Is Mage protection in pvm balanced in todays world?

[Desolation87]

Like your parents used to tell you, protection is good. Espically in an age, where spell stacking and summon dispel (if you can even summon!!) is all the range. But are the penalties for it a little harsh? -15% to physical resists, -35% to resisting spells and no faster casting what-so-ever!

Now pretty much all other classes can attack and heal at the same time. Your dexxers have got bandage heal, while shooting arrows or hitting with a stick and tamers can vet while pets go hell for leather.

However a mage can only do one or t'other. So I wondered what others thought about this? I've not really used protection a whole lot but seems almost impossible to fight the new event guys without it.


***** PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOT TO DO WITH PVP*****

 

[Ash]

Well, healing with bandages has penalties for being interrupted that can not be circumvented, true will still heal just less hit points. Potions have timers, bushido confidence can be interrupted as well, ninja dog form and necro horrific beast have huge HPR but can't cast spells or do special moves..

As far as protection, the penalties are slightly lessened with GM inscription (I think it is -30 resist instead of -35). But the good thing is protection is only a lvl 2 spell, which means with FC 2 it casts as fast as lvl 1 so pretty much can't be interrupted (at least I think) so can be toggled on/off as needed. My mage chars mainly use it when need to make sure i can get an invis off, so if i am not running with it on full time, i can toggle it on quickly and get the invis off.

My pally doesn't have resist right now nor does he have 4/6 casting suit, so i actually have him running with protection on (the resist spells does not go negative and suit makes up for phys resist loss). So something to think about is it isn't just used for mages.

 

[Farsight]

If you go about it wisely, you can do very well without fast casting or extra resisting spells in a spawn. There are a few things you could do to make it easier as well.

1. Hide behind your summons: You know where the bad guys are, and you know approximately where the next one will show up. It doesn't take much effort to plant an earth elemental, energy vortex, arctic ogre lord or animated dead between you and whatever you plan on farming. This saves you from being targetted for at least a couple of seconds.

2. When targetted, cast invisibility: If you can hide, you can run away, pre cast your big booms, then run back and target. This is a very effective tactic against big slow moving things.

3. Any PvPer will tell you that most of the time it's more effective to cast smaller spells than larger spells. That advice doesn't only apply to PvP. As an experiment, give your mage 2 FC and at least 4 FCR and 70 physical resist. Stand toe to toe with an ogre lord or arctic ogre lord and spam fireballs for the AoL and harm for the OL while at the same time spamming small heals on yourself. You won't kill it as fast as the warrior with soul seeker (but that's pure tactics, this is just a demonstration), but unless you get really unlucky, you won't die either. One of my saving graces is when I'm attacked by multiple spell casting baddies, I can cast mini-heals and small cures to keep me alive long enough to escape. They hardly even slow me down.

That being said, I do use protection at times, because the penalties really aren't that bad if you plan for them. The resist penalty can be balanced by extra armor. The resist spells penalty can be balanced by not fighting in the front lines as much as possible. Besides, the curse spells don't really mean that much to a mage. Paralyze can ruin your day, but the rest aren't too bad. Which makes the only real penalty the FC penalty, and I'm all for that. It really balances pretty well, so long as you know which situations require FC and which requires protection.

 

[Coppelia]

My PvM mages always have Protection on.
The casting speed is not as important in PvM and even with Protection, it's enough for me.
It's irritating to be interrupted by lots of low critters. And it's always when you need a greater heal that you don't want to be interrupted!
And of course to cure poison it's priceless.