Few important factors. The Mage/Chant will have almost no start up costs — you don’t need much gear to be able to tackle decently challenging content. However, you’ll be limited in the types of things you can take on due to having a pet tank and likely a merc healer. SK/Shaman outperforms in my opinion, but only after an incredibly substantial effort in gearing up the SK. If you aren’t up for the task, you should stick with Mage/Chant.
I guess that was the crux of my question, at what point of investment does the SK outperform the pet tank. yes sk can hold agro on many, but the chanter helps cope with that difference. but im a casual player so raid gear will likely never happen. in that framework does the mage outperform the sk
I’d still say yes to the mage outperforming the SK. To make the SK effective, you’ll need a full set of current gear, a full set of somewhat recent AC augs and type 5 augs, a cliff stone (which will deplete), your epic 2.0, tens of thousands of AA, and a whole bunch of other things. At the extreme level, a group geared SK with Tears of Alaris, Artisan’s prize, Heroic AAs, and all the other good-achievable goodies will absolutely crush the mage pet in effectiveness. The problem is that it would take years of casual play to reach this point. So while it is achieveable for a non-raider, only hardcore players or casual players that have been at it for half a decade will be at maximum SK effectiveness.
lol stop, you need all those things to maximize the effectiveness of the magician too or any class for that matter. The fact is SKs are the most OP class in the game, they're going to be outperforming mage pets unless you're doing something wrong. I generally box ench mage for my tougher content and can get through it, but I'd much prefer an sk over my mage.
well ive got two accounts, each with a heroic toon I can reroll. curious what I should give a go before going too far to switch
Agree, but gains from equipment / epic / augs is MUCH more meaningful for a tank than for a casters. There are specific items that really enhance a mage, but it isn’t across the board. Mage sees a power step up from Pet Earring, a good weapon, and rank III spells. The Artisan’s Prize is not a noticeable gain on a mage, where it can actually move the needle on a tank.
And everytime he gets one of those things it will make him even more noticeably better than the mage pet. Even more of a reason to choose the SK over the mage.
the point that everyone seems to be making here is: mage pet will start strong and stay relatively strong (can tank current content named and missions w/ conflag pet ear) but will not really gain in power / effectiveness except when you upgrade your pet ear. their power curve is pretty flat. SK will start notably weaker but has a significantly steeper power curve and in the end imo is a more fun tank to play. If you have the time / willpower to invest, go with SK as your tank. if you're looking for easy mode from the start, go with mage/pet.
A mage pet will struggle against “current” TBL makers and missions. Even with EM21 ear, let alone conflagrant. SKs don’t start noticeably weaker than mage pets. SKs have always been effective tanks. The only time an SK would be weaker than a mage pet would be if you were either way behind on gear or AA’s which means you are trying to do content you aren’t ready for yet & obviously have a lot of prior catching up yo do in previous expansions. While Autogrant is active you’ll have all your AA’s. So only gear would be the only issue and it’s REALLY easy to get mediocre level appropriate gear, not to mention that’s the WHOLE fun of Everquest. And after autogrant the mage pet will need AA’s the be effective also. The SK will be outperforming the mage pet if similar #’s of AA’s are placed into each tanking categories.. the difference is you can continue to AA the SK and improve it even more afterwards. The advantage to the mage pet is you basically send pet and don’t have to do much, you can cast fort, runes, heal it etc.. in an SK you actually have to learn the class. Of course you have to learn the mage too, it’s just for dps instead of tanking. If you know how to play the tank. The tank will outperform the pet. When are mage pets stronger than real tanks?
my group geared mage's pet would disagree. for that matter my beastlord's pet would too. so you're saying they're weaker until you've invested the time into them. At day 1, they're notably weaker by comparison. The point is that in order to be an effective tank as an sk you have to invest in gear AND AA, whereas with a mage you only have to invest into AA. literally nobody here is disputing that sks are superior once they're geared and AA'd. but hey,we get it susan, you like SKs.
