Enchanter Deep Dive discussion

Fell

rabbi My ideal solution would have been changing charm into something different i

I'd have liked to seen it transformed into something similar to Inq or Bard charm -- adding trivial damage, but highly useful for actual CC.

I long ago learned that the most important spell in classic-style MMORPGs is Charm Person which you cast via the chat window.

LOL

Raybane

Fell That does seem quite possible and worth trying for. What is the main issue with using it for CC right now? Casting time? How about if that was made to be less? With Charm not meant to be an OP spell so doesn't it have to have as much hoops to get through.

Briggs

Gathbard First of all, the inherent ability to charm a mob and have it take damage for you AND deal damage to another mob, you are forgetting the damage the charm pet is TAKING as well as dealing. You are getting two instances of damage on a mob there. Just because its the mob you charmed doesn't mean its not going to give exp when it dies. It will, and will drop loot. It takes a mob out of the equation, it STILL does damage.

Your damage as Enchanter is still fine. Its slightly lower than a full dedicated DPS class, its not useless. You still have the best CC Suite in the game, and you still have the best on demand emergency CC buttons. You are a CC class with a dps minor focus. That is intended. That is fine. It puts you in really good niche.

I'll always be on the lookout for Enchanters to join my party. I love the buffs and the CC they offer and the safety the can give when things go south.

rabbi

Raybane FWIW, my proposal would be to give charm a fixed, short duration with a short cast time, and have it give mobs immunity to charm so that they can only be charmed once.

kridak

rabbi mezzing takes very little skill to me, its border line boring...but hey if your skill at mezzing is soooo awesome...good for you. i kept ench because the buffs(and possible slows if we dont bring a slower) will help our static advance quickly...thats it. I will switch out to another more useful class once we max out and keep ench as our buffer. Keep them skills rockin man.

Spellweaver

Long standing Enchanters have been asking to remove the ability to reverse Charm forever. Everyone knows this is why Charm is OP. It's not because Encs can mez something and DPS too, it's the ability to have double the DPS from the damage your Charm pet is taking. We've shouted to the rooftops to fix this.

There should absolutely be a debuff applied after Charm breaks that doesn't give rewards for X amount of time.

rabbi

kridak Hey, thanks for your post, I appreciate the feedback! I know you're a charmed pet meat proxy, but now you should feel free to find out what other spells enchanters get and consider casting them! You should be excited to learn new stuff! Here you go bud: https://monstersandmemories.miraheze.org/wiki/Enchanter

Gathbard

Briggs
Not sure you're answering to me, since you're talking about stuff I never even mentioned.

The problem is not if you're going to be looking for an Enchanter or not, the problem is that you don't care if Enchanter is a fun class to play or not, and if the preferred playstyle of the player who plays the Enchanter is satisfied.
I don't play an Enchanter, but I still can see that taking away an entire playstyle (that has been there since the start), while also making the other side of their class (buffing) incredibly dull and obnoxious effectively destroys the class.

I never talked about damage, nor said that it should be "slightly" lower than a dedicated DPS class, in fact, I think it should be WAY LOWER than a dedicated DPS class, as you would've noticed if you had read my suggested solution to the Charm problem. They are a SUPPORT class.
This sick focus on DPS for everyone is how we ended up with the crappy mmorpgs we have now, where the Support side of a class is taken for granted and the only factor that counts is the damage they can bring on top.
DPS classes should be the only ones required to focus on that, the rest should have just the amount of DPS needed to solo. It should not even be part of the conversation when discussing Enchanter

And I don't even blame people like you who became so obsessed by how much DPS Charm created while it was left festering in its overpowered state as it was, that you can't even see past that anymore.
It is entirely the Dev Team's fault for a) having a bad pairing of archetype/skill and b) failing to see that Charm could be other things that didn't have to involve DPS at all.

GoblinDruid

Nyx

This is actually how Charm was used in 1999. Taken from a website that was made in 2001:

-Charm is a very powerful tool, but it's also a way to get yourself dead really fast. It can pull you through an otherwise hopeless situation, but it can also turn a tight spot into a disaster. Most of the time in a normal group, you are better off letting the tanks kill things and using mez to control adds.

