I got to play around with Sirens (level 27) a bit before I
lost the level helping a friend recover his corpse. Only the
second time that's happened, and I'm not particularly careful
about this type of thing, so I'm surprised when I hear people
who say they've lost a level many times. Anyway, my
comments on charming:
Duration is like our other songs - 3 pulses, except being a
charm song, it is also random. So it may last 0.1 seconds, or
it may last the full 3 pulses. Haven't been able to figure
out if charisma makes any difference in this.
It's a wind song, but doesn't require a wind instrument. I
wasn't able to notice much difference between using a flute or
not. Anyone have any ideas?
Bad song to use in dungeons or in camps. Stuff that is green
and normally will not attack you *will* attack your pet if
it's low enough level. Very easy to start a low level train
this way.
It's difficult to join the fight since you have to target your
pet to re-charm it. If you recharm it, it seems to continue
its last attack order. When it uncharms, both it *and* the
thing it was fighting usually come after you. Don't order
your pet to attack guards or sand giants. :-)
Monsters do a *lot* more damage than this little bard can do.
It's kinda nice being able to do double 20-50 point damage,
albeit indirectly. In the proper situation, this song can
easily be more effective than wading into combat yourself.
This is a very viable strategy for when you're not
participating in combat yourself - you can weave Sirens with
Hymn or Rhythms with an instrument equipped. The only problem
I had was that my group had gotten pretty used to me chaining
runners.
You can use it to take a break from a fight. If you're
soloing a blue and it's a close fight, charm it, equip a lute,
and weave Hymn and Sirens. You will heal and the mob will
mostly stay charmed. When you're comfortably healed, continue
the fight. Be careful of the green-stuff-attacking-pet note
above - stuff that you're not used to having attack you may
attack your pet.
It works beautifully for stopping kill stealing casters. Since
the duration is random, you just keep hitting charm over and
over while a melee friend keeps attacking. His melee attack
will go through during the brief windows when the monster
becomes uncharmed. Casters will not be able to anticipate
these windows, and if they're not quick enough they'll end up
casting at a recharmed mob. Was very nice to turn the tables
last night - we got the goblin king despite two casters trying
to take him from us after he and his guards had become fixated
on our party.
It does not work for pulling stuff from camps. The moment
it's charmed, it becomes your pet, and anything aggressive to
you will attack it. In fact, stuff that normally will not
attack you will attack your pet because your pet is lower
level.
If your pet dies due to other monsters attacking it, its
corpse disappears because the majority of the damage was not
dealt by a player. Be careful if you're using this to charm a
mob that carries a nice item.
--
John H. Kim
kim@...