Quit my magician after I found out about the Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth...

[Zenren]

So I got to 35 as my magician, seemed to finally be coming into his own, when I mentioned I was working towards my epic and some people in my guild said, "don't hold your breath". Well they explained about this one item and how in the last two years no one in the guild had been able to get it (and it's one of the largest guilds on blue) and how I would probably just have to settle for the staff augmented water pet. For me the epic is a major part of what a character is about and not being able to get the epic, or having the epic be so impossibly hard that it will be improbable that anyone with a life and job will get it, seems to be a waste of time. If I know the end game project that defines my class is unattainable, why would I play it? What do other magicians think about this? also, I don't remember this being a problem in retail, so I'm wondering why it is a problem on Project 1999?

[ldgo86]

This is kind of the catch of Mage. The class is centred around your pet but without career unemployment you won’t get the kit for the class. I think the idea of the epic is really cool, but implemented very poorly. Mage and Bard both have very bottleneck epics that kind of “complete” your kit.

[Guesty07]

Eh it's a shame sure, but it doesn't really bother me. I can still have fun delving into dungeons with my friends without it.

[Solist]

Why do you want an epic on a mage? It's arguably the most useless epic in EQ after paladin, and is only good as a levelling tool.

Every 60 epic mage on the server uses theirs to.....farm faction in droga, or something. It's just meh otherwise. Nice resists for mainhand though.

[jolanar]

Why do you want an epic on a mage? It's arguably the most useless epic in EQ after paladin, and is only good as a levelling tool.

Every 60 epic mage on the server uses theirs to.....farm faction in droga, or something. It's just meh otherwise. Nice resists for mainhand though.

This is bad p99 forumquester logic. Also a farming class in Droga is probably the highest most consistent plat farm in the game that someone can do solo with no risk.

OP the level 60 water pet is pretty amazing. It's not as godly as an epic pet, but don't underestimate it.

But ya... you will never get your epic. ;)

[Vexenu]

The 60 water pet focused with the Phinny staff is very good. If you can keep it positioned properly for backstabs its DPS is not far off the epic pet. I've also heard of several instances of long-time Magician mains actually quitting the game shortly after acquiring their epic after years of waiting. Why? Because they'd built it up in their minds over that time as being this OMG AMAZING thing, but once they got it reality set in. The epic pet is very good, but it's not game-breaking or anything. It's still much weaker than any pet a 60 Enchanter can charm. It won't turn you into a solo or duo monster. The epic pet is not immune to the general difficulties associated with using pets in EQ. Is it worth having if you can get it? Absolutely. Does it render the Mage class useless if you can't? Hell no. Your non-epic pet can still put out massive DPS, you've still got nukes and damage shields, items to summon, clickie Burnt wood staff/Velk boots for mana-free DPS and to top it off the ever-useful CoTH.

Even without an epic Mages remain: one of the fastest/easiest classes for solo XPing, factioning and plat farming; the #1 class for group DPS (between pet, DS, nukes & clickie nukes); arguably the best "third wheel" class to add to the standard power duos (i.e. Enchanter/Cleric, Enchanter/Shaman, Monk/Shaman, SK/Shaman etc...) and you are always useful on raids between your mod rods, DPS and CoTH. No other class offers massive sustained DPS, massive burst DPS and the utility provided by summons/CoTH. And you do all this while enjoying some of the lowest APM (actions per minute, aka amount of button pressing required to play) of any class of the game.

If you like playing a Mage, don't give it up on account of the epic feeling out of reach. You can still contribute massively to groups and a guild without one, and their playstyle is unique from every other class.

[Zenren]

After having some time to get over the disappointment, I have decided to play my magician. I enjoy the class. I think it's the most difficult of pet classes to play, in light of the lack of CC, but it's still very rewarding. I may never get my epic, but at the very least I can use it to help gear up my alts when I level them.

[loramin]

Given the insanely unclassic amounts of other class epics we have on Blue, it makes it feel all the more unclassic and wrong that we have so few mage and bard epics. The "beta" nature of Blue has exacerbated the problem inherent in classic (and, notably, a problem that was fixed shortly after the classic period on live .. just like pet windows and custom UIs).

This is yet another case of "if they fix this with custom content the server will feel more classic, not less."

[Sabin76]

Perhaps someone can jog my memory here, but back in the day I had it in my head that the Mage epic was the only one that could actually be completed before you hit 50 (with lucky enough drops). I even tried to be the first level 46 mage on my server with an epic at one point.

Was working on Quillmane and got KS'd 3-4 times in a row and quite trying shortly after that, lol. Also hit 47 in that time and didn't feel like dying just to be back at 46.

What the hell was I thinking?!

