few mage Q's

[Tussin]

need a list of all quest items that require specialized skills for magic ie creature, mana c, arcane lore, life, war, item, magic defense

is mana conversion worth specializing with the advent of % mana conversion bonuses on wands for a pure mage?

the main reason i thought of specializing Mana C is due to less time buffing altogether

usefulness of missile/melee defense for pve higher level content as a mage?

[Gyes]

Let me answer questions 2 and 3 in this post and then come back to the first one later:

2 - I would say it isn't worth the credits. Spend them on an offensive or defensive skill (ie, specing a magic school or adding melee defense) instead of a passive skill. You're right - the wand bonus more than makes up for having mana C only trained. As for buffing time, the vast majority of the time you'll spend buffing will be eaten up casting your actual buffs, not restoring your mana pool. Spec'ing mana c might shorten your buff sequence by 3 spells tops. That's not worth the skill credits in my mind.

3 - Missile Defense against enemies is (almost) totally worthless. The number of missile creatures is practically nill and you can switch the ones who can hurt you out of missile mode by running around them. Plus you can strafe while casting to dodge missile projectiles. Also, missile damage is typically lower than melee damage (with the exception of Lugian Hollow Rocks). On the other hand, practically everything does melee damage and with the melee defense modifiers on wands, mages can have a very solid melee defense score, allowing you to evade lots of damage. Melee mages are a sort of flavor-of-the-month (although many mages have had melee for a long time).

[Yula_the_Mighty]

For PvM, missile defense is little use. The only critters that hit hard with missile weapons to be dangerous are the big Lugians with the hollow rocks. The problem with them is that their throwing skill is very high. Players keep reporting the following result:
Untrained missile defense - Get hit all the time
Trained missile defense - Get hit all the time
Specialized missile defense - Get hit all the time
Specialized missile defense, maxed controlling attributes and skill plus majors - Get hit all the time.

The only thing missile defense does for you is allow you to activate majors on armor. Unless you are lucky enough to have put together a suit of magic defense activation majors. Or you trained melee defense and use a melee defense activation majors.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Cezium]

need a list of all quest items that require specialized skills for magic ie creature, mana c, arcane lore, life, war, item, magic defense

umm. the awakener needs specialize critter if you want it in it's uberest form. you can make it work with trained though it just doesn't buff you anymore or something. (the awakener dispells a target, you would only use it if you had to get rid of vulns on a friend very fast). You would need war specialized for the top wield requirment of wands.

Melee defence isn't really a flavour of the month anymore unfortunately. A solo hunting mage gains insane power by having it. I personally think it isn't worth putting xp into until you are 126+ though. me and one of my friends who is really into mechanics both swear by it but admit that it is gamebreaking and lame that casters can be tinkered and buffed to +40% melee d.

At lower levels you will learn to hide in corners and procede slowly in monster filled dungeons. You can survive almost anywhere ingame on a mage like this if you are good but taking melee d your killing power gets much higher because you are not needing to heal or hide in corners. You can just stand in the middle of the biggest spawn you find and kill it all if they aren't casters.

Magic defence is also good specialized but only after you have a good amount of xp in it (at around a billion xp it starts to get "good")

[Chon of WE]

I am one of the few who think that Specalized Mana Conversion is useful. I have it because I can cast about 25-30 level 7 spells without having to Stamina to Mana.
While I can deal the same amound of damage as other, my mana can outlast them which enables me to get the kill when I hunt high level places like VoD.


As for missle Defence, only good for activating majors. And Melee Defence, AWESOME at high levels, when you max it out and have a Melee D wand (a wand with 38% or high melee d mod) you can evade near everything

[Tussin]

ive played up to a level 90 mage before

im feeling inclined towards specialized magic d and war definately

would this be prime for an easier pve treadmill?

100 Str/Focus/Will

Spec War/Uac at creation

Train Life

level 3 Mana C, level 12 Item, level 32 Creature, level 50 Arcane Lore

level 90 with both credit quests train Melee Def

level 180 Spec Magic D

after i cap skills i could swap stats to make 400 base uac with 12 Coord and 98 Focus

ive also thought of switching over to dagger and going 100 coord with 12 quick for end game since it would boost melee defense a tad more

pros of uac with str

better damage and variety types, more weight capacity, beats dagger for pvp


pros of dagger with coord

brings up melee defense along side dagger, good for healing skill, costs 2 less credits than uac


also say an aluvian has dagger already pretrained, does it count as 4 or 8 credits to the 64 spec skill cap?

also if i went dagger i would have enough for crossbow or healing to add more toys to my character

i've also thought of just doing a melee/archer type till 50 then switch over to being a mage

would that be faster ?

i will have access to a good selection of armor/weapons etc and buffs

[mystsun]

I have specialized all three schools. Thought about it long and hard and decided thats what I really wanted. Thats great if your fellowing and can afford to use your magic yield and life vulns alot, or if your high enough level to hunt VoD or Caul alone. However, only level 104 and I find myself hunting by myself more than I do in fellows and seldom get to use my high level critter and life skills. Mostly I hunt alone using my rendering wands and need mostly my war skills. Its hunting alone that I really feel that I wish I had not specialized critter but instead trained melee defense. Most of the places (dungeons) I'd like to hunt I can't because I get hit to hard. So I think I may unspecialize critter and train melee. Still thinking about it.....