Secrets of Mage-y goodness

[Nightblade]

In my random fits of boredom I occasionally encounter, I began to think on just how certain classes are best played. Most of them are pretty simple, if you put your mind to it, and with time played comes experience and technique.

The only one, for some reason, that I can't seem to grasp quite off the start is the mage. What the devil makes them so hideously overpowered to begin with? Is it merely chain casting your pet into the fray? Or merely reclaiming at the end of the fight to cast a new one?

I'm half-heartedly thinking about leveling one just to pass time between the periods where I can interest my wife in duo'ing with me, and would appreciate a little insight onto some of the things to watch out for, or skills to try to master while playing up said pet class.

Advice, links to pages and strategies, and all the like are much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[VictoryARC]

I'm curious too

[Vigilance]

Mage pets do a lot of damage, mage nukes do a lot of damage, mage pet gets damage shield. It's as simple as that.

[Nedala]

Mainly because the mage pet is overpowered and you can solo very good as a mage.

[Qaedain]

These messages are copy/pastes of PMs I sent to another P99 player inquiring about Mages. They are posted verbatim, so some elements may seem out of context:

Take a look at this table: http://www.xalmat.com/eqsummoners.co...e-library.html

The pet levels are true for Fire, Earth, Air and Water, so I just picked Fire as an example. You can see at level 4 that the maximum pet level is 6, but with the new changes, that pet could be as low as level 2. If the pet hits for 12, you know you have a maximum level pet.

Now skip ahead to level 49. We see that the pet's maximum level is 41. With these changes, that pet could be as low as level 37. Again, the pet's maximum hit will indicate the level.

Each level below the maximum will subtract 2 damage from the pet's maximum hit. So if your character level 49 pet is hitting for 56, he's a max level pet, but if he's hitting for 46, then you know you have a level 37 pet.

Soloing as a Mage is broadly unaffected by this change. Prior to the patch, the pet's level would fluctuate by up to five levels down, but he would always have the stats of the max level pet. Now the pet's stats will actually suffer with their level, but it is perfectly possible to summon a pet that's every bit as powerful as the ones you could always summon before. It'll just take a few casts to get one, and that's how it was on Live for years.

Yeah, it's annoying, but if you're anything like me, your pets last for several hours.

As for tips, I have a couple:

Carrying 60-80 Malachite. You'll chew through pets to get the good ones.

Always memorize both pet heals when you're soloing; you can cast them back to back.

Learn how to chain-summon: begin summoning a second pet while you're current one is alive. Right before the pet finishes its cast, hit the /pet get lost macro. The old pet will be replaced by a new one in 1-2 seconds, allowing you to engage much stronger mobs than you could with the health of a single pet.

Learn to root kite with the earth pet: the earth pet doesn't need to be in melee to root. Run to maximum range, then send him in to attack and back him off repeatedly until he gets a root off. Nuke like crazy and then repeat the process with your pet until another root lands. If you do it right, your pet will stay healthy, you won't get hit and the mob won't get to move much.

If you're in your 30s, farm Paw for Gnoll Hide Lariats. They proc a stun and your Air Pet can proc them like crazy, in addition to his own stun. Makes for a pretty awesome show in a dungeon if you know you'll be there for a while.

Quest in Temple of Sol Ro for the Earthen Boots. They provide a clicky invis from inventory that can be hotkeyed to quickly dismiss your pet if he gets lost, takes the wrong path or is otherwise threatening to cause a train.

Find a clicky item that has a low damage DD on it. You can use it to get the 1-2 points of damage necessary to ensure you'll receive maximum EXP if your pet can solo whatever you're fighting.

That's all I can think of for now.

You should absolutely pursue the focus items. The Staves of Elemental Mastery aren't especially important (unfavorable risk/reward ratio), but the Stein/Shovel/Broom/Torch should definitely be on your wishlist. You only need to have them equipped when the pet is summoned to get the effect; you can put it back in your bags afterward.

Chain-summoning's benefits outweigh the perils of a low level pet. Yes, you can kill reds this way, but not more than about 3-4 levels above you, otherwise you can't land a spell, and your pet can't land melee attacks.

Also for soloing I tend to use Fire, but I prefer to kill quickly. Earth is equally viable. For groups, always use Fire or Water, unless for some reason you need the Air's stun.

[hueylewis187]

Because the mage pets cost the least amount of mana.
You can just keep making them and the mage nukes are almost the same as a wizards.
Besides that the mage gets the biggest rain 'aoe' spells.

enchanter , necro and shammy pets do almost the same amount of damage. Just mage earth/water pets get more hp.

Only thing overpowered on a magician is chaining pets. Plus nuke like a wizard. Mage is the best dps class in the game atm. The pet can do as much as most 50 melee's in raid gear. Plus add in the lava bolts from the mage.

[Itchybottom]

Do this quest, it will help in dungeons, and even give you something to do while you're medding to scout your next pull. Get your Torch of Alna, Shovel of Ponz, Stein of Ulissa, and Broom of Trilon.

