Can only DPS at about 40% of normal with new pet aggro changes

Hmmm - Warrior class description....
1. "...strong defense while also dealing heavy damage to their enemies."
It looks like Warriors are supposed to "deal heavy damage to their enemies". while tanking. In my dictionary "heavy" is not defined as relatively pathetic.

2. "Warriors fare poorly when adventuring alone,"
Warrior plus merc is not "adventuring alone".

Besides, given classes that are not tanks not having to rely on tanks to tank for them, its right and just for Warrior group dependence to be reduced too (and it was, to a small extent, by [Cleric] mercs). Dependence can not be a one way street. Highly dependent classes and highly independent classes doesn't work - the dependent classes are carrying coals to Newcastle.

A 40% reduction in your DPS while soloing sounds darned near right on the money given this Warrior's perspective. Group with a tank - your DPS will increase.

While I agree with most of what you wrote, there are a couple points that irk me (in order of appearance, not in order of importance):

1) We sacrifice things like DPS, e.g. or any kind of real utility. The only utility a mage bringe to any group or raid is Call of the Heroes and Modrods. Well, and Damage Shields ...

2) Wizards don't have "just nukes" - you got ports (and I'll keep my fingers crossed that your port spells will be continues through TBM also, at some point) as well es evac, a VERY reliable root and knockback.

3) Yes, mages are always pointing out that we need a massive increase in DPS - especially as our solo ability is taken from us, little by little, step by step, by classes who consider it unfathomable that magicians with healer mercs are able to solo reasonably. Wizards don't want us to be DPS, Warriors don't want us to be tanks. You said if we wanted utility, we should roll a utility class (which per se is not wrong). Alas, our niche, soloing, is apparently massively frowned upon. But if we are neither nor, not even comparable by any standards, what exactly are we?

4) I'd personally love any shift of our power from nukes to pets. This won't happen, though, as our pets have just been nerfed multiple times during the last year and a half because other people deemed them too powerful. One of the arguments was, that pets are, by nature, fire-and-forget low mana cost DPS. And as development power has decreased to a level, where it is too difficult for them to put out a full-fledged experience, I highly doubt magicians will receive any large revamp of their class to shift their focus back to pets. It's much easier to hit them a couple more times with the nerf bat until they vanish of their own accord.

Dealing 40% is 60% reduction ...

Some of what you state is not necessarily accurate.

The only time a magician really brings up the wizard DPS comparison is from a raid perspective. And we acknowledge that a wizard should clearly out shine a magician on short burst events. That is what a wizard does best among all INT casters. And due to a necromancers long duration DOT'S and regeneration capabilities, that class should excel on long events. And they do.

The magician concern on a raid is that we are supposed to be the best at the mid length event. Where the wizard goes from 0 to 60 in five seconds flat but runs out of gas (mana) quickly, and the necromancer slowly slowly gets up to 60 mph but can eventually sustain it... a magician goes from 0 to 50 in ten seconds and then hovers around there all the time. Surpassed initially by a wizard, overtakes the wizard at some point, then is eventually surpassed by a necromancer. But for that middle period of time, a magician should be tops.

But we are not. Not close. A wizard raid DPS is so ridiculous nowadays, as well as their ability to get back mana (either from self or others) that they are never surpassed on any event by a magician. Couple that with a necromancer eventually surpassing a magician, that puts the class in last place. And it means that outside of one magician for a mod rod, there really is no reason to have multiple magicians on raids except for loyalty, veteran guild member, you like the person, etc. But if a guild chose to min/max then they would have one magician.

So the DPS sacrifice you see magicians talk about generally are raid sacrifices. I disagree with some of my fellow magicians who call Fickle and Spear x3 a DPS sacrifice; yes it might be less DPS than Spear x4 or Spear x3 and Bolt.... but it is not a significant sacrifice. And it allows us to be successful at what we want to accomplish. I see it more as "doing what it takes to win" than some see it as "sacrificing".

Sorry to go off tangeant.

Honest questions...

1) Why do you think you are 'supposed' to be the best at mid length events?

