Chanter Q&A from a PM

[Tecmos Deception]

I recently got a PM with these questions in it, and I figured it'd be worth posting them and my answers instead of just replying to the individual who sent me the PM.

Note that a lot of my advice is stuff you can get from Loraen's Enchanter Guide, although he and I do quite a few things differently.

Also, these questions were prompted by someone watching a couple of my saved streams on twitch (http://www.twitch.tv/Tecmos_Deception) where you can see me putting most of this stuff into action. It happens pretty quick usually, so it's hard to really see/know what's going on in the stream without having read about it otherwise or without rewatching parts of it trying to figure out what is going on. If you're interested, you could also check out my Solo Artist Challenge Sheet which contains links to posts where I describe the fights of all the things I've done in the SAC; you'll see the progression of me from a noob soloer and see me learn and start using a lot of the stuff that I use all the time in streams and discuss below along the way, etc.

Originally Posted by Question

1. Hotkeys: It seems like you are able to target everything almost perfectly. Do you have hotkeys for switching back and forth between last 2 targets, do you tab target? How do you avoid clicking on yourself when you are in third person view?

I use tab targetting, mouse clicks, and a hotkey I've assigned to the ~` key which switches between my two most recent targets (which is crazy useful). I often do click myself in third-person view, especially when I'm trying to peer around a corner to target something for lulling or whatever, but changing camera angle or moving a little bit can help avoid that. Gnome illusion also helps make you smaller and change camera height for this.

There's some red players who use ridiculous amounts of camera tweaking that would be incredibly useful to have, but I've never figured that shit out. Bind sight is sexy enough for me anyways.

Originally Posted by Question

2. Clickies: Which do you think are most important? I have the Goblin ring, and earring still working on epic. do you have a macro or something to always click the earring after a cast or do you just do it naturally? I am assuming it takes some practice and getting used to.

Any clicky that you're comfortable using to eliminate the global cooldown between spellcasts is the most important, imo. I wear a goblin earring because I don't like using clickies that need a target like the rod of insidious glamour or that disort my vision like the tinkered telescope thing. I hotkey my goblin earring and it's habit already to click it between casts (even to the point that I end up clicking it BEFORE casts sometimes, which probably slows me down a bit).

Goblin ring is very convenient for breaking charm immediately when you want to, but it's more of a convenience than a necessity imo, especially at 60 when you don't care about breaking charm so often to get full xp for kills.

Originally Posted by Question

3. Spell Switching: I noticed that you do a lot of spell switching. Does this just take practice? Why do you have both stuns up? it seems like you only ever use 1. I suppose this is for resists? I was surprised to see that you never have a long mez up either. do you just use root mostly? How are you able to tell when something is memblurred that you didnt see regrain health at 5% a tick

My top 6 spell slots that I have memmed 99% of the time I'm doing anything except raiding are fetter, mesmerize, mesmerization, color shift, color slant, theft of thought, and two swap slots.

Fetter is just godly, better in every way than all the other roots.

I use mesmerize because I rarely need to keep targets mezzed for long periods of time (I will make heavy use of fetter for CC on targets unless they are damaged summoners or casters, even casters I will try to fetter and LoS from myself and my pet instead of mezzing oftentimes) and it has a shorter recast time in case of resists than the higher-level mez spells do.

I use mezmerization because it is a nicer way to mez pet + enemy/enemies after a charm break when you're dealing with multiple mobs that might be summoning you back into melee every time you step away, and because I need to be able to lock down a group quickly when lull crit fails during pulls or whatever; it has shorter duration than fascination but much lower mana cost AND it can overwrite the other mez that I'm using because it has the same duration!

I use shift AND slant incase of a resist on one or if I use one of them to interrupt a spell I still have the other up and ready if charm breaks at that moment, etc. I have been using these two because they are both 1.5-second casts (skew is 2.0, harder to get off when beat on during charm break+summon) and long enough duration to get an AE mez (or shorter casts) off before duration fades. Flux might actually be long-enough duration nowadays, with clickies refreshing gems, but I haven't tried it. I try to use shift when I can instead of slant because it is much cheaper.

ToT is loaded any time there is any chance of me being able to use it because it is just so awesome.

My two swap slots have tash, slow, bedlam, rune, calm, mem blur, dispels (taper to remove root from pet, recant to strip buffs from an enemy caster or something), sometimes cripple or a dot or a nuke, sometimes an extra stun (skew) for chain-interrupting casters, gnome illusion, bind sight, invis, ivu, etc swapped in. I do a lot of swapping, and pretty recently tried to reorganize my spellbook so the spells I use the most often are on the first several pages for quickest access.

You can tell when a mob is blurred in a few ways. They'll regen 5% per tick, they won't turn to face towards you when rooted as you pivot around them, they won't smack you when you move close (assuming they are calmed), etc.

Originally Posted by Question

4. I have been practicing some of this type of solo in the room before VS. I finally figured out how to get the lev trick to work so i dont have to gate out [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]. It seems like there are some summoning mobs down there. What is the plan for when these mobs break charm? Im guessing its something like get summoned, stun, ae mez re root, recharm? Am I missing anything there?

The ideal way to deal with summoners is to keep both your pet and anything he is engaged with rooted right on top of each other. Face your character so that when you get summoned, you are facing away from your pet so that you can run forwards and quickly be out of his melee range. If you only have 1 summoner here, you can stop as soon as you are out of melee range and AE mez (or just charm perhaps, if the summoner is dotted) and reroot, recharm, etc. Even if your enemy AND your pet can both summon, you can still run out of melee range when they are both rooted without getting beat on too hard unless you get stunned.

