The search engine doesn't seem to want to cooperate with me, so I hope you don't mind me asking what I'm sure is a frequent question.

What's the rules for charm now? Last time I played EQ, they changed almost every day, seemed like. Do you have to do half damage to get experience? Last time I played a druid I was too chicken to use charm but this time I'm gonna live dangerously, and I figure level 13 is the right time to learn how :) Thanks!

Charming sucks. It lasts about 20 seconds before wearing off.

Here is what I could find:
April 8, 2003

** Charm Changes **

- Healing a charmed pet now generates an appropriate amount of hate for the healer.
- Charmed pets now take up to one third of the experience for each NPC killed. This amount scales down based on the percentage of damage to the target that the pet does. Dire charm pets still take the same experience they always have.
- Charmed pets are no longer selected as a monster's preferred target if there are many players available for the monster to attack instead.
- ALSO (we forgot to mention this before), the resist modifiers on several charm spells (such as Beckon, Call of the Arch Mage, Command of Druzil and Word of Terris) have been removed, making them a bit easier to resist.

Throughout my adventures soloing the Jonas Dagmire tasks, I used charm whenever possible. It was great to find such a wide array of animals in Buried Sea. Its been a long time since my charm spellset has been given such an extended and serious workout :)

Naturally, you're always going to get some amount of early charm breaks, its the nature of the beast. Now, most of the time I get a nice long duration, sometimes not so much.

As far as charming at low levels goes ... thinking back, I recall it was a pain back then. I recall a lot of resists and a lot of recharming and it was all very mana intensive. Personally, I never was fond of charming until I obtained Glamour of Tunare (level 53). After that, it became a whole new shootin match and I've been hooked on it since. <3 Beasts Beckon RkII <3


When it comes to charming at those low levels, don't forget you've got other animal spells at your disposal aside from the charm itself -- Lull, Fear, Haste! I recall the early charm spells able to stick on mobs far above your own level, which means a very red con pet, if you can get the spell to stick at all, which was highly unlikely unless it has been debuffed all to hell by some other classes. Typically, when it comes to a druid charming, more often than not you're solo and you won't have the luxury of other classes around to debuff your pets. You're likely to have better overall results with blue con animals as a source of (relatively) stable pets.

Be sure to pick up Feral Spirit at level 18. Pet haste is good!

Come now. Sometimes you cast root and the mob stays parked for 3 minutes. Other times it breaks every few ticks. Charm is like that too. It sticks for longer (on average) when the mobs are lower level, and high charisma definitely helps. Charmed mobs now do 50% of normal damage. This means that if you debuff their target and buff them the charmed mob will win...

But people who actually use the tactic know that there is a better method. If you invis when the charmed mob is almost dead, charm breaks and you can then kill both them and the target for full exp. Charm is extremely effective in TSS zones (Icefall and Direwind in particular for higher level characters; Steppes and Sunderrock as well) and in some of the TBS zones (Atiki, etc).

Basically, this is now a tactic to get a two-for-one deal (kill credit for the charmed mob and its target) and it is thus situationally very useful. You shouldn't think of a charmed mob as being a pet in the beastlord or mage mold. Even if charm didn't break, the sheer number of hitpoints that the charmed mobs have would make straight tanking tedious. Aggro kiting does work, but it's ineffecient (and because of the risk of charm breaks, dicey).

I have Beasts Beckon rank 2, I use our animal magic debuff and it still doesn't last very long.

As for hasting your charmed pet, a big no no. Charm breaks and now both target mob and former pet are pounding on you and former pet has haste!

Give your charmed pet skin and damage shield, yes. Haste, no.

Where is it in TSS that you have been charming ohio? I've only tried the bears around the lake in Icefall but i'm always ready to find new spots to solo.

As for hasting your charmed pet, a big no no. Charm breaks and now both target mob and former pet are pounding on you and former pet has haste!

That's what we have snare for as well as root. Haste is fine if the pet is snared, hell even if it isn't it's not hard to get ahead of the mobs to recast (unless they run as bard speed :P)

As for charming, it sucks, i agree. I played with it a fair bit whilst doing my pirate hand aug and it was more mana intensive to keep the damn thing charmed than it was to just kill mobs normally.

Regarding charisma, as I recall its affect on charm duration is all myth and legend. My memory could be lil foggy, but I remember massive debate on the subject back in the day and I believe it was confirmed charisma means nothing on duration. I've no intention to research and document it, if I'm wrong sue me.

