I have been soloing the Giants in PoS with charmed frogs for some time. But, the fun stops when charm breaks and I get summoned. I have to use Exodus to escape and then I can’t go back to killing until Exodus is back up.

I have an idea on how to get around this but I don’t know if it will work and would appreciate the readers of this forum sharing their thoughts on the idea.

If I invest 18 points in Quick Evacuation, could I send in my frog, do some damage to the giant, and then root both the giant and my frog. If charm breaks and I get summoned, I back off and cast a 2.5 sec evac? If charm breaks before I get him rooted, I can always Exodus.

i have Hasten Exodus 3, it does help alot bringing the reset time of Exodus down to about 48 minutes or in that ball park.

i honestly don't think that you will have time to root your uncharmed frog and giant fast enough. when my charm breaks, i usually get summoned that very instant and having a hasted frog and a giant on you, both at once, only gives you a couple of seconds, before you either get stunned or go splat.

i don't snare the giants anymore, simple so that when the charm breaks the giant and the frog are at different speeds, so when you get summoned by the giant you don't get crushed by the frogs, but just the giant.

i very rarely stick around and try to kill the giant when charm breaks, only unless the giant only has 5% health of less. i just pop Sotw 3 and hope my Damage Shields will finish him off.

i figure it's better to Exodus and live to fight the giants in 45 mins or so. i usually just charm and kill frogs til Exodus is back up.

if anyone else has any input on this matter, do share.

ack, brain fart! I was thinking of rooting my pet after he started fighting the giant - but I can't do that while he is petted.

Thanks for the suggestion about not snaring the giant so that the two hostiles are at different speeds - but what about rooting the giant so that he cant follow me as I back off away from him and the frog in preparation to clicking Exodus?

I have had pretty good luck getting away and surviving with Exodus but stuns and the &*^%$ FD from the Seacoast guys are a problem.

You have 10 seconds between summons. As long as both mobs are snared, this is enough time to get summoned, run away, and cast egress. Casting haste or quick evac are handy here. With a rooted mob, this is sometimes enough time to run out of pursuit range. You could try it out on the forlorn ents some time, as they summon, but aren't as deadly as the giants.

To reduce risk when fighting giants, I like to pull the giant with ensnare. If that gets resisted, I'll use Earthen or Savage Roots *before* sending the pet in. Once snare lands, the pet goes in to fight.

Quick evac will get you out. I snare both mobs, and if charm breaks, I take a pounding instantly when I get summoned, which is to be expected. But then you get tons of time before the next summon to run away (2-3 seconds) and cast Egress (2.5 seconds). If you survive the first pounding, you almost always get away unless you miss-click.

As for not snaring the giant.... I don't like that idea. I find that when I try that, I can't get enough distance from him to egress. I'd rather be summoned just one, then egress, rather than being summoned 4 or 5 times, trying to get enough distance. I also found that if I stand still and let the giant just hit me while I egress, I tend to die more than I get away.

There's a few options, and I use all depending on the situation.

Definitely the easiest, exodus. Press the button, home free. Mentioned above.

Faster casting egress .. personally I went for level one only, and won't be getting more until resists are complete. I just don't use it enough to justify the cost (and I have points spent in CHA!). Level one I have more than enough time to step out of melee range and egress. Noted above too.

Killing the mob - depends on your AAs, gear, and current mana pool, also the class of the giant is important. I make a rule to KEEP the giant rooted. And it's snared. If the mob is a shaman, I'll always stick around and kill. Downside to this is that they have annoying procs, and loosing all your mana can annoy. If the mob is rooted, once you are out of melee range, your only problem is CCing the once friendly frog NOT on the giant (so it doesn't whack you next summon).

Spell hastes are another option. Blessing of reverence reduces charm cast time such that you CAN recharm between summons including "run away" time. Just recharm the pet, and carry on.

