Heavy CoC Mages (in General)

With AP around, I've been toying with the idea of going with a Heavy CoC Mage. While reviewing the Strat Information on them, all hail Wiki!, I was pondering combining the two item sets that are suggested and wanted opinions on it.

Firstly, the item sets:

Standard CoC Mage Set:
* Trollskin Armor [22] (TSA)
* Cloak of the Istari [6] (CoI)
* Displacement Boots [0] (DB's)
* Alatar's Gloves [0] (AG) or Noldorin Spellcasters [0] (NS)
* Helm of Clearsight [-5] (HoC)
* Amulet of Invisibility (AoI)

Heavy CoC Mage Set:
* Mithril Cuirass [35] (MC)
* Cloak of the Istari [6] (CoI)
* Chain Mail Leggings [18] (CML)
* Alatar's Gloves [0] (AG) or Noldorin Spellcasters [0] (NSC)
* Cabasset [3] or Cornuthaum [0] (Corn)
* Mithril Shield [20] (MS)
* Amulet of AC [0] (AoAC)

Now, what I'm thinking for my Mage's Set is a mix of the two.
* Trollskin Armor [22] (TSA)
* Cloak of the Istari [6] (CoI)
* Displacement Boots [0] (DB's)
* Alatar's Gloves [0] (AG) or Noldorin Spellcasters [0] (NSC)
* Helm of Clearsight [-5] (HoC)
* Mithril Shield [20] (MS)
* Amulet of Invisibility (AoI)

I'm honestly leaning more towards the AGs purely for the fact they're cheaper and easier to get ahold of right now than NSCs. The AoI is picked up purely for the boost to Evasion from the DBs.

I'll be training the minion at a 1/4 Health, 1/2 CoC, Max DM. With the Base AP, unless the proposed changes gets applied and then I might mix up the XP training for that.

The main issue I'm currently having is that I can't decide on a tattoo, or familiar, to go with this team and I'm unsure if it would even work.

Opinions and Thoughts would be nice.

P.S. I totally Copy/Pasta'd all those nice lists from the Wiki. >.>

In all seriousness start saving and searching for those NSCs right now. AGs are ok for this, but the AMF backlash will do you in faster than anybody's attacks.

I would also consider not training DM for a while, or at least limit training it as high as you suggest until your HP is pretty high. You're going to need that HP to survive long enough for CoC to be at it's most effective - which from experience running a team like this - tends to be from around round 9 or 10 these days with fights going longer.

DM will help against GA, once you have it high enough, but if you stay single minion mages are going to have a grand time against you.

DM is good actually helps against AS teams and so you pwn them with probably 1 or 2 shots of your COC

Seriously? The Wiki says Heavy CoC mages should wear MC? Wouldn't a TSA be better in every situation?

Some of those armour ideas go back a long way, the TSA as it is today didn't exist at the time.

if i were running a heavy COC mage....

HOD
AC
SC
CML
TG
AOAC
MS

=x treat it as a wall

Though, to be honest the best single CoC strat I've run was with the RBF and a pair of DBs and NSCs, 50% xp into HP, 50% into CoC. Worked a treat.

I'd say treat it exactly like you'd treat a heavy AC tank, but put all XP you'd put in ST/DX into the spell (maybe even some extra HP), whatever the chosen DD spell is... might go with SG instead of COC, for instance.
Say, go with AP, 40% HP, 20% AMF, 5% GA, 35% DD or somesuch ?

I'm about to run a heavy CoC mage, and here is my set-up:

HoC
MCM
SC
NS
MS
AoI

With Steel Skin as my skill. I really think NS are a must, though.

no tats? i think you need a good reason to not use one.

heavy = ~120 AC?

:P

"AMF cooked mage in a can, fry one today!"

Heavy mages are terrible ideas... end of story.

Well, nov, that's where the "big HP / average SG / big NSC" combo actually shines.
Since AMF can at most "toast" you for 40% of your max damage against 0 AC (granted, closer to 50% of your average damage against 0 AC... but also a lot less if your enemy is actually wearing any decent amount of armour), the huge HP will help soak up the AMF backlash that is already reduced by the NSC, while the "regular" armour will protect against "traditional" attacks from the enemy (be it physical or magical in nature)... and that's where my suggested AMF comes in, to help mitigate enemy magic users (which are not usually wearing heavy armour).

Obviously, it's not a "good against anything" strategy, but it can actually work insanely well against physical damage-dealing oriented teams, against GA-oriented teams, and maybe even against RoBF teams.