ENC, SHM, or SHD?
 

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I'm sure they'll fix that.

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.