What does the new charm nurf mean?

[EZ_Melodie Songbird]

** 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.


I guess my main question is this: Does the new resist rate effect how long the charm lasts OR just the inital hit of it?

[EZ_Sylvya Sylvernote]

Both.
Safehouse Minority Terror Squad
Black Cherry Bombardier

[EZ_patofnaud]

Nerf mean to who?

Rogues? Not much.

Enchanters? A lot.

Bards? Not much.. An here IMHO is why,,

"- Healing a charmed pet now generates an appropriate amount of hate for the healer. "

Correct me if I am wrong, but bards don't tend to heal charmed pets. They either park em as crowd control or use them to swarm kite en mass.

"- 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."

Same as abovebut with a bit less exp to be gained swarming.

"- Charmed pets are no longer selected as a monster's preferred target if there are many players available for the monster to attack instead."

Isn't that how swarm kitting works already? Bard keeps aggro and charmed pet follows along as mucho dps? Druids tend to do this for aggro-kiting, we load up the fastes casting debuff (Flame Lick for example) just so we CAN keep aggro.

"- 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. "

Did not see them say Dreams of Ayonne (sp?) or the word "song" listed.

My guess is minimal to no change for grouping bards, minor exp loss for soloing bards.

But of course every class who can charm will see this as a reason to cancle their account. Just like every change.

I play a Druid who kites, quads, charms and groups. I'm not sweating it. Change bring innovation. I've had to live with short duration, much breaking charms for a while. Roots, Stuns and Fear are your friends to buy you time to recharm a ticked off ex-pet.

[Yalum]

You misunderstand swarm kiting, Pato. Bard aggros a half dozen mobs, then charms one and sends it in to tank. Pet gets beaten down to a fraction of its health, then bard breaks charm and finishes it off with dot kiting. Charm the one your previous pet was chewing on, add a new mob to your swarm if possible, and repeat.

No pet for the kill means no xp lost, there were no resist changes on bard songs, and bards don't depend on long charm durations anyway. This patch shouldn't do anything to them.

[EZ_patofnaud]

See? I'd make a terrible bard.

Thanks for the clear up Yalum. So this would effect bards even less than I thought.

Unless the mobs say "Hey why are we beating up on this lacky when the commander is standing over there!!! Lets get him!"

[EZ_Sylvya Sylvernote]

Quote:Unless the mobs say "Hey why are we beating up on this lacky when the commander is standing over there!!! Lets get him!"
Which is what already happens with swarming, sometimes even before the first recharm if you have to refresh it. So either you train the mobs back on your pet or run around your little area and live with it. I'm kind of worried that the whole pet-gives-master-50%-aggro thing is hidden in that little paragraph we're referring to, more for my 'chanter friend than for myself. I'll have to try it out sometime after EQW updates, when I can again play.

[EZ_Fendryl Istalindir]

So the funny thing about this, is ask yourself who's "hurt" by the charm changes....

The enchanter charm solo'ing for mega xp? Nope - Enc's had already learned to wipe & nuke to get around the dire charm XP restrictions.

The enchanter & cleric duo doing nameds in BoT, Storms & Tactics? Nope - First they weren't doing the nameds for XP, and the heal aggro changes won't be enough to draw aggro, else you'd be doing the same for normal fights.

The 5+ person group that used charmed pets to supplement DPS? Yup, they take an XP hit, all the more reason for Enchanters & Clerics to go off & duo instead.

The 5+ person group that used a charmed pet to tank (provided no one was in melee)? Yup they're SOL.

So, in conclusion we have.... Solo/Duo'ing for for mega-XP & Loot - Good Thing; Using charm in a near-full group - Bad Thing. I'm sure that's what everyone was hoping for. ----
[65 Transcendent] Fant <Acervatim Amicitiae> - Tarew Marr

"When you're great, people often mistake candor for bragging." - Calvin
"Manners don't cost anything extra" - Mom

[EZ_Hika Mindsong]

The enchanter charm solo'ing for mega xp? Nope - Enc's had already learned to wipe & nuke to get around the dire charm XP restrictions.

