tl;dr what Vladesch said.
IMO, From playing an enc both on live and up to 29 so far here, is that three key factors are CHA, level difference and target mob in charm. Assuming you have 'good' cha, I found at early levels the level difference issue caused problems. Somewhere else on the forums I saw someone doing a (probably pretty informal) test suggesting that a charm pet %80 of your level or lower was optimal to avoid breaks (assuming CHA is good!). When you're low level your level spread is much smaller for effective charm targets and xp targets making it hard to find that sweet spot. If you're level 12 trying this out then you probably want to find level 8 mobs, and possibly 1 level higher you get too many breaks and 1 level lower and your pet isn't particularly effective or good xp. At 29, toying around in sola, charming a level 23/24 was still very effective and the much lower level mobs were easier to deal with.
Lastly, your target mobs are very important. Some mobs just have higher MR, or some feature that makes them less desirable to charm. The classic example is gnomes, at least on live they were supposed to have high natural MR, I assume the same here. In sola I've enjoyed charming casters since on charm break they nicely stand there casting a nuke that never lands on me because I get a quick stun/mez off on them.
In other notes I found at the lower levels, say less than 22, I just didn't have the mana pool to consistently keep a charm pet, and without room to maneuver I found myself easily getting beat down with not enough hps to charm safely. I think it's because I'm not twinked out and don't have the gearflation that live had, and though my cha is workable my int and hps are quite low. I do recall at some times having enough HP on live and room to move around to just stay at 50%hp permenantly and bind wound up after breaks with hasted pets like it was no big deal and never having a death.
Up until I could effectively charm my friend Osagarn in HHK at 24/25 it seemed like if I just kept quickness on the melees and breeze on the casters that's all people really wanted from me anyway.
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