[ Disclaimer, Create new user --- Wiki markup help, Install P99 ]
Loraen's Enchanter Guide
Contents |
So You Want To Play An Enchanter?
In my personal opinion, a dungeon crawl as an Enchanter is one of the most fun experiences in classic EQ. Enchanters don't have powerful damage spells and are quite squishy, but we can use our control spells like mez, charm, slow, and stun to weave a protective web around ourselves and our groups that allows us to survive and thrive in situations when any other class would be heading for the zone (or dead already). You can travel through dungeons freely, mesh well with almost any class, and solo farm almost any mob in the game at level 60.
Enchanters are also one of the few classes that actually gets stronger as they level up (Shamans being the other). Most classes get weaker, because you have to pit your numbers against mob numbers, and their numbers go up faster. A L10 Warrior with 400 HP stacks up pretty well against a L10 mob with 300HP, but a L60 warrior with 3500HP is crushed by a L60 mob with 25000HP. Monk damage and Wizard nukes and Druid healing and really everything else follows a similar pattern. But Enchanter spells are multipliers: a 70% slow on a L60 mob that hits for 451 is far more effective than a 30% slow on a L20 mob that hits for 40.
This guide assumes you have some basic ideas about how the Enchanter works; if you don't you should check out Xornns Enchanter Guide first (or really anyway, it's a great guide and a lot of fun to read). I don't think its that hard to play the Enchanter class well; it's just a matter of good strategy, some pro tips, and practice. Hopefully this guide can provide the first two; the third is up to you. Once you can play well in a group, you can experiment solo, which is really the same except it has a much lower margin for error and requires good knowledge about the spawn patterns of the area you're in.
Crowd Control
One of the most powerful abilities of an Enchanter is the ability to put mobs to sleep with our line of Mesmerization spells. In principle crowd control is pretty simple: your puller brings a train pull, the main tank starts killing one, everyone assists, you target a mob that isn't getting beat on and hit the mez key, and repeat until everything is locked down. The hardest part about playing an enchanter is convincing your groupmates to not break mez, and with the generally high level of play on Project 1999 this usually isn't a problem.
If your teammates aren't breaking mez left and right, the next trick is to configure the UI. Go to the options window and bind 'Target Nearest Mob' (the mob beating your face in) and 'Cycle through Nearest Mobs' to hotkeys (mine are ~ and TAB respectively). This lets you quickly cycle through the pile of mobs without using the mouse; the safest strategy is to mez mobs at 100% HP. You should also create a /assist X hotkey (with X being the name of your tank), so you can hit assist/tab/mez/tab/mez until things are under control. I also recommend creating one of those irritating spam macros like '/cast 1 /g %t is mezzed', which will mostly be ignored but is useful occasionally.
Mez spells can be refreshed as long as the duration of new spell is less than or equal to the original spell: Dazzle will overwrite Dazzle, Entrance will overwrite Entrance and Dazzle, Mez will overwrite anything, etc. In addition to the main single-target mez line, you get two AE mez spells: Mesmerization at 16 and Fascination at 52. In my personal opinion, Mesmerization is extremely powerful and should always be memorized. Locking down 4 mobs at once instantly transforms a wipe into just another day at the office. If you want to have some fun in Howling Stones, pull an entire room at once, hit them with AE Mez and AE Tash, and then have a Shaman follow up with AE Slow. Unfortunately Mesmerization will hit you as well if you are in range, so until you are 56+ and level immune make sure you have GRM up! Mobs that are level 56+ will also be immune to all stuns and all mezzes except Rapture.
Your other primary crowd control spell is the Root line. Before 49 these are quite inferior to mez, but Paralyzing Earth and Fetter are very good. Both will last longer than Dazzle, require less mana, and have no recast. Fetter will also cast significantly faster. On the other hand, they can break early and don't prevent summoning, casting, or getting beat on when you step into melee range. I use root quite frequently for CC and recommend another spam macro. A rooted mob will also attack whoever is nearest regardless of its hate list. If your MT is a warrior or monk, just tash+root everything you mez anyway. Even with two taunts there is a good chance the mezzed mob will be coming for you; its a lot easier on your cleric's mana to just root everything. I came to appreciate this strategy on my Warrior, because when taunt finally does succeed you get to move way up in the hatelist (root+tash+mez) and should have aggro for the rest of the fight. You can also try the memblur line of spells, but they require a lot more mana and don't always work.
