PvP Mage questions...

[Skelf]

As a long term dexer, I am trying to get my head around mages and struggling more than a bit. I want a mage template that will be optimised for pvp, currently built around Magery plus either Mysticism or Necro.

Anyway..the ? I have are:

1. FCR - how high? FCR4 I can fit in easily, FCR6 will mean dropping something, DCI, Hits or EP. Is FCR6 essential for PvP...sadly I suspect it may be...

2. Resists - since Curse takes you to 60 across the board, high high should I try and take Fire and Poison to Corpse-proof me? 75 leaves me no worse off than Curse and is achieveable, 85 for full proofing is much harder.

3. How essential is DCI 70? I can fit that in for the archers I guess.

4. Minimum total MR you would consider? Currently I'm sitting at 21 but 18 (!) of that is from Med and Focus (the latter for Mysticism obviously). Switching for Necro would require some modifications with more MR I think.

5. Spells! Damn spells..there are too many! What are the core spells I need to have macroed? Curse, Poison, Para, Spell Plague, Explo, EB, Flamestrike, M Arrow/Last Target, GHeal and poss Heal, ArchCure, Mind Blast, Mana Drain, Cleansing Winds, Teleport, Recall, Invis self are all there now. Fields are available through on-screen icons (since their use implies a static conflict). Apart from Necro spells...am I missing anything essential?

6. Lastly, I've had a good long look at the new Magic Reflection and in combo with Reactive Armour, I think the pluses outweigh the penalties. Anyone else come to this conclusion and if not, why? If I do go down this route, Inscription looks like a real bonus but it has to be run in conjunction with Resist Spells for full benefit.

That's enough for now. Any and all advice gratefully received! And Happy New Year to all.;p

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

1. 6. Yes.
2. Up to you.
3. Essential.
4. 10 MR.
5. Everything you need in a fight apart from forms, summons, field spells should be on macros. You don't want to need to double click anything when fighting.
6. No, because having phys capped at 60 means every dexxer hits you harder, you also can't take it off when you want because of the cooldown, so even when the reflect pool is out you have to wait 30s (or is it 20s?) before you can replenish the pool or deactive it.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

1. 6. Yes.
2. Up to you.
3. Essential.
4. 10 MR.
5. Everything you need in a fight apart from forms, summons, field spells should be on macros. You don't want to need to double click anything when fighting.
6. No, because having phys capped at 60 means every dexxer hits you harder, you also can't take it off when you want because of the cooldown, so even when the reflect pool is out you have to wait 30s (or is it 20s?) before you can replenish the pool or deactive it.

1. Agree with LG
2. I agree, but personally always go with 75 since I always expect to be cursed.
3. I don't really agree with LG but if I was giving advice to someone who has not pvped using a mage I would agree with him.
4. I would say 10 MR from items alone.
5. Agree with LG
6. The cap is 65 and I personally use it, but again not sure what I would suggest to newer mage pvpers.

 

[Cetric]

As a long term dexer, I am trying to get my head around mages and struggling more than a bit. I want a mage template that will be optimised for pvp, currently built around Magery plus either Mysticism or Necro.

Anyway..the ? I have are:

1. FCR - how high? FCR4 I can fit in easily, FCR6 will mean dropping something, DCI, Hits or EP. Is FCR6 essential for PvP...sadly I suspect it may be...

2. Resists - since Curse takes you to 60 across the board, high high should I try and take Fire and Poison to Corpse-proof me? 75 leaves me no worse off than Curse and is achieveable, 85 for full proofing is much harder.

3. How essential is DCI 70? I can fit that in for the archers I guess.

4. Minimum total MR you would consider? Currently I'm sitting at 21 but 18 (!) of that is from Med and Focus (the latter for Mysticism obviously). Switching for Necro would require some modifications with more MR I think.

5. Spells! Damn spells..there are too many! What are the core spells I need to have macroed? Curse, Poison, Para, Spell Plague, Explo, EB, Flamestrike, M Arrow/Last Target, GHeal and poss Heal, ArchCure, Mind Blast, Mana Drain, Cleansing Winds, Teleport, Recall, Invis self are all there now. Fields are available through on-screen icons (since their use implies a static conflict). Apart from Necro spells...am I missing anything essential?

6. Lastly, I've had a good long look at the new Magic Reflection and in combo with Reactive Armour, I think the pluses outweigh the penalties. Anyone else come to this conclusion and if not, why? If I do go down this route, Inscription looks like a real bonus but it has to be run in conjunction with Resist Spells for full benefit.

