Spells: Low Level Charm

[Striiker]

There is an ongoing discussion presently regarding the low level enchanter charms and how they are quite ineffective at lower levels.

http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9784

I contributed my experiences to that thread and wanted to mention it in the bugs section as this is most certainly broken. Charm at lower levels does not work anywhere close to what it did in classic (far from it). When I was leveling up my enchanter on live in early 2000, I was able to charm the various beetles and griffawns in North Karana and have my charm last close to max duration most often and frequently for the maximum duration. When I tried this on P1999, I found charm barely lasting more than a few seconds. I should note that my enchanter on P1999 and my enchanter on Live are identical in terms of race and statistics. This was sufficiently broken in that I gave up on charm and made use of my animation pet instead (far less enjoyable / effective).
I hope that this could get some development attention when time permits.

[Ropethunder]

Despite having 201 charm at level 12, I had charm breaking randomly and at short durations when charming greens, blues, and light blues. I always tashed first.

[dali_lb]

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

Despite having 201 charm at level 12, I had charm breaking randomly and at short durations when charming greens, blues, and light blues. I always tashed first.

I suppose you mean charisma and not "charm"

Charisma has nothing whatsoever influence on charm spells.
Only thing that matters is if it resists it or not wich is a pure resist role nothing else.
There have always been these discussions, and people still havn't gotten it.
People do also discuss early breaks of charm, and I am 99% sure its a random thing how long the charm is working nothing else.

Again Charisma only matters on merchant prices up to 115 charisma. every cha point over there is worthless

[Malrubius]

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

I suppose you mean charisma and not "charm"

Charisma has nothing whatsoever influence on charm spells.
Only thing that matters is if it resists it or not wich is a pure resist role nothing else.
There have always been these discussions, and people still havn't gotten it.
People do also discuss early breaks of charm, and I am 99% sure its a random thing how long the charm is working nothing else.

Again Charisma only matters on merchant prices up to 115 charisma. every cha point over there is worthless

Sorry, but that is incorrect. Its possibly true now on Live, but we are talking about Classic. It was said repeatedly by Verant and shown by at least one near-classic-era log that CHA does have an effect on mezz, resisted lull aggro, and charm (both initial resist and duration).

You can read the documentation here: http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6733

You are correct however that some people still haven't gotten this. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[astarothel]

Level 13 enchanter now with 199cha.

Gonna run some tests on duration.

[Lazortag]

How long is charm "supposed" to last? What about for Bards? I'm very curious. Also some evidence would be great as this might make my bard even better.

[Dersk]

There are two different types of bard charm. The first one bards get lasts only three ticks and is mana-free. Higher level bard charms cost mana but can last over a minute.

Charm is "supposed" to last on average longer than what people are reporting here. Resist calculations have changed since launch, but given the relatively low resists on most classic mobs, tash plus a level difference generally made charm effective and max-duration charms could at least be seen. Instant breaks were always possible, but an average of less than 30s on anything that isn't extremely magic resistant is simply wrong.

[Malrubius]

Yeah, Chanter charm would usually last for awhile for dark blues even if your CHA wasn't all that great, as long as you Tashed first.

Instant or near-instant breaks were very memorable because they were very rare.


My GUESS is that the chance for charm to break was something like 1-2% per tick. In that case, at 1%, the charm would break, on average, after 50 ticks - or 5:00 minutes. At 2%, 2:30. And so on.

-Lower level mobs would *hugely* lower the percentage chance for charm to break per tick.
-Lowering MR (tash) would *significantly* lower the percentage chance for charm to break per tick.
-Raising CHA would *somewhat* lower the percentage chance for charm to break per tick.

These are averages of course, which is why charm could theoretically break on the first tick, or never break until the spell wears off.


Those are only guesstimates of course, and I pulled the percentages out of my butt - but it's leagues closer to classic than the current implementation.

[Striiker]

I just wanted to also note that the issue with charm apparently does not exist at higher levels as it functions exactly as I remember it on live. This is based upon anecdotal evidence submitted in the discussions by higher level enchanters here on P1999. They are getting full / near full duration charms. (I also was getting very long duration charms in my upper levels with my Enchanter on live.)

So, there's some calculation which is considerably off from where it should be for charm at lower levels. I don't know if this is associated with the spell itself or with the creatures at this level range. I am about to hit lvl 24 and get Beguile (our next spell in the charm line). I'll see how it works compared to my experiences at lvl 12 - 16 when I was trying to charm as I had on live.

[cerasa]

I hit 24 yesterday and hoped that beguile would be better than the level 4 charm. I charmed an aviak in Lake R and fought an add, then ran over to another camp with him. So I guess the charm lasted about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes for a dark blue. Is that about how long it should last?