Enchanter - Why bother breaking charm?

[Hamesh]

I understand pets eat 50% exp if you don't break charm. I'm not sure that it matters that much. My experience lately has been mostly on 2nd floor of City of Mist. Looking for someone to correct me where I'm wrong in my thinking.

Scenario 1:

Charm two mobs, let them kill each other, and nuke both for full xp.

Mez a pet (20), tash it (30), charm it (195) = 245 mana
Tash a mob (30) and send pet = 30 mana
Break charm, nuke pet (160), nuke mob (160) = 320 mana

Scenario 1 Total: 595 mana

Scenario 2:

Charm pet, give it weapons and haste, and let it go to town on slowed mobs.

Mez a pet (20), tash it (30), charm it (195), haste it (275), and give it weapons = 520 mana
Tash a mob (30), send pet, and slow mob (100 for Tepid Deeds) = 130 mana

Scenario 2 Total: 650 mana

In scenario 2, however, I don't have to break charm, nuke, and then charm something new every fight. Let's conservatively assume charm lasts 4 fights. I usually get more like 5-6 mobs killed before having to blur pet to heal it or re-charm due to break.

Over 4 fights, I tash (30) and slow (100) every mob so that's (4x130) 520 mana. I'm not purposely breaking charm or having to spend mana on nukes so I have my initial mez (20), tash (30), and charm (195) spread out over those 4 fights. Pet haste (AQ) lasts 24 minutes so that's about 15-18 fights (275 mana / 15 fights = 18.33) and costs roughly 19 mana per fight (19x4 = 76).

Scenario 1 over four mobs killed (2 fights, kill both mobs) is 595 x 2 = 1190 mana
Scenario 2 over four mobs killed (4 fights, pet kills all mobs) is 520 + 245 + 76 = 841 mana

The 4 fights in scenario 2 are also a hell of a lot faster. A hasted, weaponized pet seems to be doing well more than 2x the damage of an unbuffed pet.

So if I let pet steal 50% exp then I have to kill 2x as many mobs, but that seems to be easy enough to do with a hasted pet and I get 2x more gem drops etc from killing more mobs. Am I missing something?

[nordbear]

Scenario 1 grants 200% xp and scenario 2 50% so you’d need to kill 4 mobs with the charmed pet to get the same amount of xp

[Hamesh]

I'm fairly sure the hasted pet is killing 4 mobs in the time it takes for two unbuffed mobs to kill each other down and for me to nuke them and med the mana back. I might have to time some fights later. Thanks.

[Tecmos Deception]

Others beat me to it, but yeah, the scenario 1 vs 2 thing is a false dichotomy. The real xp by the time you could solo com is in reverse charming 3-5 mobs at once.

If you don't do that for some reason, you still have to consider time spent not killing when using a buffed pet due to: splitting rooms that aren't already split, letting pet heal for 90 seconds every 4-5 fights, pet being more dangerous to you on a charm break, etc. You also seem to be using a more expensive nuke than is sometimes necessary to finish off a mob, inflating the mana needs of scenario 1.

There's an hour-long CoM video in my collection, if anyone wants to see charming solo enchanter in action in there.

[Hamesh]

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

Others beat me to it, but yeah, the scenario 1 vs 2 thing is a false dichotomy. The real xp by the time you could solo com is in reverse charming 3-5 mobs at once.

If you don't do that for some reason, you still have to consider time spent not killing when using a buffed pet due to: splitting rooms that aren't already split, letting pet heal for 90 seconds every 4-5 fights, pet being more dangerous to you on a charm break, etc. You also seem to be using a more expensive nuke than is sometimes necessary to finish off a mob, inflating the mana needs of scenario 1.

There's an hour-long CoM video in my collection, if anyone wants to see charming solo enchanter in action in there.

I’ll check videos. Thanks. The nuke I used is Anarchy, which does about 4% mob health on 2nd floor CoM. Letting health get lower than that seems like you risk your mob getting killed by pet.

I’m eager to try out the pack killing method now though.

[Tecmos Deception]

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

I’ll check videos. Thanks. The nuke I used is Anarchy, which does about 4% mob health on 2nd floor CoM. Letting health get lower than that seems like you risk your mob getting killed by pet.

I’m eager to try out the pack killing method now though.

Id often keep two nukes ready when feasible (like in com, where you don't need a permanent slot for theft of thought). Not a huge difference but I felt like I could spare the slot anyway so it's save mana sometimes when a mob just so happened to end up at 1-2%.

And yeah the pack killing is amazing. It makes you feel like a god. Necros do it pretty well too, but it's a bit more finnicky without aoe mez and tash (and fetter).

[Synthlol]

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

I’m eager to try out the pack killing method now though.

The correct technical term is Leaves' EXP Blender of Death and Destruction™

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

Necros do it pretty well too

And Druids do it best, but don't have many places to do it outside of the bear pits.

[loramin]

The whole cool "trick" of charm fighting is that you make the damage your pet takes work for you. When you stop killing your pet, all that damage it takes works against you instead, so you really have to kill A LOT more/faster if you want to keep the same pet.

But if you optimize things right, and based on the numbers you presented it sounds like you are, keeping a pet can make sense in some circumstances: it just needs to kill significantly faster.

[Legidias]

A hasted pet also kills YOU much faster

[Hamesh]

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

A hasted pet also kills YOU much faster

That's another thing. On CoM second floor, with a hasted pet you clear more mobs so you actually have way more room to work with in the event of pet break. He never even gets close to me. It's counter-intuitive, but I feel safer with hasted pet.