That doesn't work in most of PoP because mobs regen instantly. However, that being said, getting 4% of an AA/kill instead of 6 or 7% isn't making soloing unviable by any stretch.

I do think the XP penalty needs to be re-thought out for use in a group; nothing should make people want to have a class avoid using their core abilities in a group. Of course, if the charm-using group can still kill at a greater rate than a non-charming group, you have some offset.

I also applaud the healing change; that made no sense that you could heal a pet without aggro. However, I'm not sure that it's gonna fix the 2 charms + 2 healer type groups from cheesifying content.

Oh, and please let summoned pets tank again even if charmed ones cannot. Not wanting charm'd pets tanking I can understand. Summoned pets, however, should be able to gain aggro and keep it through /pet taunt and their procs. Why that was ever nerfed I don't quite understand.

It used to be quite a different way to play if you had a mage who knew their stuff and a group of light armor/robe classes crawling a dungeon.

-- Hika

[EZ_Aanny]

As for your conjecture that enchanters will just wipe and nuke the mobs...guess again..

mob regen in PoP is so fast that a chanter can't keep up the dmg fast enough to kill a nonagro former pet for the most part.

The resist changes on all charm spells has now made them next to useless unless you already have 305 cha and TD3. Even chanters with it are now claiming that a majority of their charms break within 2 min....
Aanny Crowdteaser
65th Coercer of Endorean
(Luclin Server)

[EZ_Bukaroo Banzai]

I play on test, been dealing with this for a few weeks now, and picked up TD3 during that period. I had TD2 before.

Post-patch charm duration with TD3 is about the same as pre-patch duration with TD2.

I don't have logs or hard numbers, but that's the general feeling I get from it. -Bukk
Rebel Scum

[EZ_Melodie Songbird]

hum, TD 1 = -40 on resist? TD2 = -80 and TD3 = -120?

[EZ_Kozor]

It means the Necro and Magi lvl 65 charm spells are absolutley useless now.

[EZ_Nitro of the Orb]

leet, they nerfed mage and necro soloing but chanters remain untouched.

rofl, i give up anyways [65 Arch Convoker] Draogan <The Dark Exile> Server: Seventh Hammer

[EZ_feck opression]

Damage has already been done. Instead of tossing everyone a bone they nerf. Good CS.

f e c k . t h e . d e c e i v e r

[EZ_Ishwar2]

Well if the damage is done, nerf is the way out. You have to face up to your errors, and try to make up for it. I think they are doing a good job.

And while chanters are not affected as bad as others by the resist change, they suffer most from the charm pet exp change, since they can do the least damage themselves.

I think they know what they are doing, a lot better than most plkayers thinking they have the ultimate answers (no flame on anyone in perticular intended). Ishwar - level 60 Barbarian Rogue - GM smith

[EZ_Ravvenstar]

Logged in my little 35 enc last night to see how bad they messed up Charm (couldnt find her a group anyways, I did try), in Dawnshroud, sprung a trap with a wolf. Stuned, Tashed, Charmed. Yet was still getting beat on, and F1 twice revealed to me that the exact same wolf that was beating on me was supposed to be my pet (showed the green pet bar as well). IMO, they should have nerfed the higher lvl charm spells instead of all charms at once, this makes solo'ing for any lower lvl enc VERY difficult. Mianya Menkia
63rd High Priestess
Immortalis Extrahi

[EZ_Schezar]

Hika, they need to scale it based on the number of people in the group.

Solo - Caps at 90%
2 - Caps at 75%
3 - Caps at 60%
4 - Caps at 45%
5 - Caps at 30%
6 - Caps at 15%

That would balance the power of the pets vs actual damage classes while providing an incentive to group up. See me at: Schezarine's Sexay Stuff
See my BST: Schezanna's Savage Suite

---
I *am* the Chinpokomon master!

[EZ_Sumamael]

Necro PoP charm lasts in the Crypt of Decay for tops 45 secs now but usually breaks around 20-30 secs. Thats not even enough to pull and kill a mob sorry.
I got that result after 30 charm attempts post patch.

/em moves a rare level 65 spell to page 40.

