Best Magician aggro spell(s)?

[TheBlob]

I tried soloing an Ice burrower a while ago, as a non-epic 60 Magician with focused water pet and Flowing Thought I. It felt like my standing mana regen wasn't going to be enough for the kill. Since the Ice burrower wasn't snared and its melee range is pretty big (I think), I had trouble doing the "sit down every tick" technique while running away from it. Instead, I ran a big distance and sat down while it was catching up to me. At one point, I ran too far away and discovered the leash mechanic making the mob lose aggro. After this attempt, I gave up and never tried again.

The most mana consuming part of the fight was the beginning, where the pet gets aggro real quick. I was wondering if magicians have big aggro spells that could help in the beginning.

1) What are the best Magician aggro spells? The wiki doesn't seem to display this data. Mana cost and casting time are also a consideration.

2) Has any Magician here soloed Ice burrowers? Are aggro spells a good idea, or should I just get more confident at the "sitting down on server tick" technique?

Cheers!

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Clickies/procs can be a great way to accomplish these marathon fights, as they do not require mana.

Bio orb would probably be your best bet agro-wise, but the 5 second cast time would cause you to get hit if the burrower isn't snared.

Bio Orb + pet with a snare whip may work, but the snare whip will generate extra hate on procs. And if the bio orb blind does land, the pet will be attacked. So you would need multiple snare whips corpsed, and basically use all your mana for pet resummons. Having the clickie burnout pants would help save mana if the pet is dying multiple times.

Taking a quick look at the mage spell list, I don't see anything offhand that would generate good hate for low mana. Mages mostly just have damage spells with regards to spells that land on enemies.

https://youtu.be/-RZevG64Kj8?feature=shared - This is a video of a Mage soloing an Ice Burrower on P99. But they have Epic.

An amusing thought I had was to use the Shield of Lava clickie robe (https://wiki.project1999.com/Robe_of_Conjuration) on low level pets, and have the ice burrower slowly kill itself on the damage shield. But you would need a ton of summoning reagents. You'd probably need to have multiple corpses worth.

[TheBlob]

I do sometimes use Gnoll Hide Lariats for long farming sessions but I find the 200 pp cost of the snare whips a bit prohibitive for pet sacrifice haha

I don't have the Burnout pants yet (but I do have the Shield of Lava robe) and first thought that they could be useful to generate aggro, but my pet would have to be on the Burrower's aggro list for the spell to generate aggro, so the burrower would be too close to cast such a long casting time spell.

Concerning the idea of the DSed low level pets, it is indeed a fun idea haha but I'm wondering why especially low level? Just for the fun of it or do they have more hp per mana?

Are there any (ideally) repeatable clickies other than Bioluminescent Orb that generate significant levels of aggro?

[DeathsSilkyMist]

I do sometimes use Gnoll Hide Lariats for long farming sessions but I find the 200 pp cost of the snare whips a bit prohibitive for pet sacrifice haha

I don't have the Burnout pants yet (but I do have the Shield of Lava robe) and first thought that they could be useful to generate aggro, but my pet would have to be on the Burrower's aggro list for the spell to generate aggro, so the burrower would be too close to cast such a long casting time spell.

Concerning the idea of the DSed low level pets, it is indeed a fun idea haha but I'm wondering why especially low level? Just for the fun of it or do they have more hp per mana?

Are there any (ideally) repeatable clickies other than Bioluminescent Orb that generate significant levels of aggro?

My original thinking for low level pets was mainly the smaller mana cost. It would be easier to med like 4 ticks per pet while running, since you were having some issues with that.

Math-wise I think a higher pet would have more HP per mana. Average hit for Ice Burrower is like 120. If the wiki is right Monster summoning 3 has 3200 HP minimum. So it would survive ~26 hits before dying for 400 mana. That is like 15 mana per hit. The level 8 earth pet would survive like 2 hits, so that would be 40 mana per hit. The higher level pet would do more DPS melee-wise before dying, so that is probably the better way to go.

You just need to get better at not going beyond the leash range. It is doable once you get a feel for it.

https://youtu.be/5fsvt1xfuqY?si=ayxQxvpcIhKbLkeW - this is a video of my shaman pet kiting an ice burrower for an hour without it leashing.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Forlorn_Totem_of_Rolfron_Zek would probably be the best alternative to bio orb, but they only have 5 charges. Luckily they aren't lore and they can be recharged, so you could bring a bag or two of these.

