So I tried Cajole Undead

[Mabra]

Dinged 49 this weekend, scribed Cajole Undead, and decided try out undead charm.

My first attempt was a blue skelly in Maiden's Eye. It landed, so I snared and slowed a bat and sicked him on it. Charm broke barely into the fight. I kited both a ways, cast screaming terror to pause the skelly for re-charming. Resisted charm. Now I discover the TWENTY SECOND recast time. Given that you can only have one pet (not including AA's), twenty second recast is stupid. I decide to cut bait and feign until they both forget me. Second and third attempts go about the same. I tried pulling the prospective pet with snare and now I'm thinking I'm spending a lot of mana, timing, and effort just to have a flakey pet. I've burned three bars of mana and haven't killed a thing.

But I'm probably too low for ME so I look over the list of undead mobs. I notice the skellys and monkeys in Burning Woods. The giant fort makes for a nice pulling area clear of wanderers.

I grab a plaguebone pet. Lands no sweat. I pull a greater plaguebone. My pet is hasted and the greater is slowed and yet he's still pummeling my pet. Hmmm, should have charmed a greater. My pet is down to half a bub and I have to fear the greater to keep him alive.

I pull a giant and again end up fearing it to keep the pet alive. I drop the charmed pet, summon a normal one and fear kite giants for a whole lot less mana and easier kills.

Overall pretty disappointed. I was hoping charm would require skill, risk, but have some tangilble benefit over the regular pet. I will keep testing.

Cheers,
Mabra

[Shenlonx]

Charm killing is not for the faint of heart, nor is it easy as you have found out. In fact sometimes it can be completely unworthy to charm as opposed to just summoning good old dependable Boner. That being said you must recognize which times are good for summoning and which times are good for charming. Many times I will charm mobs when I become bored and would like a little excitement, but for the most part I stick to pet summoning.

I have noticed that it is important also with charming to not get incredibly attached to your pet. This means use it to kill x amount of mobs, then when it gets low on health, invis to break the charm, root, and drop a DoT on him while you go get another pet. I have not played with Cajole Undead all that much with the exception of the Spectral Keepers in TT. For me, it seemed to work very well, however I believe that charm is much more mob-variant than spell variant. I mean that the spell itself does not seem to matter, but you wil have a wide variety of responses depending on which mob. Some charm well, others don't. My final word of advice is don't let this experience completely ruin charming for you, give it a shot a little bit later.

[Rikam]

Only time I use charmed pets really is in Drunder arena the undead robes in there hit for like 350 hasted they are hella damage but of course if charm breaks, and it will, you will be needing to mezz it till you can get off charm. Best thing I have found is to get a rang/druid snare it since thats a 14 min snare and an enc tash makes it much easier to land the next charms. But the big thing to do is charm a mob pull another kill it then grab another mobs and charm it, insta cast invis is your friend, this way you are pulling mobs to kill your last pet so pretty much each mob you kill is near 50% health makes your kills go faster. Of course there are rarely two robes up in arena last statement was from my dokb adventure last night lol. DoKb is nice exp and these mobs give +dok faction for rings/arm quest.