[Ruien]

I've been ENC main for 20 years (with many long breaks). You're asking some good questions.

Originally Posted by tadkins [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm wondering if there might be a playstyle of enchanter that supports high INT.

Not until you are doing raids that don't facilitate charmed pets, which is end-game, and the end-game gear has a lot of INT on it. Until then, you need to max your CHA for charming. I personally prefer Erudite over High Elf for greater INT+CHA stats plus the racial MR bonus (and they also look better, I think). But you should still put your points into CHA over INT. If you do go ERU for the higher starting INT, then aim for a Tranix crown for the excellent MR plus worn infravision.

Originally Posted by tadkins [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But that said I'm less worried about the enchanter having a chain of resists than I was as a wizard. At least the enchanter has a MR debuff, that should help things greatly on that front, right?

That's right. Tash helps a lot. What you will be thinking about more is aggro management (tash generates a lot of hate). There are times when you can't afford the extra hate and will decide that it's actually preferable to skip tash and risk a greater resist chance.

Enchanter is about risk management. Here are a few tash-related situational tricks that can help you minimize risk in certain situations:

(1) Sometimes you want to mez before tash, and then memblur to clear aggro. With high enough CHA that you are confident in your lull success (recall that CHA helps to mitigate mob aggro on a lull/calm/pacify resist), then you can first calm a group of mobs, and then proceed to mez one, tash it while mezzed, and then re-mez until it memblurs (using lv 4 mez). Now you have a mob that's forgotten about you but is already MR debuffed for the next 14 minutes.

(2) Also keep in mind that you can calm your pet while it's charmed. So calm your pet and camp directly (without breaking charm). Log right back in, and it won't aggro on you (and will still be tashed). Now you can re-log in with no aggro and a tash already in place - mez, refresh tash, recharm. This can be useful when you need to leapfrog mobs while delving. It also works with Rapture+Tash+Dictate at 60.

Originally Posted by tadkins [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Are there going to be instances where I might not always have a pet to charm available, and what can be done during them? Let's say I'm off in the middle of nowhere in WK camping one of the HG spawns? There's nothing like "diminishing returns" on charming, and I can theoretically keep the same pet forever if I wanted, right?

I think of this question the other way around -- is your camp good quality or not? If your goal is soloing for XP, then a good-quality camp is one that allows you to not be forced to keep one pet forever. In order to keep a pet forever, you have complete heal it, and the way a chanter does that is to pacify your pet, memblur it so that it gets 5% per tick regen, and then mez, tash, re-charm. But healing your pet is not good efficiency for XP, because you're wasting damage. Instead, it would be preferable to kill off your pet when it gets low.

Think about it this way: if your pet is doing 50 damage/sec to a mob and that mob is doing 50 damage/sec back to your pet, and you're eventually going to get XP from both, then you're getting XP at a rate of 100 damage/sec without healing. To be able to break your charm instantly, immediately before it dies (and thus only requires a small nuke to finish off), aim to acquire a Goblin Gazughi Ring.

In doing the above, you might find that the non-pet is not yet low enough to finish off. In that case, cast mez on the mob while spamming "back off" on your pet, and then immediately re-tash the mob in order to maintain aggro (preventing it from possibly being memblurred and therefore regenning health). Then break charm from a distance and mez/root the ex-pet and kill it off.

So, now, back to your question: yes, there are situations you can get into where you don't have a good supply of new pets to keep swapping and cycling through. That's a bad camp from an XP standpoint. Maybe doable with your animation pet plus slow, but why put yourself through such painfully slow misery?

Originally Posted by tadkins [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

From my experiences as a mage, sometimes I'd just let the pet take 50% of the exp depending on the situation. I'd rather kill the mob and come out alive than try to be the most efficient. As an enchanter I'd probably rather be safe and just accept 50% of the exp than try to be tricky and end up dying.

If you want to go this route, then I'd suggest duoing with a cleric and allow them to CH your pet. Anytime you are in a group, the pet won't eat XP (even if it does all of the damage), and you'll also be burning through mobs quicker in the duo.

If you're solo and looking for XP, then there's no reason to not break the pet for extra XP. Just operate on lower-level mobs until you get the hang of it and slowly work your way up. Lower-level mobs with a better (break charm) strategy will be both safer and faster than letting the pet win and eating your XP. After all, your main risks are during random (unintentional) charm breaks anyway. Breaking charm when you are ready with everything under control is not very risky.

Originally Posted by tadkins [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm only anxious because of how harsh failure is in this game. Messing up and not getting it right adds up to a lot of undone progress and I don't have any loyal cleric friends to help bail me out of that. xD

Start with some level 10 mobs and just practice until you get used to it, slowly increasing the mob level until you get up to mobs that start giving XP. Also, when you do start on higher-level mobs, fight near a zone line, so you can just zone if you start to lose control. Focus on learning the class correctly, operating on low-enough level mobs that you are able to build your skills. I strongly advise against practicing suboptimal strategies; the fun of Enc is to be an Enc.