I've played a few heros now with reasonable success, including a shifter, and really want to make a non-shifter mage work.

I tried a drow invoker, hoping for scion, and got my ass handed to me left and right. Got stranded in the low 30s and just could not find a group. I mean, two weeks of real time playing pretty good amounts of time, and getting a group was just stupid ridiculously hard. No one wants to group. Everyone is either busy hunting, training, or a villager/applicant. So I gave up on that one, after dying too many times to feel like I could move on with any kind of success. I figured I learned some things, I'll try a neutral type build so I have more options to group and keep advancing beyond the punching bag levels and get to a point where I have some more powerful spells.

And here I am again, in the mid-30s and stuck again to a point where I find myself losing all enjoyment with the game. I can practice spells for so long, but what gives? I feel like every time there is someone who can tank, they're in a group. All I can find is highly marginal groups (with lower ranks or bad tankers) that go so slow, and get attacked so often, that it's just getting to be no fun.

Then I see someone awake that might make a good group. And maybe they've been awake for 5 minutes at most and they're already in a group with others. Just stranded in the mid ranks again and about to give up. I need some encouragement or advice about how to get over this hump because it sucks. Exploring for wands gets me killed (and in an exp hole) because I can hardly kill anything on my own (even when consider says otherwise). Standing around gets me killed.

Supposedly at high levels magi kick ass. But getting there is a pain in the ass when you can't find a group for weeks on end. To a point it's fine, I can practice and explore, but I really feel like it's too tough to find a group. And jesus there are just so many villagers and shifters compared to anything else, and I see why-- because trying to find groups sucks and they can dominate (or at least survive) in the mid-ranks. Is this investment going to pay off or am I just in for a life of frustration as a mage?

Also been seeing a lot of the bad sides of a few players lately and feeling on the wrong side of the imbalances of the game. Trying to keep pushing through and hoping the fun will come but sometimes it's tough to keep the faith, I have to admit.

Hmm this post sounded familiar.
Check out this link, in which I had the same experience and asked the same questions: it has a lot of good advice on it, some of it at greater length from the same people:

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=5&topic_id=944&mesg_id=944&page=

Basically, this is a very typical experience on the invoker learning curve. It will happen, but there's plenty of light at the end of the tunnel, as long as you find your sleek wands or else know alternate sources (having played a hero level shifter, this part you're probably ready for).

Everything Daeveryn said, x 5.


Now, here's the weird part:
My experience with later invokers is that people rush you too fast to group/level. After a bit, I hated being constantly asked for leveling.
This will happen as soon as nova or another skill that targets elemental vulns in popular ranking areas makes you a desirable blaster for a tank. In fact, this is going to be another annoyance, because you often won't be given time to practice the spells you need to practice -- people will just demand that you nova over and over, long after you've got it mastered. So, ironically, be careful of being leveled too fast :) Levelsitting is often really good.

Some ideas overlooked or re-emphasized:
Kill the guys who won't group with you. If you try to be friends with everyone, you won't be having any fun at all, even if you do put a lot of effort into being an interestingly RPed character.

Consider being good aligned, if you want to level up quickly. No goodie is left behind! Not to mention, request gives you options to identify gear.

Consider joining a cabal for allies and support (of course, you have to commit to the cause and deal with their enemies also). Don't do Scion if you're still figuring out your build or having problems with standard PvP or PvE.

One ally from Nexus, Fort, Outlander, Trib, will bump you up very quickly.

Use preps liberally, healers liberally, and try to make a lot of gold.
Use mercs. It's possible to do a reasonable job leveling up in the protected cities while solo except for mercs (as long as there are two or three magistrates around).

Fundamentally, though, the game will never be fun if the mindset is avoiding death from pk instead of looking for targets that fit your "good victim" profile :)

I'll come at this a few different ways:

1) I would get over the idea that a hero mage is tough and that your goal is to power to hero; they can be tough, but my experience is that 9 times out of 10, if you can't win a fight with a midlevel invoker, you can't win a fight with a hero invoker either. Ditto transmuter or conjurer either.

Don't power to hero and then try to figure the class out; figure the class out and the rest falls into place. This also helps you with ranking despair -- people won't group with you? Go kill them.

