Conjuration & Clickies

[Cielli]

I'm disappointed to see no upgrade to Our Fire Orb... as well as the scrapping of our Sands conjuration line. Without an upgrade to the Orb and the scrapping of one of our conjuration nukes, it seems our representative/and or the devs have overlooked the viability of Conjuration specialty for mages.

I two-box ( mage + enc ) and recently switched to COnjuration specialty, as I'm soloing more and more. Longer solo fights make Swarm + Conj nukes and clickies very viable and very efficient ( far more efficient than evoc ) Especially when working in Mana re-iteration aura and Mana-returning augs/spell effects.

Soloing I'll open Push my pet past the mob, summon swarms on the mobs back, and fire up my Sands line ( 85-80 spell plus 90-95 spell ) Using my frost and orb clicky, plus FoE between nearly every cast. I only throw my big bangs for Gorm procs, when I dont need to resummon a clicky or refresh Surge DS...

Sands does 4-5k base dmg, But add in mana recursion procs ( which because of the low dmg of the spell, often does 100% of the actual spells dmg ) and the increased efficiency of mana returning procs on low-mana spells, and you have a very efficent setup for fights lasting more than one minute.

Please bring back The sands line, and continue the Orb line... these are some of our most efficient spells, and my personal favorites. Use of orb and paradox is also what seperates the good mages from the lazy/oblivious ones in doing the best burst dmg.

[Cielli]

Clairvoyance/Spell dmg focus only works on spells within 5 lvls of current lvl... so using the 91-95 conjuration nukes is a poor solution. You're losing all your clairvoyance and spell damage effects using those spells...

[Piemastaj]

None of these lines are necessarily gone. They had to rush out an expansion so things got lost in the mix.

However, I do not know where to begin by how much your hurting yourself in groups. Only using Conjuration nukes means your not using anywhere near our most powerful nuke spells, and Garg is your only spell your using with any type of mana cost. Which is where Specialize Conjuration comes in handy, mana saves on those types of spells.

For Conjuration nukes your at: 4.7k DMG for 610 mana and 7821 DMG for 1039 mana. Grand total: 12521 DMG at 1649 mana. Yes its efficient in those terms. Now look at your Evocation nukes: Bolt- 10689 DMG for 1587 mana, Spear- 19967 DMG at 3350 mana, HoT Spear- 15414 DMG at 3161.

Your doing less DMG then you should be and lowering your kill times doing so. Making it so your taking at least double the time to kill the mob. Evocation is the better route to go anyway you spin it.

Clairvoyance also is broken. You see no gains from it.

[Vincentt]

Was the mana flare free dmg factored into that calculation Pie? I do a similar thing and always felt I was being more efficient Casting sands+mana recursion and using GoM procs for orbs/paradox and RS pet. At my level mobs die from pet+RS+DS dmg mostly. I conserve my mana to maintain a pace. And for emergencies (overpulls etc).

But I get what your implying that killing mobs faster = more return over time since you're not using mana to heal pet. Hrmmm.

[Cielli]

Was the mana flare free dmg factored into that calculation Pie? I do a similar thing and always felt I was being more efficient Casting sands+mana recursion and using GoM procs for orbs/paradox and RS pet. At my level mobs die from pet+RS+DS dmg mostly. I conserve my mana to maintain a pace. And for emergencies (overpulls etc).

But I get what your implying that killing mobs faster = more return over time since you're not using mana to heal pet. Hrmmm.

What he said ( nuke dmg is only a portion of total dmg ).... Also consider the increased efficiency of mana returns from alleviating burst procs on a 500 mana spell vs. a 4k mana spell. And the increased efficiency of using low-mana spells to use more expensive spells with GoRm procs.

here's my spell line-up for solo fights, maybe you'll understand why I'm conjuration-spec'd

pre-fight: Surge of Arcanum ( conjuration )

Servant ( conjuration )

Sands ( conjuration)
Force of the elements ( free )
Blistersteel ( conjuration)
Clicky orb ( conjuration)
Sands ( conjuration)
Clicky paradox (conjuration)

2nd Servant, & repeat....

I never cast more than 3 servants so my fights aren't lasting much longer than a minute t1 rof.

In groups I'm a burster like every1 else and I use evoc... But I'm still using Surge on the tank, and if the mobs are gonna live for 25 seconds, I'll open with Servant, and I still use clickies ( conjuration ) ( every1 should ) between every nuke casting, So I'mm still using a substantial amount of conjuration-based stuff, I dont feel i'd be 'omg gimp' gimp grouping with conj... but my solo line-up being the way it is, do you see why I'm conj specd?

I just don't want them dumping our conj nukes under the assumption no one uses them, I use them. & the Fire Orb is way cool, I wish they would upgrade it...

[Goranothos]

Too much math and over anal-I-zing.

I'm a conj mage because I mostly box and tend to cast a lot of gargs.

Pull T4 VoA mob with malo AA. Hit "nuke" hotkey, which is garg/spear/spear/bolt. While that's going off, hit shammy slow/sic shammy pet, then hit shammy 5-DoT hotkey.

Couple more gargs, mob dead.

For RoF mobs, similar strat, only hit mage nuke hotkey another time (or 2 for "big uns"), and a couple more gargs. Go grab a gin&gingerale while medding after two or three mobs.

For named mobs, unleash hell.

Life is good.

[Fleiss]

Go Evoc, you will have plenty of time to sit on your butt with how much faster you kill. I understand a pace but with ways to return mana to us only getting better (ans spell cost not taking as big of a jump) you should be able to keep up at a faster kill rate to work in a couple min break (and you can go to the bathroom, get a drink, etc.).

Also with better foci you will see the gaps narrow. With things being % based, which returns you more 10% off 1K or 3K mana? Which gives you more damage, 50% added to 7800 damage or 19967 damage? Which slots 3 have more damage added, the lower damage spells or higher damage spells?

If your mana stinks use bolts not spears. If you have the new expansion dont worry you will be filled out in random zone drops of 2k+ m gear in no time if you play at all and m pool wont be an issue.

Also if you ever switch to DPS you want your saving to be placed on what will hit you the hardest m wise and least efficient spells (evoc) not a spell you can cast all day and stay fm.

[Cielli]

The new gear stinks, crappy heroic values... Ive made 2 mil plat selling the junk and only actually upgraded 1 slot. ( new EM item ) but I'm moving to t2 ( sucks theres only 2 tiers ) so maybe I'll find some half-decent upgrades. currently at 65k mana with t4 VoA group gear.

My enchanter nukes, too. At best I'd kill 25% faster using the bolts and spears, but it's a huge mana dump.

I don't want a conj / evoc argument, I used Evoc spec. for a long time and Im sure I will again when I'm grouping again, just want our class rep. to know some of us do use Conj. and those spells are important to us .

[Mintalee]

work in a couple min break (and you can go to the bathroom, get a drink, etc.)

EQ players go to the bathroom?!

[Cielli]

Condom catheter...