-I use charm in a few situations: To control a creature that cannot be mezzed, particularly casters. Giant class creatures cannot be stunned, which includes mez, but they can be rooted, tanked or charmed. Charming is an appealing option here because it prevents the creature from healing its allies.

-Charm is a useful tool for controlling adds that cannot be mezzed. It is particularly useful when you have an unmezzable healer prolonging a battle. The other normal solution to that problem is to put a fighter on the add to keep it busy while the main battle is completed. If the creature can be charmed by a bard, it's probably better to let the bard do it. It is much easier for a bard to recover a broken charm than it is for an enchanter. Our advantage over bards lies in the range of creatures we can charm.

A lot of people in the MnM community are operating under the illusion that Enchanter's regularly charmed mobs for extra DPS in the early days of EQ. Not only was this not a thing, but I can actually remember an Enchanter getting kicked out of our Karnor's Castle group after he kept charming things; they had already warned him not to do it after a charm break nearly wiped our group, yet he did it again while the tank was pulling and our group ended up wiping.

Charm was almost exclusively used as CC.

Clueless

GoblinDruid I wish more people understood this. Not only were Enchanters literally never labeled as a DPS class, they really never Charmed until late game, a couple of expansions deep, without getting a LOT of backlash. Cleric (for CH) and Enchanter duos did not become a thing until later.

Clueless

Spellweaver Charm needs to go on cooldown for >2 mins when Charm breaks or something. If you prevent the instant re-Charm alongside making sure that players (or their pets) deal >50% max HP damage to mobs (meaning if you Invis/break Charm to reverse and the mob is <50% HP, you won't get kill credit for that mob) in order to get loot and/or EXP, this problem goes away pretty quickly.

slowpoke68

GoblinDruid

Yes this is absolutely correct. I played EQ from about a month after launch and mostly in vanilla. I came back to dabble in Kunark and Velious but mostly played before any expansions. It took me about 2k hours to get to level 50 on my main, a cleric. I would solo occasionally (very slowly) but probably spent 90+% of my time grouping.

I remember the first, and to my recollection the only time I saw an enchanter use charm. My group was deep in Guk camping one of the higher level named mobs, like the Assassin or something. Things got out of hand with a runner and it looked like we were going to wipe. The chanter charmed a mob and that ended up turning the tide. I said that was awesome why don't you use it all the time. He said it was just too risky to use.

I never saw chanters keeping charmed pets until I played on P99 years later.

Chanters didn't charm back then, it was more of a gimmick or a Hail Mary in a desperate situation. They were still one of the most highly prized group members you could get because of their CC and buffs. This idea that charm is a core mechanic sure isn't classic.

rabbi

GoblinDruid This is 100% correct, I've just had and witnessed this exact conversational line so many times, that I just ignore it when people wield "classic" as a cudgel, because I can't stomach having it again. The next response you'll get is someone with an anecdote of how either they or a friend actually always perma charmed mobs while playing on a dial-up modem and full screen book medding, and then this line deteriorates from there. Thanks for tanking it 😀

Gathbard

There is a slight problem with that reasoning: Classic doesn't mean EQ. Are we really going to wield the "stop trying to make this into EQ" argument both ways?
So, when it fits our preferred narrative, this game is not meant to be EQ, but when it doesn't, this game is meant to be like EQ?
I'm struggling to understand how pointing out how Enchanters worked in EQ tanks anything, given the "they're making their own, different game" that is inspired by the classicS (notice the plural. This is not just the step-child of EQ)

Mind you: I'm not pro perma-charmed mobs in any way. I just want a Charm skill that is truly impactful and a class that truly gives the vibe of a "controller of minds".
And if you have any doubt that Enchanter is supposed to fit that vibe, just complete the Night Harbor quest in game right now.
Also, I just call out what I'm seeing: a fumbled attempt at balancing a poorly designed class (that incidentally was hella OP).

rabbi

Gathbard

The way I look at it is that the strongest argument charm-enjoyers have for justifying the extremely over powered charm that M&M just sledgehammered is by saying that's how it worked in classic EQ. I don't really see any other justification for charmed pets being in the state they were in. And I see charm-enjoyers wield this "classic" cudgel often, even not very many posts back in this very thread. Because of that, pointing out how charm actually worked in classic EQ feels like a rebuttal to that, not an argument in its own right for how charm should work.

