12-21-2004, 08:00 PM
e) The Early Midgame, levels 11-21.
The early midgame is the point at which your talents begin to kick in, and the first point at which anyone can develop distinctive strategies. Iâll outline a few that worked for me, but Iâm not precluding others that might work for you.
--- The Early Midgame â Solo Play ---
Solo play shouldnât change all that much through the first part of the early midgame. Up until level 14, you should be adding points to Improved Arcane Missiles, which will make things a great deal smoother. If the usual fireball/frostbolt barrage followed by missiles, nova, fireball, fireblast doesnât kill them, youâll be able to hit Missiles with increasing reliability.
At level 12, Slow Fall and Dampen Magic become available, along with rank ups for Fireball and Conjure Food. Upgrading Fireball is important even if youâre frost specialized; you wonât be developing your frostbolt until a little later and Fireball will be better for now. You can wait on Slow Fall; you wonât have that many feathers right now anyway, and a serious opportunity to use it wonât open up until level 17-18, when 6s isnât quite so much.
Get Dampen Magic. Yes, itâs a terrible, useless skill, I trashed it and slammed it in my review of it and my mind hasnât changed on it. But youâll be encountering caster mobs very soon, sooner if youâre a troll but soon in any case. Casters are awful for mages since they can deliver a lot of damage from range, and until level 24 you wonât be able to fight them effectively. Until then, youâll have to make do, and Dampen is one of those ways to make do.
At level 14, youâll max Improved Arcane Missiles, giving you your real melee weapon for the rest of the game. Youâll also get Arcane Explosion and upgrades to three of your spells. If moneyâs short, skip Arcane Explosion for now. It isnât useful without its talent and you wonât have that for a little while. Yes, you can use it to take on hordes of greens and grays, but youâd really be quicker picking them all off with fireballs etc. in the usual way as opposed to charging into their midst and unleashing explosions for tiny damage (that gets worse as they start interrupting you).
Level 16 brings a rank up for Missiles (get), Detect Magic and Flamestrike (donât get). Flamestrike is, as I said, unlikely to be useful for a long time and neither is Detect Magic. Save your money. Youâll need it soon enough. Your play style through this level shouldnât change much: continue on in the usual way if youâre pushing Arcane talents, and favor Fireball or Frostbolt if youâre upgrading one of them.
Level 18 gets your Fireball rank up, Amplify Magic, and Remove Lesser Curse. Skip Amplify. Remove Lesser Curse isnât important to get immediately, but Alliance players should have it before they go to the Deadmines.
Eight new spells are available at level 20. Immediate priorities should be the rank ups for water, Frost Armor, and Polymorph, as well as Blink. Get Blizzard if youâre frost specialized and choosing to go right for Improved. Skip it if youâre not. Get Mana Shield and Fire Ward, as well â the first for running away, the second because youâre still not 24 yet and you still have to fight casters with non-useful spells.
The only change here is that when you run you should put on Mana Shield, and Blink in the direction of the clearest area. Play goes on as before.
Running in fear. More mobs are going to do that in this level range. Itâs good and bad. Good, because you donât need to Fireblast them to death, just to run-in-fear range, and then theyâll stop interrupting you and you can Fireball them in the back. Bad, because if you canât catch them, or they resist that Fireball, whatever other mob they blunder into while fleeing will aggro on you. I prefer to use Missiles and keep Fireblast until itâll kill them, even if I can Fireblast them and cause them to run, just because doing that limits the possibilities of bad things happening.
--- The Early Midgame â Group Play ---
Group play also doesnât change a lot in this period of time. Your spells will increase in power, so you do have to watch your threat levels.
Starting in this level range, near the 20-21 part, youâll start getting your first elite quests, ones that are difficult to complete solo. Grouping will, therefore, be a lot more common near the end of this level range, and even in the middle for a party to take on Ragefire Chasm. All I can say is to watch threat levels closely. Missiles will let you open up on a severely injured creature that has broken out on you, so you donât have to run so much, but itâs still not a good idea to get threat on you and itâs still not a good idea to play like youâre soloing. This is where playing like youâre soloing can start getting you killed.