Set up this hotbutton:

/pet back off
/pet attack

Use it whenever a mob comes running for you away from your pet (target said mob, hit the hotbutton, stand in place or run THROUGH the mob, to make sure your pet hits/taunts), also use it to break camps with an earth pet. Send your earth pet into two or three targets, root one, back the pet off, now you can better cleric your pet until root breaks. Pay attention to the "sinks into the ground" messages, take advantage of it, moving your pull if possible so the least amount of mobs are hitting your pet at any given time. Fire pet is another tactic for breaking in, but it'll require more heal spam.

If you know you're going to be dealing with a single hard hitting target, stick to your water pet. If you're dealing with a single target that hits about average for the level, fire pet will be far faster than anything else for the kill.

For travel, keep your earth pet memmed in case you run into some things that can see invis, pop your earth pet out to buy yourself some time to make it to the next zone.

With the level 49 air pet, try it out with two gnoll hide lariats -- most fights, a single mob will stay stunned and do very little damage to your pet.

If you're low on mana, your pet has less than 2 bubbles of health left and can only cast one more pet, one more heal, etc. Most of the time, it's best to just gate, med to full and come back for revenge. A corpse run, is rarely fun.

Always keep your Shielding buff on yourself, refresh it after you haste a pet. In earlier levels, two shield duration fades == time to re-cast Burnout or Burnout II on Gebkn. When you get Arch Shielding, just recast them both at the same time, should be fine. Later on, you can also use levitation (from the rings you summon) to gauge when you need to re-apply your pets damage shield (unless you're using fire, of course), or you can just use the tried and true shaman method -- hit yourself with the buff, then the pet, when it wears on you, it's about to wear on your pet. I rarely find the need to have a damage shield on myself though, every extra point of damage counts only in the most extreme situations.

I think chaining pets in most cases may be more mana efficient, but it's a real pain when you spend all of that mana, and your recent pet summon is light blue and gets eaten before you have a chance to med any of it back. I much prefer the pet cleric method of things, and burn targets down when they're at 30-40%. Seems like too much of a gamble, unless you're trying to kill some red rare spawn. Pets regen HP pretty fast when you tell them to sit out of combat, faster than your mana comes back.

[cured]

Mages do a lot of damage, yes, but they have no escape methods. No root, no snare, no fear, no DoTs. If your earth pet can't root something, and you have no SoW or Jboots, you aren't getting away if things turn sour.

[tuxqueot]

Ok, some pointers.

Level. It's stupid easy as a mage as long as you keep escape paths open and dont try to keep too much clear solo. I could post some pointers on where to go at what level but it's really not that hard.

Get JBoots. As a mage, this is stupid easy to do from level 40 on. Just need to find the AC camp open.

Get the Focus. Sol Ro temple, Phinny/PoHate drops, whatever you can get your hands on. Period, nuff said.

Farm the permafrost goblin jailmaster. He drops a net with 3 charges of instant cast root. Not even lore so I usually have 2 or 3 on me. It's a good save your ass kind of thing. I've missed the timing on chaining a pet on Allizesaur or noxious spider due to BSing or something and popping a root gives me time to recast pet.

When soloing, unless I get a client crash, I rarely die. I keep gate up, escape paths open, chose my game play carefully. I also keep Arch Shielding, Levitate and JBoots on at all times, when possible.

As for mage DPS, here are some hard numbers.

With the fire staff from PoHate, the level 49 fire pet maxes at 45 self DS. Hits for up to 58, quads. Four chains of this bad ass puppy usually takes down Allizesaur in OOT, five on the outside. Throw out a low level nuke for full exp if you're not maxed 50. And that's like the highest level non-raid/group encounter in the game right now. Some mages prefer the earth pet since it lasts longer, but fire pet kills faster due to self DS and all in all takes less mana to chain in new pet, throw it a burnout and turn it lose. With the earth pet you gotta also cast DS on it, which takes more mana and means more downtime.

Mage best nuke, lava bolt, 300 mana, 810 damage. 2.7 damage to mana ratio.
Wiz best nuke, ice comet, 400 mana, 1120 damage, 2.8 damage to mana ratio.

So as you can see from a pure nuking standpoint we're like 3.5% on the damage to mana ratio under a wizard. But add in pet DPS and we blow wizards out of the water. This trend continues through out the game, my level 85 mage I used to play on live was usually top first or second (third if I phoned it in) DPS on any given encounter during raids.

True, we can't quad kite. But we can kill just as fast as a quad kiter with out all that running around and dying.
True, we can't port or evac, just means we gotta play smarter.
We are what we are, a tank and spank class with the ability to be the tank, the healer and the nuker all rolled into one. Me and Jobantik, all the group we need.

[Lazortag]

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

Mage best nuke, lava bolt, 300 mana, 810 damage. 2.7 damage to mana ratio.
Wiz mest nuke, ice comet, 400 mana, 1120 damage, 2.8 damage to mana ratio.

So as you can see from a pure nuking standpoint we're like 3.5% on the damage to mana ratio under a wizard. But add in pet DPS and we blow wizards out of the water. This trend continues through out the game, my level 85 mage I used to play on live was usually top first or second (third if I phoned it in) DPS on any given encounter during raids.

This is so clearly nonsense. If the mage's best nuke were a 30 mana spell that did 81 damage your argument would be the exact same. Ice Comet is more than just 3.5% better than Lava Bolt - you have to factor in the fact that Ice Comet actually just does a shitton more damage at once, regardless of damage to mana ratio.