Damn enemy charm spell!

[Heijoushin]

A moment of frustration. I'm on level 8 of the Endless Paths, the floor with all the Fampyrs. In every fight, they manage to charm my main character almost instantly. 

 

Their range seems to be extremely far and their casting time almost instant. Their accuracy is also great.

 

Is there ANY way to counter this?

[ErlKing]

I found only one working way to counter it - Cipher that would cast dominate on charmed party member.

[MadDemiurg]

Priest have protection spells from every affliction, but you have to cast them before you get hit and they don't give a guarantee (still the bonus is huge).

[mazeltov]

CC them first. Failing that, CC the guy who gets charmed.

 

Typically they send a pack of ghouls at the party then try to rush into melee (which they fail at half the time because they can't path around the ghouls). Luckily units don't block projectiles in this game, so you can have the ranged DPS train a four-gun salute on the bloodsuckers even in the middle of their meatshields.

 

Since the level is basically ten packs of ghouls with a vampire in each one (IIRC one pack has two vampires), Wizards will have the time of their lives spamming Fireball and Fan of Flames.

[peddroelm]

Perhaps charm spells  - should come with some accuracy penalty (harder to pull off - balance issue ) ? But its probably not fair to ask for this on POTD diff .. 

[Glasny]

A moment of frustration. I'm on level 8 of the Endless Paths, the floor with all the Fampyrs. In every fight, they manage to charm my main character almost instantly. 

 

Their range seems to be extremely far and their casting time almost instant. Their accuracy is also great.

 

Is there ANY way to counter this?

 

Try:

1- Find a chokepoint

2- Kite fampyr and friends to forementioned chokepoint

3- Leave a non-crucial character slightly after the chokepoint so the fampyr charms him instead, your tank should be just a few paces back

4- As soon as the charm is cast, pause

5- Command your tank to guard the chokepoint, command your ranged DPS on the fampyr

6- If you have a stun/paralize ability, cast it on the charmed toon

7- Unleashe DPS on fampyr to avoid another charm

 

Worked for me

[Peanuckle]

I think the real difficulty comes from not being able to cast protection spells before combat begins. Enemies will open up with domination/confusion, but you can't get the protection up in time.

 

Such an arbitrary limitation that buffs can't be cast before combat anyways. Artificial difficulty is the worst difficulty.

[Sleazebag]

Charm+confusion+domination could use a bit of a rework, since even if your enemy gets a terrible roll the effect will probably still graze you and even at half the duration, it's annoying. 

 

And that's the thing about the effects, they're just damn annoying and don't really add much difficulty to the battles they're in. Only time I found it difficult was when I was fighting a ton of those shrooms and everybody was confused.

[Killyox]

Have priest with Lv 2 spells cast spell that pauses all hostile effects for xx before getting hit, profit.

 

 

Charm+confusion+domination could use a bit of a rework, since even if your enemy gets a terrible roll the effect will probably still graze you and even at half the duration, it's annoying. 

 

And that's the thing about the effects, they're just damn annoying and don't really add much difficulty to the battles they're in. Only time I found it difficult was when I was fighting a ton of those shrooms and everybody was confused.

 

paladin has really good pick. He can get +15 against all of that and -5s duration. And most of these are around that so even if you get hit it ends quickly.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Killyox

[Crucis]

I recently completed this level.  And quite honestly, I was less concerned sabout having a character get charmed than I was that my uncharmed characters would start attacking the charmed one, if I didn't pay really, really close attention to preventing it.  Also, all six of my party members has a ranged weapon option, which I usually have selected when I'm sneaking around a map.  And in any engagement where there's a caster or an enemy that I know to use charm spells a lot, I make them my primary target for that first focus fire volley of arrow/bolt and gunfire.  Nothing like chunking one enemy spellcaster to start a battle.  Of course, they're often found behind the first enemies you spot, so I often have to hold my shots.  But it's usually a decent tactic that pays divivdends in longer engagements.

[Kai]

For some odd reason, Aloth got targeted with charm almost every single time my party ran into a fampyr, other party members got targeted about 3-4 times during the entire game. So after  a while I simply unequipped his weapons when I saw a fampyr and made sure no other party member targeted once he got charmed. Though sadly that's probably not a viable tactic for all playthroughs, though I'm sort of curious as to why he got targeted that often.

[b0rsuk]

There's the spell Suppress Affliction, which shortens the duration. Also I think killing the fampyr will uncharm your character. It works that way with summoners.

I'm giving my Hiravius "Mental Fortress" talent. I'm fed up with it.

Edited April 8, 2015 by b0rsuk

[khango]

For some odd reason, Aloth got targeted with charm almost every single time my party ran into a fampyr, other party members got targeted about 3-4 times during the entire game. So after  a while I simply unequipped his weapons when I saw a fampyr and made sure no other party member targeted once he got charmed. Though sadly that's probably not a viable tactic for all playthroughs, though I'm sort of curious as to why he got targeted that often.

 

In my party they always went after Grieving Mother.

[theBalthazar]

 

Charm is horrible.

 

" The suppression of afflictions " does not always work for me, against the charm (but work perfectly on domination... strange ? Bug ?). I don't understand why. Therefore, with a low level (level 1-10 for my team), there is no way to stop this thing.

 

The priest can do the job, with the level 6 with the prayer AND crown for the faithfull (+50 willpower (25 resolve) +50 défense against this thing = +100)

 

But level 11+... before that, nothing

 

It's a real problem.

 

What is uneven, is that some enemies are launching a charm without the " slowness " of launching a cipher . It's like instant launch , killing all strategy.

Edited November 7, 2015 by theBalthazar

[Teioh_White]

Supress type effects sadly won't work on Charm, because their friend only, and anything charmed no longer counts as a friend, and can't be targeted/affected by anything with a friend only designation. Which means most things, like scrolls of protection and Pld's liberation also don't work.

 

One thing you can do is Charm them right back, as it will put them back under your control, which is easy to do if it's they're under Charm, as it gives -25 to all defenses. Domination's a little trickier.

 

Beyond that, there's not much defense until the later levels. 13+ Chanter's are especially useful, as unlike the level 11 priest spell, their +40 Charm defense is put up as soon as combat begins, meaning no need for annoying micro pulls to get the Priest Circle or Crown up before the charms crash. Early game can just have Chanter +10 will song and have the priest quickly cast the +15 will buff, and hope that's enough.

 

Beyond that, Monks and Pld's can normally make the saves, so they can handle all those Spore fights. The Fampyr ones might be tougher, as they usually have lots of buddies, and they'll go after the backline with charms if they try to help out in the fight.

[theBalthazar]

Before level 11+ :

 

With 97 of accuracy for Fampyr, its difficult to resist with a +25 of Priest+chanter. (If we have a chanter in the team... I don't like them : p )

 

Personnaly, my team have an average of 62 of willpower. (3 resolve, 19 intelligence)

 

62+25 = 87.

 

97 versus 87.

 

The charm will pass a major part of time, with hit or critical.

Edited November 7, 2015 by theBalthazar