/shurg, I guess necros were never meant to loot runes, not a single worthwhile 65 spell now.
Lich Sumamael Shadowforge
Arch Lich of the Ashborne Alliance
Edited by: Sumamael at: 4/9/03 7:21:28 am

[EZ_Hymay]

heh, a BIT easier to resist...
I think cutting the duration of charms to 1/4 is a little more than 'a bit'.

What this means to charmers is more downtime, as more recharms are necessary, (or more zoning if you don't bother to recharm) more downtime due to rebuffing from low hp zoning when pet can't be recharmed, and more downtime from deaths when you just can't make it to the zone (pets HURT, especially backstabbing ones).

This also means that GROUP xp is slower, IF you can find one at all, since nobody will want a pet that breaks every 2 min and rapes the ench. Why get an ench, who will add some dps SOME of the time, when he will CERTAINLY drain the cleric, when you can just add another melee, or pick up a shammy, at least they can heal and buff too!

But what does this mean to YOU?
It means, unless you have a SUPERB cleric with a ton of mana to heal the chanter every 2-3 min, no more piggy pet helping your tactics groups.

It means that when you have a warrior, rogue, ranger, cleric, druid, ench, that 5 ppl don't have to go LFG when the warrior leaves and cannot be replaced. (because you can still kill fast enough that the cleric won't go OOM healing that ranger)

It means that when the ranger/cleric (2box) leaves, the druid, ench and paladin (pally joined eventually, rogue had to sleep) that 3 ppl will have to go LFG instead of using pet as a tank to keep things going. (and yes, this was a factual group, a few late nights ago. YES I prefer groups, since, unless I am lucky and get a major hot streak, charm soloing yeilds a point in about 45 min AVG, (sure, there can be the 30 min or less streaks, I've had this happen ONCE) compared to 1hr in a group. Why bother taking the risk for 15 min extra.)

If you don't group with an ench much, I guess this means NOTHING to you, except you have one less class to be jealous of.
For those of you that enjoyed having an ench in groups, well, it was fun, I will miss the invites. I'll be off tradeskilling, reminescing about the days of being wanted in groups, since 2-3 min charms will frustrate the hell out of me (can we say TD3 is useless/andor Broken? refund pls)

All in all, any one of these changes might have been necessary, but ALL of them are overkill in extremis. thanks Sony.


HymayEdited by: Hymay at: 4/10/03 6:57:39 am

[EZ_Talas DruzzilRo]

The new charm modifications will mean that more people will complain that encounters are now unbeatable, since they could only get by using CoD pets Talas Pennysnatcher
65 Rogue - Druzzil Ro

[EZ_Melodie Songbird]

POS
they can't stop the mad exp (9-10% AA per KILL with Nurf)
Ok its a little risky but I was able to do the entire FOREST CAMP IN STORMS.
Get a toad of course, and haste it. then go to the corner on the wall that is near the giants. Pull the first one with Pacify and the rest are singles.
Before the Giant gets to you Root it. Then Slow and Cripple (no summon because no damage done yet). If you Notice that your Slow is only Partial Effect then you need to do you 1100 nuke like 4 times in the fight and your frog will win. If he doesn't have partial resist then you can do One nuke and frog will still have 2 bubbles when done.

Only do 1 giant per charm. After each fight just run off a small way, hide or go invis and hit the toad with a Mez on the way in. Because of the mad regin rate while under a mez that whiped the agro your frog will be 100% health before you can even cast your charm again (damn they regin fast). If your mez doesn't work you know because they don't regin that fast. You can keep the frog mezed indefidentally until you are full or until you see it works (since we gain mana while keeping 1 mob down). Normally it will work and you will just need to do 1 mez and the frog will be Full live a few seconds later. This cuts a healer out and saves you a TON of time.

Kill all the outside Giants and the 2 outside the Fort. That should be more than 1 aa and take around 15-20 mins. I was able to do this last night with TD2 with no prob. If charm breaks, you know you are dead though. I got lucky and got a sword and a belt on my first round and didn't hang out for round 2. Don't forget the ones with slow mitigation take some nuking.

