Spells: Pacify duration incorrect for timeline

[Zuranthium]

Some evidence of Harmony not being completely unresistible: "Harmony worked 90% of the time and never ever aggroed on failure" / "Harmony seems far superior to me, not only because it's AOE, but because it is resisted so seldom." / lots of talk here about occasional resists. I specifically remember needing to cast Harmony several times on a red con goblin in classic before it would stick.

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

Is there any research or additional input about casting a lull type spell on a 50+ npc?

I haven't yet found a player precisely saying "lull resists 100% of the time on Level 50+ NPC's", but literally every post from a classic Enchanter or Cleric says "don't even bother trying to use these spells at high levels" - https://web.archive.org/web/20010207...ML/052139.html / https://web.archive.org/web/20010206...ML/003538.html / https://web.archive.org/web/20010823...c&f=9&t=005368

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

Did low level lull type spells have level caps on what they could affect? For example, could a cleric cast the lowest level 'lull' spell on a level 40 npc, or would they need to cast calm or pacify for a chance to succeed?

There doesn't seem to be any level cap. Lots of talk about Pacify being a waste of mana and mainly using Lull (but both failing most of the time).

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

Could bard lull (Kelin's Lugubrious Lament) work on mobs that cleric/ranger lulls couldn't?

I assume you've seen this thread, detailing almost everything that needs to be changed (the exception being damage spells, which were given lower resists specifically for players over level 50 - I didn't save the link where Abashi or Absor on the official forums posted about the change; I also randomly saw Atol's Spectral Shackles being patched to resist less).

Bard lull should work on all targets and cut the target's magic resist in half for the resist check, while having a minimum 6% resist chance at all levels. When searching through countless posts, Bards notably are not complaining about their lull song, in comparison to Enchanters and Clerics all calling their lull spells trash.

[Wayward]

Ranger lull? Harmony is unresistable, innit?

[Crede]

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

Ranger lull? Harmony is unresistable, innit?

Rangers can calm animals. Not the same as harmo as it works indoors.

[Wayward]

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

Rangers can calm animals. Not the same as harmo as it works indoors.

Ah yeah - but that's the same as all other Pacify though, at least that's what I thought. That the class doesn't matter, the Pacify spells all work based on the same mechanic, just with different level of mob it will work on and a different Frenzy radius.

[Wayward]

ie: from Live

Calm Animal
Classes: RNG/31, DRU/15
Mana :45
Duration: 7 ticks

Slot 1: Frenzy Radius(5/50)
Slot 2: Reaction Radius(10/50)
Slot 3: Pacify

Casting Time: 2.5
Recast Time: 5.0
Recovery Time: 1.5
Skill: Alteration
Spell Type: Beneficial
Target Type: Animals
Resist: Magic (no adjust) Range: 200
Interruptable: Yes
Deleteable: Yes
Dispellable: Yes
Time of day: Any
Location: Any

Pacify
Classes: CLR/36, PAL/49, ENC/35
Mana :100
Duration: 7 ticks

Slot 1: Frenzy Radius(1/55)
Slot 2: Reaction Radius(1/55)
Slot 3: Pacify

Cast on you: You feel your aggression subside.
Cast on other: Someone looks less aggressive.
Wears off:

Casting Time: 3.0
Recast Time: 6.0
Recovery Time: 1.5
Skill: Alteration
Spell Type: Beneficial
Target Type: Single Target, Any PC
Resist: Magic (no adjust) Range: 200
Interruptable: Yes
Deleteable: Yes
Dispellable: Yes
Time of day: Any
Location: Any

The only discernible difference is the Frenzy / Reaction radius

[spoil]

I notice in all these classic discussions of the lull spell line, there's not a single mention of the word "charisma."

So I would expect a level 54 enchanter with 83 CHA trying to use wake of tranquility on a pack of level 50+ mobs in upper dogs to consider the lull spell line to be suicidal. They didn't know anything about the game. This is pretty useless anecdotal evidence.

No chanter on p99 is running around with less than 200 CHA or trying to lull high level velious mobs below level 60. Find a post of a level 60 enchanter with 255 CHA struggling to lull mobs 10+ levels lower in the classic era.

[nilbog]

So regarding charisma, when a lull spell was resisted there was a separate charisma check to determine if the resist caused aggro. The best formula we have for this is 90 - CHA/4, based on how resists worked in early clients.

Those values would be like:

CHA/aggro chance by resist
83 / 69%
100 / 65%
150 / 52%
200 / 40%
255 / 26%

In early clients there was a tiered resist floor for lulls:

npc level/resist %
1-14 / 10%
15-24 / 20%
25-34 / 33%
35-39 / 42%
40-49 / 54%
50+ / 100%


These are the values I have at the moment based on research into the early client code. For anyone reading that is interested, the key thing is that charisma doesn't affect whether the lull lands; it determines whether a resisted lull causes the mob to aggro. Landing rate is determined by the tiered floor based on npc level, independent of CHA.

