new Iksar Necro

[Uteunayr]

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

Aye, but reverse charming is the ultimate charm technique for leveling and killing trash undeads. I suppose not many are comfortable doing it as a necro and the risk is great, but the reward is substantial.

I was hoping your guide would have it included, more so because it seems not many necromancers know of it. I actually don't see many enchanters use it either, but definitely more of them than necromancers which is kinda sad.

You will need to define specifically what you mean in reverse charming for me. As I remember it from my Enchanter back on live (far after classic), reverse charming was an adjusted strategy to original charming because two mobs of equal level, with one charmed, could not equal out to each other.

Allow me to start before going onward by saying that in classic, I never achieved the maximum level on either my necromancer or enchanter, and thus charming complexities were not known to me at the time. By the time I did start charming, DPS loss on the charm was an issue, and so the reverse charming I know of referred to grabbing a pet, and buffing the ever loving shit out of it, breaking your charm, rooting it, and then systematically going through the rest of the mobs, throwing them at the super pet to get obliterated, and then you break charm and last hit. This lets you get a series of kills very quickly, and the rooted mob will not die quickly due to the lower damage on the pets being thrown at it, creating a system of efficient mana gain that takes advantage of the health discrepancy created by the charm.

If that is what you mean by reverse charming, the reason why I do not write about such a system is that my experience here has not been able to replicate that DPS/HP discrepancy on P1999, which has lead me to believe that was not a part of classic. From this, I did not find it to be particularly advantageous as the beefed pet can only be beefed but so much based on class limitations, and luck in target selection becomes a significantly greater factor without the DPS loss acting as a source of super-mob mitigation. In my 200 or so hours of Charasis basement, the only major discrepancy I could find was when charming a mob that would be light blue (you can tell at 59/60) going against a dark blue. Additionally, when doing a place like Charasis with mixed, you have issues of throwing the living mobs out of the super-pumped undead one since we cannot charm them.

I suppose I may have used it more in Guk if I decided to level up there, but I am quite sure that I am cursed by Guk to never have a pleasant leveling experience in that zone. That is a personal bias of mine, but I very well can't write a guide that includes a zone I do not go to. It would be irresponsible, and I'd be writing about something I have no idea about.

For that reason, I suggested what I have always thought of as standard charm killing: charming a mob, making it fight another, root the other, wait until both are low, or one is low, break the charm and use a quick Deflux to pop 'em and claim full experience for each kill.

This is all assuming I am getting your definition correct. If you refer to something else, please enlighten me. Gods know the terminology in this game has not been consistent across servers, across time periods, and across classes, lol.

EDIT: However, it may be useful to add a side section as a strategy, similar to where I add some notes on Necromancer grouping, that can be utilized if the situation arises, even if this type of strategy is not particularly relevant in my eyes on this server specifically.

[Uteunayr]

I believe I describe doing something similar to that in pulling the Charasis Basement wings. Specifically, that when pulling a wing, you can bring a charm pet, engage one of the wings (get 4-5 on the guy), and start backing off. You generally need to pop a Harmshield as they will aggro you rather than your pet at first, but that's just a matter of survivability in setting it up. You back off the pet, root one, back off and engage, root one, etc. You can form a line of them (due to the pathing), and by the time it is done, the one that was charmed is low, finish it off. Then you grab them in order going through the line. If you do it properly, each one skeleton will be hit by the next 2-3 mobs in line. You jump from one end of the line, to the other (front/back/front/back) so that you're left with 2 at the center in the end to do a normal charm kill finish. This way, you don't have to grab a bunch of skeletons that are out of the way, and can handle non-skeletons in the pack. But that's out of necessity in Charasis.

Yeah, that's not what I was socialized in the game into calling reverse charming, but these things are fluid. I don't even know what I'd call what you describe really. Either way, I get the idea behind it. I know what I describe isn't exactly what you are, but that's about as close to group charm killing. Seems pretty close.

[Uteunayr]

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

I stole the technique from an enchanter 2 years or so ago on here. He was the one referring to it as "Reverse Charming."

