Mages?

[paravar]

Hey all,
Recently discovered P99 and loving it. Have always played a mage or nec on live servers since beginings. Started a mage and have been liking it to this point. Tried to ask some higher lvl's about the class and how they are enjoying it. Only prob is..there don't seem to be many. Tried everyday this week when server was at a pop of over 1100 and could only find 4-9 on using the 50 60 range search. I looked at every other class and besides the wizard they were too many to show.

Why are there so few magicians? I figured they were solo gods along with the nec? Heard shaman do well as does enchanter. Just wondering if should change to another class while i'm so low...lvl 8. My time will be primarily spent soloing due to time constraint with a lil grping thrown in.

Any advice appreciated!

[Grubbz]

-50% exp if you dont out damage your pet, keeps people away from the class.

[Asap]

Pets on here have trouble holding aggro. It's one of the reasons people stray away from Magicians. Another one is unless you do 51% of the damage, your pet will eat 75% of the experience per kill.

The way to bypass this is chain summoning, reclaim your pet when the NPC is at 5% hp, and finish it off with a low level nuke. You will receive full experience for the kill, and it's actually quite mana effective.

Grouped, magicians can add substantial, sustained DPS via pets and nukes. At 55, they also receive CotH, which is a game changer for many groups/raids. You probably don't see many on because they are playing alts, as the mage class is one dimensional unless you have root nets and other clickies.

[mwatt]

I too play a 56 Mage (from time to time). I think the reason you see less than expected is due to a number of things. Here are the things that I think are limiting Mages:

1. Some "nerfs" (classicaly appropriate) in the not too distant past, particularly the one where if pets do 50 or more of damage they take 50% of experience when solo. There are ways around this but it constrains your play style if you adopt them.

2. Difficulty of getting epic. High end content, until recently at least, has been pretty much locked down by one guild, making it difficult to get the very best thing a mage can get.

3. Much of Mage DPS is provided by pet, and yet pet control is not ideal in this time frame on P99 (i.e. in this era), which may at times limit desirability in dungeons and in raids. For example - and this goes for all pets - a pet has no qualms about attacking a mezzed mob.

4. You have a very sophisticated player-base here, on the whole, a bunch of EQ experts. I think it may be that many people feel that playing a Mage is a bit simplistic.

[Fame]

are a joke, don't waste your time

[Asap]

Loraen (Splorf on forums) has also brought attention to the fact that Magician pets do not cast their roots/DD's/Stuns often enough on here, hurting their usefulness. Feel free to make a bug report to display your qualms with the class, it may help :p

[loramin]

One more factor: Necromancers (in the P99 environment) are largely superior to mages. As my friend put it "Necromancers can do everything Magicians can, plus they get a lot of utility features". Having never played either class at a high level I can't say for certain myself, but it does seem like (for example) Feign Death > summoned items.

P.S. My friend used to have a Magician as his main, and leveled it in to the 50's, so he's not just a Necromancer player hating on Magicians.

[Swish]

...unless you do 51% of the damage, your pet will eat 75% of the experience per kill.

Has that been tested/confirmed? Everyone else has always said 50% for pets who outdps their masters.

People are weird, mages are good in a group...why not group a mage to 60? Pet damage doesn't matter if you're grouped.

I'd say play one if you enjoy it, the server has 100s of necros.

[Asap]

Has that been tested/confirmed? Everyone else has always said 50% for pets who outdps their masters.

People are weird, mages are good in a group...why not group a mage to 60? Pet damage doesn't matter if you're grouped.

I'd say play one if you enjoy it, the server has 100s of necros.

Mages are awesome in groups, but people seem to roll them here expecting to solo easily to 60.

Mages are also great as a duo. Diplo has stated on here he has duo'd crypt in seb with his 57 earth pet

[errorlvlacro]

Playing what you enjoy is usually the most important IMO.

[diplo]

Mages are awesome in groups, but people seem to roll them here expecting to solo easily to 60.

Mages are also great as a duo. Diplo has stated on here he has duo'd crypt in seb with his 57 earth pet

mages are fun duo partners for good money camps. if you like farming, mage is way to go esp if you have a sham/cle buddy.

I've duoed my way from 57-60 doing crypt exclusively and made good money there. probably around 200K+

[HeallunRumblebelly]

COTH, Mod rods, dispel sticks. I hope you love casting these. It's literally all you'll ever do on a raid.

[M.J.]

Hey all,
Tried to ask some higher lvl's about the class and how they are enjoying it. Only prob is..there don't seem to be many.

Why are there so few magicians? I figured they were solo gods along with the nec?

Magicians are a blast to level duo 4-49 when pets scale similarly to mobs. There is a rough patch from 34-39 where your new pet is a lot lower on health and dps than the mobs you will be fighting. NPCs in their 30s wallop on those pets in their 20s. Which happens again 50+, pet health and damage do not scale with the monsters and the focus items for 49+ pets are much more difficult to obtain.

Now you're 50+ and max range kiting with a burnt wood staff clicky and letting your pet beat on things, or chain summoning pets. It's pretty cool to take down a summoning mob by chaining pets, but because of the way pet threat works that is all you're doing. Plus you're going to have a lot of downtime, you can't CC and you don't have any sort of mana regen.

