Paladin Mage duo?

[Ranagar]

Question for mage players: buddy of mine and I play as a duo 100% of the time. We’ve done Necro/Shaman (first duo), Chanter/Cleric (most powerful obviously) and Shaman/Monk. Thinking about Paladin/mage with a focus on dungeon crawling for exp especially dungeons we never did on live. We use the heck out of kills with the chanter so I’ve become enamored thinking about the 3rd class that can do this and how to employ it in a duo (we don’t want to repeat play enchanter or shaman).

[zelld52]

Noticed this post didnt get any love, but I have tried a similar duo.

One of the biggest issues with this duo is mana. Pal and Mag don't have great options for self-sustained mana regen, like ENC, SHM or NEC do.

The other tools are there, Paladin has CC with root / pacify, and mage has DPS and damage shield. But, both classes are somewhat mana intensive. (Especially if the Pal has to front the work of all the healing)

I think it would work well, but definitely not as well as your other duos.

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

Noticed this post didnt get any love, but I have tried a similar duo.

One of the biggest issues with this duo is mana. Pal and Mag don't have great options for self-sustained mana regen, like ENC, SHM or NEC do.

The other tools are there, Paladin has CC with root / pacify, and mage has DPS and damage shield. But, both classes are somewhat mana intensive. (Especially if the Pal has to front the work of all the healing)

I think it would work well, but definitely not as well as your other duos.

All good points. Well said.

You can get a little more mileage out of the duo by root-jousting on the Paladin and letting the Mage pet soak the damage/regen. Swap back in between swings or when you need to save the pet (or re-cast). Quickly sit in-between swings and hit a med tick here and there... etc...

Aside from that, it won't get much more efficient, and far below your other duos.

[Snaggles]

It just depends what you are doing. A geared pally can kill a lot of 7min spawns with a DW BP. Soloing my mage I could do two per 7 min spawns on repop without mana issues.

Crawling seb is going to be slow if not bypassing with Lull but just grinding both to 60 it can’t be that bad if you pick smart places to grind.

[Zuranthium]

You can get a little more mileage out of the duo by root-jousting on the Paladin and letting the Mage pet soak the damage/regen.

You can also pull a MOB directly into the pet, and root it there. The pet will now be tanking because it has proximity aggro, letting the Paladin attack the whole time while the Fire pet does big DPS with its damage shield. Or if you don't want to have to keep casting Fire pets over and over, then you can use a Water pet to tank and get the benefit of its fast regen.

[Drueric]

You can also pull a MOB directly into the pet, and root it there. The pet will now be tanking because it has proximity aggro, letting the Paladin attack the whole time while the Fire pet does big DPS with its damage shield. Or if you don't want to have to keep casting Fire pets over and over, then you can use a Water pet to tank and get the benefit of its fast regen.

Root doesnt work that way with pets. The mobs would still prioritize the nearest player over a pet even if rooted. Otherwise Mage/Rogue duo would dominate. Or any mage/earth pet + any melee would be a viable duo.

[Crede]

It just depends what you are doing. A geared pally can kill a lot of 7min spawns with a DW BP. Soloing my mage I could do two per 7 min spawns on repop without mana issues.

Crawling seb is going to be slow if not bypassing with Lull but just grinding both to 60 it can’t be that bad if you pick smart places to grind.

Yea I think the only way this duo truly works 45+ is with a DW BP. Otherwise you will just have a ton of downtime waiting for the pally to heal up as the mage will be putting out huge dps with no aggro concerns.

You could maybe get by with the pally healing up with DW Helm as the mage pet tanks a bit, but the bp will give you a lot more momentum. But for the most part these classes complement eachother very well so I say go for it if you're considering!

[Zuranthium]

Root doesnt work that way with pets.

It's supposed to! I remember being annoyed in random groups when they wouldn't pull directly on top of the pet properly. This intrigued me so I tried to look for some documentation; someone made a bug thread about it already a long time ago...but Rogean said he wouldn't put it in even if hard proof was found, lol.

Otherwise any mage/earth pet + any melee would be a viable duo.

It wasn't totally reliable to use the pet's root for the trick, it could get resisted a lot. And if you don't pull directly on top of the pet, then pets naturally always default to attacking at max melee range, which stops any root cast at that point from working for the proximity aggro.

[Drueric]

It's supposed to! I remember being annoyed in random groups when they wouldn't pull directly on top of the pet properly. This intrigued me so I tried to look for some documentation; someone made a bug thread about it already a long time ago...but Rogean said he wouldn't put it in even if hard proof was found, lol.



It wasn't totally reliable to use the pet's root for the trick, it could get resisted a lot. And if you don't pull directly on top of the pet, then pets naturally always default to attacking at max melee range, which stops any root cast at that point from working for the proximity aggro.

They werent going to fix it because its not a bug. It would be exploitive if it worked the way you wanted. It does work though if you are duoing with another pet caster. Pull the mobs on top of the earth pet, and then it will be targeted while other pets get sent in from a distance.

[Zuranthium]

It would be exploitive if it worked the way you wanted.

It's not about how I want it (I wouldn't want a game to have that function), rather how it actually was in classic. It's possible that it got changed in Velious era when they made a separate change to nerf pet tanking on Raid targets (MOBs are supposed to ignore pets, if possible, if there are more than 4 players aggroed) but I kind of doubt that, because Root tanking wasn't a concern at all with Raid targets.

[Snaggles]

Yea I think the only way this duo truly works 45+ is with a DW BP. Otherwise you will just have a ton of downtime waiting for the pally to heal up as the mage will be putting out huge dps with no aggro concerns.

You could maybe get by with the pally healing up with DW Helm as the mage pet tanks a bit, but the bp will give you a lot more momentum. But for the most part these classes complement eachother very well so I say go for it if you're considering!

Yea agreed. With a fungi it wouldn’t be too bad but I always assume people might not have one.

It might be a reason to get bind wound cooking though. Even to 50% with LoH up the sleeve there is less risk and the mage can make bandages all day.

[Zuranthium]

Should try to fight two separate MOBs at a time. Get the benefit of two damage shields - one a fire pet, and one cast by the mage on the paladin, while the paladin uses root as needed to counteract p99's sad non-classic aggro dump that happens when the mage does a pet recast during combat.

[Vexenu]

Should try to fight two separate MOBs at a time. Get the benefit of two damage shields - one a fire pet, and one cast by the mage on the paladin, while the paladin uses root as needed to counteract p99's sad non-classic aggro dump that happens when the mage does a pet recast during combat.
Or could just have the Paladin root and joust in and out with a big two-hander while a fire pet tanks with DS between swings, with the Mage recycling new fire pets regularly. Or could have Mage get a max level air pet and keep it hasted and just let the Paladin tank while the pet DPSes and throws out stuns.

You actually have several viable strats with this duo. I imagine it would be pretty fun to play. Not a power duo, but definitely capable, as each class complements the other very nicely.

[Duik]

I love odd duo/trios pal & druid(me) in solb - necro(me) "healing" a war & rog in the warrens. Not upper lvl stuff though.

Pal tank with a water pet (or whatever backstabs) mag ds and burns like a cheap wiz. Prolly heaps of down time. I dont mind afk/downtime.

Ha a thought. Macklemores song Downtime...

Mana thirty-eight, man, chill the fuck out
Wrap ya damn wounds and sit the hell down