Question on current/future skills similar to EQ Enchanter class

[Faeothin]

Howdy!

Thank you for viewing my post and providing helpful information. I've used the forum search function and to my knowledge there's no thread that deals with my inquiry into the possibility of charming NPCs or similar skills to the old Everquest Enchanter.

What I'd like to know from those that have been exploring the different skill sets, such as Mentalist/psychology/bard, is if there are any current ways of gaining control of a creature or NPC through magic or other means. Can you turn something into a fighting ally?

Lastly, with the skills that I've seen described on the wiki, how effective are the various CC abilities available in the game? I've noticed some associated with staff fighting but am more curious about what I'd call "hard" CCs, such as mesmerizes or pacifying abilities that (hopefully) have more than a second or two of impact on the battlefield.

Thank you all for your time and help!

[Ryker]

Psychology offers a mez that works pretty well but I can’t recall the name. It’s in the first batch of skills that you get with it I believe. I don’t really have experience with other classes but I’m guessing Bard has something similar.

[Tagamogi]

As far is charm is concerned, you learn how to charm a rat fairly early on. I'd rate that more as fun novelty ability than anything useful though - it costs you a cheese and rats are generally the weakest monster in a zone, so they are not particularly worth charming. There is also no chance of the charm breaking and the rat turning on you - it's just remains charmed while you are in the same zone, or until it dies. That's pretty much it so far - I'm not sure if there's anything further planned. Charm rat the way it is now feels more like an introduction to animal handling where you get to permanently tame a pet.

There are several skills that have a mez ability - psychology, archery, ice magic and bard come to my mind. I'm not sure if that's it or if I missed one. I'd rate the mezzes as situationally highly useful but not something I use every day. I tend to run solo/duo content and usually I'd rather have another dps/heal/aoe button available instead of a mez. In group dungeons that feature monsters that take longer to kill and do significant damage, I do find mez useful though.

One thing about the mezzes is that all the mez abilities have a cooldown of 30 seconds but mez the mob for a shorter time than that, so you cannot keep a mob indefinitely mezzed - there are always a few seconds where it will come after you. I've tried stacking archery and ice magic to get two mezzes, and it actually looks like the mob becomes immune to any further mez for the next 30 seconds when you cast your initial mez on them. (No idea if that is intentional behavior or not - I totally forgot to bug report it in case it isn't.)

There is no aoe mez - the closest thing there are a couple brief aoe freezes (ice magic, battle chemistry) that just root the mobs in the area but don't prevent them from performing range attacks or spells. While brief, these freezes are possibly my favorite abilities in the game since they give me time to step back and reassess a fight.

Now that your post got me thinking about it, having a skill that has an EQ-style charm would actually be really fun...

[Faeothin]

Thank you for answering my questions!

I do hope that they add some way for an expert CCer to semi-permanently mez a target. Addition of resistance checks on application and as the timer ticks, as well as various strength vs cooldown timers to balance decision on what to use and when. Make it a full time job for a toon to achieve but having the challenge of the possibility (along with keeping charmed targets in check, but I digress) is what made Enchanters fun for me.

I have some other inquiries I'll likely ask in different threads or test out myself down the road when my paycheck goes through.

Best of wishes,
Faeothin