Finally, you have the extremely powerful color flux line of PBAOE stuns. In his guide Xornn calls these the mortar and mez/root the bricks, which in my opinion is pretty accurate. The key spell is Color Shift, which casts in 1.5 seconds as compared to Mez in 2.5. Whenever you have a mob on you, my suggestion is Color Shift/Mez rather than mez directly; you'll eat a lot fewer hits. With 3+ mobs on you this is almost mandatory if you want to live. The stun line also require very little mana and are great for interrupting casters, especially annoying spells like Turgurs, Ice Comet, or Complete Heal. You also get a line of single target stuns like Whirl which used to be incredibly overpowered but were nerfed when Kunark came out.
These guidelines need a few tweaks for high level mobs. Throwing an AE Mez on a bunch of revenants in the Plane of Hate at L55 will wipe you and then your raid (that is not a personal story! you believe me, right?). Many good enchanters have a tendency to try to do too much. The worst thing you can do is panic throw a stun into a huge group of mobs that are on the MT (he won't die, and if he does it'll be a new experience for him. Warriors don't die much compared to enchanters) thus transferring them to your squishy hide. If you are dealing with very high-level or otherwise resisty mobs, do one at a time. Rapture is a huge help in this area at 59+. For example on the Spirocs in Sky my order is Dazzle and if it is resisted Rapture/tash/plead for malo/Dazzle again when Rapture wears off.
Pulling
Your main option is the Lull line of spells, which reduce a mob's social aggro radius, allowing you to separate it from its friends. Lull spells are resisted much more frequently than normal spells, and sometimes you will get a critical resist where the mob comes after you. I recommend as much charisma as possible for lull which really lowers this chance; I would say at 200+ charisma you should get maybe 1/30 critical resists. I recommend using the L20 Calm spell which lasts for 3 minutes and costs only 50 mana; L39 Pacify only lasts 48 seconds or so. Make sure to have AE mez up (or gate!) in case you do get a critical. You obviously want to lull the lowest level mob first as it will have the lowest chance to critical resist, so go by con, name (boks before krups), and then rotate. Cast Calm on each mob in turn, skipping mobs that are already calmed in each successive cycle.
Because Lull does not require line of sight, you can play some tricks with the camera. For example, to calm a room in Howling Stones, stand facing into the wall right next to the door, zoom backwards and rotate slightly. This will let you target the mobs without them seeing you. You can also bind sight to one of the mobs inside and use that for targeting, e.g. the bat/ghoul room next to the bedroom in Gukbottom.
Once you are down to one mob, your usual pull spells are slow and tash. Initial aggro is capped at a small value; a charmed pet will (engage and) pull a mob (that you pulled with a slow spell) off of you almost instantly whereas if you slowed it after the engage it would need 10-20 seconds.
If you get too many mobs by accident, you can send them back with memory blur. Your best spell for this is the L49 spell Blanket of Forgetfulness which is actually the AOE blur but works better. It turns out that the L4 and L16 mezzes blur quite frequently as well, and they are cheaper and don't have the long recast time. There are three ways to tell if a mob is blurred. First, if it is rooted and you move side to side, an aggressive mob will rotate to face you and a blurred one will not. Second, NPCs regenerate 5% hp/tick while out of combat (you can use this to heal your charmed pets!). Third, if you cast invis it should con indifferent and not threateningly if it is successfully blurred. A fun trick is to charm, drag, calm and blur a mob and watch it path back through some poor xp groups camp harmlessly.
Buffs
Cast clarity on casters, haste on melee, GRM on everyone, and Shielding/AC/Charisma on yourself. I usually keep epic haste up on myself for the AC bonus. I once knew an enchanter (no names to protect the innocent) who did not cast Shielding on himself 'because its 350 mana'. He had 1100HP at L60 and wondered why he was dying all the time trying to solo the disco. It's a pain, but keep those buffs up.
On raids, demand that people send tells to you directly rather than asking in guild chat so that you can use /rtarget (/rt) to target them. Raiding on an Enchanter can get rather boring as most raid targets are immune to all your spells (imagine being able to mez Trakanon for a minute or two while your raid healed up, or being able to charm him and have him clear out all of lower Sebilis . . . ). Aside from buffing, you can summon a pet (usually it will get aggro from the AOE and do a few hundred damage) and also 'patch heal' with rune. The easiest thing here is to set your assist key to the mob, i.e. /assist Trakanon and Rune his target.
When soloing, add Bedlam and sometimes Rune to that list if you don't want to spend all your farmed pp on rezzes. Usually if you have Bedlam higher on your spell stack you can go quite a while without refreshing Rune. The rune spell that is higher on your buff bar will take damage first.
If you are grouped with a cleric, demand symbol. Bring peridots (you need them for rune anyway) if necessary. +1000HP from cleric buffs makes recharming a lot easier.
