Ok it took me 3 tries to get used to it. And it was a little more difficult then I thought it would be but tbh I didn't even try all that hard . Hmm its not letting me share my twitch video but just search for Makavien on twitch and you can see it . Also notice I didn't even need to use provocative demeanor. And my earth pet kept aggro just fine unless there is something I am missing you guys do need something to lower them spikes some which I could very well be missing something entirely. But who is going to go pet moloing without getting buffs from everyone they can also ? Also who is going to take on two yellow con mobs without using burns as they can I know I used a couple pet burns there but tbh I could of lived without them. Moloing is just like watching paint dry to me though so I was tired of doing it at that point. My mage has very little better gear than her magelo also . Using mostly gelid with cotf tier 2 pet ear and an arx 2 hander. Also sorry for the lag I have put my twitch live feeds on hold till I can upgrade my cable to a higher upload speed.
I play a top tier monk. I can molo reasonably well in TBM because I'm capable of splitting practically anything. As long as I pull only one mob at a time, I can kill it just fine. On a three mob pull? I would just FD it onto the merc and wait 5 minutes. I've been one rounded by a single trash mob in Crypt of Sul (even without the HP debuff.) I struggle to kill anything with high HP; most notably golems/sentinels in TBM. I am incapable of killing named unless I'm buffed and have a secondary merc healer. Even then, most TDS/TBM named are extremely difficult or impossible. Monk is likely superior to the other melee classes in this department.
So I want to make a couple comments to some of the replies. First, most classes are not able to handle a three pull. The thing is, magicians used to be able to split and get two at the most. That doesn't work anymore, at least for me. Maybe I am doing it wrong. Maybe I need to brush up on my magician pull skills. However with no form of CC with the exception of Remorseless, a magician is going to either be dead or have to gate on a three pull. And given the frequency of them, that really means the magician cannot solo current content. Keep in mind before the pet aggro changes I could handle three mobs at once. It took a lot, but I could. Last night I had to gate several times trying to burn one down and then hoping the other two would not kill me. Not as smooth process at all. Second, my scenario was talking about a molo magician. Some of the responses were talking about their tank, their box mage, their other third toon and three mercs. No magician cares about that, because the issue is not magician + others... It is magician. Period. I did a duo on Saturday with another magician after pet aggro changes and we were fine. But that is not the topic at hand. Third, I do not believe a group magician can solo in TBM. And that is basically because nearly every pull there is 2+ mobs. So a solo class not able to solo is not a good thing. Fourth, someone said they would have to use their burns and stuff on a two pull. Could you imagine how boring and awful it would be to tell someone they can solo, but only two mobs every ten minutes? Where is the fun in that? Finally, magicians have been able to solo current expansions the past several. I don't remember the last expansion where I could not solo the end game zone. I would guess Sepulcher in VOA only because the mobs were tightly packed and it was rare to be able to only get two mobs at once. It is frustrating for kiters to not be able to kite current content. It is frustrating for Paladins to not have undead current content. It is frustrating for solo classes to not be able to solo current content. I don't have much issue with Provocative Demeanor. If they increase it by 20% then I won't complain. What needs to change is the Remorseless Servant aggro. That is a game changer and a game killer for many magicians. I hope that devs can partner with magicians, both raid and group, and come up with a happy medium that is in the best interests of all classes in game.
First thank you for your honest candor. It's always nice to see people take calm, open minded and level headed approaches to things like this, when everyone else is too frenzied with anger, torches/pitchforks and rabbling while foaming at the mouth. One quick question? No Earring of Living Slime for you? Best thing I ever bought my Mage, and with Marcia it's really quite a steal at ~10m plat. Even with the shortish duration and resists I've found it invaluable in many cases, even if it's only buying a tiny bit of time. Admittedly I haven't done much new content on my Mage molo, but just thought I'd inquire on that note.
