Magician epic pet question

[renegadeofunk]

I had a mage back when I played in Kunark and always wanted the pet but didn't get far. I'm thinking of rolling one here to start the quest anew but I wanted to ask a few questions of anyone who has it.

What is its true dps like? When fighting boss-level mobs (dragons etc) do his swings and procs miss a lot? How do epic mages stack up against other dps in Kunark or even Velious?

Thanks!

[Tiggles]

Epic mage here.

A mage will pretty much never top DPS in kunark or velious and a pet is usually more of a burden then a boon.

Mages are a utility class on this server casting coth and summoning some usefull items.

Outside of raiding its a beast.

[Boilon]

Well. This is true. But, at least in Velious you get fear immunity for the pet lol. Of course it will never out dps a rogue, monk, or even a ranger but the epic pet is decent dps on a dragon that's not Gore.

I think the main problem is that Mage's nukes are on average really resistable. I got lucky one time when Gorenaire got debuffed to fk and my Char landed quite frequently, but I do find that I get a ton of resists on even the most debuffed raid mobs. I never cast Shock of Swords (or whatever that 57/58 nuke is) since most bosses are more MR heavy. Maybe I am unlucky?

But, soloing and duoing mobs/camps is pretty EPIC!

[GnashingOfTeeth]

In this era on P99 and velious to come, mages are gimped badly. COTH bitches, major resists.
Even with the epic pet.

Copy to beta, and use the Gnomes at the dock to power up via the commands and go try it out. You will see.
I stress. go try it out.

[webrunner5]

I would NOT recommend ANYONE on this server to even start one. I have a high level one and the only reason I have it is because in the beginning of this sever IF you were smart enough to make one they were OVER the top.

They have had the crap NERFED out of them on here. On live they are about as bad ass as you can be. But on here they are CRAP. I would suggest you make a Paladin over a Mage, and if you have followed my over my 2000 posts you will see I HATE Paladins. :eek: I don't know what to say, other than don't make one on here. :(

[Clark]

Epic mage here.

A mage will pretty much never top DPS in kunark or velious and a pet is usually more of a burden then a boon.

Mages are a utility class on this server casting coth and summoning some usefull items.

Outside of raiding its a beast.

Good post, I like to give epic pet more credit though than it gets dps wise :)

[Tankdan]

Mages are alts and COTH bots on p99 end-game, epic or not. Pets are too much of a burden here, it's about as simple as that.

Couple more expansions until Mages get to shine, but not on P99 :(

[Swish]

So many mages though in P99's early days, wru all?

[radditsu]

So many mages though in P99's early days, wru all?

Afk leveling somewhere

[diplo]

blue99 3rd/red99 2nd mage epic here and master of the elements.

you will have the most fun soloing/duoing/trioing money camps with your epic pet, at least that's where I got the most value from it. You can duo mostly anything on this server with a bp cleric or a torpor shaman pal. you can safely duo crypt with almost any healer type class and used to be able to duo fungi king prior to invis nerf; hell you still can if you can get a solo pull.

regarding raids, i feel like my pet is more of a nuisance than anything. only because you have to constantly be aware of pet aggro and need to have good pet control. if you're lazy or caught sleeping for a minute, enchanter's will get pretty annoyed with you.

regarding killing dragons, that is the only dps you're going to give. they'll hit and i've seen parses and have seen my pet plenty of times make the top 10 dmg output if there aren't a lot of rogues/monks.

if you enjoy farming, mage with epic is best option out there hands down.

[Invoke]

I'm trying to understand some of the hatred for the Mage class. Is this an incorrect assessment?

Mage with Epic (or even without) can...

Solo with ease and farm plat about as good as anyone.

Fill the DPS roll in an exp group about as good as anyone.

Can struggle to provide DPS in the raid scene for reasons stated above. However CotH is needed/wanted enough to give Mages a seat at the table, even if their job is boring and specific.

