What defense? In my experience, mage teams have 5 stages of gear:

1) Impossible, I quit.
2) Oops, I sneezed during a trash pull. 43rd wipe tonight. /grumble
3) I hate spending this much money repairing purples.
4) I'm glad the wife is asleep...this is embarrassing.
5) Wow...with this much gear things just melt. Easysauce!