Mage epic worth it?
 

Is the mage epic Orb of Mastery worth it, or do the later pet spells over power it? I know its supposed to be a combination of all pets in one spell, just wondering if it's worth it to go through that whole quest line instead of just getting the later pet summons.

It seems that on the whole, the Epic Pet is slightly better than the Greater Vocarate line most of the time. The DS and the proc are nothing to be sneezed at. That said, the recent nerf to the epic pet on blue (which we must assume will also be applied to green) means its white damage is actually less than any of the non-focused GV pets (67 for epic vs 68-70 for GV). The epic is waaaay more tanky, though. It's stuns should have quite a bit more threat and the HP comparison is not even close.

Since the epic doesn't backstab, any situation where you get get your GV: Water pet behind a mob it should outdamage an epic pretty easily. That said, the water staff is not too hard to get, so after getting the epic you could probably 2-man Phinny with it to get another water staff :P.

Epic Pet is great for solo/duo/trio farming thats for sure. It's incredibly powerful assuming you have someone to heal it.

It's also equally hard to obtain on the P99 servers. Sadly, if youre a mage, I wouldn't assume you'll have the option of getting your Epic anytime soon.

How is the epic's mitigation compared to the focused GVs? No good having twice as many hp if the pet is taking 3 times the damage per hit!

Do they respond well in general use situations to being given AC gear?

Considering I'd need to go to plane of sky it seems out of reach currently lol

As I've only really played a Mage to endgame on Green (Stopped playing on live at 47 and Blue at 20-something), I can't answer this question. I was waiting to hit 60 and get my GV: Water before running parses of the different pets, so the more detailed information will have to come from someone on Blue who's bothered to do it after the nerf. I am simply going by the big bug thread where it was first shown that the mage epic was hitting too hard in era. It's important to note that the epic pet is level 49, which is the same level as a focused max-level GV pet. So from a pure "mitigations due to level standpoint", it isn't any better or worse. That said, Earth pet is supposed to have higher mitigations and the Air pet is supposed to have higher avoidance, but I haven't seen anything on whether this is true on P99. I haven't bothered testing it myself because I don't like using unfocused pets if I can help it :P.

Things I've heard but have not confirmed (since I can't) that tilt the scales towards the epic:
- Epic has built in haste that stacks with Burnout and Muzzle, so even the reduced max white damage may be compensated for by this.
- Epic stun procs more like the other pet procs (averaging once every 6 seconds, instead of the once every 12 seconds for the Air pet stun).

We will definitely have Epic mages in our guild once they drop, so more direct comparisons will be forthcoming.

FWIW: Crowns are droppable off of Island 7 trash mobs, so there will be likely at least a few for sale. The real bottleneck is the Earth Staff, which will be near impossible to get without being in a raiding guild.

Water pet with staff from phinny is better pure dps as long as you know how to position the pet. Is the epic good? Absolutely. Is it worth it? Eh if you raid and work at it casually sure. But it's not some absolute class defining epic such as the rogue or shaman one.

I consider mage epic to be merely godly, clerics to be class defining, and bards to be class *transcending*, upgrading them into a super beyond their normal class class.

Hate to break to ya my friend but you will almost certainly never get the mage epic, so it's pretty moot. People's responses so far are pretty accurate.

That being said, it is definitely worth it.

I played a mage on live & got my epic sometime during Velious.

It was worth it for sure, epic pet is an ass kicker.

But is it worth it on P99? IMO it's not worth paying 800k to MQ the earth staff in terms of being a human sitting at a computer to farm that much plat on a 20 year old elf simulator. If you're in a raiding guild and that earth staff drops than ya, dump your DKP because other than that one piece it's not a terribly hard epic to get. The bees are rough, but they're up & available.