I was wondering if any other mages would share their optimal spell line up for soloing/ moloing at 96. I am trying Valley with my earth pet and feel like I am struggling. Thanks in advance.
I'm 92 right now, hunting elsewhere, but so far I've found Surge of Shadows DS line, RS pet, rain, rain, Fickle, Bolt and AA and summoned nuke clickies to be the most sustainable good dps chain for me (I can't sustain spears). This is w/ 2k AAs - almost all pet passives, all self passive dps AAs but almost none of the manapool and regen ones. I'm guessing you can/should switch to air pet - the 96 can most definitely tank those, and will be a sizeable dps boost for you. The EM12 earring from the bazaar would be very needed as well.
The Magician's Tower website is a great resource for mages. Pretty much any question you have has probably been answered in a post there, and well worth browsing. I suggest you get the modulation shard aa's if you haven't already. It's a huge difference in mana regen capability (looking at you mana-hungry rs pet!) and lets you have much less downtime. Like Khauruk suggests, I used the air pet with em12 when I was boxing there, and geared my pets with defiant and bazaar-bought weapons as suggested at Magician's Tower (more resilience and a good dps increase).
Once you get to 97 it's very worth getting the RKII version of Rain of Blistersteel, it is leaps and bounds ahead of the previous rains in damage/mana, some of the best around outside of RS pet
Something like, Rain, Rain, spear, bolt, fickle, salvo, symbiosis, surge, gather mana (cant remember spell name), rs pet. Fill out the rest with utility spells, Aegis, clickies etc You could also throw in a sands spell for kill shots etc. I haven't been on my mage in a while so I'm kinda fuzzy on spell names. Also, switch to air for the stuns, use at least an one RS pet a fight to help tank. I say keep aegis up because with that and prism skin you'll absorb tons of damage. If you have the AA even better. Also, what part of Valley are you trying? Try the first area where you zone out from Argath, Alaran farmers, treants etc. The other half is higher level and will give you trouble without the right EM and AAs.
At that level I would use, RS, fickle, bolt and spear. Once you get them both i would use rs, rain, rain, spear.
I will also suggest attempting to pair up with a real healer, any priest class. They are leaps and bounds better than a healer merc, and will likely enjoy the company and not mind a pet tank.
For soloing, I recommend pulling with RS pet, then malo, rain, rain, spear, spear, and whatever other random spell of your choice that makes you happy. When you pull with the RS pet it grabs the aggro off your tank pet and therefore keeps him from getting hit and from needing heals (particularly if you cast RS every time it's up, which is I think what most mages do anyway). You can also make a hotkey to target your RS pet and cast Surge of Shadows on him (the trick is to use the backwards apostrophe, i.e. /tar Mintalie`s_pet), making him even more fierce.
Shows him as a "new member" so I wouldn't concern myself too much. And as another said, The Magician's Tower is a cornucopia of knowledge: http://www.eqmagetower.com/forums/index.php
Good point, I didn't even notice his forum title there! Shame on me. And, the Tower has become quite the valuable reference as I level up my Magician. Pretty sure every Mage has utilized the wonderful guides, tips, and discussions to some extent.
History of commenting here doesn't mean much, nor is your joined date tied to your account creation date. I agree that he's wrong as well, but his date has nothing to do w/ his credibility.
I was under the assumption that Mintalie was referring to Azzuri's history of posts. A quick look shows similar single word statements, with no hint of critical thought behind them. <shrug> It's no big deal.
I personally disagree with Mintalie's approach with using RS as a pulling tool. While s/he is correct that the pet will prevent your earth pet from getting hit initially, I do not like it to pull a mob to camp. RS will run to the mob and then engage halfway or so from where you are to where mob spawn was. As an example, if mob is 300' away then RS is engaging mob around 150' away. If you want the mob 50' away, you cannot control RS to move it to where you want the mob placed. For me, I always pull with AA malo. Once the mob is in camp, then I lead with RS and then my DPS weave. If multiple mobs then I am chaining RS on one while pet is handling the others. One key point of advice- if you are off tanking with RS, you still want your earth pet to attack every so often to maintain more aggro over you. What I generally do is right before I cast RS I will have earth pet switch targets to the RS mob, cast RS, then switch earth pet back to its original mobs. If you do not have earth pet maintain some aggro on the RS mob, you run the risk of RS mob summoning you once the 3rd-5th RS pet dies. This is more for the molo magician...
Sorry for the late reply. I disagree with the idea of casting surge on a RS pet. I believe that to be a waste of mana/dps potential. Surge has 48 counters. Your RS pet will only live for 18-24 seconds depending on AAs and gear. Most likely, your RS pet will poof with the surge buff still on it. You just wasted mana and dps. For up and coming Magi, cast surge on your main pet. Get the full benefit of surge. (and if you get a gift of mana on the last nuke to kill the mob, use that gift of mana to cast surge on your pet for the next mob. Its like money in the bank...) Cheers
Khauruk is correct. History of commenting is not tied to account creation date. I've been reading the forums for quite some time, I just comment sparingly. Cheers
Don't use RS as a pulling tool. Use malo, using RS might cause unwanted problems from mobs pathing by ect.
Interesting nfo, I must be doing something right so far lol! and Azzurri, thank you for clearing up why you disagree!