If you need a real break after a fight just root the frog, I reroot every 30 mana++ just to make sure that it stucks and sit far enough away that I can get it again if it happens to break. Good luck.

Then again I kinda suggest you do this with a Druid partner. That way they can snare and heal when the fighting is done. Also if one pet breaks the other pet will take agro and you won't be summoned to your death. This is really fast with 2 frogs beating on a giant and at 5% aa per kill isn't bad. If by chance both break at the same time (exodus) auto live. Good luck.

Edited by: Melodie Songbird at: 4/9/03 10:07:54 pm

[DarthEnderX]

The main damage this nerf does is on raids where guilds would have all their enchanters charm one of the tough mobs to use for the fight against the boss.

I think that if charm pets are gonna take xp, then when the chanter is grouped it should take it only from the chanters share.

They get groups so easy anyway!

[EZ_kineada]

This nerf hits melees looking for groups a bit harder than charmers looking for groups. With the aggro nerf, it's a heck of a whole lot easier to group with other charmers than to bring a melee in. Pets are great at aggro kiting (they are never too far away and can always see their targets). And if you have more than 3 people in your group, the mob will perfer a PC rather than the pets.

Snareable, non-summoning mobs just became pet chew toys. Charmers didn't ask for this nerf. A small change in charm tactics mitigates the nerf though. Kineada
Storm Warden of Terris Thule
Clan Ta Veren
My Stuff

[EZ_Kozor]

LOL! Could only get by using CoD pet. I see yet another person who has no clue is regurgitating useless information again.

Necro's who were 65 and had the charm spell did solo in CoD when they could. It was good exp I hear. I personally never did it. But I do know there is a very small area they can do in there, and that it was camped 24/7. So, maybe 3-4 ppl per server actually even used CoD for charm fighting exp anyway.

There are many other places undead pets are useful besides CoD. None of them give the same exp tho, because CoD was really the ONLY place that Necro's could charm something and then fight a mob that gave you exp also at 65.

The charm nerf was meant for chanters, not Necro and Magi. However, Sony, once again, proved they have no clue about some things. The main change on charm wasn't the exp share change, it was the resist stats. Both Necro and Magi had resist adjustment reduced to 0, from -100. Chanter was sent to 0 from -50, and druids stayed the same. The result was that charms are now resisted probally 40% or more on each cast, the length of time of charm was random up to 8 min prior to patch, and now for necro's the avg length is 20-30secs, with some lasting as long as 45 secs

Chanters, and Magi both can debuff MR by 50 and 70 respectively, and chanters with the right AA can extend the length of charms.

So the end result is that chanters are barely effected by these changes at all, and magi can debuff mob's MR better than chanter so it doesn't bother them much either (although there are less elemental pets available to magi than there are undead for Necro, so they were screwed even before patch).

So, once again after nerfing our Pets, fear lines, PvP abilities, giving us useless class AA's, capping damage from dots, making most 60+ mobs summon, giving us PoP Dots that are worse than dots we already have, we finally get a fun spell to play (but had to wait till 65 to get it) with and they make it useless in one patch.

Even with our mana regen, a charm that takes 500 mana to cast, is resisted 40% of time and breaks every 20-30 secs means we won't be using it.

So to say we can only get by using a CoD pet, really is a lame attempt at suggesting our class is reliant on the spell. It's a great fun spell to have, and yes some (very few tho) of our community were using it to get awesome exp, but most of us used it in other ways to have fun and clear junk mobs like the undead in nadox docks, (which are great for zombie skins to make vials), and lower guk when working on faction, or ME to camp shard spawns, or grey etc.... none of which gives a lvl 65 any real exp, but it was just fun to do it

Now all of our lvl 65 spells are pretty much lame, Charm isn't going to be used by anyone, hardly anyone uses 65 pet because they so weak and new aggro changes get it summoned alot now even with taunt off (no clue why that is, some suggest the life tap proc aggro), the undead DD is less damage than our 61 poison DD, and as mentioned above, there just arent many undead in the 65 exp area, and lastly our 65 dot that is less mana efficient than 4 of our 60 and under dots, and which does lass damage than 2 of our under 60 dots.

