Health pool or re-gen?Follow

I feel a bit stupid asking this, as at level 51 I expect to be sorted out.
Somebody asked me lastnight why I have increased spirit second to Intellect. I replied "to restore my health more quickly".
They then suggested that if I had gone for stamina, then my health pool would be bigger and wouldn't drain as quickly.

Which is best then?

In Solo Grinds do whatever you feel comfortable with. Although SPI is a relatively crappy stat for a Mage (since you can just eat up after a battle) it can be used to help you grind faster if you're grinding right. Another bonus to SPI is you seem to find it easier and in greater quantities than STA so it's easy to boost up there.

For PVP, Raiding, and arguably 5-Mans, though, I think it's safe to say that STA is a much more solid stat. Increasing your health gives you a wider range of killing possibilities and bigger area for error and midjudgements. In PVP it gives you long time to dish out the Damage a Mage is so well for, and can give you extra time to fix mistakes especially against High DPS/Low HP foes. In the other situations it assures that you wont drop immediately at the sight of AE attacks or agro-drops that result in you taking some damage, since you may often be riding a close second behind the tank in Threat. It's also good defense against strays and newly-summoned creatures for these sorts of events, giving the Tank more time to engage and draw agro while leaving You, a primary source of DPS, alive.

Also in rare occasions I've taken a duty upon myself to kite around multiples when a terrible pull is made. While kiting is a strength of a Mage (especially with a Hunter around) ANY misjudgement with 4-6 Elites on you is going to result in ALOT of damage intake -- More stamina can sometimes give you just enough HP to survive and get a Blink off, a VERY important thing because once you die while kiting theres a good chance all those monsters are going straight for the healer.

While leveling my frost mage (also talking about below 60), I stacked Int and Spirit. Downtime was only every so often.

While leveling my fire mage, I stacked Int and Spirit at first, but talking to this kickass mage on the zeppelin one time, he pointed out that Int and Stamina were better for a fire mage because with fire's mana cost, my downtime was omnipresent and I'd be better off just having that safety net.

For the frost mage, though, even at ST I was rolling Need on the high Spirit gear that drops from that place. I was a male undead with spiky hair, in full pink clothing.

Hmmm, interesting point ... I've always popped on Ice Armor (Fire spec) when levelling. I never considered Mage Armor at all for levelling purposes, but as you say, if you stack Spi, then Mage Armor would mean that your Mana Regen would be pretty hectic.. This means less downtime between fights.

As a side-note, while a frosty (such as yourself, Pol) will prevent mobs getting to him due to chill effects, I can generally 2 (If Pyro crits) or 3(Pyro doesn't crit) shot most mobs my level and 1 (sometimes 2) levels above me, which means that Ice Armor is pretty much never used as they also never get to me. Even better if the mob has a tendancy to run, cos then they do this just before they get to me ... then die shortly after from the DoTs ;-D.

Dunno Reknotz, Thinking logically about it, sta should be what you should be going for so that you're not 1-shotted if a mob gets to you (well, not really, but you get my drift). However, stacking Spi definitely has it's advantages (from a Mana Regen perspective more than a Health regen one)

polymorph then wind up the pyroblast. if immune I frostnova/dragon's breath then pyro or fireball.