[loramin]

Perhaps someone can jog my memory here, but back in the day I had it in my head that the Mage epic was the only one that could actually be completed before you hit 50 (with lucky enough drops). I even tried to be the first level 46 mage on my server with an epic at one point.

Was working on Quillmane and got KS'd 3-4 times in a row and quite trying shortly after that, lol. Also hit 47 in that time and didn't feel like dying just to be back at 46.

What the hell was I thinking?!

:) We were all basically Jon Snow back then; we thought we understood the game, but really ...

https://i.imgur.com/qiWski0.gif

But one thing is for sure: we certainly were not rezzing our way to Shaman epics, or MQing Rogue epics back then!

[DMN]

If everyone could obtain something it would be called common, not epic.

That said, I would think about what your plans were when you cap out at 60. if you planned to raid and group primarily, that epic is not terribly useful. If you planned to solo a lot, then, yes, not having the epic is a significant drawback. But since you are already in a big guild, it makes me think you are more inclined to grouping/raiding than soloing. And in all honesty if your plan was to solo mostly at 60, you picked the wrong class already and should definitely bail out.

[loramin]

And in all honesty if your plan was to solo mostly at 60, you picked the wrong class already and should definitely bail out.

:eek: Mages are one of the quintessential solo classes in classic EQ! Certainly not the best (/cough Necromancer) or second best (/cough Druid) ... maybe not even the third best (Shaman? Bard? Enchanter?) ...

... but still, if it's wrong for a Mage to solo, I don't want to be right.

[Vaarsuvius]

If everyone could obtain something it would be called common, not epic.

That said, I would think about what your plans were when you cap out at 60. if you planned to raid and group primarily, that epic is not terribly useful. If you planned to solo a lot, then, yes, not having the epic is a significant drawback. But since you are already in a big guild, it makes me think you are more inclined to grouping/raiding than soloing. And in all honesty if your plan was to solo mostly at 60, you picked the wrong class already and should definitely bail out.

Agreed, epic is by definitiion a very very rare item, but then how come sone so many rogues & clerics have theirs the minute they ding 46, and a lot of 60 mages still don"t and probably never will ?
And I'm not even talking about all the people that use the oh so handy excuse of FTE to act like douche with Quillmane ?

[loramin]

Agreed, epic is by definitiion a very very rare item, but then how come sone so many rogues & clerics have theirs the minute they ding 46, and a lot of 60 mages still don"t and probably never will ?

This is the crux of it: you can't just say "shit's classic" because it wasn't. In classic everyone's epic was rare.

The vast disparities in epics we see here are a function of Kunark existing on blue for seven years before Velious, instead of one ... coupled with vast differences in player knowledge.

But again, anyone claiming "it's classic to have millions of Rogue epics and no Mage epics" is full of it! Everyone's epic was rare at first, and the after the classic period they fixed epic drop rates on live.

[Izmael]

Rogue epic wasn't rare in classic Kunark. It was already a fairly trivial quest. The difference with P99 is that General fights took a guild, not a group.

But there were plenty of epic rogues running around.

I think it should be made harder to obtain on P99 though. 30k for the MQ just feels broken.

[loramin]

I mean at some point we're fighting over pointless numbers neither of us can prove :) Was there 1.5 as many Rogue epics on live as Mages? Probably? 2:1? Maybe, who knows?

But the ratio here is like 100:1 or worse. Having less Mage epics (but only slightly, and everyone's epic is super rare) is classic. Having virtually every member of some classes (45+) wielding their epic is clearly not, and again the seven years of Kunark (OF COURSE!) made things less classic.

Like I keep saying, this is a clear example of where custom content could actually make Blue more classic.

[NegaStoat]

Quitting a mage over the feeling of not being able to complete your epic is lame. The water staff is a decent consolation prize considering how easy it is to get and how damn burly the last water voceration is and its monstrous damage output. Yeah, it's not a charmed pet for the damage parse, but who cares? Monks and Rogues are usually sweating bullets to keep up with it, let alone with your pet's damage output added to your personal spell contribution.

[Naethyn]

Join a raid guild. Be proactive in using the hate tracker. Get help. Put your time in. It is totally achievable without no-life-ing. Some of my favorite moments on p99 are getting a mage who has waited and tried so hard their epic. It is a real cheer point in discord.

[Vaarsuvius]

Join a raid guild. Be proactive in using the hate tracker. Get help. Put your time in. It is totally achievable without no-life-ing. Some of my favorite moments on p99 are getting a mage who has waited and tried so hard their epic. It is a real cheer point in discord.

While I agree with you, doing all this does not guarantee any mage a lucky roll when an earth staff finally drops or that you'll have enough dkp to get it over the over your guildee mages that will have done like you to get that staff.

