Buying Dire Charm, as a druid, is perhaps a little unusual one might think, given that its restricted to animal races. Maybe it is useful to put down here my findings so far. Throughout Lotusfly's life, she has always liked charming pets; there is something about a high-powered, high-HP creature fighting for you that just seems strangely right - even if it does turn around and take chunks out of your skirt every few minutes. :)

Level Limitation

As with the Enchanter and Necromancer Dire Charms, it appears that the druidic one follows the same rules, as one might expect. It is animal-only, and has a level cap of 46 (I think).

Level 46 creatures are rather significant though, for us of course, this is balanced by the fact that level 46 animals are not available in a huge amount of zones. With some selective charming, however, you can have a pet with 5-10k HPs, who will happily double-qud hit for around the 140 mark. :)


Possible Pet Targets

A number of spoliler sites list the level ranges of various animals throughout Norrath. I'll list below all those in the level range 40-48. Levels and HPs are shown in brackets.

All sub-40 animals have been omitted from this list, though such creatures may be great for farming pelts!

istmoore:
Black Dire Wolf (45, 10k HP)

Tenebrous Mountains:
Black Wolf (44-46)
Gray Wolf (42-44)

Western Wastes:
Brontotherium (45-51)
Glacier Mastodon (45-49)

Kedge Keep:
Cauldron Hammerhead (37-46, 5.3k HP)
Ferocious Hammerhead (45-50, 6k HP)
Gloomstalker Mermaid (39-46, 6k HP)
Gloomwater Mermaid (38-45, 6.1k HP)
Soothebrine Seahorse (42, 4.8k HP)
Spinereef Seahorse (39-45, 6.6K HP)
Squallsurge Seahorse (39-46, 6.5k HP)
Stilleto Fang Piranha (43-44, 5.8k HP)
Swirlspine Seahorse (39-51, 9.8k HP)
Impaler Swordfish (39-42, 3.2k HP)
Estrella of Gloomwater (39-51, 9.4k HP)
Fierce Impaler (42, 4.2k HP)

Permafrost:
Giant Dire Wolf (43-47, 6.8k HP)
Giant Polar Bear (43-47, 8k HP)
Injured Polar Bear (45)

Wakening Land:
Haze Panther (40-42)
Black Unicorn (45)
White Unicorn (40)
Grand Vizier Poolakacha'te (45) - Haha
Rapticor (42)

Erud's Crossing:
Killer Shark (38-42, 3.2k HP)

aiden's Eye:
Raging Zelniak (40)

The Hole:
Ratman Warrior (45-50)

Dawnshroud Peaks:
Rockhopper (36-44)

Siren's Grotto:
Servant Sea Elephant (46-49)

Grimling Forest:
Sonic Warwolf (41-43)

Burning Woods:
Tatterback Gorilla (42-47, 5.8k HP)
Azdalin (45)

Timourous Deep:
Vicious Raptor (44-48, 4.5k HP)

Eastern Wastes:
Elder Snow Griffin (42-45)
Ulthork Man-o-War (40-44, 4.3k HP)

Emerald Jungle:
Corrupted Gorilla (44-47) - Heh

Lesser Faydark:
Equestrielle (40, 3k HP)
Equestrielle the Corrupted (40)

Stonebrunt Mountains:
Giang Yin (44-46)
Old Ghostback (42-46, 4k HP)
Shadowback (40-44)

Rathe Mountains:
Petrifin (40-41)

Trakanon's Teeth:
Sigra (48)

Nagafen's Lair / Sol B:
Sonic Bat (38-42, 3.3k HP)


There are a great deal of Good Opportunities (tm) in the above, it seems. I'll examine some of the more surprising "animal" tagged mobs and see what kind of tricks we can get up to. :)


Bugs

This skill has a few issues, though none that would stop a charm-crazy druid such as myself from buying the skill...

When trying to pet an animal, one often has to 'spam' the hotkey, as "You are too far away from your target, get closer!" and "You cannot see your target!" messages are often the result, even if the poor beast is standing two feet in front of you. Enchanters and necromancers report precisely the same with their Dire Charms, and the charm will work after a little spamming - sometimes none is required, sometimes a lot.

If you try to Dire Charm an animal that has previously been charmed (either Dire or normally), your Dire Charm will get the message "Your spell did not take hold" - even when the previous charm has long gone. Again, this is common to the enchanter and necromancer Dire Charms.

Though not really a bug, it is a little annoying that if you attempt to charm a creature higher than level 46, then your Dire Charm will give the "Your target is too high level for this spell!" message, and will require you to wait the 72 minutes for the skill to refresh.

To me, this seems a little harsh. I suppose that it does rather put the responsibility upon the Charmer's shoulders to ensure that the target is of the correct level but, unless we use such evil tools as ShowEQ, we're down to having a level 46 twink running at our side to con mobs (a necromancer on my server actually does this!).

The spell looks to be unfinished, due to the targetting bugs; I would anticipate that when it is perfected, an attempt to charm a too-high level creature will not result in the timer being reset to 72 mins.


Summary

As our charm lines have always been, and always will be, this skill is not for everyone. Kiters will have no use for it, groupers with certain tastes will not care for it. However, the benefit of having a permanent pet that thumps for 140 is something that I like, and it's a bit of fun too.

Admittedly, when you spend 9 points on Dire Charm, you are not spending those points on healing power, or nuking ability. For most druids, this skill will be a "Nice, but I'll get it after I've bought the skills I really need".

I hope that the above post has been a little use; certainly, it is nice to have some information about a skill before you buy it - taking the plunge and just buying a skill unarmed is a little daunting! At the very least, it will help you make up your mind whether or not Dire Charm is any good, or whether it's not the right thing for you. :)


Toodlepip,
--
Lotusfly Stewnicely
KTF, Prexus
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