[PatChapp]

Lowest level malo line generates the same agro as the higher level. 60 mana,but its the best youll find.

[Balimon]

Interesting. I never thought to try soloing one on my mage. I don't think you really need to build aggro at all in this situation. There's a bug where when your pet dies it transfer all of its aggro to you, so I'm guessing that if you chain summon level 49 fire pets or Dyzils eventually you will build up a fair amount if aggro and that point start summoning water pets. You'll run out of mana eventually.

This is where the DS robe/BO pants/lava diamond clickies would be useful. But realistically if you make 20 muzzles and have BO pants you could get a lot of milage out the pets you do summon. After watching the video the mage only uses the epic pet on the initial pull, I think the 20 second cast time is prohibitive there. You'll notice she is using the BO pants and lava diamonds and as the fight goes along she holds aggro longer and longer per pet. If she had presummoned muzzles the fight would've been shorter as it's pretty easy to hand one off each time you summon.

[Balimon]

My original thinking for low level pets was mainly the smaller mana cost. It would be easier to med like 4 ticks per pet while running, since you were having some issues with that.

Math-wise I think a higher pet would have more HP per mana. Average hit for Ice Burrower is like 120. If the wiki is right Monster summoning 3 has 3200 HP minimum. So it would survive ~26 hits before dying for 400 mana. That is like 15 mana per hit. The level 8 earth pet would survive like 2 hits, so that would be 40 mana per hit. The higher level pet would do more DPS melee-wise before dying, so that is probably the better way to go.

You just need to get better at not going beyond the leash range. It is doable once you get a feel for it.

https://youtu.be/5fsvt1xfuqY?si=ayxQxvpcIhKbLkeW - this is a video of my shaman pet kiting an ice burrower for an hour without it leashing.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Forlorn_Totem_of_Rolfron_Zek would probably be the best alternative to bio orb, but they only have 5 charges. Luckily they aren't lore and they can be recharged, so you could bring a bag or two of these.

Nice find on the video! So in response to using monster summoning: you're better off chaining shoveled level 49 earth pets with lava diamonds or robe click. It's 200 mana for an average of 3k health. Higher level spells are great and all and people forget how powerful the focused 49 pets are.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Nice find on the video! So in response to using monster summoning: you're better off chaining shoveled level 49 earth pets with lava diamonds or robe click. It's 200 mana for an average of 3k health. Higher level spells are great and all and people forget how powerful the focused 49 pets are.

Yeah 200 mana for 3k HP is great! I'm not really familiar with all of the Mage pet HP's, especially when focused.

[Duik]

Lowest level malo line generates the same agro as the higher level. 60 mana,but its the best youll find.

I thought this as well.

[Crede]

Yeah 200 mana for 3k HP is great! I'm not really familiar with all of the Mage pet HP's, especially when focused.

Yea the focus items add like 25% hp or something ridiculous on non earth pets. I don’t think the shovel focus gives <= 49 earth pet more hp? I pretty much exclusively soloed with a torch focused fire pet until lvl 55 or so. Most fights I only needed to cast like 2 nukes to get full xp since the fire pet DS is huge and neutral damage. At 55-60 I switched to the final earth pets as the root came more in handy using rains to just quickly burn mobs down.

[Snaggles]

Yea Bio orb is the best bet by a long shot. Otherwise you gotta pack a scepter of forlorn.

Bio orb wouldn’t be a horrible item to have in general, if it blinds them I wonder if it would stay on the pet or go running. If the latter the water pet might get a few backstabs in. Also, serrated bone dirks are cheap, not lore, and would be low level enough to proc as pet weapons.

[Vivitron]

https://youtu.be/-RZevG64Kj8?feature=shared - This is a video of a Mage soloing an Ice Burrower on P99. But they have Epic.

That was more amusing than I expected, cool kill. I wonder how many more hitrounds the https://wiki.project1999.com/Sainy%27s_Singing_Dagger bought the second epic pet.

Yea Bio orb is the best bet by a long shot. Otherwise you gotta pack a scepter of forlorn.

Bio orb wouldn’t be a horrible item to have in general, if it blinds them I wonder if it would stay on the pet or go running. If the latter the water pet might get a few backstabs in. Also, serrated bone dirks are cheap, not lore, and would be low level enough to proc as pet weapons.

I would probably go with totems (https://wiki.project1999.com/Forlorn_Totem_of_Rolfron_Zek) instead of a scepter because they're cheap and cheap to recharge. Also I would not be surprised if a mage could come up with a trophy or loot kill that would benefit from spamming them for the stun.