Polymorph is going to become more useful in this level range, especially when you head into your first instanced dungeon. There are a lot of ways to use it. You can pull with it if your party can take the minimal aggro caused by the Polymorph off the non-sheep mobs. If you donât, however, you should always be on the watch for adds and should instantly pop a polymorph on it as soon as it appears. The best case is that you work out ahead of time with your party whatâs going to get polymorphed and what isnât, to avoid sheep getting popped back into normal forms by an attack.
If you havenât figured it out ahead of time and someone hit the sheep, try to polymorph again. Either target a different mob that isnât the primary target (i.e. thereâs at least 3 mobs in the fight) or try to polymorph the same one again and hope whoever hit it gets the message. Make sure to clear things up with the party as soon as possible, generally after the fight. If they just arenât getting it, then donât polymorph right away, and try to pick out someone who isnât being hit, because itâs important to cut down on enemy crowd size. Itâs worth doing, even if your party members are irredeemably stupid.
Great damage is a blessing and a curse, but it can be a blessing again, in another way. Know when you want to take aggro on to yourself. Iâve been giving advice to you to know how to keep your threat low and to keep the mobs stuck on the tank â and I still mean that. But your ability to generate sudden bursts of high damage can be useful, especially if your tank is underleveled or not particularly good at tanking.
Youâre more expendable than the others are. Youâll just have to live with that. If the tank lives, they can get healed and go on tanking for a little while longer. If the priest lives, the tank can be healed. If either of them dies, though, youâre all in serious trouble. If you die, the trouble isnât quite as bad, and you can get resurrected later. I am talking about difficult situations, where either the tank is underleveled and swarmed by too many adds or thereâs been a serious breakout on the priest, but they happen. See Rule One. I donât expect this kind of selfless play to happen naturally, but you should remember that if you die and are resurrected, the party loses minimal time, whereas if the whole party ends up dead youâre going to lose a lot more time getting back.
The early midgame is the point at which your talents begin to kick in, and the first point at which anyone can develop distinctive strategies. Iâll outline a few that worked for me, but Iâm not precluding others that might work for you.
--- The Early Midgame â Solo Play ---
Solo play shouldnât change all that much through the first part of the early midgame. Up until level 14, you should be adding points to Improved Arcane Missiles, which will make things a great deal smoother. If the usual fireball/frostbolt barrage followed by missiles, nova, fireball, fireblast doesnât kill them, youâll be able to hit Missiles with increasing reliability.
At level 12, Slow Fall and Dampen Magic become available, along with rank ups for Fireball and Conjure Food. Upgrading Fireball is important even if youâre frost specialized; you wonât be developing your frostbolt until a little later and Fireball will be better for now. You can wait on Slow Fall; you wonât have that many feathers right now anyway, and a serious opportunity to use it wonât open up until level 17-18, when 6s isnât quite so much.
Get Dampen Magic. Yes, itâs a terrible, useless skill, I trashed it and slammed it in my review of it and my mind hasnât changed on it. But youâll be encountering caster mobs very soon, sooner if youâre a troll but soon in any case. Casters are awful for mages since they can deliver a lot of damage from range, and until level 24 you wonât be able to fight them effectively. Until then, youâll have to make do, and Dampen is one of those ways to make do.
At level 14, youâll max Improved Arcane Missiles, giving you your real melee weapon for the rest of the game. Youâll also get Arcane Explosion and upgrades to three of your spells. If moneyâs short, skip Arcane Explosion for now. It isnât useful without its talent and you wonât have that for a little while. Yes, you can use it to take on hordes of greens and grays, but youâd really be quicker picking them all off with fireballs etc. in the usual way as opposed to charging into their midst and unleashing explosions for tiny damage (that gets worse as they start interrupting you).
