ENC, SHM, or SHD?

[highelves can't dunk]

First off, server ruleset is badass. Praise Emp. Rogean etc. Hope the crying from blues in the beta doesn't get anything changed.

So, I'm considering playing an enchanter, shaman or shadowknight when the server goes live. I played a lot of vallon/sullon and a bit of rallos, but mostly as a necro and paladin.

I'm leaning toward ench as my top choice, but I'm curious about a couple things:

1. Do charmed pets take any exp. from a kill if I hit the mob?

2. Is charm useless now? I read a lot about nerfs and it sounds like it might be.

3. In high-level pvp, assuming most competent players have high magic resistance, do enchanter crowd control spells ever land? If not, would I just be a buff bot? Or is fighting using a charmed mob at all possible? (obviously very dangerous)

Second choice would be shadowknight, however the exp. penalty sounds pretty massive, like 65% or so for an ogre sk. Is it really that bad? I've got some friends who I'll be leveling with, and it would suck to have to kill 2 extra mobs solo for every 3 mobs we kill together in a group just to stick with them.

And third is shaman, no real questions here except one: Is AoN available on release? Obviously I won't get into PoF for a long time, but technically, is it able to drop right away or will there need to be a patch? It would be nice to not be a fatty forever.

Sorry for another "which class should I play?" post, but any answers are appreciated.

[Pudge]

1. dont think so
2. heard you need max cha to charm effectively
3. resists arent ironed out yet
4. yes exp penalties are in
5. dont know

havent played on p99 but giving the info i can

[mimixownzall]

1. No, not if you at least do 1pt of dmg

2. Not sure. they got a huge nerf bat a while back. Haven't played my ench since before the nerf.

3. Unsure at this point. If it's true to classic, it won't take a whole lot of MR to make your spells useless.

As far as being a fatty, the server will be released with the guise of the deceiver (right click from inventory DE illusion) available. If you level up quick and get down to Lguk, you can grab one of these and be a happy fatty.

[vinx]

I remember charmed pets being dispelled and killing the owners LOL
If your in a trio its prolly doable

[Bockscar]

1. Do charmed pets take any exp. from a kill if I hit the mob?

Nope. Works like any other pet - do at least 1 damage and you'll get all the XP.

2. Is charm useless now? I read a lot about nerfs and it sounds like it might be.

It's not useless on p99 at all. There's some speculation that charisma doesn't make much of a difference and that you can charm well enough without any real charisma gear. Don't know if that's true, because when I leveled my enchanter, I had charisma gear on at all times and never thought to try without it. I can confirm that charm works like a, well, a charm. Leveled to 52 pretty much exclusively charming.

3. In high-level pvp, assuming most competent players have high magic resistance, do enchanter crowd control spells ever land? If not, would I just be a buff bot? Or is fighting using a charmed mob at all possible? (obviously very dangerous)

It'll depend on a few things.

First off, SZ had a feature where resist debuffs were amplified by 50% in PvP. If they implement that here (and I hope they do) then it'll be very difficult to remain "CC-immune" against an enchanter. Few will have more than 120ish MR unbuffed and many will have less, so shaving off as much as 50MR with tash should mean that spells can land. There'll still be resists from people with like 50-70ish MR left after tash, but CC will be plenty usable against them.

Secondly, we don't know yet if crimson potions will be in. They're almost certainly removing egg-shaped pumice because it's so gamebreaking for PvP, but there have only been vague rumors regarding crimpots. If those are left in, it's a big blow for enchanters because mez basically becomes useless aganist any PvP veteran. I hope they remove crimpots as well, but they are classic and it's a bit iffy.

Second choice would be shadowknight, however the exp. penalty sounds pretty massive, like 65% or so for an ogre sk. Is it really that bad? I've got some friends who I'll be leveling with, and it would suck to have to kill 2 extra mobs solo for every 3 mobs we kill together in a group just to stick with them.

It's really bad if you solo. When you group, the class penalty gets split up between group members. Or essentially it awards everyone the same amount of XP for a kill after XP modifiers are calculated, so you get more if you have an XP penalty, and consequently the others get less, and it then evens out to the same final amount so everyone levels at exactly the same pace (if they're the same level, that is - lower-level members simply get a smaller share). The net result is that your penalty is smaller the more people you group with.

And third is shaman, no real questions here except one: Is AoN available on release? Obviously I won't get into PoF for a long time, but technically, is it able to drop right away or will there need to be a patch? It would be nice to not be a fatty forever.

Planes aren't open right from the beginning, but AoN should drop as soon as planes can be accessed.

[pickled_heretic]

charm works great, charisma is not that important. you can keep low DB mobs charmed for a very long time. you will have early breaks but that's the price of doing business.

charm soloing is extremely dangerous and requires constant attention. 2-3 resists in a row at the wrong time can mean a quick and very painful death. and in spite of this, it's still totally worth it. gained a lvl every 3 hours in guktop soloing in such a manner.

you can also charm and keep low blue / light blue pets in groups. buff them, give them daggers etc. they are a higher source of dps than any DPS that is equivalent level to you. keep in mind that in a pvp environment pets can be extremely dangerous to you if they are dispelled because they will go after you first.

[Bockscar]

You absolutely do not wanna use charm in a place where PvP might happen. One dispel and your pet is now raping your face along with whoever came to gank you, so that's guaranteed death. There are obscure places you can go where hardly anyone will think to check, like the alligators in that one tunnel at the bottom of CT which will take you from level 25 into the 30s. There are spots like that all over the game, and you'll need them because leveling with charm is so dangerous that any kind of interference makes it impossible.

[Envious]

Right now, you can't dispel pets. So not sure dispelling a charm is an issue ATM.