My preferred method when I was doing all manner of giants was kinda mentioned above. Here's more detail :

Pull with ceramic ring, low aggro. Run to pet. Giant inc, /pet attack, instant aggro on pet.
Root is now priority. ROOT the mob.
Ensnare is now priority. Get it SNARED!
Keeping ROOT on at ALL times, do your thang... nuke, heal pet, etc.
Mob to 25% now! woo!
Charm breaks. Summon to mob. Run away - run away as far as you can! Don't stop, don't curve, go straight away from the mob!
Now, once you reach a certain point, the mob will begin to go on ultra-regen, ala kunark mobs - you are too far away, it heals. You may get summoned again. And look, now the mob's on 75% hps, god damn it! That's ok, you are home and dry long as you live to RUN AWAY once more. Run away again, as far away as possible. Hey .. no more summon. Why? Well, that mob just ultra-regen'd to full health .. and full health mobs don't summon.
Providing your root doesn't break during this time you are cool as a ... er ... a fridge.
If root DID break, and your hp are good, well, that mob is moving at ensnare speed, and it is possible to live thru 2 summon and still get oor each time enough to have it ultra-regen and stop summoning.
To be noted, you can be out of pursuit range and STILL GET SUMMONED! It's the mob HEALING to non-summon 96?% + that does the trick.

So yeah, now head back, re-root / snare giant, get pet sorted, and kill it.
Also at any point during this procedure you can egress /exodus of course, or camp out (once no summon) to drop aggro.

You can see the effect of "ultra-regen" by taking your beat up frog pet, breaking charm, rooting, keeping targ, and backing off till it gets it's free CH. This is a good way to judge the distance it needs to trigger ultra-regen.

Should probably mention that if the mob enraged, it's a warrior, and then charm broke? You will have a longer time for it to heal to full - expect more summon .. in fact probably you should exodus unless you can take the beats.
If you have HP issues with getting summoned ...
Charm broke. You got summoned, and beat, and ran away. You managed to cause Some OOR healing, but now you are summoned back again, and one more oor healing (ultra regen) won't have the mob to full - you gonna die next summon. OMG!

Run a few paces, just out of melee, heal yourself for say 50%, and take the additional summon.
Loose some hps, run away a couple places, and heal again. You're up at around 80% now after the next summon. Ok, time to OOR heal the giant again - loosing say 15-20% health in 2 summon-run away cycles. Then heal yourself again (giant gets no regen here, you are too close), and do another 2 OOR heals on the giant... and hey, it's full health.

As noted above, if your mob isn't snared, it's gonna only have maybe 1 tick per summon of ultra-regen. if it's very damaged, that's gonna hurt you a lot. We're druids .. we live to snare! /shiver the concept of not doing it =p Druid class motto should be "eat my dust, I don't care if you DO summon!"

or whatever ~

Lorok frogs don't summon problem solved.

Quick evac will work, giving you a 2.5 egress.


IFFFF you get one of those rare melee stuns when you get summoned, you will likely die.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Re: Soloing PoP <strong>Summoners</strong>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lorok frogs don't summon problem solved.
[/quote]

:evil:

also, re: pursuit range and summoning:
Once you're out of pursuit range, the mob forgets you until you come back in range. You're safe, and won't get summoned. The mob will start regenerating quickly, but it can be low on health and incapable of summoning you due to distance.

I have found that recharming after each kill significantly reduces the odds that your charm will fail durring kill. IN addition I save alot of mana by letting the frog get low on health durring kill say about 20-30% left. Then I invis after kill run out of agro range and the frog will heal at about 17% per tick (free healing). When frog is back to full health I re snare re charm and kill again. Over all this has worked very well for me I have gone from dying several times a day to maybe having to exodus once. I make about 1 aa every hour or so solo with one grp member about 1 aa every 1.5 hrs for each at lvl 65. It used to be better before the patch that reduced solo exp "a small amount" in POP this small amount worked out to be about 30% per kill for me.

Elder Alaenie Alini servant of Tunare in the Nameless realm

Quick evac stack with spell haste foci? or are you assuming SH plus QE for the 2.5 sec egress?

50% reduction is the max. Quick Evac at the top level gets you to 2.5 seconds. No other form of spell haste/focus will get it any lower.

Ah ok, that makes sense

Someone said above that a mob could be incapable of summoning you due to distance. I've tested this theory with Giants, and it's wrong. You can be miles away, those guys will still summon your butt right back.

The health thing on the other hand, does work. Tried and tested.

I have found this as well. I've been far beyond the range where any mob in PoS would chase me and have been summoned back by the Giants. An interesting thing to note is that for some reason this only seems to apply to the Giants. I have never been summoned by other mobs (i.e. the summoning ones - Wandering Grezlans, Forlorn Ents, etc) when I was beyond pursuit range.

Hmm my evac is at 3.8 with my secondary item, doubt I'd waste 18aa points to drop it 1.3 seconds. Kinda stinks it doesn't stack

My understanding is that it stacks but won't exceed a limit of 50%.

So you should be able to spend 9 AA's to get quick evacuation 2, for a combined spell haste of 50%...