I levelled to 65 in 2002-2003 with a druid and it was a cakewalk once I started charming. I started in the low 40's at the rockhopper caves and continued charming all the way through to about 60 in PoN, then it was a lot of root/rotting until I got the 63 charm spell. I'd get 2-3x the xp I could get in a good group.

I'm a druid again, and I'm level 34. I'm using the new DS potions to good effect, tanking down mobs with a fungi as I go. At some point, in about 5 or 6 levels, this isn't gonna work anymore, and I'm gonna have to work for my xp again. Quad Kiting seems to be kinda weak xp. Can I still Charm for good xp? Savage Spirit + Call of Karana got me through tons of levels in the past. I heard there was an XP Nerf re: "If pet does 1/2 dmg, pet gets 1/2 xp".

So, baring using my pet as a real tank, but going with a more traditional bardic approach to charm (ala, let pet drop to low health, invis and kill both), what are some good spots to solo at post 40. I can't seem to find many threads dealing with the lower levels anymore, and its been a long time since I've played, so I'm adjusting to a lot.

Do you have TSS? That expansion is full of animals. It also has quests in Goru Kar Mesa for first-rate armor you can wear at 45--I believe I had the whole set by level 41. I'm not much of a charmer, though, I root-rotted my way around.

Root root, FTW, IMHO. Nowdays charming is just too unpredictable to justify the mana. Can root / rot 4 or 5 mobs at a time in some places. As long as you keep them locked down, massive xp for minimal effort. Is still fun and exiting as you have to keep an eye for root breaking. POP clicky pants will help enormously here.

Try to stick to hotzones when you are leveling, and you should use the bard approach, I still use it when i kite at level 75. At level 40 the hotzone is Scarlet Desert, which i believe contains a few cheetahs that are charmable. At level 45 you can move to Dranik Scar (level 50 hotzone) to kite there, the rats are charmable. You can charm in hotzones up to about level 50 then after that you should move to PoP zones to charm, PoDisease rats or PoNightmare ravens. These will get you to 55 after that you are stuck in charming locations until you get the level 63 charm. Once you get to that stage you can/should charm PoStorm frogs to about 65 and from then on you should be grouping for exp. If you really desire to continue charming i believe the steppes will work till about 70s and Icefall till 75.

I've made it to 53 after some work. Mostly root/dotting actually. Someone said...

"Root root, FTW, IMHO. Nowdays charming is just too unpredictable to justify the mana. Can root / rot 4 or 5 mobs at a time in some places. As long as you keep them locked down, massive xp for minimal effort. Is still fun and exiting as you have to keep an eye for root breaking. POP clicky pants will help enormously here."

The problem with the suggestion to Root/Rot 4 or 5 animals is this...assuming I land snare/root, then use my Drones of Doom arms, followed by Winged Death, Drifting Death, Imm of Ro, Crud, my drones of doom wears off, and its time to re-start the dot chain. Would you cut off the lesser dots, stuck with Drones, Winged and Drifting and do 2 at once? Are you referring to higher level when you can just use Swarming Death and nothing else?

Lately, I'm hanging out in Dragon Necropolis taking down spiders. Its slightly better xp then charming in Plane of Nature. At 53 the nice thing is my Track easilly reveals which Ravens I can charm in PoN.

One other charm location I was thinking about was Maiden's Eye. I seem to recall arming a wolf like thing there ( so that it could dual wield) and slaughtering great numbers of Goronga's. I'd actually heal the darn thing and send it in again after each fight.

Still, everyone says to Root/Rot, and its worked well so far, specially with the easy to obtain FT15 nowadays.

I loved swamp rats in PoD verses those flies back in the day.

I spent a fair bit of time charm killing, they have changed it a little so its not quite as easy as it was, but still probably our best means to solo xp quickly if you can get the right spots. I havent included which spell at which level as I cant remember all the named off the top of my head.

20s - In earlier there were lots of charm options in the Karana's.

Low 30s -Iceclad cougar far north, i forget now if the wolves were charmable.*

High 30s - Eastern Wastes the griffons were truely mean pets vs orcs or anything really.*

Early 40s - EW walrus vs the ulthork man*

* once you had the mana pool though quad kiting ended up being more xp, what with better equipment and the ooc mana regen I cant see charm being viable as slow efficient kills arnt that important now.

