Protection or Mage Weapon

[Gb8719]

I'm new to casters so I apologize if this is a dumb question.

I'm working on making a suit for a spellweaving, necro, mage that I plan on doing Champ spawns and helping with peerless. I would like to use Slayer spellbooks for obvious reasons but I'm worried about interrupt from multiple attackers. Would you recommend running with a mage weapon or building a suit with extra physical resist and keeping protection up at all times?

 

[azmodanb]

casting focus works to prevent spell interruption.. you can work your suit with some of that .. like protection w/o neg to casting speed.. and use books...

or your other option is a mage weap ..

 

[Gb8719]

Does casting focus at around 5 or 6 percent make a noticeable difference? I've never used it before.

 

[Logrus]

Casting focus makes casting slightly more forgiving. So its not like protection where you just ignore the hits. You still need to time your spells well, and if you are hit, you may get lucky.
Casting focus caps out at 12 for items, + 5 from GM inscription ,+ 5 (I think) from a 4x 120 bard with preservance running.

Giving a max of 22. (There was talk of increasing/doubling the effect from inscription but I'm not sure if that got implemented, but if it did then that would be 10 from inscription making the total possible of 27.)

 

[DJAd]

Would you recommend running with a mage weapon or building a suit with extra physical resist and keeping protection up at all times?

I always try and build in extra physical resist to counter protection spell. For the first levels of spawn you might be ok without it. For later levels things can get a bit hairy sometimes so I usually run protection to stop the fizzles. It does slow down casting speed but for PvM its not a big deal. You deff don't want to be using it for PvP though as your be very slow at casting.

 

[Obsidian]

For PvM mages, I always run protection. Don't forget 120 Eval Int plus 100 anatomy gives you the equivalent of 120 defense wrestle skill. Then you can carry your spell book and cast away. Add protection to that and little will stop you from casting.