First off, the default for everyone is to think "yeah, what P99 is doing is classic", because it's what we've been playing ... but people argued strongly that combat bind wounds was classic! It clearly wasn't, so we should be aware of that bias.

Similarly, it's easy to say "well Enchanters are better here because they know about Charisma", but there's actually tons of evidence that Enchanters knew about Charisma back in the day ... it just wasn't clear how much impact it made. Caster's Realm even did "studies" ... and found them inconclusive (November 2000, emphasis added):

And there are a lot more references on the various sites in https://wiki.project1999.com/Classic_Research#Enchanter that all make it clear Charisma was known to impact charming ... but again, they often say it's unclear, despite testing ... suggesting that the obvious benefits of Charisma here on P99 might be unclassic.

Not that rare. I literally played in the Velious era with a real life friend, and I watched him (painfully) learn to swarm. And he was hardly the first: he'd read about the technique online from other Bards, doing it much earlier.

You're absolutely right that internet limits, hardware limits, Gina, etc. matter. No question. But that applies to all classes. Whether you take Bards or any other class, they fundamentally play the same here as they did in classic ... maybe with bigger swarms now, but they're still the same Bards (and the staff even "nerfed" swarms to make them more classic!)

Meanwhile, Enchanter is the only class that fundamentally aren't the same as on live. They went from being a primarily group class, that could solo (dangerously, so most didn't) ... to being a primarily solo class. You can't convince me that's classic.

Class counts will be similar to Green 1.0. Here are the counts when green was still very new https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...JH0/edit#gid=0

i think that both sides are right about enchanters.

I'd say that back in the classic days, up thru luclin at least, the vast majority didn't understand everything about enchanters, the tactics, the spell combinations, the gear, even charisma.

I'd also say that enchanters on p99 are tuned a bit stronger than live classic era.

enchanters didn't have a monklybusiness or safehouse type website with in-depth and thorough information and forum discussion.

I do remember enchanters charming in groups and ultimately being asked to stop because of the liability, they all went down in 2 rounds.

I also remember being impressed at charm mob dps. so it could have worked, and im sure that there were some people who figured out you have gear like a CHA based melee class and to swap half your spells every 2 minutes.

then luclin hit and enchanters gained Dire Charm, and nobody ever thought about regular charm mechanics ever again. so that era of "classic charming" was over and gone before the casual player even got Spell: Allure

on p99 we've had like 12 years to study, learn and master, because it never changes. everything is reliably the same day in day out, and no xpac will come along to change that.

copy and sticky this post, and put an end the the discussion for good.

Bards weren't known to commonly swarm xp til post-Velious either, for many of the same reasons. There's a reason for the old stereotype of bard players being afk-manasong. Like enchanter its more about the differences in everything else than something lacking in P99's coding of the classes. You can't put Pandora back in the box on all this stuff, there's a myriad of variables that have combined to make enchanter the powerhouse it is today.

I liked everything you wrote except that ;D



By the way, what do you think of Shaman's in contrast to classic? It's got a similar notoriety to some extent.

What I meant was, I played the game back in the day, and I've also read a ton of old comments and guides about on the Wayback machine. It is factually accurate to say:

1. Enchanters were primarily a grouping class back in '99-'01 (and only very rarely charmed in groups)
2. While they certainly did solo charm, it was done with great risk (which led to #1)

You can't convince me otherwise, because that's history. But you could (hypothetically) convince me that the mechanics here are accurate. I don't currently buy it, but I could be convinced otherwise.

Similarly, you won't convince me that it's classic for Bards to swarm 100+ mobs; despite what I wrote about them swarming, they didn't (or at least 99.99% didn't) swarm 100+ back in '99-'01.

I'm absolutely in favor of any "nerfs" to make Shaman (or any class) more classic :)

I just don't have the passion to advocate for any because A) personally, having played Loramin both here and on live, I hadn't noticed anything unclassic, and B) I'm kind of over Loramin. I still play him some, but I've already relived my live experience with him.

What I now want is the classic experience of being an Enchanter; thus my advocacy.

just make an ench and gear like they did back in 2000

high elf, all points to INT

robe of the oracle
stein of mogguk
a crude stein
x2 cat eye ring
x2 cat eye bracelet
incandescent mask/gloves
basic cloth in the rest of the slots

you'll have like 300 hp at level 20, constant charm breaks and die very easily :p

If you're a pro you might have an advisor robe.

Get some Ro armor with that ;)

But the hot pink erollsi armor :O