50s - PoD Rats

50s - PoN Ravens - I remember some ravens were just too high for the charm I had at the time. The ones that spawn by the waterfall were always charmable

High 50s - PoN Nightstalkers

60s - PoS Frogs - You cant charm the ones at the ZI only the hurrican/typhoon lorok in the wood area to the north, Froaaakk. Theres plenty of trash but it was always fun to try killing the giants with them, but they summon so watch out :)

I started raiding more and xp was much better in groups so that was about the end of my charm soloing. Also they dramatically dropped the xp from charm pet kills at this point and offered xp bonuses to groups so a lot of people stopped soloing as much (and quit eq..)

I dont remember any good charm spots in later expansions until TSS.

70s - The mammoths in icefall are about the best solo xp at 75 I've found up to now.

I used charm-fear kite a lot. In low 30th the basilisk cave in Jaggered pine forest is the best place to do it. Then in EW if you know where to do it. The trick is to let your pet tank till it's low in health (say 5-10%), then fear the other. This way you are in no immediate danger when charm breaks because both mobs will flee from you.

POM ZI is a good place to charm kite in the 50s. The ground is flat, all mobs are stationary, and some tricks can be played using the evac spell (you are quite close to the evac spot). You can even kill rascals on the bridge at 58+ (with percentage heal spell) for more exp, so that's not so bad exp till 62. At 63 of course it's the POS frog -- however to get the 63 charm spell is a headache.

I approach charming in Icefall a bit different and haven't observed anyone else do it my way so wondering if it's common or not.
Since a charmed pets dps is severly nerfed I pull a mammoth/polarbear/wolf whatever is available then snare, root, charm, buff str and give it haste then hit innate camo to drop the charm.
Now this is one badass buffed hasted animal hitting full dmg unlike pets, now I go pull the next mob which I charm and make it attack the buffed mob which rips my pet to shreds in less then half the time a normal charm fight takes then time the charm break just before pet goes down and finish it with a nuke.
The buffed mob can take down 4-5 pets before I have to kill it and get a new mob to buff.
Unless I get unlucky with early charm breaks or mistime camo and lose the pet this method is very fast and mana efficient.

My standard method for charming in Icefall is grab about, 6-10 mammoths each with entrap and glamour of tunare on them, then charm 1 and sic in on the pack and let them bring my pet to 10% then i innate camo to break it. So pretty much bard kiting. If you find the mobs arent sticking on your pet use our quad root spell on them is resists often but you usually will get 2 to 3 to stay rooted in place and that is enough to bring your pet down in a minute.

I approach charming in Icefall a bit different and haven't observed anyone else do it my way so wondering if it's common or not.
Since a charmed pets dps is severly nerfed I pull a mammoth/polarbear/wolf whatever is available then snare, root, charm, buff str and give it haste then hit innate camo to drop the charm.
Now this is one badass buffed hasted animal hitting full dmg unlike pets, now I go pull the next mob which I charm and make it attack the buffed mob which rips my pet to shreds in less then half the time a normal charm fight takes then time the charm break just before pet goes down and finish it with a nuke.
The buffed mob can take down 4-5 pets before I have to kill it and get a new mob to buff.
Unless I get unlucky with early charm breaks or mistime camo and lose the pet this method is very fast and mana efficient.

I've started trying it with multiple pets...I suck at it atm though.

I was wonding about doing what you said with the hasting/buffing, etc,...now that you quantified your methods, time for me to try this now too :)

I've been doing what Taexi does. With sorta a slightly different take.

I don't bother buffing them. I just keep pulling bears/mammoths, and charm the ones I can and let them fight the ones I can't. When the charmed pet is almost dead I invis and kill the pet for xp, then find something else to charm and just keep going. I let the uncharmed "pet" do all the dps and let it almost kill the charmed pet. I only use mana for snare and charm. I can pretty much keep this up forever. So, not having any downtime is nice.

i think they need tmake are druids charm more relayable i have plaed with the charm meny times and find its just not good enuff to depend on for a safe exp grind i do use in in zones as C.C when it will take it keeps the mobs off tank long enuff for them to take care of what they have to then whenthey rdy i hit invise and they grab it.
but to use as a exp i think its useless kitting or root rots way i would go and seeign i hate kitting inless its a dire need to. root rots about the best clicky legs lock down 4-5 mobs and just kill.

but reading soem of your gusy stayals i may have to try them my Gf started playign eq about a year back and well seing i love druids and i love her i had her make a druid. so may be ill take her icefall and teach her to charm kill using some of the ways ya all have tryed.seeing its best for every druid to have ther own styal of play may as well show her all the optctions we have and let he pick what she likes best she has tryed kittign and hates it as much as i do so may be she will like charimg.

