Mages Defense Question

[Tanus79]

<p>Hello all. I've recently started an Illusionist and was wondering if it's common practice to keep your defense and melee skills leveled up. I know every little bit helps but I don't want to be worrying about rising my defense if it's really not going to make a big difference in higher levels. I ask this because in EQ1 (the dreaded EQ1 commparrison, sorry) I would spend hours just raising my Clerics defense and 1 hand crushing level and I hated it. </p><p> Basically just curious if anybody does worry about their defense and melee skills and if so do you seem to see it make a difference compared to other players/alts that do not have their defense up to par? I'm assuming in later levles your weapon is pretty much never used.  I'm willing to sacrifice time, effort, and deaths (I'm a very causal gamer, that's why I say sacrifice) if it will really make a difference.</p><p> Thanks</p>

[Zelkova]

If you do a lot of soloing or small grouping, it's probably worth getting defense up. You really never need your melee skills so don't bother with those if you don't want to. It's actually pretty easy to raise defense in this game, and shouldn't take you anywhere close to "hours" to do it. Just find a lot of gray mobs, pull them and watch the numbers go up.

[BrotherRathgar]

I would certainly raise your Melee Skills. if only for the ability to cast Prismatic Chaos (M1) on yourself, Forsake Will (M1), and smack the mob for 1200-1500 dmg easily before it wakes up.

[Zelkova]

<cite>BrotherRathgar wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would certainly raise your Melee Skills. if only for the ability to cast Prismatic Chaos (M1) on yourself, Forsake Will (M1), and smack the mob for 1200-1500 dmg easily before it wakes up.</blockquote> Good call, I didn't think of that. Probably because I just cast it on my pet and that works pretty well for me. I use the "pet-root" style of soloing. If I'm in a group, I just cast it on someone else.

[Kahna]

Meh, I wouldn't worry about melee skills. My melee skills are pathetic, and by pathetic I mean along the lines of 12 or 15 out of 350. I don't solo much, but when I do I never have a problem getting all three Prismatic procs to go off in the time allowed. So it doesn't seem to be a really big deal.