State of the Magician

[Troxx]

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

I think the problem is the server being over-saturated with so much higher end gear for twinking out melee-dps characters while mages gain nothing from it. Mages are explicitly a DPS class since they offer nothing else but can't tank, pull, sneak, interrupt spells, CC etc.

Meh. If I liquidated all the gear on my mage at market value I’d probably get 5k. Even with garbage gear the only melee who have consistently outperformed my mage in the last few levels were 2 raid geared rogues and a raid geared monk. A 60 warrior with 2 NToV weapons got close but my personal nukes managed to consistently push me over the top by a pinch. Non velious (raid level) geared melee can’t keep up. The majority of that damage came from a max summon hasted 57 earth pet that quads all day long for 70 a pop. I’m curious how good the 60 water pet will be once I finally get around to finishing the push to 60.

If a mage always chain summons a pet to maximum level (I hate when I watch pet classes settle for the first one out of the box), consistently keeps haste up on said pet, remembers to refresh DS, and judiciously distributes nukes ... they really are top notch group tier dps. Coth, mod rods, and pet durability (emergency off tank) give them some limited situational utility.

Mages are amongst the first lfg people I seek out for dps filler where most people would rather scoop up a rogue/ranger/monk that puts out less. I will say though, that I usually end up annoying most that join because I can and will make sure they pull a max summon (or close to) before they settle into the comfy chair of the grind. If I’m inviting a mage it’s for the pewpew and there’s no excuse settling for a 54 water pet that hits for 48 vs 56, backstabs for 144 instead of 168, and is 4 levels lower when that pet makes up 80% or more of your potential dps, is cheap to recast, and really only takes an extra few minutes to set up once at the beginning of a long grind session.

The state of the magician summarized:

Solo:
-good solo xp potential (albeit annoying and tedious)

Group:
-cheap to gear out and still operate at near maximum potential
-absolutely stellar group dps (top tier, lagging only behind charm pet)
-limited group utility
-does lack reliable cc; Achilles heel of the class

Raid:
-relegated to mod-rod bitch and coth whore for most all raid environments.
-while not glamorous, mod rods and coth are actually pretty vital to raids