Also, the question is not "what class is able to tank three mobs" - it is "What class is able to deal with three mobs". A necromancer deals with three mobs by split-pulling them. As do rangers, rogues, monks or any other class that has abilities to split mobs. Enchanters have it even easier. A magician never had that luxury. We had the (questable) snowball, an all/all clicky, and we have our 10min cooldown Companion of Necessity (memblurr pet). Our way of "dealing" with multiple mobs was to be able to offtank one with our RS line. This does not work safely anymore. With a bit of luck, you still can offtank one mob with RS, but you better not have debuffed that mob before. Also, healing your pet is a bad idea. Oh yeah, and if the mob lives longer than your RS and you need another RS - well, good luck for him getting the aggro ... Also, I notice very different opinions among magicians about petaggro and their own. I know a lot of magicians claiming they never had problems with Earthpet aggro before the last patch, while I pulled aggro off my earthpet regularly.
No Earring of Slime for me. Only saw it once in my life back in 2001 or something. Went to a wizard. I cried. And with all due respect, asking someone to whip out 10 million plat is a exception to the rule, not an expectation. I think I am around 8.5 million or so. Just cause some of us have 500+ days /played doesn't mean we have 500+ million plat just laying around
Not saying it's the solution or anything, just an errant thought that came to mind reading your post. Gotta use all tools available yo! I always thought RS and creative uses of the blur pet were the right amount of pulling utility for my Mage...so hopefully they fix it. During the pet nerfs it seemed like necro pet strength and RS utility was a big concern for a lot of the more sensible players. Plat really isn't that hard to make. Heck, roll on TLP, you can farm 10 krono worth of stuff faster there and the sell it back on live for Marcia money. Or if you haven't finished your Alaran tear, go flip the mission and rake in gems/TS drops for sale while doing 2 birds. It's totally, totally worth it.
My thought process was more along the lines of: "a three-mob pull in current content should probably kill a solo/molo player regardless of class". If you're splitting the mobs it's not really a three-mob pull.
One thing to note (since there seem to be a few misconceptions about this), healing pets doesn't actually generate (any real amount of?) aggro. I can put on Companion's Calm Demeanor and spam heal all day and still be at 1 on the aggro meter. That's likely why Makavien didn't have any aggro issues, since pretty much all he did was spam heal (in all honesty I watched like the first minute and gave up cause it was too blurry, don't know what happened afterwards).
But Mages lack the tools to split a 3 mob pull while molo, while other classes do not. We have the strongest pet because we lack that utility. Even still, Mages are not alone in being able to (when using burn AA's and such) deal with that type of pull molo.
So, the changes were justified? This statement doesn't sound like your class is no longer functional; it sounds like you have been properly tuned with other classes. Yeah. We get that. Everyone on the forums gets that. There's 10+ threads a day about nothing but magicians. So, working as intended? The group magician can't solo the group content? Blasphemy! Could you imagine how boring and awful it would be if you were incapable of soloing? You'd have to make friends and play the game with other people. Where is the fun in that? Need I say more?
If we accept that Mages should be "properly tuned with other classes" so that they can't solo current content*, should we not then be "properly tuned with other classes" with regards to group and raid desirability? If you don't believe the class should have that niche, you have to, at the very least, make us competitive with other DPS classes at those levels. Otherwise there doesn't appear to be a point for the class. *A) To be clear, I'm not saying we've reached that point and B) I don't accept that Mages should not be able to solo in current content, which is not an attribute specific to Mages alone and has generally been the class's strong point.