If this is all correct then the Mage class seems fine. What am I missing?

[Velerin]

Recent fixes to pet agro finally made soloing fun again (can actually occasionally nuke rather than forced to chain) Also applies to duoing since pet can hold agro better.
Overall mages pretty good. Have to test which bosses can nuke and which you can't to decide whether you're nuking or feeding rods to healers/nukers.

The only thing that always sucked for mages is they are the only caster class that wasn't given any root spells (and unreliable earth pet root for 18 secs doesn't count).
Always carry around lots of root nets and pearls and you can do some fun stuff though.

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

I'm trying to understand some of the hatred for the Mage class. Is this an incorrect assessment?

Mage with Epic (or even without) can...

Solo with ease and farm plat about as good as anyone.

Fill the DPS roll in an exp group about as good as anyone.

Can struggle to provide DPS in the raid scene for reasons stated above. However CotH is needed/wanted enough to give Mages a seat at the table, even if their job is boring and specific.

If this is all correct then the Mage class seems fine. What am I missing?

Difficulty of getting an epic pet...

Pretty much renders the debate useless. Epic mages are great.

[Invoke]

Recent fixes to pet agro finally made soloing fun again (can actually occasionally nuke rather than forced to chain) Also applies to duoing since pet can hold agro better.
Overall mages pretty good. Have to test which bosses can nuke and which you can't to decide whether you're nuking or feeding rods to healers/nukers.

The only thing that always sucked for mages is they are the only caster class that wasn't given any root spells (and unreliable earth pet root for 18 secs doesn't count).
Always carry around lots of root nets and pearls and you can do some fun stuff though.

I forgot about the pet agro issues. When I started up a couple months ago I initially made an Enchanter instead of a Mage just because of this. Thankfully taunt was fixed but I wonder if the stigma from people trying to play a Mage during this time will linger.

Difficulty of getting an epic pet...

Pretty much renders the debate useless. Epic mages are great.

Trying to do the Mage epic on live was depressing. I was stuck on getting that crown from Sky forever. Seems like everything on this server is sold as an MQ though. Are Mage epic MQs not available much on p99 and/or cost a shit load of plat compared to other epics? I've been curious about this...

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

I forgot about the pet agro issues. When I started up a couple months ago I initially made an Enchanter instead of a Mage just because of this. Thankfully taunt was fixed but I wonder if the stigma from people trying to play a Mage during this time will linger.



Trying to do the Mage epic on live was depressing. I was stuck on getting that crown from Sky forever. Seems like everything on this server is sold as an MQ though. Are Mage epic MQs not available much on p99 and/or cost a shit load of plat compared to other epics? I've been curious about this...

The bottleneck is the earth staff. I've seen the earth staff MQ as high as 800k and as low as 300k. Either way it's priced pretty far out of range and even then, only when it's available.

[Velerin]

Trying to do the Mage epic on live was depressing. I was stuck on getting that crown from Sky forever. Seems like everything on this server is sold as an MQ though. Are Mage epic MQs not available much on p99 and/or cost a shit load of plat compared to other epics? I've been curious about this...

People farm sky everyday here so crowns are all over the place (on live post-velious that crown was a bitch since no one went to sky much). In this era the bottleneck is Mr. Inny and his staff.

[Cecily]

I don't think I've seen TMO kill any trash on isle 7 that I hadn't trained on them.

[Tiggles]

The bottleneck is the earth staff. I've seen the earth staff MQ as high as 800k and as low as 300k. Either way it's priced pretty far out of range and even then, only when it's available.

Mage staff MQs don't exist

[Daldaen]

Mage staff MQs don't exist

This. Especially with the raid rules change.

Now that 1/3rd of Innys go to Class R, less go to market from IB/TMO guild bank MQs.

Though... I don't think Earth staves drop for Class R guilds when Inny does get killed. It seems rigged.

