Got a few of them here, figured better to ask all my Mage questions in one post...

1.) Can the level 16-20ish pet spells that aren't at my trainer be bought anywhere but the Ocean of Tears lady who is KoS on evil races? Are they available in PoK? {would prefer not to research them}

2.) At level 50-65ish, what level can we expect our pets to be in relation to us? At 65, assuming I use high level summon monster or high level elemental, will it be level 55? 60? 62? Does our epic or other items help make them higher level at these levels?

3.) Can our pets 'solo' blue things at higher levels? I know in Kurns at 15 my blue pet would lose to alot of light blue skeles if I didn't help him.

4.) Where are some good post-kurns hunting spots for levels 18-30? Highpass? Paludal?

5.) What are the names of hte summon focus items from Sol Ro that we can use in our 30's? Can we buy them? How hard it is to quest the Water one?

6.) How nice do our DD spells get in relation to Wizzys and Druids at high levels? Will I be an acceptable alternative to a Wizard on non-epic encounters?

7.) Lastly... what all do I bring to the game? {I know alot of this one is intuitive, CoH, pets, DS, DDs, Rains... but figured there might be some lesser known advantages to the Magician class that elder Mages could share with me}

Thanks in advance for any and all help here :D

EDIT...
8.) With the Summon Monster line of spells, dothe monsters we summon have all 'special abilities' of a normal member of their class? IE in kurns if i monster summoned a furby would it have either necromancer spells or harm touch? If I summon a Hand in Unrest will it cast Wizzy spells? etc etc etc?

Edited, Fri Jan 2 18:00:54 2004 by HugOgres

Edited, Fri Jan 2 18:00:26 2004 by HugOgres

1) I don't know of any other vendor that sells those pets. Bring a good race friend out to buy them for you. edit: [Your other option is so simple I'm embarassed I didn't think of it right away. Create a good race alt mule to go pick up the spells and just dropt them in a bag in your shared bank slot.]

2) I defer this one to the level 65 and epic magicians.

3) The higher your level, the tougher it will be for your pet to solo mobs without your assistance. It's certainly not impossible though.

4) Many people like Highpass. I like Paludal for mad exp. Just don't expect much in loot unless you're fighting bandits.

5) Stein of Ulissa (water focus)
Shovel of Ponz (earth focus)
Torch of Alna (fire focus)
Broom of Trilon (air focus)
All the items you need for the quests for the focus items are droppable. Check the quest walk throughs and pick up the items in the bazaar & from vendors. I would strongly suggest you get them all as soon as you can. Start using them immediately. They add stats to pets from level 4 to 49.

6) Our nukes aren't as big or as mana efficient as a wizard. I'm accepted in groups as a nuker. Would they pick a magician over a wizard? Doubtful. It really depends on what the group is doing. I don't have much trouble getting invited to groups.

7) It sounds like you already have a good idea of what we bring. Dps, ghetto mez (pet off-tanking) and summoned goodies. Your high int will also allow you to excel at tradeskills, if those are of any interest to you.

Edited, Fri Jan 2 11:42:25 2004 by Yanari

Edited, Sun Jan 18 16:11:15 2004 by Yanari

Okie doke, the Mad Mage has finally gotten off his lazy **** and renewed his kazam's account. So we'll kick it off with this post here =)

1) Not to my knowledge. I'd either go with the wonderfully knowledgable Yanari's suggestion of grabbing a friend to buy them, or try PoK. I *THINK* they might be sold there.

2) It scales. The vocerate line (51-54) are all lvl 45. The greater vocerate (57-60) are all lvl 48, as is monster summoning 3. The epic pet is lvl 49. The PoP pets (61-65) are all lvl 60.

