tinkaa
*fake Tinkerbell*
Reposting and also inviting all fellow mages to post their thoughts on the subject. No whining without arguments, try to provide suggestions for improvements.
Also - see the news on how pets (particualry mage/beastlord) are now much better aux tanks.
I have also heard quite some complaining from high level mages, and they said they'd post about it (but didn't!), so I didn't - especially since I now use my mage as you said - as a peridot machine.
Mala, malosini - great, but it probably won't kill a raid without mage, the shaman will do it (malo being even stronger debuff than mala, so they'll probably stick malosini easier on mob).
Pet - ~90 dps: solid unless it dies or no melees are allowed for whatever reason. (with all AAs, buffs and comp str 6+). Another annoying thing is that every time pet dies you'll want it buffed with at least +attack buffs if not aego as well.
Pet heal: healing for 1.5k during day every 20 seconds is really really low. Be it in group or on raid, it's pretty rare to see someone paying attention to a wounded pet. Especially because it's more important to keep the tanks and "real" dps alive.
Mod rods - useful thing, but you can also live without them. Mana potions and mana giving clicky items are pretty handy.
Mage AAs - I'd say most of them are pretty handy. Pet AAs are a must, so are all "usual" caster AAs. That's already ~150 very useful AAs. I'm not sorry for any AA taken on my mage, even thought I'd like to see air elemental form getting rid of levitate since most mages would probably use it for resists (at least on raids) and levitate is disallowed in many raid zones.
Rains - awesome source of damage, but less useful when an encounter summons adds, etc. Not only they wake mesmerized mobs, if you happen to unluckily land a wave of rain on newly spawned mob before anyone else gets aggro on them, you're as good as dead.
Nukes - until archaic nuke, our relic magic nuke is the only really useful one.
I think that's the problem - mages are too strictly specialized in magic damage - at least from my experience the majority of raid mobs (at least till our tier) show as the most resistant to magic (bard jayla's insight). Of course enchanters cast tash, but that and malosini (if you manage to land it over malo) are often still not enough to be good enough dps. Chain casting a nuke without any rain inbetween could cause aggro problems since mages get no aggro reduction spells.
There are a few raid mobs that are probably a nightmare for any mage, especially Gishna in Sepulcher. Pet not advisable, practically immune to magic based spells (could never even land malosini over malo, after tash, also more than half fire nukes got resisted with ~400 charisma = ~330 with hidden str).
Comparing my mage's dps with my druid's (links to fomelos in signature) - the major difference was pet. Using same dmg inc item the druid relic nuke does slightly more damage than mage for only 20 mana more (and there a quite a few items in game, from worn focus effects to clickies from tmap rings that increase fire/cold damage).
Druids also get 3 types of damage (fire, ice, magic - dot and outdoor only nuke/stun plus some lower level rains/AEs).
I find the druid damage ok, since it's less mana efficient and they get no aggro reducing AAs (yes, my druid gets to tank if she nukes), but mages really could use some more focus effects that increase only magic damage or use cold damage as well. Preferrably not only mage-useable since they'd rot soon. Even though I'm more in favor of the above mentioned fire based rain.
What I'd like to see is - a better resist adjustment on our magic nukes/rains (after all wizards get lures and necros have a whole bunch of types of damage to make up for the mobs resisting a few types more than the other - I think a better resist adjust would be in place).
Perhaps add an effect "share aggro" on Elemental mastery AA - it lowers your aggro (for example, at chain nuking) and shares it with pet.
Fire based rain - make it level 65 if need be, pre-archaic nuke (which most mages won't see for a long time) fire damage is minor.
Make pets awesome aux tanks - a special modification to (mage) pet aux tanking, increasing their ac would probably be too powerful for groups.
Better pet heal or add healing increment to one of the already existing AAs - as mentioned before, 1.5k on AEing/whirlwinding/etc mobs every 20 seconds can't keep a pet alive, even if it has 10k hp fully relic buffed /AAd.
Other than that I don't really have any better suggestions since I haven't played the mage in months.
And I agree with Kranich than mages are better in groups than on raids. Simply because of the fact mobs don't resist as much.
