Some advice for a confused mage

[mlaael]

Hey there,

I'm wondering if you could give me some advice on a path for my AA's.
I've done a fair amount in damage but i'm not sure what the best bang for the AA is now.
I normally box a shaman and a SK incase this helps figuring out a direction.
I never raid.
http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1764985" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks!
Mlaael

[Merlaina]

Even though you say you box an SK, I'd say fortify companion (under archetype) is a must have. It adds 10% melee and spell mitigation (up to 100K) even at level 1 and lasts 10 minutes. Any time your pet may need to offtank this AA is very helpful. Also Divine Companion Aura (which I don't have yet since I'm 83) so if you need to you can back the SK off a minute and let the pet tank with no worries. From my understanding the pet still deals damage under DA.

Companion's alacrity and elemental alacrity increases pet flurry, and more pet DPS is always good, especially since it affects RS as well. In fact this is generally considered better than pet crit AAs. Looks like you don't have any points in these yet, and they'll up your pet DPS by a good bit.

Companion's relocation will allow you to position your pet behind mobs, increasing DPS, especially in water pets. However since you're 3 boxing it might just be easier to have your SK position the mob, but still helpful if you're not controlling the tank.

Frenzied burnout and extended burnout you need yesterday. Level 1 is pretty negligible, but level 2 of FBO is awesome, and then extending that as much as you can makes the pet do crazy damage.

Fire core adds a nice chunk of damage to your fire nukes for 2 minutes I believe. Good for burning named mobs down.

Extended swarm and extended rumbling servant increase the duration of RS pets, which I'm sure you realize do great damage. An addition 4 seconds of that per cast is worth it.

If your shammy doesn't have it, the Malo AA is very useful. If he does, ignore this.

Again this is one I don't personally have maxed yet, but the twincast AA is supposedly decent. i only have rank 1, which does NOTHING, but the important thing is I'm not bitter.

I'm a whore for theft of essence, but if you're boxing a tank then you may not care as much about this.

[dorfillya]

I might add, the first couple levels of any AA always gives bigger benefits than the later levels of the same AA. So, I would suggest, get 3-4 levels of everything that sounds good, rather than getting all levels of one particular AA and then moving to the next.

[MeatnPotatoes]

espessially activatables.. get the first ranks of all your activatables.. just having the first rank is a HUGE step forward.. great for burn situations and such

[mlaael]

wow thank you so much for all this great advice!!!!

[Merlaina]

espessially activatables.. get the first ranks of all your activatables.. just having the first rank is a HUGE step forward.. great for burn situations and such

I think fire core you need to level 3 at 85. I think the focus caps at spell levels 75/80/85/85 per rank, with the focus damage increasing slightly as well. Lower levels are only useful for focusing lower level nukes.