Since the auto-grant fest is now over I've been slowly working on AA's while still gaining exp and I have a question. What do you think would be a better path to follow for now? I have fury of magic 10/10 and destructive fury at 31/36. I also have companion sturdiness at 15/25. With the steep cost of destructive right now at 27 per rank would I be better off maxing sturdy first? I mostly molo Gribbles, and although my merc healer can keep my pet up most of the time he can tend to dip more than I like, but on the other hand, I like the bigger crits. I intend to max both at some point, but I'd like the hear what choices others have made around where I'm at.
The better path is to get to 105 first. If you insist on AA before then, then the better path is to get 104 for the Earth pet and then do some AA. Although I would recommend 105...
Thanks for the advice! I ended up putting 2 more into companion's sturdiness. The whole thing that made me want AA before max level was pet discipline. I was 1 short of swarm control after auto-grant stopped. I noticed that I could run all of any Gribble on regular exp and get maybe 1% before popping lesson for the final hail. I've been maxing AA and turning it back to regular exp at the end lately. I get about 5-7 AA's per run. I feel like I'm not leaving exp on the table this way. P.S. I have my 104 pet in the bag and should be able to summon him this weekend
The answer is about the same for every class. Start with the general tab and max everything that adds to mitigation and HPs. Move next tab and max anything that adds to mitigation and HPs. After that I would max pet mitigation and the your own DPS and then pets. Once all that is complete then come back here and ask about the class and focus tabs - that's where it gets interesting.
A rather bad answer for a class that mainly relies on pet for survival. I would leave general tab well alone and concentrate on companion AA. Even enchanter who gets hit a lot more than other casters ought to look at class stuff first. (VoM, Eldritch, banishments, stasis)
maxing hp/mitigation via AA on a caster is a waste of time. 2000 more hp wont matter, and caster defense is so bad it might as well not exist. As well, increasing mana via AA is such a tiny benefit its worthless. In general, as a caster, you never even touch the general tab until you've spent alot of AA for that expac A mage should: 1. Increase thier person dps 2. Increase pet defense 3. Increase pet offense 4. increase person defense Of course, not exhuastively in that order. But hit the highlights of #1, then #2, #3, #4. then start working on a specific plan
Bad suggestion. Your pet are your defense. So imo, pet def, your dps/pet dps. And at the end your def.
To be honest, I have more of an issue going OOM than anything. I load up rods, orbs, and slivers to burn in the Gribbles.I still end up in the med-timeout zone more often than not during the stages. Expansive mind... Maybe that's something that I can work on that's helpful? I'm at 38/44.
Spear of Molten shieldstone RK2 costs 4689mana The +6 mana regen from expansive mind would take ~78 minutes to recover the cost of casting it a single time. Mana regen is mostly a joke nowadays. +100 mana regen will give you the base mana for a single spear about every 8 minutes
There are specialization augs (Splinter of Potency?, etc, 1 for each specialization) from CotF named. Higher specialization reduces mana cost of its spells. Not using the mana is better than regenerating it.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/mage-augs-which-is-better.217863/ I could not remeber their names but the top result on Google "specialization augs everquest" led me there. In general, going OOM is a symptom of other problems. You want to make each spell count as much as possible, cast the right stuff, etc. I do not play a mage so I would direct you elsewhere for good details. Google will likely lead you to threads on here but posting more specific questions will likely get some knowledgeable people to repost/update information. The specialization augs are the still single best thing you can do with respect to mana regen besides just not casting.
The question is Foci. You want stuff that works. Hat: + damage on magic based. Sleeves: + damage on fire based Shoulders: mana preservation on detrimental. If you have lower level stuff where focus effect declines over 100, you almost lose the benefits by 103. Probably best option is grind TBM HAs for remnants, buy base armor in Tranquility and type 9 augs in health (gem of the Resourceful in your case) These give you foci up to 110.
So I'm 20% into 104 now and I was using the earth pet tonight. Keep in mind I molo Gribbles. After my first death I realized that even with hate weapons he doesn't have the agro hold of the 101 air pet. I'm assuming the stun? I watched the agro meter from there and noticed that I climbed the ladder much faster even though he was more robust. I'm using EMXX so both are fairly well buffed, but I wonder now what AA will provide more agro to compliment the tanky nature of the earth pet. Both Air and Earth are dark blue to me, but I can see the benefit of Earth later on as long as the mobs aren't trying to make me dead while he's full health. Any advice?
Yes. The main issue is when I get aggro off a multi-pull. When I get aggro from an add I can get my pet to attack it after a number of attack button mashes, but he goes back to the original mob. I haven't needed to in the past, but I'm going to set myself as main assist tonight and see if that helps.
Well that didn't do anything. I'm going to switch back to my air pet tomorrow. I've added 2 points of companion's sturdiness in the last couple of days. Maybe that will make the dips easier to deal with. I was looking at the other pet AA's, but I'm not sure if they add pet aggro or not. The ping-ponging is fun and all, but not easy to manage. Thanks for all the help so far everyone
Switching to the 101 air pet made a big difference. I only pulled aggro once all night. Funny thing is what I noticed when I got back to POK. I had forgotten to give him any weapons! My air pet held aggro better without hate weapons than my 104 earth pet did with them. I know it's not AA related, but I was surprised. I'll be 105 this weekend and I think I'll keep bumping my pet's AC for now and them maybe go back to damage AA's afterwards.
So I honestly must be doing something completely different than most. I realize and agree that Air pet can generate more aggro than Earth due to stun; however I never ever have any issues whatsoever with Earth and aggro. And yet I continually see and hear about posts/threads like this that makes me wonder what is going on? It cannot be because I am a raider, that should have nothing to do with it. But I will share real fast what I do and see if that is what everyone else also does, and yet gets different results... 1. I use Invested Tome of Obulous in solo/group game. Tome of Obulous has exact same effect so it doesn't matter which one you have. 2. Earth has taunt on, aggro weapons 3. After sending pet, I do my weave of Chaotic, RS, 105 Spear, Chaotic, 100 Spear. Rinse/repeat throwing in other stuff such as Force AA for example. Doing just the above (pet also has basic buffs on like Burnout, Iceflame and Damage Shield) I basically never ever pull aggro. To me Air HP is too spiky for my content to trust it as a tank. Just throwing that out there. Lots of mages have issues with Earth aggro, so I am curious what you guys do that I am not doing to get aggro...