That's enough for now. Any and all advice gratefully received! And Happy New Year to all.;p

1. 6 is a must
2. i'd aim for 70/75/x/x/70 where x is as high as u can get. i'd say aim for 75 poison, but the only thing that will really exploit it is a poison strike from a necro while corpsed. if i leave anything low anymore, its poison, because i won't drop cold because a hail storm could rock you. If i ever get into the situation fighting a poison striking necro after i get corpsed, i just apple the corpses more than other curses.
3. i personally aim for 60+ and if i can get 70 i am happy.
4. As much as you can roll with. Most of mine these days have about 14-17 mr on the suit, not including skills.
5. I pretty much macro everything i would need, my keys are covered. I would recommend putting anything you would use more than a few times here and there on a macro. Put your fields on a macro, etc. My msytic mage has exp/poison/harm/weaken/fs/ebolt/mind blast/hail storm/spell plague/nether bolt/eagle strike/magic arrow/fireball/lightning/heal/greater heal/cleansing winds/cure/arch cure/bless/curse/stone wall/para field/poison field/energy field/paralyze/meteor swarm/earthquake/invis/teleport/protection/stone form/trigger/healstone/purge/sleep/mass sleep. I know im prolly missing something

This is me though, you may want to get some of your basic's and play around some, and when you go, dang i wish i had "x spell" on a macro right there, you can add it. When you die because you got DPed, didn't have a cure pot, and couldn't cure it, you will be sure you will be making an arch cure macro. This is how i built my macros over time. going - dangit, wish i had a summon demon macro right there.

Not including this is my heal pot/cure pot/refresh pot/str pot/apple/box/mount/dismount target self/target last macros


6. My only suggestion when adding reactive/reflect is be careful, a mystic can purge one of them off leaving one half of your resists very very vulnerable. They have benefits, between the pool and the bonuses with inscribe, but if a purge knocks off your magic reflect, that will leave you pretty vulnerable until you recast.




I'll leave you with some of that, i can just say, do not get too frusterated with it, the macros and speed of casting come with practice and time. duel some friends to get spell timing together. Arrange some little field fights to figure out what works best, run around yew gate to see what people do.

If you need some greater assistance in figuring out how to build a suit, let me know and i can give you a hand, not sure what shard you are on though.

Some basics:

100lrc
40lmc
12+MR
60+Dci
15+hit point inc
2fc
6fcr
15spell damage increase(1 or 2 sdi actually makes a difference)
the rest you can fill in blanks for things such as hit point regen, or enhance pots. On a mystic mage, personally, i run hit point regen rather than enhance pots, as i use my heal stone more often than heal pots.

 

[Lynk]

Regarding macros, follow my advice.

When you set them - make sure you don't need to change them, so put a lot of thought into where the key goes.

I just recently bought a nostromo key pad and re-did all my macros.

Dexers was easy to make the transition... mages - I feel like I just started playing again. It is VERY difficult to change macros once you are used to them.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Regarding macros, follow my advice.

When you set them - make sure you don't need to change them, so put a lot of thought into where the key goes.

I just recently bought a nostromo key pad and re-did all my macros.

Dexers was easy to make the transition... mages - I feel like I just started playing again. It is VERY difficult to change macros once you are used to them.

Very good advice. I have not changed my hotkeys in some 10 years? But I have a newish character that will be using two spellsets that I have never combined before, and thus some of the hotkeys are clashing and I can't find a good setting for them.

 

[[JD]]

part of being a mage is absolutely knowing your macro setup like the back of your hand.

now im a crappy mage but ive started workign with macros and here's how i have mine setup in the ec

first of all legacy chat mode is off so i have to hit enter to talk. im now free to use any key on the kb for a macro without accidentally firing it off.

qwertyuiop- survival macros; faction rune, trap box, greater heal, greater cure, apples, attunement, gift of renewal, invis pots, teleport, etc

asdfghjkl- nuke/single targets

zxcvbnm- area of affect stuff/summons

f1-f0- debuffs/harassment/utility/healing spells

i may swap this around to make it more natural but so far its made me slightly better than what i was previously using. im still fodder in pvp though. heh

its a lot to take in but the better mages have everything at their disposal in a setup they can easily and quickly get to

 

[Cetric]

Regarding macros, follow my advice.

When you set them - make sure you don't need to change them, so put a lot of thought into where the key goes.

I just recently bought a nostromo key pad and re-did all my macros.

