Difference between revisions of "Decoy's Enchanter Notebook"

Latest revision as of 06:49, 19 July 2025

Coffee and a good book.

a collection of tattered scribbles haphazardly held together by frayed string.
the cover features a small iksar standing next to cazic-thule, who is giving a thumbs-up with one of his many hands. "dad :)" is written next to a red heart.

basically this is a reference guide/compilation of various enchanter knowledge i made because i was sick of going to 500 different pages to find niche but relevant information.

New player tips

Interested in rolling an Enchanter? Here's a brief overview.

• Enchanters are most effective casting buffs, debuffs, and controlling the battlefield. They generally don't do direct damage themselves, preferring to buff allies with powerful haste spells and charm enemies instead. They have access to direct damage spells, but they are comparatively weak to those of other classes.
• The damage potential of an Enchanter scales with the creatures around them. Creatures in EverQuest quickly outpace players in terms of their damage output and health, but this isn't an issue for an Enchanter.
• Enchanter is an extremely powerful class everywhere above level ~20. They have access to quick area of effect stun spells as well as the ability to pacify, mesmerize, charm and blur the memory of enemies. Because of these spells they are excellent dungeon crawlers, granted you have the skill to pilot them.
• When you make an enchanter, put all of your points into CHA, and then INT. CHA modifies the success rate of most Enchanter spells and is by far your most important stat. The hard cap for stats in EverQuest is 255. Enchanters get spells which give them additional Charisma, with the highest level one giving 50.
• Your gender is more important than your choice of race. Enchanters gain access to many long-lasting illusions, but nothing to change gender.
• Enchanters don't get Charm until level 12, but even at level 1 you'll have access to Animation spells which act as a stand-in; Pendril's Animation is your first, and you'll get a new one (usually) every 4 levels (so level 1, 4, 8, etc). Stock up on Tiny Daggers.
• Even after getting Charm, it may be a better idea to stick with an animation until you get your CHA up a bit.
• Fresh Enchanter with no gear? An easy quick boost to your Charisma can come in the form of A Crude Stein, easily obtainable from the Ogre city of Oggok. Players will frequently kill guards in the zone which drop more steins than they'll know what to do with. You can also pick up a Fine Steel Dagger there - ask a player if they have an extra for you.
• Folks are friendly so long as you are friendly -- start a chat, trade buffs, settle problems like civilized people, and do your best not to assume the worst about folk. They're likely just as nervous as you!

Oh? You're approaching me?

Bleedingly general tips

• Enchanters are a highly versatile class with access to non-specific Charm spells, Mesmerization, and stuns. They can fight enemies of almost every class and as such can choose to level up in a huge variety of places.
  • Don't spend all your time traveling - if you've traveled to a spot and it doesn't work out like you hoped right away, try approaching it from a different angle or point of view!
• Take what the wiki says with a grain of salt -- it is player-maintained and not always correct. That said, if something is wrong and you're sure of it, make an edit!
• Looking for a place to start looking for stuff to kill? Try searching for Warriors, Rogues, or Monks at Mobs By Level. Enchanters fare well enough against casters too, so don't shy away from fighting Wizards and the sort.

this isn't for you, sir

Terms to be familiar with

Enchanters are never short on friends!

Like all games, EverQuest has no shortage of abbreviations that players use to communicate quickly. These lists detail common terms in no particular order of importance:

