Armor for mage (in General)

I was looking at armor and thinking of how to equip a mage with AC large enough to be effective. Not too sure whether this is the best but this is my modest attempt:

Armor:
MCM (28) +48
CoI (6) + 14
CML (18) +38
AG (0) +13
HoD (9) +20
Kite Shield (13) +30
AoAC (0) +19

Total AC: (74) +155
Physical reduction: 48%
Magic reduction: 32.6%
DD: +13% bonus after penalties.

Anyone has got a better combination that has less penalties but an achieveable AC.

Forgot to add this, I'm looking at nw of around 2 million for each piece of armor.

If you're thinking of using a Kite shield, you might as well go whole hog for a MS!

Kite: -4% Magic, Base AC 13 (+20 is 131K NW)

MS: -7% Magic, Base AC 20 (+20 is 115K NW)

It depends if your HP will be larger than your DD. With 14/15 more AC on the MS, it will give 3% more damage reduction than the kite, in exchange for the 3% increased DD reduction.

Why CML and not EB?

Higher AC? If we keep on changing the heavy penalty ones, we won't have much AC to play with anymore. Won't we? :p

:P It might be better using EB instead of CML and dropping the MCM for an Adam then. ;)

But the penalty for direct damage is huge... 17% :)

For a 2 Mil NW limit;

An Adamantite Cuirass [40] (+60) $2,046,744

That's a 21% physical reduction and 12.6% magical one.

Do you want AC more than DD?

isn't the penalty for CML also huge?

get EB, you can get 35 AC in under 2 mil. no penalties.

stay with MCM, MC and AC penalties are way to high.

20 less AC for 5% more DD. (EB over CML)
4.2% reduction or 5% more DD. (EB over CML)

it might cheaper to get the CoI to +15 while AG at 12, just a thought/guess :P

Why put a 2M NW limit? Isn't it better to look at equal upgrade increments?
For example, all my gear on my tank is upgraded to a level where the next upgrade would cost more than $250k. This does result in different NW for each item, but that's obvious, as an Adam is much cheaper to upgrade than a HoE.

Because I will not want to add any more cash into it once it hits 2 million nw. Normally it becomes pretty steep from 2 million onwards.

That level of steepness differs greatly for different pieces of armor. At 2M NW, the steepness level for Elven Cloak is "insane", but I'd call a 2M NW adam "base".

Do you want your mage to be a mage or a wall? Seriously, heavy mages don't really work too well. You lose way too much damage. And you could get a similar effect by training protection to around 250k - about level (28). Which would reduce nearly a third of all damage. Or slap on a ToE and cut AMF backlash as well.

Heavy AC on a mage is a nice idea, but I've tried it and so have a lot of others. The damage output is much too valuable to let it be cut by penalties...

Besides: Real Mages Fight Naked.

The problem with protection is it gets dispelled by DM easily. I'm looking for something with lesser penalties with a much more constant protection.

You'd be surprised how few people actually have a DM large enough to dispel mine.....

It is a good idea to build a team that has fewer elements that can be reduced. But by armouring your mage you are a)reducing your damage output and b)indirectly increasing the power of the AMF's of your opponents. Both aren't a good way to do things. I'd sooner keep my DD spell as large as I've invested in it and have a protection that might possibly, somewhere get dispelled.

Most of your ideas are good ones, but unfortunately you cannot afford to not concentrate on damage.....

What HP to DD ratio is this mage likely to have?

Check out my mage AC 172 with min mage penalties.

Using a MCM, AG, COI, Cabasset, Kite Shield, and EB's.
If you want more AC you can substitute a SC for the COI but I would not recommend that.

Granted my MCM is a monster but you can get 10 less AC with your MCM.

AMF used to kill mages most of the time, so Ac on mages was really silly, now maybe a specialized armored mage would be decent...Honestly, I'd still never put penalty armor on a mage, lots of ways to get AC, only a few to up DD.