Level 16 brings a rank up for Missiles (get), Detect Magic and Flamestrike (donât get). Flamestrike is, as I said, unlikely to be useful for a long time and neither is Detect Magic. Save your money. Youâll need it soon enough. Your play style through this level shouldnât change much: continue on in the usual way if youâre pushing Arcane talents, and favor Fireball or Frostbolt if youâre upgrading one of them.
Level 18 gets your Fireball rank up, Amplify Magic, and Remove Lesser Curse. Skip Amplify. Remove Lesser Curse isnât important to get immediately, but Alliance players should have it before they go to the Deadmines.
Eight new spells are available at level 20. Immediate priorities should be the rank ups for water, Frost Armor, and Polymorph, as well as Blink. Get Blizzard if youâre frost specialized and choosing to go right for Improved. Skip it if youâre not. Get Mana Shield and Fire Ward, as well â the first for running away, the second because youâre still not 24 yet and you still have to fight casters with non-useful spells.
The only change here is that when you run you should put on Mana Shield, and Blink in the direction of the clearest area. Play goes on as before.
Running in fear. More mobs are going to do that in this level range. Itâs good and bad. Good, because you donât need to Fireblast them to death, just to run-in-fear range, and then theyâll stop interrupting you and you can Fireball them in the back. Bad, because if you canât catch them, or they resist that Fireball, whatever other mob they blunder into while fleeing will aggro on you. I prefer to use Missiles and keep Fireblast until itâll kill them, even if I can Fireblast them and cause them to run, just because doing that limits the possibilities of bad things happening.
--- The Early Midgame â Group Play ---
Group play also doesnât change a lot in this period of time. Your spells will increase in power, so you do have to watch your threat levels.
Starting in this level range, near the 20-21 part, youâll start getting your first elite quests, ones that are difficult to complete solo. Grouping will, therefore, be a lot more common near the end of this level range, and even in the middle for a party to take on Ragefire Chasm. All I can say is to watch threat levels closely. Missiles will let you open up on a severely injured creature that has broken out on you, so you donât have to run so much, but itâs still not a good idea to get threat on you and itâs still not a good idea to play like youâre soloing. This is where playing like youâre soloing can start getting you killed.
Polymorph is going to become more useful in this level range, especially when you head into your first instanced dungeon. There are a lot of ways to use it. You can pull with it if your party can take the minimal aggro caused by the Polymorph off the non-sheep mobs. If you donât, however, you should always be on the watch for adds and should instantly pop a polymorph on it as soon as it appears. The best case is that you work out ahead of time with your party whatâs going to get polymorphed and what isnât, to avoid sheep getting popped back into normal forms by an attack.
If you havenât figured it out ahead of time and someone hit the sheep, try to polymorph again. Either target a different mob that isnât the primary target (i.e. thereâs at least 3 mobs in the fight) or try to polymorph the same one again and hope whoever hit it gets the message. Make sure to clear things up with the party as soon as possible, generally after the fight. If they just arenât getting it, then donât polymorph right away, and try to pick out someone who isnât being hit, because itâs important to cut down on enemy crowd size. Itâs worth doing, even if your party members are irredeemably stupid.
Great damage is a blessing and a curse, but it can be a blessing again, in another way. Know when you want to take aggro on to yourself. Iâve been giving advice to you to know how to keep your threat low and to keep the mobs stuck on the tank â and I still mean that. But your ability to generate sudden bursts of high damage can be useful, especially if your tank is underleveled or not particularly good at tanking.
Youâre more expendable than the others are. Youâll just have to live with that. If the tank lives, they can get healed and go on tanking for a little while longer. If the priest lives, the tank can be healed. If either of them dies, though, youâre all in serious trouble. If you die, the trouble isnât quite as bad, and you can get resurrected later. I am talking about difficult situations, where either the tank is underleveled and swarmed by too many adds or thereâs been a serious breakout on the priest, but they happen. See Rule One. I donât expect this kind of selfless play to happen naturally, but you should remember that if you die and are resurrected, the party loses minimal time, whereas if the whole party ends up dead youâre going to lose a lot more time getting back.