Mages were HORRIBLE at launch

[Dolalin]

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!

http://web.archive.org/web/199910050..._mag_dis.shtml

[Muggens]

Having never really played a magician, reading those elemental pet descriptions have me a tiny bit confused...

"The Earth Elemental is the elemental that you want to be using for serious battles. It has THE most hp of any pet... Their weakness is that their Agility bites. They will get hit by anything swinging at them."

Serious Battles?

"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."

This is the tank elemental? Not Earth pet?

"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."

Sounds to me like the best option?




Aaand the guys on this forum mostly speak about the using Fire Pet for soloing...

So now I really dont know which pet to use!

[metatron]

it still comes down to that necro pets could equip weapons and double atk/duel wield and mage pets could not. quad 55 necro pet attacks on 2ish dagger delay plus haste was amazing at launch in classic.

[Baler]

this thread torments me in my sleep. it has so much Bad and some good information.
It's literally a classic thread. Where some people had no idea what they were talking about.

[skorge]

From https://groups.google.com/forum/#!se...o/sqXbyyrSCBoJ

Several members of the EQ team, with some initial help from a player's
email, put the following document together listing both enhancements and
'nerfs' we've made to the game since launch. And while we probably forgot
some things, both negative and positive (please let us know and I'll update
the document), I think it puts in perspective the ratio of positive vs.
negative changes to the game we've made. I also feel it heartily
invalidates the assertion that we are out to make the game harder or to have
players advance slower overall, or that 'all we do is nerf'.
The following is broken down by class, and then addresses those changes made
that affect the whole game. Changes we feel are positive from just about any
perspective are denoted with a '+', and those some players might consider a
'nerf', but that we felt were important for the long term health of the
game, are denoted with a '-'.

(again, I'm sure we've forgotten some things, both '+' and '-'; please feel
free to comment and add items).


Magicians
+ New summon item spells
- High Level (39+) Pets weakened
+ Better mid+ level pets (they cast spells now)
+ Added more Class Specific Quests
+ Added more Class Specific Items
+ Enhanced High Level (35+) Meditation
+ Magician Pet Buff Spells Strengthened
+ Enhanced Pet Pathing
+ Added Special Items to let Magicians Summon Stronger Pets
+ Corrected Bug that let monsters attack you from far distances
through your pet
+ Made Magician Research Easier - especially for their pets
+ Added Spell Effects to most Magician Summoned Items
+ Enhanced AoE Spells to let Magicians effect more creatures
+ Reduced Mana Cost of Damage Shields
+ Reduced Casting Time of Ward Series
+ Made the Malise Series Stack Better
+ Made the Burnout Series Better

-Brad

Listen, the above list from Brad himself tells you that mid level pets did NOT cast spells. Unless you want to argue against the guy who created Everquest, then stop posting non-sense comments such as "False News." According to the above, this list shows actual enhancements made to the class stated by Brad himself in 1999.

Thus, Green P99 should start out classic with mage pets not being able to cast spells up until a certain patch. Now continue to read below from http://web.archive.org/web/199910050..._mag_dis.shtml:

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.

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.

Now, why would the lead magic designer for Verant at the time say the phrase "all research materials for magicians are in the game" unless they weren't in the game to start with? This is a statement that is made because before hand all research materials were not in the game. I can't find 100% definite proof of this yet, but he is basically stating this.

I am telling you 100% the truth that magician pets were NOT in the game post level 20 at launch, as the ability to research them was broken, and the vendor who sold the one buyable pet did not have those pet spells yet.

I truly hope Green P99 holds true to this, as it was part of being a true magician back then, dealing with all the crap that was stuck against you...if you toughed it out, you eventually became strong, but from launch day for a couple of months, mages plain out SUCKED!

[soronil]

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

I truly hope Green P99 holds true to this, as it was part of being a true magician back then, dealing with all the crap that was stuck against you...if you toughed it out, you eventually became strong, but from launch day for a couple of months, mages plain out SUCKED!

Your evidence just isn't sufficient. The post is from december and supposedly compiles a list of changes from what, launch, beta? We have no idea when any of those changes actually went in.

So, if you are actually interested in p99 implementing more classic behavior, how do you expect them to do it? They need to know approximately when the changes happened.

If you can find patch notes, or other evidence discussing a particular change AT THE TIME IT HAPPENED, then that's something that's usable by the devs to make the change, file a bug report, don't post it in general discussion. Although, posting it 2 weeks before the server opens is kind of silly, you've had 10 years to provide this evidence. At this point, it is unlikely to be changed in time.

[lordpazuzu]

Erudite Magician was my first ever character. I thought it was fairly enjoyable.

[Quinas]

Begun the Classic Wars have.

[skorge]

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

Your evidence just isn't sufficient. The post is from december and supposedly compiles a list of changes from what, launch, beta? We have no idea when any of those changes actually went in.

So, if you are actually interested in p99 implementing more classic behavior, how do you expect them to do it? They need to know approximately when the changes happened.

If you can find patch notes, or other evidence discussing a particular change AT THE TIME IT HAPPENED, then that's something that's usable by the devs to make the change, file a bug report, don't post it in general discussion. Although, posting it 2 weeks before the server opens is kind of silly, you've had 10 years to provide this evidence. At this point, it is unlikely to be changed in time.

From launch, what makes you think he would include stuff in there from beta? This is proof alone...it doesn't matter the time stamp, really. At some point these pets did not cast spells. It's up to the P99 staff to find out when exactly they got patched in. I am suggesting it was 2-3 months after launch in April. Late June.

Also, why do you have such a NEGATIVE attitude? With this attitude P99 wouldn't even be here today. 2 weeks is PLENTY of time to implement such an easy change (simply turn off the ability for pets to cast spells).

I hope you learn to have a more positive attitude. Your life will be a lot more complete if you do.

[Tenlaar]

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

It's up to the P99 staff to find out when exactly they got patched in.

This would be where you are wrong.