• "ENC" - Enchanter. That's you!
• "Charm" - a blanket term for the Charm line of spells
• "Mez" - shorthand for any effect which Mesmerizes a target(s) - "please mez soandso"
• "Paci" - pacification, the act of casting Pacify or similar spells to reduce a mob's aggro radius
• "Blur", "Memblur" - an effect of certain Enchanter spells that makes mobs forget all combat history - see Memory Blur and Blanket of Forgetfulness
• "Break" - a crowd-control effect wearing off - "Charm broke". Could also be used to describe the act of "breaking" into a difficult area
• "CC" - shorthand for "crowd-control", a blanket term for spells and abilities which prevent NPC's from taking certain actions, such as Root preventing movement
• "Aggro", "Hate" - NPC's in combat will have a "hate" list, which determines who they will attack. Hate is increased by dealing damage or casting spells. Units at the top of the hate list will have "aggro" and will be the target of the NPC.
• "Back", "Backing" - the act of giving your pet the "/pet back" command, which causes them to drop their current aggro table and attempt to return to you - "please back your pet so it doesn't pull soandso"
• "C", "C2", "Crack" - the Clarity line of spells, these increase mana regeneration
• "Brain buffs" - the combination of your best Clarity and Gift buffs
• "Haste" - your current best spell which increases a character's attack speed, e.g. Swift like the Wind
• "CHA" - Charisma, an Enchanter's most important stat. Affects Charm, Mesmerize, and Pacify spell success rates
• "INT" - Intelligence, the stat responsible for a caster's mana pool
• "AC" - Armor class, a character's defense against physical damage. Especially important for Enchanters who get hit a lot
• "Duo", "Duoing" - the act of grouping with a single other player, usually to take on more difficult enemies - "Wanna duo some giants?"
• "Zone", "Zoning" - the act of leaving a zone for one reason or another, usually to drop aggro - "Need to zone this" - "Zoning this train"
• "Pack" - a group of enemy mobs
• "Mob" - an individual enemy NPC - plural "Mobs"

Terms to be familiar with at higher levels:

• "VoG" & "SoS" - Visions of Grandeur and Speed of the Shissar, the two most common end game haste buffs. VoG is considered the best haste for its additional stats, while SoS is free to cast and gives better defensive stats. Not all players have access to both.
• "Haste" - blanket term for either Visions of Grandeur or Speed of the Shissar, usually asked after a wipe with respect to the Enchanter's available mana. "Haste please when able" = "I don't know what your mana pool is like right now, but I need whatever haste you can throw my way when you have a second"
• "Sieve" - Mana Sieve, or the act of using the ability on a target. "We need sieves into soandso so it doesn't Gate"
• "ToT" - Theft of Thought, an Enchanter spell which siphons a large amount of mana from a target
• "Stun" - usually referring to the line of Color spells unique to Enchanter - see Color Flux, Color Skew - "incoming, stun this pack"
• "Dictate" - Dictate, an unresistable charm. A niche spell primarily used for soloing.
• "Rapture" - Rapture, an unresistable Mesmerization spell. Important for a lot of end-game content
• "Group C2" - Gift of Pure Thought
• "GoB" - Gift of Brilliance, an expensive to cast spell that improves caster stats
• "GRM" - Group Resist Magic, an important spell against many end game bosses, especially dragons
• "Duck", "Ducking" - using the "duck" command to cancel a spellcast. Most frequently used when Clerics are running Complete Heal chains - "don't duck, land these heals"

"I have no quarrel with you."

General tips - game mechanics

• Get as much CHA, HP and AC as possible. Worry about everything else later. Higher CHA means less breaks, less resisted Mesmerize & Lull casts, and less overall damage taken. Clarity solves mana issues so INT is somewhat less important for Enchanters.
• Prevention beats a cure. Invest in gems for Rune I spells and keep them up at all times along-side your current best Rampage. Thanks to the Clarity line of spells, mana comes back much quicker than your health, and with mana directly translating into health, you've got a lot of potential "healing" at your disposal.
• Certain creatures can have higher or lower MR than normal. Sentries such as Sentry Emil in Skyshrine have higher MR than normal, while An Abhorrent has lower. If something is resisting you an unnatural amount, you're probably not crazy -- try another mob!
• Root and Mesmerize work the same all the way up until the level cap and will be your general-use CC spells. Spells like Entrance serve more niche purposes as they are otherwise inefficient on your mana. Enstill is great for more dangerous camps, but it has a longer casting time which you can really feel in tighter situations.
• Every 7 seconds, a game tick occurs. If you are sitting during this time, you gain additional health and mana based on your Meditate skill's level. Sitting at any other time outside of the tick does nothing but increase your aggro radius.
• Sitting increases the radius which creatures will attack you. This is especially noticeable with lower level creatures vs. higher level sitting players.
  • An enemy hitting you while you're sitting will always hit you for the maximum amount that they are able to.
  • You cannot dodge, parry, or anything like that while sitting. Even level 1's will hit you!
  • Taking damage while sitting will force you to stand up. This will also close your spellbook should you have it open.
  • Taking damage will not force you up if it hits a damage shield like Rune I.