2) Why do you think, since you can out-tank wizzies all the time that you should be able to out-dps them at any time.

3) Do you really think that wizzie 'utility' is truly as valuable as your pets?

Mind you, I'm a firm believer that all classes should be viable in their main roles (whether it be dps, tanking, or healing) on raids. Viable, however, doesn't mean 'best choice.' Competence will get you a spot on raids far faster than being the 'best class choice' in almost any raidforce.

I'll also admit that 'how far below the best choice' is a very tough number to come up with.

1) I have been playing Everquest since February 2000. During the early years of the game, there was a developer who said such a thing. The goal for the INT casters was that wizards were the masters of burst DPS, necromancers were masters of long sustained DPS, and magicians were the masters of sustained DPS. In fact, a developer during one of the middle expansions had stated that a wizard should be best on events under 2 minutes, a magician on events between 2-4/6 minutes, and a necromancer is best on events 4/6+ minutes long.

2) There are three components of the Everquest game- solo, group and raid. It is apples to apples comparing the wizard vs magician in the group game; however you are comparing apples to oranges. You are discussing the solo/group wizard's inability to tank and comparing it to a raid magician's DPS. Two different things.

3) Well no I don't think wizard ports are good utility anymore. However from a raid perspective, Manaburn is a pretty intense and borderline OP utility. A magician mod rod ridiculously pales in comparison to Manaburn, and the amount of usage for Call of Hero is near irrelevant. So not only does a wizard do 30-60k DPS more than a magician on raids, their one utility of Manaburn far exceeds anything a magician can do.

And I do agree that skill, talent, ability, etc should get you a raid spot. But the higher end you go, the more it becomes also about class. Because if I bust my behind and do 120k on an event and a wizard can sleepwalk and not bother trying and do 140k on that same event... why would a raid leader want six players doing 120k when s/he can have six players doing 140k? That is like having an extra player at your raid with the 20k more per six players. That is why you see high end guilds go with 5-7 wizards and only 2-3 magicians. The class is just that much better on raids.

And that is why magicians get so defensive about our ability to solo. Because we are unwanted and undesired on raids outside of needing one, groups we are competing with seven other classes for DPS spots, so our one thing we can do is solo. And with the pet aggro changes and non magicians always wanting to chime in their opinions on what we should and should not do, it creates a defensive group of players. The one thing we are good at is the one thing everyone else is envious of and wants to take away from us.

1) Because that's been our raid role for most of EQ. Wizards have traditionally won short fights, Magician medium duration fights, and Necros long fights.

2) I don't believe I should ever out DPS wizards in a group setting. In a raid, where pets are more of a liability than an advantage (no one is pet tanking raids), yes, I do. In a raid, there is no other reason to give me a raid spot over another DPS class. Past one Mage we don't bring any utility to raids. It does not make sense to me, when I bring no other advantage to a raid, that I lose to Wizards regardless of event duration. This is especially true when people are perfectly fine with Necromancers out sustaining everyone along with having pretty strong burst, yet they also are extremely powerful soloers. I think Necros are where they should be, but I cannot see an argument for Magicians not being competitive as far as raid DPS goes that does not also apply to them.

3) In a group setting? Absolutely not. In a raid setting? Neither is particularly valuable (and pets cause more harm then good most of the time).

You are VASTLY overstating Wizard utility.

1. Ports = lol. Sweet TBM ports. TDS port was one zone ahead of the guildhall portal that required hardly any effort to get to the port zone. CotF and RoF ports were in the same zone as the guildhall portal. Safe to say that ports are dead, even though our class description says we are MASTER TELEPORTERS. OMG, character select starting descriptions must be true. Our class description also says that we are capable soloers. Yeah, maybe before every mob was flagged immune to run speed changes and/or summons. Which brings me to my next awesome utility:
2. Root. I know you probably haven't noticed since you have a pocket warrior, but a majority of mobs these days are flagged immune to run speed changes. They even went back and retroactively made mobs through RoF immune to run speed changes. This means no root. I've seen other Mages claim that Wizards have great utility because of snare. Snare is almost worthless in 2016.
3. Knockback. It's a beam knockback, so you it's not nearly as effective at mob control as other classes with mob control abilities. I can count the times on one hand that I've used this ability in the past year. You're really stretching here.
4. Evac. Honestly, this is probably our best utility outside of Mana Burn. It's definitely the one I use most often in 2016. I'd say it's on par with CotH in terms of utility provided.

