If everyone could obtain something it would be called common, not epic.

That said, I would think about what your plans were when you cap out at 60. if you planned to raid and group primarily, that epic is not terribly useful. If you planned to solo a lot, then, yes, not having the epic is a significant drawback. But since you are already in a big guild, it makes me think you are more inclined to grouping/raiding than soloing. And in all honesty if your plan was to solo mostly at 60, you picked the wrong class already and should definitely bail out.

:eek: Mages are one of the quintessential solo classes in classic EQ! Certainly not the best (/cough Necromancer) or second best (/cough Druid) ... maybe not even the third best (Shaman? Bard? Enchanter?) ...

... but still, if it's wrong for a Mage to solo, I don't want to be right.

Agreed, epic is by definitiion a very very rare item, but then how come sone so many rogues & clerics have theirs the minute they ding 46, and a lot of 60 mages still don"t and probably never will ?
And I'm not even talking about all the people that use the oh so handy excuse of FTE to act like douche with Quillmane ?

This is the crux of it: you can't just say "shit's classic" because it wasn't. In classic everyone's epic was rare.

The vast disparities in epics we see here are a function of Kunark existing on blue for seven years before Velious, instead of one ... coupled with vast differences in player knowledge.

But again, anyone claiming "it's classic to have millions of Rogue epics and no Mage epics" is full of it! Everyone's epic was rare at first, and the after the classic period they fixed epic drop rates on live.

Rogue epic wasn't rare in classic Kunark. It was already a fairly trivial quest. The difference with P99 is that General fights took a guild, not a group.

But there were plenty of epic rogues running around.

I think it should be made harder to obtain on P99 though. 30k for the MQ just feels broken.

I mean at some point we're fighting over pointless numbers neither of us can prove :) Was there 1.5 as many Rogue epics on live as Mages? Probably? 2:1? Maybe, who knows?

But the ratio here is like 100:1 or worse. Having less Mage epics (but only slightly, and everyone's epic is super rare) is classic. Having virtually every member of some classes (45+) wielding their epic is clearly not, and again the seven years of Kunark (OF COURSE!) made things less classic.

Like I keep saying, this is a clear example of where custom content could actually make Blue more classic.

Quitting a mage over the feeling of not being able to complete your epic is lame. The water staff is a decent consolation prize considering how easy it is to get and how damn burly the last water voceration is and its monstrous damage output. Yeah, it's not a charmed pet for the damage parse, but who cares? Monks and Rogues are usually sweating bullets to keep up with it, let alone with your pet's damage output added to your personal spell contribution.

Join a raid guild. Be proactive in using the hate tracker. Get help. Put your time in. It is totally achievable without no-life-ing. Some of my favorite moments on p99 are getting a mage who has waited and tried so hard their epic. It is a real cheer point in discord.

While I agree with you, doing all this does not guarantee any mage a lucky roll when an earth staff finally drops or that you'll have enough dkp to get it over the over your guildee mages that will have done like you to get that staff.

I'd never looked into the rog epic 'quest' until today, but this is a joke. 2 fights and some running around? How epic is that?
FFS, all even the soloable parts of mage epic will take twice as long... I've got some quests on my noob 30 chanter that will be harder than that too, but some guys will still whine when mages express their concern about the drop rate of the biggest bottleneck on blue?

Get your staff now while it drops off Inny - it’s not as bad of a bottleneck until a single farm group can lock down Magi.