Here is an easy one.

Pull 1st mob, snare, root, charm, attk buff, tell it to sit. (so if charm breaks it's rooted, if root breaks it stays put until u bring 2nd mob)

Pull 2nd mob, snare, root at pet, dots, tell pet attack. If you snare first and have a long way back to pet you can start dots as you make your way back.

This helps for charm break, just target and recharm. Their health drops about the same if you use dots. Break charm when 1 or both at 5%-ish and finish off.

This is less running around. Sure roots and charms break but that happens anyway. If charm and root break I just run to other side of rootrd mob and re-root, charm, /tell attack.

This works good for 2x-exp. I am usually waiting for mammoth field to respawn for the last 10min of 2x-exp.

You can also root a mommoth and pull the bears, the higher level bears will eat the mammoths faster though. Yes you can charm some bears also.

I'll have to try Taexi's way to see how it goes.

I also use the swarm charm technique in Icefall. I generally don't mess with any higher than blue cons, as the white or yellow con mammoths cannot be charmed and they take forever to kill. It screws up my rhythm.

Pull mammoth with Glamour, then Ensnare. Ignore it a minute.
Pull another mammoth with Glamour, and Ensnare. Ignore.
Pull another, glamour, ensnare, ignore.
Pull a 4th, glamour, ensnare and Charm it.

Pet attack any of the others and immediately go pull your next mob.

By the time you've got #5 mob pulled, your pet should be damn near dead.
Invis, break charm and for your next pet charm one of the initial mammoths (one of the damaged ones, not the 5th pull). When the 5th pull reaches your pile, it too will go agro on your pet. Go fetch another one. You'll find that if you make a pet of the fresh pull, the damaged pile won't necessarily all agro on that new pet. Those mobs are all half dead and pissed at you, not your new pet. Stick to charming the damaged mobs and you will see better dogpile results.

The idea is ... at all times to have 3-4 mobs beating up your pet.

Pets die sooooo fast. Sometimes, I'll use the Sand Eroded Shell for the clicky Savage Spirit, but aside from that I don't use any pet buffs. You need to really stay aware of your pet's life as you're dodging the pile and pulling new mobs. Allowing your pet to be killed just means one less mob you're going to kill for exps. Be aware, break invis at the last second, keep pulling, keep charming.

I can clear all of the blue cons in the front yard in about 10 minutes. Sit back and wait for repop. Charming these mammoths is without question the best solo experience I've found to date.

ok if vekx and toby can do this carming crap i know the rebel can :P any thign you 2 do i got to try to keep up with ya.

/ooc looking for rez in lobby toby and vekx lied they wated to see wild go splat...

ok if vekx and toby can do this carming crap i know the rebel can :P any thign you 2 do i got to try to keep up with ya.

/ooc looking for rez in lobby toby and vekx lied they wated to see wild go splat...


ROFL - u the best Wild:thumbsup:

I also use the swarm charm technique in Icefall. I generally don't mess with any higher than blue cons, as the white or yellow con mammoths cannot be charmed and they take forever to kill. It screws up my rhythm.

Pull mammoth with Glamour, then Ensnare. Ignore it a minute.
Pull another mammoth with Glamour, and Ensnare. Ignore.
Pull another, glamour, ensnare, ignore.
Pull a 4th, glamour, ensnare and Charm it.

Pet attack any of the others and immediately go pull your next mob.

By the time you've got #5 mob pulled, your pet should be damn near dead.
Invis, break charm and for your next pet charm one of the initial mammoths (one of the damaged ones, not the 5th pull). When the 5th pull reaches your pile, it too will go agro on your pet. Go fetch another one. You'll find that if you make a pet of the fresh pull, the damaged pile won't necessarily all agro on that new pet. Those mobs are all half dead and pissed at you, not your new pet. Stick to charming the damaged mobs and you will see better dogpile results.

The idea is ... at all times to have 3-4 mobs beating up your pet.

Pets die sooooo fast. Sometimes, I'll use the Sand Eroded Shell for the clicky Savage Spirit, but aside from that I don't use any pet buffs. You need to really stay aware of your pet's life as you're dodging the pile and pulling new mobs. Allowing your pet to be killed just means one less mob you're going to kill for exps. Be aware, break invis at the last second, keep pulling, keep charming.

I can clear all of the blue cons in the front yard in about 10 minutes. Sit back and wait for repop. Charming these mammoths is without question the best solo experience I've found to date.