It's the classic-concern-trolls that bring it up in the first place, not people who are posting about ways to make charm both powerful and interesting without being busted.

Doozle90

Gathbard The other thing that bothers me with these whole classic arguments, are that people are not even close to the same type of gamers back in 1999 compared to today. I think a big reason why you didn't see a lot of charm in 1999-2000 is because people didn't know all the mechanics well and didn't know how to properly gear for it. Also, people were just bad gamers compared gamers today and they now have 25+ years of experience in MMO's and incredibly easy access to information now. P99 and TLP servers mimic classic EQ and get pretty close to it (literally p99's whole goal) and look at how rampant charming is on there now. I would argue it's not that players couldn't charm back then but I think lack of knowledge/skill of gamers back then led to them not doing it.

The developers of MnM are now dealing with trying to replicate a "classic" MMO game but with a completely different type of gamers today. People aren't lacking knowledge on how to charm effectively, and people also have a more of a min/max mindset. I don't think saying "well people just didn't do it back in the day" is a good argument to compare to today's gaming landscape. MnM needs to balance it based on how people today will utilize those tools and that is how we've ended up where we are today because enchanters today WILL utilize charm in different ways than it was used back in 1999 just like its being used today on p99. The difference is the p99 dev's won't make any balance changes because that's not their goal. They want to recreate EQ as it functioned back then but MnM devs have a desire to balance their newly created game and not leave charm in a "overpowered" state.

tummystix

rabbi I finally feel like I'll be able to flex my entire toolkit instead of being a meat proxy for a charmed pet.

Anybody with a bit of skill and experience playing the class was already using the entire toolkit.

rabbi

tummystix Hey man, welcome to the thread! I feel like you're implying that I'm lacking in both skill and experience at playing enchanter! We can take this to PMs if you want, personally I wouldn't want to clog up the thread with pointless personal attacks 😀

Gathbard

Doozle90
Exactly,
That's why, imho obviously, they should try to re-think some skills around balance while keeping the feel of it.
What is the essence of Charm? Control.
What is the essence of Enchanter in the game right now, as shown by the questline? Messing with people's heads, directing them to do stuff, erasing their memory.
Give the player that feel of control while circumventing the balance issue by integrating it in the Support role instead of taking the DPS route, but you HAVE to keep that control element, or you have to change the quest.

Keep it as it is but make a DPS class with Charm, then we can start discusing how that DPS should be balanced, keeping in mind that it would be a lot harder.
But most importantly, whatever road you take, have a class that it's FUN to play and not a buffbot, and make it feel like it should.

If giving Support something useful and necessary to do translates into taking away support options from other archetypes, it would be even better, but that's just my opinion.

Clueless

Gathbard Also, I just call out what I'm seeing: a fumbled attempt at balancing a poorly designed class (that incidentally was hella OP).

I honestly think they nailed it. For people who are going to try to min-max, Charm is in enough of an unreliable state that Charm breaks will occur at inopportune times resulting in requisite risk for the potential rewards it can provide. Again, as I said above to Fell, each mob your Charm pet is tanking is increasing the net damage output directly caused by Charm. That means that you technically are only bound on top end DPS by things that are not reasonably achievable or even relatively manageable (as in, the entire zone hitting your mob, and actually just casting Charm on repeat then juggling aggro, repeating process and not getting any EXP for your Charm pets dying). That in itself is still crazy, even if gearing does not make it a real possibility until the mid-20s. Additionally, min-maxers will, as I said above, be using Haste on the mobs their Charm pet is tanking now, since that will result in more EXP/hr for them... but that also makes the process of reverse Charming more risky. I genuinely believe they absolutely nailed the Charm nerf/rework of the class into something that can provide high risk/high reward gameplay while providing CC and buff support. 10/10.

Gathbard Classic doesn't mean EQ. Are we really going to wield the "stop trying to make this into EQ" argument both ways?

This isn't the argument I have proposed by any stretch of the imagination. Enchanters were never classified as a DPS class. Period. Here for M&M or for EQ back in the day. But people who want Charm to remain in a ridiculously OP state seem to believe it is (or was). It was not. Ever. That is it, that is my argument. That is why Charm should remain DPS-nerfed and mostly function as a CC ability.

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