Charm Nerf

atalol

Surely we can hit a middle ground where my charmed wolf at level 29 doesn't hit the same as the level 11 spiders I charmed at level 12?!

Zest

Any middle ground is going to involve comparison to other pets in the game, not charm in it's previous overtuned state. I think most agree the last patch went a bit too far- they fell short of their 25% more damage than summoned pets goal, but using pre-patch charm as your baseline is going to be setting yourself up for disappointment.

The good news is though that I suspect damage normalization should open the doors to relaxing the level restrictions on charm and getting rid of the clunky breakpoint where you need to charm something way lower than you'd like or can't land a charm on the things the group is fighting. Hopefully we see that soon.

atalol

Zest I understand your point, but I think the comparison stays valid regardless- a level 29 pet shouldn't hit the same as the level 11 does either way.

I had a great time landing my charms because I specifically built my druid charisma to play solo and land and hold charms on white targets.

I don't want them to revert the change, just consider the scaling factor on the nerf.

Zest

atalol

Fair point, and since they seem to have undershot their stated objective of 125% pet damage perhaps things will be scaled back. Loosening the level restrictions on charm would also help- part of the reason damage is so low is likely because the charm level caps often mean you're charming monsters 5+ levels lower than you in many level brackets so even if they did set the numbers so at a given level does 125% pet damage that pet is often conseqentially 5+ levels higher.

In anycase definitely agree this patch swing the pendulum too far in the opposite direction- mostly just caution against using old charm as a measuring stick as recomparison speaking a properly balance charm is going to be pretty pathetic by comparison.

Tran

At the moment my charmed pets can't even out-agro a single snare. It takes a solid 15 seconds or mroe of kiting to get mobs to stick to the charmed pet and then its time to re-snare. So the only way to make a charmed pet useful is to just not snare or do any damage to the mob and hope your charmed pet kills the mob before charm wears off (it won't, they do no damage).

The other option available is to DS the charmed pet and root the mob next to your pet, then hope root doesn't break right away (it will).

Both options end with you kiting a mob with your dots and snare and a pet that is effectively a dot that does less damage than frostbite while costing 10x (!) the mana and does not pull agro ever and when it breaks charm it will come hurt you.

Charm is a liability for efficient solo play. It has been reduced to situational CC, and not even good or reliable CC. It is highly situational at best now and will fall off most bars.

There needs to be some sort of compromise here because this wasn't a nerf, it was a soft deletion of charm (for druids). At the very least they could improve the agro if they won't give us the damage back.

Ghorast

In my opinion they should buff druids dot damage and leave the charm to the trashbin of mmo history where it belongs.

atalol

Ghorast That would be a great compensation as well

atalol

Tran Hard agree

atalol

Zest Once again, two great points homie.

Fell

Zest

Fair point, and since they seem to have undershot their stated objective of 125% pet damage

Even 125% is an absolutely insane figure. For months, I've been one of the loudest enchanter voice advocating for a charm nerf but I have to say it aloud: devs don't understand the math here. See my other thread on calculating charm vs. non-charm enchanter damage.

Dredlord

HeH I charmed a level 38 wolf in glinting hollow, My charmed pet was doing 1-10dmg while the target wolf was doing 80-150, oh and charm broke every 5-10secs with 100charisma, Just take charm completely out of the game and gives us at least some dots comparable dmg to shamans. No none is going to use charm specially at EA with no one having high enough cha to level. Druid was my main and was a lot of fun do to charm and atm I'm rethinking of just playing another class or just play a different game.

Lone

How is druid solo ability without the use of charm? I'm curious how effective they are even with the reduction in charm effectiveness. Root rotting/kiting seems mana efficient and I assume we can still quad kite and or just root and nuke; are these effective methods?

Gathbard

Honestly, if I was a player who followed this game just because I wanted to play a charm based class I would be rightfully pissed, and probably would wish the worst nerfs to be inflicted upon the preferred skills of those who wish for charm to be thrown in the "trashbin of mmo history where it belongs", starting with dots.
As if dots and snares/roots couldn't do disgusting things even back in the day.

I could get behind with the concept of taking charm away from the Druid class, or even Bard, but I'll never agree with the position that "charm is bad and should be removed from the game or rendered so useless that nobody will ever use it".
Those poor Enchanters...first the buff nerf and now charm gutted.

