So as a raiding main druid who plays at janky times I find it pretty hard to get the group side of things done, most notably finishing partisans, grinding some AA, and camping augs. To aid in those endeavors I made a mage box after considering the options and figuring I would like to have a tank who doesn't get flattened immediately by a named as well as ease of use (to put it lightly, I am not an adept boxer and truebox means I can't rely on certain tools). The problem I am currently encountering is that I find it very hard to justify having a box at all - druid is 100 in raid gear and has about 3x the hp/mp and 10x or more the damage of the mage, who is currently sitting at 91 with autogrant aa (up to SoD so around 3.6k with some extras like mnemonic retention and GoM maxed for level). To contextualize that into numbers, druid alone can do around 50-60k+ on a 10min burn with minimal attention, mage does around 5-6k in that same duration. Obvious solution involve farming more levels and AA for the poor dear, but there lies the crux of the situation. I can kite on the druid as the most effective method to accomplish this, but then there's just a box sitting around taking up space and every minute i'm thinking "I wish this was an enchanter..." However, I don't feel like leveling an enchanter is going to put me in any better of a situation which leaves me stuck trying to optimize my way out of this ditch. So in a long story made short, what kind of things can be done to progress both characters (ideally, i'll tolerate a loss on the druid if it's worthwhile enough for the mage) that actually involves playing both characters? And what kind of things can I do to make the mage pull her own weight (optimize rotation? Secret mage strats that haven't made it out onto the internet before?)
There is no super secret that will make a level 91 anything into a peer to partner with a level 100 something else. Players adding new characters to their EQ line up just gotta take on board that they're PLing until the new character is in range. If both your characters continue to advance, then the mage will naturally catch you as lower levels go faster than higher ones. She only has to get "in range" to have the current pet spell for your level (so 106, or 111 after December, to make a current air pet), then she'll be the partner you're looking for.
+1. You need to max out levels and AA. An ungeared -10 levels macro-mage with no ISB will have a hard time being of use to a max lvl raid geared druid main. Also Make sure you get a pet focus for the mage ABC-always be casting. There are plenty of threads about optimal rotation, use fire nukes, spam RS pets, etc etc. Get a pair of sleves to begin with, if you have none
You can put your druid and mage into a fellowship together and have your druid pump vitality into your mage that you can burn to get XP http://everquest.fanra.info/wiki/Fellowships But yeah, your mage will be useless to your druid until you invest in getting it to the same level. Druid and mage is a good combination though, stick with it.
Dru/mag combo is crazy good, but as everyone has stated, really need to get mag at least to level 96 for highest air pet, with best pet focus ear you can get, before it'll be able to comparably tank with a raid geared druid... Get ISB, you will not regret it... $50 a year, well worth it... Just for the echo feature, it will drastically increase a box's effectiveness, no longer use macros with pauses, with huge waste of time. For now, just disable your spell casting subtlety, and kite around the magician, with mag sending water pet, RS pets, and nukes at your kited mob. I don't remember exactly, but I'd have to guess a water pet backstabbing a kited mob around that level should be at least 5-6k dps by itself (make sure and keep burnout and iceflame on it). With RS pets on it, should be at least 3x that, with just water pet and RS pets (make sure and get the pet DPS AA, RS pet recast AA and type 3 aug). Don't hold back on activated AA, use them as they pop when grinding. Assuming you use 2 main key binds, 1 for DoTs, and 1 for nukes... will call keybind for DoTs '1' and nukes '2'... Mage's hotbar should be something like this: (all these set to same keybind as druid's DoT keybind)... Button 1: Assist social: /assist Syth6 (whatever toon's name is) /pet attack /pet swarm /alt act 8800 {force of elements} /alt act 1041 {malo} Button 2: RS pet Button 3: Twincast Button 4: Fickle (fickle before spear to hopefully get proc to boost spear, plus limited mana on mag, guessing) Button 5: Spear Button 6: Bolt Button 7: Thaumatize Button 8: Gather Potential Button 9: Symbiosis Button 0: BP (for click effect) So now, when you're spamming your DoT keybind, it will echo to your magician. Set up hotbar 2 same way, but change social to activate other AA, such as ITC, FBO, spire, heart skyfire, but include force of elements in this one as well. Set hotbar 2 keys up to same keybind as your nuke keybind. Keeps spells the same order. Change BP for modrod, for clicky. Now, when you start spamming your DoT keybind on the mob, mag will echo with sending pet, nuking, and casting malo AA on mob. Then, when swap to nuke spam key, mag will attempt to activate other DPS AA, while continuing to spam swarm pet and nukes. When mob dies, keep spamming your keys a bit, and mag will attempt to cast their mana recovery spells (since no mob available to target)… This will help a TON. An undergeared/AA mag box will absolutely tear thru their small mana pools, and need every available tool they can get to gain mana. Running a magician box with ISB like this, or similar, will be a HUGE difference in DPS versus one swapping windows and using macros with pauses to cast just a few spells. Or even running it on a laptop, with this type setup, and using a repeater program or keys to do same thing, if don't want to buy ISB. Anything to not have to just swap windows back and forth. Once get highest level air pet available, doesn't change mag a whole lot, just changes druid setup, to swap between DPS and healing pet.