Hmmm, problem I see with this is that you'll have to actually kill your last pet after you invis. Which means a dot or two. Which means 4-5 mobs chasing you. Yes they are snared but still. I'll have to try it to see also.

The first target of any new pet is the previous pet (the mob thats hanging at 4% life now). I'll toss on a Sunscorch on occassion after a couple charm breaks when I end up with a couple mobs near dead, or I outrun one and it goes snare-dead, or when I'm simply running out of mammoths to kill. But as a general rule, I don't use any mana for damage.

Poke me outside of raid hours and I'll provoke the Killer Mammoths to swarm :)

Here are a couple more charm spots and zones around that level range that have not been mentioned. They may not be the greastest exprience spots nowadays, but, are a change of scenary. Once you get Tunare renewal it gets easier to pet tank. Maiden's Eye, was mentioned earlier, charm the spectral wolves with call of Karana. Later, with command of Tunare comeback for the Ravenous Beasts.

The often overlooked western wastes is an excellent spot. It will be tough to stick a snare on an ice burrower at lower than 57, but, still doable. Plenty of glacial mastodons, brontotheriums, and velium hounds. The hounds have a large aggro radius, so, that can be fun to round a bunch up. If not kill ice burrowers till they respawn. The dragons will leave you alone if you are at least dubious with them, watch out for esorba of the ring though, he is on ring faction, everything else is Cov.

Crypt of Nadox is another overlooked area. It is a dungeon, with lots of open space, plenty of room to kite during charm breaks or just kite if you want, and generally only one the 2 mobs on a pull with an occassional wanderer and random popping named all over, including after a kill, they will pop off a corpse and aggro. It has a level range pretty spread out, so lots of opportunities to explore and level in the easier spots. Don't forget to give your pet weapons. Bloodtusk Beasts are the way to go with call of karana, exhausted bloodtusk will be your best friend with command of tunare, he spawns all over the big main room and often, near the entry ways of the tunnels with the random 1-2 guards. You will at least want pureblood and it is pretty easy to attain, just allittle time consuming sometimes. I would recommend the mines and the blackhands at 53 to 57. Run speed 3 means you can outrun everything.

At 58, it starts to get easier sorta to just pet tank, so, I would recommend west luggalds at that point. At the 60+ range North luggalds, but, they will enrage though or the undead in towards Hates Fury. The sand eroded sea shell is a great clicky pet haste item, so, I would suggest going after that anyways. Fairly easy to get to both clearing to or just invising to the room just past west luggalds. If you like dungeon crawling, it is fun for that just to see where you can go and get to.

63+ Hates Fury, I remember doing it for decent exprience with the rats, but, I don't remember anything else offhand.

Umbral plains was fun with the zelniaks which are charmable, but,not snareable, and most everything summons so, expect to die often, but, it was doable,And fun to use killing a named or something.

Kael Drakkel with the wolves, remember to keep them healed up as they summon and are not snareable. But, aside from that cetainly doable. Fun in the arena, unless,you get a few mobs that summon up there. The bank area as well.

The first target of any new pet is the previous pet (the mob thats hanging at 4% life now). I'll toss on a Sunscorch on occassion after a couple charm breaks when I end up with a couple mobs near dead, or I outrun one and it goes snare-dead, or when I'm simply running out of mammoths to kill. But as a general rule, I don't use any mana for damage.

Poke me outside of raid hours and I'll provoke the Killer Mammoths to swarm :)

Are you saying that if the new pet kills your previous pet you will get the exp from the kill?

Absolutely.

hmmm, whenever I goof up and don't invis in time and a mammoth dies I don't get any exp.

Now maybe it's always been my pet that died so I don't get exp for that?

But if the non pet mamath dies i should get exp?

The first target of any new pet is the previous pet (the mob thats hanging at 4% life now)

/bonks self...I can't believe I haven't been doing this!....I have over 9k mana at 72, but tossing 2 dots on each one helps to drain that much much faster.

You want to allow your pet to get as near to dead as possible before you invis and break charm. However, with 3-4-5 mobs beating on your pet, the damage your pet takes can spike quite a bit and its certainly not uncommon to mistime breaking the charm and your pet gets destroyed by the pack *poof* no corpse.

So, you've wasted a little time and mana; so goes charm killing. The drawback of the occasionally oops and a destroyed pet is far outweighed by the rate at which you can keep slaughtering mobs.

If you (or your pet) gets the killshot, you take the experience. Don't be concerned with doing x% of damage per mob in order to gain a maximum % of experience per mob. Just keep pulling until you get a rhythm going, and expect to lose pets until you get a good feel for it. The experience messages will soon be scrolling by.

