pets

[Malleria]

We have kited Mi and even used swarms, RS, and 5 mage pets, 3 beast pets, all at once and never once did that mob look back.

Seriously, just stop. You aren't fooling anyone.

Dude you didn't have taunt on, and our guild banned the RS cause it was killing ppl.

So you normally have taunt turned on on raids? Wow...

[Failcon]

Just a matter of fact- The way pet focuses work is simple. It grants your pet a shoulder item when summoned.

It does a whole lot more than that. As a matter of fact, it didn't even summon a cloak (not shoulder) until SoF era.

Mages pets are scary, when buffed, and used propperly with the AAs they tank nearly as good as actual tanking classes.

The only way a raid geared magepet is going to do as well as a raid geared tank is with DA. An EM8 air pet, max aa, doesn't even come close to the tanking ability of a convo group geared tank with max defensives and not half-assed augs. This is from experience, as I progressed through to convo with a group geared SK (I had EM3 to EM4 at the time, EM7&8 after we got convo flagged and he still tanked way better). An EM5 (group geared) air pet would be even lower down the pecking order. Slack-ass tanks call out our pets because slack-ass mages do better than them. It's slightly easier to not suck with a magepet.

Was comparing raid mages with group tanks, and how they are the ones complaining. The Beta boards were full of group players throwing a fit about just that, how raid mages were overpowered. Go figure that group tanks get upset when your pet out tanks them. Note there is a post on here that talks about where to molo, and a mage with EM8 can go just about any UF zone including the final zone and even tank names. I know alot of group tanks that can't do it, I have been in more than one pick up group in convo where I had to tank the names cause the group geared tank just couldn't get the job done. That type of thing causes players to complain, and while I understand how they feel (I didn't start raiding for a long time) it is just how it is. What some of you have failed to see is that you have been raiding for so long you forget what it was like to not be top geared, top tier players and only want more.

In the Raid game we need to relook at how we are veiwing ourselves. Yeah we are DPS, just not high on the food chain, but we have other jobs.

We aren't even in the food chain. Last burn parse (70sec) was a wizzy at 52k, followed by a smurfton more wizzies and a few melee's. I have no idea where I was, but burned everything and *maybe* did 1/3 the wizzy's dps. Perhaps we should go back to writing stupid things on the ground with modrods. We need something raid specific to help us out and not OP group mages. I saw one good idea somewhere (sorry can't remember where) that was... a new massive Jolt/Shock that ramps up based on PC's in agrolist. Pet's really aren't viable any more (even raiding we rarely have 10 pets on agro list, unless mob is cornered, which almost never happens any more), and would still make for silliness in a group setting provided host was up.

Dude please, first off how can you say what your DPS was compared to the Wizzy's when as you said you don't know where you were. I parse every fight and can tell you exactly how I am doing. Do to mages whining about us being utility they cried till our new AA mod rod was nerfed, rather than it being a benifit to our guilds, that could be cast between nukes, it is now a fairly crappy item compared to its former abilities. Also a nuke based on the number of people in raid has nothing to do with the mage class design, the whole reason for Jolt/Shock/Clash is for the raid enviorment. It is one of the reasons so many classes are being given multiple types of pets, pets that designers complain about having to code. Not all guilds have/like pet classes so yeah can be tough, ROI doesn't recruit beastlords, but every medium to top tier guild on Rathe have plenty of pet classes. With 3 mages, 3 necros, and 2 beasts you have 8 main pets, mages and beasts should be casting servants so you should have more than enough and that doesn't count necros who tend to love tossing out their hordes, that is non host, so how are you missing out unless your guild just doesn't have enough pet classes.

The role of a mage is much more than just DPS, and it is selfish of a mage to think otherwise.

I can't remember the last time I was asked to do anything other than dps. Oh wait, there is one event where I sit there and chain earth pets at a mob. Sure I make rods/invis stones/whatever. I stopped DS'ing cause that's the first thing that gets clicked off. Pyroshroud on a select few warriors that don't hate it, but other than that... I often get the feeling that the rest of the raid just wished I would reroll a wiz.

Yeah I bet they would love you to reroll a Wizzy. As for me I don't play my mage for what other people want, I play cause I love being a mage.

I wasn't in Beta, but I suppose the new AA rods should help our raid utility a bit... but you only need 1 Mage for those (hell, one alt parked in GH). Other than that I just see us continuing on down the road of mediocrity. On the bright side, most of us will be accustomed to that though (2001-2008 ring any bells?).

Ok you were not in Beta but you are in this thread complaining about where we are going and what we can do. How do you know what our abilities are? I was in Beta, I did test our abilities, I parsed our dps in grps with others (including beasts, who got a large boost) and am happy to say mages performed above par in many ways. BTW our parsed DPS goes up for standard nuking about 1/3 to 1/2 and our burn DPS goes up about dbl, and that was with none of those nice bonuses we get on raids, nor any dmg pots or glyphs.