The reason you here Necro's bitching about this nerf is because we finally had a decent spell that actually made us feel like Master of the undead, even tho we had to wait till 65 to get it and then get runes to try for the spell it was a fun spell that showed we really are masters of undead (well up to level 60 undead anyway). Then, SONY! decides to hammer our class the worst of all, by making the changes they did. When all they had to do was just nerf the friggen exp to that of a DC mob or less if they wanted to stop ppl from using it to get awesome exp. BUT NOOOOOOOO!!! they had to change the ENTIRE line of charm spell formula's so even younger Necro and Chanters can't really use it a viable spell anymore.

Ok rant off Before patch I thought I was master of the undead.

But now, we "Masters of the Undead Minions", have to change title back to "Masters of the Nerfed Yet again".

So, thats why I'm going to be a rogue now

[EZ_Andori]

Quote:LOL! Could only get by using CoD pet. I see yet another person who has no clue is regurgitating useless information again.

I am guessing that Talas was actually referring to Command of Druzzil which is the chanter charm spell and not necros using Word of Terris for charming in the undead area of Crypt of Decay. Andori Avalonia
Coercer of OOI
Scuby
Archon of OOI

[EZ_Tilara]

Kozor wrote:
Quote:so the end result is that chanters are barely effected by these changes at all


I'd disagree. Speaking as a level 65 enchanter with TD3, I cast charm 14 times last night on mobs. Not once did it last over 3 minutes, most time breaking within the first. Eventually, I gave up trying and memmed my 675pt nuke and pretended I was still useful to the group. Edited by: Tilara at: 4/11/03 11:45:11 am

[EZ_DiabLeSoule]

resists seem to have been changed for more than charm, an enchanter in our group was having problems slowing even after tash, even the enchanter that replaced our first one had problems, that was in PoDisease. Also i find it odd none of the mobs near the castle enrage anymore.

[EZ_Bronus Blackblade]

I think that is a separate change, regarding resist rates on the mobs. My Enchanter was in BoT, and after tashing it took 5 slow attempts to slow one of the mobs - and in general mobs seemed to be resisting more. Had another Enchanter comment on this as well.
Bronus Blackblade
Order of the Shining Path

[EZ_Inque SCorpous]

Debuffing a mob with tash still doesnt guarantee useful charms. Prior to the 'nerf' for charm spells, I had Total Domination 2 and with tash I could charm a mob for pretty much full duration. Occasionally charm would break early, and sometimes twice even three times in a row. But a successful charm remained for full 90% of the charms duration.

Post 'nerf' I still had TD 2, and I would tash, and use CoD on a mob only to have it break in 30 seconds. Then break again, and again, and again, and again, up to seven times under two minutes. Mind you this is after tash, AND malo, and with Total Domination 2. Explain to me how enchanters arent affected by seven breaks in under two minutes?

IMO Verant practically made charm useless. Not all guilds used enchanters' pets for tanking major bosses or minis. What good is charm if we cant use it in exp groups at a relatively safe rate? Let alone solo for PVP or even PVE now n then? Ive been unable to have a successful charm in weeks due to this 'nerf' - either adjust resists or adjust duration. Not both.

Then again this is Sony. They either go left to the extreme, or to the right, theres no such thing as balance.

[EZ_RabidMonkey01]

Well now's the time to let SOE know cuz they said they'll be looking at spells and changeing them where "appropriate".
eqfeedback@soe.sony.com

[EZ_Melodie Songbird]

Yea charm is pretty much useless now. They need to at the VERY minamum put the Negative resist back on IT. Hell it's already nurfed BADLY with the exp change. That should be gone too IMHO, hell ranges with AM 3 are still out there killing as fast as a chanter can. They only need 1 mob too. You know how hard it is to find 2 mobs that don't summon to have them fight? Ranger gets track and goes for it and only needs one. It really needs at least the resist rate changed back. Hell its a 64 spell. Let's watch a necro solo for the FULL exp for the mob but if a chanter does it (without snare, running like crazy if it breaks). Well, lets nurf them then.