A little backstory, I’ve been boxing Dru/War on Phinigel since around PoP era. When we unlocked CoV/Live status truebox was removed and I decided to add a Mage and Bard to my box crew. My last experience boxing on a single computer was the Mac server where I still boxed like a caveman using Alt+Tab which is what I’m still doing so I figured mage and bard would be a low APM DPS addition to my group. I read through a guide Sanctus posted on DPS weaves/multibinds and AA synergy which has been helpful. Mostly I’m running Servant/Chaotic/Spear x2, other than burns when I run Many Nuke in place of 110 spear. I’ve gotten them to nearly 115 and am running ToV/CoV missions to gear them and get them rank 2 spells. But I was curious what non-current era items and spells are worth getting for magician. From what I’ve gathered: Old Expansion Spells: Twincast Rk3 - SoD Raid Arcane Distillect - It seems rank here doesn’t matter? But is there no upgrade to this or stacking issue that obsoletes it or should I always be running this aura? 110 Spear Nuke Anything else I missed? Old Expansion Items: Bifold - RoF Raid OoW BP CoTF Spec Evoc and Conjuration Augs ToV 2h Sympathetic Aug Epic 2.0 — Is this really that great anymore? It seems like it’s flat value which seems unnoticeable at 115? Long term I’m guessing getting him eligible for one of the TBL or ToV evolving items to open up Type 18/19 slots but this seems like a lot of effort for a 3rd tier box. Anything else that sees an abundance of use? Beyond this some basic magician pet questions: 1. Water pet seems to always be the go to pet for DPS purposes. I imagine it is the pet I’ll be using 95%+ of the time? I recall for awhile the Air pet was the superior tank due to the stun Proc, is this still the case or did the earth pet ever get buffed to be superior? If the earth pet is the superior tank is there ever any reason to have the air pet out, perhaps mitigating damage on another tank via stuns? Are there ever any scenarios the Fire pet is useful in current gameplay? 2. Pet gearing. I recall at some tier of pet focus the pets come pre-equipped with Armor/Haste mask? Is this all pet Focii or does someone without raid focii need to gear more? It looked like the pet would accept some of the summoned focus items like Ring/Neck/Ear/Shoulders which is a few thousand HP. Does anyone bother with this? Lastly which weapon from the pack is superior, my gut tells me it’s the fire proc one since I have a Dru/Mage and will be debuffing fire the most but I haven’t looked into the other weapons much? 3. These summoned items that summon swarm pets. Are they useful at all? Lastly are there any hotkeys I really should have on my magician to get the most out of him while focusing on him the least? Currently I have some assist MA+pet attack/swarm, a 4 cast weave+Malo Debuff hotkey and a burn Heart of Skyfire/Focus of Arcanum/Spire/Frenzied Burnout type hotkey.
I would also like to know some Mages thoughts. This is pretty much what I do as well, but would like to hear an opinion from a Magemaster