Debuffs
Your best debuff is Tashan, which is unresistable, low mana, fast casting, and debuffs MR quite a bit (over 40 at L60). Since all of your spells check against Magic Resist, it's a good idea to cast this on all high-level mobs if you can. Unfortunately its quite high aggro. If your tank is an SK or Paladin you'll be fine, but with a Warrior or a charmed pet you'll have to either wait or root.
Your other primary debuff is the Deeds line which reduces the attack rate of your target. Forlorn deeds caps at a 70% slow, which means your tank takes less than 1/3 as much damage as normal. Cast this whenever you have mana. If 70% slow is not enough, you can chain the color flux line of spells starting from L52 (Color Shift/Skew/Slant/repeat). I have killed the froglok armsman with a pet and the Rod of Annihilation without taking a single point of damage by just chain casting these spells.
You also have a few other debuffing spells which debuff AC and stats including your DoT spell. These are relatively ineffective against mobs with their insane stats (check mqemulator some time to see just how much strength the sebilite protector has) but are worth casting if you don't have anything better to do, i.e. you're raiding.
Last but not at all least, Enchanters get 4-slot dispel magic spells (Strip Enchantment, Pillage Enchantment, Recant Magic). I really underestimated these spells when I was leveling, but they are simply fantastic in dungeons with a lot of caster mobs (like Chardok or Sebilis) with Shamans being the worst. Literally every mob will come with Alacrity (40% haste = your tank cries), Spirit of Wolf (they will flee faster than you can run), Talisman of Altuna (extra hitpoints), and O'Keils Radiation (it's only 2 points, but it's still going to do several hundred damage per mob). So with one 70 mana spell you can nuke for 250, heal your group for 1000, and dramatically reduce the chance for wipes. Just make sure you coordinate with your group to make sure you aren't dispelling other players spells. Also, Tash is considered a poison spell, so you can't dispel it. Feel free to tash first and dispel second (assuming your tank can keep it off you).
Getting Around and Other Tricks
As an enchanter you should be able to get just about anywhere you want in a dungeon. Just invis or ivu, lull the mobs that see you, and move on. Aggro on Project 1999 happens on ticks, so you can also try to just run by. Unfortunately the 'ticks' are no longer synchronized so I don't know any way of figuring out when this tick is - if you figure out how, let me know! It's probably a good idea to have rune on and ae mez memorized if you want to try this. Sow/Jboots help a lot as well.
You can also lev-jump. Alt-tab out at the bottom of your levitate bounce and alt-tab back at the top. Somehow Levitate is affected by the framerate and this will cause you to rise.
If you charm a mob, it will remove any debuffs (including dots) that it has cast on you. I'm not sure whether this is a bug or not.
If you have a caster mob charmed and it starts casting annoying spells like cancel magic, you can interrupt it with /pet feign once or twice.
Apparently enchanter pets can charm mobs now. (This is no longer true on P99)
Using a clicky will reset the global spellbar cooldown (it's a classic bug, apparently. Personally I think replicating these kind of overpowered bugs is silly, but it's not my server. Also we have no iksar planes armor, so wtf). So you can't cast Theft of Thought again, but you can cast stun and then mez without waiting for the 2.25s recast.
I strongly recommend downloading GamTextTriggers and setting up timers for mez and root and triggers for charm breaks and buffs fading.
Stand in the corner! Push from melee is what causes most interrupts, not bash. It's much, much, easier to recharm a quadding pet when it isn't pushing you around. Unfortunately high-level mobs will summon you out of your corner, but it's actually not that hard to keep a L53 pet charmed as long as you have a healer to keep it full health and a magician or shaman to malo.
Suggested Spell Lineup
I am pretty confident in my spell lineup of Entrance / Tashanian / Fetter / Color Shift / Color Skew / Theft of Thought / Mesmerization / Pillage Enchantment (swap) at higher levels. This entails a lot of spell swapping in that last slot (slow, clarity, haste if you don't have the epic, blur, charm, dispel) but in my opinion its worth it to have the full set of CC tools available.
I think Entrance is a bit better than Dazzle for four reasons, although its really a matter of personal preference.
- Entrance is 7.1 mana/tick while Dazzle is 7.8
- Many times you won't need the full 1:36 of Dazzle anyway, especially in a group.
- Entrance has a 3.75s recast time while Dazzle is 5s, so you can mez a crowd a bit faster (or recover faster on resists)
- The text for Dazzle is 'x has been mesmerized' which is the same as the L4/L16 spells. Entrance is different which makes it easier to set up your log parser.
At lower levels you won't have Theft of Thought or Color Skew so you can replace them with a nuke and slow for example.
Roughly speaking your highest priority is crowd control (your party won't last long with 4 krup knights beating on them) followed by buffs (clarity+haste will increase the effectiveness of your party by 50% or so). You should have a good bit of mana left over, so you can pick between playing defense (dispel/slow because your tank is getting hammered or you don't have a cleric or whatnot), offense (charm a pet and embarrass the rogue), or both if you can manage it.
