To Focus or not to Focus?

[Gladius]

Ok here it goes..I got this template for a scribe Mage.

120 Magery
115 Eval
120 Med
100 Resists
100 Inscription
110 Focus

I read in the other forums that for a Scribe Mage melee skills i.e Wrestling ( Which I have started to train on),Fencing,Sword,Mace are better options than Focus?

What is the truth behind this? I have so far found the combo of Med/Focus
quite useful in my casting spells and stamina presence since as a mage my Dexterity is rather low.

I also feel that the melee skills would best be effective with Anatomy to booth which cannot be incorporated in my template. What reasonable service then would melee skills be for if such is the case?

Shall I go against the grain and keep my Focus or go with the tide and drop it all together? Btw my preference is to be a pure Mage as I can be hybrid stuff or being a jack of all trades and master of nothing doesn't charm me.

-G-

 

[Farsight]

Any skill is a better choice than focus. If you're an elf, you may want 20 focus to keep your stamina up, but apart from that, the gains of having focus are insignificant, and easily replaced by having 2-4 stamina increase on your items, especially on a mage.

Now if you chose wrestling or anatomy for that last skill, you could use spell books instead of mage weapons, which also opens up your shield slot for a rather inappropriate, but very useful shield.

If you chose spellweaving as a last skill, then you have an array of useful support skills, and spellweaving + inscription + SDI on a suit can be VERY powerful indeed if you have a high level arcane focus.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

The only really good use for Focus was on my scribe. Since MR items were not available for him the combo of Med and Focus was used. The speed of refresh after a mana dump was amazing when active Med was used. Focus refresh of itself actually sometimes regen'd mana enough to squeeze one extra scroll here and there before Med was needed.

My Paladin has it for the refresh until I can get decent MR, then it'll go.

 

[RichDC]

I would suggest whatever you choose to take resist spells to 120, especially if PvP.

Or drop completely

 

[Gladius]

OK right now I got this template,

120 Magery
120 Resists
120 Eval
120 Med
120 Spellweaving
100 Inscripition

Question? What type of animal have I evolved into and would best be suited for? pVm or pVp or both?

-G-

 

[Farsight]

OK right now I got this template,

120 Magery
120 Resists
120 Eval
120 Med
120 Spellweaving
100 Inscripition

Question? What type of animal have I evolved into and would best be suited for? pVm or pVp or both?

-G-

Answer, you can do both, but it's primarily a PvM template, mostly because there are more effective PvP templates, but that doesn't mean PvP is impossible with a weaver-mage.

 

[Kimball]

I had a very similar template that I used for PVM and had a lot of fun with. With spellweaving you need to be sure to have decent lmc and fc/fcr since these are mana hogs and seem to cast slow, but don't underestimate the power if Nature's Fury. I have taken out greater dragon's just by casting NF's over and over (yes...it does take forever, but it is possible) and that doesn't require a high level arcane focus. A high arcane focus makes it even more fun.