For months, I've been one of the loudest enchanter voices advocating for a charm nerf, but the devs new vision for it is seriously flawed. Lets forget how badly damage actually is now (an obvious error on their part) and focus instead on what Devs SAY their target is: 125% of summon pet damage. That itself is absurd, and results in a net loss of total damage.
The math: unless your pet is far below your level (and thus not hitting even hitting that 125% target) it will spend nearly 10% of its time breaking charm, then being stunned and recharmed. If it happens during a big pull, you may even need to short-mez it, until you have adds under control. Your SUMMON pet, though is active 100% of the time.
125% dmg x 90% duty cycle = 1.12%. But you also have to factor in the expenditure in charm mana, which (if you're debuffing and buffing a group) generally prevents you from nuking much if at all when charming. With the extra mana from not charming, nuke damage averages ~ 1/3 of a summon pet, which gives you these totals:
Charm Dmg: 112% of summon pet.
Summon + Nuke Dmg: 133% of summon pet
So charming costs damage yet adds risk ... and that's even without considering the time spent looking for a charm pet, if one isn't immediately on hand.
But wait! It gets worse. If you give up charm entirely, you no longer need charisma. Stacking CHA just to help mana drain and (now single target) lull is idiocy. If you stack INT instead and convert 100 CHA gear into 100 INT gear, that's an extra 10 mana a tick. Convert that into extra nuke damage, and the figures become:
Charm Dmg: 112% of summon pet.
Summon + High-mana nuke Dmg: 150% of summon pet
(note: I don't even count the INT boost to DD dmg, as that's partially mitigated by the CHA boost to channeled dmg)
Pre-nerf, Lvl 60 charm pet dmg was easily 300% of summon pet, and at lower levels it could break 400%. That needed a nerf. But a 125% target will result in no enchanter charming ever. It needs to be in the 175% range (still half of what it was) to be a viable strategy for charmers.
