I recently returned after not playing since PoP. Some friends helped me level up a 110 mage pretty quickly and got me some conflagrant and group gear. I’ve been reading a lot trying to get myself up to date on game mechanics, spells and AA’s, but there just isn’t a lot of info out there that is current. I’ve tried to keep a list of things I don’t fully understand, which has grown quite large. Can anyone give me some insight on any of these please? 1. What sort of old character progression things do I need to get done? I’ve heard something about MPG trials, DoN, Hero’s Resolution, etc. 2. I see you can gain extra run speed by doing the explore achievements. Is it worth it and how much does it increase your speed? 3. Are certain mounts faster than others? I grabbed a Shadow Wurm Saddle from the marketplace. Is there a faster one that is easy to obtain? 4. Can someone explain how the Banestrike AA works. The rest of the questions are mage specific. 5. Are the 15% spec evo/conj augs still worth using at 110? 6. When someone asks me for pet toys, what all do I need to give them? Armor/Jewelry/Weapons/Visor? I see the Visor spell hasn’t been updated in a few xpacs, but I assume it’s still needed? 7. What weapons should I be giving my pet? I haven’t been using the hate weapons because I haven’t had agro issues. I’ve just been giving water pet 2 water weapons. Air pet gets 2 air weapons. Is that right? 8. Surge line of spells hasn’t been updated in a few xpacs. Still worth casting at 110? 9. Blistering Skin line of spells worth casting at 110? 10. Dichotomic Companion worth casting at 110? 11. Is the Gather Mana and Thaumatize Pet line of spells worth gem slots, or is it better to just med / reclaim monster summoning chain afterwards? 12. Is Remote Servant or Maloscenic Eminence ever really used over their counterparts? 13. Are our pet shield spells ever really used? I see Auspice line wasn’t updated in the most recent xpac, but Stance and Aegis line was. I assume you can either use heal spells or cleric merc more efficiently than shields? 14. Mod Rods. I see we got a self mod rod at 107 that doesn’t share a CD with the group version that was never updated. Am I right in assuming we should summon the self mod rod for ourselves and the AA mod rod for the group? Level 105 group mod rod spell is inferior, right? 15. Does the AA Focus: Flames of Power and AA Focus: Fickle of Conflagration work on our new Chaotic line? I assume if not than I should ignore those AA’s. 16. Summoned clickies. I see we have a clicky for summon servant, summon minion, and an old 102 summon firebound orb that are all on separate cooldowns. What’s the difference between servant and minion? Which, if any, are worth using?
1. It's really up to you. I'd recommend DoN, but I don't think MPG trials, Hero's Resolution, etc are particularly crucial. That said, if you're looking for things to do and you enjoy doing older content/progression, they are ways to improve your character (despite the small addition). You may want to go back and get a Glyphwielder's Tunic of the Summoner (OoW T2 Raid Robe). The Sacred Prayer Shawl of the Duke and the Artisan's Prize both involve older quest lines for useful augmentations, but they are a bit of work and require tradeskills. 2. Pass. 3. Yes, there are 5 mount speeds, Slow1, Slow2, Run1, Run2, and Fast (there's also one mount in the game that uses Speed8). Mounts have a speed they default to, but they will use the speed of the fastest mount you've summoned. It looks like that mount is Run2 (second fastest speed). 4. Banestrike is an AA that effectively nukes your target for a certain unmodifiable amount of damage. You can only use Banestrike on mobs you have slayer achievements for. Or something like that. It's an incredibly small amount of damage and not worth worrying over too much. 5. Yes. I personally find the LDoN ones way easier to obtain. They have a slightly lower cap, but the CotF versions are a PITA. 6. You definitely want to give them a Visor, in addition to weapons and probably a mask. Jewelry is optional. 7. You can give any of your summoned weapons to any pet, the element isn't important. If you aren't having trouble with aggro, use any of the ones with DD procs. 8. No, unless you have down time and nothing else to cast I guess. 9. No. 10. No. 11. No, I'd just use reclaim. 12. Maloseniac Eminence is pretty useful if you're doing a lot of short fights where you can't always get Malo on every mob. Iceflame adds very little damage, so you're not losing much by using it. Personally, I generally use Maloseniac in groups and Iceflame in raids. It's basically personal preference though. Remote RS is only used very situationally, mainly on mobs that reflect. 13. Yes, they are. They can often block more damage than our pet heal will heal for. Our main pet heal is very slow casting too. For most stuff I rely on AA Aegis, but Auspice of Eternity and Aegis of Zeklor are useful on tougher fights. 14. You should use both the summoned and AA mod rods for yourself and the AA one for your group. Never load the spell one for others. 15. The last rank of Flames of Power does add a second counter to the proc from Chaotic, but the ranks that change proc chance don't affect Chaotic. Focus: Fickle Conflagration does not affect Chaotic. 16. Servant and Minion are just two different clicks, they function the same way. One does slightly more damage than the other. Summon Firebound Orb is absolutely worth using and recasting when it runs out. I wouldn't use the clicky pets much in the group game.
