The Magician's Tower

Coming back after 5 years away and feel like the mage has been strengthened enough to warrant decent time invested to grow him. I got my mnk, zrk, rng, clr, shm, brd to 75 then I stopped playing.

I just got level 71 on the mage and boy, am I impressed. I often 2 box, last night I went to PoTactics with my 69 chanter and we tore the pit apart. RS+mage pet+tank merc+chanter dual weilding hasted mob pet+cleric merc was the setup. 1 man was controlling 6 creatures! (7 if you count RS). The pit and the hallway next to it were cleared, I was tempted to try and derail a stampede, but I chickened out.

Anyhow, I was thinking of a starting a 3rd box and having 2 mages + bard going. Has anyone does this and is it very difficult? I'm thinking bard will just be on tow and sing melody. Meanwhile 2 screens will control 2 air pets and 2 nuking mages and 2 cleric mercs for bosses (if needed). I might do a necro on the 3rd box, but have 0 experience with that class. Would be a flatter learning curve.

If you have done this, what is your setup? What AAs did you invest in? I've read the boards and have gleaned some useful info, but I'm wondering if there's info there that's not written. You know, tricks of the trade, weaving secrets. Must have gear. Is epic 1.5 worth doing?Anything a noobie veteran could apply would be appreciated.

What other classes are a great mix with a magician? Seeing has how a cleric merc + mage fills out the basic group makeup (Tank, Healer, Nuker) probably anything goes great.

Does anyone box a Shm with their Mage? A Ranger? Paladin? Chanter/Mage combo seems pretty solid. What experiences have you had with Wizards? Monks?

In combos people found horrible and should be avoided?

I still box my 11 year old cleric toon with my 12 year old mage toon and it works fine. But, if I had it to do over right now, I would make a shaman with the mage. With shaman/mage combo I would never use mercs on experience type mobs.

My first box with my Mage was a shammy. Shammy is way deverse for whatever you need. They are goodif nto great at everything. Can easily add to any group. so for shammy it all depends on how you want to play and what you are killing. You can patch heal if needed, obviously slow the mob. Shammies can help with some CCing with roots and VP. They can help with aDPS or DPS. Just have to switch up spells for each situation.

As far as your other mentions. I currently six box. I only added classes with the intent to help my Mage out and the others will do what they are best at but most of my attention would be on the mage. So all my comments will be focused on how I play.

Ranger - I have one, was my 4th box toon. Great for pullign and CCing. Main DPS disc is ranged so does great passive DPS. I pull and position, than step back and auto fire. Works well in a caster group due to being a good ranged attacker. Adds attack, hp, AC, DS buffs for pet.

Paladin - I do not have one I play. I do not add a tank to my mage group. I tank with a pet. Creating a tank would cause me to do a lot of maintainence on that toon and my focus is on the mage. Too much AA/gear work has to be done to stay relevant. If the pally isn't tanking, just make a cleric.

Chanter - I have one, 5th box for me. Great to add extra mana for mage to use. Also nice aDPS aura. Solid for debuffs on mobs and CCing. Probably my least active toon unless I have a lot of adds. If you have a means of splitting/tanking multiples, chanter plays a very minor factor. You can get the buffs elsewhere and not need one. They are useful in tight areas but SoE tends to dumb down pulling in areas. Like I mentioned, least used toon.

Cleric - I have one, third box. Best healer. For survival this is the best class due to all the abilities. Though it may require you to focus more on the cleric at times. Wont aid much in DPS but can enable you to tank multiples or named you wouldnt be able to do with merc alone. Also has quiet miracle AA it can hit you with for a solid mana feed.

Necro - I have one, sixth box. I would have recommended this one but RB just got nerfed. Basically you get good DPS on this toon. If everythign dying fast necro becomes less a factor (though they do have short term DoTs for grps). If casting a lot can add some grp heals with RB but not enough to keep a tank up alone. You can use a necro to help pull and such but probably easier toons to do it with.

