I was chatting with a friend yesterday who runs a NecroMage with this template: 6x 120 mage med eval necro ss resists, and I've never seem him out of wraith form.
Currently he runs leather armor.
My suggestion is that he should run studded, and drop med.
Do the numbers really check out, though?
Lets assume that all other things are equal. IE, same MR, which we will say is 30 for the sake of arguement. We'll also assume that you're in protection, and you've got 6 FCR.
With 120 med, and 150 int and 30MR, you get 2.95 mana per second.
A flamestrike with 40LMC costs 24 mana, and you can cast it every 2 seconds, but you regen 6(rounded up slightly) while you're casting, so you effectively need 18 mana per spell.
So, in order for the leech from SS to keep up, you need to be doing about 72 damage.
Lets assume, now, that you're in studded.
A flamestrike with 55 LMC costs 18 mana. You still cast it every 2s, but now you regen 3 (rounded down a bit) mana, so you need 15 mana per spell.
Now in order to keep up with the leeching, you only need to be doing 60 damage.
According to the UOSS spell damage calculator the range for a character with all 120s and 150INT, and 0 SDI (no slayer book). Is 81 - 88 damage for a flamestrike. Since there's really no excuse not to have 30 SDI (15 each on ring and brac) this range is really 103 - 112. Meaning as long as your target has ~45 (really 60, since you can cast corpse skin) or less fire resist, you can fully keep up with the mana costs, and chain FS indefinitely, even against something with no slayer vulnerability.
But, you now have a freed up 120 skill points.
You could add something like Spell Weaving - it looks like Arcane Empower would give you 40% SDI at 120/L6 focus. (Looks like you now do 150 - 163 while in the spell.)
You could do something really crazy and try to fit enough music/disco on by also dropping SS down a little bit.
Currently he runs leather armor.
My suggestion is that he should run studded, and drop med.
Do the numbers really check out, though?
Lets assume that all other things are equal. IE, same MR, which we will say is 30 for the sake of arguement. We'll also assume that you're in protection, and you've got 6 FCR.
With 120 med, and 150 int and 30MR, you get 2.95 mana per second.
A flamestrike with 40LMC costs 24 mana, and you can cast it every 2 seconds, but you regen 6(rounded up slightly) while you're casting, so you effectively need 18 mana per spell.
So, in order for the leech from SS to keep up, you need to be doing about 72 damage.
Lets assume, now, that you're in studded.
A flamestrike with 55 LMC costs 18 mana. You still cast it every 2s, but now you regen 3 (rounded down a bit) mana, so you need 15 mana per spell.
Now in order to keep up with the leeching, you only need to be doing 60 damage.
According to the UOSS spell damage calculator the range for a character with all 120s and 150INT, and 0 SDI (no slayer book). Is 81 - 88 damage for a flamestrike. Since there's really no excuse not to have 30 SDI (15 each on ring and brac) this range is really 103 - 112. Meaning as long as your target has ~45 (really 60, since you can cast corpse skin) or less fire resist, you can fully keep up with the mana costs, and chain FS indefinitely, even against something with no slayer vulnerability.
But, you now have a freed up 120 skill points.
You could add something like Spell Weaving - it looks like Arcane Empower would give you 40% SDI at 120/L6 focus. (Looks like you now do 150 - 163 while in the spell.)
You could do something really crazy and try to fit enough music/disco on by also dropping SS down a little bit.