General tips - technical/options

• You can click & hold items that are in one of your 8 inventory slots or on your character (not the stuff in bags; those won't) to get a gem version of that inventory slot. You can then put it on your hotbar and use it like you would any other hotbar ability.
  • Keybinds exist for directly casting spell gems; alt+1, alt+2, all the way through alt+0 by default.
• Strafing (W+A or W+D) causes your character to run roughly 13% faster than normal; utilize this to really book it outta there!
• Opening the "Title Window" swaps your camera to one aimed at your characters face (as well as everything behind them). Since backpedaling and even walking sideways are both slower than walking normally, this can aid you in keeping track of your situation while not losing precious ground.
  • Bind "Title Window" to something easily accessible like V. With strafe left/right on Z, you can easily strafe away from enemies while keeping a clear visual on them.
• Ducking cancels spell-casts. Bind this to something easy to reach, and get used to pressing it. I use G; it felt really weird at first but I got used to it.
• While casting, you cannot open things like your inventory window or click on enemies to target them, but you can click on UI elements to target things such as yourself or your charmed pet, or tab/tilde target to things.
• Opening your spellbook automatically sits your character down. Closing the spellbook will stand you back up. However, if you are already sitting when you open your spellbook, you will remain seated, and in addition, closing the spellbook will not stand you up.
  • You can camp while memorizing, forgetting, and learning new spells. If you're camping to break a dangerous charm, this can be handy for having what you need prepared when you log back in.

Nukes are expensive!

Combat tips

• Strafing (moving diagonally via W+A or W+D & keeping your camera locked) gives you a 13% increase in movement speed. Jumping gives you a small boost as well.
• Tashan gives you an average of 5% increased chance to land spells on creatures.
  • Root > Tashan works well for avoiding getting smacked during application, and you can Root again immediately after to get a better duration.
• Understand your options for CC. Often times, a few single-targeted Root spells can save you and your group where Mesmerize couldn't due to a DoT or stray attacker.
• Giants boast the unstunnable tag, and as such cannot be stunned, though they can be Rooted or Feared. These tags are present for all forms of CC, most notably Slows, and creatures such as raid bosses often times boast them all.
• As an Enchanter, it's best to avoid unstunnable creatures, since Mesmerize is technically a stun!

• Lull and Pacify, the Enchanter's primary aggro-reduction spells each modify the afflicted creature's aggro radius by a unique amount. They also have different durations.
  • Lull leaves a small aggro radius of 15 around the mob & lasts about a minute and a half. Costs very little.
  • Pacify effectively disables the mob's aggro radius by setting it to 1. Lasts a static 3.5 minutes, but has a longer recast time & higher mana cost. This is your de-facto lull spell at higher levels.
  • Wake of Tranquility lasts the longest of any lull spell at 7 minutes, and lulls all targets in a PBAoE around your target. Costs 300 mana. Each mob hit by this spell throws an MR save, so it's common to pacify 3/5 enemies while the other 2 resist. Follow it up with Pacify if needed.

• When fighting casters, Mesmerize can and will interrupt their casts without robbing you of your mana.
  • Alternatively, you can charm them. Charmed creatures do not cast heals, and only cast buffs if there's nothing on their hate list.
• You don't get Snare as an Enchanter, so if you plan on fighting creatures which flee, be prepared to root or nuke.
  • Other ways to prevent fleeing include giving your pet a weapon that has a snare effect on it, such as the Glaive of Marltek or the Silken Whip of Ensnaring, or to fight enemies near their friends.
  • Creatures only flee if they have no allied creatures around them. They can sense said allies through geometry (e.g. walls and ceilings) whether or not they have line of sight so in packed areas like dungeons it's normal to never see a mob flee.
• A creature who is fleeing but rooted will stop fleeing and resume attacking/casting as normal until the root breaks. However, a Snared creature will simply stop fighting back.
• Rooted creatures generally attack what's closest to them instead of staying focused on what's at the top of their hate list.
  • Players in EQ will always have aggro priority over pets, regardless of hate values. If you and your charmed pet are both in melee range of a creature, you'll always have the focus of the creature.
• Root easily breaks if the rooted creature takes a large amount of damage within a short time.
  • Higher level charmed/hasted/torched creatures generally force root off quickly, though the chance is still there that it will stick for a while.

