Defense skill on a wizard

[Velerin]

I'm a big proponent of leveling up defense as a caster. You will get hit and that defense will make a difference between a death and a run to zone more often then not. Just let yourself get hit now and again in controlled environments (ie. when mob is rooted). You gotta sit and meditate anyways so you might as well regen some health too. I find if I just do that on occasion as you're soloing it'll work wonders.

[NegaStoat]

Defense is free armor class. Free is good. On a Necro, you can cap Defense for your level pretty easily with taps / health siphon DOT. With a Mage, I was able to melee things in a limited fashion to keep Defense capped with level all the way to the low 30's, thanks to their Skin spells which regen health and bandages.

I think if I were to level either an Enchanter or a Wizard, I'd level a Mage to 8 or so first just to crank out 10+ stacks of bandages to ground twink to my main caster to go solo with. For some unholy reason, Summon Bandages gives you a whole stack per cast (not like pre Velious retail).

The goal isn't to constantly melee - The goal is to safely raise 5 points of defense per level as you solo so... The summoned stacks could make it possible.

Edit - while the summoning could be a pain, No Rent items being stored on level 1 corpses could be a time saver if you take a little effort with it. Above poster has the right of it.