Character Creation – Part 4 (Mages)

Mages

The mage classes are the only ones who get pets, well two of them get pets one gets blood pits. These are the supposedly more damaging caster classes and have as such been stuck wearing robes that turn even the most hulking mage into something slightly more feminine and less bad ass. The mage classes follow the standard formula for sub-groups in AoC, that is to say 2 classes that fit the biill and one ugly duckling. In this case its one really ugly and demonic duckling. About the only similarity between the mage classes is that they have the full set of 3 bars and get stuck with assassin gear often. Also all of them get a party shield that absorbs a set amount of damage from every hit taken up to a point. That point is about as easy to reach as someone on a desert island because the shield resets itself every 30 seconds and can be made to do this even faster. The mage general tree forces upon you natural mana regen, this is useful for two thirds of the mage classes. Farther down the tree is the standard buff to armor vs melee or magic, hate decrease, damage increase, and CC break.

Demonologist

Gameplay: As with every caster in the game it boils down to spamming your spell of choice. You get to choose from either lightning or fire for your preffered method of zapping people’s testes and or ovaries off, however due to the great foresight exibitited so often by Funcom one of the trees is rather unfinished and ends up being unusable in some cases (Fire on Yak = whipe). When you’re not spammign oyur arsenal of spells chances are you’re putting up your self buffs. Despite the sheer amount of these only three of them are useful in any which way and one of those you dont get until the end. Summoning your pet will probably take as long as putting on all of your buffs so learn to love that animation which looks like your character is about ot shit a satanic egg.

Intended Role: Magical DPS the old fashioned firect damage way

Actual Role: Damage, AoE Damage

Necromancer

Gameplay: The necromancer does the same amount of damage as the demonologist if not more, the damage is spread out between the necromancer and his pets and most of it is in the form od DoTs. Besides have a wide variety of DoTs the necro also get a straight up nuke that does a lto less damage than most of the other nukes in the game. Also the necromancer can summon an army of pets that is limited only by his remaining pet points, these minions can be sacrificed to give the necromancer benefits. The combination of pet damage, DoTs, Snare Procs make the necro a force to be reckoned with in PvP. With the correct feating and good gear the critical hits on Ice Strike end up hitting for far more damage than the critical hits the demonologist can put out. PvE wise the necromancer’s pets do a lot of the work and due to his AoEs and thier debuff effects the necromancer has no trouble taking on large mobs. In raids their DoTs do good damage to bosses and when combined with spamming Ice Strike the necromancer can output phenominal DPS nubmers.

Intended Role: Pet based DPS

Actual Role: Magical DPS with pet helpers

Herald of Xotli

Gameplay: In the recent patches the HoX has been crossing onto the more magic based side of the melee caster hybrid. Out of all the hybrids in the game this is the only one that wields a 2 handed Edged (great fatalities) and also gets to transform. The demon form is an interesting part of the HoX class and ends up being invaluable in PvP and PvE due to its AoE stun. Currently the HoX is powerful in PvP due to their CC and burst damage abilities. There have been report of them 3 shotting soldiers who have over 11k HP. PvE wise they’re fun to play but are hurt by their cloth armor, the only class that has it tougher PvE wise is the assassin, at least the HoX gets a magic shield. Either way the HoX can be pretty high up on the damage charts despite being unable to reach the DPS potential of the other mage classes, namely the demonologist (and ranger, despite that beign a rogue). In terms of fun for the time, I have to say that HoX was by far my favorite character to level.

Intended Role: Melee Magical DPS

Actual Role: Melee Caster DPS