The staves of elemental mastery add one level to their corresponding lvl 51-60 pets. The Dimond Prism of Companionship (DPoC) adds two levels to the 59 air and 60 water pets, one level to the epic pet (raising all these pets to lvl 50). While the DPoC focuses the PoP pets, it doesn't raise their level. Just their stats, size and damage. The Gloves of Dark Summoning (GoDS), symbol of ancient summoning (SoAS) and Cherished Companion Shard (CCS) all have the same effect on level, but increase in damage and other stats respectively (though it should be noted that to my knowledge the DPoC may have the best at-rest regen rate of 275ish hp a tic)

3) Yes and no. I can't find a bleeding list of consider levels at the moment and I can't remember the formula, or I'd be better able to illustrate why, but let me put it this way. At lvl 65 an average mob in Droga is say lvl 55 ish. Soloable with a lvl 60+ pet. Doubles for 200 or so, no biggy. That average mob would con blue. Now, let's look at BoT. Jord Krieger. Hits for 800 or so, has a ton of hp, would eat your and your pet for lunch, pretty much no matter what level you are. Soloable? Maybe if you have some SERIOUSLY high end gear. But for the average mage very doubtful. Here's the important bit, the Krieger would con blue as well, being lvl 64. So, that should help you understand a bit. There are some blues we can handle, and some blues we can't. As it stands the range on blue cons at higher levels is too wide to just flat out say we either can or can't solo blues. And to clairify further, that's us and pets. Our pets can sometimes solo blue mobs, but it's very dependant on HOW blue they are, if you follow me.

4) I defer this to the pre-50-65 people %)

5) There are 4 for each elemental, No you can't buy them per se, but you could probably buy the parts. However that said first you'd have to find someone to sell them, and that might be hard. Easiest just to have a friend help you go in and farm najena (since you'd have to do that for the epic anyway) and pick up the stein, broom, torch and shovel while you're there. Once you have those base parts the rest of the bits are pretty easy. The focus items are called: Torch of Alna (fire), Shovel of Ponz (earth), Broom of Trilon (air) and Stein of Ulissa (water). The full details of the quest can be found here, and the full effects on the mage pets can be found at http://forum.magecompendium.com/tower/viewtopic.php?t=9418

6) The less you bring this topic up to high level mages, the better. VERY sore point with the general mage community atm. To answer your question, they don't get too close to wizzies and they're currently slightly better than droods, but the droods are griping about how they want to be equal. We'll see what GoD brings. As to our raid and group usefulness, yeah, we're pretty effective. As effective as we should be? No. But still a pretty good alternative, particularly if you're good at being a mage. Will we be after GoD? That depends on the good people /feedbacking in beta right now. (scale the damn pets!)

8) Skipping ahead one. Short answer is No[tm]. The monsters thus far are generic and sometimes cast a damage shield. Pretty worthless scept for looks. GoD and the rumored SM4 will hopefully change that.

7) What you're refering to is utility. This is another very tough question. It depends largely on WHO you ask. The basic utility is pretty obvious, but what this question goes to is what the heck is a mage? What are we meant to be doing? Honestly at this point I don't think even sony knows. What we're good at right now, pre-GoD, is DPS, we also CAN solo some stuff that other classes can't. Not for exp as much as bragging rights. Other classes can solo stuff we can't for exp. Wizzies and Droods can solo in the Plane of Fire for exp. We can't really. Mages can solo in droga, not for exp really tho. Druids and wizzies can't. All in all we are not even close to being properly balanced in the high end game. Our pets aren't strong enough to allow us to solo at all well in tier 2+ planes, while other classes can with ease. Which considering that according to sony WE'RE supposed to be the great soloing class, is kinda SNAFU.

If you're talking about lesser known mage tricks, there are a few that we're good at. One that I love, I mean LOVE is the eye of zomm. And by eye of zomm I mean clay bracelet. It's an easy quest from sol ro for an item that you will use every time you play for the rest of your eq career.

Instant right click eye that doesn't aggro anything, lasts 30 seconds, can be controlled, doesn't overwrite your pet.... and works from inventory. It is a good thing. Particularly in LDoN.

(Quote from one of my recent LDoN adventures)

Ranger: There's another named in here but it's pretty deep in.

(one click of clay bracelet later)

Mad Mage: The hell you say you silly ranger. It's in the next room.
-----

You see my point. VERY nice trick. Allows you to scout for 30 seconds in any direction WHILE MEDDING without having to worry about aggro. Hell you can even cast spells while the eye is up running around.