While the game changes for a lot of people at the higher levels, the magician class radically changes. Your pets stop tanking, their utility decreases, their damage isn't enough to offset their lack of threat. So you stop interacting and working with your pet and you send it in solo or treat it like a dot while you kite. I'm sure mages in their 50s quit the first time they solo next to a shaman or necro root rotting 4+ mobs at once. Plus the other INT casters have better survival tools and CC, while magicians are at the mercy of pathing and pet procs.

I'd say go necromancer.

[Clark]

Always could use more Magicians around on the server not all that many. Make sure to carry 200-400 malachite to reclaim for max xp! :)

There aren't a million shamans on the raid scene as well. Even better farmer too.

[webrunner5]

One of the problems I have with my Mage is there is pretty much nothing each 4 levels to look forward to other than Mod rods and COTH high end. It is the same crap over and over. 4 new pets, summon a few more kind of useless things etc.

And a LOT of the good pets are Research only. Boring as hell. I stopped playing mine as well. No CC is just the pits. THe best loot is in Dungeons and good luck doing that on a mage solo.

[Lammy]

COTH, Mod rods, dispel sticks. I hope you love casting these. It's literally all you'll ever do on a raid.

Maybe if you suck at playing a mage

[sox7d]

Playing what you enjoy is usually the most important IMO.


Yeah, unfortunately the majority of the server has exhausted any entertainment taken from actually playing the game and are now stuck in a mindset of "play to win at maximum efficiency."

[diplo]

Maybe if you suck at playing a mage

nah it's pretty much all you're going to do at raids unless you're in a small raiding guild, besides pet control and some nuking on trash mobs, but you're never going to land anything on a boss mob. you're probably never going to mala/sini unless there's no shamans around. I did use a RoA/Tola robe to do SOME DPS on boss mobs, but even that gets boring...

you could throw in summoning shit for people (i.e. bags/pet weaps/food/shirukens, lava diamonds[this one sucks] etc.), but i defer that to other mages bc that shit is a waste of my time.


still my favorite thing to do on a mage is duoing phinny...that never gets old.

[webrunner5]

Yeah, unfortunately the majority of the server has exhausted any entertainment taken from actually playing the game and are now stuck in a mindset of "play to win at maximum efficiency."

Yeah and the fact that it might be at level 60, or the class you thought you loved sucks on here. :(:( And several do big time.

[Aaron]

Pet xp penalty sucks.
Downtime sucks.
No CC sucks.

Mages are good for CotH and epic pet - but epic is near impossible to get and CotH is only useful in some situations.

[diplo]

Pet xp penalty sucks.
Downtime sucks.
No CC sucks.

Mages are good for CotH and epic pet - but epic is near impossible to get and CotH is only useful in some situations.

im biased, but CoTH is the best spell in the game. I've used it countless times as a ghetto-pacify spell when navigating around dungeons; when i need to get around see invis mobs or when a group is about to wipe, just hide and coth yourself.

[Daldaen]

CotH should be Other Target only... You shouldn't be able to cast on yourself...

[feanan]

Just about every class is a one trick pony when it comes to raiding.

clerics...just CH chain
chanters...just haste and c2
shaman - buff bots and maybe slow

etc etc etc

eq is not overly complicated. Not sure why everyone likes to make it out like it is

[webrunner5]

And only about 10 to 15% of the population even raids on a regular basis. I really doubt even that much?? :p

[Mateo]

1) pet xp penalty really dropped the fun factor of leveling a mage
2) bolts aren't even half functional here
3) reclaiming to get a max pet can get annoying
4) pets have very limited taunt ability here
5) epic is difficult/costly to achieve
6) reduced to support on many raid encounters

I don't think it's one major thing, but the biggest to me is when they put in the pet xp penalty; mages really started disappearing after that, imo. Very few want to deal with the bullshit that is reclaim pet and nuke mob to finish in order to solo level.

[Asap]

Every class can get monatanous.

Clerics heal, shamans buff, rogues backstab, necros twitch, ect.

How stimulating do you expect at 15 year old game be?

Every class has their place in a raid setting, whether it's dps/heals/support

[sox7d]

if you're not making a warrior, enchanter, monk, rogue, enchanter, shaman, cleric or enchanter, you might as well just kill yourself. enchanter.

[Man0warr]

Druids have no place during a raid, only before and after mobilization.

But just you wait until Velious and you all have to suck my dick for some PotG.

[gortimer]

Druids have no place during a raid, only before and after mobilization.

But just you wait until Velious and you all have to suck my dick for some PotG.

LOL

[HeallunRumblebelly]

Druids have no place during a raid, only before and after mobilization.

But just you wait until Velious and you all have to suck my dick for some PotG.

No mana regen on druid skin until luclin, though :P

[Dezik]

if you're not making a warrior, enchanter, monk, rogue, enchanter, shaman, cleric or enchanter, you might as well just kill yourself. enchanter.

QFT, just kill yourself.

[CodyF86]

So much mage hate!

You can actually do some pretty awesome things as a mage...let me show you!... with bonus music! xD

I'm just bored and jammin'...

Another ice storm of death hit...not much to do...

www.twitch.tv/codyf86

Aaradin
Aaradone
The A-Team

[Potus]

Mages aren't classic and this server's developers don't seem to care.

[Asap]

All of us Mages are going on strike

[Clark]

All of us Mages are going on strike

lol