The ultimate use for charm for me is pulling a monster off a tank or wizard
that's taking too many hits. My example was my group was camping the tower
in Unrest (we do this a t 2 am est, with 20 people in the zone trust me we
aren't hurting anyone's spawn) and the knight of unrest spawn. I ate the
harm touch then backed off, while the cleric was patching me up the knight
jumped on our caster and a hag and barbed spawned. ack!
Suffice to say, there is nothing more staggering to me then charming the
Undead Knight of Unrest and ordering him to attack the festering hag. I was
L27, the Knight was 29th. The duration is short on the song generally, but
the good thing is if you re-charm it it goes right back to do your last
command. Since I've never played a necro, SK, etc. I didn't know the pet
commands until I asked a friend. I'll list them here for anyone else. I made
a seperate bank of hot keys for the ones I needed, to be used when charming.
/pet guard me
/pet attack
/pet follow me
/pet guard here
/pet back off
As John pointed out, at least in Unrest, the charmed pet was doing far more
damage than me. I charmed a Carrion Ghoul and ordered it to attack a
werebat. In the first combat round, it did two hits for ~50 each, and in the
second round it did the same. The CG actually got a hit in each round for
over 50 points, and a CG has never hit me for over 50 (although I have been
hit for 50 many times). That's far better then my Bladed Thulian claw and
Dirk manage in that short time. Now anyone who has fought a werebat knows
they are like hitting a rubber blob - they really soak up melee damage. The
CG came uncharmed in the 3rd round, but recharming it in one pulse put it
back on track. If your group has a big battle, then this is probably a poor
song to use. However for this pair it worked great. The CG was actually
doing so much damage that the werebat ignored the 3 tanks to start beating
on it, and after all isn't that what we want?
I have to same I'm a bit guilty, I think it's alot of fun to have a barbed
bone or skeletal monk waltzing beside you awaiting orders. The other reason
I like this song is that when it becomes uncharmed, it WILL attack you. When
this happened with the Knight, it saved the wizard, and a L27 bard in bronze
can handle taking the hits from the Knight easily with some backup (and so
can a L22 bard for that matter).
Ariell Thunderwolf, Karana
John Kim wrote:
> From: John Kim <kim@...>
>
> 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@...
>
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