Any good mage solo spots / techniques since pet xp nerf?

[Enxienty]

Title pretty much says it all lol, just wanted to know if anyone has any good tips or techniques regarding this. Thanks :)

[emp82]

what level range?

as far as techniques:
Attack with fire pet, let fire pet beat on mob until 5% life, reclaim pet, nuke mob for full xp

[Enxienty]

feels like that takes so much mana ive tried it before even with torch, between healing fire pet / pet ending up still being so low hp, reclaim barely gives any mana back when pets hp is low

[formallydickman]

What level range?

[emp82]

When I was doing this I was casting the pet heal one time on my pet per fight. You get a % of the original casting of the pet when you reclaim so you will lose mana overall in the fight. The benefit to this method is that you should be sitting for 80% of the fight so you are medding the whole time.

Maybe you are fighting mobs that are a little higher level than I was. I usually opted for the safe xp vs the fast xp and was still getting a yellow and a half every hour through my 30's. Even on 35 I was getting right at a yellow an hour (maybe a bit better).

[Velerin]

It's still a lot less mana than wizzies blow to kill stuff. I'm assuming youre in your 20s or lower. Once you hit 29 the mana cost of pets actually goes down from 240 to 200. Then its better to just resummon and chain pet rather than heal.
Sometimes I also just summon the highest level pet I can get, deck him out with swords and buffs and let him just eat half the exp (especially in dungeons where you don't want to ever be stuck w/o a pet). Sounds like you might be targeting too tough of mobs for efficiency.

[BarackObooma]

You may want to look in the caster forum area. It has a lot of threads dealing with this kind of thing. Here's my recommendations/tips.

There's also good information on pet's, all your spells/etc. here:
http://wiki.project1999.com/Magician#Spells

1. Get the torch as soon as possible. At 46+ try and do as many POH raids until you get your staff of elemental mastery: fire. I'd use that until you get your epic which may be never.
2. Buy a runewood great staff 22/40 2hb - it costs 50-100pp, very commonly for sale in EC.
3. There will be a range of mobs that are dark blue to you. It is much easier if you focus on the lower end of the dark blue. For example, if you are level 40, mobs approximately level 32-39 will be dark blue. Try and stick with the level 32, 33, 34 ones. You will be resisted less, the mobs won't hit as hard, they'll have less hitpoints. Your pet should be able to solo the lower end ones with probably no healing. The higher level ones, you're going to have to either drain all your mana healing or chaining multiple pets.
4. Have bags full of pet summoning gems. If your pet isn't dark blue or higher, reclaim it and recast. A light blue pet isn't going to last nearly as long and you'll end up either healing all your mana away or scrambling to recast another.
5. Remember that a fire pet has to cast damage shield on itself so if your pet dies and you barely get another one summoned before a mob gets on you, your pet won't have time to cast DS on itself. If I know I'm going to have to chain a pet, I stand as far away as possible to give time to cast it and for him to cast DS.
6. You'll have to get a feel for timing. I don't waste mana on nuking a mob down unless I have to. Use that 2hb, you'll hit for 44 at level 20 and save your mana. I got pretty good at my pet getting it down to 1-2% before having it back off and reclaiming it.
7. If I can't send my pet at a mob to pull, I pull with level 1 burst of flame. It costs 7 mana and your pet only has to hit the mob once to get aggro.
8. The fire pets after the level 49 are worthless. They made them into casters and they have like a 1 hitpoint damage shield. Even at 54 I was casting the level 49 fire pet to kill seafuries.

[iRFNA]

duo with another pet class, solo separately

[Zeonick]

Yeah, if your pet is almost dead by the time the fight is over you're probably killing mobs that are too high for you. You will get the most efficient exp by killing DB mobs that are just barely DB, like one level away from being light blue. Even killing LB mobs will be much more efficient than killing mobs a few levels below you.

When I'm soloing with my shammy pet he can usually kill low-end DB/LB mobs and be at almost full health towards the end of the fight with no heals.

[Enxienty]

Ahh ok cool thanks guys, ill prolly just duo with another class in LOIO dark blues until 34 or so

[cs616]

Stop trying to solo and duo. It isn't hard to find a healer or caster partner that can compliment your class. Even on my enchanter who probably has a much easier time soloing than your mage, I duo over soloing whenever I can. Then you don't have to worry about pet stealing exp.

edit: only read first post, clearly someone else passed this advice on before me!

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

Stop trying to solo and duo. It isn't hard to find a healer or caster partner that can compliment your class. Even on my enchanter who probably has a much easier time soloing than your mage, I duo over soloing whenever I can. Then you don't have to worry about pet stealing exp.

edit: only read first post, clearly someone else passed this advice on before me!

QFT.

I play a Shaman and never understood the appeal of soloing. Sure, you can do it but it takes forever and is pretty 1D as far as strategy goes - YMMV i guess but a duo/trio gets that bar moving the way its supposed to!! Your pet is absolutely beastly when combined with almost any other caster and even more so with priest classes.

[Bohab]

undead knight tower in unrest, 2 hags on 6min respawn. sick solo mage xp 34+ /dipsnap

[Lammy]

After I got into the 50's I find duoing with shamans the best! Karnors is a pretty good spot.

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

After I got into the 50's I find duoing with shamans the best! Karnors is a pretty good spot.

Yeah man - I love duoing with mages. That fire pet is such a beast. Burning woods is also good at the giant fort if you don't mind the slower xp, inflated hp of giants and occasional wanderer. It's nice to do something new every once and a while.

Stay away from greater war boned skele's - I watched one 1-shot the mage and had to try 6 times to slow it. Shit was the nastiest non-named I've ever fought.

[ncapatina]

Not to hijack the thread, but at what level would it make sense to head to Kunark as a shaman solo, and also as a shaman with a similar level monk duo?

All my characters on live were well passed the 20-50 stuff when Kunark was released so I've never really leveled a character up in Kunark zones.

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

Not to hijack the thread, but at what level would it make sense to head to Kunark as a shaman solo, and also as a shaman with a similar level monk duo?

All my characters on live were well passed the 20-50 stuff when Kunark was released so I've never really leveled a character up in Kunark zones.

You can head there at any point really but your saftey isn't guaranteed on adventures such as selling. My shittiest experiences in Kunark have been going to FV at 20 only to get agro'd by a pirate - there is no way to shake that agro as guards won't kill them.

If you don't need to sell there are plenty of good spots for that solo/duo:

18-24 - LOIO near the tower.
24-30 - warsliks woods at the giant fort.
30-38 - Frontier Mountains giant fort.
39-44 (around) - Overthere at Skyfire Mountain ZL.
Alternatively you can do Dreadlands outside KC from 40-52. I think City of Mist is duoable at around 46 or so.

[ncapatina]

You can head there at any point really but your saftey isn't guaranteed on adventures such as selling. My shittiest experiences in Kunark have been going to FV at 20 only to get agro'd by a pirate - there is no way to shake that agro as guards won't kill them.

If you don't need to sell there are plenty of good spots for that solo/duo:

18-24 - LOIO near the tower.
24-30 - warsliks woods at the giant fort.
30-38 - Frontier Mountains giant fort.
39-44 (around) - Overthere at Skyfire Mountain ZL.
Alternatively you can do Dreadlands outside KC from 40-52. I think City of Mist is duoable at around 46 or so.

Thanks for the info Yumyums!