Why so few mages on P99?

[HeallunRumblebelly]

Originally Posted by mr_jon3s [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Your gonna see a surge of mages when/if the planes revamp comes out. Mage epic is one of the best epics because its a spell so you always have it.

Biggest reasons people don't play mages is boring and no mana regen sustain. Enchanters get clarity and necros get lich with lifetap. Mages get mod rods and phantom armor life regen.

Also mages declined like this on live till PoP when they got AA's and 60+ pets that were better then the epic.

Mages will get more popular when they can reasonably attain their epic after the hate revamp (earth staff drops from mini, 8hr respawn, guaranteed).

[Tann]

I think some would come back if they "fixed" the 50% exp crap, while fire/reclaiming may be effective for leveling I'd much rather use a pet I wanted too, weaponized it, buffed it, and healed it while it did its work.

^^ much more interesting to me then clicking my focus items.

[Tasslehofp99]

Mages are awesome if you can learn to deal with the lack of control you have. I mean, not having root is terrible even with a pet.



I love my mage though, he is super useful.

[Pyrion]

I love mages. But pet taunt is totally broken on this server, so much that it doesn't even exist anymore. Its enough to spit at a mob to turn it away from the pet. I admit that a pet taunt should not be as good as a warriors, but c'mon... no pet taunt at all means that a mage can almost never use his/her nukes. The pet xp problem is easily solved by duoing, but the neccessity to reclaim pets all the time is very uncool while solo. Even if you want to outdamage your pet with nukes, you can't because pet taunt is broken and mages have no means to mitigate damage like nekros have.

So the only efficient way to solo is: Summon fire pet, recast and reclaim when low, repeat. You are unable to solve the pet variation problem like any other pet caster. The most pet focused class needs to kill his pet all the time. That's a bit fucked up.

[Snagglepuss]

The key to being an effective high level solo mage is carrying a 10 slot bag or more of wooly spider nets and in conjunction, fully utilizing CotH to split camps and such.

Mages in general are very one dimensional, but with some creativity, you are much more than semi afk sustained damage and clicky bolts or a mod rod and coth bot.

[Raev]

I don't know. I think Magician is a hugely underrated class, and a lot of the problem is that they are one of the worst played classes on the server. Like a lot of mages I see don't even resummon until they get a max pet or let Burnout wear off or they let damage shield fade on the tank etc. Also as Merrius says root nets are huge (root, run away, coh yourself and you can split basically any XP camp). Pet chaining requires more than one click for /pet attack but its quite strong.

I don't think Magicians have a fantastic raid role, but people love rogues (stand in back of mob, hit backstab key) and clerics (count to 5, cast complete heal). COH is a tremendous pulling tool and not just a "oh I am too lazy to /q" thing. Pets do solid damage by themselves, and mod rods are disgustingly overpowered (plus there are some cool things to do there!).

As I have stated before, I think the Magician Epic is a bit overrated. Sure, it's awesome. But it's not like you can't get by without it, whether you are solo, grouping, or raiding.

[baalzy]

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

I love mages. But pet taunt is totally broken on this server, so much that it doesn't even exist anymore. Its enough to spit at a mob to turn it away from the pet. I admit that a pet taunt should not be as good as a warriors, but c'mon... no pet taunt at all means that a mage can almost never use his/her nukes. The pet xp problem is easily solved by duoing, but the neccessity to reclaim pets all the time is very uncool while solo. Even if you want to outdamage your pet with nukes, you can't because pet taunt is broken and mages have no means to mitigate damage like nekros have.

So the only efficient way to solo is: Summon fire pet, recast and reclaim when low, repeat. You are unable to solve the pet variation problem like any other pet caster. The most pet focused class needs to kill his pet all the time. That's a bit fucked up.

Have you played recently? Pet taunt might not be up to classic level but it is actually pretty significant. I can pull with darkness, send my pet on it and my pet will get immediate hate. I can then cast 1-2 more dots and the mob will still usually stay on my pet and as long as I'm not right up in the mobs grill my pet will have hate back well before the mob reaches me. Even if I sit.