2) You're ending up with marginal groups because probably you're a marginal groupmate. 90% of the midlevel invokers I've ever grouped with are worse than useless. They're spamming stoneshatter at the stupid mob that's bashing me to death. Short of getting lucky or riding the Fort Leveling Train to hero, seek to improve your value as a groupmate -- level with useful spells that you also don't have at 70%, learn to lead and coordinate groups so you're useful as a group leader rather than as the pity third, and put a ton of energy into a vibrant, well RPed character that people will WANT to group with.

I will take a cool character with me to level no matter how terrible they are, but bland neutral invoker #289784 is getting skipped for someone useful.

Especially the interesting character part.

I'd take a dwarf with no skills practiced who RP's all the time and is interesting over someone I'm not sure ISN'T botting, even if they are more optimal.

Still seems like there are those critical thresholds that make a mage really start to fire on all cylinders in their given range. I wasn't really suggesting power ranking to hero, exactly, but it's like with transmuter you really want to get to where you can duo and with invoker you want to get your shields, right? Not sure about conjurer because I have no experience, but guessing there's some angel or demon or whatever that just starts kicking ass and until you have it you just aren't quite as tough.

Granted there's always the grass is greener with that next skill or spell (and you keep getting into tougher competition), but even still. When you're sitting a few ranks away from what seems like that threshold for a long time, getting whooped and feeling stalled out, it gets tough. Then when you prep up for what you hope to be a good fight with an axe wielding warrior and then step out to get one rounded, a person can get a bit discouraged.

But I appreciate what you're saying. If they don't like me, go beat em down. And in the mean time, practice and focus on RP. Alright I'll keep at it.

Join Fortress or Herald or Nexus. To a lesser extent Outlander or Tribunal - go neutral for sure if you join either. Find an IC way to let people know that you're learning magic. Maybe your role is that you come from a long line of warriors and you're breaking tradition over your knee but you're bumbling it in a bad way cause you have nothing to lean on. RP that with other mages that are allies and I think you will be amazed how people will respond and try to help (this will not work well if you're evil). Also, start with the mindset and possibly the intention that you'll con die. It is what it is, we all go through that curve. You'll learn along the way.

Strong at almost all ranks.

Just wield a staff, and gear for hp.

Know which spells compliment each other. Eg decalcify and disrupt bone.

Know who is vuln to your mental jolt etc.

>
>Still seems like there are those critical thresholds that make
>a mage really start to fire on all cylinders in their given
>range. I wasn't really suggesting power ranking to hero,
>exactly, but it's like with transmuter you really want to get
>to where you can duo and with invoker you want to get your
>shields, right? Not sure about conjurer because I have no
>experience, but guessing there's some angel or demon or
>whatever that just starts kicking ass and until you have it
>you just aren't quite as tough.

Well, yes and no. 38 is obviously a much stronger level for an invoker than 37 -- but an invoker at 20 or 30 in moderately skilled hands can easily rack up more PKs per hour if he's of a mind to.

The mistake is to only have an eye on what you can do at a given level; the complete picture is to also have an eye on what the people you will have in range can do at that level.

Invokers are at their deadliest in the 20's if you're going for a PK per hour stat. Clearly they are not as durable, but that's what makes them such appealing targets, and it's much easier to kill people who are trying to kill you first!

If you use every available advantage, you can do some damage as a low level mage, though sometimes it takes a lot of courage to do so. What's more, I am convinced that transmuters, conjurers and necros all have the ability to slowly solo rank. Invoker would be the slowest to my knowledge but still doable.

Just find mobs you can almost one-shot that give 75-150 xp. Don't always have to go for the normal ranking ####.

Others have done it better than me too.

I'm been somewhat fascinated recently (as in the last 2 years) with having a lowbie invoker roll through people before shields. My best "success" was an arial that was around 16-5 or so in 50+ hrs and 25 levels. It can be done.

One of the thing Daevryn mentions is knowing the capabilities of your enemies. For a lot of melee characters, they really do most of their damage in raw melee combat. Ergo, you want to either lessen their damage (by getting mobs to tank, damage reduction potions/wands) OR make the fight last shorter. As an invoker using vuln spells, often times you can literally 2-round people.

It really comes down to finding a nexus warrior coming up the ranks. There are also heralds from time to time. Find areas to maximize crappy groups. They are there in the midranks. A necro for example can tank very strongly in some specific places. I sometimes think a necro can solo rank to hero and it'sby design.