Sancus is a master so I wont add much except to #2. On days when I am rather tired and don't have energy to actually do anything engaging I will just zone hop trying to complete an explorer for an expansion. If you cant find a group or anything meaningful to do its not a horrible idea to work on some of these. The classic explorer is probably the worse as there are tons of zones while some of the more modern expansions are rather fast and easy to knock them all out. Might be worth doing while lfg and if you find something to do you can always just gate and revisit exploring at a later time.
Grandmaster. You can also get epic 2.0 and then the matching ornamentation. It has no impact on the game, but it will make you look good
Why would you not use Dicho I'm wondering? I use it all the time (mine is max rank). Especially if my pet is getting hammered; for the 18s of additional healing it provides. Regarding mana: I find that if you stay on top of your mod rods (clicking when rdy to start recycle again) and your aa mana conversion, that mitigates your mana loses significantly. I can burn a 30 min lesson and chain pull without ever going oom. But I also have a mana procing 1hp, a mana procing aug in it (I melee every mob for procs) and I did my 3.0 shawl aug too. I've yet to need to even attempt the summon and reclaim thing for mana.
The damage contribution from Dicho is significantly lower than for your other spells, and it has stacking issues with FBO/Robe clicks. If you really wanted to you could use it during down time I guess. The proc on Dicho decreases your pet's aggro by 35% every time it procs, so it's a pretty terrible idea to use it while tanking.
I have never lost agro on my pet, and like I said, I melee every mob too. So this doesn't appear to be an issue in practice. I do not use dicho when I'm running pet burns, but between pet burns I run it every time it's up.
If you have no mana issues and never lose aggro to your pet, you're probably playing well below your potential. I don't really know what else to tell you, but there are like a half dozen threads in this section since TBM where people using Dicho had significant aggro problems. A 35% reduction in hate every proc is really significant. [49252/7651] Dichotomic Companion Strike 6 Target: Single Range: 300' Resist: Magic -100 Reflectable: No Focusable: Yes Casting: 0s, Recast: 1s Hate: -1 1: Decrease Current HP by 35393 2: Decrease Current Hate by 35%
well since my experience tells me that 35% isn't enough for my tradeskill gear'd water pet to lose agro when he's tanking I'll continue to do what I am doing. I can kill 40 mobs per 30 min lesson in OT2, I always figured I was doing pretty well /shrug.
1. If you intend on just doing solo/group content, then don't worry about these. If you want to raid then I would do DoN first, then MPG trials, then finish up all those pesky hero's resolution, etc achievements. 2. I don't think it's worth it, may be cool to have all the explorer achievements though 3. Yes, some mounts are faster than others. I don't know if there are faster mounts which can be easily obtained other than the one you mentioned. 4. Really small damage not worth casting 99% of the time The rest of the questions are mage specific. 5. Oh yes. Very much so. 6. Armor/Weapons should cover most classes, mage pets are summoned with armor though. 7. I only ever use the magic damage (I think air is magic dmg?) and hate weapons. Water pet gets magic damage weapons, Earth pet gets hate weapons. Fire pet can be used weaponless since it's a wizard. 8. Not worth casting 9. Not worth casting 10. Still worth casting 11. Gather mana is worth, the other one isn't. 12. I've only used remote on 1 raid in all of TBM/EoK/RoS. I haven't used the other spell. I have only used remote gargoyle on that 1 raid and not for anything else. 13. The AA pet tanking abilities are fine for group content, the spell cast ones are useful (but not needed if you have decent healers) for raids. 14. The glowing mod rod (the highest rank of the AA version) is the best mod rod you can give to other players. This automatically is MGB'd when cast, and is what you should be giving out. I only ever summon the self-only mod rod for raids or when I'm flying solo in VP because I can't stop to med that often. Otherwise I don't use the self-only mod rod, even though its better than the glowing and doesnt share a timer. 15. I believe it does at the highest rank. Just an FYI though, fickle/chaotic spell dmg increase proc does NOT usually stack with our heart of flames or druid's black wolf. I almost never use those spells myself, unless I am dealing with many enemies with low hp when the quick cast time and insta-land is useful. 16. All are worth using, especially the fire orb. The fire orb can be clicked when our spellbar is on universal CD, and is great for pulling since it is insta-cast and insta-land. I am not 100% sure the difference between the item-summoned pets, except that they do different amounts of damage. They are worth using on burns, but only click them when your spellbar is on universal CD. I hope this helps.
