Guide: The Mage Kills The Maul! Part II

[Instanthumor]

Hello fellow squishy mages! It has come upon me that my other guide ( http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...Kills-The-Maul! ) has been a bit outdated! This thread will be an updated version of that thread.

Build:

4/5 Shield - Without the knockback upgrade
4/5 Lightning - Without the Electrical Discharge (PvE) upgrade
3/5 Frost - With the Jagged Ice and Shiver upgrades (DoT and increased freeze/slow upgrades)
4/5 Fireball - Without the increased range upgrade
3/5 Lifegiver - With the mana upgrade and the HP regen upgrade

5/5 INT
5/5 STR
5/5 DEX
5/5 Crit
Adjust the build to your preference (this is just a guide), and put the remaining skill points in Durable.
Note: The above passives should be mandatory. If you, for whatever reason, do not have enough skill points for your passives, you are doing something wrong.

Make sure you have 140 STR points. 140 STR is an ideal number. Make sure you have 140 STR and put the rest of your stat points in INT (note I am stressing 140 STR). You should have 140 STR and 90 DEX (with an Expedition Rifle of Brutality) or 140 STR and 120 DEX (with a Ker'shal Scepter). I have yet to compare with a mythic staff, but I honestly think that mages have more capability vsing warriors with guns (can't wait to try the new mythic gun)!
If you like the knockback upgrade on the Arcane Shield, by all means, use it at your will. To me, it doesn't have a noticeable impact on my gameplay (warriors have enough range anyways) so I do not use the upgrade.
I've recently grown to like the stun upgrade on Lightning. That upgrade is a game changer. It saves your life at times, and it makes you win at other times. Also, when the Fireball stun misses (happens frequently), I know that I can rely on something else. I realize that it only has a meager 25% chance to stun, but it is indeed worth it.
I, personally, use the Increased Range upgrade on Fireball because I do other things besides 1v1 all day long, but if you are devoted to 1v1's, you do not need increased range.
The mana upgrade on Lifegiver is optional. It is not a necessity. However, I do find the HP regen upgrade pretty dang useful. It's been underrated all this time, but it feels as if you have 2 Samaels accompanying you (assuming you're using a Samael to begin with), and the heal is noticeable.


Gear:

The ideal gear would be full mythic, Ker'shal Scepter, and a Samael. That would be most ideal (excluding arcane ring). However, for majority of you that cannot afford a Ker'shal Scepter, the mythic Orbital Staff (or Halloween Scythe) or an Expedition Rifle of Brutality would be satisfactory along with upgraded mythic helm and armor, mythic ring, and Lunar pendant. Remember, 100+ HP > 3 dmg, Expedition Rifle of Brutality > Expedition Rifle of Assault. In my other thread, I said the Tarlok amulet of brutality would work well, however, a mere 100 HP isn’t going to make a big difference compared to the crit bonus from Lunar.


Pets:

The ideal pet for vsing a warrior would be Samael. The crit bonus, panic arcane ability, and panic passive attack is all you need in a pet. The ONLY other pet that I would highly recommend using is Shadowlurk. You do not realize how OP this pet is. With an Expedition Rifle, I can one-combo arcane ring-rogues no problem (ain't that right, Parf). The only downside to this pet is that it does not stun. However, you have stun from Fireball, Lightning, and charged DPS attack (from rifle), so that should not be a problem. Shadowlurk gives +20% damage and +20% crit for 5 seconds on its arcane ability. That's enough for 2 charged Lightnings. Now, you might be thinking, oh whoop-de-doo, however, 2 Lightning crits with 20% damage bonus would be mildly OP and drain quite some HP off a warrior. For 1v1's I would rank Shadowlurk as the #2 best pet (behind Samael). Yes, that's right. Shadowlurk would work better than Singe and any other pets in a 1v1 (in my opinion) against any other class. Singe, Brothers Whims, Slag, etc. are all decent pets, however they all lack one thing. Crit. Crit is essential in any 1v1 fight. No crits = death unless you get an insanely lucky stun. You need crit, which is why I think highly of Shadowlurk.
Note: As you can see above, I do not use any Damage passives. This is because most pets I use already give damage boost from either their happiness bonus or their arcane ability i.e. Samael's 10% damage on happiness bonus and Shadowlurk's 10% damage on happiness bonus + 20% damage on arcane ability (which do not stack). I do not know all the exact details about the passive system, etc., but I do know that when equipped with a pet like Samael or Shadowlurk, their damage bonus overrides the passive damage bonus which makes the passive damage bonus useless (waste of skill points).


