The Clockwork Mage is currently, in my opinion, the single best hero in Heroes vs Hordes.
But how'd she get that way?
Well, I'm gonna show you what makes the Clockwork Mage tick.
The synergies in her kit make her special, allowing her to clear all kinds of events and modes easily. She's the only hero with a guaranteed slow in her basic attacks, meaning she's able to kite through content that very few other heroes can handle.
Top that off with an incredible four-star Forge damage uptick, and you have one of the most dangerous heroes in Heroes vs Hordes. You'll be clearing all 20 stages in the Arena in no time to gain access to those sweet, sweet Super Tokens.
So set your timer as you send Shockwaves and take Command with the Clockwork Mage!
Note: Reviewed by @HaxSennin. He's the master, I am but an apprentice. Thanks for the notes!
The Clockwork Mage's biggest draw is her ability to slow enemies. That allows her to clear content like Arena, which calls for kiting in a very small area. I have a whole guide on kiting you can check out, and the Clockwork Mage is the single best hero for doing it.
Arena is one of the only avenues for players to get access to Super Tokens in order to Forge weapons. Hitting those forge levels makes heroes incredibly strong. By clearing Arena efficiently, the Clockwork Mage helps you achieve that damage boost sooner, cheaper, and more reliably.
She also offers a lot of innate cooldown that lets you hit the 60% standard cap sooner. Her Faction Bonus in the Mechanist League adds cooldown. As does her star level, which is 6% at Star Level 3.
Furthermore, she gets 5% additional cooldown from her lvl 120 bonus.
That frees up a lot of Jewels for Area of Effect and other high value additions.
And what is one last place of cooldown for her? Her Ultimate. That will let you hit the cooldown cap way before 60% in the detail screen - and it applies to all weapons! Not to mention the move speed even overrides the 9 m/s cap in NMM.
Because Clockwork Mage has so much disruption via her slow, you're just looking for damage. That makes the best gear for the Clockwork Mage your standard max DPS build:
| Helm: Rogue | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Rogue | Necklace: Rogue |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Wizard|Rogue |
You use a Wizard Ring when you know you will be freezing enemies or other events where instant kill is disabled. You use a Rogue Ring where instant kill is enabled, though some players might consider sticking with the Wizard Ring anyway.
There are two other unique cases for gear for the CWM.
In the Arena, you equip the Clockwork Mage with standard Arena gear. Before you hit mythic gear, look for:
| Helm: Noble | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Wizard | Necklace: Rogue |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Rogue |
Once you have an ascended Wizard Necklace, you can substitute out the Wizard Robe and Noble Helm in favor of a Rogue Chest and Rogue Helm. So like this:
| Helm: Rogue | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Rogue | Necklace: Wizard |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Rogue |
The idea with both builds is to grab two additional starting upgrades, which I'll talk about more in the weapons section. The last build to consider is for Nightmare Mode.
@HaxSennin: For early game players: She is so good in Arena, you can put on Noble Gear early for farming. You want to wear noble pieces for key chances, so chest, boots, and ring must be noble. You can add in the Ascended Wizard Amulet for the other 2 starting upgrades, rest rogue.
In Nightmare Mode, you build the Clockwork Mage more defensively, still focusing on Wizard and Knight gear:
| Helm: Knight | Gloves: Knight |
| Chest: Wizard | Necklace: Wizard |
| Boots: Knight | Ring: Wizard |
This "Werewizard build" gives her the most status-effect duration and as many starting upgrades as possible. She's a glass cannon, so you need to kite the horde extremely well using the "Hax Method" found in my kiting guide.
The Clockwork Mage's typical weapon build is your standard max DPS weapon build. You don't have to use my favorite Ice Wand because of her slow, so just go full ham:
Since she already has her slows, you don't need to run Boomerang. Just go for max DPS with the proper tomes to complement the build:
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Critical
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.
Because she has a slow build-in to her kit, you're not actually not looking to evolve Boomerang in the Arena.
Instead, you're looking to grab Ice Wand and then anything that improves her slow. So that's tomes like cooldown, area of effect, duplicator, or even projectile speed tomes. The priority looks like this:
Other high-value weapons include Fire Orbs, Bombs, and Chain Lightning. If you have special weapons, stuff like Boar or Scrap Hammer is really strong in the Arena.
For Nightmare Mode, weapons you follow the traditional Werewizard Build too, so you're looking to max things like:
Armor Tome
Ice Wand
Arcane Staff (4* Forge)
Life Tome
Duration Tome
Divine Aura
If you have special weapons, Scrap Hammer can be really strong in Nightmare Mode, along with a high-level Forge Smoke Bomb.
