The current state of Mages on project 99?

[JeremyDS]

I have been doing some searches about mages on project 99. I am unclear as to weather the pet Agro issues have ever been addressed, and if while in a group your group must out damage your pet to not lose 50% xp to your pet? Also if your in a group does the group have to outdamage all the pets or just out damage the one that did the most damage?

Basicly , what is the current state of the mage class, and is it still a powerhouse solo, or a slowly leveling / grouping class? Would/will I be unsummoning my pet every fight solo , Is a necromancer a better bet these days? Thank you for any information, most of the stuff I found was a year or two old.

[Estu]

Pet aggro is still difficult.

If you group, pet EXP penalty doesn't come into effect.

Best way to get around EXP penalty solo is to reclaim when mob is almost dead and nuke it.

Necros are better soloers, as they've always (?) been.

[Itap]

If you want to solo, you will be chain summoning pets. Reclaim pet for mana return once the mob is down to < 10%, then nuke the mob to get full experience. Buy lots of malachite

[Iumuno]

IMO: A class that was often a dubious choice in the classic era, particularly L51+, with few or no compelling reasons to invite in a group, that is even worse on P1999 with bugged pet aggro.

Edit: Although not personally tested on p1999, here is how it went on live back then. In a group a pet could take a "share" of xp, if it did over 50% of the total damage. So say you duo with a cleric, and the pet does 75% of the damage, than it would count as an additional group member, and it will take 33% of the damage. If you duo with a mage, both pet do 35% of the damage each, and the remaing 30% is done by the mages: then the pets will take no xp at all, since none of them did over 50% of the total damage.

So there are certain group situations in which a pet can take xp, but they should be rare.

[Tecmos Deception]

Mages are a rock solid choice for DPS in a group, Iumuno.

[Velerin]

In a group mages still rock for sustained and burst dps. Solo mages are in a rough spot here. For full exp like everyone said you have to reclaim pet and nuke which is usually fine outdoors but not ideal indoors (I still do it indoors with more risk). I love doing duos or trios with pet tanking but here it only works if someone just keeps the mob rooted all the time because when anyone else even sneezes at the mob they'll pull aggro. You can still solo well with chain petting but the crappy aggro makes the class even more 1-dimensional. I pull seafuries with a 5 damage level 1 nuke and the 49 fire pet often takes 2 combat rounds to grab aggro (and thats with standing, not sitting). If they'd fix the pet casting frequency that might help some. Enchanters are really the best 'pet class' here.

[JeremyDS]

Well that is kind of sad, I really liked mages on live many years ago. Is pet agro on the radar for being fixed or is that how its going to stay? Any kind of official response on it?
I can handle the way xp works, but with agro broken too it might make it frustating to level. I really like mages, and especially old model pets, so I may just stick it out and see what I can do. I would love to be able to use my weapon summoning spells and whatnot at higher levels and have my pet use them, but it seems like that will be a rarity here :(

How does one correspond with the people who make the decisions here, is there a forum to try to bring attention to this or seek a response?

[Estu]

Well that is kind of sad, I really liked mages on live many years ago. Is pet agro on the radar for being fixed or is that how its going to stay? Any kind of official response on it?
I can handle the way xp works, but with agro broken too it might make it frustating to level. I really like mages, and especially old model pets, so I may just stick it out and see what I can do. I would love to be able to use my weapon summoning spells and whatnot at higher levels and have my pet use them, but it seems like that will be a rarity here :(

How does one correspond with the people who make the decisions here, is there a forum to try to bring attention to this or seek a response?

There is a bug forum. The way to use it is to find evidence of pet aggro having worked differently back in classic-era EverQuest, then submit a bug report.

[Iumuno]

Mages are a rock solid choice for DPS in a group, Iumuno.

And probably the best until the early 50s, at least untwinked. Back then on live though, they started to fall off the chart in the mid 50s and were definitely obsolete compared to melees by the late 50s.

[Tuljin]

EQ should only have ogre warriors, high elf clerics, high elf enchanters, and iksar monks

[odiecat99]

EQ should only have ogre warriors, high elf clerics, high elf enchanters, and iksar monks

your post makes me want to vomit.

[Tuljin]

haha coming from the man with an iksar monk and troll warrior? :P

thats my blanket snark comment for every time someone says "don't roll a pal/ran cause the dps is awful" or "man mage really sux" or "dude wiz is only good for porting"

having spent a good bit of the past couple months in nubland, i've been in a (small) handful of groups with someone who can snare or someone that can toss a nuke on a running mob to stop it. or GOD FORBID someone (cleric ahem) that tosses a root or stun out once in a while!!

roll an ogre warrior, pull 5 mobs at a time, have the high elf enchanter aoe mez them when the ogre is at 30% or less hp after the hideous pull he just did (and btw this enchanter refuses to keep a pet because its "too much work"), have the high elf cleric do ~absolutely~ nothing else besides heal

thats eq, right?

[Tikker]

Pet aggro is still difficult.


it's the AoW "fix" that's breaking pet agro

[Estu]

it's the AoW "fix" that's breaking pet agro

I don't know what that means.

[Fregar]

I don't remember well because it's old, but now reading this I believe at some point some raids used multiple pets to eat a part (or all?) of AoW's dps.

[Tann]

I don't know what that means.

I'm thinking its the "fix" that was implemented on pet agro because the first couple AoW kills were done via charmed giant pets, at the time tanks didn't have the hp to survive those quad hits for 1100ish each and kicks for 600-700 coming every 2 seconds.. or something like that.

Legacy of Steel (along with another guild) did get the first legit kill after they patched pet agro, made us all nerdgasm when it was announced on the server.

[Iumuno]

I don't think the AoW thing is related.

First, it's out of line with patch history.

What happened with the AoW thing shouldn't substantially affect pet aggro in the end. What happened is the following:

1) The original classic pet aggro rule was that mobs would attack a pet if players were in range only if the pet was a) on top of the theoretical aggro list and b) closest melee target.

2) Then a patch changed that rule so that whoever was highest on the hate list. PC or pet, would get aggro. LoS killed the AoW a few days later. A patch came in pretty soon after

3) For a few days after pet aggro was almost non existent

4) Then another patch, which reverted to the 1) ruleset in terms of aggro generation, but coded NPC behavior so that they would always ignore pet if another PC was in melee range.