I just dinged 72 last night...I was getting more than 1% reg xp/kill on the mammoths at 71...maybe even 2%. Now, I went back today, and ended up with about 3% regular xp from at least 9 killed before the zone got all wonky the way Icefall does.

When I was levelling my BST, common belief was that you needed to do at least 1 point of damage on each mob - i.e. if your pet did all the damage, you wouldn't get full xp. Iirc, it was said you'd get only 50% xp if your pet did full damage.

Does this still (or ever) exist? I was expecting a goodly xp dropoff from them today, but not 6-fold (when most are white/yellow still), just from dinging.

You want to allow your pet to get as near to dead as possible before you invis and break charm. However, with 3-4-5 mobs beating on your pet, the damage your pet takes can spike quite a bit and its certainly not uncommon to mistime breaking the charm and your pet gets destroyed by the pack *poof* no corpse.

So, you've wasted a little time and mana; so goes charm killing. The drawback of the occasionally oops and a destroyed pet is far outweighed by the rate at which you can keep slaughtering mobs.

If you (or your pet) gets the killshot, you take the experience. Don't be concerned with doing x% of damage per mob in order to gain a maximum % of experience per mob. Just keep pulling until you get a rhythm going, and expect to lose pets until you get a good feel for it. The experience messages will soon be scrolling by.

OK, I spent some time trying this out the Toby way. Have some questions and feedback. (and yes I lose a few because I didn't camo in time)

Feedback:
- yes it was fast and no mana needed - however, the respawn rate makes it about the same as my old way. If I get better at it might get me more exp - of course that's more sitting time waiting for respawns which I had even using my old way but just had more mana


Questions:
- when you camo to break charm, you need to charm another. I can't seem to get that right. No matter which I charm there are now mobs after me and my new pet may be keeping 1 or 2 others busy if I tell it to attack a mob. Seems like all luck of the draw.

- While it was a bit more fun, I didn't seem to get as much exp - I didn't watch the per kill exp cause I was new to this but do you get less exp while you have a pet?

- My old 2 at a time way also cleared the field - just nat as fast but I do run out and have to wait for respawn - so If I'm loosing exp while I have a pet up when either dies then this way may not be any better.

I didn't watch the per kill exp cause I was new to this but do you get less exp while you have a pet?

Yes you do, im pretty sure. Thats why when I charm I break invis on pet when its nearly dead and kill it with nukes/dots before I recharm.

I saw a post on another thread a few weeks ago claiming that the pet xp penalty had been removed, so I tested it on familiar mobs that I've been grinding AA on and found that as long as I did *some* damage (even just one tick of a dot, etc) I got the same xp with a pet and without a pet. And when swarm kiting sometimes I've found it's easier to have 4-5 sitting around at tiny hps and use the very last charmed one to finish them all off. The new quick nuke (Inferno something?) is nice for this too. Also your current pet is at too high hps while you're finishing off the multiples at 5%, root one of them, which forces them to turn and attack instead of being in run mode.

I saw a post on another thread a few weeks ago claiming that the pet xp penalty had been removed, so I tested it on familiar mobs that I've been grinding AA on and found that as long as I did *some* damage (even just one tick of a dot, etc) I got the same xp with a pet and without a pet.

This is correct. The pet XP penalty is removed (Sort of). As a background it was removed so pet classes could be in groups and not be told "to kill there pet." All that aside, if you do 1 damage to the mob before it dies, you will get 100% of the XP.

Now for the "Sort of" part. If you are Dire Charming something (The AA that they really need to improve or refund)...you DO NOT get 100% of the XP if you do 1 point of damage. Im probally wrong on the percentage needed but I believe you have to do 50.1% of the damage in order to get 75% of the XP.

In any case, normal charms (Not Dire Charm) and pets (Mage, Necro, and BST for example) will only take XP if NO ONE does any damage to the mob. So find a clicky that does at least 1 damage and your set or cast a spell that does damage.

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.

This was posted by Fanra and looks like it comes off the Sony forums and would take this over anything my "memory" remembers. So in a nutshell I was wrong according to this post. Sorry for any confusion I tend to cause

If you are Dire Charming something (The AA that they really need to improve or refund)

Dire Charm is not being refunded, and should be considered a dead AA line.

