No its not another nerf charm thread. Just trying to understand for myself how powerful is necro/mage pets in classic, around 2 week till new servers start and I still not decide what class to play. Testing different classes on Live servers atm, but I know at server starts not all spells/pets will be same. On Ragefire I remember mage pet was very good at tanking and dps, but there was also some nerf about it and all pets is weaker till Luclin or PoP? (don't remember). Anyone have any info here, who maybe play mage-necro on Mangler as it launched?
The pets are ok, i am not sure you will see that combo as a 2 box set, it will be rare at best. No we dont need anymore nerfs we have been through enough for over 20 yrs.
A heavy pet defense nerf was applied after Ragefire. It goes away when LDoN unlocks. They're still overpowered to the point of being brainlessly easy, you just actually have to heal them occasionally now.
Stick to undead zones whenever possible with necro and charm pets + undead nukes. The regular necro pet is OK for extra damage but terrible at tanking. Mage pets are definitely stronger by a fair bit. Both pets are weaker until a few expansions in when they get a nice boost to stats. Play cleric/shaman + mage/necro for really easy leveling and ability to farm most of the camps in classic/kunark if you don't want to do shaman/monk (probably one of the most OP combos besides cleric/enchanter)
Mage/Mage is really easy for leveling, the exp isn't super speed but you can easily kill anything you want to level that is level appropriate. There isn't much you can't do by yourself with 2 mages during classic and people always love mages in groups.
If 2boxxing, I did Necro / Shaman, Did fungi tunic camp and alot more with Dire Charm later on. I Loved putting Tons of buffs on Necro pet and Shamans wolf, and taunt spam between the 2 pets was fun xD
Have mained a mage on Mangler since the server launched. The pet's strength is going to depend on the context you're talking about. For raiding and grouping, 70-80% of your damage is going to be coming from your nukes, not your pet (ignoring fire/magic immune bosses that you can't nuke). The pet can tank pretty effectively against white and lower content in a group with some HP buffs, not so great against higher level stuff though. Very good at holding threat, sometimes a little too good (epic pet can easily take aggro from tanks without even taunting). Your pet alone isn't going to be out-dpsing any non-afk dps in a group, but a mage+pet is definitely competitive even in classic era. Soloing, at least with the epic pet, you can plow through single blue cons with your pet tanking no problem, but you will be nuking a lot. Taking on multiples and higher level stuff is going to be a challenge until a few expansions in - sometimes you can chain cast pets to slowly take them out but you don't really get a lot of good tools until Luclin when meaningful pet heals and AAs are out and you can just blow a target up with cooldowns. So basically, no, mage pet dps isn't that amazing and yes, mage pets can function as group tanks in most scenarios if buffed and getting healed. No clue about necro pets. Also, if you're planning on raiding, expect your pet to die a lot to AoEs to virtually every raid target until Velious or so. Because of pathing, doing ins and outs with a pet is rarely practical. If you're lucky you might be able to position your pet such that it's out of line-of-sight to avoid the AoEs while being close enough to melee, but that's not always possible. And prepare to spam your pet back macro constantly until you get pet hold in Luclin, otherwise pets like to go intercept bosses on incoming and mess with pulls.
If you need more infos about mage pets in Classic and early eras, you'll find a lot of info on the old mage class boards which have a TLP section since 2017. For a global overview, you can check my quick pet guide. To summarize, you will use water pet most of the time in classic, especially if you group with a necro, you don't want the root of your earth pet make the mob hit rather the necro pet (skellies have narrower hit boxes). In combination with a necro, the Pet Stop strategy will work wonders. One pet can Stop regen while the other one is fighting.Pet Stop is your true friend, believe me. In Velious, Pet Stop keeps your pet alive in NToV. When the mage pets needs to Stop, necro can take over by kiting if the mob is too rough for the necro pet to step in while its elemental buddy is out of combat. Not to speak of the fact that pet chaining will be a breeze both for the nec and the mage (the mob always has one pet on it, so it's easier to chain in case of problem). However, the defense of all pets (hps, AC and therefore avoidance/mitigation, etc.) is severely nerfed in Classic compared to original EQ. Every expac, the penalty diminishes until it is completely removed in LDoN as said by TheDohn. Consider the jump from Velious to Luclin to be very positive regarding the pet power curve, despite the pets are the same (no level increase, no new pets). And last but not least, as soon you hit Kunark, the mage can have three pets up thanks to the revamp of old situational pets who are now secondary pets (wrongly tagged as "swarm pets") with a life spawn of 18/30 seconds.This provides some "ghetto mez" to help his necro buddy rooting the adds (or mezzing if undead). NEC/MAG, an unusual combination - many would advise MAG/DRU or MAG/SHM and average people will say MNK/SHM anyhow But a very interesting one ! Have fun experimenting and safe travels.
Mage Pets - Absolutely overpowered from levels 2-10 - Decent dps after that but soloing will not be viable exp around level 20 until you get your epic pet. - Epic pet is an absolute beast. The mage epic quest isn't bad if you're in any decent raiding guild. The epic pet is used from Kunark through Luclin so you get a lot of mileage out of the epic. Necro Pets - The summon pets are not nearly as powerful as mage pets especially compared to the epic. - Can't tank anything but can solo effectively with dot kiting - Even better, charm undead and crush the mages dps
The necro has so many ways to play... it can adapt to most situation. Mage - Send pet, nuke... that's about it Nec - Charm mobs, dot kite, fear kite, Lifetap Tank, puller...etc Necro's have all the tools to do it all... Mages have better raw power.. but a necro hasa tool for every situation.
This is the correct response. Pets are decent DPS but can't tank anything worthwhile for the first year or so of a TLP's life. If you level smithing and are willing to make sets of banded for your pets they are tolerable tanks but otherwise complete garbage. As somebody that played a healer on previous TLPs I didn't waste mana healing mage pets, if they can't or won't keep them alive then it's more efficient to just let them resummon each time it dies.
