What if defensive mages could wear medium armour?

[gatineau]

From what I can find out, light armour is best for casters and heavy for meleers. What is medium armour for? Ranged fighters? As a thought, medium armour would be in keeping with the role of a defensive caster. Any other suggestions?

[aelvana]

I just figured it was an extra option for people who wanted to multi-class. You won't be able to tank as well in medium, and you won't be able to cast as well in medium, but you can do both pretty ok :)

[gdesade]

That's exactly what I'm trying to do with my character.

I had originally thought I would make a melee fighter, and keep up his magic skills just to manage my own weapon enchantments. But, unfortunatly, the armor penalties carry over to using an enchantment (seems silly to me, but *shrug*).

The only viable way for such a character to work, as far as I can tell, is to go with medium armor. I haven't yet gotten a good feel for how well the lessened penalties offset the lesser protection. Luckily, I use a stun for my enchantment

Just need to make me a sleep stick now...

[aelvana]

Hmmm, just thought of another good use! *bored* LOL! Fighters' abilities use more stam/hp in heavy armor. So a fighter has to trade off ability to take hits well, and ability to cause damage. A fighter wearing medium would have a middleground :)

[lafekafe]

Hmm.. You can play as a healer role in heavy armour.... Its less efficient as being naked/light but if you get enough regen in both sap and hp you can cast all day in heavy armour. That's often nicer than dying to 2-3 shots from evil social pulls gone bad.

Its about balance. That's what is so nice.

Try building heal spells using hp and sap costs. And have 3-4 at least made incuding you 'free heal'. Free heal costs no sap/hp and can be built from only range and/or cast time counterparts.

A Healer has no reason to run out of sap/hp ever. Just don't expect to be chain casting your top heal. You have others, use em.

[korin77]

I run around in a combo of heavy, medium and light armor. I can tank and cast at the same time. My casting is not great but I can often pull something off for emergencies. I certainly would not wear heavy if I was a main mage though.

[svayvti]

Medium makes for a nice compromise armor type. Some penalty to it, but if your character is built well for it, then it shouldn't be too much.

[ikshar]

Well, I think this question is a bit... silly... no offense meant here, but what I mean is: Anyone can wear any armor.
The only thing that makes mages use light armor is the penalty : So spells won't cost more for them, and they can throw more spells with the same amount of sap.
With medium armor you have a total -50 penalty, so your spells cost a 50% more than without penalty.
An offensive mage needs to cast all time spells to kill the mobs, so 50% can be a lot more sap each fight.
A defensive mage instead does not need to cast all time, maybe can do some heals now and then, and fear in the middle, and keep the link, so the ammount of sap wasted is (can be) less than that of an offensive mage.
Just give it a try, go for medium armor, maybe you'll like it .

[chuangpo]

Really though, you have bigger problems than armor if your defensive mage is getting attacked. If you are in the wrong area, armor won't matter anyway, even a tank in heavy can get one hit killed in many areas (as my team and I recently descovered 100k death pen, baby!) The cost greatly outweighs the benefits, a defensive caster would benefit much more from a good root or stun spell that they can cast quickly and often, then having medium armor that maybe keeps them alive for 1 or 2 hits more than light armor. As an offensive mage, i have realized that we have VERY little margin for error and healers are even worse. We are quite squishy. If you agro something big and it leaves your fighter and he/she can't taunt it off quickly, you are dead, and since the AI isn't stupid (sometimes), it'll often go right for the healer next... I'm usually dead before I can even begin to cast in these situations. As Shrike has stated on numerous occasions, armor for casters is nothing more than additional hardpoints for stat boosts.

[mikwana]

None of the armor is bad, depending on your play style. Imagine a Heavy armored mage who uses enchanted weapons (with their instant effect and 100% cast), combined with lower level, but effective, spells that cost no SAP and are fairly fast. A spell with no SAP doesn't care about SAP penalties.

The weapons could be used to damage, stun, root, whatever. No, instead of a melee weapon, make that weapon a pistol or rifle. Now during the (possibly) long wait for the enchantment to be used, you can blast away safely from behind the lines, or cast some heals, and so on. Of course, remember, since you'll be behind the lines, then you shouldn't be taking damage, use those cannibilizing HP stanzas to offset spell cost, instead of time restrictions. You can even switch out weapons for the different enchantments if you have to. And you can always re-charge the weapons SAP during down-time. Your weapons don't even have to be outstanding things, just have a lot of SAP storage. I'd term this kind of a magician an artificer.

It really just depends on your style of play and how you want your stanzas and such to be utilized.

Of course.... then the thought kicks in "If you are casting then you shouldn't be getting attacked anyway with good tanks, thus eliminating your need for armor at all", but darn it, the armor just looks so neat, who can resist?