Mage specialization and deity
 

Was thinking of Erudite mage and being blind for a while. Does deity matter at all for mage? I know for enchanter it's good to go agnostic. I saw on the wiki for blue it suggests doing conjuration over evocation for specialization. Does that reverse for green since it only goes to 50?

For the most part theres a diety selection power hierarchy that goes like this:

Veeshan > Solusek Ro > Bristlebane = Zek = Agnostic > Tunare = Innoruuk > Other goods > Other evils


I.e. Only a bard can worship veeshan and the faction gain from doing so outweighs agnostic significantly. If you can't decide on a flavor of deity you should select veeshan. Wizards same with ro since better than Agnostic.

Zek is a toss up benefits vs kos, bristlebane gets agnostic faction but BB items included, Tunare and inny get a lot of toys but are very good and evil, etc

But even beyond the min maxing diety is flavorful. I think Quellious is a neat diety

I think magicians have the closest thing to an actual choice in specialization. I think that conjuration wins out though especially in classic.

I went Quellious on blue it's strange not being kos to dervish cutthroats, and the ability to summon a pet and stroll around SolA unmolested. I didn't check the effretti, was too low level at the time. I'm sure he would still be kos, Kindle was not.
On Live had a human mage following Karana seemed kind of disliked by more npc's.
On live I stayed Conj the whole time, Evo is a good choice if your going to be raiding and nuking alot through Classic and switch to Conj around the time you get you last big nuke in your late 50's. Respeccing costs a ruby(or 2? been a while)once Temple of Ro goes live.

Conjuration vs. Evocation largely depends on how you intend to level. If you're mostly going to be grouping go Evo, since you will be casting a lot of nukes after you summon one max level pet and just keep it buffed. If you intend to solo, go Conjuration, since you will be chain summoning pets over and over.

At 50 it again becomes a consideration of how you'll mostly be using your Mage. If you think you'll be doing a lot of grouping/duoing stick with Evo. If you plan to do a lot of solo farming, Conjuration is better. And if you want to be most useful to a guild during raids, also stick with Conjuration (mod rods, lev rings, ultravision and enduring breath summons, CoTH in Kunark).

Oh, and if you mainly intend to use the character to farm plat, give serious consideration to pumping STR at creation. Not joking. Helps a lot when farming giants and such and carrying around loads of plat, and Mages receive less benefit from a deep mana pool than any other class. So pumping STR to at least 80 or so at creation and 100+ with jewelry can be very beneficial (My Mage on Blue has something like 155 STR and 200 INT in droppable gear and can farm like a sonofabitch).

Nah. Most classes have two reasonable-enough choices. Alteration is the almost-universal go-to spec. But necros and shams can easily go conj if intending on solo or many duo setups; clerics can solo quite well in classic and evoke covers all their nukes and stuns; druids have a very good choice between alteration for more support and evoke for more damage or solo.

I'd say magicians are more like an enchanter. Sure, a chanter CAN go conj thinking "I'll be able to mez more!" ... but it's probably not a good idea. Sure, a magician CAN go evoke thinking "i prefer rains and bolts to shocks and summons!" ... but it's probably not a good idea.

Nailed it Tecmos. Conjuration is so much better for mages in almost every situation, sure there some niche roles where evocation could be better, but 95% of the time for most mages conjuration is the only way.

I usually consider mages like wizards there's really only one choice.

Thank you everyone for the input!

Mages gets infra vision at Level 16 and ultra vision at level 29. You can easily use a light source till 16.

Erudite Agnostic will let you go a bunch of places safely without being KoS.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Summon_Heatstone
https://wiki.project1999.com/Summon_Coldstone

The mage light source has to be equipped right? Which makes it a bit inferior to other casters solutions. Pushed me off of Erudite mage at least (don't wanna give up a neck slot to play a race)