Hmmm, problem I see with this is that you'll have to actually kill your last pet after you invis. Which means a dot or two. Which means 4-5 mobs chasing you. Yes they are snared but still. I'll have to try it to see also.
I am kind of new to druid soloing, as I used mainly in groups or boxing him (main is bst), altho I have toyed with this method and works pretty well; what I do manly, is let pets get down to 5-10% of life (the neared to 5% the better oc), and then root them after carm break(I use Savage Roots 75 mana so like manafree, and its faster cast than PoP legs). This way you can finish them safely while your other pet is beeing beat down.
Sometimes I have 3 - 4 mobs parked and with the last pet standing finish all rooted mobs within a couple mins (this is handy when your waiting repops or in lotd burn :) )

Persea's stuff (http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1302868)

I know this is an old thread, but here's another way to do the Icefall mammoths.

-Find a higher level mammoth to charm.
-Charm it, buff it up (haste), give it two weapons (they will dual wield, tested this)
Break charm and park it.
-Charm other mammoths and send them on this one. Break charm when they get low and finish off with either a new pet or a dot.
-The buffed up mammoth will tear through your pet and not suffer the half damage penalty that charmed pets seem to have. One mammoth will take this buffed up mammoth down about 25%.
-Once the mammoth gets low, finish it and repeat.

If mammoths can be shrunk (I don't remember if they can), you might consider shrinking the "super" mammoth, just to make it easier to identify.

If mammoths can be shrunk (I don't remember if they can), you might consider shrinking the "super" mammoth, just to make it easier to identify.

Ah good tip, I'll try it out next time I'm out there.

Hmm, your name is familiar.
Server?

Cazic Thule (2000), Ayonae Ro (2001-2005), The Tribunal (2005-now)
I think you followed the same path :)

[Wed Aug 23 22:45:17 2000] Cronuus shouts, 'GRIFFIN TO THE TUNNEL'

[Sun Dec 15 06:26:17 2002] A hurricane lorok hits Cronuus for 466 points of damage.

-Once the mammoth gets low, finish it and repeat.

Once the buffed beast gets low, root it and run out of range so it loses agro and regens quick. No sense making the effort to create a new pet with weapons and buffs every 4 mobs.

Cazic Thule (2000), Ayonae Ro (2001-2005), The Tribunal (2005-now)
I think you followed the same path :)

[Wed Aug 23 22:45:17 2000] Cronuus shouts, 'GRIFFIN TO THE TUNNEL'

[Sun Dec 15 06:26:17 2002] A hurricane lorok hits Cronuus for 466 points of damage.

Ah ha, yup.
It's cool to see some old players still around!
I was in cazic 1999 and followed that path. I'm still around on Tribunal too.
Wow, 2000? crazy old log files.
You keep all of your logs?

Once the buffed beast gets low, root it and run out of range so it loses agro and regens quick. No sense making the effort to create a new pet with weapons and buffs every 4 mobs.

Good point.
Also, as far as shrinking goes, it doesn't work.

Yup, I keep all logs that I haven't lost to hard drive crashes. I'm missing most of 2001 and some of 2003, I think.
I compressed them to .zip files (they take up about 1 GB this way), and I use a little shell script to search through all of them. It takes about 1 minute to search through 130 million lines of logs this way. It actually takes longer--1 1/2 minutes--just to search through my current (uncompressed) log file, which stands at 5 million lines, 420 MB.

Back before the April 2003 (I think) charm nerf, you and I spent some time in the Plane of Storms with a pet lorok for each of us. Good times. :)

Too bad about shrinking mammoths not working. I used to use that trick in places like Maiden's Eye when I wanted to be able to identify my hasted, dual wielding pet after a charm break.

Wow that's cool.
Yeah, POS was good times. I remember how I flagged most of my guild to BOT and PoTactics through the quests in Storms using those frogs, good times indeed.
I know they nerfed charm in 2003ish to make agro kinda weird, but did they nerf all charm to make charmed mobs hit for only half too? Kinda disappointing =/.
I actually quit in later 2003ish early 2004 and I came back last week to check out how much things have changed.
It's weird, but after playing EQ from 1999 to 2003, I haven't really forgotten anything. I can still make my way through old world really well and all the new things are pretty easy to learn. Maybe that's sad, I don't know.

Anyway, gimme a tell some time if you're around :P

When I hit 73 I went to the bears at the lake, some were white con (and thus the right level for charm).
I made one of those my uber mob for killing my mammoth pets, works very well and you don't get it mixed up with the other mammoths, also mammoths won't assist it. Only problem though is that you need to set up camp on the north end of the mammoth area and not near the wolves/cats. They'll assist.