Recharming
I titled this section recharming because any idiot can click the charm key. The challenge is not dying when charm breaks.
Of course, we obviously want charm to last as long as possible, and the main determinants of charm duration are Mob Level, Magic Resistance, and Charisma, in that order. Therefore your first choice is what level of pet to charm. At L60, I would guess that a L46 froglok dar knight will stay charmed about five times longer than a L53 froglok ilis knight. If you are getting too many charm breaks, go with lower level mobs. For example, there are two ways to solo the necrosis scarab camp: the fast way is to charm the krup roamer, but there is no shame in bringing one of the lower level frogs over from across the moat. For reasonable charm durations my recommendation is to charm something 0.75-0.85 times your level; at L60 this works out to L45-50; 51 is possible but risky and 52-53 is almost certainly going to be a short trip without malo. Mobs between L40 and L55 or so will generally hit for Level*4 - 60 (136 hit = L49, 140 hit = L50, 144 hit = L51, etc) which will allow you to determine their precise level. Charisma and Magic Resistance are simpler: tash everything you charm, get malo while you can, and go for 200+ charisma as soon as you can.
Your next choice is whether to haste/weaponize your pet. If you are grouped this is a no brainer: a light blue zol with weapons and haste will do more damage than a dark blue krup and break charm far less frequently. If you are soloing for XP, things are less clear but I think in general not hasting works better. Not only are charm breaks less painful, but you'll want to break charm and kill both mobs to avoid the pet xp penalty. If you are soloing for cash, then I think weaponizing is simply necessary. If you want to kill say Hierophant Prime Grekal it's going to take forever for an unhasted pet to chew through his 14000 hp.
Weaponizing your pet also gives you access to a number of interesting procs. Pets seem to proc a lot, maybe up to 5 times a minute on average when dual wielding, and to land those procs more than PCs. The simplest and most effective is a
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Slashing Atk Delay: 20
DMG: 3 AC: 3
Effect: Stun (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 25
WT: 3.0 Size: TINY
Class: WAR RNG BRD ROG
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: Piercing Atk Delay: 23
DMG: 8
Effect: Ykesha (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 36
WT: 2.6 Size: MEDIUM
Class: RNG
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: Piercing Atk Delay: 27
DMG: 8
Effect: Engulfing Darkness (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 27
WT: 2.0 Size: SMALL
Class: ROG
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Blunt Atk Delay: 32
DMG: 7
SV COLD: +6
Effect: Stun (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 15
WT: 4.3 Size: MEDIUM
Class: WAR CLR PAL RNG SHD DRU BRD SHM
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Blunt Atk Delay: 28
DMG: 8
Effect: Lifedraw (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 30
WT: 0.8 Size: MEDIUM
Class: WAR SHD
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: Piercing Atk Delay: 17
DMG: 8
Effect: Walking Sleep (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 46
WT: 1.3 Size: MEDIUM
Class: ROG
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Slashing Atk Delay: 41
DMG: 29
Effect: Tagar's Insects (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 46
WT: 10.0 Size: LARGE
Class: RNG
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 36
DMG: 25
STR: +5 DEX: -5 WIS: +5 INT: +5 AGI: -5 HP: +10 MANA: +10
Effect: Force (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 50
WT: 8.5 Size: LARGE
Class: WAR PAL RNG SHD MNK
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 30
DMG: 19
Effect: Lightning Storm (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 30
WT: 6.5 Size: LARGE
Class: MNK
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 42
DMG: 20
DEX: +9 WIS: +15
Effect: Malaisement (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 35
WT: 6.5 Size: LARGE
Class: SHM
Race: TRL OGR
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 44
DMG: 29
WIS: +4 MANA: +20
Effect: Nature's Wrath (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 46
WT: 4.5 Size: LARGE
Class: RNG
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: FINGER
HP: +75
SV MAGIC: -10
WT: 0.1 Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
Your final decision is what class of mob to charm. If you are weaponizing your pet, you will probably want a melee so that it doesn't waste time casting. Rogue pets like abhorrents will backstab for 400+, monks like kiraikuei will flying kick and seem to have higher atk/dw/da ratings, and warriors will at least bash. My favorite pet is Giz X'Tin in Kithicor who is both a rogue and a monk! I've clocked him at 120+ dps against General V'ghera. If you are not weaponizing, the casters are better, since on Project 1999 they have access to their full spellbook. It's pretty funny to watch a froglok krup wizard chain cast ice comet, and NPCs casters have easily three times the mana of PCs. Be careful about the shamans and necros; it's possible to get into very bad situations with dotted summoning mobs.