I'd never looked into the rog epic 'quest' until today, but this is a joke. 2 fights and some running around? How epic is that?
FFS, all even the soloable parts of mage epic will take twice as long... I've got some quests on my noob 30 chanter that will be harder than that too, but some guys will still whine when mages express their concern about the drop rate of the biggest bottleneck on blue?

[ChooChoo Train]

Get your staff now while it drops off Inny - it’s not as bad of a bottleneck until a single farm group can lock down Magi.

[7thGate]

You also have to break into hate or sneak up there for the Rogue epic. When ALS did my epic, we weren't strong enough as a guild to consistently break into Hate, so I did it the sneaky thieving way, which honestly did feel like a pretty epic roguey thing to do.

Ah, memories. We had a 24 man raid force for General V`Gheera, and our main tank was level 53 with like 4000 buffed HP. We ended up running a 3 second chain to keep him up during the fight and succeeded on our second try.

I would be a little surprised if Rogue epics weren't relatively common back in the day. Once someone figures out the quest and the details are online, its not too hard. I would be surprised if people were completing it with 6-10 people or buying MQs on live back in classic, but I would expect most good sized guilds should be able to do what ALS did here.

ALS kept a list of our epics in order on blue, which I thought was kind of interesting since it pretty clearly showed how hard it was to do the different types (though also some amount of how popular classes were). Order of completion
for first epic of each type was:
Rogue (1)
Ranger (Swiftwind) (3)
Monk (4)
Druid (6)
Cleric (7)
Shaman (8)
Enchanter (9)
Necromancer (16)
Ranger (Earthcaller) (19)
Paladin (21)
Shadowknight (30)
Wizard (32)
Warrior (48)
Bard (60)

And, to bring us back around to the topic at hand, ALS never got a Mage epic.

[Izmael]

If my memories are any good, most if not all general fights back then (that is, pre-Luclin) were solid zergfests with tanks (and not tanks) dying left and right, lots of ressing going on in-between fights, and a bunch of tired but happy rogues at the end of the night.

Often it was a multi-guild event. Fun times.

FTE, poop-sock or pixels did not exist as concepts, yet.

[Snaggles]

I’ve fallen in and out of characters and even p99 many times. It’s always there when you need if. Stripped and re-geared my ranger 3 times before getting my Swiftwind at 58.

Pixel thirst is real. Likely you won’t get the best stuff unless you play an unhealthy amount or are extremely lucky. It wouldn’t hurt to bounce back and forth to the mage. At 60 it’s going to be very useful and powerful epic or not.

[Solist]

If my memories are any good, most if not all general fights back then (that is, pre-Luclin) were solid zergfests with tanks (and not tanks) dying left and right, lots of ressing going on in-between fights, and a bunch of tired but happy rogues at the end of the night.

Often it was a multi-guild event. Fun times.

FTE, poop-sock or pixels did not exist as concepts, yet.

what in the casual heck are you talking about?

Yeah maybe for some people, probably the minority.

[Izmael]

what in the casual heck are you talking about?

Yeah maybe for some people, probably the minority.

What are you disagreeing with, exactly?

[enjchanter]

just join riot and save 1000 dkp for it at all times, ez

[Christina.]

You can get it just have to join a raiding guild, be an active mage for your guild and keep look out on the staff. Don't let players who haven't got their staff make you think it's unachievable hehe.

[fastboy21]

For me the epic is a major part of what a character is about and not being able to get the epic [...] seems to be a waste of time.

And this is why you lose at EQ before you even rolled your first character. No pixels will ever satisfy you. Learn. Improve. Find out what EQ is really about...

or surrender and go play on live where you can instance a whole hate plane for yourself and finish your epic in a few days. Same pixels, right? Why does it matter?

{Also, you can get your epic without any guild at all on blue. I've done it for my chars: necro and bard being the hardest slog of it...its doable, but I still say quitting a char just b/c you think its going to take you a couple years to finish your epic is exactly what makes EQ so great. Tough it out or go the easy way.}

[Christina.]

Yeah definitely don't quit your char because it...because if you want it bad enough, you'll get it. Just may take a little time.

[enjchanter]

No pixels will ever satisfy you.



disagree

i looted my vulak robe and left the game

[kjs86z]

lots of guilds compete for Magi

pick a guild flavor and it'll come with time

nothing in EQ happens quickly

[greenspectre]

http://www.gucomics.com/comics/2001/gu_20010625.jpg

Proof that rogue epic was common in 2001. I win.

[Vaarsuvius]

http://www.gucomics.com/comics/2001/gu_20010625.jpg

Proof that rogue epic was common in 2001. I win.