[Tankdan]

It'll get a lot easier with Velious.. no longer need Inny as the staff will drop off a mini (Magi ptasa/maestro etc I think) instead. Not to mention a lot of Kunark raids won't be quite so poopsocked (they will be, but you wont have guilds grouped up and ready to port up before it spawns, etc)

[Tiggles]

It'll get a lot easier with Velious.. no longer need Inny as the staff will drop off a mini (Magi ptasa/maestro etc I think) instead.

Hate Revamp will be a good year(probably 2) after Velious launch.

Sorry

[Daldaen]

Hate Revamp will be a good year(probably 2) after Velious launch.

Sorry

Or 3 months. Cause awesome.

[Fiyero]

I would NOT recommend ANYONE on this server to even start one. I have a high level one and the only reason I have it is because in the beginning of this sever IF you were smart enough to make one they were OVER the top.
:(

Honestly, mages still seem over the top in the group/solo game (probably not raiding). A guildy just made a mage here and he's already level 31. He's been duoing with a cleric mostly, but they're leveling so ridiculously fast. He's gotten 9 levels in one day.

[bluejam]

what made mages become great on live? (honest question)

[Messianic]

what made mages become great on live? (honest question)

Kunark hadn't been released yet. So that's what made them great.

[Invoke]

what made mages become great on live? (honest question)


From what I remember ....

/pet hold, suspended minion, PoP era pets were as good as epic, focus items, mounts and cannibalize pet going to OP levels. In PoP Mages would often have the top dps even on raid targets.

[Daldaen]

From what I remember ....

/pet hold, suspended minion, PoP era pets were as good as epic, focus items, mounts and cannibalize pet going to OP levels. In PoP Mages would often have the top dps even on raid targets.

Not really. Wizards and Rangers crushed Magicians on parses.

Magicians became OP much later than PoP. When they got their Servant line which was a huge DPS pet which would pull aggro from your main pet, Pet Blocks (essentially it would prevent the next 7-9 melee hits or spells from connecting, whether they be 10 DMG or 50,000 DMG), Air Pet Stunning mobs 3+ max level (91 Air Pet would stun up to level 98). With that plus a Mercenary healer, magicians could solo most all group mobs. Their pets became better than many tanks (either under geared group tanks or just really stupid tanks who didn't cycle discs and AAs)

[Velerin]

Also, in vanilla eq out of the box a pet will tank pretty well and better than a lot of player tanks until they got better gear. With kunark and better tank gear and weapons pets relative strength fell behind.

[Invoke]

Not really. Wizards and Rangers crushed Magicians on parses.

Magicians became OP much later than PoP. When they got their Servant line which was a huge DPS pet which would pull aggro from your main pet, Pet Blocks (essentially it would prevent the next 7-9 melee hits or spells from connecting, whether they be 10 DMG or 50,000 DMG), Air Pet Stunning mobs 3+ max level (91 Air Pet would stun up to level 98). With that plus a Mercenary healer, magicians could solo most all group mobs. Their pets became better than many tanks (either under geared group tanks or just really stupid tanks who didn't cycle discs and AAs)

Reading this almost makes me wish I played past GoD.

[Tankdan]

what made mages become great on live? (honest question)

Think they nuked harder than wizards in some expansions (4400ish in PoP if I recall), then adding in the most powerful pet just made them supreme.

Even on Live to this day, mage pet is better than tanks unless decked out in raid gear.

Not really. Wizards and Rangers crushed Magicians on parses.
Magicians became OP much later than PoP.

Wizards never beat our mages or rangers in PoP era.

[Daldaen]

Wizards definitely beat out Mages.


