Just Mage things...

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Pistols4Pandas, Feb 10, 2018.

  1. IblisTheMage Augur

    I went and cleaned up my own UI after seeing your interface, Pistol :). Maybe I can find out how to record a few seconds to share... what is the name of the tool for recording?
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  2. IblisTheMage Augur

    A thing you can do with IS Boxer is send keystrokes to the eq clients. That means you can drop the pauses in your hotbuttons, and insteand keep spells and abilities on cooldown. This enables you to change what your box is doing, without having to wait for all curent macros to end, and it greatly reduces stress, maiking playing more zen and less flicker between screens and do stuff that makes brain go ouchies... :-D
  3. Pistols4Pandas Elder

    Can you explain how this is done? Do you mean Key-mashing with a multi bind?

    I got IS boxer yesterday and I've spent more than 8 hours figuring out how to use it. I set it up to just strike my Socials with key remapping since 1 of my mages is always casting something different than the other 2 ( 1 is always casting alliance while the other 2 cast a series designed to proc it )

    I can see where a multi bind would be useful, in named fights and burns it would be... But using alliance every mob makes my setup kind of unique.

    There is good news, though, I rearranged my socials so I've got Orb and Force at the front and back end of a fight, so 2 per fight, additionally, with [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] I've eliminated some delays from clicking from window to window.

    I was averaging around 230kdps before. I'm now averaging about 285kdps, and it's very handy to hit 1 Keymapped key and summon 3 Orbs or 3 rods and auto inventory them. It's essential actually, using 2 orb strikes per mob it is just waaaaaay too tedious keeping orbs in inventory on 3 chars. I also made one which strikes my pet from all 3 chars with OfMany, proc ing theft of essence.

    I killed a golem at 538kdps today. my personal best by... a lot.

    I actually have an interesting question, congrats on your new child! by the way.

    I made an additional social for grinding, which I cast on the front of an encounter along with /assist / pet attack. I made this social so I have more Lines for activating AAs during grinding... currently its just Heart of flames, focus of arcanum, and first spire.

    What I'm wondering is, I think this may be a unique situation for Heart of Ice may actually have a good chance of out-doing heart of flames... because. I use Fire Form on all 3 mages, and once I have Synergy maxxed ( I cast servents as an opening after Orb+ force), Well my fights are only 5 casted Nukes from each character, and the first would benefit from synergy which doesnt stack with HoFlames, additionally, the second cast has a 45% chance of proccing Flames of power from any of 3 mages, on all 3 mages. & the Third nuke is chaotic, so 25% chance to proc on self, and again, a 45% chance to have it procd on entire group by any of the mages, plus the possibility of getting a 2 stack from the Chaotic AA.

    I havent verified exactly how many of my nukes are benefitting from Flames of Power, but I would say at least 50%, and once i've maxxed synergy probably 60%+

    I'm thinking Heart of Ice, may, actually, for once, have a use... but this is a huge math problem I'm not equipped for.

    I'm also questioning whether servants should even be in my rotation when fights are getting as short as they are... buuut.... Servants are basically aggro-free.
    I'm now right up against the wall of creating too much aggro. I've started getting hit a bit, sometimes at start of encounter when I Force+Orb, sometimes when Alliance procs, though deaths r rare. I'm actually using 3 air pets to give myself some defense from frequent over-aggro, when I could be using 1 air and 2 water. I didnt put improved twincast on my social rotation because im quite sure it would kill me, i strike that seperately because Silent casting is essential to using it or i'm dead. ( and silent casting has a cast time so i cant put it in my routine casting socials )
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  4. IblisTheMage Augur

    Hi Pistol, it will take me some days to get back to you, work + DMimg Pathfinder game tonight, so others will likely beat me to it. A start:

    Pet aggro maxing and mage aggro recuction are key, that is why I make sure to keep stuff like Frenzied Burnout on cooldown, and all relevant AA for those areas maxed. Pet aggro swords are a must, as well as casting as many RS as possible, since they will also grab aggro, especially when Of Many then becomes your main nuke. This means you need to optimize RS duration, so you can keep the, for multiple fights. Try to position yourself in a sweet spot for mobs, so that you just barely miss aggro, but can pull 10+ without moving. Pull with a good mal, and make sure first thing mages do after pet attack and /pet swarm is casting RS. Consider Unity for the heal proc, combined with Theft of Essence it is good for your pet horde, and it will defend you if you occassionally grab aggro. Keep host of the element on cooldown, because it helps your of many, and because pet horde :). If you are well funded, and your pets live long enough, there are items in bazaar that increasé aggro substantially. Also playermade armor can increase pet stats, and help with their dps, and therefore aggro.

    I remember the pet aggro issue phase, it sort of goes away later on with more AA.

    And thanks!
  5. IblisTheMage Augur

    My dps key will look like this:

    /pause 1, /cast 1 (RS)
    /pause 1, /cast 2 (Many)
    /pause 1, /cast 3 (Chaotic)
    /pause 1, /cast 4 (Spear)

    I have a mouse with a lot of buttons; one button is sending keystroke “4” 10 times pr second while depressed, IS Boxer send it to each toon.
    The pause is necesary for the client to keep up.