Oh, I DO notice runspeed immune mobs. My Earth Pet's innate key defensive ability is a recourse of a root proc. Earth Pet doesn't get it if the mob is root immune, thereby reducing my tankpet's survivability also.

Nevertheless, between snare, ports, root and evac, wizards seem, at least to me, bring a lot more of "Oh " recovery utility with them, for themselves and their group, than a magician.

Edit: Yes, I am also aware that you neither got a port into TBM zones, nor can you bind there. That's why I wrote that I'll keep my fingers crossed that this will be reintroduced, preferably during TBM, but in the next expansion at the latest, both for wizards as for druids.

And this is exactly why you aren't going to get a lot of people with any sympathy for you, it's not apples and oranges, it's apples and raisins. If the game was "balanced", a warrior with a cleric merc should be able to solo the same thing as a mage with a cleric merc. The warriors defense *should* balance the fight out so that the slower DPS was offset, that would be BALANCE. You can rattle on all you want about "specialized", but it's just specious reasoning, and trying to fabricate plausible belief that mages should be able to do things other classes can't.

When you look at balance issues, you have to look at the sum total of what a class can do, that means, the combination of defense and offense. Mages have had, since the game began, too much defense for their offense. That's the problem in a nutshell. Having a pet that can hold agro indefinitely while you blast away at something from range and complete safety, is against everything EQ has always been about. It was one thing when the game didn't have mercs, but the advent of mercs exacerbated the problem.

So if an expansion is easier its an exception.

But named are easy its not. They have been watered down to essentially trash mobs with triple the hps. Named haven't been challenging in general since VoA. Some classes being able to kill them with mercenary is product of how lame this game has gotten or the whining starts rather than a few classes that solo well being over powered compared to others.

Let's all be honest here. Wizards can solo current named with their rune and burst dps. Wizards trivialize named encounters in a group by killing them in 6 seconds. Hybrids are also exceptional moloer and can solo names. Even monks can.

In all honesty, I think wizards have it the best in all worlds of this game. We need more PoWar type names that nobody can solo/molo.

Having every class equally proficient in a solo setting or a group setting is against everything EQ has always been about. One class being able to accomplish something does not and has never justified another class being able to accomplish something. Warriors, because they are the best tanks in the game, are the cornerstone of a good group. Mages are among the worst of 8 DPS classes, and therefore bring much less to a group. Maybe it's your opinion that every class should have equal viability in every scenario, but that's never been true in EQ.

Actually the advent of mercs just showed what a magician/cleric duo can do. A Paladin/Wizard Merc is essentially filling tank,dps and heal roles but no one is complaining about that because....reasons

And there are multiple other examples of a class and a merc filling those 3 roles but only magicians get mentioned repeatedly on these boards.

I agree with this statement, and I think Mages should have the ability to solo well. I also think that this change hasn't taken that ability away from Mages. I don't understand how the aggro generation reduction made it so that Danille could no longer solo a named that he previously could. Pop Silent Casting and go to town just like before, no? I think the change has a greater affect on being able to be a one man wrecking crew, chewing through mob after mob. That said, I'm a firm believer that the devs intended for Provocative Demeanor to have a greater aggro generation mod, and that it will be fixed. Hopefully in the next patch.

However, I see hypocrisy in your argument that not every class has viability in every scenario. You want exceptional solo ability and to be "masters of sustained dps." The way I understand it, you want to top every parse that is over 2 minutes and under some arbitrary number that constitutes "long," in which case necros should top. So basically Mages should be the best soloers, because the class description says so, and should be the top dps on every TBM fight except for Innoruuk and Grummus. You guys bring up an apples and oranges argument when discussing your dps, but there isn't really a way to differentiate group/solo dps and raid dps. Dps is equally applied to the group/solo game. If you're topping raid charts and you have a beast pet, you are a god. Seriously, why would anyone play a Wizard? To top 2 minute fights and to...teleport? You tell other classes that are adverse to Mage soloing that EQ is just not fair, soloing is your niche, and that not everyone has equal viability in every scenario. However, you're not willing to sacrifice any scenario yourself. I do think you should be able to solo well. That is your niche. I don't think you should be able to nuke like a Wizard.

