Editing Mizuoni's Wizard Guide (section)

== Armor ==
Now that you have chosen your build, it is time to learn about your armor choices. This is the part where many starting wizards mess up a perfectly good character. There are 3 types of armors, all with there strengths and weaknesses.
Arcane
This is the most used armor type for wizards. With arcane armor your phys defense will be laughed at (until you shard, refine) but your magic defense won't and cleric's wield thunder will only tickle you. All wizard builds can use arcane armor. You generally shard with citrine/garnet (HP/pdef) combination as arcane wizard. I recommend doing what I do. Shard your armor with garnets and your hat and cape with citrines. If your armor has more than 2 sockets try doing 50/50 citrines and garnets. At my level I shard with g5(average) shards and the seven seals quest (when I get unlazy and tank mantavip) I plan on sharding with 2 g6(beautiful) garnets and a g6 citrine. Wearing protection belts and necklaces can help with pdef problems. *ANY MAJOR SHARDING BEFORE LEVEL 50 IS NOT WORTH IT!!!!!!!!!!!*
Light Armor
This is another common wizard armor type. With Light armor your magic defense will be laughed at (nothing to really help that) but your phys defense will make barbs, and BM's cry. Only the Light Armor build (duh) can use light armor. *YOU SHARD WITH ALL CITRINES GENERALLY* LA gives you enough pdef to survive. You can get up to 1k pdef (unbuffed) with crappy LA armor. Wearing arcane necklaces and belts can help with your mdef problem.
Heavy Armor
This armor isn't as common as the other two. With heavy armor your magic defense will make you prey to all other magical classes (sharding helps with this) but your pdef, especially fully buffed, will have archers, barbs, and BM's doing no damage to you basically! Sharding with sapphires (mdef) and using arcane necklaces and belts will help with your mdef problem.
A note to add, most heavy armor wearing classes don't shard with sapphires but citrines. I, personally believe that with the mdef you have as a heavy armor user, you shouldn't be worried about HP (that's why BM's are easy targets for wizards ^^ ) So if you prefer citrines over sapphires, be my guest ^^