Clarification on mage plz

[nina]

Hi guys,
Quick question. I've done research on magician as a class and I'm interested in it. Just wondering, however, how much a difference does race make? Erudite has best int, but blind, DE has great int, but i have enough evil chars on the go... I'm not too keen on gnome but HE has less int than everyone but human.
I know whatever race I go, I'll get used to, just wondering if anyone has advice?

[Yoink1986]

The stats aren't major. What will help the most is the pet foci. Yes not the races but the pet foci. Beefs your pets up. Then buy lot of malachite and summon till you get yellow con pets. I'm a gnome mage and I luv that you can stand and press your face against walls and look thru them. Then with clay bracelet or eye of zoom spell can be used to click eyes thru walls and invite people at entrances to zones. #Gnomes4life.

[Kowalski]

I've solo'd a Gnome (for tinkering) Mage up and the only limiting factor I had was strength. Mages get great weight reduction bags, but it doesn't take away coin weight. Those coin drops from IGs get pretty heavy.
I'd say go with whatever racial attribute satisfies as starting intelligence is not going to make or break you. That's my advice without knowing your play intentions.

[nina]

I'd say go with whatever racial attribute satisfies as starting intelligence is not going to make or break you. That's my advice without knowing your play intentions.

Yeah that's a good point. I have a low 50s wiz and monk and thought I'd try a mage. I suppose solo would be the way to go as I play odd hours and with another kid on the way, that's not likely to change much.

I suppose at the moment I'm looking either erudite or HE. If stats don't matter much I might flip a coin... or put gnome in the mix and roll a d6

[Pyrion]

I took erudite. Easy to fix blindness, you get several summons for that (coldstone even gives you ultravision).

If i would start fresh i might use gnome, just because they are cute and open up the option to tinker... not sure if i would ever do that though.

[Baler]

Erudite is the meta for INT. My mage is Erudite, started when p99 was still in classic. For the most part race doesn't matter for magician but you may want to do a quick search for race specific restrictions on items in kunark and velious.

Mage gets Coldstone which is Ultravision in the ammo slot. So dark elf ultravision is null. DE hide is still in play.
Gnome tinkering is worth considering but in reality, tradeskills are a plat sink. What in the tinkering craft do you really need to be able to craft on the spot? Mages can already summon fireworks lol
And you can get gnome vision with shrink pots. so yeah,..

Agnostic Erudite Mage is the ultimate in neutral race/class combo.

I don't recommend human the stats are rough. high elf is okay-ish but their STR is the lowest of all races.

In a starting stat battle Erudite > Gnome > Dark Elf > High Elf > Human
That's based purely on starting stats.

[Izmael]

Mage is probably the class where race matters the least in EQ.

Go with what you think looks coolest and/or makes you feel like roleplaying.

[Samoht]

For a purely new player, I would recommend Dark Elf for the racial hide with 25 points in STR and the left over 5 in INT. It's going to be easier in the end to max our your INT than to carry your gear.

[GinnasP99]

Its worth noting that gnome won't need to carry shrink potions to drop eyes into walls for CoTH shenanigans. That aside, pick the race you like the look of most

[dafier]

For a purely new player, I would recommend Dark Elf for the racial hide with 25 points in STR and the left over 5 in INT. It's going to be easier in the end to max our your INT than to carry your gear.

^^

Perfect. Hide is amazing and helps tremendously in so many situations. If you need afk, /hide then con a mob to make sure they are indif (obviously KOS or even something other than indiff if not hiding), then walk away. If 1 mob is indif every other will be 99% of the time.

[Vexenu]

Erudite with all points in STR. This gives you 85 STR and 122 INT starting out which is very solid. As others have said, race means less to a Mage than any other class. You get an Ultravision ammo slot item. Hide is of limited value since you will almost always have a pet up. You don't really benefit from stacking tons of INT and mana the way a Wizard does, nor do you need to stack HP like a Necro, or balance multiple stats like an Enchanter. You just send in the pet and collect the loot.

It may seem strange to stack STR on an INT caster, but it's the right call in this case. As an example, my Mage has 155 STR and 194 INT wearing modest tunnel-bought gear and farms like a pro. Running around with thousands of plat like it's nothing? Now that's playing a Mage properly.

[Samoht]

Yeah, summoned bags don't reduce the weight of coin or the gear you're wearing, and since STA is not a good investment for a cloth caster, I highly recommend putting points into STR as a Magician or Necromancer and maybe even Wizard. Enchanter is a different story, though, since they need high INT and even higher CHA in order to be viable. Plus they can buff STR innately.

Yes, racial hide will dismiss your pet when it succeeds, but it is an invisibility with an unlimited duration and lacks the chance to break early, so if you ever have a moment when you would normally invis and AFK to med or wait for a spawn or something, hide becomes superior to invis (once it successfully activates). For instance, I use it when I'm sitting LFG at the zone in and don't know how long I'll be there and might step away for a moment.

So races with hide (Dark Elf, Wood Elf, Halfling) have an advantage over races without hide under most circumstances. It's not so important for classes that get hide (Rogue, Ranger, Bard, SK) or Improved Invisibility (https://wiki.project1999.com/Improved_Invisibility) (Wizard, Enchanter).

[Baler]

erudite
I did 5 STR, 15 STA, 10 INT on my mage back in classic 99. My logic was the str helps carry things I can't put in my 10 slot 100% weight reduction no-rent bags. 15 STA for just that little bit of extra HP at high level and 10 int so I don't have to fully commit to items with int.
My base stats were like ~ 65 str, 95 STA, 127 int (which is enough to level to 60 naked)

Looking back now in velious and even back in kunark.. I wish I did 15 str / 15 sta.
As long as you don't forget you can put all ur heavy stuff in 100% WR bags when you're online,. then move it to non-WR bags when you log out. So STR really only applies for the big parts to coin you can carry. Health is something that's not easy to get real high as a mage so the extra sta helps more than you think,. especially if root nets are runnin low.

---
edit: Mage get's instant invis to animal boots, so that DE hide to dismiss pet is null.
https://wiki.project1999.com/Earthen_Boots
*note- i'm not saying dark elf hide is useless. It's still super fly.

[Ravager]

^^

Perfect. Hide is amazing and helps tremendously in so many situations. If you need afk, /hide then con a mob to make sure they are indif (obviously KOS or even something other than indiff if not hiding), then walk away. If 1 mob is indif every other will be 99% of the time.

Except undead 100% of the time.