I'm so tired of this community's state of mind of "the playstyle I enjoy should be left untouched and exactly as it was 30 years ago" , but "X playstyle of the same era that other people loved but I hated" should be burned alive and covered in salt.
It's time some people start to realize that what made those games so much fun was the fact that some stuff was broken AF too, and that's a good thing.
Taking the chance to tweak it and make it more balanced is one thing, wishing for it to disappear is another.
I'm so glad I dodged both the "buff" and the "charm" nerfs, but I really fail to see how MnM is supposed to be even near the classic mmorpgs of old if it starts to remove the "controller" archetype.

Paul

Charm is a super strong ability that literally not only takes a mob out of combat from hurting your party but also gives the group damage. It needs to not be a great dps ability. With it hitting hard it is a single spell that literally changes the entire game.

Gathbard

It can totally be a great dps ability if that's the only dps ability that class has. They just need to build the class around it.
The problem is not Charm per se, it's how the class who uses it is built and how that damage is calculated.
Taking a mob out of combat is not an issue if your group is basically made of 5 people instead of 6.
The mob becomes that 6th member, it's just controlled by a player.
There are ways to have a meaningful charm that it's not OP.

Now, saying that giving Charm to Druid on top of everything else is too much is different. Not arguing with that.

Transcendent

Paul Why do you keep posting this nonsense?

Tran

Gathbard

Druids are at least limited to animals and do not have a magic debuff or access to stats that extend charm time. They also have limited options for buffing charms (no haste, the big one).

But as I said above, the real issue here that is not being addressed and was apparently forgotten is the fact that charm pet agro is completely reliant on charm pet DPS. Charm pets do not hold agro anymore and cannot be used for any meaningful purpose at the moment. They may not have deleted charm but it will be deleted from every druid's spell bar because there is no justification for it taking up a gem slot. Seeing as charm has been relegated to an extremely expensive and unreliable CC option, one may as well replace it with fear beast.

One last time from me but I know the odds of me being heard are small:

(1) The nerfing of charm pet damage is totally fair, they went a bit far in my opinion given that the pet does less damage than our AC debuff, but I could live with it.
(2) This adjustment didn't factor in the effect to pet agro; this change was based on pet classes as a reference point, but pet class pets have a built in taunt, charm pets rely on dps agro.
(3) Most of the utility of charm pets has always been tanking, not always raw damage, and the tanking ability of pets has been stealth-reduced to 0% alongside a damage decrease of ₇₅%.
(4) Charm pet agro needs a boost or charm is not worth having in a spell gem slot.

Dredlord

Lone Druid and Wizard quad spells are completely useless for leveling. Their mana costs are way too high for the ridiculous damage they actually deal—I have no idea who designed these spells because they make zero sense.With the nerfs to animal charm, a Druid's best soloing strategy is root-and-DOT, but you have to watch out because roots only last a few seconds and break constantly. If you try to snare-and-nuke instead, you'll instantly run out of mana and spend forever meditating back to full. Because of this, your best bet is finding a group. You might get lucky and get invites up until your mid-30s, but after that, good luck finding a group at all; you won't be able to keep up with a Shaman or Cleric on heals unless an Enchanter is slowing the mobs. So yeah, Druids are "super overpowered" even with the healing nerfs, the fact that Spirit of Wolf doesn't work in dungeons, and the animal charm nerf. At least you can still port people around and buff lowbies with damage shields.

Fell

Tran Charm pets do not hold agro anymore and cannot be used for any meaningful purpose at the moment.

Come now. Without aggro lock, charm pets can't replace a tank in a group now, but that's a good thing. Enchanters are support and (with appropriate pet damage) also a dps class. If the pet tanks, then they're filling three out of four roles all by themselves. Same problem with druids: when you can heal and dps in a group, you better not be able to tank also.

Charm pet damage is a problem at present ... but that's a different topic than aggro.

Tran

Fell Charm pet agro is currently tied exclusively to charm pet damage. These issues cannot be separated. I don't think it was the dev's intention to make charm functionally useless for both solo and group use. They implied as much in the notes. They didn't mention the agro reduction at all in the notes or the intention to reduce the tanking ability of the charms.

They could increase the agro of charm pet hits without buffing the damage back up to where it was.