Dragons are a lot like cats...

Charm

• Charm or fight the roamers first. If that isn't possible, land a Pacify on them and keep note of it's timer.
  • Google has a nice stopwatch which you can use to keep track of buff & debuff timers. I like keeping one up when hasting a big creature that I intend on keeping alive.
• If mana allows, Root the target your pet is fighting. If a break happens, you'll have one fewer creature beating your skull inwards.
• Boon of the Garou's proc breaks Root frequently. Avoid it unless you're very comfortable with breaks.
• If you and your charmed pet are both in melee range of a creature, you'll always have the focus of the creature. This is more noticeable with rooted enemies.
• Keep up your equivalent Rampage and Rune I in case of a break. You should be doing this anyways, realistically, whenever mana allots.
• Learning to handle breaks and CC enemies efficiently will leave you with more mana & time to sit, meaning better overall EXP efficiency.
• Whenever your pet dies, if you still have it charmed, it will disappear along with any gear you may have given it. However, if you break charm, it will forget all damage other creatures have done to it akin to a memblur, and you can kill like any normal mob get your items back.
  • NPC's who are involved in quests do not drop the items they were given by the player. This means that your Gnoll Hide Lariat you gave them is entirely impossible to retrieve. The weirdest creatures can be quest mobs -- it's best to test them first by giving them something expendable, like a torch, and then killing them to see if they drop it. If they don't, they're involved in a quest.
• When delving into an area, if you have the spells, find mobs with mana for Wandering Mind and Theft of Thought, and look to include them in your circuit.
• Caster mobs love dispelling. Learn the visual effect of Dispel and always interrupt it when possible -- there's a chance it will hit your pet's Charm debuff.
• Dispel hits completely random buffs, so the best way to counter it is to give your pet a lot of weak, cheap buffs, or to interrupt the cast.

Pet stuff

• "/pet back" simply clears your pet's hate list & has them walk back to you or the point they're guarding.
• "/pet attack" simply adds that target to the hate list.
  • a macro sequencing both of the above is important for getting your pet to attack what you want it to.
• You can give your charmed pets an inventory of items. Most folks settle for a Torch -- Giving humaniod pet a Torch, Lantern, Shield, or Instrument will force it to Dual Wield (and 44+ to Quad), vastly increasing DPS. - from https://wiki.project1999.com/Charmed_Pet_Gear
  • Should be noted that creatures such as a shambling cube, while entirely not humanoids, benefit from having a torch, so I do not think it's a humanoid-only thing.
  • Charmed pets only have one ring slot.
• You can Lull your own creature while they're charmed.
  • To heal your charmed pet: Lull them, break charm, Mez, Tash & Memory Blur. NPC's in EverQuest heal for 5% of their health per-game tick so long as they are out of combat. Let them heal until you're ready to dive back in to things.
  • More information on memblur can be found below.
• During breaks, re-tash your pet if you have the time. It's easy to forget simple stuff during the chaos, and tash makes a big deal when it comes to spells landing.
• Have a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C whenever hasting your pet in-case of breaks.

Absolutely mogging.

Reap the rewards

Efficiency

For folks like me who find joy in optimizing circuits for additional EXP & loot per hour.