Wizard best nuke (SoS) did 2.7k unmodded.
Wizards got SCFM3 + Allegiant Familiar AAs which increased chance to critical blast 6% each - 12% total
Wizards got Harvest spell + Harvest of Druzzil + Allegiant Familiar to regain mana.
Wizards got EP Legs (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=19027)... clicky 2s aggro reduction, PERFECT to click inbetween every single cast to mana-free reduce aggro.
Wizards got a 20% or 25% mana reduction focus on their Ornate or Elemental Gloves for their biggest nuke (SoS)




Magiciains best nuke (Bolt) did 1.9k unmodded.
Magicians didn't get this line, only SCF3 / FoM3 (which Wizards also got in addition to the above line)
Magicians got nothing (except mod rods, which wizards could use in addition)
Magicians' equivalent legs summoned mod rods.
Magicians' equivalent gloves were a 20% or 25% mana reduction focus for their highest level nuke (1.6k, as compared to their highest dmg 1.9k)



The only thing they had going for them DPSwise above wizards was their pets. And they really weren't much to write home about :/. Even in a low DPS environment, where a raid ran a decent period of time, Wizards would outshine Magicians 9/10 times.

[Zuranthium]

what made mages become great on live? (honest question)Kunark hadn't been released yet. So that's what made them great.

Mages and Necromancers were the top DPS classes in the game pre-Kunark (aside from fighting Dragons/Gods, because of the pets being feared away). The necromancer pet in particular was off-the-charts ridiculously powerful during the first 6 months of release, because of being able to dual-wield and drastically improve their attack speed by giving them fine steel daggers. The Level 44 and 49 Mage pets were also extremely strong as well, though, and were nerfed at the same time the Necro pets stopped getting attack speed boosts from weapons. Even after those nerfs, Mages and Necromancers were still the top DPS.

Shortly before Kunark came out when Mage pets became able to dual-wield, then Mages slightly overtook Necros as #1 DPS. In terms of expansion content those classes became far less powerful, though, because melee got immensely better gear and new abilities, whereas the pets became far less powerful in comparison to the power level of monsters and caster damage also became significantly less powerful. Necromancers were rather balanced in the expansion, though, whereas Mages get the short end of the stick...they get some of their power back with the epic, but the Mage epic was THE hardest to get. Even by the end of Velious there were very few Mages with epics, and in Velious melee classes get yet another round of buffs, whereas Mages don't really increase in raw power at all.

[Invoke]

Wizards definitely beat out Mages.


Wizard best nuke (SoS) did 2.7k unmodded.
Wizards got SCFM3 + Allegiant Familiar AAs which increased chance to critical blast 6% each - 12% total
Wizards got Harvest spell + Harvest of Druzzil + Allegiant Familiar to regain mana.
Wizards got EP Legs (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=19027)... clicky 2s aggro reduction, PERFECT to click inbetween every single cast to mana-free reduce aggro.
Wizards got a 20% or 25% mana reduction focus on their Ornate or Elemental Gloves for their biggest nuke (SoS)




Magiciains best nuke (Bolt) did 1.9k unmodded.
Magicians didn't get this line, only SCF3 / FoM3 (which Wizards also got in addition to the above line)
Magicians got nothing (except mod rods, which wizards could use in addition)
Magicians' equivalent legs summoned mod rods.
Magicians' equivalent gloves were a 20% or 25% mana reduction focus for their highest level nuke (1.6k, as compared to their highest dmg 1.9k)



The only thing they had going for them DPSwise above wizards was their pets. And they really weren't much to write home about :/. Even in a low DPS environment, where a raid ran a decent period of time, Wizards would outshine Magicians 9/10 times.


You didn't even mention Pet Canni. IIRC, by the end of PoP some Mages were pushing over 150 mana per tick regen while PCing. In long duration fights this would really push Mage DPS to crazy levels as you could chain nuke, suspend pet and CP, then unsuspend and chain nuke again.

I also dont agree about the PoP pet being nothing to write home about. They pretty much made the Epic pet obsolete. The PoP water pet would BS for somewhere around 300 not to mention if it landed crits. Also the PoP pet weapons that would proc a 150 DD.

