As a slight back story I have a lvl 90 necromancer right now with EM10 and 890AA and full T4 HoT armor. My mage is currently lvl 81 with EM5 and defiant armor.
I have always found a powerful pet that can rip through older content as well as tank new content to be a lot of fun. After 90 levels I've pretty much come to the realization that my necros pet will always be a significantly worse tank and dps than any mage pet.
My big problem though is that when I play my mage I feel like I always need feign death. Whether it's a bad pull, invis dropping while running through a dungeon or just wanting to go afk for 20 minutes, FD is so amazingly useful.
I don't have much knowledge about how mages develop more towards 95, but how do you mages handle these situations? Is it just the reality of the class or are there ways to make these situations less of a problem given the correct AAs and better pets?
First time poster - been lurking around these forums for a month or 2 since I came back and decided to reroll a mage.
My mage is also 81 with EM5. I would suggest looking at your AAs for a few solutions. I can't remember off the top of my head the names of the abilities - but there is an AA that lets you make a pet that immediately grabs aggro of the target you casted it on. Once this pet is killed the mob will drop all aggro. I don't know how well this works as I haven't gotten it yet myself but it could potentially help with bad pulls. (I'm not sure how well it would work though as social aggro mobs would probably still be in social aggro range so this might not be an actual solution).
I know at level 85 you can get an AA called Drape or something like that which drops all aggro you currently have. Unfortunately it's on a 15 minute timer. I've started moloing more with my mage and I'm trying to find good solutions to these problems as well. Currently I just use the air pet and a healing merc and I can pretty much kill multiple mobs very easily (at least in the 80 hot zone Ashengate I'm having a lot of success).
After that long with a get out of jail free card, it's going to take you a while to get used to the mage get out abilities, though our list is very short.
Get used to the fact that we can't snare, root, mez, charm, succor, stun, blah, blah, blah .... list will go on forever. The simple truth behind it is make sure your pet is alive. If your pet is not alive, you have 2 choices: gate or die.
Now the abilities we do have to help out:
CoN (Companion of Necessity): Only works for less than 3 mobs, so good if you're jumped by a single or 2. Good use when you figure out how to pull with it too. Buy rank 1. Don't buy another rank until you have enough AAs saved to buy rank 2 and 3 at the same time as rank 2 is worse than rank 1 or rank 3. Rank 3 is money though.
Drape of Shadows: When able to get it, do so. It's a fade. We have a special hotkey developed here on the site for practical application. You have to learn how to use it properly, but it will save your life once you do. Limitation is that your pet must be alive to use it.
Sillaen wrote:
CoN (Companion of Necessity): Only works for less than 3 mobs, so good if you're jumped by a single or 2. Good use when you figure out how to pull with it too. Buy rank 1. Don't buy another rank until you have enough AAs saved to buy rank 2 and 3 at the same time as rank 2 is worse than rank 1 or rank 3. Rank 3 is money though.
I was reading through the forums again and someone mention CoN is only a memblur/aggro wipe for your pet - and that any aggro you've picked up personally on your toon does not get wiped. Is that true? When I read the description of the AA the other night I did not pick up on this - that it was only wiping your pet off the mobs hate list. I usually pull with the Malo line so I'm assuming that if I get adds I will have to actually beat them since CoN won't drop me off the hate list?
Sillaen wrote:
CoN (Companion of Necessity): Only works for less than 3 mobs, so good if you're jumped by a single or 2. Good use when you figure out how to pull with it too. Buy rank 1. Don't buy another rank until you have enough AAs saved to buy rank 2 and 3 at the same time as rank 2 is worse than rank 1 or rank 3. Rank 3 is money though.
I was reading through the forums again and someone mention CoN is only a memblur/aggro wipe for your pet - and that any aggro you've picked up personally on your toon does not get wiped. Is that true? When I read the description of the AA the other night I did not pick up on this - that it was only wiping your pet off the mobs hate list. I usually pull with the Malo line so I'm assuming that if I get adds I will have to actually beat them since CoN won't drop me off the hate list?
You got told some wrong information. You should be joining Serverwide.magicians:fluffy when you log into the game. There will be people there that can give you better answers then the one you got.
Companion of Necessity works like this: You engage it on the mob and as soon as you cast the AA the mobs engage almost like you nuked them. Then when they meet the pet, they gain proxy aggro on it and start killing the pet. After I think 18 seconds (not 100% sure, and server ticks play with this time aswell), the pet triggers a stun and BLURR for 2 mobs. This clears everyones aggro on the hatelist, not just your pets. However, if there is a third mob in the pack the 2 mobs that got blurred will immediately reaggro you and then your SOL. Very rarely you can get it to blurr 3 mobs, it does happen but by no means should you ever bank on that, just be happy when it does.
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so many new pulling tricks ... i've had a lot of fun playing with these aa, even if i do train myself occasionally.
summon companion has a fade at higher levels that only affects the pet. to use summon companion as a pulling technique, it has to be used with drape or CoN to clear mage aggro as well. it goes something like this ... send in earth pet, root one. summon pet, drape, pull as mobs path back to the rooted one. there are a bunch of variations with the 3 aa. air can stun to get some seperation for pulling. CoN works best when there is some distance between the mobs you're trying to split. all 3 are worth training imho.
CoN and drape are incredibly useful tools for pulling and managing unwanted adds but to make the switch to a mage mindset from necro, you have to embrace the concept of confrontation as opposed to evasion.
If you get caught napping or pull more than you'd be normally be comfortable handling, make the snap call. If the numbers are not overwhelming, use your evasive tools if up or start chaining RS pets and pop Host swarm to off tank extras while you burn down the pet's main target. Fortify companion and companion's blessing will help keep the pet going and there is also the pet DA at 85 I think. As long as you're not low or out of mana, and your pet is standing you're still in the game. If the pet enrages and isn't getting smashed from behind you know you have a 10 second window to prep a new pet or get the hell out of Dodge.
But do keep in mind, that if you decide to stand and fight and pop swarm, SoR or RS pets then change your mind Drape of Shadows will not help you. You will have to wait until they die and hope your main pet is still alive for Drape to work.
