Thinking of coming back to game

Discussion in 'Casters' started by Mysteryhax, Aug 22, 2021.

  1. Mysteryhax New Member

    Mage thinking of coming back to game after a long break. I have not played since Empires of Kunark. I had some questions about pets and spells. I remember some posts along time ago (tho my search skills seem to fail me atm) about EM and pets and devs having a hard time with creating so many pets with each EM. Did they ever make a fix for that development time or still kicking the can down the road? Well here are my mage specific questions.

    What are the elemental pets like now? (lvl 111-115 pets) hp/power/dps/abilities?

    Any new abilities since eok?

    Thank you for any info and opinions.
  2. Eaedyilye More stonehive bixies.

    Mage pets are great when you max the pet AA's out and use the best EM available to you. With my 2 mage box team (both are level 115) I can beat any trash mob in the game and most named/rare mobs. I always use the earth as the tank and water for DPS.

    Without using AA's. The earth was getting about 36K DPS and the water was at 60K. If you used the burnout AA, it's jumps a lot. Looking at my parse, the only named the showed it's ugly head this weekend, the earth pet was at 69K and the water at 117K DPS. Kael named with 164 million HP's. I was only using buffs I provided, no GL buffs. Now I don't know how much the parse missed, because I wasn't on top of the named when fighting it.

    No new abilities since EOK, just cut and paste with the usual improvements. DBG's at least gave us a new fire orb this last expansion.
  3. Elementalseeker New Member

    Hiya and hope you do come back to game.
    Ok lets see...
    EM pets- Not sure the exact amount but each pet spell is still focused by 7 or 8 EM items. 21-29? They cut back the number of items that work on the pets. Some items only effect pets with certain lvl ranges. So not much of a fix for that.

    As for pets...
    Earth- Lots of hp and decent tank. Casts Earth Elemental strength (reduces melee damage a certain amount).
    Air- Eh, ok pet still. Decent damage and avoidance. Still has issues tanking some named.
    Water- Decent melee damage. Pet Backstab damage can crit for like 100k. Nice damage with your dichotomic companions spell line.
    Fire- Still a horrible pet. Some bad mix of melee and spell casting. Here we are like 5 expansions after eok and this pets nuke is just bad (like 85k damage). Mobs damage and HP have exploded and pets damage sucks. Current mobs will destroy it fast. Not even good if you have a player tanking. Use water instead.
    Joules_Bianchi likes this.
  4. Cicelee Augur

    Earth pet is the tank pet for all situations.

    Air pet does more DPS than earth, but struggles and/or cannot tank 2+ mobs or a named. But on a single trash it should be fine in most scenarios.

    Water pet is your DPS pet.

    Fire is only useful if your pet dies on a raid, it is a quick summon and forget it pet. I am actually curious what does more DPS- unbuffed fire or unbuffed water w/o weapons...
    Shindius likes this.
  5. Alnitak Augur

    This is actually quite a difficult comparison for a raid situation.
    Pets do benefit from burn buffs. I've seen warders parsed over 200K (very often more than 170K) on a casual Zlandicar raid, because beastlords are usually in adps melee group with a ranger, bards, shaman and zerker contributing to group burn dps. No raid leader would normally put a mage in such a group instead of a monk or rogue or another zerker. Hence - on raids mage pets very rarely enjoy melee adps.
    Meanwhile I have seen maybe two or three fire pets on raids ... total. Very rare sight, mages mostly use water pets. Perhaps, a fire pet would benefit from a chanter, druid and wizzies in their group during burn, I just haven't seen good parses for those.
  6. Cicelee Augur

    So the only time I use a fire pet on a raid is if my water pet dies. And instead of taking the time to memorize water pet and burnout and weapons and then summoning and casting all that stuff, I have fire pet memorized and just summon a fire pet and let it cast spells and do some DPS. Fire pet is not dependent on burnout which is why I mentioned it was a cast and forget. How much damage can I do casting spells during the time another mage sits and memorizes water pet and buffs and then goes back to casting spells. How long does that burnout/weapon water pet do compared to a fire pet, and at what point does it surpass the damage I did during the 20-30 seconds you summoned a water pet.

    Otherwise yes, water pet every time on raids.
  7. Elementalseeker New Member

    What frustrates me with the fire pet is that it just seems to be multiple expansions behind on its dd. Had the same feeling of it back in eok and tbl. Pet was from darkend sea and then you go two or so expansions without a new pet or increase to its damage. You get pet in tov and get no increase with it in cov. Hope we dont get another expansion and have the same pet. EM might help it take a few hits better but its dps is still horrible.

