Look, on live most mages didn't know about root nets, so in a sense it's safe to say "live mages didn't root", and then argue (as P99 evidently has) that it's perfectly classic to eliminate their ability to root.
But here's where that logic breaks down. In classic, most Shaman didn't cast Reclaim Energy (a non-Shaman Mage spell). Here on P99 though, they've been doing so for over a decade. How? The exact same mechanism: an item (well, items) with a non-class-list spell on them (
https://wiki.project1999.com/Magician_Focus_Items)!
It just makes zero sense to say "Mage's can't have a temporary item with a non-class spell" ... and then give a permanent item with a Mage spell to another class. And it makes even
less sense to take a tool away from Mages (the spellcasters with the most limited toolset of all) while continuing to give the second most powerful class on the server more tools (that they don't even need!)
I understand why P99 made this change (for raiding), but it clearly had unclassic consequences. If we want this place to truly be as classic as it can be, something has to change. Either the server needs to eliminate all item-based non-class-spells (across the board, for every class), or it needs to remove the nets
only from the raid scene (eg. make them only generate agro on < 56 mobs or something).