Edit: Pre pet-fix the mages sounded way more appealing. The superhero pet made up for less magic damage.
Also - see the news on how pets (particualry mage/beastlord) are now much better aux tanks.
I have also heard quite some complaining from high level mages, and they said they'd post about it (but didn't!), so I didn't - especially since I now use my mage as you said - as a peridot machine.
Mala, malosini - great, but it probably won't kill a raid without mage, the shaman will do it (malo being even stronger debuff than mala, so they'll probably stick malosini easier on mob).
Pet - ~90 dps: solid unless it dies or no melees are allowed for whatever reason. (with all AAs, buffs and comp str 6+). Another annoying thing is that every time pet dies you'll want it buffed with at least +attack buffs if not aego as well.
Pet heal: healing for 1.5k during day every 20 seconds is really really low. Be it in group or on raid, it's pretty rare to see someone paying attention to a wounded pet. Especially because it's more important to keep the tanks and "real" dps alive.
Mod rods - useful thing, but you can also live without them. Mana potions and mana giving clicky items are pretty handy.
Mage AAs - I'd say most of them are pretty handy. Pet AAs are a must, so are all "usual" caster AAs. That's already ~150 very useful AAs. I'm not sorry for any AA taken on my mage, even thought I'd like to see air elemental form getting rid of levitate since most mages would probably use it for resists (at least on raids) and levitate is disallowed in many raid zones.
Rains - awesome source of damage, but less useful when an encounter summons adds, etc. Not only they wake mesmerized mobs, if you happen to unluckily land a wave of rain on newly spawned mob before anyone else gets aggro on them, you're as good as dead.
Nukes - until archaic nuke, our relic magic nuke is the only really useful one.
I think that's the problem - mages are too strictly specialized in magic damage - at least from my experience the majority of raid mobs (at least till our tier) show as the most resistant to magic (bard jayla's insight). Of course enchanters cast tash, but that and malosini (if you manage to land it over malo) are often still not enough to be good enough dps. Chain casting a nuke without any rain inbetween could cause aggro problems since mages get no aggro reduction spells.
There are a few raid mobs that are probably a nightmare for any mage, especially Gishna in Sepulcher. Pet not advisable, practically immune to magic based spells (could never even land malosini over malo, after tash, also more than half fire nukes got resisted with ~400 charisma = ~330 with hidden str).
Comparing my mage's dps with my druid's (links to fomelos in signature) - the major difference was pet. Using same dmg inc item the druid relic nuke does slightly more damage than mage for only 20 mana more (and there a quite a few items in game, from worn focus effects to clickies from tmap rings that increase fire/cold damage).
Druids also get 3 types of damage (fire, ice, magic - dot and outdoor only nuke/stun plus some lower level rains/AEs).
I find the druid damage ok, since it's less mana efficient and they get no aggro reducing AAs (yes, my druid gets to tank if she nukes), but mages really could use some more focus effects that increase only magic damage or use cold damage as well. Preferrably not only mage-useable since they'd rot soon. Even though I'm more in favor of the above mentioned fire based rain.
What I'd like to see is - a better resist adjustment on our magic nukes/rains (after all wizards get lures and necros have a whole bunch of types of damage to make up for the mobs resisting a few types more than the other - I think a better resist adjust would be in place).
Perhaps add an effect "share aggro" on Elemental mastery AA - it lowers your aggro (for example, at chain nuking) and shares it with pet.
Fire based rain - make it level 65 if need be, pre-archaic nuke (which most mages won't see for a long time) fire damage is minor.
Make pets awesome aux tanks - a special modification to (mage) pet aux tanking, increasing their ac would probably be too powerful for groups.
Better pet heal or add healing increment to one of the already existing AAs - as mentioned before, 1.5k on AEing/whirlwinding/etc mobs every 20 seconds can't keep a pet alive, even if it has 10k hp fully relic buffed /AAd.
Other than that I don't really have any better suggestions since I haven't played the mage in months.
And I agree with Kranich than mages are better in groups than on raids. Simply because of the fact mobs don't resist as much.
Edit: Pre pet-fix the mages sounded way more appealing. The superhero pet made up for less magic damage.
lol