• A circuit is a mob-to-mob kill route that can span quite some distance in a zone. Think of circuits as a very mobile camp that plays around the zone's respawn timer to maximize EXP gain & drops.
• Efficiency of your circuit is generally more important than zone ZEM. The Hole is great on paper thanks to the amount of bonus EXP, but finding a consistent route through can be difficult with A rock golem forcing a likely-to-be-resisted Pacify around every corner.
  • *there appears to be an ad for Decoy's Guide to Stopping Extortion shoved into this portion of the notebook with the words "example paper" scribbled on it.*

• Two viable strategies are prevalent in the world of EXPing as an Enchanter: the first being charming with the intent to kill both the target and the charmed creature, and the other being killing everything but the charmed creature.
• If you're flying solo, pets that deal over 50% of the damage to a mob eat 50% of the experience that mob gives. Common soloing methods for Enchanters generally attempt to play around this in some way:
  • Kill-both strategy -- research up on spots with static enemy levels. You'll have to spend less mana evening out a fight between two 35's than a 35 and a 37, leading to greater efficiency in mana, which leads to faster experience. It's also way less frustrating.
  • Kill-everything strategy -- charm something as low of a level as possible, and have it fight enemies 2-4 levels below it. The level difference will cause it to mow through everything, and your level advantage over the creature will determine the number of breaks. The more confident you are with breaks, the lower the gap can be between you and your pet.
• Despite which of the above you're using for EXP, get into a habit of Rooting the creatures you're fighting. In the case of a break, one creature being preemptively rooted means less bonks to your noggin as you're getting things under control. Less deaths = more exp!
  • Boon of the Garou's proc, despite being a heal and theoretically synergistic with buff strategies, breaks Root frequently. Avoid it unless you're very comfortable with breaks.
• As mentioned above, Root and Mesmerize work the same all the way up until the level cap, and will be your general-use CC spells. Spells like Entrance serve more niche purposes as they are otherwise sub-optimal on your mana. Enstill is great for more dangerous & higher level camps, or for handling adds in chaotic situations.
• Learning the approximate %'s of damage you can expect your nukes to deal is important for saving mana. Utilize the lowest level nukes possible to finish off creatures -- Enchanter nukes are EXPENSIVE.
• Upon a successful Memory Blur, the affected mob forgets all damage done to it, meaning that if it's at 1% health and your pet did the other 99 that it now doesn't remember, you can smack it for that 1% and get full credit for the kill. This can come in handy if you have a hasted pet but don't want it to eat 50% of the kill's EXP.
  • For maximum efficiency, Root > send pet to attack another creature > Memory Blur > finish off the blurred creature.
  • Consider quickly dropping a root on the creature you sent your pet to fight, as a break while you're finishing off the blurred creature can get messy quick.
• In a kill-both strategy, Memory Blur is not required. Charm breaking completely memblurs the charmed creature, and since that creature had a change of ownership, anything that it fought will forget the damage they took from it. You can then finish both off for full exp.
• There are tells for Memory Blur working, such as rooted creatures turning to try and path home, or the out of combat 5% health regen ticks.
  • Lull pet > break charm > Root > Tashanian > Memory Blur > Tashanian again is your best bet on having a successful blur occur. The second tash is to force the creature back into combat again, hopefully avoiding any ticks of out of combat regen.
  • NPC's that are out of combat will regenerate 5% of their health per game tick. If you intend on keeping a buffed pet alive on a long circuit, consider planning points to break & heal it. Pacify > Goblin Gazughi Ring > Enstill > Memory Blur. The Pacify technically isn't required, and if you are able to stay far enough away from your mob to avoid bringing it back into combat you should be fine to skip it, or just use Lull if you have the room.

Death is inevitable

Technical

• There are keybinds for casting spell gems directly: ALT+1-0, by default. These can be rebound to whatever else you prefer.
• Some modifiable keybinds are only visible within the "all" section of keybinds.
• Prioritize practicality and comfort when binding keys.
  • If something is practical and you know it but feels weird at first, give it some practice; you'll get used to it after a bit and it'll benefit you in the long run.
• Having easy access to your 7th and 8th spells, as well as clickies from your inventory can be a great boon. E, R and F are great for this.

(there is another doodle here of an Iksar surrounded by a number of corpses. a human with "dum" written over its head accompanies them.)

Credits

Notebook property of Decoyboy, Iksar Enchanter of Cazic Thule. Crayons used for the cover doodle belong to Fimb. Absolutely no credit to Glep who ate my last notebook.