Elemental Greetings to the mage community

[Adonhiram]

Elemental Greetings, fellow mages !

Maybe some of you remember me, I have been a long time EQ (and mage forever) player, started on Bertoxx my mage Adonhiram on 1st of May 2000, moved to AB as the european server was released, and played till January 2008 with two interruptions. I quitted at the beginning of SoF and now I am coming back, the nostalgia just was too strong

Just wanted to step by and say hello to all mages. I see the forum is not as crowded as it used to be three or four years ago, but I suppose that's the general fate of EQ. Whatever, this game just has possessed our souls, so it summoned me back and I was unable to resist.

It is funny how I went from raidmage status to babymage one (dinged 81 yesterday evening...), I feel completely lost after tree years and almost four expansions to catch up in terms of levels, AAs, spells, flags, and, of course, gameplay. It will take some time to get my reflexes back and to discover this strange thing which are the Mercenaries, it seems they have somehow changed our gameplay.

Another thing which bothers me is the total revamp of casting and refresh times, I was at first surprised how quick my bolt can be casted now and then I was unnicely surprised as I noticed slamming my Fickle spell button would not allow me to chain Fickle till a recourse for Bolt or a Gift of mana proc for RS. I guess this means, even at my new uberlevel of 81, a new cycle/weave even in group/solo situations, not to speak of raiding where the "of many" line already became a key element since SoF.

Would you allow me to take some of your time and to ask you some basic questions :

1° Would you advice me to skip all group progression quests in SoD and Underfoot to focus on leveling so I catch up with my guildies ? No point in doing missions in SoD and UF ? Or in the contrary should I do those as they might be an interesting source of xp and loot to gear me up with group stuff before I restart raiding at 90 ?

2° Would you advice me to hire a mercenary right now at 81 or shall I wait a bit ?

3° I have only the Redfang belt as pet focus (sucks, I know), shall I just skip getting a better pet focus till I hit 90 or are there groupable ones in the levels between 81 and 90 which are worth a try and a helping hand from my friends ?

4° And, of course, the Evermage Question ; how do mages perform in HoT on the raid and on the group side nowadays ? The few I have read sounds bad for raidmages dpswise, and I saw different opinions about pettanking/ survivability in group content, though, I guess, it's a question of tiers and appropriate level/gear for the mage, as usual.

5° Last but not least : with this strange new (well, new for me...) spell refresh system, would the correct everyday weave (soloing, group...) at my level be alternating Fickle and Bolt, not worrying about fickle recourse, and tossing a RS inbetween, as usual, on GoM procs ?

I hope my questions don't sound to silly or noobish, but I am now... a noob again, oh my

Thanks for reading till the end, hehe !

Your Adon.

[Danille]

Elemental Greetings, fellow mages !

1° Would you advice me to skip all group progression quests in SoD and Underfoot to focus on leveling so I catch up with my guildies ? No point in doing missions in SoD and UF ? Or in the contrary should I do those as they might be an interesting source of xp and loot to gear me up with group stuff before I restart raiding at 90 ?

Underfoot - Depends upon your playstyle. (if you can jump right into HoT groups and progress, Underfoot is not needed)

HoT, no you need this. One thing that is vitally important is the faction and amazing experience that those missions provide. Once you get through group progression and can zone into MC and SS you will find a vitural candyland of moloable and groupable gear that will provide HUGE upgrades to what you are wearing now. Finally, getting to level 90 unlocks quite a bit of your true abilities as a mage in 2011. It is a game changer.

2° Would you advice me to hire a mercenary right now at 81 or shall I wait a bit ?

If you group all the time is it not necessary. If you enjoy the game solo, it is much beter to molo (m for merc)

3° I have only the Redfang belt as pet focus (sucks, I know), shall I just skip getting a better pet focus till I hit 90 or are there groupable ones in the levels between 81 and 90 which are worth a try and a helping hand from my friends ?

Tons of upgrades for that slot and others in HoT. If you check my magelo you will see that Im only wearing 2 raid items. (im well over 50K mana and my spell damage mods are decent too)

4° And, of course, the Evermage Question ; how do mages perform in HoT on the raid and on the group side nowadays ? The few I have read sounds bad for raidmages dpswise, and I saw different opinions about pettanking/ survivability in group content, though, I guess, it's a question of tiers and appropriate level/gear for the mage, as usual.

