Pure Int as Aggro Machine?

[WhoIsThis]

There was a thread - archers and aggro that got me thinking.

Pure int mages are the best AOE units in the game - hands down. However, what about our ability to damage ONE target? With blessings of might (every mage should make this skill 6 IMO), we have +60% crit - lethal with our AOE spells and drain life. I have often found myself in a position where I have aggro.

The other day, I was playing with some of my friends. Anyways, we were fighting Gold Fever and both me and the other level 56 bird (Moogerfooger) took a red orb. I believe that Mooger was using either a Raid Roach Recurve or the new Sewer King Scarab (can't remember). Anyways, we are both level 56. Out of our group of 5, Mooger was 4th to enter (we both broke off to get the red orbs), and I was the last. I got aggro. My blessings, debuffs, plus hot flash and lightning (Mooger believes it comboed to make nature strike) got me the aggro.

I just got out of a game minutes ago where despite the presence of another level 56 bird with the scarab bow (neither of us had orbs this time), I got the aggro. And I was third person in that room with Gold.

I think that pure int mages are going to find themselves in situations where they are going to be facing aggro a lot now that I think about it. I have often found that in A03, the keeper likes to target me over the level 50 birds (this was when 50 was the cap and I had full shadow, while the birds would have void or sentinel).

At this point, there is one thing in our favour somewhat. The mega mage series offers a lot better protection than anything before - pure ints can basically play in many cases like pallys (I'm not joking about this). We paid though a big price in crit for that (I would sacrifice a bit of mana regen for crit). Overall in terms of damage to a single target, int mages must be in the same ballpark as the pure dex birds on a single target.

Strategies for survival? I can hold aggro against Gold Fever reasonably well, particularly if my team defuses the soul chest with the green orb powering the bomb fast. I haven't tested extensively though against other bosses yet.



Specifically to Royce:
I can now see why you spent so long farming for the mega mage gemstone bracer. At time of this writing, there aren't any on the CS and it does complete the set (no bonus though). I've got all but the bracer. I'm gonna be buying the gemstone staff too - one thing is for certain: with this level of protection, I feel comfortable in a good team using the staff. However, with no proc, I'm not sure how much more effective damage the staff does over the wand. I'm also not sure how much more firepower the staff has in terms of spell damage over the wand/bracer combo.