Too much defense?

[cbalian]

Too much defense?

I was going to go with a melee heavy build (with my mage doing a lot of up close attack damage) and wanted to give them adequate defenses to be in the fray of battle, but looking for some advice.

I put in the following to protect my Mage:
7+ (Any) Reflex Boots
7+ (Any) Deflection Bracer
7+ (Any) Cobra Reflexes
8+ (Ranged) Force Orb
8+ (Melee) Force Sword
8+ (Melee) Dancing Scimitar
0+ (Any if counter) Forcefield

I’m thinking that might be too many deflections?  I wanted a back up copy or 2 in case something is dissolved or dispelled but I probably don’t need 7 considering you can only use ONE deflection per attack.  If you had to drop 1 or 2 of the above cards which would you drop?  Also I only have 2 Armor (from a cloak) so I’m leaning towards dropping either the boots or bracer and adding a +1 armor boot/glove.

[Shad0w]

Use more unavoidable attacks, or ways to give unavoidable attacks.

[cbalian]

Oh forgot about unavoidable!  That would definitely be bad if my 10+ dice melee attack gets deflected (or reverse attacked).  I did add "elusive" in there so I could get past guards.  Thanks!

[MrSaucy]

If you really like Defenses, Temple of the Dawnbreaker might be a nice addition.

http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/magewars/mage-wars-card-spoilers/_/core/temple-of-the-dawnbreaker-core

In my FM I run the following:

For armor: Stormdrake Hide; Dragonscale Hauberk; Rhino Hide
For health regen: Regrowth Belt, Regrowth, Vampirism
First tier protection: Forcefield
Last ditch protection: Force Orb, Force Sword

In my opinion and experience, armor and health regeneration are typically better than stacking defenses, especially in the long run. Defenses don't always protect you whereas armor and heath regeneration are always helpful. Additionally, here are a lot of unavoidable attack spells that can completely undermine all of your defenses. Plus, all the opponent needs to do is put Falcon Precision on an attacker and your defenses suddenly become useless. Long story short, I don't recommend relying too heavily on just defenses. Lastly, I rarely use Dancing Scimitar as a defenses because I like to play very aggressively and use its attack as much as possible.

[nitrodavid]

also keep in mind you can only use 1 defence per attack. so having 8 or so defences would only be worth it is you intend to get hit by 8 attacks

[Paleblue]

In the current game because attaining reliable piercing attacks is difficult, I would lean heavily towards armor. Whereas its very easy to produce unavoidable attacks / disable the opponent so they cannot dodge.

[nitrodavid]

with armour know that every point if armour will decrease your damage taken by .5 until you have the same armour as the attack dice your receiving. and on average you will reduce there attack by 1/2 damage (if you have more armour then 2x there attack die).
what this means is if you are against a swarm of 4 dice creatures don't get more then 4 armour, if against 6 don't get more then 6 etc.

if you want best value you guess/calculate the average dice of all the attacks you will take (ie try to deflect the strong ones) then get armour equal to that number.

 note: that 2 armour is equal to 1 aegis and aegis isn't reduced by piercing

[cbalian]

Thanks all for the advice.  I'm still very new to the game so really appreciate it.  I am still learning balance with my deck building skills.