    I dont much care for spell or class revamps but this pet should have a boost to its dd spell. Make it a glass canon and not just a piece of glass.
  8. Szilent Augur

    Add mag+wiz+enc spell levels to the Fire Elemental Bolt, so that it takes advantage of and helps fulminate Coalitions!
  9. Mysteryhax New Member

    Well thank you guys for the info on the pets/spells and your opinions :). I should be flying back and hopefully logged on Saturday to check the game out again.
  10. Mysteryhax New Member

    Hey guys. Made it back into game and have really been enjoying it. Thank you for logging in Elemental and showing how to use the water pet. After you left I went and got the Manifestation of Fire pet and tried it out for like an hour. You guys were right this pet is not that great I would agree that it is not fit for current content. Might be ok for emergency raid pet like Cicelee said.

    Here are my thoughts while messing around with this pet.

    Hp seems crazy low. Almost like what 1/4 of earth pet. I have no idea the amount it has but it is really low. Very bad defenses. Think mobs land most hits on it. Even with EM25 and fort aa's its bad. I know I do not have EM29 so I can not say how good that is.
    Dps is somewhere between air and water pet? Not worth using in most situations.

    Bummer on fire pet. Thank you guys for helping me catch back up.
  11. Joules_Bianchi A certain gnome

    This, and a bit to add.

    Earth pet is warrior, highest HP, can root mobs. In mass pulls can be a heal suck replacing those HPs, watch cleric merc aggro. Earth pets can root, but it's single target. Adds can swarm a healer. Best pet for large named single target type mobs though, the HP pool stress matters more.

    Air pet is a monk, all about mitigation and stuns. Not quite the heal suck, but not as durable as earth. excellent aviodance mitigation Has the benefit of stuns which are ghetto snares on morale failed mobs. Better dps than earth for normal targets / farming.

    Water pet, speaking of morale failed mobs, are rogues. Backstabs included. 3rd best tank(VERY close w/ air, nominal) best DPS of all usually, but not a main tank mostly as mob difficulty increases.

    Fire is a wizard. Nukes well, resists can make this poopy and has the least defensive capability and most aggro potential. Use when grouped as a dpser with a real tank.


    I usually run with air pet up and a suspended raidbuffed earth pet.
  12. Anthe New Member

    Hi, I have been a wizard since August 2000, I love my wizard, I don't want to play anything else, I don't know why they felt they should ruin wizards, but they did. It's like caster means necro and supporting cast, People are asking me not to leave, I don't want to, but I refuse to let them make me play something else. Wizards are all dps, nothing else, that's gone, so I think it's time for me to move on. This game has gotten me through a lot of things, I will miss it.
  13. Elementalseeker New Member

    Hiya Mystery, sorry I did not log in to group with you again. I was in the hospital. I had a heart attack and survived the windowmaker :).
  14. Mysteryhax New Member

    Oh dang man. Do not worry about it. I am just fine. You get to feeling better and rest up.
  15. Jaybird08 New Member

    Hey all,

    I'm kind of in the same boat as Mysteryhax. Although this would be my third campaign with Everyquest. Long story short.... I played a Mage up to the level cap of 105 I think it was a couple years ago (at the time) until I had to put him in hibernation due to real life job constraints.

    I was considering coming back, if nothing else, to just level him up to the cap again and accumulating more AA's for the fun of it. I still don't have huge banks of time for raiding anymore so most of my time will be solo and casual play.

    Just wanted some fellow mages opinions on what the game is like now given a 3 or so year absence? Will I be disappointed with the pets or any nerfs during this time? is everything relatively about the same perhaps? I dunno.... I'll leave it up to y'all to convince me one way or the other if it's worth it to come back for a while. <grin>

    Thanks everyone in advance!
  16. Alnitak Augur

    Yes, mages are fun to play as a main and are always useful as a support class in any group.
    Some changes since lvl 105 era:
    - massive experience increase needed to level up past 110, which was supplimented by massive exp reward from ToV progression,
    - gear system was restructured, unified and streamlined, so you basically need to collect no-trade ores from current-era nameds and mission chests and then tradeskill whatever slot item you wish.
    - Overseer is in-game management system, which allows you to collect daily rewards in amount approximately 10% of the level, 2-4 collectibles of your choice or some decent amount of tradeskill materials from an era of your choice (not including current). Or any mix of those rewards.

    Principal mage's gear item is the summoner's focused earring, it makes your pet and swarm pets up-to 5 levels higher than without Enhanced Minion focus. Group EM is maxxed at 23, Raid EM is maxxed at 30 - pet is almost 2 levels higher.

    Even with just a group gear the game is fun for the mage! Come back and enjoy!