That was with no demeanor's on ... I nuked in that fight too people are saying they nuke twice and pull aggro not only was I trying to make sure my pet didn't die I was also trying to pull aggro without the buff when people are saying they are pulling the aggro off their pet with two nukes or a dot with the buff on. Others classes were mentioned because no single class besides an enchanter with mezz should be able to handle a 3 mob pull and expect to walk away from it with 1 merc or a monk and bard with fd and fade. And those classes give a comparison of what a 3 mob pull should take to kill. Would you like me to do a 3 pull with 1 merc on a warrior ? It would be over pretty quickly also. Necros may be able to split up a 3 pull but that's not even close to the same thing. Combined: A citizen on 1/27/2016 Casttalot - 53 --- Companion Relocation - 1 --- Companion's Aegis II - 2 --- Companion's Blessing XXIV (Azia) - 1 --- Frenzied Burnout IX - 1 --- Malosinete V - 2 --- Promised Invigoration - 5 --- Remorseless Servant Rk. II - 6 --- Renewal of Calix - 20 --- Second Wind Ward IV - 1 --- Shieldstone Stance - 1 --- Spear of Blistersteel Rk. II - 7 --- Spear of Molten Shieldstone Rk. II - 4 --- Virulent Talon III - 1 --- Zeal of the Elements II - 1 Produced by GamParse v1.5.1.6
First off, why should no single class besides an enchanter with mezz be able to walk away from a 3 mob pull? Maybe that's your opinion, but that seems a pretty arbitrary statement to me. I can't and don't expect to be able to molo three mobs without using a significant number of activated AAs, but in that case I don't see it as unreasonable. I highly doubt warriors would be able to, and that's not anywhere close to their strongsuit so it's not really surprising. I was able to do a 3 mob pull on my Enchanter without mez/root/charm, and I'm pretty confident that a few other classes can as well. No, but certainly when discussing a class's ability to solo you have to discuss their existence and application? It seems to me that pulling one mob at a time via splitting 3 is much more preferable to having to tank all 3, but the former is fine while the latter is not? I just can't follow that thought process.
You are correct, we are not the only class without splitting tools. We had some, and they have been taken away from us. However we are a solo class. Whether other players want to accept and believe that is their prerogative. The point is, some classes are supposed to be able to solo in game and some are not. When a class is not given the proper tools to handle solo content, then there is a disconnect. If I play a warrior and I am not able to tank current content, then there is a disconnect. If I am a monk or bard and not able to single pull mobs into camp, there is a disconnect. If I play a cleric and am unable to heal players in current content, there is a disconnect. I could go on and on, but I hope the point is made. Here is what I believe. I believe some magicians feel they should be able to kill a dozen Crypt of Sul mobs at once. I believe some non magicians feel a magician should not be able to solo a light blue con from the previous expansion. Somewhere in between lies what an Everquest developer sees a magician being able to accomplish as a solo class. The issue, of course, is the lack of communication that the developers give to players so that we know what we should be able to do. As a result many magicians, like myself, believe that we can do xyz... whereas many non magicians believe a magician can only solo and.
I am speaking currently btw sancus with the servants fixed maybe you can if you use most of your burns but it should not be a normal thing that anyone can do non stop without much difficulty. Soloing does not mean soloing through all content. There is a reason they put in single pulls all over the place and there is a reason they put in multiple pulls in other places. I was never saying servants don't need to be fixed and that you guys are all wonderful and peachy atm. If that wasn't apparent in all my other posts already. The only reason I even made that video was to show its still doable in TBM even with 1 mage (completely undergeared for the content) and 1 healer merc tackling 2 yellow con npcs. I am not even a good soloing magician anymore it has been years since I even tried to do that. So , there is a lot of over exaggeration going on lately. I even did it without the brand new buff that everyone is saying is not enough aggro for your main pet. Including yourself. The first attempt i used the spell version of twincast and nuked the mob as my first action and did not take aggro. It took me three attempts because my healer merc got behind when the first npc was almost dead never because I pulled aggro even nuking the npc right off the bat multiple times.
Wish I could edit, my last post should have read magicians believe we can solo xyz whereas non magicians believe we should only solo abc.
As I said, pet heals generate no aggro. Like literally 1 point of hate per heal (you might have misread my prior post; I said I could spam heal all day and stay at 1 on the aggro meter with calm demeanor on). And yes, you did nuke, but after a pet has built up aggro for the duration that it took you (4-ish minutes? I forget), that's not entirely surprising. That's especially true with pet burns like VT; VT changes the aggro dynamic significantly even with the decreased hate modifier it has. That's not to discredit that you did it, but it's also worth noting that it is not the typical situation as far as aggro is concerned. I've been playing around with adjusting my lineups a bit and I've been able to get down to being summoned about once a fight (with a single mob) as opposed to 3-4 times (though I'm still in the 80's/90's on the meter for most of it), but it's still rather rough. I agree with a lot of what you are saying; my understanding is you've been pretty consistently in favor of increasing the aggro modifier on the buff and having it apply to servants. I suppose I'm just overly defensive when people start describing how things "should" be.