Dexers was easy to make the transition... mages - I feel like I just started playing again. It is VERY difficult to change macros once you are used to them.

definitly.

as most people will say, put your macros in chunks of offense/defense/etc

after you get them where keys of combos and things are all within finger pecking reach, learn them. In most cases it doesn't matter where you place your macros, just how well you know them.


kinda like lynk said, i got a logitech g15 keyboard with the intention of mashing most of my macros onto the g - keys, but after years of the same setup on the standard keyboard+ f keys, i couldn't change it, trying to change my macros was like throwing away my gun in favor of a pocket knife. Those g-keys became secondary things like str/dex pots, nightsite, forms, and little extra tidbits.

 

[Skelf]

Wow...many thanks for the detailed replies.

1. I had more or less come to the conclusion that FCR6 was essential and will prob drop EP.

2. The template as designed is 70/75/70/75/70 so will hold up without Relfect and Reactive

3. I have 70 DCI templated in but this incoporates an imbued Planesword and makes it difficult to get that missing 3 SDI (12 in 1 jewellery slot). Extra DCI could come from a Conj Garb or Tangle or I could redo the whole template to incorporate an arti with more DCI. Currently I have RBC and Fey leggings. I need to imbue the other pieces to get 100 LRC.

4. As I said, currently 21 MR including skills. Not really sure more item MR is going to add a lot due to diminishing returns. The difference between 15 and 20 MR is only 0.5 mana/sec - I tested this some time ago. To get more MR I would probably have to drop +Mana or +Hits. I'll make sure I make the pieces I would have to change are gloves and gorget.;p

5. I already set straightforward spells to UO macros and any Use Items or spells that need to target self to UOA. The UO macros I access though an N52 pad like Lynk tho I have been using mine for ages.

With regard to Lynk's comments about macro layouts, I wholly agree. I have gone so far as to make sure the same type of action - Cure pot, Heal self (by whatever means), mount Ethy etc are set to the same keys for ALL the characters - just need to swap macro profiles for the N52. Means your reflex response has a chance of being the right one..heh

6. In view of the comments regarding being stripped of half the Reflect/Reactive combo, I think I'll skip that for now and run with the basic resists above.

Rest of the suit is pretty much covered but thanks for the offer Cetric. I'm on Europa and pretty familiar with suit design/imbuing. Not an extreme suit but decent enough I think.

LRC 100
LMC 40
25 Hits - could drop to 15 when I get a Tangle to replace Crimson
Mana 42 (total mana 167)
will now be FC2/FCR6
SDI 12
DCI 70
Resists 70/75/70/75/70

Thanks again for all the valued advice!

 

[Cetric]

What is your back piece? (quiver slot) you could put on 5ssi cape, it has 3sdi on it as well.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

You shouldn't have to drop EP to accomplish what we have suggested....Also at least one of my closest mage friends complains about the difference in 18mr and 21 mr, I personally learn how to live with it but hey to each their own lol.

 

[Skelf]

Ranger's Cloak of Augmentation...actually, that's not a bad idea.

I can use the marginal additions (SDI 3%, LMC 1%) and the SSI 5% helps out a little with low stamina and the Planesword. The 5% Kinetic Eater would even help mitigate the 65 Physical cap if I tried the Reflect/Reactive combo.

I even have one although it's on my Sampire atm. The missing 5% DCI could be made up with Tangle/Conj Garb eventually.

 

[Lynk]

5. I already set straightforward spells to UO macros and any Use Items or spells that need to target self to UOA. The UO macros I access though an N52 pad like Lynk tho I have been using mine for ages.

With regard to Lynk's comments about macro layouts, I wholly agree. I have gone so far as to make sure the same type of action - Cure pot, Heal self (by whatever means), mount Ethy etc are set to the same keys for ALL the characters - just need to swap macro profiles for the N52. Means your reflex response has a chance of being the right one..heh

I have 2 profiles and macro set-ups.

All of my dexers use the exact same macro setup.

All of my mages are the same too - except necro and myst spells share the same keys since I never play a myst/necro template.

I make them share keys. So one key is hailstorm or wither, one is spell plauge or oath, etc.

Makes it easy to remember. I have the new nostromo made by razer, so I also use the thumb button above the d-pad as ctrl, which doubled my available keys.

I also went out and got a Razer Naga mouse, which is where i put all of my consumables and item use macros. It has a total of 14 buttons on it, which is huge. Those macros are the same for all of my characters which also helps alot in the planning.

I am still making slight tweaks as I get used to the spells, but I'm pretty close to to the end result I think.

I've got all the macros mapped on a spreadsheet, once I'm confident that I've got it how I want it I'll post it to google docs as a public document.