[Bockscar]

I'm sure they'll fix that.

[Maelzai]

just in regards to using charm in pvp or using charm in general. You can stack alot of junk buffs under charm, enc has 6 alone (mist, str, cha, see invis, ultravision, ds, speed) if not more i just thought of these off top of my head. Meening any non enc class is going to have to dispell your pet 4 times to get to charm, and then just keep str and see invis loaded to chain cast on pet if needed while your pet solos the person.
It obviously doesnt always work out this well, and is less reliable if there is more then 1 person dispelling your pet but for 1v1 pvp it almost always works out.

And mez in pvp atleast on live, some of the lower lvl mezes work better then the later ones. I generally use Mesmerize and Entrance in pvp preRapture just for the low mana cost for chain casting till it lands. You can burn alot of mana fast on high lvl mezes and never land them.

[Bockscar]

Junk-buffing your charmed pet isn't really possible unless it's a caster that has buffed itself before you charm it. When you charm a mob, charm will be the first buff on its list. No matter how many buffs you then cast on it, charm will remain on top. Then when charm wears off, that top slot will be empty. When you charm it again, charm goes in the first slot again. One dispel will always get rid of charm unless the mob had its first slots filled with its own buffs before you charmed it the first time around. You can't buff a hostile mob.

[pickled_heretic]

Junk-buffing your charmed pet isn't really possible unless it's a caster that has buffed itself before you charm it. When you charm a mob, charm will be the first buff on its list. No matter how many buffs you then cast on it, charm will remain on top. Then when charm wears off, that top slot will be empty. When you charm it again, charm goes in the first slot again. One dispel will always get rid of charm unless the mob had its first slots filled with its own buffs before you charmed it the first time around. You can't buff a hostile mob.

1. charm pet

2. cast junk buffs

3. break charm

4. cast tash

5. charm pet

while i don't know if this works in practice, it certainly seems like it would work in theory - casting tash before the 2nd charm should fill the first slot and push charm to the very back of the buff list.

[Bockscar]

Tash will wear off after a few minutes.

And if you have to do stuff like that when charm-grinding, it'll barely be worth it. Just doing it the traditional bluebie way is tricky enough and it doesn't take very much to fuck it all up. If you have to juggle back and forth with charm, charmbreak, tash, charm (not to mention keeping numerous junk buffs up) just to protect the pet a little from getting dispelled, the whole charm-grinding idea is shot and you might as well use your summoned pet.

[pickled_heretic]

Tash will wear off after a few minutes.

so what? the charm should still be listed after all of your other buffs.

[pickled_heretic]

And if you have to do stuff like that when charm-grinding, it'll barely be worth it. Just doing it the traditional bluebie way is tricky enough and it doesn't take very much to fuck it all up. If you have to juggle back and forth with charm, charmbreak, tash, charm just to protect the pet a little from getting dispelled, the whole charm-grinding idea is shot and you might as well use your summoned pet.

using a low DB/LB in a group as a keeper is different from charm grinding.

[Bockscar]

You'd have to do that whole dance every time charm breaks. It wouldn't be worth trying to XP that way, using charm is a shaky enough balance as it is.

[pickled_heretic]

You'd have to do that whole dance every time charm breaks. It wouldn't be worth trying to XP that way, using charm is a shaky enough balance as it is.

it would still very clearly be worth it. charmed pets do more damage than equivalent level mdps of any type..

[Bockscar]

I'm not talking about keeping a charmed pet around while you're in a group. We were discussing solo-leveling with charm. And anyway, it's not very viable to protect your charmed pet from dispels when you can't even see the junk buffs yourself. I tried it once on p99, I think it was against Naggy, and it was just a mess.

[tbox]

Enchanter's usefulness (other then buffing) is pretty dependent on how they do resists and whether crim pots are going to be in. If at 150 resists your untouchable by spells then there is going to be a problem.

Shadowknight is pretty much what you mentioned considering the xp penalty.

I think shaman is your best choice for end game considerations in terms of pvp. Ebolt does a shit ton of damage on casters. It can be cured but it ticks fast and if your not dueling, in the craziness of a pvp battle it will typically go uncured. You also get a relatively decent haste buff for mage and necro pets and melee.

Another consideration maybe a bard. They get a lot of enchanter like abilities but can do them while moving.

[Maelzai]

If you are soloing as an enchanter using charm then you should just be switching pets constantly, breaking charm and nuking or charming full health mob to kill low life one, cycling through pets for constant exp imo. But you constantly check /who and if you see pontetial pvp grab a pet and buff it for pvp.
I have lvl'd several encs on vztz and one on live and used charm for the most part. Using charm the right way a clr/enc can farm every named in lguk with ease and own in pvp cause you have 15junk buffs between both classes.

And as far as enc usefulness in pvp as far as resist goes, i dont think it will matter that much in the long run. Our main spells in pvp are Dispell, tash, mez, root. Even if we cant land anything at all on ppl cause of resist, we still get 2x 4 slot dispell and unresistable mez in kunark. and tash is garnenteed to land, so we simply lose root in a bad resist system.

And in regards to crimson pots, i hope that they arent in the game but if they are maybe make sheild of the immaculate a little less rare-its the only item enc can really get to counter crim pots.

[Envious]

1. charm pet

2. cast junk buffs

3. break charm

4. cast tash

5. charm pet

while i don't know if this works in practice, it certainly seems like it would work in theory - casting tash before the 2nd charm should fill the first slot and push charm to the very back of the buff list.

I know this worked on VZ/TZ, but without the ability to check the buffs on pet with /report or the pet box... no telling.

It should still work the same. Provided at some point you can land a nullify.