| Overall: F | Early: C |
| Late: F | NMM: F |
| Adventure: F | Arena: F |
| Clash: F | Boss Brawl: F |
Welcome to the Arcane Mage walkthrough for Heroes vs Hordes.
While she's not the worst hero in the game, she is the second worst. And that's really only because of a playstyle difference.
I can't stand Spirit Shaman.
You will encounter the Arcane Mage in the middle of the tutorial, but after that, you're rarely ever going to play her, and I'm going to explain why.
Arcane Mage is probably the lowest base damage hero out there. Her base weapon, the Arcane Wand, can only hit one enemy per projectile. When certain levels throw tens of thousands of enemies at you across five waves, hitting them one at a time just isn't efficient. You need abilities that penetrate through multiple enemies within an area to really top the damage charts.
For early-game players, you should focus on Knight over Arcane Mage 100% of the time.
While she looks really cool, and her abilities are fun for early-game players, she doesn't scale at all, making her basically unplayable beyond the early stages.
In fact, you can see the problem in every part of her level progression, starting at level 10. At that point, you unlock "+1 penetration to Arcane Wand projectiles," which highlights her core issue.
That's why Arcane Mage is fine for the first few levels of the game, but after that, she falls off hard. However, don't underestimate her global buffs. She offers some of the best in the game, including additional magic projectiles as a faction bonus and at level 120.
Adding projectiles is one of the most valuable buffs because it adds flat damage to all weapons. Once she reaches three stars, she becomes a valuable asset.
So, at the end of the day, she's a shelf hero. A very pretty elf on the shelf.
Arcane Mage is starved for penetration and projectiles. Every part of her kit tries to make up for the fact that her basic attacks can only hit one horde at a time.
That leads to a lot of inefficiencies and opportunity costs. When other heroes get additional damage or area of effect, she's getting back to parity with another bit of penetration.
This opportunity is very important for high-cost items like 5* forge and even basic-level progression. Additionally, she doesn't have any synergies between skills, so it's not like getting stronger in one area can spike her damage.
All that makes her a very weak hero to play at higher levels. She will be out-scaled very quickly. Even the slow in her basic attacks via skills doesn't allow her to excel at something like Nightmare Mode.
So, your main strategy with her is to level her up to 90 and 120 for the fantastic global and faction buffs, but leave her on the shelf otherwise and use Knight early in the game.
You run the HvH standard max damage per second (DPS) gear build for the Arcane Mage.
| Helm: Rogue | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Rogue | Necklace: Rogue |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Wizard |
Early in the game, equip your highest-tier gear even if it does not match this build. For example, it's better to run an epic knight ring than a rare wizard ring.
Even if you lose the set bonus, it's still better to wear higher-tier gear.
The weapon build for the Arcane Mage is pretty straightforward. You're doing the standard HvH base weapon build:
Using Ice Wand might help you to progress in harder chapters as it freezes nearby horde.
You can substitute in better special weapons like Mighty Borer if you have them.
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Crticial
You don't evolve Crossbow because the increased number of projectiles apply a ton of vulnerability to targets that increases your overall DPS more than the evolution to Crossbow would. The Crit Tome also plays into the Rogue 4x multiplier gear.
Arcane Mage doesn't have a unique main weapon, so her jewels follow the standard HvH best practice.
Ultimate Charge
Ultimate Duration
Vulnerability
Cooldown til 60%
Projectile (P)
Area
Explosion
Run cooldown jewels until it hits 60% in the detail window. You cap cooldown at 60% because you get 30% from cooldown tome. 90% is the max cooldown cap in Normal, Hard, Arena, Boss, and Guild modes.
Area has a soft cap on Area Of Effect when the inner ring of 4* Fire Orbs hits the side of the screen. But that's not really a worry until you have Heroic gear.
You have some leeway here to use much higher-level jewels instead of lower-level cooldown jewels. For example, I'd consider a level 7 Projectile (P) over a level 1 cooldown. You can always test which does more damage in your game by doing the same run with the same gear and weapons but changing the jewels.
The Arcane Mage's forge is not worth rushing. Just wait for her weapon to come up in Arena to grab the global.
You can go left or right here. I typically prefer right for more projectiles, again making up for her major weakness.
This forge level isn't great. I would probably go left for Paralyze and the stun chance. You will typically get burning from other sources, particularly Bomb, so there is no need to use a forge level on it. A small chance at a stun is worth it.
+2.5% Projectile speed is an average to below average 3* forge global buff.
Shoot big arcane projectiles that bounce off. I'm not sure what they bounce off, but they are big and bouncy.
Take penetrate for penetration where you can get it with Arcane Mage.
Enemies hit by Arcane Wand are slowed by X%. It helps to survive the early game, but… it doesn't hit enough horde late game.
Chance to double the number of projectiles. This skill is essentially a % increase in damage. However, it's not reliable or frequent enough to make up for the fact that she doesn't hit enough horde.
Defeating enemies fills a meter. Create a triangle around the Arcane Mage dealing damage. This ultimate is solid and practical, but it doesn't do enough damage to make up for the rest of her kit.
Pets are going to end up doing more damage than Arcane Mage most of the time. So you want to have your highest DPS pets.
Generally, that means use your highest rarity pet as your main, and your next two highest as your passives.
Here's a detailed breakdown of the best main pets and best passive pets to help you think through your choices.
Try to stay as close to your pet as possible, as that will give you the best chance at staying alive in harder content.