I don't think I have memmed Dicho since TBM. I don't need half of what it does, and the other half isn't worth the mana / cast time for me to waste a spell gem.
The only time I ever use Dicho is to lower pet aggro if Drape is down. Which is generally maybe once a week if that. I may also use it to help heal the pet if it got hit with a large AOE like on Skyfire named. It is a fast cast, I believe faster than casting Renewal heal. And it does a little bit of damage- I figure 5/6 procs of the DD and some melee pet damage. Sure it is not enough and I wish it was more, but for purpose of lowering aggro and healing it is OK. But it is definitely not a game changer and a must cast spell.
Always interesting when people can make different approaches work. If you don’t mind, I would like to ask you some questions. I got really curious, I thought water pet tanking and TS pet gearing was something we saw years ago, not so much now. Which TS gear do you give Jobaber? Are you soloin or “molo”ing? Do you parse your dps? Which mobs do you confront with this setup in Overther? Do you raid? EM = 23?
Controversial, because this heavily depends on what you're doing. But, as a raid mage (top 5 dps in a top 10 overall guild, so pretty consistently using all our tools), I find I can sacrifice the specialization aug and still not suffer for mana. My understanding is the reason to use the specialization aug is to conserve mana. Therefore the replacement aug gives hp/mana/ac/spell damage/mana regen, secondaries, etc. I probably run out of mana more in a group setting, but even then, pretty seldom, and we have other ways to recoup that--- gather, reclaim, various clickies, etc.
I'm just going to go ahead and call BS on this. I str8 up don't believe you, I think you are exaggerating. Prove it and prove me wrong, I will be happy to be wrong in this case but I don't think I am.
You can call BS all you want Vizier, but I like the way dicho works. If I lose agro on main pet and it goes to a swarm pet that's just less healing for my merc. I've never once taken agro on my mage from my pet... period. Which TS gear do you give Jobaber? I use Duhbeast's luxury pet gear setup. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/luxury-pet-gear.238046/ Are you soloin or “molo”ing? molo Do you parse your dps? yes but not recently since I started dragging my bard with everywhere I go lately. Which mobs do you confront with this setup in Overther? kitties, rhinos, succulents, chickens, sarnak… pretty much everything. Do you raid? no, but I have chase everything and raid fire focus arms. EM = 23? yes, chase EM ear
You know after re-reading the way I responded, maybe the way I worded it was misleading. I shouldn't say I never lose agro on my main pet. I meant to say I never TAKE agro on my mage FROM my pet. He does lose agro, but the 2nd on the agro list is always a swarm pet. My spell rotation is 1) swarm pet (for the buff that makes next fire nuke hit harder) then 2) main fire nuke, then 3) chaotic (if I proc forceful rejuv I skip back to the beginning to get another pet and main nuke off), 4) many nuke (for the buff it puts on pets and dps) and repeat. if I'm chain pulling I start each fight with all my swarm pets up too so the many nuke does more than one line of damage per cast.
I wasn't calling bs on your dicho assessment. I was calling bs on your ability to solo kill 40 mobs in OT in 30 mins. I think its an exaggeration, I have max AAs and similar gear and I cannot do this. If its possible I want to know what you are doing, but I highly suspect you are simply exaggerating / lying.