Mages were beastly in PoP unless my memory is as poor as my grammar.

[Daldaen]

Pet Canni was GoD, not PoP. And that canni really wasn't that much Mana Regen, something like 5 or so.

[Invoke]

Pet Canni was GoD, not PoP.


Pet Canni was Beta-GoD.

[Invoke]

Pet Canni was GoD, not PoP. And that canni really wasn't that much Mana Regen, something like 5 or so.

LOL no way. I was using pet canni while farming AAs on shrooms in FG before PoP even came out. It most certainly was more then 5 mana/tick. WAY more. I switched my specialization from evocation to conjuration in Luclin because of how great it became with focus effects and AAs. I think your memory may be worse then mine. ;)

[Daldaen]

K what you're referring to is reclaiming a pet via exploiting Reclaim / Focii effects / Specialization.

I was referring to the actual pet canni spell Elemental Siphon (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=4886)

[Invoke]

K what you're referring to is reclaiming a pet via exploiting Reclaim / Focii effects / Specialization.

I was referring to the actual pet canni spell Elemental Siphon (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=4886)


Yea OK, now I know where you're coming from. That was the bone they threw to mages after pet canni was nerfed. I would agree that the siphon spells were weak and not much of a boost to mage dps. I wouldn't say the pet canni was an exploit. One of the developers back then told mages to "look to your pets" when asked about mana regen. It just got completely out of control.

[Daldaen]

Eh it definitely was an exploit :P. They didn't anticipate that Reclaim Energy would go from being used to get 100% of the mana back from a pet before logging or zoning... to be getting 150% when you factor in Specialization, and extra HP from pet focus and Improved Reclaim. Definitely not intended and eventually fixed.

But that is neither here, nor there. If you are reclaiming your pet mid fight to recover mana, you are losing your only DPS edge over Wizards, and it would have to be one LONNNNG fight for a wizard to OOM after exhausting 2 mod rod charges and both Harvests.

[Nivar Quartz]

Mages and Necromancers were the top DPS classes in the game pre-Kunark (aside from fighting Dragons/Gods, because of the pets being feared away). The necromancer pet in particular was off-the-charts ridiculously powerful during the first 6 months of release, because of being able to dual-wield and drastically improve their attack speed by giving them fine steel daggers. The Level 44 and 49 Mage pets were also extremely strong as well, though, and were nerfed at the same time the Necro pets stopped getting attack speed boosts from weapons. Even after those nerfs, Mages and Necromancers were still the top DPS.

Shortly before Kunark came out when Mage pets became able to dual-wield, then Mages slightly overtook Necros as #1 DPS. In terms of expansion content those classes became far less powerful, though, because melee got immensely better gear and new abilities, whereas the pets became far less powerful in comparison to the power level of monsters and caster damage also became significantly less powerful. Necromancers were rather balanced in the expansion, though, whereas Mages get the short end of the stick...they get some of their power back with the epic, but the Mage epic was THE hardest to get. Even by the end of Velious there were very few Mages with epics, and in Velious melee classes get yet another round of buffs, whereas Mages don't really increase in raw power at all.


One nerf would have been ok, it was the 4 other nerf's afterwards that show'd no love for the class, Magicians were considered OP and people like Rhambuk championed Uthgaard to nerf them, so max quad was done away with, it was tuned down so badly that it they just said f it and left it, I cant even remember the other 3 nerfs but each time it was significant and class crippling. I was excited when epic pets were released and the potential but in a parse they don't do much more dmg that a 60 water pet minus the DD stun and insta-cast, nerfed enrage ( this might be a timeline nerf i'm not sure ).

Tears inc : Meanwhile Enchanters can charm pretty much anything again ( even after the so called charm nerf lol ) and solo entire camps like disco which definitely never happened on classic in Kunark or Velious, and not with cute tools and tricks like root-net + coh pulling they just charm a krup and bum-rush the castle, def not classic.