I think many would agree but the issue is Wizards can, Mages can, Necros can, beastlords can, shadow knights can, monks can, rogues can, zerkers can and probably others. The issue is the fact that current named generally are a joke and have been since VoA.

Regardless the amount of aggro they removed from all pets was far to much for whatever issue they intend to fix which was created by their own recent changes in regards to pc aggro and pets.

I believe I should be able to solo because that's my class's niche. I do not believe I should ever match Wizard DPS in groups. I do believe that there should be a reason to have more than one Magician in a raid, which is true of nearly every other class (/wave SK's), including a number that have just as powerful solo abilities. I personally have never said that we should win every fight that's 2+ minutes, but when we lose to Wizards on every fight I think there is a problem. This is especially true when Wizards are also contributing at least 1/3 of our burst DPS via Mana Burn.

Raid DPS is absolutely separate from group DPS. Necros are poor DPS in groups but are the actual masters of sustained DPS in raids. Mages have less of a distinction, but our best spell by far (storm) really only works in raids, in addition to RS pets very rarely reaching their full DPS potential in groups. If you can't think of ways to increase our raid DPS but not our group, I don't think you're being imaginative enough.

Because SC most of the time will not last a whole name fight. after that is like any other fight. do as much damage as can without taking aggro. And with names its all bout getting them dead asap Before the pet def aa/spells wear off. With this change any pet class(bst/necro/mage) once our SC is down its had to keep up the dps to kill the named fast and not take aggro form pets.

By then a pet has had 120 seconds to build threat on the mob. You're telling me that you're still pulling aggro 2 minutes into the fight and using your abilities like Arcane Whisper and Dimensional Shield/Instability? I have a hard time believing that. Good mages are still able to solo well.

Maybe it's your opinion that Magicians need increased utility (via pet buffs) and DPS (for solo/group/raid) because you're AMONG the other classes. Personally, I find the idea ridiculous.

I don't know what your charts look like in RoI, but there is never consistently one specific person or class that tops our TBM fights. From my perspective, the DPS is fairly well balanced in the current raid setting, more so than it's been in years.

Are you significantly below (<50%) of any other DPS'ing class on any specific event? Are you capable of being in the top 10 during encounters? Then I would argue your raid capability is just fine.

Are you able to solo even or blue con mobs? Can you kill a named using all tools available at your disposal? Then I would argue your solo capability is just fine.

A group dependent class dealing 50% of the DPS of a capable of soloing class isn't "dealing heavy damage" eother, Person Who Spots One Shaky Comment But Ignores 50 Others That Don't Suit His Purposes To Point Out That They Aren't Right or Fair.

It's always amusing that some class partisans will inflate alleged statements in older and since modified Class Descriptions (see https://www.everquest.com/classes for current descriptions - there is no "can solo" for Mages and no "dealing heavy damage" for Warriors) from "can solo" to "can solo many current content named mobs", "do group missions unassisted", "pwn group content yardtrash", etc.

#MagesShouldRemainGods and #WarriorsShouldWeildFoamSwords #JustBecause. Gotcha.

No one, particularly those who play OP classes, likes nerfs.

But no one likes being a group dependent class with half of the classes independent of groups when groups are not easily found either. Count your blessings 40% and still twice my DPS Sir Mage (and not a tank).

The amusing part is, we were promised that there would be no dual classes in EQ in the Daily Developer Chats very early on. No TankMage weiding a sword and wearing a landshark helmet with laserbeam eyes laying waste to the battlefield. Lol. they did tell the truth - they created that class as one class not a two skill set class and left Warriors out of it completely. Happy soloing.