If your question is do we bring enough to the game to make mages worth playing though... Yeah. Most of all we bring fun. Sony still needs to work out a HELL of a lot of improvement issues before mages are where they need to be, and we peak at lvl 49ish when we should be peaking at 65, but we're a hell of a lot of fun to play. That alone makes mages worth it.


Arch Convoker Faelawen Starfyre, the Legendary Mad Mage of Povar

hails arch convoker master bigronnie petkeeper of saryrn here .i dont replie but will give some knowledge young grasshopper.
1. research prob best bet/besides this is one tradeskill you want to do when become master of it this will bring in plat galour so get to it....off that note i follow evil god i worship bertox so if it is just the race go get ya self illusion potion.
2.has preety much been answerded but there is a quest to make a permanet epic that can be equipped if you want with summoners boon this is something i have heard have not tryed yet on my epic.
3.pets are not made solo completly solo anything or they would be there own class.the pet is there to help you but as far as saying if you will be able to solo blue things ....answer is yes and very well. also a good mage can solo blu thing adds,there is popular theroy out there that mages cant solo blue stuff lmao perhaps the only other class better at soloing is a necro...i my slef can solo just bout any where
4.at 40 go to gunthak on beach where pet can handle mobs with easy xp is good pet can handle 2 maybe 3/at 45 go to dulak till 53 mage rules here to or visit CoM there are other zones but it dont come to mind..53+ go to veskar/kc/kedge keep to name a few...60+ nadox/old seb/kael areana to name a few if u travel alot there a tons of places to solo at any leval.hell when get bored go farm black reavers and do some cycles or go play round in cazic thule there are plenty places top go
5. has been answered
6.in short we are the 2nd best nukers in game with aa we get ability to crit and is nice to see a 4400 crit go off 4600+ with bard song going wizzys are pure nukers thats what they do but no there classes come close to 2nd place.but mages are always taken over wizzys in grp our dps is better it a known fact heh check lfg tool you will always see wizzys lfg for hours, mages also taken over necros/and beastlords our dps and other stuff worth to much for grp tho mages are less dps in raid compared to wizzy but in grp situation mage always picked first.
7. mage do lotta stuff beside providinng mana when needed with modrod, when used correctly it equalls ft VII...also maybe can pull with low aggro non damge spell /mages debuff and it not a aggro grabber like tash .we can use malo then come with malosinia the shammys in world love us if take over that job in grp.mkage pet can tank if needed if slowed mage pet can tank tier 3 mobs .mage can act as off tank.mage in 98 pct zones can make a real bad pull all good with coh the puller back to grp always better that way then to sit tjhere for 10 mins buffing him back up.also mage has eye of tallon use this spell eye lasts a min great for searching out ldons for nameds befor use it do suspend minion ability so not to lose pet .also peeps think eye will cause aggro is complete false mobs dont aggro eye.and after the grp is done or raid is done mage can get every one drunk now whats better then that hehehe.............

Edited, Thu Feb 12 16:04:38 2004 by bigdawgzofny

Edited, Thu Feb 12 16:12:35 2004 by bigdawgzofny

I'm not going to answer all of your questions but...

Do your research for the spells.... Can make you some good plat at the higher lvls.. and you don't want to have to start from 0 at lvl 65 = boring. At least if you start at a low lvl some of the items you need you will actually get xp from the mob that drops it.

Contrary to what some of these posts say we CAN solo DB mobs very effectively for xp. At lvl 63 I'm able to solo very well for xp. Maybe not as good as a well skilled group but still very well. Your pet may not be able to solo a mob alone... but with your help (healing, nuking, chain casting)it does quite well. For instance... Nadox, Cazic Thule, PoI, PoJ, PoD, Trak, various named mobs and there PH's, etc. I was able to xp faster solo then my friend could with groups from lvl 40 - 58 (no uber gear). Experiment with the pets and zones, even different areas in zones. Different spells for pulling, ranges, etc. Different pets will make a huge difference, if a mob that you are camping is constantly casting Complete Heal then switch to Air pet OR Nuke him before he gets the CH off. Pull mobs far enough back that if they run when low on HP's your pet can finish them before they reach there friends. I have been very successful in both soloing for xp and loot. BTW, I have no focus items yet, so this is with a unfocused pet.
Remember.... half the fun of the game is to explore and find new places /wink