This is the first expansion in a long time where we kinda got the shaft on raid dps. One th other hand it is the first expansion in a long time where they really beefed up our solo ability. So it really depends upon if you are a glass half empty/full kind of person overall. On a positive note, last week SoE acknowledged that they intent to boost mage (nonpet) raid DPS so thats cool.

5° Last but not least : with this strange new (well, new for me...) spell refresh system, would the correct everyday weave (soloing, group...) at my level be alternating Fickle and Bolt, not worrying about fickle recourse, and tossing a RS inbetween, as usual, on GoM procs ?

I hope my questions don't sound to silly or noobish, but I am now... a noob again, oh my

Thanks for reading till the end, hehe !

Your Adon.

[Sillaen]

HoT is the group gear heaven in today's EQ. It provides better HME than SoD raid gear and a lot of UF raid gear. That being said, if you notice my magelo, I've kind of bypassed the whole group gear thing. Yes, I could add another 5K+ HME, but at inferior focus effects. Also, for someone like me, who gears up alts, I don't ever keep much in the way of cash and it's hella expensive to get the gear (over 1/4 million pp on the gear itself) if you don't follow the entire progression from 1 - 4.

Like Danielle said, mages are is a good state right now. Solo well, group well and raid well. We are at the bottom of the pole when it comes to straight up burst DPS in raids, but that's currently being looked at. Our sustained dps is pretty decent, so all in all, not too shabby to be a mage right now.

For the weave.

In groups, I use fickle/spear/bolt and RbS when I feel like it. With the refresh time of spear, it works out to be fickle/spear/fickle/bolt (rinse and repeat). I don't wait on a FoP proc, but I have it at the front of the lineup because it can proc.

For raids, I still haven't worked out the perfect weave yet as the new spell spear has kinda thrown the timing all off.

And welcome back

[Adonhiram]

Hello Danille, happy to see you are still around on the mage boards And thank you and Sillaen for your welcome and your very interesting answers to my questions.

I must say I was very moved by the warm welcome I got ingame from my guildies, especially from my two old mage-buddies, and other friends I hadn't seen since january 2008. Within one afternoon, I got several /taskadds for HoT progression missions and I was litterally overflew with group gear people had in bank to up my stats which are of course terrible with the old raidstuff I was wearing. One of my two mage friends camped with me some named Tae'Ew in new Feerott and he dropped a nice earring with an EM V focus, so I'm set for the next levels I guess. The level 81 Air pet went from a max. hit of 401 to 440 (iirc from what I saw on my pet spam window) by upgrading from Spire Servant to EM V ! I also got T1 gloves and a chain-robe for casters (I look like a ranger with skirt now...).

My friends indeed explained I shall go through the tiers for stuff to avoid paying high fees for T4 group gear, I dont' mind doing this, as I will have a sensation of progression, he he, at the stage where I am... To tell you a funny story, as I had to join my mate in Feerott, he sent me a /tell, "use guildportal !". I answered "Err, how do I know if it is set to the correct location ?". He replied "Step on it..." Terrible, what you can forget after more than three years...

People in EQ are really evolved and nice, I am really happy to have decided to resubscribe.

Thanks for your advices, I will try to focus on HoT group content as you suggest and having a look into "moloing" (funny word, LOL !) when I need to, but atm I still feel too uncomfortable in the UI/hotkeys management department to worry about having to watch over a new NPC more or less controlled by me, it will take a couple of days before I acquire my old reflexes back I suppose.

See you soon here on the mage boards or (does it still exist btw ?) in the serverwide magechannel

Adon

PS - Oh btw, HoT mobs hit insanely hard, I got aggro on an add in our Feerott camp, some regular Tae'EW, it quadded for 4k or so, I lasted 2 seconds !! is that everywhere like this ?

[Canamar]

On a positive note, last week SoE acknowledged that they intent to boost mage (nonpet) raid DPS so thats cool.

Link to this post please if anyone has available

[Voragath]

It's under class mechanics, a thread called "annual classes that need a boost in raid dps" and the post in question was made by Eli. Here's the link to the thread and Eli's post can be found early on (should be page 1):

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts ... _id=174781

[Canamar]

Thank you