tips for using mage lords well

[Grace & Perfection]

So just now i bumped up the "worst lords" topic with how i don't like Teclis and was told im wrong or using him wrong. It seems to me at least that mage lords don't really do very much their early spells only seen to kill 20 or so a shot at least early on and some like malakinths chill is lucky to kill 5-10, but hes great at melee so it doesn't really matter.

Melee lords from the start of campagins can just wade in and tie up armies by themselves for ages and archer lords are great for singling out and killing enemy lords or mages and can kite them. Mage lords are tough to keep alive, often need babysitting and if the winds gamble isn't kind they spend too much time being useless. their spells also don't really seem to do all that much even to chaff.

The only time I've felt a mage was powerful was using kroak as his spells just eradicate entire units from the start of the campaign. The skaven grey seers are pretty great as well. Noccy is good too with his starting spell (forget name) that can kill off like 10-15 models a pop of even strong troops like white lions and wind of death wrecks everything. Id love some tips on how to sue mage lords better. Should I still focus on redline unit buffs or go straight to spells? Thanks!

[cary2010haha]

teclis is easy, go for the archer red line

then Just spawn archer > soa

Get the flying mount asap, before that use cicrle running waste your enemy's ammo and let your archer do the job.


In later game Mage lord is the most powerful lord in total war series.
Use unit to hold a line and use vortex or wind magic, easily make thousands kills.

Different race mage have different way to play.

like teclis have flying mount, he can even waste all your enemys ammo like videos.
https://youtu.be/t6a2AuwbMdY



Magic lord /hero are always good, legendary lord is way more powerful once you get the cheese way and lvl them quick

[Grace & Perfection]

Originally posted by cary2010haha:

teclis is easy, go for the archer red line

then Just spawn archer > soa

Get the flying mount asap, before that use cicrle running waste your enemy's ammo and let your archer do the job.


In later game Mage lord is the most powerful lord in total war series.
Use unit to hold a line and use vortex or wind magic, easily make thousands kills.

Different race mage have different way to play.

like teclis have flying mount, he can even waste all your enemys ammo like videos.
https://youtu.be/t6a2AuwbMdY



Magic lord /hero are always good, legendary lord is way more powerful once you get the cheese way and lvl them quick

thanks but i really don't like cheesy circle running take advantage of ai tactics id rather play the game the way it was intended. i will keep that in mind for when I'm super outclassed though. It just seems so gamey to me.

What is soa?

[Threetails]

Honestly, I'm a little confused. There are plenty of videos out there on youtube that explain how to effectively use mage lords.

Earlygame, their spells like Spirit Leech, Flock of Doom, and fireball require some basic positioning or tactics to use. Big AOE dots are good on clumps of enemy infantry. Get your positioning perfect with ALT casting. Spirit leech will drain and kill the enemy lord before it even makes it through a unit. Fireball is good for chunking monsters and when properly positioned can rack up 40-50 kills when cast horizontally across melee units in combat. There have been fights in the earlygame where I've racked up 200 kills with just fireball, which is way more than most melee lords could achieve. Awakening of the wood/warp lighting/other direct AOE damage spells are simple to use and you pretty much just need to drop them in blobs of enemies. Chafe will die en mass.

Vortexes and line spells are simple to use, in general. When your enemy is in a line, use a line spell. Easily 100-300 kills, chafe or elites. When your enemy is in a blob, use a vortex. Again, easily 100-300 kills, chafe or elites.

Don't commit your casters to melee. If you suck at micro, just keep them behind your infantry with your ranged. If your ranged get compromised, you probably lost that battle anyway. If you don't suck a micro, you can flank for optimal fireballs and such. Best to do this once they have a mount, however.

Usually, I like to have caster heroes instead of lords, because I like going for Blue Line -> Red Line which means they need to hit level 20-25 to get any spells. On the flip side, you can get most basic AOE spells for just 2-4 skill points, which is absurdly cheap, so it's not too hard to grab a level 4-5 burning head, pendulum, or other good early damage spell.

Beyond that, I'm not really sure what else to say. Play more, and try to use them. Watch some more Youtube videos. It's pretty much universally agreed that the two strongest things the player has to wield are magic and ranged.

[yojimbo1111]

Mages tend to get more powerful as they level up while fighters stay about the same.

He starts weak so use him to distract and harass more than kill but later on he can harass and kill. Destroy the red building right away you can win early with just spearmen and archers. Expand quickly to wipe out Lokir and Strolk and secure a second province.

I always level blue to lightning strike first then go casting (but you can skip LS if you want). You get more kills from chain lightning or nets than red skill upgrades so rushing red isn't ideal imo.

[yuzhonglu]

Mage Lords are pretty mediocre (with the exception of Durthu and Archeon) until level 30 or so since you don't have the points to level lightning strike, the red line (for your army) AND your mage abilities. Almost always better to bring a melee lord and a mage HERO, if you can.

The only time you use mage lords is if:

1. No mage hero is available and you need SOMETHING to cast spells.
2. They're Durthu and Archeon. However, they're not really "mage lords." They're "melee lords" who happen to have spells.

[lPaladinl]

Teclis isn't a great Lord, but it's not because he's weak. He's just doesn't have good buffs and his wide pool of abilities isn't as good as it sounds, it's better to have a mage that is specialized since Winds of Magic is limited.

Just make sure you check out the information spells have. "moderate damage" means it's not a very powerful spell. The best spells typically high damage with AoE, because you can just wash away enemy front lines or ranged lines as needed, which gives you a large advantage.

