Any point in playing a mage to level 60 if I'm not going to raid with it?

[Tunabros]

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

My experience on live people would flip out if you tried using a pet in raids. They could never give clear explanations why. Maybe I was too dumb to understand.

it fucks up aggro and its pretty annoying to manage and can get in the way etc

in classic, using pets to kill dragons or PoS bosses was top tier but it falls off quickly

[Sabin76]

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

My experience on live people would flip out if you tried using a pet in raids. They could never give clear explanations why. Maybe I was too dumb to understand.

I imagine it had more to do with pathing than anything else. I didn't raid on live with my mage, but I went into dungeons enough to learn to start casting gate whenever I'd turn around and my pet was missing. The difference between the mediocre mages and the top tier mages are that the top tier ones bother to make a "/pet back" macro in addition to their "/pet attack" macro. :P

I'm a mediocre mage, btw.

[Snaggles]

Yea in general pets on raids is not ideal. Nobody is going to remember the sustained 40 or whatever dps you are adding when that glimmer dispells everyone or it eats a fear and runs into battle.

Frankly so few people make an effort on push as it is, asking them to manage a pet in that way is just not going to happen.

[Vaarsuvius]

I stopped playing my mage on Live before Serpent Spine, but the AAs Suspend Minion & Pet Discipline gave a mage a very good control over their pet and the ability to hold a pet that was buffed to the gills on top of having a regular pet

/pet hold
/pet focus

Only real pet push trouble came with Host of the Elements.

Can't remember with what patch pets started to share their master's resists, but it was really useful and helped pet survivability VS raid target AoEs a lot

[tadkins]

I was wondering if there was much of a point to bringing more than one or two mages to a raid, given what I know their primary function is (CotHing and summoning mod rods).

Been debating between wizard and mage for the longest time. Wizards seem harder to play, without a pet to protect them and being limited in leveling to select quad kiting zones, but wizards at least seem stackable in a raid setting.

[Tethler]

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

I was wondering if there was much of a point to bringing more than one or two mages to a raid, given what I know their primary function is (CotHing and summoning mod rods).

Been debating between wizard and mage for the longest time. Wizards seem harder to play, without a pet to protect them and being limited in leveling to select quad kiting zones, but wizards at least seem stackable in a raid setting.

With 32k hp raid targets in classic and Kunark, wizards are really good. Velious really sees mob hps jump a lot. So wizards are still viable, but a lot less impactful than before. Melee dps that doesn't rely on a mana pool (plus velious weapon ratios) is gonna pull ahead for the long haul fights.

[tadkins]

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

With 32k hp raid targets in classic and Kunark, wizards are really good. Velious really sees mob hps jump a lot. So wizards are still viable, but a lot less impactful than before. Melee dps that doesn't rely on a mana pool (plus velious weapon ratios) is gonna pull ahead for the long haul fights.

That's good to hear. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] I ultimately did choose wizard because while it is a harder path that requires more investment (working on the plat to get a jboots MQ atm, and the Solist's wand I do have set me back a bit) it seems like it would be a more fun and more fufilling thing in the long haul. I can go into a raid, actually play to the proper fantasy and fire lightning bolts at that terrifying dragon, rather than stand back and poop out modrods.

Also who doesn't love ports?

Just needed to ask to reinforce that belief, because at times I do wonder if I wouldn't be better off as a mage instead.

[Vaarsuvius]

Definitely go wiz,
Mages suck ass even more now than they used to...

[tadkins]

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

Definitely go wiz,
Mages suck ass even more now than they used to...

My biggest concern was the usefulness of mages in a raid, particularly if multiple mages are around, and the utter buttclenching difficulty of their epic.

I do eventually want to raid one of these days and it seems like a raid wouldn't be hindered by stacking multiple wizards as opposed to having multiple mages. xD

[Blingy]

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

My experience on live people would flip out if you tried using a pet in raids. They could never give clear explanations why. Maybe I was too dumb to understand.

Gonna be long but some background is necessary as to why people use to flip out and probably still do when mages bring pets to raids.

Mage pets were used as main tanks during raids at one time. This pissed off actual tanks as their usefulness was basically very weak dps. The Sony dev's heard the complaints about how mage pets could hold aggro better than warriors so the mechanic was changed so mobs will attack any player over a pet.

So now all pets were relegated to dps and actual tanks were once again tanking mobs for raids. The holy trinity became one playstyle but a different style of playing also evolved; pet groups. As long as a pet group had some sort of healer the group would be very effective. My wife and I regularly played in these groups. Her first main was a druid but she also had a shaman and chanter. I mained a mage but also dabbled in necromancy. Most of our friends also played pet classes. All pet owners kept stacks of reagents to make new pets so if one died; meh. Any sort of healer could easily top off a caster if they got hit a few times.

However the same can't be said regarding a warrior/paladin/sk. The group game was very broken in this regard. Imagine a group of level 45-50 people in Skyfire armed with a druid or shaman that has greater healing. However there were also many tanks that asked to group with us; often we'd say yes. When a tank was invited of course things slowed way down due to game mechanics. Keep in mind at this stage in the game a lot of the general mechanics were still being figured out by the players; many tanks opted for max HP in lieu of AC. This is fine if the group has a CH cleric but sucks major monkeynuts for other healers. So once again tanks were pissed due to a lot of them either not getting groups or getting groups but abysmal xp rates. Many pet groups would of course opt for efficiency over all other aspects of the game in the race to 50/60/65/etc. which of course led to tanks getting pissed. This continued until druids and shaman were given better heals.

The raid game had other problems with pets. A lot of pet owners had very poor pet control. Pets also pushed mobs until Depths of Darkhollow was released. By now many people in the game had developed a pretty anti-pet stance. I first started raiding when Planes of Power was released. Our guild leader hated pets. One of our raid leaders openly bashed pet classes; other raid leader didn't bash us but didn't allow pets on raids. I moved to a different guild that allowed pets on raids but the membership would constantly use /gu as a "those dam pets are pushing the mob all over". One raid in particular pets were blamed for wiping the raid (claims he was pushed too far) when Fenin Ro was almost dead. I and all other pet classes decided to not summon pets for one week. You can probably guess that mobs were still pushed around but despite no pets out at the raid. Yet we were still blamed for mobs getting pushed.

Fast forward to today. A lot of the old animosity towards pets has simply been carried from one EQ generation to another. The Five Monkey Experiment comes to mind when thinking about this.

The above is simply my experience. I've raided everything from classic through Depths of Darkhollow then off and on through Call of the Forsaken when I finally came to p99. The above has been pretty consistent from Saryrn, Rodcet Nife, Bristlebane and Fironia Via servers.