Help: Magician Leveling Strat

[Cochonou]

If you intend to chain summon pets, don't deal damage, or your next pet will have a harder time to regain agro. If you don't deal any damage, above strategy of dismissing pet while new one is almost summoned is just perfect to stay safe from any non summoning mob.

Also, if you chain fire pets, you will want to "back up" freshly summoned pet till it casts its innate damage shield (only does when out of combat), because it doesn't cast it instantly when summoned and you do want it on your fire pet to fasten the killing process [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[IzHaN80]

Thanks very much for all your help

[BarackObooma]

Prior to 46 when you MUST get a burnt wood staff (1.5-2k for a 333dmg clickie! Wizards pay that much for a crappy 20dmg or so wand), have the pet get the mob down to as low as possible before reclaiming it so you can use the lowest mana nuke you can get away with to finish it off or even melee it. There are some decent melee weapons cheap. If your pet gets the mob down to 1-5%, one hit with say a 30/40 velium brawl stick (about 1.5k) would finish it off. If you're broke, a runewood great staff is 22/40 and costs 50pp or less.

At 56 my mage can chain pull all day without ever having to med.

The first thing big thing you want to save for is jboots. They will save you from countless deaths.

[RDawg816]

Chain summoning, or reclaiming your pet is nice. I'm not here to argue that. I'm just here to offer another option.

What I usually do on my mage was to summon a fire pet (with focus) and then mem earth pet and swap focus from torch to the shovel. Then I would send my pet in to a group of 3-4 mobs. Then I would burn the one my pet was on down and summon an earth pet as my fire pet was going down. Once my earth pet was up I'd send him in to get aggro and burn a second one down. Usually about 1 or 2 nukes would kill the mobs, since they were all weakened by my fire pet. After the mobs were dead and the spawns staggered, I would reclaim my earth pet and summon a fresh fire pet with the torch and med up. Then it's just a matter of killing the mobs as they spawn.

I used this tactic on bandits leveling up, and then even in places like the scryer camp in Guk where I soloed from 20 to 24 easily. Again, I'm not saying it's a better way, just a different way. I found it quite fun and I'd usually out-damage my pet anyways since the ds is neutral damage. YMMV. ☺

[Vexenu]

Good mob selection is key to mage soloing. You want to target dark blues that your focused fire pet can reliably solo down to under 20% by itself, without you nuking or needing to chain a replacement pet. This is entirely possible. You shouldn't have to chain cast pets for XP pre-50 at all. You will, of course, have some occasional runs of bad luck where you get a minimum level pet vs. a max level dark blue mob, in which case you will probably be forced to chain another pet. But those instances should definitely be the exception. If you're regularly having to chain pets while leveling you're doing it wrong. Hunt lower level and lower HP mobs.

[Doctor Jeff]

Heres a good list of zones sorted by level of mobs in the zone.

You can pick a few and go down the mob list on the individual pages to see what kind of HP/hit rating the mobs have and determine where you want to travel.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Recommen...s_and_ZEM_List

[BarackObooma]

You can level from 30-60 in Dreadlands if you wanted to. Some of the Ravashing Drolvargs are dark blue even at 58.

Benefits:
*Large variety of mobs to choose from and the only casters are the spiders.
*Firiona Vie is a zone away to bank, sell, buy malachites, etc.
*There are usually plenty of porters and clerics that wander through to KC if you need a rez or port.
*Along the North and East walls are usually safe places to hunt.
*Mobs (except for Ravashings) have low hitpoints compared to dungeon mobs and Velious mobs of the same level for faster kills.
*You never have to waste time trying to find a group. Mages are usually not the #1 class people look for so when you're trying to get into a dungeon group, you're going to get picked near last if at all.
*If you do die, CRs are cake. I recommend binding at the DL/FV zoneline.

Drawbacks:
*You don't have as big of a zone bonus multiplier like the cookie cutter dungeon leveling most people do (Crushbone, Unrest, Mistmoore, COM, Sol B, Karnors, Seb). BUT you also don't have the downtime of trying to find/get into a group or messy CRs.
*Bards like to kite most of the zone. When this happens, there's fewer mobs to choose from. Plus, the idiot ones drag the mobs close to the KC wall which can aggro on you if they die (and they do) or zone. If you see this happen, just log out and in to clear aggro to be on the safe side.
*Loot is generally poor.

[kelsoider]

Can also solo inside KC by the moat. Pull undead mobs to the corners of moat area. Can be tricky at times but it's doable. Lots of blues in Kedge that give exp as well, though that has a steeper learning curve. Can also duo efreeti area of SolB with a shaman. Or if you're tired of grinding for exp; IDPS in Chardok.