I think you would still end up chaining pets, as they do pretty high aggro compared to these clicks. But I think they could let you get away with fewer pets.

I doubt you would land the orb or a serrated bone dirk pet proc even after mala.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Yea Bio orb is the best bet by a long shot. Otherwise you gotta pack a scepter of forlorn.

Bio orb wouldn’t be a horrible item to have in general, if it blinds them I wonder if it would stay on the pet or go running. If the latter the water pet might get a few backstabs in. Also, serrated bone dirks are cheap, not lore, and would be low level enough to proc as pet weapons.

If the blind does land, the pet will be attacked. That is the downside to blind kiting in comparison to fear kiting, you can't use pets while blind kiting. The upside to blind kiting is it can work on mobs 55+.

But obviously this specific scenario isn't blind kiting, the bio orb would just be used to build agro, and the assumption is it will be resisted most of the time.

Vivitron is correct, totem would be better than scepter of the forlorn. You could have a scepter too for a quick agro dump, but they are harder to get since they can't be recharged. Totems are much easier to recharge on a per fight basis.


I would probably go with totems (https://wiki.project1999.com/Forlorn_Totem_of_Rolfron_Zek) instead of a scepter because they're cheap and cheap to recharge. Also I would not be surprised if a mage could come up with a trophy or loot kill that would benefit from spamming them for the stun.



I doubt you would land the orb or a serrated bone dirk pet proc even after mala.

You can land them, but it's a low chance for sure. I was able to slow Ice Burrowers after a Malo, but it took multiple attempts.

[Balimon]

Yea the focus items add like 25% hp or something ridiculous on non earth pets. I don’t think the shovel focus gives <= 49 earth pet more hp? I pretty much exclusively soloed with a torch focused fire pet until lvl 55 or so. Most fights I only needed to cast like 2 nukes to get full xp since the fire pet DS is huge and neutral damage. At 55-60 I switched to the final earth pets as the root came more in handy using rains to just quickly burn mobs down.

I'm positive the shovel increases all the earth pets HP levels 4-49, I've used him a bunch of various things. You're spot on though for a torched fire pet to 55/57 and then using the final earth pet to finish up.

[Balimon]

That was more amusing than I expected, cool kill. I wonder how many more hitrounds the https://wiki.project1999.com/Sainy%27s_Singing_Dagger bought the second epic pet.



I would probably go with totems (https://wiki.project1999.com/Forlorn_Totem_of_Rolfron_Zek) instead of a scepter because they're cheap and cheap to recharge. Also I would not be surprised if a mage could come up with a trophy or loot kill that would benefit from spamming them for the stun.

I think you would still end up chaining pets, as they do pretty high aggro compared to these clicks. But I think they could let you get away with fewer pets.

I doubt you would land the orb or a serrated bone dirk pet proc even after mala.

Yeah if you were going to use an item to build aggro, the totems are the way to go. I use them for certain solo fights for the stun.

[Snaggles]

I would probably go with totems (https://wiki.project1999.com/Forlorn_Totem_of_Rolfron_Zek) instead of a scepter because they're cheap and cheap to recharge. Also I would not be surprised if a mage could come up with a trophy or loot kill that would benefit from spamming them for the stun.

I think you would still end up chaining pets, as they do pretty high aggro compared to these clicks. But I think they could let you get away with fewer pets.

I doubt you would land the orb or a serrated bone dirk pet proc even after mala.

Oh of course, good call. Fast casting too.

[TheBlob]

https://wiki.project1999.com/Forlorn_Totem_of_Rolfron_Zek would probably be the best alternative to bio orb, but they only have 5 charges. Luckily they aren't lore and they can be recharged, so you could bring a bag or two of these.

I didn't think about the stun totems! I'm wondering if one totem with a couple of casts of the lowest spell in the Malo line would be enough to let the first pet hit for a couple of seconds (instead of being attacked instantly), and from there it would only last longer and longer and maybe that would be enough? I need to test it sometime in the future.

Balimon, what you describe is what I tried, but the first pets die so quickly that I was wondering if I could build up a bit of aggro beforehand to lose less mana on "wasted" pets.

The presummoned Muzzles are a nice addition too!

About the focused earth pet, do you guys think that would be more mana efficient at building aggro than casting cheap malo spells?

Right now I don't have a bio orb, epic or VS staff so I'm more inclined to try stun totem(s) + mala + muzzled water pets. Will keep you guys updated when I do try it!

