The Magician's Tower

Happy Friday!

I may be beating the proverbial dead horse with all my questions, but you guys are always so helpful, I can't resist.

I have played a necro since '99. I currently have a 90 necro with about 1000AA. I recently (Over the 2x xp weekend) leveled my mage up to 90 as well. He only has abuot 380AA.

I'm enjoying the mage, still a bit hesitant in tough areas where pulling aggro means death, such as Argath and VoA. A big concern I have is that I love to take my necro to past expansions and solo tough targets, big raid mobs, clear entire dungeons. Always nostalgic to see the old loot dropping etc.

Question: As a mage, is this possible? I'm so conditioned to having FD in dungeons, so that if I'm overwhelmed by 5 mobs, I can FD, let pet and merc kill them. On a mage, can you still rock old dungeons and take down the old raid targets? Or is it a challenge in small tight dungeons where being able to drop aggro if you're overwhelmed is neccessary?

Thank you all for your help

easy peasy. Mage pet > Megatron.
There's a reason we don't FD! I'll put down money that you give up your necro and go with Mage full time in the next 3 months.

Once you get enough AA into your pet and your max your dps aa you won't have any reason to FD. Get a few utility AA such as Aegis of Kildrukaun and you will have no problem with mutiple adds. In fact our Surge lines and the sheer number of our damage shields actually help out with the problem of multiple adds.

The only thing that will hold you back, personally, is going to be your mana and hp. Once those are up to snuff you will be pleased with how a mage and it's pet can handle the classic raids.

Great input guys.

Another question - how far off are we DPS wise compared to necros? I was in a group last night and a necro in the group who also has a mage (both 95) was saying necros will always be better dps than a mage.

That true?

Short answer is yes. Long answer is it depends.

Your friends use of the world "always" should be taken with a massive grain of salt.

Seeing mages out dps wizards nowadays puts the grain of salt in any argument.

If you are skilled and play well, you dps will be in the top 5 in raids consistently. That's all you can ask for. Some days you'll be #1, some days #4. I think dps has more to do with the player himself and his setup / knowledge / hotkey macros than the class's abilities. I used to out dps my wizards and rogues on my zerker. Then our wizards stepped up the game due to ego-pummeling.

I for one am glad not to be called a top dps class as a mage. You're only asking for the nerf bat. Lay low, kick ass, and smile when the rogues, necros, wizards brag. You know with Monster in your shadow you can handle things they can't come close to.