On Mon, 23 Aug 1999, Darrian Ashoka wrote:
>
> Anyway, to close things, I leave everyone with this question (which is
> somewhat unfair since each song has its own merits (well almost all
> songs)):
>
> Lullaby/Nod vs Charm in a group.
Good question, tough call. If you have lots of open space,
have more than enough to fight (don't mind losing exp on some
mobs), and your healers don't have to do a lot of healing, I'd
have to say charm is better. If you can charm something and
your group concentrates on one target *away* from the charmed
mob, all the others will usually attack the charmed mob. When
your charm lets up, they will all charge you, which is why the
open space is important (once they get within melee range of
you, they will continue attacking mostly you even though the
charmed mob is beating on them from behind). Just keep this
up to distract the other mobs and thin them out until your
party finishes the one it's fighting.
OTOH, if you're fighting stuff in close quarters, or high
/cons, this isn't as viable a strategy since charm can be
resisted and in my experience, three successive resists in a
bad situation is enough to drop my health to where I start to
think about running.
Another factor is how much damage you're taking and how often
you're being healed. If you take a lot of damage and a cleric
heals you, any untaunted mobs (i.e. ones that haven't been
charmed) will attack the healer. This is where Lullaby (or
any area effect song) is really useful since they make the
mobs stick to you freeing the healer to cast.
In general, I tend to use charm when we're fighting just 2-4
mobs and there are no other mobs nearby (your charmee tends to
be lower level than you, which invites green mobs into
attacking it). 2-4 mobs in close quarters or with others
nearby, I will use pixie strike (or rely on an enchanter to
mesmerize). Fewer mobs = less chaos = less likelihood to be
distracted trying to charm or strike without realizing you're
about to die. Strike can actually be better with 3 mobs since
I can consistently keep two of them chasing pixies, thus
leaving them no time to attack me. With charm, there is a
small window between when charm wears out and when all the
mobs can attack you. More mobs than this and I would use
Lullaby (assuming you have one healer - two and/or a paladin
with lay hands is better).
--
John H. Kim
kim@...