Time for a Single Mage again? (in General)

With the advent of these new gloves, I'm quite fired up about starting a new single Mage.

What I've got in mind is;

Evasion, HP, CoC.
HoC, TSA, New Gloves, EB, EC, AoF.

Evaison pumped by an Amulet of Focus, Elven Boots and Elven Cloak for Tank defense, and the New Gloves plus healing from a TSA to reduce AMF backlash. (A ToE would probably be better, but this way I get to wear an EC for Evasion!)

With a HoC boosted CoC for offense. :)

And Probably a 1K AMF for facing base decays. ;)

You still get owned by single archers ToA tanks with those huge elbs, unless Jon invents The Shield of ELB with -100% damage taken by ELBS, single mage is not a good strat

It sounds interesting to me especially if you can hit a nice high evasion and not have to worry about Archers.... But you know FB and MM will eat you alive... maybe add a mage wall later on with some AS

Or increase my AMF past an anti base decay 1K. ;)

That and wear a shield. ;)

I know I'm gonna suffer some Magic penalties from armour, maybe I'll drop the EC for a CoI. ;)

Like Hank said, with archers hitting 1M+ per shot with 3-5 shots per round, you'd get owned. Especially if you used COC as they'd get 3 rounds in (read: 9M - 15M damage) before you even got a chance to attack.

If archers annoy....avoid the archers.....

Or hope a suped up Evasion with EB and AoF will scupper them. ;)

or maybe a ToA with SoD......

Personally, I think it's the age of the IF...

My (very borrowed) IF has 2.1 mil HP and about 3 mil into DD, granted that will go down with the new gloves that are my perfect item, and my own personal wet dream. Those stats almost match what a single mage of my level could expect, but in addition to those massive numbers, I have 4 other minion with massive HP, and a GA that has a max return of about 400k. My IF is hidden behind at 3-4 minions, and is protected from decay by GA. All but the largest archer vaporize themselves.

Well with seekers and a x800 elb, I manage to kill your IF in 2 rounds before it can even fire off one spell.

So even the most puny of archers with a decent elb and seekers can likely take out your familiar before it fires more then 1 CoC.

But...

IF seekers were no more, the IF and COC would be very viable. However, I doubt that will happen.

Here's the bottom line on the new gloves -- if a strategy couldn't beat non-AMF users before (like, say, archers), the new gloves aren't going to help. In fact, they will hurt, because of the AG gap.

So, would your strategy have dominated non-AMF users before? If not, I am not sure I understand why these new gloves are much to get excited about (especially without knowing the prices on the upgrade curve).

Or, to go along with Johnny -- if AMF annoys, avoid AMF. That can only go so far, though -- you can't avoid everyone and still be successful. *smile*

Will the new gloves give you NEW people in your fightlist, or will it just be a switch that let's you add AMF folks while removing some others?

Like Sut says:

If they really lower the AMF damage you take, then vs DM characters they are far worse then using AGs.

Now one has to ask: Do I die from AMF backlash, or do I die from a MH to the head? If the answer is the latter, then the new gloves will not help much.

Odds are it's not a MH to the head, but an arrow through the chest. :O)

"MH to the head"...I like that!

Depending on how big these new gloves can get, though, closer-to-base Decay is still going to be more effective (and not even for the backlash reduction). Also, low Decay was not the kind of thing people wasted AGs on before (thereby not making the new gloves mutually exclusive in such cases).

But a decay's AMF can never kill the casting minion. So using a nice set of these new gloves on such a minion is likely a waste of money.

And of course Tez is right: More like an arrow through the chest rather then a MH to the head.

Ranger, these aren't only backlash reducing...they reduce AMF, thereby making the ramp-up on the damage even a small Decay can do even that much better. And since a Decay mage probably wouldn't have had AGs on anyway, this is just gravy. That all depends on the curve, like I said. If reducing AMF 40-50% is feasible, then even a small Decay will be able to land some serious damage.

Nope, it says 'AMF damage reducing', which means to me that AMF still is reducing your DD, you just get less backlash.

Ah, OK, I didn't realize that. More and more I think these new gloves are downright useless, unless the curve is REALLY easy.

I like 'em! ;) Nice part of an endurance set up. But now I'm torn. TSA + CoI or ToE? :/

Without AGs, I would say TSA and CoI. You are only trying to get back what you are losing in backlash, right? TSA and ToE will both suffer from the same problem -- huge blows that won't be diminished or recovered from in either case.

Though, a ToE will help more against FF and MM, since those spells don't hit nearly as hard as arrows.

They aren't useless, just more useful for the CoC mage than for the MM or FB mage. After all, we already have the damage, it's the backlash that is all the trouble. ^_^

Again,

Aside from those that persist to try CoC, how many mages in battle actually die from AMF vs an arrow to the heart or MH to the head?

For MM and/or FB mages, go for the damage with AG's.

For a COC mage, perhaps these gloves will be good, but then again only vs AMF characters and not DM ones. So vs about 1/3 your possible opponents the gloves are worthless. Still I would think AG's would be better.

But this is all if the gloves function as we think they do.

CoC sucks against DM teams? How so?

CoC's damage is fine, right? You even went to prove this and that the only wrong with it is the AMF Backlash.

I've decided. ;)

Evasion, HP, CoC, small AMF
HoC, TSA, NS, EB, CoI, AoF.

I'm steering clear of ED, there's not really one worth spending any points in (maybe a base Prot) and it renders my opponents DM worthless. ;)

Time for a Mage based ED? I know Sute's asked for one for ages!

Base Protection FTW!

GL, no evasion?

Seekers.

Looks like Evasion is in his list... It would have to be...

That's a big thumbs up for Evasion! ;)

That plus the AoF is my only hope versus Tanks. I just hope it will be enough. ;)

The problem with an AOF on a mage is the increased AMF you take.

But the new gloves he will be using will reduce the AMF backlash.

It is not just the backlash, the AMF effect is higher vs him if he uses an AOF.

Therefore he would do less damage.

With a CoC, hopefully that won't matter.

Exactly! ;)