Strategy - ToV Squad - 4 mages chanter cleric (1 Viewer)

[sl00tx]

So, is anyone running the 4 box mage squad? - I want to know if Kael is easy and can they take out the named? I`m about to make a squad.

 

[eqtrader74]

Can't really mez in Kael, so you'd need to tank multiples or do good pull splits.

I'm missing a link to the thread, but there was a DPS discussion and somebody did mention their multi-mage group was top ToV DPS if they were chain pulling. If there are constant mobs, the mages can keep their swarm pets jumping from mob to mob with no downtime. For non-chain pull, zerkers were better in their tests.

If you run 2-3 mages in "PetTank" type mode, they'd tend to choose different targets so even if you can't mez, they just tank everything.

 

[sl00tx]

Well - I have a sk - 2 zerkers , Monk, Cleric, Shaman Bard -

Now I want to make some mages I think .... Someone says his mage box crew tanks nameds no problem, he has a necro to pull - I used to farm before the TLP buffs naggy and vox with that squad and the dps was ccrazy the amount of stuff i could solo was pfft

 

[serenity404]

I leveled a 4x mage / dru / enc setup last year. Got it to max level pre-ToV. TLDR: It's just not going to beat your sk+berserker group. It's tedious to play, pets are unreliable, mages take forever to recover from a death compared to melee characters that can just pop breather or whatever and CC from enchanters are weak compared to just tanking whatever comes at you. Because casters and mages synergize so well I was hoping the damage would get crazy, but even when trying really hard to cycle mage synergy buffs perfectly, with 100% uptime on 14+ pets for Of Many and fulminating alliance for every mob it never got the same level as my plate tank + berserkers team.

It's kind of unfair because with berserkers/monks/rogues, you can pop a bunch of instant cast abilities and desolate a mob or two, and then the cooldowns are refreshing while you're running to the next group. A good deal of mage damage cycles up in the first 15 seconds of the fight due to swarm pets, so mages only hit their groove when the fight is almost over.

Tuco's Setup (Critique Welcome!) | Page 22 | EverQuest Forums

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So I'm at a pretty good pre-ToV stopping point with my mage group. They've got their top AAs (and are at around 17k), have TBL / GMM gear and I've created a good setup for them.





/GU Combined: Randolpf Ragbottom in 419s, 292.4m @697942 |

Lusa + pets@(176.2k in 414s) |

Tucowind + pets@(145.3k in 411s) |

Tucofire + pets@(137.7k in 410s) |

Tucoearth + pets@(133.0k in 414s) |

Tucotree + pets@(47051 in 410s) |

Tucocapt@(33693 in 369s)

A few notes on my UI / GINA:

• I've got all my defensive timers on the left, including the five types of group runes + misc other enchanter defensives
• I've got timers on the right for ADPS. Including beguiler's synergy (which I messed up this fight and was casting the wrong spell..., dissident reinforcement, elemental flames from elemental form (which isn't working?), enchanter spire (gina trigger broken from last patch :|), gift of chromatic haze, great wolf and illusions of grandeur
• Below that (not really shown in the start of the video, but shows up later) are timers for my pet's short term buffs, including Chaotic Munificence, Guard of the Reptile and Night's Endless Terror.
• The yellow text on the top right is spell damage. The red text next to it is damage from Volley Of Many, the orange text above that is spear damage, and the yellow text on top of that is chaotic inferno. This is especially useful to verify my Of Many spells are hitting mobs that are saturated with swarm pets, because if I see low values I know I hit Of Many too quickly or my mage with Hosts of Elements isn't swarming right.
• The green text on the right is from healing. I haven't really invested the time to set that up right and will probably remove it.
• Thanks to Syylke_EMarr I have new health bars that show red when when damage, which I like a lot. More on this later...

Their performance, relative to my melee group, is just OK. Compared to the melee group they're a ton of work to play because:

• If I don't have a mob CC'd or tanked by a pet, they'll quickly eat through shield of order + enchanter rune
• The druid isn't that great of a healer, I thought they'd be equivalent to a shaman, but it's not even close in terms of group healing. I supplement this with my enchanter's runes, and it's some effort to keep up especially against mobs with spell damage / DoTs
• Even fully maxed, mage pets are fairly fragile compared to a geared plate tank cycling their defensives. They'll drop extremely quickly against tough named mobs.
• I cycle my reckless servant every few seconds or so for mage synergy
• I cycle my alliance on each mob for alliance (one of the big booms in GINA is from this fulminating)
• I cycle host of elements for the of many spell
• It takes forever to resurrect, resummon, med and rebuff on a mage death

The first bullet point is the worst. I have to very deliberately approach each group of mobs and quickly lock them down. If I make a mistake, a mage gets eaten and it takes several minutes to recover (if one of my berserkers get eaten I can res them, pop hiatus and pretty much be good to go). I've built up fairly intricate debuff->CC->pet attack keys to help with this (you can see this in the above video where I cast single target malo on all the mobs, I use AE malo too, but it's got too long of a CD and too short of an AE range). After playing the mage group with all this effort it's an absolute vacation to play my warrior where I can just hold aggro on everything easily and tank all the things.



All of these issues combine to make anything other than monster stomp dangerous. It takes so much focus that anything goofy like missions and special named almost require a unique change or preparation that discourage me from playing.

Even with my hard labor to maximize mage/enchanter synergy, Of Many and alliance, the DPS isn't overwhelming. I'm not sure that I'm perfectly executing my reckless servant (for synergy) and pet swarm aggro (for Volley of Many), but hell it has to be close. On burns things get pretty wild with IoG + Chromatic Haze + ITC + Group Spirit of the Great Wolf. This won't be dramatically helped with better gear and more AAs, because the delta between Lusa (fully TBL/GMM geared, fully AA'd) and the other three mages is only 30k DPS.

I'll probably get the itch to play the group again next year sometime, but for now I'm shelving it. The big things I know will improve it are:

• Cleaner execution of this complex rube goldberg machine will increase DPS, decrease mez breaks and increase survivability
• More AAs/augs/gear/trophies/tribute/clickies will make them more survivable and have higher DPS
• Learning to play my enchanter/druid better will clean up the healing / runing / CC quite a bit.
• If I get the heal proc augs from TBL challenger (or ngreth adds another one I can get in ToV), I think the mage pets will get a lot more survivable. The heal on cast augs are pretty substantial, and mages/druids have a high heal crit chance.

Any questions or suggestions are welcome!

 

[B_I_G__D_A_D_D_Y]

I leveled a 4x mage / dru / enc setup last year.

I tried the same thing. Work's somewhat OK up to say level 80 and then I find it very unreliable.

 

[Mikey02]

All mage group is only reliable if you can get single target reliably. Multi target pulls and it'll turn into a crap show. If you can swing another group that you can fight side by side with and have a tank, then they're great. They pump out great dps even at ftp status. Mages are not prone to melee death that melees classes are prone to when you do a huge pull and the melees jump right into the fray getting smacked by unmez mobs.

It's kind of funny how mage group can sustain themselves without a healer. Sometime I dont pay attention to my mage group running in the background and often time the healer would get killed from pulling aggro when the mage pet doesn't have solid aggro yet from pulling. The mages still go on for a good while since their pets would just bounce the mob back and forth and the their raging servant would also tank the mob. The pets are topped off with group pet healing proc.