Mage and Monsters is full of unique units to field in battle, as well as dozens of foes to destroy (or get run over by).
Carefully crafting your army is something you do at the end of every round as you get to choose where to spend your gold, or what units you want to build around.
Of all the RPG aspects in Mage and Monsters, your choice of mage is the most important. Every decision you make must be done to fit your mage’s playstyle and benefits.
For example, you may choose a hero who excels at increasing the amount of summoned units. That won’t mean anything if you don’t choose the spells to summon units, or have enough of a front line to allow for multiple summons per round.
This list will detail the 10 best mages in Mage and Monsters. Using the info found below, you’ll be able to conquer the hardest difficulties and most tedious game modes.
10) Astrina
Ability: Starts with Rain of Death. All fire spells +20% damage.
Fire-based spells deal a lot of damage and have relatively low cooldowns, allowing you to decimate enemy ranks with just a few casts.
The problem is the amount of micro involved. If you aren’t careful, you’ll burn your own units alive. Then it’s game over, and you’re back at the home screen.
Astrina is a fun mage to use if you’re getting started but there are much better options for conquering the higher difficulties.
9) Iscar
Ability: Starts with Frost Shock. All frozen units take +100% physical damage.
The ability to freeze units can be super powerful at times, especially with Frost Shock freezing a large section. Such an ability works well with a Frost Giant spam army composition as they freeze enemy units who attack them.
Unfortunately, this strategy is heavily melee focused, so it’s difficult to get right.
Definitely keep your eye on Iscar in upcoming balance changes as they’ll surely be getting buffs in the future. If you can gain experience with Iscar’s playstyle now, it will benefit you greatly in the future.
8) Medela
Ability: Starts with Healing Wave. Units healed attack 50% faster for 7 seconds.
Everyone should experience the tanky, unkillable Medela army composition:
- Invest heavily in HP buffs, lifesteal, and tanky units
- Spam healing spells
- Win without losing many units
Your units will hit like a wet noodle but they’ll be almost invulnerable as they are constantly healed. This works perfectly with some of the best tier 5 units as they have tons of health.
7) Geryon
Ability: Starts with Summon Melee. All summon spells +1 unit summoned.
Geryon is the perfect mage for any player who enjoys summoning units in Mage and Monsters.
Each round, your army attacks from the left side of the map. This is a classic front-to-back strategy, the front-line that wins will attack the enemy back-line.
Summoning units gives you easy access to the enemy back-line which can be remarkably helpful at times.
However, I stand by my opinion that the traditional strategy is much better right now, especially for higher difficulty gamemodes where your summoned units will be killed instantly.
6) Sinon
Ability: Starts with Impending Doom. Also starts with +110 gold.
Starting the game with a whopping +110 gold is a huge advantage for building an economy and advancing to the later stages of the game.
Gold gives interest the more you have. It’ll allow you to climb the interest levels a lot faster, especially if you’re micro-ing your spells a lot and don’t invest in units.
Impending Doom is the only spell I haven’t tested much. It does seem pretty powerful (especially when used with Plague Doctors) but the main advantage for Sinon is the bonus gold.
5) Effero
Ability: Starts with Toxic Blast. All your ranged units have +40% max range.
Effero actually works really well with Cyclops as their range becomes almost the full battlefield. This may not sound amazing but it can dramatically increase the DPS of the Cyclops as they aren’t moving around as much.
The same goes for masses of archers, as they can get stuck behind each other when moving forward. An extra bit of range keeps more archers firing and thus, more damage being thrown at the enemy.
Toxic Blast is a fairly underwhelming spell, though. It is fine for what it does but you shouldn’t pick Effero purely for that spell.
4) Procellus
Ability: Starts with Chain Lightning. All spells 6% reduced cooldown.
Chain Lightning is one of the best spells in Mage and Monsters, so it makes sense that Procellus would be so high on this list.
Spells in general are pretty good, so even a 6% cooldown reduction is pretty nice.
Procellus is ideal for new players as they can use spells to do their slaying instead of focusing on army compositions and setups.
3) Exekias
Ability: Starts with Fire Tornado. All harmful spells no longer damages your own units.
Exekias is considered a good mage because of his unique ability to cast the Fire Tornado spell without damaging his own units.
This ability makes him a valuable asset in the battlefield, especially in large-scale battles where player units are often in close proximity to enemy units.
For this reason, it’s recommended to build a more melee-centric army as you won’t be maximising the amount of damage done by your spells if the enemy army is too spread out.
Exekias is one of the more difficult heroes to play, though. It’ll take some practice to get the most out of them.
2) Sicaria
Ability: Cannot use spells. Starts with 1 Cherub and 1 Paladin. All melee units have 20% faster attack speed.
Sicaria is the most recent addition to Mage and Monsters and provides some nice starting bonuses to get you through the early game.
The only thing preventing Sicaria from being in the number 1 spot is the passive buff. Melee units aren’t the strongest units in the game right now. Although, this could change in the future.
Cherubs and Paladins work really well alongside beefy front-line units to absorb damage. This army setup requires a lot of thought to get right, but can pay off big time.
1) Gus
Ability: Cannot use spells. Starts with +4 Archers and +2 Dwarf Miners. All your ranged units attack 20% faster.
By far the best mage for extended gaming sessions, Gus gives you the perfect early game start alongside a strong ranged unit bonus to lead into the end game.
I love to build a massive army of tier 1 units before immediately jumping to tier 5 units. If you plan it well (and have luck on your side), you’ll have plenty of archers available by rounds 20+. Invest in ranged damage upgrades and watch as you have 100 Hawkeyes flood the battle.
The inability to use spells is no disadvantage, as it makes the game more of an idle battle game. Mage and Monsters can be played effectively while semi-afk for this reason. Gus is just too good of an option to turn down.