[Izmael]

Originally Posted by serjordanmormont [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hoping to learn the basic ins and outs of the class as I'd like to roll one.

I played a mage to 60, raided, grouped and soloed on it. I suppose I have a decent view of the class. The class is all about your pet, which is beefy, but that's all you get. Your nukes are decent, but if you want to nuke, play a wizard.

Otherwise, your tool box is very limited. It's really all about the pet. This makes doing a lot of things easy for other classes with more tools challenging or impossible. But you'll always have the best pet, except for temporary (and unreliable) pets that charming classes can charm.

The mage epic quest is considered one of the hardest (or the hardest) epic quest of EQ. Lots of mages, a few bottlenecks. It's also pretty much the class defining quest. Your class is all about your pet, and your epic quest is a pet. Not only the quest is arguably the hardest of all epics, but it's also very useful. Bear this in mind if you plan on going places with your mage.

What is expected of you and how welcome are you in groups?

In pickup groups you won't be very welcome most of the time except for the lower levels when nobody cares about anything. Mages are often troublesome in groups as controlling the pet can take a while to learn and nothing gets a group in trouble quicker than a pet which isn't controlled properly. People know that, so bear in mind that at levels 50 and higher, finding pick up groups will be harder for a mage than for quite a bit of other classes. However you can solo for exp with relative ease and safety to counterbalance that.

How well do you solo?

It's all very situational and relative. A lot of stuff that an enchanter or necromancer can solo, mage can't, often because they simply can't get there or they can't pull the target without adds, etc. Mages get no crowd control so engaging several non trivial enemies and winning will often require contorsions on your part.

At the lowest levels you solo very well for exp as your pet is really powerful. That fades quickly and starting at level 25 or 30 you'll need to either learn chaining pets (not hard), or find friends, etc.

At 60, mages are great for mass killing green mobs. The pet is perfect for that. For killing hard mobs, however, other classes will often do better.

Basically, if you want to solo to farm items at higher levels, mage can be an option, but sure won't be the best one. Enchanter or Necro will so so often outsolo the Mage. I think the only situation where a Mage would outsolo an Enchanter or a Necro would be the mass green mob killing situation such as farming Droga or something like that.

What's expected in raiding/end game?

Casting Call of the Hero and Summon Mod rod. That's pretty much it. Your nukes will often be resisted by raid mobs. Pets are often not an option.

Any races superior to others?

Gnome great for looking through walls.
Otherwise play what you think looks coolest.

Intelligence the stat to focus on?

Yes, I'd say so.

Having played Enc, Necro and Mage, I'd say, all in all, fun wise it's Necro > Enc > Mage.