    In reality I have two keys, another with AA nukes and Orb click, but this has no pauses. I then alternate between the two real fast, so I am spamming two keys. It is not the optimal setup, I should only use it on global timer, but with 4 toons I need the simplicity. For example, a mash key like the one above adds at least 0.4 sec to casting time of Many, because of the pauses. In reality it is more, I don’t know how much.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  6. Tucoh Augur

    Why do you use a social to cast your spells instead of binding them all to the same key ala:
    https://www.eqmagetower.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=100
    ?
  7. Tucoh Augur

    You've probably already got a system to rotate your alliances cleanly, but this week I've been experimenting with an I S Boxer + Gina setup that I haven't seen others use that might be something you can get some ideas from:
    You could create a similar I S Boxer grid + gina setup for your team, where you've got three buttons that activate your mage's alliance spells, and each mage has its own small gina timer bar that shows how long before it's ready to go again. And then you have another gina timer bar beneath those that show the current active alliance on a mob.

    This would help you know when your mage is ready to hit a mob with alliance, and when that alliance fulminates.
    Pistols4Pandas likes this.
  8. eqgamer Augur

    Orrrrrr. Yep u can keep doing what ur doing as it obviously works for u :)
  9. Pistols4Pandas Elder

    Btw I'm using Microsoft expression encoder for Recording. Simple to use and free,
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  10. IblisTheMage Augur

  11. IblisTheMage Augur

    Oh, I sort of had something like this... in the most stupid way possible....

    I had the keybind, as well as the macro, all tied to "4"...
  12. IblisTheMage Augur

    Tried it, it was nice and easy to use, unfortunately my PC appears to lack the umph... the resulting movie shows maybe 5 images per second :)
  13. Sirene_Fippy Okayest Bard

    It's really sinking in how bad I am at playing mage. Maybe I just need to ditch my other characters and mage/mage/mage it. I really like the mage pulls by being cothed by another mage splitting. This video is awesome, nice music :p
  14. Yimin Augur

    I roll three mages on Brekt , I am unstoppable !

    Yimin
  15. IblisTheMage Augur

    Can’t blame you, however I disagree with the game design behind Alliance, since it creates incentive for mage armies for boxers.
  16. Metanis Bad Company

    I box a mage (poorly). I have a few questions and this seems like a good thread to ask them...

    1. Is Dichotomic Companion worth casting? I cast it at least once or twice a mob.
    2. Is Force of Elements worth casting?
    3. How many pets have to be on the mob to make "of many" worth casting? (My normal boxed army includes a mage pet, an enchanter pet, an SK pet, and a shaman pet. Plus I'd have one or two Reckless Servants up at any given moment.)
    4. What summoned dps items are worth the time? Sometimes I make an Exigent Minion and Servant but honestly I don't know if they're worth the effort.

    I use that awesome 3rd party boxing tool (shoutout to Joe at Lavishsoft!) but my socials are old school with pauses because I'm constantly combatting lag issues on my craptastic rural dsl connection. (And I always play the melee characters as primary.)

    I pull with a bard or SK, then:

    On initial enage I do:
    /pause 3, /assist MAIN
    /assist MAIN
    /pet attack
    /pause 12, /alt act 547 ;(Eradicate Magic)
    /cast 2 ;(Pet Dicho)

    I have a GINA countdown timer trigger on the Eradicate Magic to show me when to hit my next button which then proceeds to:
    /pause 3, /pet qswarm ;(re-assign fat pets)
    /pause 6, /alt act 8800 ;(force of elements)
    /pause 27, /cast 4 ;(fat pet)
    /pause 38, /cast 3 ;(Chaotic)
    /cast 11 ;(Spear)

    Then I have another GINA countdown trigger on Spear to show me when to hit the next button:
    /pause 21, /cast 2 ;(Pet Dicho)
    /pause 21, /cast 1 ;(Twincast)
    /pause 27, /cast 4 ;(fat pet)
    /pause 38, /cast 3 ;(Chaotic)
    /cast 11 ;(Spear)

    Trash mobs in EOK or ROS are dead before the 3rd button has finished casting. Maybe I should change out the force of elements for a cast of "of many"? Any comments or suggestions are appreciated!

    (PS Reckless Servants are called "fat pets" in my house because my wife named them that way back when they were initially introduced in order to differentiate them from the "regular" pet.)
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  17. IblisTheMage Augur

    No, yes, 6+, Orb
    Tucoh, Pistols4Pandas and Sancus like this.
  18. Pistols4Pandas Elder

    What Iblis said, plus.

    Open with Orb clicky, then force, then Servant. In this way you'll get 2 clicks of each in per mob. They are your best and most efficient spells.

    May not be worth keeping ofmany in your regular grind social lineup, but you can simply cast it on your own pet every 4 minutes to proc theft of essence. Theft doubles the dps of your servants.

    Oh and assist sucks and fails a lot, I assume that's why you do it twice and have extended pauses. Set your puller as main assist, set extended target slot 1 to main assist target, and use /Xtar 1 instead of assist, and use a /pause 1, that will save you a line in your socials rather than that redundant / assist, it doesn't fail and the pause required is shorter.
    Metanis likes this.
  19. IblisTheMage Augur

    Pistol, could be fun to see a new video the same location with your IS Boxer setup
  20. Metanis Bad Company

    Thank you both for responding!!!
    Pistols4Pandas likes this.