What to do with 80 skill points left on Mage

TimSt

I'll soon have only 80 skill points left on my mage (120 eval, 120 magery, 100 inscription, 100 focus, 100 meditation, and 100 resist).  I would like to put them toward defense for those times I get too close to a monster and need to dodge a blow. Would wrestling or anatomy be better for my mage?  Or is there another defensive skill that I am not thinking of?

Rock

From the thread title, I was going to suggest Spellweaving, but I see you have Focus as part of your build.  With the relative ease of acquiring significant MR (mana regen) and LMC (lower mana cost), I would normally say it would be unnecessary.  But with your desired base skills, I would:

1. get rid of Resist
2. take 100 Mysticism
3. take 80 Anatomy
4. consider dropping Eval to 100, and using those 20 points to raise Mysticism and/or Focus
   

Anatomy plus Eval Int supply the defenses of a weapons skill, with the only loss being no Wrestling special moves. The formula is (Eval.Int. + Anatomy + 20)/2, which in this case works out to 100 weapons defense.

If you are a returnee from a long time ago, you may remember when Magic Resist protected against both spell damage and curses.  I think it also reduced severity of being poisoned (nowadays it does so anyway). This made it a highly desirable skill whether magic user or warrior.  But the game was changed in a pretty significant way to reduce the importance of Resist. The skill no longer protects against spell damage, just curses.  Instead, the 5 resists of armor (physical, fire, cold, poison, and energy) provide spell damage protection.  Resist only reduces severity or blocks the effects of curses and poisoning.

Enter Mysticism.  It has two spells to help protect against curses.  First there is Stone Form, available early in the build (40 skill I believe).  When in this form, it passively does what Magic Resist does, as well as provide even better protection to poisoning.  At 58 skill, Cleansing Winds becomes castable, which is an extremely valuable combo of Heal, Cure, and Remove Curse.  In my estimation Resist is inferior in a build which has the mana and points for Mysticism and either Focus or Imbuing (either supports Mysticism in the same manner Eval Int supports Magery).

As a side note, a warrior skill which helps substitute for Resist is Chivalry.  It includes the spell Remove Curse, which does what it says it does.  So nowadays between Mysticism and Chivalry, few of my characters bother with Resist.  I don't PvP though, and Resist may be more important in that environment.

TimSt

How about parry with a shield? Recently I discovered I could still cast spells while holding a shield.

DJAd

Is this for PvM?

Sarkon

Options:

1.  Stone off Inscription and Resist for Mysticism and Anatomy.  Raise everything to 120, except Anatomy because you will be at max defense with 100.

2.  Same as above, but take Spellweaving over Anatomy and take everything to 120.  (my main pve mage is this build)

3.  Instead of using Anatomy, you can use a Mage Weapon to act as your defense.  Use +Magery jewelry to negate the -Magery from the weapon and you will still be at max defense.

TimSt

DJAd said:

Is this for PvM?

Yes it is for Player versus Monster.  In tight places I can not always avoid running close enough to the monster for them to directly hit me.

Rock

TimSt said:

How about parry with a shield? Recently I discovered I could still cast spells while holding a shield.

For most mages, Parry ends up partially nerfed.  To not have a penalty to your Parry effectiveness, you need at least 80 Dexterity.  Most mages do not wish to bother with this relatively high DEX.  Note that Parry will still work with lower DEX, it just won't block attacks as often.  In summary, I believe most mages would agree that there are better skills than Parry to beef up their template.

That said, a shield can hold properties that are effective even with 0 Parry skill.  So if the shield has 10% DCI (defense chance increase), you would have some of the protection which Parry would have provided.  Adding to this, if your character is human, you effectively have 20 Parry skill via the Jack of all Trades (JOAT) racial capability.

FinleyGrant

you can also focus on max output... and include myst AND weaving

i combined that with 20 ninja to maintain wraith form, even low spirit speak will not pull that much mana but my flame strikes with slayer books often hit 400+ so the relatively low drain will still be enough....

and if you go on with WoD with close 1k damage you can chain them