OK, so charm breaks. I think the best recharm routine is Color Shift + Mesmerization or Mesmerize + Tashanian + Allure. This is simply the fastest routine I know of, which is important when you are getting quadded for 140+. Mesmerization is great for fighting summoning mobs because it will get both your pet and the target, and at 56+ you will be level immune to it. Second best is Color Skew + Boltran's Agacerie which lets the mobs get in a lot more hits (a 2 second stun, plus you'll take one round of damage after you finish casting charm and the stun wears off), does not allow you to retash, and takes more mana, but does save time in total and work even when you have dotted summoning mobs.
The standard technique while solo is to root the target, meaning you only have to deal with one mob on charm breaks. This is all well and good until you run into summoning mobs. In my opinion, it's much more interesting to keep your pet rooted. For example, I had a L52 krup knight charmed a bit of sebilite juggernaut action. It did way more damage than a lower level pet; juggs have insane AC but at L52 the krup just powered through it. But being so high level it was rather finicky about staying charmed even with malo. So I set a timer on my cell phone, and broke charm every 2:30 if it hadn't broken already, rerooted, and recharmed. Our monk just pulled incoming mobs and positioned them on top of it, and as long as we kept it full health it wouldn't summon me. This also works reasonably well when solo. Mobs can only summon you every 10 seconds or so, so if your pet and the the target are both full health, you can just run away and mez while the summon timer refreshes. This will even work with two summoning mobs if you are quick. Two tips: make sure you keep rerooting the target, so if you get the 'your root has worn off' message you know it's the pet and can revert to the standard recharm routine. I missed this once, tried to run away, and died really fast. Second, don't try this against casters if you have a pet that summons as well. They won't summon you while casting, so their summon timers won't be synchronized.
Animations
Generally speaking I think the animations are simply worse than the charmed pets. At L60, Zumaik's Animation has perhaps 2000 hp and does 30 dps while a L50 froglok krup knight has 8000 hp and puts out 100+ dps with weapons and epic haste. If you rely on the animation after L35 (some would say L12, but I'm going to be generous) or so, you need to work on your charm skills. That being said, it's still possible to do quite a bit with the animation in places where its inconvenient or impossible to charm.
If you are too low level, too scared, or too lazy to charm in a group, the easiest way to get the animation in is to root the target and stand on top of it. A rooted mob will always attack whatever is closest. The biggest problem with using an animation in groups is your inability to back it off. If a mob resists a mez and starts beating on you, the animation will attempt to save you. This does not work out well when that mob is an almost unrootable myconid reaver. You can try to use the memblur line of spells on your pet, but its a fairly ineffective strategy.
The main issue with using the animation to solo is keeping it alive despite its low HP. Fortunately, you have the the tools to do this: slows, stuns, and runes (usually the Bedlam line). For example, I can kill stuff in HS east with an animation and the Rod of Annihilation using the following routine on a slowed mob: wait for it to attack, move in, crush, crush, crush, color shift, crush, crush, color skew, crush, crush, crush, back off and let the mob attack the pet, repeat. This means the pet takes 1 round of melee every 22 seconds which is effectively an 86% slow (shamans eat your hearts out). You can completely stunlock by using color slant, but that takes a lot more mana. At lower levels you will have to adjust the timing but the basic idea is the same. I find my pet does 30-35 dps or so and I do 15-20 with the
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: RANGE PRIMARY
Skill: 1H Blunt Atk Delay: 40
DMG: 60
INT: -50
SV MAGIC: +10
WT: 5.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: NEC WIZ MAG ENC
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: CHEST
AC: 14
STR: +5 WIS: +5 INT: +10 MANA: +50
Haste: +36%
WT: 3.5 Size: MEDIUM
Class: NEC WIZ MAG ENC
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 38
DMG: 18
WIS: +10 INT: +10 HP: +100
Effect: Enduring Breath (Worn)
WT: 7.5 Size: LARGE
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Slashing Atk Delay: 20
DMG: 3 AC: 3
Effect: Stun (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 25
WT: 3.0 Size: TINY
Class: WAR RNG BRD ROG
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 40
DMG: 30
WT: 10.0 Size: LARGE
Class: WAR
Race: ALL
Videos
Since we live in the age of Youtube you don't have to take my word for it, you can watch a video!
- Loraen vs the froglok chef; a sloppy victory with awesome 80s tunes
- Loraen vs the froglok armsman using the Rod of Annihilation. . . kind of. I think this video proves that I can be just as much of a tool as anyone else, especially late at nightRod of Annihilation
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: RANGE PRIMARY
Skill: 1H Blunt Atk Delay: 40
DMG: 60
INT: -50
SV MAGIC: +10
WT: 5.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: NEC WIZ MAG ENC
Race: ALL
- Tecmos soloing Howling Stones
- Tecmos on Twitch
Feel free to add your video of you doing something awesome (or stupid) on your enchanter - solo, group, raid, whatever!