As far as hasting your pets being a big nono ... if you're in a position where charm breaks and suddenly both mobs are hitting you, then you are either charming summoning mobs (which doesn't concern a level 13), or you are standing on top of the mobs as they fight and of course you're going to get hit when charm breaks. Stay away from the fight and don't get hit.

I don't buff pets with anything at all aside from haste, and to be sure that gets tossed at every pet without exception. If you are trying to cast damage shield and skin and regen on every pet you charm, well naturally its going to be a mana expensive operation. Charm pet, attack, haste, kill asap. The more time you spend buffing up pet and spending extra mana, the more charm duration time you are burning up while the pet isn't even in combat.

For a new charm beginner at level 13 ... experiment! See what works best for you in the environment you choose. Agro kite with charm, fear kite with charm, pet tank with charm, heck at those low levels you can still easily tank mobs yourself while pet also does damage if you want to risk being that close to the fray. Expect to get hit if you are close!


When it comes to charming at high levels, I'm efficient and deadly, the animals see me coming and they scatter. Charm sucks?? Nah, not the way I see it. It doesn't take much experimentation to figure out which mobs seem to have higher magic resist and which varieties make better pets, which hit harder, which tank better. Avoid the headache mobs and don't pour out mana buffing pets that will likely be dead in a minute. At level 75, I can burn through ALL of the roaming blue con mammoths in the front yard of Icefall in about 15 minutes, and then sit back and wait for respawn. Knock down 10-12 AA's in a couple hours while spending half the time watching TV and waiting for respawn. Yeah, charm sucks. Nothing to see here, move along ~

Personally I am not really big into charming, that said it does work.

I have used Charming in the following situations:


As a Form of CC on pulls in areas which contain alot of Adds. This was esp effective to help break the Fear zone in, if you charmed a Monkey or Gator.
As extra DPS. Mostly used Dire Charm for this back when PoP was big. Still ocassionally use it as DPS while I tank something.
Rarely, as a tank itself. Commonly used in places like Arcstone to solo the named Fire and Water mobs.Obviously at upper levels using Glamour of Tunare is helpful, but at the lower level you are, you should be able to charm and haste and get a decent amount of exp. I would just be sure to snare the mob your charming prior to casting charm.

-Fenier

Regarding charisma, as I recall its affect on charm duration is all myth and legend.

It's a never-ending debate. Some enchanters swear by charisma, some don't think it's important. I never worried much about it.

As for charisma, my charisma is 365 and charm still doesn't last long at all.

So while charisma might or might not make a difference, the "difference" is so small it doesn't matter.
Charm sucks?? Nah, not the way I see it. It doesn't take much experimentation to figure out which mobs seem to have higher magic resist and which varieties make better pets, which hit harder, which tank better. Avoid the headache mobs and don't pour out mana buffing pets that will likely be dead in a minute. At level 75, I can burn through ALL of the roaming blue con mammoths in the front yard of Icefall in about 15 minutes, and then sit back and wait for respawn. Knock down 10-12 AA's in a couple hours while spending half the time watching TV and waiting for respawn. Yeah, charm sucks. Nothing to see here, move along ~
Congratulations. On one (or a few) types of mobs it lets you get experience quickly.

But for "normal" use, it sucks. Avoid the headache mobs? Yes, that means it has very limited use.

For me, for charm to be useful, it should work well on 90% of animal mobs (and animal mobs should be relatively common). Otherwise it is a situational toy, as you have posted.

Charm in its present form is something to be used in certain limited situations. It isn't a major tool for druids. Druids are not a charming class. They just have a charm which they can use on the rare occasions it can be helpful.

Is that the way it should be? Well, it makes you happy. Maybe it should be that way, at least the developers always think that druids should have every power limited.

To me, if a tool isn't something you can pull out and use most of the time, then it is crappy. I have a million "situational" tools. Sometimes they are really nice to have.

But I'm not a soloing druid. When I'm in a group, charming a pet causes more problems for me and the group than it is worth. That's why I call it crappy. If charming a pet would work well in boosting the group's dps, I would call it a useful too. Instead, it just means you have to spend all your time dealing with your pet instead of being able to function as a group member.

Haste your pet? Sure, it was just said how you can snare it and be fine. IF you have the kiting space to do this. Many zones have mobs all over the place and if you haste your pet and try to move far enough away to survive charm breaking you aggro more mobs on you.

Again, it is for very limited situations. If that makes you happy, great.

Charm in its present form is something to be used in certain limited situations.


Of course it is. Charm in all past forms and all current forms has always been something to be used in certain limited situations. I don't know any druids who constantly have a pet charmed, nor do I know a single enchanter who has a charmed pet on the hook all day long, and thats a 'charm class' as you call it.