And at the higher levels pet chaining was a necessity anyways for a mage, so the only difference is instead of holding onto the most recently summoned one if it was at full HP, they have to ditch it before the kill.

[webrunner5]

I know I have not played my Mage hardly at all since the Pet Nerf. And that was along time ago. But, they can still kill faster or as fast as most other classes on here even eating the damn XP penalty.

And you hardly need any gear on the Mage to be half good. Only bummer to me is the damn research spells for them at times. Since few people play them now very few people bother to make research spells for them in the tunnel.

I will admit they get boring as hell at times, but they still are a damned good class overall. Just remember to have Gate ready to go at all times lol. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Tuljin]

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

Maybe I'm ignorant - I admit I haven't played mages an enormous amount because I find them so boring. How is solo EXPing a mage difficult and complex? Are you just exclusively doing dungeons when leveling and relying on things like root nets and earth pet for CC? When you say they're hard to EXP, do you mean that they level more slowly than other classes, or that there is actual challenge involved?

The fact that a Mage can't root makes it more difficult than the other soloing classes first of all. The pets are also weaker than the charmed Enc or Nec pets. Also, there is no AOE stun and AOE mez at their disposal to deal with adds. When you get into soloing/breaking cash camps, it requires a lot of finesse with a limited toolset to help with adds and other problems. Charmed pets present their own set of challenges, however without root nets Mage can do very little about adds. Necros and Encs have way more options.

The other reason why its hard to move the bar is because nobody wants a Mage in a group. There are many enchanters who hit 60 that never solo at all - - in fact they don't even charm pets in groups. However, they can post up anywhere and get a group very quickly, and they end up riding the xp train all the way to 60. Same with Shamans. Same with Monks and Clerics. This difficulty moving the bar has less to do with skill than it does the general ignorance and OP-class-fanboys of the server.

People don't want Mages in groups because, as Raev said, they are horribly played. Why are they horribly played? Because they are hard to play well. If it were easy you'd see way more lvl 60 Mages, and you'd see way more Mages around kicking ass. Even these days you can hit 56 and AOE train to 60 if you really want, but the majority of DPS in Chardok are Wizards. There are plenty of great Mages who have chimed in on this thread, and it definitely takes a good bit of skill to get shit done.

The thread is "why so few mages." There are a ton of 60 Shamans, Clerics, and Enchanters on this server because it is ~easier~ to hit than it is on Mage. There are more options for moving the XP bar, and you don't get griefed the entire way.

For a number of reasons, its difficult to get a Mage to 60. I think most players would agree that nubs need not apply.

[Vyal]

Ask someone who knows what happens to all the mages...
They play forever get bored then join a guild who has the ability to go after every FFA Inny and get their staff. Once they get their epics they just quit playing, thats what happens to the mages.

The mage epic is boss. Let me put it this way, you can take the mage epic into solb solo and wreck all the imps and banish the ele's then solo frooti without all the fancy debuffs and dots shamans have. Totally 100% beast pet..

A skilled mage can literally single pull anything in the game. I don't care what it is, it can be single pulled through an entire zone. Mages are also the best class for making trains [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I know lots of guilds rather have a bard or monk or a freaking ranger pull mobs but thats kinda dumb, in the end the puller might end up dying 5 times before they even get the mob. Or you could work your pull team around a mage tag coh pull & have it first shot.

I mean what so hard about making a lvl 4 fire pet tagging a mob say Talendor, run back to your group have it attack once it's in sight coh and have the tank run in or if there is adds have someone sneak tag it out.

Mages are a bit complicated and very expensive to play but once you got it down, high level mages are beast. Toss in that epic pet if your lucky enough to have one & you have a unmatched DPS, God/Dragon puller class / CoH machine...

Plus you can put your water pets on guard next to a mob have it attack then hit back then attack again and it will backstab non-stop toss in it's proc and give it two 100+ dmg proc weapons. Your pets doing something like 1k dmg every 10 seconds or so =)