Guide: The Mage Kills The Maul!

[Instanthumor]

Hello squishy mages of AL! Ever since PvP came out, there was always the problem that mages could never kill a skilled warrior in a 1v1. Well I've come here with a solution.

First off, you need THE build, and THE build consists of the following:

4/5 Shield - without the knockback
4/5 Fireball - without the increased range upgrade
3/5 Lightning - with the increased damage upgrade and the additional damage on crit upgrade
3/5 Frost - with Jagged Ice and Shiver upgrades (I believe they are the DoT and increased freeze/stun upgrades)
2/5 Lifegiver - with the mana upgrade (the mana upgrade is optional)

5/5 INT
5/5 STR
5/5 DEX
5/5 Crit
4/5 Damage

If you hadn't noticed, the use of five skills is essential. Note that I am not promoting any form of hotkeys or whatever, but the use of five skills is a tactic. If you want to argue with the fact that the use of five skills is a tactic or not, please flame the other 'five skill' threads and not this one. I would appreciate that very much.

Gear (edited):

Mythic/arcane gear is HIGHLY recommended, but I am not saying that it is impossible to kill a warrior without full mythics and arcanes. For in fact, it is possible. The current equips I use are the Expedition Rifle of Brutality (notice it is of 'Brutality' and not of 'Assault'; remember, 100+ hp > 3.0 damage), upgraded mythic helm and armor, Archon Ring of Brutality (INT/STR), and Tarlok Heart of Brutality (surprisingly enough, the Archon ring and the Tarlok amulet is still pretty top notch for this season. Of course, you can get yourself an Archon ring Lv. 40-41 now, and the only amulet comparable to the Tarlok amulet is the Lunar pendant, however, Tarlok amulet gives more HP and a slight armor bonus sufficing little damage and some crit, which is pretty useful. Remember, tank the tank). And even with these lame equips, killing a warrior 1v1 is more than possible. Note that every item I used have some form of the STR stat in it. The STR stat is really, really important for us mages. Not only is it the main source of HP, but it helps our shield last longer. Even against warriors, our shields do not last the full 15 seconds, since warriors can dish out so much damage nowadays. For more information about the Arcane Shield, feel free to visit this thread. http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...s-as-of-5-7-13

Pet:

Any pet that gives a decent amount of INT, damage, STR, or crit is great. The best pet against a warrior would be, without a doubt, Samael. This is more of a personal preference, but I absolutely love to use Colton. Even though it slightly lacks HP, it works wonders, with the arcane ability to give 15% crit for 6 seconds and it has a great passive attack that has a very high chance to stun (this has saved my life numeral times). Unfortunately, I'd like to emphasize that Slag or Grimm are not very good pets to use against a warrior in 1v1. Even though Slag gives more movement speed, and even though it stuns well, it gives absolutely no crit at all. When 1v1ing a warrior, crit is your BFFF, and I mean it. If I were given the option to use HJ, Glacian, Colton, or even the Whim Bros, I would take Colton without hesitation. And good news, Colton has become less than 100k, so it is relatively affordable!

EDIT: Shadowlurk is superior to Colton in my opinion. You can easily finish off any warrior that underestimates your damage output in less than 2 seconds! The 20% crit and 20% damage buff from Shadowlurk is heaven. However unlike Colton, Shadowlurk has no stun on its passive ability, so you can't rely on Colton's lucky stun.

The Fight:

This is the most important part of this guide. How to fight the warrior. On your skill HUD, start of with the following skills: Shield, Lightning, Ice, and Fireball. At the 'Go', tap the arcane ability of Colton (let's say you are using Colton), charge Lightning, tap Ice, charge Fireball. It is important to always charge Fireball because charged Fireball decreases the hit chance of the warrior by a whooping 25%. It makes a big difference in the long run. After you charged Lightning, tapped Ice, and charged Fireball, do it again. Note to yourself, the only time you should charge Lightning is when Colton's arcane ability is active, which will inflict devastating damage upon opponent at the critical hit. Now by this time, the warrior would heal, and cast their two seconds of invulnerability. Always keep your distance from the target. This will help so that the warrior won't have much effect for DPS attacks, and hopefully, the maul will not proc AT you. You can also evade certain skills such as Chest Splitter or Windmill. So by the time the warrior cast his heal, you should be around 20-50% HP. When you are at 20-35% HP, this is when you charge your beloved shield. Next, QUICKLY switch skills (switch the shield with Lifegiver). Note that one false misclick might result in your defeat. As soon as you switch to Lifegiver and exited the skill menu, charge heal, cast it, and pray a thousand times that the warrior will not stun you in this period. With Colton, I have just about 3-3.2k HP, and charged Lifegiver heals about 70-80% of my health which is a game changer! At this time, tap Lightning, tap Ice, and charge Fireball. Note that you should always hit Lightning first, then Ice. This is because Lightning is your primary attack/damage skill, and Ice deals the second most damage. At this point of time, Colton's arcane ability will probably finish cooling down, so activate it, charge Lightning, tap Ice, charge Fireball, and repeat these three steps. By the time you are done, the warrior's Juggernaut had probably ended. Now the reason why you do not activate shield in the beginning of the battle is because it will be a waste. You will be able to absorb more damage using shield later, than using it in the beginning. I hope you understood that, for it is very important. Also, don't forget to charge your DPS attack every so often inbetween skill cooldowns. This will bring a slight change up to the game, for most mythic weapons have a slight stun on a charged attack, and I find that I proc way more often on a charged attack, than I do on a regular attack. After a bit more skill spamming, charge your heal again when your HP reaches 20-35% and QUICKLY switch skills again (switch Lifegiver with shield). Activate the shield, and use the two seconds of invulnerability to your advantage, and switch the skills again (switch shield and Lifegiver). Note that the ONLY time you can actually kill the warrior is the time period between them charging their Horn of Renew and the time before their two seconds of invulnerability shield appears. Basically, the strategy here is to tank out the tank while dishing insane damage at the same time. Pray for crits, it helps.