With this model, an enchanter with 83 CHA trying to lull level 50+ npcs would face immunity due to the tiered floor. A 255 CHA enchanter would get the same result. Where charisma matters is lulling sub-50 npcs and getting too many resists. At 83 CHA roughly 7 out of 10 resists would aggro. At 200 CHA it's 4 out of 10, and at 255 CHA about 1 in 4.

I'd be curious if anyone remembers this matching their experience with lull working for low and mid level content but hitting a wall on higher level mobs regardless of gear.

[Zuranthium]

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

I notice in all these classic discussions of the lull spell line, there's not a single mention of the word "charisma." So I would expect a level 54 enchanter with 83 CHA trying to use wake of tranquility on a pack of level 50+ mobs in upper dogs to consider the lull spell line to be suicidal. They didn't know anything about the game.

No, stop lying. Charisma doesn't do anything in the first place to affect initial resist chance on lull. There's tons of posts from people with high Charisma trying to lull things far below their level and it doesn't work. For example, from page 13 of the first link about lull on my previous post:

"Lull resists in upwards of 75% of casting, a drolvarg rager when I was 49th resisted Pacify 80% of 20 casts (16) and aggroed for 8 of those. I had 217 Charisma at the time"

That's simply how the game was and you're showing how inexperienced you are with classic to say otherwise. People absolutely were trying to get high CHA on Enchanters, it was known to make mesmerize better (Extensive CHA testing / "At 137 CHA I had 45% resist rate, at 217 CHA I had 37% resist rate" / "I wouldn't recommend doing Hate plane with less than 200 CHA"), which was important because root was harder to stick back then and it was harder to channel, so people highly valued mez.

That's why Enchanters were mad when Velious came out (along with most other casters - Velious zone feedback / Why being a caster in Velious really sucks / A Fundamental Flaw: Why the EQ System Is Breaking Down At High Levels) - because resists were too high on NPC's in the expansion and giants couldn't be mezzed at all. There are posts that describe how "crowd control has now become people kiting around snared NPCs".

I specifically searched for examples of Level 60 people trying to lull in places like the Planes or Kael or Grotto or Sebilis or Chardok and there's zero classic examples of it ever being viable. If anyone wants to search for examples from the first 9 months of Luclin, lull was still trash during that time period too. The spell line was expressly made terrible by Verant after beta because they didn't want people playing the game like that.

[Goregasmic]

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

That's simply how the game was and you're showing how inexperienced you are with classic to say otherwise. People absolutely were trying to get high CHA on Enchanters, it was known to make mesmerize better (Extensive CHA testing / "At 137 CHA I had 45% resist rate, at 217 CHA I had 37% resist rate" / "I wouldn't recommend doing Hate plane with less than 200 CHA"), which was important because root was harder to stick back then and it was harder to channel, so people highly valued mez.

You're extrapolating what a few people knew to a whole player base. If you go to the allakhazam comment sections of all the staple cha items for the era it appeared the jury was still out on cha. Most players seemed to consider it a secondary stat or at best on par with int.

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

I specifically searched for examples of Level 60 people trying to lull in places like the Planes or Kael or Grotto or Sebilis or Chardok and there's zero classic examples of it ever being viable. If anyone wants to search for examples from the first 9 months of Luclin, lull was still trash during that time period too. The spell line was expressly made terrible by Verant after beta because they didn't want people playing the game like that.

Even on here lulling in Kael/sirens/planes is difficult due to high MR. chardok is the easiest with like 1/5 crit resist on a ~53mob. You're the one who sounds inexperienced, lull isn't even viable in SG on green, some days it takes me 2 full mana bars worth of WOTs to get the 3 ent seahorses calmed.

Like, I don't think your position is necessarily wrong but you're clearly misrepresenting the state of live at the time and current green which makes people doubt your claims/research.

[Zuranthium]

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

You're extrapolating what a few people knew to a whole player base.

No, it was stated in 1999 by the devs what CHA did. People didn't know the exact numbers on how things worked, but they knew you wanted high CHA on Enchanters and Bards, and the starting stats at character creation make that apparent. In terms of the "whole player base", far less people were informed about most things in general, but that's irrelevant to this. The highest level players were the most in-the-know and lull was not working for anyone.

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

lull isn't even viable in SG on green, some days it takes me 2 full mana bars worth of WOTs to get the 3 ent seahorses calmed.

This sentence literally describes how lull is viable there on p99, when it shouldn't be.

Talk about misrepresentation.