new magician creation/pet question

[Izor_01]

Planning on rolling a second character on this server and i am just looking for a couple of tips on creation.

It will likely be DE, Erudite or Gnome i am just wondering what good stat allocation would be based on these choices...

Should i spend 15 points in STR off the bat and put the rest into INT? I don't want to be encumbered every 15 minutes...

I have a few pieces of int and mana gear that i will be giving to the char so they wont be starting off totally naked...

Also the pets will eat 50% of the exp if i do not out damage correct? Should i ignore this at low levels and just focus on killing shit as fast and efficiently as possible?

I am going to try to primarily dungeon grind on this character will i have a tough time?

[Infectious]

I went de for hide. Most important piece of gear is your focus items. Save up for them before anything. I did 1-30 letting pet eat exp. After that I let pet kill mob to 5%, use low lvl nuke to do 3% hp and then let my new pet do the last 2%.

[Izor_01]

Thanks for the reply!

I will get the focus item as soon as humanly possible, i have a bit of gear lying around that i will use on him i do want to work on getting the torch ASAP. Every guide i have read says the fire pet is the shit to use.

[Velerin]

You can either buy the focus pieces in EC or get them yourself with careful hunting in Najena. I got them myself and had them all by about level 20, first one at level 12 (That one was in a group). With careful pulling (or if someone else just cleared a lot of the spawns) you can hunt the 2 level ~9 magicians at the entrance to the castle that both have chances to drop them. The exp in there is great too and even better if you partner up and/or group. Just learn the run to the zoneline well because you'll need it occasionally.

[Estu]

I wouldn't eat the EXP penalty ever if I were you. When the monster is fleeing and almost dead, reclaim your pet, cast a new one, then nuke the monster dead. You'll get twice the EXP and spend only a little more mana. I've done this at low levels with great success.

Stat-wise, I'd go all INT, then STR only if you can't put more points into INT. If you don't want to go overweight, don't loot heavy items, and destroy your copper and silver when they pile up. You can make a lot of money just selling research components and gems, which start dropping from monsters around level 15+.

For dungeon soloing, you might have more success with the earth pet because of its root; if a running monster gets a bunch of social aggro, you're fucked.

[Swish]

STR not so bad for mages, just summon those WR bags and never forget to sell whatever is in them before you log out.

5 in AGI maybe? Particularly if playing an erudite.