen]

Kedge Keep. Go and never leave.

The strategy at level 34-44 is pretty simple. Buff up the best you can, regen, hp buff, self AC/DS buff, EB. Enter zone in, tag 1 mob with ensnare, wait a sec until the mobs are swarming on you, and back up and zone out (you will be zoning lots with this strategy).

Do this again on another mob. Zoning out when the pack gets close to you.

At this point in time you should have 2 staggered swordfish. One very close to zone line if not on it. You'll want to invis vs animals and zone back in. Check the location of the 2nd fish you ideally want to get both of them at the zone line and to stay there (using ensnare to keep them in place)

Through several sets of aggroing them and pulling them etc, you should get them to zone line. You'll want to swim up to a corner opposite of where they are stuck (while invis vs animals of course). Charm 1. If you can quickly try to target the other and have it pet attack... but Kedge is funky, you have to have the mobs basically on top of each other for pet attack to function, otherwise you need to take a hit from the other mob.

Let the 2 fight it out. Root the mob and med. Don't do anything else. No DoTing or nuking. When your pet is around 5% HP you'll want to break invis and nuke or DoT it to death. Finish off the other mob if not finished.

*Alternatively* you can try to utilize lull animal to pull vs zoning a lot but that can fail due to odd pathing underwater.

Basically rinse and repeat for 10 levels. Back when I did this, when kedge was bugged like no other (when you would get aggro on mobs from every level if you touched a wall) I would get around 5% exp per solo kill there. I'd wager it may be slower now due to them lowering kedge ZEM but it is still very solid exp.

If you have any other questions shoot me a tell in game or probably a PM here (my computer is busted so i wont be getting on for awhile)

[Kevlar]

The only problem at low level is dealing with charm breaks. You don't have a lot of mana and you can't save much using low level spells since at that level all yours spells take a significant amount of mana. At 50+ you regen snare and flame lick in one tic. At 14 it might take you 10 tics to get that mana back. Root seemed very unreliable at low level too. Dark bblues stop 3 levels under you, not 8 like at higher levels so everything is tougher.

[Kevlar]

I did unrest tower for a bit in mid 30s. Hags are so weak your 2 dots take them out in a single cast. Just root and dot then duck behind a wall. With regen and resist buffs they are cake. I also camped ancient croc early 30s and of course charming in OT.

[Estu]

Charming at 14 is extremely effective. Go to East Karana, charm dark blues, and have them attack dark blue to yellow con mobs. If the enemy mob is higher than your pet, do some aggro kiting with snare and/or dots before letting your pet tank. Set it up so the enemy mob dies when your pet is low health, finish off your pet, two kills for very little mana. I did this about a month ago to great effect, getting from 14 to 24 or so solely in EK before moving to EF mammoths and then to OT rhinos/tigers. There is simply no faster way to level a level 14 druid unless you're being power leveled.

And to the earlier questions, no, WIS does not effect resist rate. WIS just gives you a higher mana pool, not better anything else (except tradeskill learning rates). Resists are affected by the level difference between you and the mob, and the mob's resist stats.

[Tappin]

Charming at 14 is extremely effective. Go to East Karana, charm dark blues, and have them attack dark blue to yellow con mobs. If the enemy mob is higher than your pet, do some aggro kiting with snare and/or dots before letting your pet tank. Set it up so the enemy mob dies when your pet is low health, finish off your pet, two kills for very little mana. I did this about a month ago to great effect, getting from 14 to 24 or so solely in EK before moving to EF mammoths and then to OT rhinos/tigers. There is simply no faster way to level a level 14 druid unless you're being power leveled.

And to the earlier questions, no, WIS does not effect resist rate. WIS just gives you a higher mana pool, not better anything else (except tradeskill learning rates). Resists are affected by the level difference between you and the mob, and the mob's resist stats.

Thanks for the confirmation!

[bwe]

Charming at 14 is extremely effective. Go to East Karana, charm dark blues, and have them attack dark blue to yellow con mobs. If the enemy mob is higher than your pet, do some aggro kiting with snare and/or dots before letting your pet tank. Set it up so the enemy mob dies when your pet is low health, finish off your pet, two kills for very little mana. I did this about a month ago to great effect, getting from 14 to 24 or so solely in EK before moving to EF mammoths and then to OT rhinos/tigers. There is simply no faster way to level a level 14 druid unless you're being power leveled.

And to the earlier questions, no, WIS does not effect resist rate. WIS just gives you a higher mana pool, not better anything else (except tradeskill learning rates). Resists are affected by the level difference between you and the mob, and the mob's resist stats.

Awesome -- does anyone have a general charm leveling guide? EK, Everfrost,... ? Preferably classic only since I'm probably going to make the druid on the PVP server.

[Tappin]

So, I'm back to farming my own people, the hafling guards. I started farming them at like level 25 or something, can't really remember, was like a year ago(just came back a couple days ago)... so I had tried quading them a few times and it was working out pretty well. 3 of them con dark blue(if i get the one from the tower), 2 are teal and 1 is green.. so thats 6 total. Ideally I'd like the 3 dark blues with 1 teal for max exp, but sometimes people take one or the other.


So I decided to try 5 guards... wasn't aware that the AoE only hit up to 4 targets, which is prob why it's called QUAD kiting.. duh. But anyways, something happened when I started kiting 5 mobs. Before when I would kite 4 of them... Aster and Eigon would always resist my AoE, or they would just mitigate some of the damage. When I kite 5 of them they never do this, however I think it's random which one of them DOESN'T take AoE damage when there are more than 4 targets.

So... what happens is after 4 of them die, 1 of them is left with around half health and I'm usually pretty low mana, but this actually works better than having just 1 guard resist or mitigate most of the damage. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not... but kiting 5 so far has let all of my AoE spells land and not be mitigated at all.

[Tappin]

Nvm, kiting 5 of them as I type this, and have had 2 resists and some mitigation =/ Strange. I did 4 pulls of 5 before and it was flawless.

[Kevlar]

Awesome -- does anyone have a general charm leveling guide? EK, Everfrost,... ? Preferably classic only since I'm probably going to make the druid on the PVP server.

I think you are going to be s.o.l without Kunark. There really aren't many mid level zones full of animals in original. From mammoths you could go to crocs in guk, but there is only a single spawn and that can have from one to five crocs, on 15 min respawn. You would do a lot better root rotting hags or something for xp. After mammoths your best bet would be bats in sol b or kedge, but probably not safe until mid-40s.