In anticipation of the Druid vs Necromancer, I've been thinking up how I might go about my first Necromancer. I am thinking of seeing how well a Swarm strategy will work with him using the iconic Zombies. Here is what I'm thinking right now:

(10) Round 1 (+10)
(20) Cast Libro Mortuos (-10)
(10) Cast Meditation Amulet (-4)

(6) Round 2 (+10)
(16) Deploy Zombie Crawler (-3)
(13) Use Meditate (+3)
(16) Cast Graveyard (-14)

(2) Round 3 (+10)
(12) Deploy Zombie Crawler (-3)
(9) Deploy Shaggoth-Zora (-7)
(2) Use Meditate (+3)
(5) Cast Death Ring (-5)

Thus, after the first 3 rounds I shall have the equivilent of 14 mana per round with my Death Ring, Mage's Channeling, and Spawnpoint's Channeling. I shall also have 3 creatures out on the field already to meet my opponent's forthcoming assault. Every round I shall use this mana to get out two creatures. One of which will always be a Zombie Crawler (at least through round 7) because they are super cheap and I plan on using them to grow my Shaggoth. The other will vary from either Zombie Minion if I want some extra mana, or Zombie Brute if I have the mana to spare. Even if I go with Zombie Minion though, I'll only have 3 mana per turn to work with, so my mage's action will most likely be to Meditate. If I'm lucky enough to get to meditate every round we're talking 17 mana each round to fuel 2 creature summons + a quick spell each round. Sounds pretty good on paper.

Tom Vasel just finished his top 100 games of all time for 2013 and Mage Wars has not only stayed consistent, it's moved up a couple spots. It is now rated the #2 game of all time!

I would like to introduce to everyone, my faithful and humble servant of the Dice Gods, my Priest. I don't know what it is that first brought me to the temple of these fickle deities. I've always preferred aggressive builds, and the Priest was originally sold to me as a more aggressive Priestess. However it came to pass, I was eventually drawn into their service and am now ready to spread word of their gospel.


34 Life: Adherents to the faith can enjoy an average life expectancy. They are neither fragile nor exceptionally resilient.

9 Channeling: Service to the Dice Gods is very taxing. In addition to a reduced channeling rate, Priest's will want to leave 1 Mana available to activate Malakai's Fire (see below) almost every round. This leaves you with only 8 Mana to spend per round usually, the lowest of any Mage.

Hand of Purification: In addition to giving our Melee Basic Attack a fancy name, the Dice Gods have transformed it in the following ways as well. It is now Ethereal, giving it a boost in certain situations. As is typical of their benefits, the gods also give a random benefit in the form of a 33% chance to Daze. Finally it's damage has been increased.

Wait, you say I only deal 2 dice of damage compared to your Mage's 3 dice? Silly heathen, you are not looking at the big picture. My Hand of Purification deals Light damage and will Burn your Mage with the righteous wrath of Malakai's Fire!

Malakai's Fire: Possibly the biggest benefits to adherents of the faith are the purifying flames of Malakai's Fire. Each time our Mage deals Light damage they may pay 1 mana to Burn their enemies. Again, like most benefits of our Lords, this provides a random benefit of possibly doing more damage. Displease the Dice Gods and you will never see anything come from these Burns. However, if they show you their favor, you may enjoy infinite damage! Some have calculated the benefit of each Burn to be a little over 2 points of Direct Damage on average, but one should never expect their Gods to play according to the rule of averages.

Holy Avenger: Finally, if you so choose, the Dice Gods shall bless you with a Holy companion, ready to unleash their wrath upon your enemies. This Avenger is primarily a defensive buff, set in place to make your enemies regret attacking. It gives them the difficult choice of attacking a creature that is now much harder to kill with +5 Life, or suffering 2 extra dice of damage with Piercing +1.


I originally approached the Priest with the idea of doing a Beatdown build as a Holy counterpart to the Lord of Terror Warlock. He did very well against slower Mages. His Burns stacked up and they were sacrificed to his deities. However, against other aggressive Mages, he found out that he just could not compete. While Malakai's Fire is better than Battle Skill on average, and Holy Avenger is a really nice buff, the Priest's magical training just wasn't intended for an ultra aggressive approach.

He is trained in Holy magic and weak in Dark magic. Holy spells tend to be defensive in nature and prolong the game, while Dark magic tends to be much more aggressive and punishing. With this setup, he just is not as efficient at dishing out damage as quickly as other aggressive mages.

So, if he's not as aggressive as other mages, and not as defensive as the Priestess, what then is his role in the Arena? Well, as far as I can tell, the Priest is intended to favor the Mid Game and walk the line between offense and defense. When facing aggressive opponents, he wants to utilize his defensive abilities to slow the game down to a pace he's comfortable with and they're not. Meanwhile, against slower more defensive opponents, he can pile on the hurt and end the game before they pull off their plans. He just has to figure out what he's up against and play accordingly.