The video of the mage soloing is also very nice haha I love how it becomes night during the fight :P

Vivitron, I'm not sure what you mean by "Also I would not be surprised if a mage could come up with a trophy or loot kill that would benefit from spamming them for the stun." Could you elaborate?

[Snaggles]

If you are going to aggro kite, definitely want to use a water pet. The cold DD shouldn’t have an aggro component like stun or root, plus it will backstab.

I would likely either farm up crystalline spider silks to keep the target rooted on pet kills/resummons or drag it around in an open space spamming Totems. In my experience Malo has very little aggro compared to a PC casted fun. Even if your class can’t cast the spell.

[TheBlob]

If you are going to aggro kite, definitely want to use a water pet. The cold DD shouldn’t have an aggro component like stun or root, plus it will backstab.

I would likely either farm up crystalline spider silks to keep the target rooted on pet kills/resummons or drag it around in an open space spamming Totems. In my experience Malo has very little aggro compared to a PC casted fun. Even if your class can’t cast the spell.

Can't wait to get the item with Effect: fun ! :P

Jokes aside, I will prioritize the totems then. Since the silks are now too expensive to recharge, I would like to not use any "consumables" (unless they are cheap, like malachites and stun totems).

[Vivitron]

Vivitron, I'm not sure what you mean by "Also I would not be surprised if a mage could come up with a trophy or loot kill that would benefit from spamming them for the stun." Could you elaborate?

Sure; first as an interrupt it may open up the ability to kill some casters that you otherwise couldn't, especially clerics -- e.g. totem stun to interrupt CH. Second, I think you could keep a mob perma stunned for 25+ seconds per totem (and still have time to use scars of sigil between stuns if necessary), so you might be able to kill slightly tougher mobs where chain pet isn't viable or use it to help split a double spawn. I haven't played mages much but maybe something like https://wiki.project1999.com/Royal_Scribe_Kaavin (his MR is borderline high for this, but might be doable) or Undertow's room.

[Balimon]

Sure; first as an interrupt it may open up the ability to kill some casters that you otherwise couldn't, especially clerics -- e.g. totem stun to interrupt CH. Second, I think you could keep a mob perma stunned for 25+ seconds per totem (and still have time to use scars of sigil between stuns if necessary), so you might be able to kill slightly tougher mobs where chain pet isn't viable or use it to help split a double spawn. I haven't played mages much but maybe something like https://wiki.project1999.com/Royal_Scribe_Kaavin (his MR is borderline high for this, but might be doable) or Undertow's room.

This is exactly right; you totem, Scars, totem, Scars. You don't need it for Undertow's room, but it's a good use for sure, especially on him. You intuition is spot on though, it's my secret weapon for Tserrina :)

[TheBlob]

Sure; first as an interrupt it may open up the ability to kill some casters that you otherwise couldn't, especially clerics -- e.g. totem stun to interrupt CH. Second, I think you could keep a mob perma stunned for 25+ seconds per totem (and still have time to use scars of sigil between stuns if necessary), so you might be able to kill slightly tougher mobs where chain pet isn't viable or use it to help split a double spawn. I haven't played mages much but maybe something like https://wiki.project1999.com/Royal_Scribe_Kaavin (his MR is borderline high for this, but might be doable) or Undertow's room.

Nice! I am always on the lookout for new solo challenges for my magician. It is pretty tough with no CC and everything. I was convinced I needed my epic to try new targets (Froglok King, maybe?) but perma-stunning sounds nice, and not so expensive!

Balimon mentioned Tserrina. I need to solo her at some point haha

[Danth]

You could also get one of the clarity clicky items if they're still out there (one off myconids, one from frontier cycle) and run around building aggro before sending the pet in at all. With burrowers, you've got nothing but time, boredom is ultimately your worst enemy.

[Snaggles]

Mala and Sini is the cheat code for clickies like the Totem of the Forlorn and the Midnight Mallet, and it can’t hurt for stun whips with the pet. Trying to interrupt a blue con’s casting otherwise (like with a pally) is a coin flip. I’d pack a reaper and cap too.

I like the control of an earth pet but outside the epic a focused air is the GOAT for tanking stuff that can be stunned. It takes significantly less damage per second than the earth.

This all assumes close-quarter fighting. For mobs that can’t summon a sow pot to start and jboots combined with a water pet and totems seems the magic formula. I still think messing with an Ice Burrower kill would be for a sadist.