@HaxSennin: She gets enough slow from her ket that you probably don't need Arcane Staff and Death Ray.
With CWM, you go for standard max DPS jewels:
Ultimate Charge
Ultimate Duration
Vulnerability
Cooldown til 60%
Projectile (M)
Projectile (P)
Area
Critical
Explosion
Because she's part of the Mechanist League faction and the source of cooldown in the faction, you can hit the cap a bit sooner. After you reach 60% cooldown, you're looking at projectile magnitude, projectile speed, area of effect, and possibly something like Explosion or Assassin, depending on the game mode.
@HaxSennin: Her Ultimate gives Cooldown to ALL weapons, so if you just get 40% CD in the detail screen and trigger her ultimate often, you'll hit the cap.
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.
@HaxSennin: In modes like Hero Clash or NMM where CD is capped at 40%, put way more jewels into Area and Critical.
Area has a soft cap on Area Of Effect when the inner ring of 4* Fire Orbs hit 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.
For Nightmare Mode, you're running a more defensive Werewizard build, focusing on regeneration since she has no innate healing. You'll want to invest in:
The Clockwork Mage's forge, like most heroes, is where you can take her damage to the next level.
One star, I go left for Time Strike and x1.1 damage.
At two stars, I go left for Chrono Wave and the increased Area of Effect.
@HaxSennin: She gets a lot of area of effect from weapon forge, but no CRIT. Furthermore, no one in the Faction Bonuses provides crit… So, it is worth investing in via Jewels a bit more than a typical hero.
Her 3-star Temporal Impact isn't a great global buff as its x1.05 damage to slowed enemies, but it obviously synergizes well with her in particular.
Her massive damage spike comes at 4-star forge and Chrono Blades. These start to dish a butt ton of damage. It evolves from Cooldown tome, which got a recent nerf. So it's harder to evolve her weapon in Hero Clash.
And then I would go left for Saw Blade in Boss Brawl and the bleed effect, but Right for Heavy Frisbee in everything else for AoE.
The Clockwork Mage derives all of her awesomeness from her base skill, Time Manipulation. This skill causes hitting enemies with your main weapon to slow them.
At skill level 1 it's 40%, increasing by 5% for each level. If you have a limited number of Skill Book Cores, this talent is where to spend them on her.
Slowing enemies is the same as speeding yourself up. It also adds a nice damage buff via the damage to slowed enemies talent.
Combined with her other two skills for additional damage, she can more than hold her own through all stages of the game.
For her ultimate, the big damage boost here is the cooldown to all weapons. With the additional 25%+ cooldown, you can hit the cap during her ultimate wayyy before any other hero will. Cooldown is the biggest amp to damage in the game, so this gives her a big power spike when active in the early game.
On the pet side, you're looking for max DPS pets.
Main Pet. The best main pet for the CWM is your highest-level pet. Typically, that means the Pyrokraken or Emberpaw. When you get an epic pet, switch to them.
Your highest-level pet should do the most damage.
Passive Pets. I typically run my next two highest-damage pets as my passive pets. That means either Emberpaw or Pyrokraken, plus an elemental striker with a damage bonus.
I have a full pet guide that goes into more detail.
Main Pet. I really like the Hydro Basilisk as a main pet. The ultimate slow is great, the geysers do a ton of AOE damage, and it's ranged. A great combo across the board.
I just now managed to get the Crystalsaurs to the same level, which should start doing more damage.
Generally, your highest-level pet should do the most damage. Stormshell and Storm Gryphon are both also great choices for a main pet.
Passive Pets.Right now, I am running Pyrokraken and Crystalsaurs as my passive pets. I like them for the ranged DPS that isn't limited by the Emberpaw radius. If you have a higher level Strom Gryphon than Basilisk, I would swap in the Basilisk for Pyrokraken.
A lot of this will come down to your own testing, honestly, as there's no 100% ideal setup.
In Nightmare Mode, you might consider running double snails for extra HP instead of extra damage, but some prefer to let pets wail away on the horde.
I personally opt for double snail passives which each give 15% HP and then use Hydro Basilisk as a main pet.
That's the Clockwork Mage! Her build is very similar to other top-tier heroes, but her big advantage is in kiting. I really recommend studying my kiting guide on how to take the most advantage of her slow in order to clear content you wouldn't otherwise be able to.
I'm Kolz, a high-level HVH player. You can ask questions here, on Reddit, or on Discord. I'd be happy to answer them. I also have a Patreon where you can get expedited answers and access to content several weeks in advance.
And remember: Always do your adventures!