Enchanter + ?
- Warrior: not really your favorite tank because of their poor aggro. Root after mez and take it easy on the debuffs.
- Monk: these punks like to bring one mob at a time in some sort of monkey conspiracy which makes your life very boring. Demand that they pull trains or you won't haste them.
- Rogue: cast haste on them and watch mobs die. You can also chainstun while the rogue backstabs from behind.
- Paladin: your favorite tank, let the debuffs fly. They can also heal you in a pinch.
- Shadowknight: Almost as good as a paladin except that occasionally they dot the wrong mob. Once in Chardok I had an SK pull with Darkness and then switch targets. Of course he had other issues as well.
- Ranger: A well-played ranger is really not that bad. You can actually fear kite fairly well with them outdoors.
- Bard: An underrated combination; enchanter+bard is insane mana regen. You can focus on charming and buffing while the bard pulls. The only challenge is working together to CC effectively.
- Shaman: Your best duo at very high levels as they can tank better than a warrior with slow+torpor and cast malo on your pet. Tash+malo and two players chaining slow is great for killing high-level targets.
- Cleric: Almost as good in a duo because they can CH your pet and with 1k HP in Cleric buffs it's hard to die, and of course great in groups. Average clerics will heal you during a charm break, but good ones will stun the charmed pet (bad clerics will let you die and ask for clarity after you have zoned. And yes, this has happened to me).
- Druid: Very underrated partner for a group, because you fix their problems (a Druid is basically a shaman without mana regen and slow, which you provide). It's most effective in dungeons where the Druid can charm as well, like Nagafen's Lair or Chardok.
- Enchanter: Enchanter/Enchanter is the single most crazy XP duo if you are good. Two charmed pets = massive killing, and just AE mez on breaks and figure it out later.
- Magician: Also a great duo but its not as forgiving as the priest classes since the Mage can't heal you. Great in groups for malo and DS as long as the mage can control the pet.
- Wizard: You're their best friend for clarity, but they can't do that much for you other than port you around (and blow up raid targets while you watch, of course!) Unfortunately wizards can't stun your pet on breaks as effectively because their stuns do damage.
- Necromancer: Might even be better than enc/enc against undead. A good necro will ST your pet on charm breaks and heal you too!
All in all I would say you can duo effectively with any class in the game, even monks and warriors if they have a fungi tunic.
Character Creation
Enchanters are one of the most forgiving classes when it comes to race selection because of our various illusion spells. Your choices are, ranked in my opinion from best to worst:
| Race | Int | Cha | Total | Bonuses | Suggested |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gnome | 108 | 70 | 178 | Infravision | 25 charisma, 5 intelligence |
| Erudite | 117 | 80 | 197 | +5MR, some people like the hoods | 25 charisma, 5 agility |
| High Elf | 102 | 90 | 192 | Infravision | 15 charisma, 15 intelligence |
| Dark Elf | 109 | 70 | 179 | Hide, Ultravision | 25 charisma, 5 intelligence |
| Human | 85 | 85 | 170 | 15 charisma, 15 intelligence |
High Elves and Erudites tie for the best total intelligence/charisma after the 5 point Erudite agility penalty, and High Elves get infravision (although Erudites do get +5 MR which would be nice for raiding if enchanters could cast any useful raid spells). Dark Elves however get Hide which is useful both for breaking charm and for going AFK in some situations and in my opinion is worth some stats, although after the recent nerfs it's not nearly as good as it used to be. Gnomes look the best, get tinkering, and most importantly can see through walls - solo enchanters should in my opinion spend all their time in Gnome illusion. Humans are traditionally the gimp race of Everquest but aren't that bad as enchanters because of their high charisma, with only 8 fewer total points than Gnomes.
In my opinion charisma is somewhat more useful than intelligence. Generally speaking mana won't be your problem (especially at 51+ with taps) and unfortunately all the elite gear is loaded up with intelligence and doesn't have any charisma. With good gear you'll hit 200 in both stats, and I'd much rather have 200 int/255 cha than the reverse. Plus most of the builds start out with substantially more intelligence than Charisma. I think the people who go stamina are mostly overthinking it. At L60 those 25 points in stamina are worth 60 hitpoints - less than 5% of your total - and in Kunark you won't cap both int and cha anyway, not to mention gimping your character for 95% of his leveling time.
The safest bet is Agnostic. Illusion can conceal your race, but somehow all NPCs are able to divine your religious preferences regardless. Worshipers of evil gods may be killed in good cities regardless of their illusion and vice versa.
