I've been rolling with a BL/Brd box and having a great time. I love pets and I'm wanting to try out Mage box team. I play on FV and have two accounts subbed. Also, I'm not using any extra software, just two screens. Considering [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] though tbh to help a bit. What class would you run with a Mage? I'd like to play the Mage as the main, for the most part, and have a class supporting it. Thanks
Another Mage Druid Wizard Necro 2x mage is probably the strongest duo just due to the strength of the pets
So the strengths of Mages is common knowledge. One of the top classes in the game right now and they’re kind of EQs golden children. Druid brings in back up heals, decent DPS, evacs, ports, decent buffs. Necro brings another pet (strong in its own right as well), and top tier DPS as well Necro + Mage sounds the most fun for me Druid + Mage sounds the safest Mage + Mage sounds like the fastest route, but also the most boring
related: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/bard-or-enchanter-for-this-mage-group.286631/ If you want to spend most of the time on the mage, a bard or mage is a good complement. Shaman/druid/beastlord would be fine too. A necro would be a really strong addition, but you'll probably spend most of the time on the necro since they are very strong and harder to play.
What's your goal? See all the content, or do 90% of content very, very well? If the latter, any of the suggestions above work. Necromancer is best because not only are they individually over powered, but they solve a very important weakness of magicians - lack of crowd control and pulling ability. Magicians also work well with necromancers by reducing resistances and providing pet equipment and a better pet in general. It's a match made in hell. But if you're talking about seeing all content, no class covers all the weaknesses of the magician. The closest is probably paladin. Paladins can't really pull that well, but with CoTH, strong root, and calm, you can get by. More importantly, it provides a solution for all the other weaknesses of a magician: encounters that don't allow pet tanks, lack of group heals, lack of cures, and struggles with groups of monsters, since paladins like other player tanks can tank a group just fine and that goes further if the magician pet plays off tank. The reason other combinations can't provide what paladins do: Pet classes: can't do content where pets can't tank Bards: same problem Enchanters: same problem Wizard: same problem but also can't pull Melee: just generally bad because no physical ADPS Priests: close, but still can't do content where pets can't tank because mercenary tanks suck. crowd control and pulling options limited in close space, which is a bigger problem with mercenary tanks and pets than player tanks Shadow Knight: even closer, main problem is lack of cures and group heals for encounters that require them Paladin + magician will struggle, however, with hard DPS checks. You will eventually overcome those by out leveling them. Main reason to prefer this over shadow knight + magician is that you will never over come the lack of cures or group heals on a shadow knight. But that's the catch with ANY two box that involves magicians - the class is very strong, probably top 2, but it is not the ideal two box. A necromancer + paladin will go further and is probably the ideal two box right now.
If you're looking to focus on the mage, bards probably bring the most with the least amount of effort playing the second account. A pairing that gets slept on a bit for mages but is really good is shaman. Everybody, understandably, suggests druids when they talk about a priest for mages, but shamans are super good as well. Their aura is a large boost to swarm pet dps, slows can be very useful, their healing is exceptional, and they can toss out dots on tougher mobs.
Sham is quite nice, great heal, slow, aura. Problem with dru is they just are bad at healing, and are probably one of the most complex classes to play well in the game. Not that great for boxing. Shaman does less DPS, but never runs out of mana, it can be a troll, a lot of utility. After a certain point though, you will hit a ceiling on the content you can do without a healer and a tank. So if you want to do a whole current expansion with your own group, I would consider a shadow knight at some point, in addition to a sham. My group consists of sk/pal, mage, mage, nec, ench/bard, sham.
Thanks for replies. Looking to be able to explore. Not looking to do raids or anything, but some named camping would be fun just so I can say I did it. I only get 3-5 hours a week to play so I'm putting a lot of thought in before spending time. If I didn't already have a Brd, I would choose a Brd for the ease I have learned it can be with my BL. I hate to have 2 bards though. I solo'd my Mage for awhile, he's 65 now. The main issue I had with him and why I made my BL/Brd box was because I hated waiting on mana to regen. So in all honesty, I might just do a Brd to solve what was the most annoying issue I had with the Mage.
My mage groups with my ranger great combo with good tank and ranger on the dps. I actually made a mage so my ranger could do tougher hunters as i only can tank so good lol. Love doing named mobs and my ranger running pureshot.
Mag + enc is a super combo, super puller, nearly as good mana as a bard, good strong burn and you dont have any pesky mele positioning to consider. 1 hotkey with the 3 best nukes and 1 with the 3 dot lines and you are set for some decent dps with very little effort.
I'd recommend druid or bard if play time is limited and you are interested in hunters. Tracking and movespeed buffs on both. Druid ports, and port to bind in particular are great timesavers. Bards can single handedly pull very well, but so can a Druid when mage coth is available. With a Druid instant evac AA, you will hardly ever wipe.
I really need to learn macro'ing. The Brd, Ench, and Dru all have really good reasons for making them part of my 2 box team. I will have to sit with it for a bit and decide. i'm a classic overthinker lol. Might take me a few days.
Also consider sharing the bard between your beastlord and mage, possibly setting XP to AA if you don't want it to get too far ahead. Going from needing to gear 4 characters to needing to gear 3 is a pretty big deal. This may or may not work depending on your play style, but definitely consider it.
Ahh cool advice. I hadn't thought about that. I will definitely take this advice now and for the future.
Necro is a great companion to a mage. Mage can provide pet toys. Necro's are easy to run as a box with 2 hotkeys; one to send in pets and debuff and a second to cast synergy nuke and dots. Necro's can flood a named mob with tons of pets that lets the mage use barrage to great efficiency, and necro burn is outstanding. And the necro can do some tricky pulls with root, snare and FD. They can also easily provide double-invis to the mage (necro casts IVU after mage casts perfected invis) which allows the mage to run to camp and summon the necro box.
Bard is the best 2nd to a mage in my opinion. 1) Bard will boost mage + mage pet with adps 2) Straight double invis, no shenanigans needed. 3) Tracking and slow (not best slow, but still slow, helpful vs nameds) 4) Great pulling. Literally, will save you more often then not with good pulls. 5) CC abilities 6) You can get enchanter mana regen buffs, bard regen stacks and can't be pre-buffed. 7) Bard speed. If you run a bard now, bad withdrawals coming if you go without bard speed.
Depends a lot on play style and what you want. MAG/BST is incredibly strong but you have to "drive" the beast and box the mage for it to work well. You have slow, snare, amazing synergy and buffs. Beastlords put out stupid damage during short burns. You lack a puller, CC and no dual invis. MAG/NEC is also incredibly strong and really easy to box. You can get a TON out of these 2 classes with macros. Necro is a solid puller. No CC, Less Mana regen than the other duos. MAG/BRD is god tier if you can box both well enough. Amazing puller. Melee positioning is exceptionally annoying when pet tanking. Even if you just park him and /melody Bard is pretty good. Bard does it all though. You can go to town and box the out of them or park him with /melody on and its still worth the XP he leaches. MAG/ENC is also god tier. Much easier to mezz with macros than Bard. You have slow, pulls, mana regen, ADPS, CC and dual invis. Super ezmode. Bard speed is great but for boxing with a mage i would rather just dual invis the mage and CoTH the alt to me. Depends on how you want to play really.