Oftentimes roots will wear off of pet (god bless red for letting a pet be rooted by a duo partner or whatever) during a fight, or be broken by mob procs or whatever. When this is the case you need to be facing so that when you get summoned you are facing your pet to give you a chance to dodge incoming attacks. Cast a fast stun then AE mez and proceed with refreshing debuffs and recharming and whatever. Or, if your pet is dotted, cast a slant (skew might work now too with clicky refresh, not sure) and boltrans for recharm without using mez. Etc.

Charm breaks and how to deal with them without dying is probably the most important part of chanter soloing, since at higher levels you will usually be dealing with summoners and it can get VERY hairy if you're fighting casters or mobs that might resist 1+ stuns/mezzes as you try to get things back under control... meanwhile you're pet is quadding you for 140s and unrooted mobs are running around out of range of AE stun/mez and shit. And in Velious your pets will be hitting for 180 and enemies for 200+ with potentially higher resists (or even immunity) ... [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Originally Posted by Question

5. UI questions: It looks like you have the incoming and outgoing dmg in the two windows around your player bar. how exactly are those setup? the left one is incoming dmg to you? I assume your con messages are going to the blocked window in most of your videos as well, is that correct?

I just have others hits and misses in one window and a certain color, and my hits and misses, me getting hit/missed, and pet hits/misses in another window, also color coded. Showing hit/miss only. I could just use one window but the spam makes it hard to see what numbers are in there sometimes, and it's important to know how hard the stuff you're dealing with hits to know what level it is. I sometimes miss not using a combat window with full display so I can see exactly what mob is hitting for how much (like if I am fighting more than just 1 mob)... but meh. My laptop has a low resolution so I can't fit all that on my screen and be comfortable with it.

Originally Posted by Question

6. more clicky/gear questions: This is the list I could figure out from your open bags, I marked the ones I already have. Are there any you think are super important that I am missing? in your Red video you seem way less geared but able to do just as much so im thinking most of these arent going to be that big a deal.

[]Epic
[]Clicky charm stick from VP
[X]Stalking Probe
[ ]Peg Cloak
[ ]Fishbone Earring
[X]Reaper of the Dead
[ ]Soulfire
[ ]Bracer of the Hidden
[X]Wand of Allure
[ ]Ivandyr's Hoop
[X]Potion of Stinging Wort/Ice Giant Toes - dottie
[X]Kithar's Disease Treatment
[X]Ethira's Poison Antidote
[X]Potion of Greater Rejuvenation
[ ]Midnight Mallet
[ ]Wooly Spider Silk Net

Epic is awesome, of course. Amazing stats, saves you hundreds of mana per hour by using clicky hastes on some player and any pet. I use the buff on myself usually for the small boost to agility and ac and shit.

VP staff is just bonus. Totally not essential. It is fun in a place like seb where you have a good chance of finding a level 49 mob to charm. But in lots of zones (south, east, planes, velious) it is more difficult to find something the staff will work on. The long cast time is also annoying a lot of the time.

Peg cloak, fishbone earring are just convenient things to have. Mallet is just for giving to tanks in raids. That wasn't an ivandyr's hoop, it was another opalline earring that I haven't worn since I put goblin ear in for clicky refresh I don't think. Lol.

Shaman potions are great, but pretty expensive consumables for someone who isn't kind of established with plat. Rejuv are 800 hp healing over 2 minutes. Stinging wort are 300 hp instant heal per click. Poison and disease cures get rid of those nasty ebolts and plagues and shit that eat up your HP while ignoring runes (even a lower-level dot like venom of the snake is pretty significant since it goes straight to hp damage). I try to click off my goblin earring junk buff when I see a MR-based spell coming at me (usually just boil blood or something) so I can taper magic it off.

Reaper and soulfire are for use only when I'm fighting something that I KNOW has a nice drop on it and I'm using them to save myself from a wipe I don't want to do the CR for or I think someone else will get the kill before I get back in. Reapers can be recharged for like 1600pp or something if you're doing just 1 at a time. Soulfire is annoying to quest yourself (especially if you haven't done the faction yet)... but having 6 charges of CH in your bags makes the impossible possible. Shaman pots are usually a better way to heal yourself than CH clickies since chanters are only at like 2500 hp even with cleric buffs.

Bracer of the hidden is mostly convenience... don't have to mem see invis to see myself in third person or to junk buff (sucks when indoors and mobs cast annul magic stripping 2 buffs!).

Wand of allure is ghetto puppet strings - used to instantly recharm level 51 and lower pets when I'm low on mana or charm breaks a few times in short succession and I haven't had time to reapply runes or something. Net is similar. Used to try to root an incoming mob if I aggro 4 HTers on a lull fail or if I get resists and am being beat down on a charm break or something. I don't use either very often. Nets are cheap to recharge but not totally trivial to buy initially. Wands are cheap to buy but not as easy to find as nets and are about the same cost to recharge as to buy new.

Stalking probe is just to get through locked doors with illusions.


Most clickies are just to help you out when the going gets tough. They can help you win a fight even when poor planning, poor play, bad decisions, or bad luck got you into a bind... or they can help win a fight that might be nearly impossible even with everything going your way. But yeah, contrary to the belief of red players or other whiners on the forums, clickies and being able to recharge them do not a successful soloer make.