[Failcon]

i could be wrong but i only seen our CL not wanting what community wanted in HoT beta. unless i missed everything and lot was said in beta to my knolwdge fail is wrong. we didnt want 23k rod dmg to us. we didnt particually wanted best nuke reduced but to be able to be an assest thru dps better. now maybe twincasting with RS pets is overpowered for group content sure ill go with it but for dps in raid not at all. it still wouldnt give us what we need to be compared to the other classes.

There was a ton of desent about our rods, no, nobody asked for the 23k damage on it, that was the Devs shoving a gift back at us. It was the conplaints about us getting rods and being rod machines. There was alot of pushes for the big nuke to be lowered for pet DPS and alot of people kept on ranting about the TC for RS.

I would love the TC RS, but we have to roll with the punches is what I am saying.

[Sarenot]

I disagree completely re TC RS. We should not roll with the punches; when twincast was introduced RS was absolutely meant to be twincastable. It never worked because of code issues (apparently because of the fact that we have the dd nuke + pet proc), and only afterwards did it become 'by design'.

Saying it would make us OP in grps is dumb.. you are talking like every cast of RS will pop 2 servants.. remember the % chance is small and the trigegred ability is on a timer. Will it be a powerful addition to grping/soloing.. absofukinglutely. But I see it as no more OP than a wiz being able to TC their most powerful nukes and taking down mobs by sheer brute force. We have to stop being apologetic for our class.. we are meant to be powerful. Offtanking mobs is what we do! We can not match wizards for sheer damage output, but this does not mean it is not ok to still kick ass in other ways. Mages are already amongst the best clases at taking out named.. this is simply how it is. Adding TC for RS will make this easier, but this is not the main focus for doing this.. increasing mage dps on raids is. It is unacceptable for me that mages alone are singled out to not be able to use their most powerful spell with TC.

[Failcon]

You said it, we are a powerful class that can take out names and such. That does not mean it is just ok to throw out the balance even more. It is power gamers like you who will never be happy without being a god toon, so go play diablo and use your trainer so you can play in god mode and be happy. Min/Max pukes like you make me sick. I bet there are no complaints from the other classes in your guild about mages, but you feel so insecure cause you don't feel like the tough guy when you see raid parses.

[Malleria]

Power gamers? God toon? Min/Max? Seriously? Because mages want to be valuable in the raid game as well as the group game you're throwing out hateful accusations?

Grow up.

You have no idea how things are at the high end (no, you're not high end, despite what you think). Mages may be doing ok on long fights, but that doesn't excuse a severe lack of burst. Especially when on 10min+ fights high end zerkers, rogues, monks etc can easily rival or beat our sustained, as well as triple our burst.

[Sarenot]

U mad? U sound mad... (etc etc)

Grats on missing the point completely. I am not asking for God mode mage... where did you get that from. I have never asked for mages to be at the top of the parse list.. all I want is to be a respectable damage dealer. With the changes in HOT to many other classes, we are nowhere near being respectable damage dealers on raids. Sacrificing our raid dps for the dubious benefit of being able to kill grp content named (situationally) is not making us desirable on raids, or groups for that matter. You make it sound like ever mage in the game can walk up to any group content named and get free loot.. we know that is not the case. We keep harping on about mages moloing t9 content like every mage does it.. the mages that can do that are endgame geared, and when we are discussing endgame geared toons then we see that many classes can trivialize group content to an even greater degree than mages (some classes soloing entire mission lines/raids...).

I am asking for mages to continue being a powerful class, not to be overpowered. We can differ on what we consider overpowered (you think TC RS is op, i dont), but keep your insults and deragotary comments to yourself. You know nothing about me or my playstyle. So stfu. Argue points.

Final edit: also .. min max? If that means i don't want to suck at the class i play, then yea, im min max type of guy. Excuse me for wanting to play something well rather than just play...

[Failcon]

Power gamers? God toon? Min/Max? Seriously? Because mages want to be valuable in the raid game as well as the group game you're throwing out hateful accusations?

Grow up.

You have no idea how things are at the high end (no, you're not high end, despite what you think). Mages may be doing ok on long fights, but that doesn't excuse a severe lack of burst. Especially when on 10min+ fights high end zerkers, rogues, monks etc can easily rival or beat our sustained, as well as triple our burst.

