Because there are no class forums and a lot of noob mages

[AlliBear17]

Just going to give my experience and thoughts on all of this, since I am a mage.

I started playing again a few months ago, as a lv20'ish mage. Before the exp nerf, I would let the pet do most of the damage, and I would either use burst of flame to pull, or a bigger nuke to end the battle as mob started fleeing. This worked fine then.

However, since I started back a few months ago and the pet would take 75% of the exp with my usual method, I looked for ideas on other ways to solo or to get around this.

I found that using the fire pet and my largest nuke to finish the mob off, would often get me the full exp, since fire pet ds doesn't count for anyone's damage. I wouldn't give it any weapons or buffs either.

In the 30's, I started having better results by using one fire pet, to fight a mob til it flees, then a small nuke to finish it off after reclaiming pet.

Now, I'm 47 and I've been doing the same on specs. Before lv44, I had to use two pets generally to take down one spec, but I felt like it was worth it for the exp and loot. Only issue here, is that I can't reclaim since specs don't flee. Instead, I start my nuke to finish them off, and half way through, I hit the "Go Away" button.

I definitely end up oom, after a while, but I can keep 3 specs down, and reach full mana by the time they start repopping.

I can't speak much to the pets at 51+ but I plan to try out all of them, and see what suits me best. I feel like this guide is useful, but everyone should remember to experiment, and see what suits your play style best.