[Dolalin]

Back on topic, there are many many posts about water pets having more regen.

However, here is a post by GZ back in 1999 (capture from October 1999, but post is from June/July 1999) mentioning that water pets heal faster than any other elemental:

What is a Magician you Ask?
By Geoffrey Zatkin, Lead Magic Designer for Verant

I've been getting some e-mail/feedback recently from a group of dissatisfied magicians as to how underpowered their class is. I'd like to take a few moments to address this. Please realize that because of our intense work schedule at Verant, this is a purely FYI kind of thing.

PETS

Now, I keep hearing Magicians wonder why their pets are weaker than Necromancer Pets. Simple answer - they are not. Magician pets, on the whole, have better ability scores, and in some cases, more HP than Necromancer pets. They also average one level higher (which means more hp, better attacks, etc). The problem is that most Magicians don't experiment with the different pet types, assuming that summoning a Fire Elemental is the same as a Water Elemental.
Time for a little explanation on the four types of magician pets.

The Earth Elemental is the elemental that you want to be using for serious battles. It has THE most hp of any pet. It also has a massive strength (about equal to an Ogre). Earth elementals deal THE most damage of any pet. Their weakness is that their Agility bites. They will get hit by anything swinging at them.

The Air Elemental is the elemental that you want tanking for you. It has an incredible high agility, making it much harder to hit than any other elemental. It has good strength (about equal to a Barbarian). It deals good damage, is hard to hit, and has the invisibility ability. This means you can use "/pet back off" to good effect. The Air Elemental backs off, and assuming that monster does not follow (it goes after another party member), the Air Elemental will turn invisible, guaranteeing that it will not be hit while it heals up.

The Fire Elemental is the elemental you want to use against creatures with very quick attacks (Bixies) or against massive amounts of smaller creatures (clearing away the hall trash). Fire Elementals have good strength (about equal to a Barbarian) and good agility (about equal to an elf). They have the least HP of any elemental, but compensate with an innate Fire Shield that damages an attacker every time the attacker hits the elemental. This means that a creature is getting hit by the elemental AND taking damage every time they hit the elemental.

Water Elementals are the composite elemental - they combine a little bit of the best of all of the other elementals. Their strength is second only to an Earth Elemental (about equal to a Troll), their agility is good (about as good as an elf) and their HP are just under that of an Earth Elemental. They are the 'balanced' elemental. Water Elementals also heal faster than any other elemental.

Now, the Skeleton is a very good pet as well. Its strength is lower than any of the Elementals, but it has a good agility (about equal to an elf). Its hp fall between that of an Earth and Water elemental. What it is lacking is the massive strength of other elementals, and the special abilities gained by certain elementals. It also lacks the versatility gained by having four different elementals.

Another issue that magicians (and necromancers and enchanters) complain about is that their pets always con blue / green to them. Now, you will notice that at higher levels, monsters get more hp / damage than a player of the same level. For example, a 35th level Warrior or Wizard could not solo a 35th level Griffin, were a 8th level Warrior or Wizard could solo a 8th level Gnoll. Monster levels are not the same as player levels. Monster levels are better. Now, pets use monster levels. That is why, at higher levels, your pet cons green to you. I will be putting in some changes soon to make it so they con 'better' to you - not green, but blue. There will be no actual changes made to pets other than perception.

The range at which pets respond to commands from their casters has just been doubled. This should help Magicians (and all other pet classes) to keep their pets in line.

One final note on pet summoning. You will NOT get the same power of pet with every summoning. If a pet seems particularly weak to you, you may want to reclaim energy on it and summon another.

SUMMONED ITEMS

Summoning items is one of the magician's unique abilities. Some items are better than others - and all are based on our hard worked concepts of game balance. If a Magician could summon items that were BETTER than the norm for her level, our game would quickly be overrun by a horde of phantom items. This being said, we have retuned our items many times, and it is quite possible that that Magician items missed a final tuning. I will double check this - but regardless, Magicians can summon MAGIC weapons (weapons that hit wisps, ice-boned skeletons, etc) for relatively little mana. This is a nice ability.

There are also several hidden spells out there, waiting for players to find. Once a certain number of these have been found, they will be available from magician vendors. I'm not saying where they are or what they are… but they are nice…

ARMOR

Magician's Phantom Armor series now stacks with the Shielding spells. This change should be in as you read this. This gives Magicians the best personal armor spells of any Magi class.

DIRECT DAMAGE

Of the four Magi classes (Wizard, Magician, Enchanter and Necromancer), Wizards have the best direct damage. The second best direct damage is done by the Magicians. Third best is Necromancers, and last are the Enchanters. Magicians also get ranged area effect direct damage spells, spells wielded only by the Wizard, Druid and Magician classes. They also get damage shields, combat spells that have no saving throw (since you cast it on a player, a monster never gets a saving throw). This means that a Magician can indirectly effect a monster many level higher then her - something that not many other spell casters can do.

RESEARCH

All research materials for Magicians are in the game. The frequency of the appearance of all research components has been increased by 300%. Instructions on research can be found in your guild hall, in several of the tomes sold by your guild merchant.

IN CONCLUSION

Magicians have the best pets and the second best direct damage of any Magi class. For pure damage done, Magicians can rival any wizard - between the damage of their pet and the damage of their spells. It is always tempting to think that your class is the least powerful - watching another class doing something in their specialty can make them seem 'better' then your class. This is just 'grass is always greener' syndrome - we saw a lot of this in Beta. I have played each class up to a respectable level, and can tell you that the Magician is an extremely viable class. Magicians are not going to be 'retuned,' as they are extremely viable.

What you can look to see is an expansion of Magician summoning items / toys / etc. spells as they are 'found' in the game. I'm not going to drop any big hints, but there are some interesting things out there that have not yet been found.

I hope this helps a little bit on getting a grasp on the Magician. I have a Magician in my party, and let me tell you - she rocks!


Author: Geoffrey Zatkin of Verant

https://web.archive.org/web/19991003..._mag_dis.shtml