Generally speaking it's hard to really screw up creation as an enchanter unless you do something silly like putting all your points into stamina. I went full int with Loraen instead of charisma and it's not the end of the world: I still have 225 cha with self buffs, and Velious has a couple of nice Charisma items like the Mischievous Dazzler Robe, Cloak of Confusion, and Neriad Shawl. Worst case there are always Charisma potions.
Progression
As I mentioned in the introduction, enchanters are a bit back-loaded. 70% slow for 3 minutes on a mob that hits for 250 is fantastic; 20% slow for 45 seconds on a mob that hits for 40 not so much. 1-30 is a bit of a struggle, and you don't really come into your own until 45-50. Here is roughly what you can expect:
- 1: Kill decaying skeletons and sell rusty weapons/cloth armor until you can afford the L1 animation. At this point you can make it to 4 without too much trouble in your newbie area. Alternatively, you can try Going Postal.
- 4: You get your your first mez, tash, and stun, but unfortunately they are borderline worthless due to low durations/low debuff amounts. Mostly its more of the same, just a bit more tedious. Gate and Invisibility are nice for getting around though.
- 8: Hooray, your pets are now in Highkeep and your spells cost 4p+ each. Hopefully you can find a kind druid/wizard to port you to NK/WC. Starting at 8, you can do your gimp mage impression in groups: root to get your pet in, and nuke with the ubertaunt chaotic feedback. This sounds bad but magicians are so overpowered at low levels that you can be semi-effective.
- 12: You get your first slow and charm, but like L4 they just aren't that effective. All enchanter slows last for Level/2 ticks, so a 6 tick slow just doesn't help that much. Charm is great of course, but at L12 mobs aren't that much stronger than pcs anyway.
- 16: Now we are starting to move up the curve a bit. You get your first haste and clarity, which already allow you to increase a group's effectiveness quite a bit, as well as a 48 second mez. AE mez is nice too when you can get it researched.
- 20: Very welcome upgrades to tash (-20 MR now, making it actually worth casting) and stun (with the L20 stun you can actually cast it and then get off a mez). At this point you have all your tools and as you progress upwards they simply get better and better: the duration and effectiveness on all of your spells will gradually increase, and mobs become more and more dangerous making charming more effective and debuffs more important.
- 34: It's around this level that the charmed pets really start to pull away from the animations and elementals in damage and toughness. Also at this point you get Enchant Platinum, so if you like you can work on skilling up jewelcrafting and spending a lot of time in the tunnel until you have reasonable gear. You can also do the quests from The Temple of Solusek Ro which are quite nice. By 40ish you can put together some decent gear.
- 51: Theft of Thought will rock your world - this spell is amazingly good. If it was only available on a vendor for 200k, I would pay that without blinking. You can also hit Hate/Sky, both of which have excellent enchanter gear. The Kunark levels in general are where Enchanters really come into their own. The holy trinity was always Warrior/Cleric/Enchanter but the reality is that the enchanter is the only one that matters. Haste, Clarity, and charmed pet dps will literally double the efficiency of your group, and if you follow the suggestions of this guide you'll be quite popular.
- 57: At this point you can aoe Chardok for insane xp while borderline AFK
- 60: Farm whatever you like!
Despite my reputation as a soloer, I much prefer groups, especially small groups of 2-4. Soloing is fun for challenge (and it is probably the best xp) but chatting with interesting people is generally more fun. Of course there are some tools around but for the most part I have the most fun grouping with some friends. From a cold-bloodedly rational perspective, you'll need some help anyway with your epic and planar gear.
One last tip: you can level up insanely quickly in a small group by charming rogues. For example, at L20 an NPC rogue will backstab for 150 which is about 25% of the HP of a comparably leveled target. It's pretty funny to watch the puller bring in something and then have its hp instantly drop to 70%. Some other charmed pet suggestions:
- a Dervish Cutthroats (L10-14) in West Commonlands and the various deserts of Ro can be rogues
- an undead barkeep (L25) in Unrest is a rogue
- Osargen (L22) in Highpass Keep is a rogue
- an initiate familiar (L18-24) in Mistmoore will backstab if it is wearing leather pants
- Some of the goblins in Solusek A (L18-30 or so, young < cinder < flame < fire < inferno) are rogues
- a gypsy dancer (L25) in Mistmoore, although unfortunately they are a bit low level by the time you can get to them.
- Pirates (L24-30), Pirate Cartographers (L26-29) and Pirate Destroyers (L33-36) in Firiona Vie can be rogues, and the zone is often empty.
- sonic bats (L38-42) in Solusek B have a ridiculous stun proc. Make sure to keep Resist Magic up so they don't stun you!