Buffs can be good but are typically not worth the Winds of Magic when you see how much difference it makes to erase a line of infantry. You might as well consider it a buff to your units because they start taking less damage and have less to fight through.

[zefyris]

the keys to mage is
1) having them in range of whatever they need to do when they need to do it
2) understanding the use of each spell and getting all those you'll need fast
3) managing your cast to provide army wide buff for as long as possible (especially true for Teclis who has so many lore passives available)


Also remember than killing is not the only thing a mage does super well. If a mage has maintained full health (through debuffing or crowd controlliing the enemy, buffing the ally, or healing) important unit that did the killing, even if he has low number of kills himself he's done a perfect job on this one.


Anyway, for killing, you need to understand the spells.
What has a long time before hitting the target needs to be casted on units that can't move easily (on a wall, artillery pieces), what does AP damage and what does not to choose targets (don't waste AP spells on low armour target and especially don't waste low ap on high armour), the place of the AoE that does the most damage (for example, for breath shaped spell, it's actually AFTER the end of the shape you're seeing when you're about to cast it). For a spell that moves randomly, try to avoid casting it near your troop or in place where the enemy can easily dodge.

To give good buff you need to understand your units need and your opponent.
A simple armour buff for a low-medium armour unit that is engaged against a unit that has low AP will make a world of difference for the fight's result.
buffing MA for a unit that has (very) good WStrength but low MA (exemple, mid tier monster infantry are often like that) will be particularly efficient.


And so on and so on.
So. read the unit cards, read the spell cards, don't cast everything at once but rather space your cast of around 10sec and look for the best moment when there are, and think.

Teclis is amazingly strong as a lord. He already was before, and now that he's got a phoenix mount he's close of being disgusting tbh.

[Ben Argo]

I would ignore the people saying "Caster lords suck until 30" or "spells that don't do high damage aren't that powerful."

Most magic spells that you can use are crazy powerful and can easily tip the scales of a fight in your favour. There are a couple that kind of suck (like Lore of Heavens passive ability, which only targets flyers, for some reason) but most spells have pretty strong utility.

For example, the Death Lore available to many factions is very powerful. Spirit Leech can help you target enemy lords, heroes, and Single Entity Monsters (like Hydra or Giants). Soulblight is one of my favourite spells because it's an AoE debuff that cripples an enemy frontline and can really shift the balance of power into your favour, especially if you combine it with a good flanking charge or archer fire.Those are lower levels spells, so you can easily snag them early game, then switch to red or blue skills.

Summons are a great way break up an advancing army so you can keep shelling them with artillery or hit them with a vortex spell. Those 'weak' tear-shaped wind spells can really ♥♥♥♥ up the basic infantry of most factions (except Dwarf and Lizardmen because they are just too stronk). Again, it's really down to timing. If you have two enemy units beating up your front line but use a carefully angled wind spell to chunk them down to half or a quarter of their health, your units can gain the advantage, especially if you layer on a buff or some debuffs.

I once managed to hold off almost a full DE stack with a Life Mage and a T2 garrison simply because the basic healing spell and damage spell (earth blood and awakening of the woods?) were enough to help my frontline survive long enough for my archers to focus down the enemy units. IT was close, it was exciting, and it wouldn't have worked without that low level mage lord.

[Myth Samael]

early magic only gets 20 kills lul wut....you playing on small unit size or something XD

[elkapp]

Depends on the difficulty you're playing and who you're playing against. If we presume L campaign and HE with Teclis, my suggestion is to rush first some decent damage spell (if i'm not wrong, Teclis can get easily either flock of doom for smaller unit scale or chain lightning for larger) aka those spells that deal decent damage against infantry (i suggest you to avoid fighting LM at the start since HE only have white lions as early ap).
Then after that rush lightning strike because you're HE and i supposed L difficulty.
Then, your choice, either unique tree, red tree or magic tree.

[Darth Wadewilson]

Most of them have Pretty much the same script. I am talking about pure caster lords. Like elven archmages or dark elf supreme sorceress.

Getting a flying mount or a very fast mount.

Be selective in choosing the spells. You don't need all of them. And instead get some early buffs in red line.

I also always have a proper melee hero to accompany them.

Followers. There are many for each faction that buffs winds of magic etc and it's very easy to miss. Make sure you use them on the caster lord rather than tied up with a melee lord.

Items. There are a few items that reduces enemy magic resistance, winds of magic etc.

Also items that give wards and resistance which should give them some time to get out of a melee if that happens. like opal amulet (I think that's the one that gives an ability to temperorily increase +22 wardsave), floriaths robe (-50% weapon damage, +30 physical resistance) etc.

[Hieronymous]

As an intellectual, I put my mages on mounts and yeet them at the enemy backline.

[Myth Samael]

Originally posted by Hieronymous:

As an intellectual, I put my mages on mounts and yeet them at the enemy backline.

Mother of god its Jason Bourne

[A.Pot]

Really depends what Lore you are going with but generally speaking, use their spells to support your troops first and as they level up, they can do stuff like engage in hit and run tactics while mounted.

A good example of this is when playing Eltharion who uses High Magic, have him run up to the enemy, cast Soul Quench on something like enemy lords and keep casting spells until they give chase. Or if you are playing Teclis, once the enemy gets in range of your archers, cast Flaming Sword of Rhuin so increase their damage.

[Mandras]

You know what disappoints me the most about magic Lords: they don't contribute any bonus winds of magic from their skills/ancillaries when reinforcing another army.