Mages, let pets kill or do 51%?

[Dogz]

I miss the glory days of the air pet during PoP / OoW when it was the ultimate. I know it's still good at mitigation for your tank if fighting stunable mobs, but I miss those beast days

[Eagish]

I'm pretty lazy and I don't try racing thru the levels, for what's it worth.

When I was leveling my mage, I generally summoned max level earth, kept it buffed and ds'd, and slaughtered hordes of low blues to level while I meditated and cast a nuke now and then.

It was pretty casual and the ds usually did enough damage on enough of the mobs that experience flowed tidily in. It got even better with the shovel and then the fast regen. But I'm sure it was all very inefficient.

[Duik]

I see it as mainly expectation, many cannot play unless 100% max play reward.
Very few can just play for the pleasure anymore. Although the appearance of SSF threads here mean it isnt everyone, just the sweatiest of sweats trying to enforce a min/max is the only way mindset on the rest of us.

[Snaggles]

I used whatever pet I could buy from the vendor. They all work fine, fire just needs to be watched more closely. At 49 it’s fun to get all the pets for spellbook completion sake. The focused earth will have a situational purpose to level 57 when you get the upgrade.

If I was doing it again, I’d use more Coldain Crossbows. I used a lot argent defenders and would keep a pet alive as long as possible. At level 4 when your pet is hitting for 60 life is good. It might be fun to start a necro with your buddy; it’s not the absolute best duo but they synergize very well.

[Kich867]

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

I used whatever pet I could buy from the vendor. They all work fine, fire just needs to be watched more closely. At 49 it’s fun to get all the pets for spellbook completion sake. The focused earth will have a situational purpose to level 57 when you get the upgrade.

If I was doing it again, I’d use more Coldain Crossbows. I used a lot argent defenders and would keep a pet alive as long as possible. At level 4 when your pet is hitting for 60 life is good. It might be fun to start a necro with your buddy; it’s not the absolute best duo but they synergize very well.

Yup, getting him up to 16ish so I can duo with my necro, we did a bit and it felt pretty busted.

Pull -> pets on -> snare + fear, chill.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

I see it as mainly expectation, many cannot play unless 100% max play reward.
Very few can just play for the pleasure anymore. Although the appearance of SSF threads here mean it isnt everyone, just the sweatiest of sweats trying to enforce a min/max is the only way mindset on the rest of us.

I haven't really seen people force min/max upon anyone. If someone asks a question like "which camp has the best XP?", there are objective answers to that. I guess you could say some sweat lords in game kick people from groups who aren't playing well, but I've rarely seen that personally.

I do agree that gamers in general these days are more min/max focused. I think that is more of a general shift in how people play games, rather than specific sweaties.

The generation of gamers that grew up on Everquest were much younger in 1999, and had more time to play games at their own pace. Those gamers have grown up and have responsibilities, so they tend to min/max to save time. I do agree that this mentality can reduce the fun you are having.

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

If you use a coldain crossbow or similar it’s way better to just keep killing. There is a small range of levels mid 50’s on while camping a couple spawns where killing a pet makes sense, otherwise you will start the next fight with a damaged pet. It’s just more efficient to let the pet do most the work and clean up at the end when it’s running.

Yeah at lower levels especially, you can level quickly even with the pet penalty. On my Enchanter I still get good XP when I do not break charm before the kill. Leveling from like 1-40 or 1-50 is pretty fast for an experienced player.