[TheBlob]

You could also get one of the clarity clicky items if they're still out there (one off myconids, one from frontier cycle) and run around building aggro before sending the pet in at all. With burrowers, you've got nothing but time, boredom is ultimately your worst enemy.

Yeah boredom is what made me run too far away to catch a break from sitting and running but ultimately made me go too far, which is why getting as much aggro as possible (with the clarity clicky items you mentioned, which I did not know existed!) then casting pets might make it possible to do without medding at all (a manna robe and FT II and V would help!).

Concerning the clarity clicky items, I know that the wiki prices are not to be taken as word of law, but why are Clarifying Spores (Lore, 4 seconds casting time, dropped from Myconids) worth 500 pp and the Potion of Insight worth 50 pp (not Lore, instant cast, dropped from goblin cycle in FM)? Is it the 0.0 weight VS 1.0 weight?

Snaggles, what is this Sini you are talking about? The Midnight Mallet might be interesting, but it's kind of expensive to recharge.

The Stun Whips are indeed very good. I managed to solo the Searhorse Matriarch in KK with a max level pet with 2 stun whips, alternating between Shock of Swords and the 200 hp Heal, and switching to burning her down when she was close to 40% and was trying to complete heal. About killing the Royal Scribe, the Matriarch is level 47 with 4105 hp (according to the wiki), while the Scribe is level 49 with 7500 hp, and both hit for about the same. I wonder if the same strategy would work, but I doubt I could burn him down before he would CH. Without chaining stuns during the whole fight, just timing them when he spent 5 sec casting might work.

We are killing Dain tonight. If I win the head, I will need to work on my Tormax faction, so I would have a good reason to try the Royal Scribe :P

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Concerning the clarity clicky items, I know that the wiki prices are not to be taken as word of law, but why are Clarifying Spores (Lore, 4 seconds casting time, dropped from Myconids) worth 500 pp and the Potion of Insight worth 50 pp (not Lore, instant cast, dropped from goblin cycle in FM)? Is it the 0.0 weight VS 1.0 weight?

Snaggles, what is this Sini you are talking about? The Midnight Mallet might be interesting, but it's kind of expensive to recharge.


Sini refers to malosini.

Midnight mallet isn't worth recharging, it was one of the items they purposely nerfed recharge-wise.

Price-wise you can see Potion of insight barely has any sales, the last record being 2020 on blue. This is probably because no one really kills the mob that drops potion of insight. Fungi King is a very popular camp by contrast, so people are much more likely to have some Clarifying Spores sitting around and ready to sell. With that being said, there aren't too many sales for Clarifying Spores either. Someone may have sold it for a higher price so the price records get warped. People sometimes do this to try and force a price adjustment.

[Balimon]

Yeah boredom is what made me run too far away to catch a break from sitting and running but ultimately made me go too far, which is why getting as much aggro as possible (with the clarity clicky items you mentioned, which I did not know existed!) then casting pets might make it possible to do without medding at all (a manna robe and FT II and V would help!).

Concerning the clarity clicky items, I know that the wiki prices are not to be taken as word of law, but why are Clarifying Spores (Lore, 4 seconds casting time, dropped from Myconids) worth 500 pp and the Potion of Insight worth 50 pp (not Lore, instant cast, dropped from goblin cycle in FM)? Is it the 0.0 weight VS 1.0 weight?

Snaggles, what is this Sini you are talking about? The Midnight Mallet might be interesting, but it's kind of expensive to recharge.

The Stun Whips are indeed very good. I managed to solo the Searhorse Matriarch in KK with a max level pet with 2 stun whips, alternating between Shock of Swords and the 200 hp Heal, and switching to burning her down when she was close to 40% and was trying to complete heal. About killing the Royal Scribe, the Matriarch is level 47 with 4105 hp (according to the wiki), while the Scribe is level 49 with 7500 hp, and both hit for about the same. I wonder if the same strategy would work, but I doubt I could burn him down before he would CH. Without chaining stuns during the whole fight, just timing them when he spent 5 sec casting might work.

We are killing Dain tonight. If I win the head, I will need to work on my Tormax faction, so I would have a good reason to try the Royal Scribe :P

The other strategy I use on healing mobs is to cast Sirocco at around 45% of the mobs HP and then GCD cast Scars, it won't start casting Cheal until under 40% that way (it's dropping too fast) and often you can finish it before it finishes the cast.

A good mob to practice this on: is https://wiki.project1999.com/Shardwurm_matriarch

It's tricky to get the timing down and you need every wave of the rain to hit, but it does work!