While I tend to agree with those pointing to monk for "most" benefit, in my experience gear progression is fun on any character you have a strong preference for.

I feel as if this is true in most cases. However I can't see the point of gearing a few classes past a certain point. Good example would be wizard. Once you have basic resist and HP gear (EC tunnel stuff), Epic, VP robe and staff, Pegi Cloak, Jboots and banespells then there's no point in getting anything else really. Maybe UB bracers from fear? But really, I'm reaching here. Manastone if you're feeling fancy but its incredibly niche and not a raid drop.

Mage shouldn't need anything either past basic resist gear, jboots, epic, lvl 55, coth and velk boots. I guess maybe if someone went all the way and got full BIS and a Willsapper to tank for their pet, maybe they could pull off some crazier things. Yet to be seen?

Can you give a nodrop willsapper to a pet?

As a bot or a personal character? Quad DA is a world of difference for your purpose in life. Air and Water focus staves are easy and nice upgrades. No way a mage is tanking for its pet since it has no HP recovery system. Can’t even slow with a sapper without taking tons of damage due to npc’s prioritizing players over pets. Maybe you could run in/out each combat round and try to joust a proc. In most cases with a sapper a mage would just be helping slow preslow stuff like a worse ranger.


No drop items to a pet get poofed without the pet benefiting.

Sky neck, DA ear, zheart, manna robe, evac/nektulos staves are pretty nice too. I have access to a wizard with all those toys plus semi-budget raid drops focused on mana/resist and I like it over a base wizard.

Seems like a decent amount of gear progression to me.

Definitely a raid focused class though, whether that hits you well or not.
DA ring+earring are definitely core to the class, but past that gearing them might speak to me the least. A personal preference maybe; I acknowledge an extra coth of mana is typically a bigger raid impact than an extra porlos.

The staves are nice, but cheap and EC items. Sky neck I forgot about, it's maybe the best item aside from Epic. Zheart, eh, it's very rare that I feel it ever matters. Manna robe, sure, EC item like Manstone though. DA Ear? I mean it's cool but should be pretty rare that it matters, maybe some tryhard raiding wizard who doesn't wanna warmbody and defeat the purpose of playing wizard.

True, DA items are essential for mage if we get to the tryharding with raid pulls.

And yes, I mean, it depends on how much you play. For some getting a Fungi can be THE goal of the game and that's it and until that point I think every class benefits immensely from gear. However, if we're talking getting ToV and ST-loot then things are different. I guess I have more of a velious raiding point of view.

With sufficient AC (like full BIS) you should be able to tank a bit, and yeah especially if you try to joust a bit. Sadly mages can't slow themselves.

That's already a pretty long list for anyone who isn't hardcore dedicated, ESPECIALLY considering they can't farm for shit and they get picked last if at all for groups. And the main criticism about wizards is they don't have the sustained DPS most other class have due to DPS being mana based so the +mana gear and the health->mana xfer stuff gives more of exactly that.

I'm not saying they benefit the most but if you compare a BIS wizard vs one wearing mid tier stuff, there's a solid difference in lasting power, especially in smaller scale situations like grouping and the belief they don't need gear is a negative feedback loop.

I'd also like to add that chanters often pass as a class that don't need much gear but that's far from the truth. Not only you need a ton of CHA to get stable charms/lull but most of the cha gear is pretty lackluster in terms of other stats until you start raiding and getting higher end pieces. Until you have access to raiding gear it feels like all that CHA is stunting you. Not only we need CHA for charm/lulls/mez but we also need a lot of mana since our spells are mana hogs and extra HP since we get beat on a lot and have no other mitigation options gear wise. It is when you reach 210ish CHA and start to be ready to swap bland CHA pieces for actually decent gear that you realize your options are limited if you're not raiding. And even then, having one of the most expensive spellbooks kinda further delays even EC options.

For leveling I think you can get by easily and cheaply but when you start dabling in solo artistry stuff, the better your gear is the more options open up. Caster gear impacts are a lot more abstract than "numbers go up" but it is real.