I think it’s the other way around “Susan” you like pet classes.in reality you’re lying to yourself. There isn’t much investment time wise needed to outperform a pet tank at all. Bare minimum level appropriate gear would do. You can get a full set in less than a day. At day 1 they aren’t notably weaker, SKs are superior tanks (and paladins and Warriors) at day 1 & today. I highly doubt your group geared mage is consistently able to 2 box namers in TBL with 2 maxed healer mercs as OP is intending. I boxed mage chanter all the way through TBL and was forced to charm for MANY of my hunters as the pet just wasn’t cutting it. Now if I play my cleric, sure the pet can tank anything, but OP doesn’t intend to have a healer. I’d use aegis, toss renewal into my multi bind, keep promised on the pet and still poof on most namers with enchanter slow. I always made sure I made 2 pets and even often the 2nd would die, granted fort was usually only one one of them.
Anyone else 2box a group geared mage? Are you able to kill TBL namers consistently? Say 8/10 with just your 2 toons and mercs? How often does your pet die?
/bump Interested to hear the answer here Thinking about going beast/dru. Sk/sham. Or mage/chanter myself Edit: also thinking about mage/beast for pocket pet toys. Trying to find out if the signifance of mage pet toys diminishes later in the game though
TL;DR: pet tanks > real tanks for a long time. Then real tanks > pet tanks, no questions. For whatever it's worth, I consider myself a "casual" who has zero intention of raiding, and I went down this very path myself (real tank vs pet tank) that is being discussed in this thread. Back when SKs were swarming kings, I leveled one up and got him as close as possible to max AA for my level so I could swarm for AAs and feel like I was making progress; this was before the auto-grant days, so I would hit a new level and grind out all AAs pertinent to swarming so I could kill LBs at that level ranger, and then level up a little bit and repeat. I feel that in a group setting, I know the class fairly well as he is now level 110 with over 28K AAs. I also have a 110 Mage with around 23K AAs. In addition, I have a 110 BL with a nice chunk of AAs (been a little while since I looked, but probably around what the mage has). I definitely agree that a pet tank will out perform a real tank for a looong time. SK History: I had taken a hiatus from EQ for a while, like many other players. It took me years of grinding AAs and augs before I could start to tank current level content with my SK. YEARS. I ran gribbles until my eyes were going to bleed. I spent every spare plat on any purchasable gear at level 105 (when EoK was most recent expansion), and I still couldn't DPS or tank. I actually used my Beast Lord (with EM 18 earring) on a separate account as my "main" to kill in FM and Chardok in order to gear up the SK with basic T1/T2 visibles, a few non-visibles, some augs, and gain some AA. I then had to back track to tons of older zones just to find AC augs with more than 25 AC on them. Even now as I am approaching 30K AAs and am filling in a lot of the gaps on offensive AAs, I'm far from a DPS king, even with a 2 Hander. Getting to max level and getting your spells means you have the TOOLS to gain aggro on multiple mobs; it doesn't mean you can actually mitigate any of that damage. Pet History: The mage and the BL, however, require far less AA to use on current content, and my BL pet with EM 18 was actually taking on 3 mobs at once in Chardok and could tank named mobs in Chardok. The BL and Mage can max out the Companion Fortification relatively quickly to get the pet as tanky as possible, and then work on Companion Fury for more offensive power. That's nothing compared to the tens of thousands of AAs you'll need to grind on the SK to tank current content. My SK is now stronger than my mage and BL pets, and he can mitigate damage from multiple mobs pretty well. The mage or BL pet would have a hard time just tagging each mob for aggro. Conclusion: If you have a lot of play time and really want to maximize your EQ experience and be uber, then play the SK/Shaman. If you really are casual and want to get back into the game on a live server in a short amount of time and don't care about being out-tanked by some other class, then play the mage/chanter. That's just my $0.02.
What does it really matter? Play duo you will have the most fun with. I wouldn't choose the Shaman/SK duo unless you are planning on adding a third box for DPS. The SK requires lots of work to be effective - You will need to max out you defensive and offensive AAs, get current group gear, go back and get mitigation augs (PoWar and VoA), and complete most progression from TBM to current. The Enchanter/Mage will do well out of the box, assuming you focus on pet AAs. You may run into difficulties with some names, but most 2 boxes will.
Maybe a little random - but start with Mage / Chanter and get a F2P account with SK on it... level up / gear up the SK then at the point where they're able to tank, switch which account you pay for?