Interesting comments by others:

In TDM, when I am facing a warrior I use a pet with speed like slag. If you have a speed advantage you can negate some attacks by running away and firing fireball & lightning. Unfortunately, it seems like they can stun me more often then I can stun them. And things like axe throw and skyward smash have some ridiculous range. Also even if I'm not close I can be taking damage. This is why you see some warriors just spamming their attacks because they know they can hit you without even being near them. I think you need shield and heal to prolong the fight as long as possible. So you can deplete their mana. If you're doing 1v1 in CTF, then probably using time shift with DOT damage will help. Energezic had a post about this.

A good mage can beat a bad warrior easily. If you meet a fully geared warrior who knows what they are doing (full mythic with glaive or maul), you are more likely than not to die. Our stuns don't work well against warriors and their range for being a melee class is ridiculous. Unlike a rogue, we don't have the power output to kill warriors fast enough before they can shield and heal, at which point just forgetaboutit. If you like a challenge, then go for it. If not, don't even engage top warriors in 1v1. It has always been this way, rogues are easy for us to kill, and a good warrior has always been much more difficult to kill.

It all depends on the warrior you're fighting. Some warriors are (in my opinion) almost impossible to kill with a mage, or at least I haven't fully discovered it yet. I'm probably going to make a warrior soon and test it out against mages and look for a weak spot somewhere. But full powered good warriors are motherF$·%·"!"·$.

I have beat certain mauls in 1v1. For Tanks I prefer using FB + Ice in 1v1 since the Double DOT can disrupt their heals. The ice slows them down giving you wiggle room, 5/5 FB decreases their hit chance by 25% and stuns.

Mage NEEDS stun pet. It's almost a must against a warrior. Slag is good, however, Slag gives no crit, and of course Samael is brilliant. Colton got some passive stuns. I'm doing a few test runs with Ethyl and am having some interesting results.

When 1v1ing against warrior (even one that is average) HEAL is a must. If you can time your stuns and know when to use your shield, count out the 2 secs of invul, time your heals. You can survive pretty long against a warrior (certain ones at least)

In the field it's a different approach entirely. FB + ICE combo works pretty well still but you can use FB light, or FB curse or what have you and still drop a tank.

Curse against tank is not so effective. But if you can drop the tanks HP enough for him to preemptively drop his heal, wait for heal to finish, and then release the curse. Spam damage and stack your crits like crazy. Yet, curse is most effective against mages and rogues. Personally curse eats the crap out of me because of my DoT.

In conclusion;

Mages CAN kill tanks. I'd say about 85% of the tanks out there are "beatable". You just need to learn your combos, know how to pull the warrior, how to use your environment and your pet.

As you can see, tanks are possible to kill in 1v1's! You just need great timing and much luck (crit helps).

EDIT: Most average mauls are beatable! If you score enough crits, have a general idea of what you are doing, and if they don't proc 5 times in a row, it's easier than killing a rogue! On the other hand, against glaives, I didn't have as good results, but honestly, I didn't get enough testing time vsing glaives and will get back to y'all shortly.

I just wanted to encourage the little blue guys out there to think outside the box a little in terms of their build. It is sometimes the most unexpected builds that are the most successful. This is part of the reason why crazy mages such as psychopathic have been so respected in pvp because they think outside the box and kill their opponents with unexpected techniques. Have fun and keep experimenting!

Now I want all you mages out there to have fun and kick some warrior butt! (Not mine, of course)

I also want to shout some thank-you's to a few individuals. They might not know what they've done for me, but I have listened to each one of them at some point in time, and they all gave interesting points! So special thanks to Jon (Curse/Scar), Arrypotta, Lia (because she's so pro), Grimmy, Alhunt, and Woofcookie (he quit and I didn't even get to say my farewells).

Thank you for taking the time to read the thread, and I would appreciate it if you all won't rant about the use of five skills, etc.