I figure about half the spells in my book are something to be used in certain limited situations. However, I certainly don't qualify every spell I can't use 90% of the time as crap. You have a million 'situational' tools because you're a druid hihi ~

I'm thinking the charisma thing might be just an urban legend.

Druindal posted about the Charm problem on this thread (http://eq.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/showthread.php?t=15173) he charms with his wife and on paper she should be the better at charming, with higher WIS and CHA, but charm breaks for her regularly. I've gave them a theory, anyone have any real data on this?

My son and I used to postulate that every character has an invisible luck stat attached to them. We formed this theory because I'm the lucky looter. I have hardly ever had to camp over an hour for any drop I want. All my friends make me loot for them.

Tudamorf, I believe, did a huge charm test a few years ago. As I recall, the increased duration from improved charisma was measurable but extremely small.

It may help for folks to include their character level, which does very strongly influence charm breaks. Icefall animals broke charm frequently at level 71, and do so far more rarely at 75. I used charming heavily in the Buried Sea quests and had only a couple charm breaks despite using it repeatedly; in fact, I actually ended up hasting and healing animals there, since the charms lasted so long. As far as charisma goes, I suspect a negative effect from very low charisma and not much once it is above some threshold, similar to merchant purchases. (FYI level 75, 365 CHA here).

For soloing this is an option that roughly doubles your exp/hour; for grouping when you are not the main healer it adds substantially to dps with manageable risk. It's only an
option in some places (like undead mobs are for some other classes), but where it can be used it can be very strong.

As for charisma, my charisma is 365 and charm still doesn't last long at all.

So while charisma might or might not make a difference, the "difference" is so small it doesn't matter.

Congratulations. On one (or a few) types of mobs it lets you get experience quickly.

But for "normal" use, it sucks. Avoid the headache mobs? Yes, that means it has very limited use.

For me, for charm to be useful, it should work well on 90% of animal mobs (and animal mobs should be relatively common). Otherwise it is a situational toy, as you have posted.

Charm in its present form is something to be used in certain limited situations. It isn't a major tool for druids. Druids are not a charming class. They just have a charm which they can use on the rare occasions it can be helpful.

Is that the way it should be? Well, it makes you happy. Maybe it should be that way, at least the developers always think that druids should have every power limited.

To me, if a tool isn't something you can pull out and use most of the time, then it is crappy. I have a million "situational" tools. Sometimes they are really nice to have.

But I'm not a soloing druid. When I'm in a group, charming a pet causes more problems for me and the group than it is worth. That's why I call it crappy. If charming a pet would work well in boosting the group's dps, I would call it a useful too. Instead, it just means you have to spend all your time dealing with your pet instead of being able to function as a group member.

Haste your pet? Sure, it was just said how you can snare it and be fine. IF you have the kiting space to do this. Many zones have mobs all over the place and if you haste your pet and try to move far enough away to survive charm breaking you aggro more mobs on you.

Again, it is for very limited situations. If that makes you happy, great.

"Not useful for me" is not the same as "not useful". Animal charm in groups is useful when you're filling a dps role rather than main healing. It's main use is soloing, and if you don't solo it isn't surprising that you don't see a lot of utility in it. I solo, group, and raid. When I group I usually heal and I'm usually in places where there are no animals (e.g. Ashengate, Vald, Katta missions at present). But I have used it successfully in groups as a substantial dps enhancement in, say, Icefall and Direwind, Steppes and Sunderrock, and the Buried Sea. It greatly speeds up the accumulation of quest items (e.g. bear pelts in icefall).

One of the main reasons that I react so strongly to the persistent negativity about the class on forums like this is that it sends a fundamentally wrong signal to the developers. Expansions like OoW and GoD really were hostile to druids - few animals, tons of summoning mobs, etc. Since then we're gotten a series of very useful new tools (Reptile, Moonshadow, Adrenaline Surge on the heal side; Runes on defense; etc) and some rejuvenated old ones (like charm). The new zones have a lot more group and solo options and a bunch of features (like lots of animals and places to kite) that really make them great spots for our class.

The complaints seem frozen in amber - all of these tools stink, everything is terrible, nothing is useful. We should give a shout-out when design features come in that help us - along with pushing for additional things that really would matter. (A sting-like nuke, group curing, and consolidated debuffs would be on the top of my list personally. But I'm odd that way.)

I believe scirocco did some extensive testing back in late pop regarding charm... the basic conclusson was it did have some effect but only in increments of 50 ... ie: raising cha from 166 to 185 wont' do anything.. raising it to 200+ should offer a small bonus.