- A Spiroc Proven (L41) in Timorous Deep, although really who wants to go all the way out there?
- lava guardians (L43-46) in Solusek B cast a nice 25 point damage shield on themselves.
- Imp Protectors (L44-49) in Solusek B are rogues with a fire dd proc. I suggest a malo or being fairly high level though. (6.8.2019 wiki says their level range is 44-48)
- an abhorrent (L49) in the Plane of Hate. Ignore the whimpers of the rogues about their armor; you can kill the pet at the end.
- Giz X`Tin (L50) in Kithicor is both a rogue and a monk; I have clocked him at 130 dps against General V`ghera. Sadly there are no xp mobs in the zone for a 58+.
- Emperor Chottal's PH (L51) in Sebilis is a rogue, although you probably won't want to charm this for obvious reasons.
At higher levels the backstab isn't quite as important since any mob will do a ridiculous amount of damage when weaponized and hasted. Alternatively, especially if you don't want to risk a quadding hasted pet owning you on a charm break, you can charm the insanely OP caster mobs we have and watch them chain Envenomed Bolt and Ice Comet on their hapless targets, then kill them when they run out of mana. Even at low levels this is quite effective.
Gear
Enchanters are the most gear dependent of the 4 caster classes; in a group a naked Necro or Wizard is about 85% as effective as a fully geared one, and most Mages could take off all their gear except their robes and no one would notice (I've caught numerous mages pantless or whatnot, especially those that like to farm Loam). Not only do Enchanters need both Intelligence and Charisma, but we get beat on a lot more, making HP/AC and to some extent resists a lot more important.
I have a slightly more nuanced view of gear at this point. 200 charisma is still definitely your first gear goal: my current best guess for charm durations is that they depend linearly on charisma, and that this effect is softcapped 50% above 200. After this, you have to choose between getting more HP, more mana, or 255 charisma, and I think this depends a lot on what you want to do:
- If you duo with a cleric (or group mostly), you want 255 charisma and then as much mana as you can get. +1100 HP from Heroism and Symbol of Marzin will trump any gear you can find.
- If you are soloing 'Master' level content (Howling Stones South, Crypt, Sebilis NG) or duoing with a shaman you want hitpoints. With taps you won't need much mana, and your primary concern is getting bad charm breaks and having to cap out without killing a target with a 10k item. Shamans can't give you hitpoints, but malo helps with resists a lot.
- If you are soloing 'Grandmaster' level content (Howling Stones East, some areas of Velious) you want mana. You'll be casting manahog spells like Rapture and Boltran's Agacerie and getting more frequent resists (= recast = more mana). Hitpoints won't be as important because you'll always have Rune and Bedlam up (=1100HP), and 1 mana = 2 HP of Rune, and you can use potions to max charisma when you really want to.
Some specific gear suggestions: Classic, Planar, and Kunark BiS. Looking ahead to Velious we have Velious and Velious Unemployed (or you can call it Velious best-in-slot). Full Disclosure: Velious is not my area of expertise; I just looked at the items that were on the wiki. It's probably possible to do better.
I also recommend carrying around extra charisma gear to swap out. You can never have to much when a lull crit means hitting the WC cap.
The most important clicky for an enchanter is the
MAGIC ITEM
Slot: FINGER
AC: 1
SV MAGIC: +5
Effect: Invisibility versus Animals (Must Equip, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 5
WT: 0.1 Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
Slot: FINGER
AC: 5
HP: +55
WT: 0.1 Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: HEAD
Charges: 1
AC: 7
STR: +5 CHA: +10 AGI: +5
SV MAGIC: +5
Effect: Ring of Commons (Any Slot, Casting Time: Instant)
WT: 0.5 Size: SMALL
Class: WAR CLR PAL RNG DRU ROG
Race: HFL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Charges: 10
Effect: Allure (Any Slot, Casting Time: 3.0)
WT: 0.2 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: WRIST
AC: 6
Effect: See Invisible (Must Equip, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 10
WT: 2.0 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 35
DMG: 18
CHA: -10 WIS: +8 INT: +8
SV FIRE: +5 SV DISEASE: +5
Effect: Fungal Regrowth (Any Slot, Casting Time: Instant)
WT: 1.1 Size: MEDIUM
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
Conclusion
I haven't held back much in this guide; if you follow these recommendations you should be able to do quite a bit solo and grouped. So just go out and practice, experiment, and find out what works for you. If you level up a bit, try out the Solo Artist's Challenge. Keep in mind that you will have to learn the spawn patterns very well to solo; if mobs are walking up behind you you won't last long.
If you have questions or suggestions, try not to vandalize this page too much and chat with me in game on Loraen.