Bard - I dont own one but I have borrowed a friends several times. Sweet for aDPS without having to do anything. Can use to pull or CC. If pulling splitting with somethign else, make sure you turn off you bard on melody though or do all split far away from group. Easy to just set up turn on melody and forget and get all the aDPS, mana and hp effects. If you dont want to play the toon at all but get free benefits this is probably it for you.

I hope this helps. Really cant get into AAs and such without a really really long talk. It is all about how you want to play. I recommend figuring out if you liek to play three toons to the max or you really just trying to augment one toon with the rest. Some classes are more bang for the buck than other depending on play style. If you are only going to cast two spells on a box than look which class has those best two spells. If you are looking to spam spell, the class you are looking for could change. Also, are you trying to just kill high end content or you prefer to mass kill weaker mobs? It can all vary which box would be best for you. Hopefully this helps and doesn't confuse things more.

That was spectacularly informative, thanks Fleiss!

I plan on taking on boss mobs, and lesson burn with LBs to get my AAs up. But the whole goal of my undertaking is to take on interesting encounters and have to use tactics and timing instead of mashing 2 keys (hence I dropped the use of a wizard).
Something I'm doing now is pulling 3 with a ranger:
Air pet gets 1st, RS gets 2nd, ranger or swarm pets get third. I focus dps onto RS target, then switch to next weakest mob.

I use 3 hotkeys on a pull: /xtar 1, /pet attack. /xtar 2, /cast rs. /xtar 3, /alt act host of elements+servRo. Then nuke and molten orb whatever needs. I'm still experimenting though, to see which victim is most efficient. This often depends on abilities of the mobs.
Working well. But I'd like to be able to pull 10-12 mobs. Think only a chanter could help with that. Ranger is a decent tank with 1000AA (lvl77). But for boss mobs he just doesn't have the mitigation and shielding my paladin does. I love how my pet is a yellow con to me now, maybe he can replace the pally someday.

I'm eager to try out the chanter on harder content. That /tar myRSpet, /cast haste hotkey would be devastating when I get my host-enhance AAs.

With merc I never have to mez any pulls w/ chanter. I can figure out the AAs, I just have a hard time remembering the spells. Your answer was very helpful in this aspect!

You could use the Ranger's AE root/snare spell to pull a larger number of mobs, just have to rememebr that it is not terribly long lasting on it's own, and would need to be recast periodically.

Hmmm. Yes. Vinelash a pull of 12, but it will fade in 30 secs. The first 3 mobs in that train could die in 30 secs on full burn, then I'd take a step back, reroot, kill the next 3. Rinse. But honestly I think this would only work with LBs, and frankly there are much better uses of LB swarming with a ranger. HeadShot being one.

On a side note, those who have an enchanter friend or box, I highly recommend this hotkey:

/ass Mage`s pet
/pause 3
/pause 3, /cast Aanya's Quickening
/cast Aanya's Quickening

notes:
This will target the RS pet and caste a 64% haste on it in 2 seconds.
1) in line 1, use `(left of the 1 key) not '(appostrophe).
2) cast twice to compensate for fizzles
3) with max spell haste, AQ (level 53 enc haste, 4 sec cast) can be fired in 2 seconds. I don't even nuke as a chanter anymore. This haste is the chanter's dps. In DSH my RS pet chews through 50% of a mob's health, solo (nymphs). It's spectacular to watch a 400 quadding pet mow down a fairy in 15 seconds (allowing for cast times and distance to mob).

The EQ win is based on macros. Cheers.

Thats really interesting that haste is such a big contributor to DPS. It almost makes the case for a bard, since the bard can offer haste & overhaste. I'll have to keep this in mind when I return to my Bard + mage army when I get a chance to play eq again. Thanks!

Duo'd the bard with the mage. Aura: overhaste. Melody: haste, resists, DD boost, Mana. It's just incredible with Beast does to the mobs. Dmg shield + innate defensive procs chews up LB trains for easy AAxp.

I remember being fairly competent at the bard class. But I feel i should be doing more... there just aren't that many bards chatting secrets anymore.

Vincentt wrote:/ass Mage`s pet
/pause 3
/pause 3, /cast Aanya's Quickening
/cast Aanya's Quickening

Would this not be /tar Mage`s pet rather than assist?