Mages Underpowered?

[Myrixo]

Now that i've come back and gotten more into the raiding scene, I've noticed that mages (and pets in general) seem to be underpowered compared to other classes besides enchanters, but im not dipping into that pot.

Mage's are suppose to be THE pet class. Typically a class will excel in a group or raid setting, but it seems like I'm only good for damage shield's and CoHing lol. My highest nuke crits for 20k, which I am happy with, but my argument is about the pets. Yes, the 2.0 pet with the True Minion focus does have 46k hp, yes it does have 6k AC, and yes it does have 3.5k attack. But the survivability of it is nothing. Even when I position it behind the target, a rampage will take it out in a matter of minutes. I know part of this is my fault, but they eat enrages like theyre starving. Im not sure if they're is anyway to help that other than positioning him better. I think that they should be more resilient to Rampages and AE's. Not just mages, but all pets.

Onto swarm pets. Raging Servant; I know its a Kael spell, I don't expect to much from it, maybe put in a higher tier version of it from raid mobs? We get one big swarm that I know of, Host of Elements, that seems to outdated. Maxed out, it spawn's 7 pets that hit anywhere from 50 to 100 dmg with the occasional one hitting a little over 100 for 30 seconds. And on a 15 minute cooldown, its hardly worth it. I think this should be brung up a little. Or we could get a spell that spawns a few swarm pets on a 1 min or 3 min CD.

May seem like a rant, but idk how else to put it

[Myrixo]

Aha, I just now read ChaosSlayer's post here,
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=2485
which in all honesty seems like a great concept, barring the fact I wasn't here a year ago and don't know what kind of chaos was going on back then.

[Jeido]

I agree on most points, but one note is that you shouldn't complain about your pet hitting enrage. Mage 101: when a mob is about to enrage, put it on hold and then re-send it when enrage ends.

As for rampages, I quit my mage alt at about T3 and even at that point my 2.0 pet was getting pretty rocked by AE's. I did do one pofear raid, and my pet was back waiting for heals more than he was actually fighting. This combined with my nukes landing for 20kish crit vs 100k+ of wizards = quit mage =p

[Atops]

I respect everyone's input on maters like this, but in my opinion, the Class Balance Thread should open a discussion to balance the classes. If one class is considered gimp at upper levels by the majority of players, and the standard response is “drop class X and switch to class Y”, there is an obvious imbalance.

I’m no Mage lover, but if someone enjoys playing a Mage, and is disheartened because he or she knows that a Mage has no future, so instead plays a Wiz, all the while resenting the decision of forgoing the excitement of playing the class they actually love, to play a class that is wanted in the high tiers, are they enjoying themselves as much as they can/should?

In my opinion, no Shaman should wish they had rolled a Cleric, no SK should wish they had rolled a War, no Zerker should wish they had rolled a Rogue, and no Mage should wish they had rolled a Wiz. Class balance on THF seems to have addressed each of those statements (very well), save the last.

[Myrixo]

@Jeido;
Yes I have figured out that I can do that while messing around in kael, works wonders lol

@Atops;
I do not see how your post relates to mine, but I completely agree with you. Which is what led to me posting this about mages. In the upper tier's it seems like necros get it better off than BL's and mages, and I'd like to see it balanced out a bit more.

[diaylomz]

well if you are gonna raid high end it looks like mages are gonna pass wizards. it is only speculation but looking at allaclone their rank 3 pet weapon they get tier 8 procs a 7k dd heh. hell the weakest one is a 6300 proc. but that is just judging from allaclone. o yeah you also can cast that 6300-7200 base dmg nuke. which should work out to roughly 12k-14k with a dark focus. the resist mod is only -150. still very nice this means absolutely nothing for non tier 8 mages i suppose. but high end mages are gonna be crazy soloers. pet with 1k ds procing 6-7k. i am guessing your raid dps won't be too shabby either. and all that with what i am assuming will be a new pet with 3.0. with your 2.0 being tier 2-3ish. imagine how strong your new pet will be. kinda makes me wanna roll a mage

[Vaion]

well if you are gonna raid high end it looks like mages are gonna pass wizards. it is only speculation but looking at allaclone their rank 3 pet weapon they get tier 8 procs a 7k dd heh. hell the weakest one is a 6300 proc. but that is just judging from allaclone. o yeah you also can cast that 6300-7200 base dmg nuke. which should work out to roughly 12k-14k with a dark focus. the resist mod is only -150. still very nice this means absolutely nothing for non tier 8 mages i suppose. but high end mages are gonna be crazy soloers. pet with 1k ds procing 6-7k. i am guessing your raid dps won't be too shabby either. and all that with what i am assuming will be a new pet with 3.0. with your 2.0 being tier 2-3ish. imagine how strong your new pet will be. kinda makes me wanna roll a mage

the 7k weapon isnt a proc, its a click casted weapon the allows mages to add an additional nuke into their line up.

[ChaosSlayer]

Aha, I just now read ChaosSlayer's post here,
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=2485
which in all honesty seems like a great concept, barring the fact I wasn't here a year ago and don't know what kind of chaos was going on back then.

that approach didn't exactly worked out how I wanted it, main reason being that in high end game the most important thing about your pet being hp and ac, and all other utilities, essentially become irrelevant if pet cannot survive the fight long enough.
In order for it to work, we simply would have to remove Rampage as ability from all mobs in game, and just forget about it (which I was in favor of), but eventually we decided that it would so heavily dis-balance all current raid encounters and would require even more re-balancing, which may or may not work out in the long run.
So the layout of a single epic pet was kept. pre-epic pets were however redesigned in accordance to the plan and heavily improved.

[bufferofnewbies]

Could you reform the rampage code to ignore pets or do a smaller % of damage? That might help pet users a ton, if it is not too overpowering.

[Brontu]

honestly i think the answer for pet classes at this point isnt going to be balancing them for old content, but maybe working new content to be less evil on the pets. While that would exclude alot of people it seems to be from a dev Point of View that would be the easiest way to go about things without have to redesign Everything from the ground up.