You complain about burst DMG but then say how we don't compete in the 10+ min sustained game, pick one or both, just don't try using one to prove the other. Mages are not spose to be a top burst DPS class, so why complain about it. Now I agree we should compete more in sustained dmg, fights lasting 5 - 10 min maybe a lil longer with some of these new mana enhancements, but in the truly long fights melees rule, no mana to rely on, only necros are spose to compete. Mages are mid ground, mid dmg, that is how we are designed. One of the biggest problems we mages face is we don't get prime groups on raid causing us to not get the full boosts we need. To get full boost we need both melée and caster auras and buffs, but most raid leaders have no desire to take a bard or shammy away from melees. So 1/3 of our DPS gets no bonuses, and we get pushed in with the other casters and only get caster benifits. Before you start flaming about what pets can be effected by, go parse it.

As for group vs raid ability, the Devs are not going to increase our raid power, so long as it keeps pushing us farther ahead of other classes in the group game. Yes some classes at end game are powerhouses, but only in certain environments or for a severly limited duration. Most mission/raid soloing is old content, were as we do the same. No I do notsay we are just end game named farmers, alot of those names have as many kills vs us. We will be limited because of that ability though. If you want more raid power than there will have to be a trade off. After having a long talk with a GM during Beta it is painfully appearent that is how they feel. Also I have yet to find a current GM who plays a Mage, the Dev who was in charge of Mages had no experience as a Mage. So in order to get more power in the raid game we had to show numbers on how we compared to other classes, I was added to beta late and was not able to get in on raids to parse, all I had was group parses, and that got us nowhere cause I was out parsing most classes I grouped with. The worse part of this is that group balance is one of the biggest issues the Devs care about. The GM I talked with said they were not happy with our pets but it was a balance issue.

I also take back my accusations. I am just bothered by the way mages are acting with this expansion, it was shameful that mages did the pushing to nerf what we got. They nearly lowered air pet tanking, cause earth pets are the "tanks", the GM understood that we needed more than one type of tank, and one that didn't root due to issues there. We are fighting Devs who don't know our class, with group players that complain we are too powerful soloists, the typical group of people who whine about every classes abilities, and then there is the group that kills us, the mages who would not let go of issues that we were told no too. The group that complained so much, kept pushing every thing we were given back. Complaints about out harvest and spear, cause they said it just made us mini wizards. The group that complained about the new AA mod rods, saying that was all we would be good for, and once it was changed to have charges, they complained it should be self only. There was even complaints about how our pets will come geared. We can not progress as long as we cut each others throats. So do we loose pet power, mana efficientcy, or top end nuke for pet DPS. If you want more raid power, there has to be a price paid.

[Malleria]

You complain about burst DMG but then say how we don't compete in the 10+ min sustained game, pick one or both, just don't try using one to prove the other. Mages are not spose to be a top burst DPS class, so why complain about it. Now I agree we should compete more in sustained dmg, fights lasting 5 - 10 min maybe a lil longer with some of these new mana enhancements, but in the truly long fights melees rule, no mana to rely on, only necros are spose to compete. Mages are mid ground, mid dmg, that is how we are designed. One of the biggest problems we mages face is we don't get prime groups on raid causing us to not get the full boosts we need. To get full boost we need both melée and caster auras and buffs, but most raid leaders have no desire to take a bard or shammy away from melees. So 1/3 of our DPS gets no bonuses, and we get pushed in with the other casters and only get caster benifits. Before you start flaming about what pets can be effected by, go parse it.

That was pretty much my point... we're not competitive in any situation. Short burns we're tripled, mid length fights melee and other casters are just coming down from their burns and still have the huge damage lead, long fights melee are able to sustain high enough to still be ahead of us long after their discs have faded. We're supposed to be middle ground yes, but our middle ground sucks. You say melee are supposed to rule long fights? Why are they topping burst and mid length as well then?

I agree we don't get all the support we need, and it's been mentioned one of our problems is multiple damage sources. I don't think having a bard and shammy in our group would magically solve our pet problems (especially since the bards would be better singing spell enhancing songs). The major burst buffs are MGB'd anyway (warcry, auspice etc). But just sitting back and accepting we're not going to be decent dps isn't really acceptable either, because in the high end it has the very real effect of mages not being desired. No one is asking to match zerkers and wizards in burst, or match necros in sustained. Just asking to be a little closer... It's not cool that it takes 2 or 3 mages to match the damage output of 1 other class.

[Sarenot]

See, that is a sensible post. And I agree that we have too many people pulling in different directions. This is why I posted on beta that the point of a CL and a priority list is to work on a few sensible ideas, and not to spread stuff around and end up with nothing tangibly useful.

I do not agree with some parts of your post, but I am tired of posting. Beta is over, arguing is pointless. In my experience, we are stuck now with what we got, for better or worse. I have yet to see meaningful tuning or fixes happening after a beta is over, so I won't hold my breath.