To that end, I'd like to call my final build "Disruptive Aggro." It still focuses more on the offensive side of things, but has some key defensive abilities meant to slow down other aggressive mages. In keeping with the favor of the Dice Gods, I'm relying on random luck to be on my side with these abilities as well. Daze and Defense rolls are his bread and butter when it comes to controlling an aggressive foe, with the occassional Stun thrown in.

After all my games, and scouring the forums to try and improve, I have to be honest that I'm still a bit weak in coming up with an actual game plan and adapting to my opponent. Though I would appreciate advice on changes to my spellbook, I'd appreciate even more getting advice on how to RUN my spellbook, lol. With that said, here are my current Tactics.

Opener
(10 Mana) Round 1 (+9)
(19 Mana) Cast Enchanter's Ring (-2)
(17 Mana) Cast an Enchantment (-1)

This is generally my opener every game. Mainly because it's cheap and I need all the mana I can get in the next few rounds. It's also adaptable. If I think I'm going up against a defensive player, I put on Cheetah Speed or Bear Strength to ensure I'm dishing out the damage (or Falcon Precision vs Forcemaster). If I judge them to be an offensive player or I'm not certain what to expect then I put on Forcesword or Regrowth. I also normally move 1 zone to get out of the corner, though not always.

I then have 2 different routes that I go down, and I'm not sure which is better. They basically differ in how I utilize Holy Avenger.

Holy Templar
(16 Mana) Round Two (+9)
(25 Mana) Cast Knight of Westlocke and make Holy Avenger (-17)
(8 Mana) Enchant Knight (-1)

(7 Mana) Round Three (+9)
(16 Mana) Cast Staff of Asyra (-9)
(7 Mana) Cast/Reveal Enchant or Burn???

The point of this strategy is to turn both my Knight and my Priest into a threat so that my opponent is punished whichever one he decides to ignore. If he attacks me, he's taking a 7 Dice attack with Piercing +1. Possibly 9 Dice with Bear Strength. Meanwhile, if he attacks the Knight he is fighting through 3 Armor and 15 Life with a 42% Miss chance, one of the hardiest creatures possible. His one weakness is the Lightning +2, more because of it applying Daze/Stun than the damage it deals.

Speaking of Daze/Stun, Staff of Asyra is really an amazing weapon. It's almost as good as Galvitar in my oppinion, at least with a Priest wielding it. Against someone with no armor I'm doing an average of over 6 damage (Including Burn Damage) +67% chance to Daze/Stun with it (Galvatar does an average of 8 Damage with no Effect). If my foe has 2+ armor, then I'm dealing about the same damage as Galvitar (Since >2 of my damage is direct damage with Burn) and I still have the 67% chance to Daze/Stun. The only reason Galvitar wins out for best weapon in the game atm is because it's a Cantrip and has the Sweeping option to break guards.

Thus
Staff < Galvitar against Multiple Targets (No multi-target option)
Staff = Galvitar against Unarmored Single Target? (I'll trade less than 2 damage for a Stun/Daze)
Staff > Galvitar against Armored Single Target. (Same Damage + Daze/Stun)

Archangel
(16 Mana) Round Two (+9)
(25 Mana) Cast Samandriel, Angel of Light (-21)
(4 Mana) Enchant Samandriel (-1)

(3 Mana) Round Three (+9)
(12 Mana) Cast Asyran Cleric and make Holy Avenger (-7)
(5 Mana) Reveal Enchant or Pillar of Light???

The plan for this route is similar to the first one, I have a big baddie in Samandriel coupled with buffing my Priest up. I choose to delay equipment and further buffs on the Priest though in favor of a really cheap and efficient Holy Avenger. Unfortunately the Holy Avenger buff is not enough to keep the little guy alive for ever in this case, and my foes know it. Thus they usually attack the Cleric and he's little better than a speed bump. I still think he's worth it though. that is 11+ damage that I'm not taking. And if I really want to, I can set Samandriel to guard to provoke BOTH a counter attack and extra damage from my Holy Avenger Cleric.

Not having my staff equipped right away kinda sucks, especially since I might have to focus on Defense for a little while if my opponent is aggressive, but Samandriel's attack can also Daze/Stun which makes up for it. Once I do get the Staff out, it's a 84% chance I'm Dazing/Stunning somebody each round which is really sweet.

Although Samandriel is not vulnerable to any kind of damage like Brogan is, and she has flying keeping her out of danger most times, she does have one glaring flaw. If she is put to sleep, my priest can NOT wake her up short of a Fireball. All of his damage is light damage. That's another reason for the Holy Avenger Cleric as back up.

Both Builds
As of Round 3 my goal becomes the same for both builds. I want to attack with my Priest every round and apply as much burn as possible (One of the reasons for the Pillar of Light in the Archangel route is that I otherwise can't attack round 3; it gives me the ability to Burn and a 75% chance to Daze/Stun). Each round I either prepare 1 spell aimed at buffing myself or my big baddie, or a Pillar of Light to help ensure Daze/Stun gets applied. My second spell is an "oh no" spell to deal with whatever I think my opponent will do.

