i am selling cleric epics for your pocket clerics plz dm me to schedule the mq

Mages absolutely can solo well in appropriate dungeon locations, or at least they are supposed to be able to; pets transferring full aggro when dying is not classic and needs to be fixed on P99. When chain-summoning pets, the new pet is supposed to take the aggro immediately if you weren't nuking the target beforehand.

That said, I soloed the Mistmoore graveyard back in 1999 with no root nets and without chain summoning. Other spots can be soloed like that too as a Mage. Careful planning and making sure to not over-aggro is important.

Without chain summoning working you'll be limited to areas where there's never more than 2 NPC's aggroing at a time (unless they are trash NPC's), but with chain summoning it's possible to break areas where 3 or 4 aggro at a time. The level 49 pets are very mana efficient, for 200 mana (less with specialization) you get to keep throwing a full HP melee into the pile; earth pet generally works best for the purpose of breaking a camp.

If you're trying to solo dungeons just play a different class.

You don't seem to understand that people enjoy playing different things, or have already chosen a particular class and want to keep putting time into that character.

Those people need to understand they better have a buddy enc/nec/cleric/bard/shaman/druid/paladin to come along if they aren't trying to receive a lesson in futility.

Honestly that isn't the problem. People are simply pointing out that Mages are generally a weak class on P99 in the server's current state. Knowledge is power. Let people know what the strengths/weaknesses are of each class objectively speaking. Then they can decide whether or not those strengths/weaknesses will affect their enjoyment of the game.

If you enjoy playing a Mage, it doesn't matter if the class is objectively weaker than other classes. I think Mages are a fun class to be honest. Pets are fun to use in Everquest. A person who really enjoys a specific class will push the limits of the class, and let other people know what the class can do. If someone wants a class that can do more, they will not pick Mage.

It depends.

Mages can solo crawl almost any dungeon sub 50. Esp if you add in a zheart. If you know where to go it’s actually pretty easy with their op focused pets. 50+ though is a different beast literally just find any class that can root or a bard and you’re good as you highlighted above.

It’s a damn shame though that root nets recharge was blown up and mage pet aggro is jacked. Would be an entirely different story with those 2 things actually classic.

When soloing mage 50+ I considered my pet a dot that soaked damage. Cheap cost summon. Clicky haste and clicky DS it. Pull a mob (assuming solo pull) and reclaim pet when the mob is low and toss a low level nuke the last bit. Pet generally survives without actual help letting you med through and break even after reclaim. If it’s a harder mob, toss a nuke or 2 so mob dies before pet bites it ... reclaim etc etc. harder mobs obligates some down time.

Very viable. Not terribly inefficient. And you get a mob dead for a lot less mana than some other casters. Is it great? Nah. Can you “dungeon crawl” level appropriate content 50+? Nah? Is it decent xp while you wait for a group? Absolutely.

Like Tox said … grab a partner or 3. Mages are very powerful in groups. For what they do well, few do it better.

Solo? Not so much, but still viable if you pick your hunting grounds carefully.

Again, aside from the aggro transfer thing (which is more a guideline than a rule...its not 100%), mages are pretty bad at crawling.

A. You cant crawl with a pet
B. You cant really heal the pet at a scaling level
C. No CC (or splitting spells) outside root nets and earth pet
D. Just general mana issues, health issues, and NPC scaling

I love the mage, I have one whos 60 with some of the toys. ToV trains, group dps (non raid). It's very fun and not necessarily "weak". It's a point-and-shoot soloer though. Burn downs are necessary so its best to find single spawns. Or using as little mana as possible and poofing the pet, clean up nuking the low health mob.

I personally like the class more than the necro and have one of those too. You can't compare the two though, not in the slightest. One's basically a hybrid in it's trick bag, one is hyper specific.

You can crawl with a pet. Just need to be sure to keep it close if there's going to be weird pathing in an area. It's no big deal to just reclaim it and summon another anyway, already have to do that to invis through an area.

Not having CC isn't relevant if you've chosen a correct path to crawl and play perfectly. The pet is the CC, you should never be getting into a situation where you can't beat a specific group of MOBs. Chain summoning not working correctly unfortunately limits the places a Mage can crawl, but normally there are plenty of things that can be done solo.

Lull spells being overpowered on p99 also distorts things. Enchanters were not getting so many free rides through areas in classic EQ by trying to lull through. Critical resists were far more common.