The Fight:

For your skills, start with Shield, Lightning, Ice, and Fireball (order preferred by user). At the “Go”, tap Shadowlurk’s arcane ability. It is a playing preference, but I always charge Fireball first, followed by charged Lightning, and tapped Ice (unless you’re pretty sure you got the winning combo, then tapping skills would be permissible). Repeat this combo again until your HP reaches about 20-35% (40% to be extra safe). Charge Shield and quickly switch skills. Go to your skill map page and swap Shield with Lifegiver. Then charge Lifegiver and repeat the combo. IF the warrior lays a lucky stun before right before you shield yourself, let’s just say it’s GG for you. Simply die, respawn, and try again. Always charge Lifegiver, you need that additional HP. Always try to keep your distance from the warrior. The warrior’s DPS attacks are all short ranged, so by keeping your distance, you take less damage from the warrior. Not only that, but you can evade certain procs and skills. You can evade the Magmatic Claymore’s proc which deals DoT to you (it hurts), Maul’s stun and armor debuff (the warrior will get the +60 STR increase anyways, but evading the everlasting stun and armor debuff will help you), and Chest Splitter (which some warriors use). If you are using Samael, be sure to stay inside of its healing aura at the same time as keeping your distance. Keep repeating the combo until Lifegiver’s cooldown is finished. If everything goes according to plan and if you are using the right build, you shouldn’t have died yet. Charge Lifegiver and quickly switch skills. Swap Lifegiver to Shield, which, by this time should have finished its cooldown. Activate your shield. At this point of time, the warrior’s Juggernaut skill should have ended. THIS is the time you take advantage of the situation and pray for crits and stuns. This is a crucial moment. After you activate your shield, you probably won’t have enough time to wait for Lifegiver’s cooldown to finish so you can use it again, because this is the time where the warrior will kill you if you do not kill him/her first (especially if you are going with an Expedition Rifle). This is where the warrior must go down.
Note: Try not to fire any skills during the two seconds of invulnerability from HoR. By doing this, you are doing nothing except wasting cooldown time. Look carefully when the warrior activates their Jugg. During this time, do not use DoT attacks (Fireball or Ice) for they will only heal the warrior. Only charge Lightning during this time and you may have a chance to crit through their Jugg.
Note: Unless you have an arcane ring or any other good reason, do not activate shield at the very beginning of the duel. If you do activate your shield in the beginning, after your shield runs out, and Lifegiver is on cooldown, you’re food. You do not have enough survivability to tank another 15 seconds for your second Lifegiver.
Note: The strategy here is to out-tank the tank AND dish insane damage at the same time. You must pray you crit every single Lightning (if you don’t, that’s ok, but it helps a lot as Lightning is your #1 source of damage).
Note: Don’t forget to charge your Expedition Rifle from time to time. Charged gun will stun the target (when the target is not under stun immunity). With Ker’shal, all you can do is spam uncharged DPS. It does not matter whether it hits the warrior or not, but you want that proc. The extra stat bonus helps a lot (and so does the +10 mana regen).


How to kill a warrior in less than 5 seconds:

This is mostly effective in TDM or random warrior flaggers, when they are not prepared for you attack. Charge Fireball (stuns), charge Lightning, tap Ice. Shortly after, Fireball’s stun will wear off and this is when you activate Samael’s arcane ability. It stuns the warrior again, and you have time for another combo. Chances are, you crit most of your combo due to your high crit chance, and the warrior will die. It works almost every single time for me (when Samael works) against claymore users and maulers (I have yet to try a glaive).


I do realize that after the new client update, STS is going to do something about skill swapping. We do not know what they have in mind yet, however, it will impact the mage class most, and upset the class balance even more. Against a warrior, the ideal skill set-up would be Shield, Lightning, Fireball, and Lifegiver, if we have to limit it to four skills. Warriors won’t be able to use 5-6 skills either, so we may benefit one way from this. To be honest, the mage class is a screwed up class, I do not know what to say about us sometimes. In the end, mages CAN beat tanks. You just need to know your combos, timings, and your environment. It takes time to master skill switching and time to know what you are doing. Practice, practice, and practice. If you want to know how to switch skills UNDER 1 SECOND (on mobile or tablet), feel free to PM me, I'm not going to announce it to the world. And if you are friendly about it, I would be more than obliged to help you. Thank you for taking your time to read this thread, and I wish you luck against your next warrior

*Thread subject to update over time*