As I said earlier, I'm still not sure about my general strategy, but it so far it's been fun to play. I've been playing the Priest exclusively for a couple weeks now, and this final build has won 2 out of 3 games (all 3 against the same opponent). It is a very random and chaotic build that relies heavily on chance, but with the odds in your favor I think. Between Burn Rolls, Daze Rolls, and Defense Rolls, you will be praying to the Dice Gods quite often. I now invite the community to give me feedback and criticism.

I was doing some messing around with my spellbooks and debating whether or not to make a Priest build. In my pondering, I came up with the question "How useful is Burn?" I wanted to know what kind of bang I was getting for my buck. I was pretty sure it is worth the 1 Mana, but exactly how valuable is it?

After twiddling around with the math a bit, I had my answer and I thought others may be interested in hearing about it, so I came here. I apologize if this is in the wrong forum as it regards a condition rather than a spell, but it seemed the most appropriate to me.

So first the Math. Thanks to Tarkin, I learned the formula for Average Burn Damage is Σ(2/3)^n where n = the number of rounds remaining in the game after Burn was applied minus 1, or Σ(2/3)^(r-1). Thus, to determine the Average Damage of the Burn Condition in general, you must determine how long a game is going to last. I created a chart in Excel that listed the Average Damage of the Burn Condition lasting from 1 Round to 100 rounds in one column, and in a second column I listed the Average Value of Burn assuming the Burn Condition could be placed every round remaining.

For example: If the game had 2 rounds remaining, the Average Damage of Burn would be 1.33. That is because a Burn placed immediately on your opponent would deal an Average of 1.66 Damage over the next 2 rounds, and a Burn placed the next round would deal an Average of 1 Damage. Taking the Average of both of these values yields a value of 1.33.

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I'm not going to post the full chart, but I will post some milestones from it. All of these are rounded to the nearest tenths place.

In a game lasting 5 rounds, Burn deals an average of 2.0 damage. I believe most matches last longer than 5 rounds, but it shows that even in the most aggressive match, Burn has value.

In a game lasting 8 rounds Burn deals an average of 2.3 damage.

In a game lasting 11 rounds Burn deals an average of 2.5 damage.

In a game lasting 14 rounds Burn deals an average of 2.6 damage.

In a game lasting 18 rounds Burn deals an average of 2.7 damage.

In a game lasting 24 rounds Burn deals an average of 2.8 damage.

It takes a 40 round game before Burn reaches a value of 2.9 average damage.

The maximum value for Burn's Average Damage is 3. Although a Burn only requires 11 rounds to remain in the game for that specific Burn to deal an average of 3 damage, the Average Value of Burn over the course of an entire game doesn't reach 3 even within a 100 round game. It would require a truly epic game to reach that point.

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Now, we need to account for your opponent removing Burn. I'm not sure how exactly to determine it's effect on Burn's Damage, but we can look at it's effects on the game.

The best way I could find to remove a single Burn Condition is with the Priestess' Restore ability. She can remove a Burn by simply paying it's removal cost (2 Mana) and spending a quick spell. This means that your burns might never do damage, but costs her twice as much mana as it cost you to apply it and costs her an action that you did not have to take. All together a pretty solid win.

The next best way, and THE best way for any other mages, looks to be with Geyser currently. It costs 4 Mana and also requires a quick spell, but it removes all Burn Conditions from the target. This means it gets better the more Burn Conditions there are before it is cast. However, if your opponent is letting Burns stack up before casting a Geyser, he's taking damage.

As an example, let us assume that your opponent decides to wait for 3 Burn Conditions to be applied before he casts Geyser. We'll also assume that you are only applying 1 Burn per round only using your Malakai's Fire ability on your Priest. You've spent a total of 3 Mana and dealt an average of 4.5 Damage (first burn has hit twice, 2nd burn has hit once, and the third burn was just applied so hasn't hit yet). All together, a 1 Mana advantage, 1 Action advantage, and 4.5 Damage advantage over your opponent. A good investment for 3 mana.

Reading the Forums, I've ascertained that "Controller" on charm means your mage. This means that the creature can still attack your creatures and vice versa without breaking the Charm. However, would having your mage Push the creature through a Wall with a Passage Attack break the Charm? The Push isn't actually an attack and isn't what does the damage, the Wall is what attacks and damages the creature....So I'm assuming its safe to do this without breaking your charm, but I'd like to be sure.

Simple question that came up just now. We know that if a creature is dazed and has multiple attacks, it still gets its other attacks even if the first one missed. However, what if it has MULTIPLE dazes on it. Do the extra dazes kick in for the extra attacks?

We ruled that they do not, because the codex seems to imply daze only stacks with regard to defense rolls. It says specifically that with multiple dazes you only roll once to see if an attack misses. But there's still some disagreement since that seems to be worded specifically towards a single attack, so an official answer would be nice to see if we ruled correctly or not.

First Question: Poison Gas Cloud reads "If a Living creature enters this zone, or starts its Action Phase in this zone, it may not take more than one move action this round."

Does this mean that the creature can not take any Quick Action in addition to their move (such as an attack)? Or just that they can't make a second move?

Second Question: Can Harmonize be attached to a Mana Crystal or Mana Flower to increase the casters channeling further?