A helpless Mage... a few questions

[Mendoros07]

Ok so for my whole EQ existence, I have played a straight DPS. In the last year or so I have worked my mage up to 85 and 2000 aa and mostly Tier 5 SOD group gear and some UF group stuff thrown in.

My questions:
-Does combat effects DO ANYTHING for casters? Am I to assume that the only things that help in getting more criticals on spells, other than the AA line that helps that or possibly GOM to pop more often is dexterity and Heroic Dex? Does CE help or anything else as a pure caster?
-Does CoH remove completely the targeted person from the hate list, including the pet? Actually can I CoH my pet?
-this is probably old and dead, and I know our pets come pre-equipped with everything BUT weapons if we have a decent focus, but with EM6, is there ANY point to giving the pet the massive amounts of attunable CRAP I have on my char and my alts? I've read so much on that, some say it pops when you pocket the pet, or zone... I just want to be sure, since if I ever kill and get a drop that is attunable crap, I give to my pet. Is it hurting the pet at all? I mean if he can use and then I zone or pocket and it poofs and it also erases the original set of gear he came pre-equipped with??
-should I first pay off my credit cards first or should I find a balance and pay off debt but also plan for retirement?

[svenalo]

Far as I know combat effects only effect weapon procs.

You cannot COH pets.

COH does not 100% remove aggro - there is a tiny chance it won't. The chance, though, is so tiny as to be ignored.

It's a waste to give the pets attunable armor; never have seen a difference to the outcome. No one can say for 100% sure unless the devs posted somewhere that they don't equip the stuff as we can inspect pets for the gear, but it really doesn't help to give it to them in the first place.

Pay yourself first (aka retirement).

[Merlaina]

Attunable armor does affect pets. At least I know defiant does. You can verify this by giving them something with +DS and comparing how much DS damage they were doing before and how much DS damage they do after. I don't know if spell shielding and whatnot helps. There is a 35% cap for players, but I don't know if that applies to pets since they're technically NPCs. The AC from attunable gear can actually be a fairly significant boost since pets don't have a softcap like players do. However as has been stated I don't believe pets zone with this gear, and pocketing may reset it as well. If you're going to try this, be in a zone you plan on staying in for a while so you get the max benefit from it.

[sharrien]

Are you sure that CoH doesn't remove the target from the hate list 100% of the time? The only times I've ever seen it fail in that regard is if the target was too close to the mage when it was cast, if the target had an active dot on the mob or if a merc cast something on the CoH target and got aggro.

BTW, CoH also wipes the hate list of the target's main pet and removes said pet from mob hate lists.

Pay off the credit cards first. If you can't make headway on them, re-examine your spending. By that I mean start buying hotdogs and ramen noodles for food to make sure you have enough to pay for your internet and EQ subscriptions.

[Daiou]

Ok so for my whole EQ existence, I have played a straight DPS. In the last year or so I have worked my mage up to 85 and 2000 aa and mostly Tier 5 SOD group gear and some UF group stuff thrown in.

My questions:
-Does combat effects DO ANYTHING for casters? Am I to assume that the only things that help in getting more criticals on spells, other than the AA line that helps that or possibly GOM to pop more often is dexterity and Heroic Dex? Does CE help or anything else as a pure caster?

Unless you melee, it does nothing.

-Does CoH remove completely the targeted person from the hate list, including the pet? Actually can I CoH my pet?

I have seen CoTH not work aggro wise once or twice (other than proximity problem) had always chaulked it up to a bug.

-this is probably old and dead, and I know our pets come pre-equipped with everything BUT weapons if we have a decent focus, but with EM6, is there ANY point to giving the pet the massive amounts of attunable CRAP I have on my char and my alts? I've read so much on that, some say it pops when you pocket the pet, or zone... I just want to be sure, since if I ever kill and get a drop that is attunable crap, I give to my pet. Is it hurting the pet at all? I mean if he can use and then I zone or pocket and it poofs and it also erases the original set of gear he came pre-equipped with??

The gear does help some, but i never go to the trouble of "getting" gear for my pet. If it drops i'll hand it to the pet instead of letting it rot.

-should I first pay off my credit cards first or should I find a balance and pay off debt but also plan for retirement?

If you're not over extented on credit, pay yourself first. 10% of my pay check goes to my savings right off the top. Its calculated in my buget like that. If your making the minimum payements then rethinking your buget to pay off as much as possible asap would be wise.

[Danille]

There are a few reasons why coth often fails

- The person pulling the mob uses a DoT snare or other such foolishness. (the dot hitting after coth reaggros the mob)
- Someone forgot to put the merc on PASSIVE or set the person pulling to PULLER
- Someone casts a late group buff like a damage shield, invis, gall, levi, etc...
- The person pulling runs towards the mage versus running away. (safe rule is 100' distance for 100% aggro clear)

Outside of those situation coth pulling will work all the time as long as the mage doing the coth has a safe place to stand without gaining aggro.

In my opinion if you are planning to kill some mobs using coth pulling, alot of grief can be eliminated by asking the person pulling one question and dealing with their response approporiately.

"Do you have recent experience coth pulling?"

(pay off the credit cards)

[Elarya]

Pay off the credit cards first - anything accruing interest is going to offset paying anything into savings or superannuation.

As for the rest.. I dunno lol.. smurf I didn't know about DEX helping with damage.. off to spend some AA"s now!