In KC basement with the skeletons you just charm one and make him attack another to where he will aggro 3-5 at one time. They won't aggro you unless the charm breaks (or you sit down) and you can root them all in a group. You shouldn't have to pop harmshield doing this in KC basement unless your charm breaks and your FD fails when you first aggro a pack. There also aren't pathers in the jail area so your FD will always be clear when they return to their spawn.

You should give this a try and let me know what you think. It's incredibly fast and efficient once you get the hang of it.

The harmshield is for in Charasis, if you send your pet in, before the pet can get in to engage the others, they will run for you. And in Charasis, the stakes are very high with all the skeletons harm touching, so you take any precautions possible unless you want to burn an EE (although there has been more Charasis traffic as of late). And since you can't FD with a charm pet without breaking the charm, that out isn't available to put initial aggro onto the pet.

I've done stuff that is basically what you describe, just shaped to a particular camp, but to make it the dominant strategy requires a specific type of camp, and I haven't encountered many spots like that that I feel make a particularly useful contribution to the guide, although they certainly exist for other purposes. As I described in my prior posts, my guide is written to get a person to where they can solo just about anything a Necro can solo, and so the wider net the guide casts is to teach a diverse array of strategies, and I believe Charasis Basement, as I describe it, is sufficient to introduce people to managing group charms for their soloing career. Nevertheless, I'll probably make a note that it is another way to charm, so if people find such efficient spots, they can utilize it.

Weird that he called it reverse charming. Then again, I've heard people say that charm killing is holding onto one pet, and killing mob after mob like a Magician, and reverse charming is when you get them both low, and pop them both at once. I also have heard people call reverse charming when you charm one pet, attack another, get one to low, break your charm, root your pet, deflux the non-pet, and charm a new 100%, and so you stagger them based on 50% of their health total. A difficult term for sure.

Anyway, seems like something worth adding in the additional necromancer resources section, along with the grouping guide, research only words, and Levant locations.

[Uteunayr]

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

You can technically use this method anywhere that their is a high amount of undeads in groups (where you can easily aggro several with one /pet attack). If you do acquire non-undeads you can simply dot them down and let them just be extra dps. Doing it like this isn't quite as efficient (dots take longer to kill than charming like this), but usually after going through several pets, the normal mobs will have had their health dwindled enough that they are easily finished with the last undead left alive.

The main downside is you can't use this method on enemies that cast DD spells, as they will continue to break your roots.

I don't remember all the locations that this works well in, but KC skelly basements is the main place I used it at (farming for xp, bonechips, and the occasional turnkey + other rare spawns nearby).

Yeah, that's the issue. You need a camp with large numbers of undead that you can continually pull and throw into the bus. With Charasis, you waste far too much mana trying to DoT down a mob to maintain the 20 or so mobs you need to kill over a 24-28 minute respawn timer.

I can imagine Guk potentially working, near a no-living mob part of it. I can see KC basement as well. I am unfamiliar with Velious content, so I am unsure if there are high level undead only areas.

But I suppose there is another dimension, and that is namely that I wouldn't do this, personally, until Paralyzing at 49, as Roots before that is absolute trash. So, it seems to me that this is most appropriate for someone with the 3 minute root, where you can set yourself up to regenerate sufficient mana to make up for the numerous roots to maintain (given maintaining even 5 Paralyzing exclusively locks down over 33% of your potential mana gain, assuming approximately 50 mana in from Lich with uninterrupted 50 ticks), but by 49, you have Bloodgills and Nobles, two camps which I swear by. HHK XP modifier is just sickeningly, and I don't get what it is with Bloodgills, but I am getting around .75 to 1.5% experience a kill from 45 to 51 on those fuckers, and they have no more health than a spectre (1.5k). And by Charasis, I don't feel it is particularly efficient in any way but the way I describe above for handling the wings/rooms, due to the heavy and inconsistent mixing of living and non-living in addition to spellcasters (as you describe).