Mage followers? Which to keep?

[Tyze]

Does anyone know who you should deactivate and have activated?

Thanks

[The Archmage]

Try to distribute among different main specs. I kept 1 fire, 2 arcane and 2 frost. I hate to have npcs/AI controlled pets following me around ingame. Therefore, Vargoth's the best for me to associate as combat helper: he provides me with an awsome buff (20% more damage is HUGE), and i just destroy everything now.

[Swizzle]

Does anyone know who you should deactivate and have activated?

Thanks

Depends on what you're going for. If you're trying to farm as much AP from the bonuses, then you want followers who maximize mission success. For that, I would recommend Kalec, Milhouse, Arcane Destroyer, Modera, and Vargoth.

[Obelisk Kai]

Depends on what you're going for. If you're trying to farm as much AP from the bonuses, then you want followers who maximize mission success. For that, I would recommend Kalec, Milhouse, Arcane Destroyer, Modera, and Vargoth.

The set I came up with as well. Milhouse and the Arcane Destroyer synergise very well, as Milhouse makes missions longer and the destroyer gets an increased success chance on missions longer than 8 hours.

[nukie]

Here are some thoughts based on my Mage follower experiences. Do with this info what you will.

While still working to complete the campaign, my priority was a fast mission completion time above all else. Now i care about fast mission times and completion %. I dont care about mission cost (other then to match for better completion) or gold missions and usually skip these all together when having to choose between missions.

I am using archmage invokers (instead of upgrading the elementals).

I find that missions where you can use one follower only supported by invokers/elementals are pretty rare. 99% of the time i use at least two followers unless I'm doing a throw-in mission or trying to kill off my troops on purpose (getting rid of old archmages so i can train invokers).

I dont care about any follower as a combat helper, and exclusively use them to always run missions.

Here is a ranking by tier, and a brief note about each follower:

"The must haves" Tier:
-Vargoth (this guy is a beast, constantly matches multiple threats, and is even better when upgrading to invokers).
-Esara (has good traits and awesome passive trait trait to speed up missions. usually the only only fire mage i need).

"Awesome early, now just ok" Tier:
-Modera (good for frost matches early and could do some damage with elemental for support, but since i upgraded to invokers i never use elementals anymore and shes lost some luster. I like her as a character better then Meryl, but she doesnt have blizzard, so she is likely on the way out).
-Kalec (beast early for arcane matches and counterspell before i got Esara, now still pretty good but relegated to 2nd arcane match).

"Will be called up to the majors every other day" Tier:
-Meryl (His passive is useless because i dont care about the cost of making more troops and their build time is relatively quick. frost/blizzard combo is strong and will likely be used more often in the future).
-Ravandwyr (Just ok, i use him when i need a 2nd fire match).

"Useless/dont like them" Tier:
-Millhouse (absolutely awful. comically bad. double mission time? NO THANKS! Ok now that i've laid that out, its disappointing but Millhouse has been riding the bench and will continue to do so until everyone else is epic/850. The one positive i can say here is i could see his passive being strong on some super tough raid mission at some point in the future).
-Arcane Destroyer (Who? They did an aweful job of introducing this follower or making me care, and he feels like another troop instead of a follower. Just dont care enough to use, sorry).

My follower team currently is Vargoth, Esara, Kalec, Modera, and Meryl/Ravandwyr. I activate either Meryl or Ravandwyr each day depending on if i need a 2nd blizzard or 2nd fire match. Most likely I am going to drop Modera and use both of these guys in the near future.

Edit: One thing i didnt mention, is that there seems to be alot more frost/arcane/blizzard missions then fire/counterspell/blink so i would build your team with more counters tailored to those.

[Kitanii]

Someone made spreadsheets for every orderhall champions, mage you'll see here, his comment: "why do they have 3 fire : / arcane intelect buf =20% dmg for 1 hour"

[Swizzle]

The above list has several flaws, especially regarding Milhouse. Milhouse and the Destroyer synergize WONDERFULLY together and can often get a mission to 100% success on their own (double mission time+increased rate on mission over 8 hours is amazing). Secondly, it prioritizes mission length over mission completion percentage (the key factor). To get those juicy juicy bonuses, you need to have multiple missions running with super high success rate. Meryl and Esara do literally NOTHING for this, and Ravandwyr is a weaker version of Kalec, since Kalec counters minions and hazards while Ravandwyr only counters minions.

Now I know that people pick either invokers or golems to upgrade, but having both Modera and Vargoth means you can run two+ missions with invokers and elementals (and vice versa) while maintaining a super high success rate while also possibly having a battle buddy and possible third mission rolling.

With the new mobile app, mission length is not important since you can basically get free AP while at work or school or w/e, so really focus on success rate to get the most bang for your buck.

[Deleted]

The above list has several flaws, especially regarding Milhouse. Milhouse and the Destroyer synergize WONDERFULLY together and can often get a mission to 100% success on their own (double mission time+increased rate on mission over 8 hours is amazing). Secondly, it prioritizes mission length over mission completion percentage (the key factor). To get those juicy juicy bonuses, you need to have multiple missions running with super high success rate. Meryl and Esara do literally NOTHING for this, and Ravandwyr is a weaker version of Kalec, since Kalec counters minions and hazards while Ravandwyr only counters minions.

Now I know that people pick either invokers or golems to upgrade, but having both Modera and Vargoth means you can run two+ missions with invokers and elementals (and vice versa) while maintaining a super high success rate while also possibly having a battle buddy and possible third mission rolling.

With the new mobile app, mission length is not important since you can basically get free AP while at work or school or w/e, so really focus on success rate to get the most bang for your buck.

How is longer mission time a plus?

Why would I care about boosting a 12 hour mission up to 24 hours with 150% success chance, when I could run 2-3 missions in the meantime for 100%+ with guaranteed loot?

Like you said, with the app you can maintain your followers anytime and everywhere, giving shorter equal reward missions a prio in my opinion.

I am considering order hall resources to be irrelevant though.

[Swizzle]

How is longer mission time a plus?

Why would I care about boosting a 12 hour mission up to 24 hours with 150% success chance, when I could run 2-3 missions in the meantime for 100%+ with guaranteed loot?

Like you said, with the app you can maintain your followers anytime and everywhere, giving shorter equal reward missions a prio in my opinion.

I am considering order hall resources to be irrelevant though.

Because there are perks and items that increase success chance when missions are longer than eight hours. If you have a six hour mission at 100%, Milhouse will get that to almost 180% on his own.

[Firebert]

3 Fire, 3 Frost, 3 Arcane. Pick a 2-2-1 combination.
3 Blink, 3 Cinderstorm, 3 Counterspell. Pick a 2-2-1 combination.
Pick your favourite few followers and the rest are mandated by the above two restrictions.

I ended up with Kalec, Esara, Modera, Millhouse and Arc-Dest.

[Monketron]

I know this isn't the best way to do it. But I just had to pick the followers based on lore / how awesome my interactions with them were over the years. So for that reason Millhouse and Vargoth are the first 2 in there and always will be. Kalec a close 3rd. It's all about fun, right? I don't seem to be having many problems with whoever I pick.

[Deleted]

Because there are perks and items that increase success chance when missions are longer than eight hours. If you have a six hour mission at 100%, Milhouse will get that to almost 180% on his own.

Again, how is running a 24h mission with 180% loot beneficial compared to running 2x 12h missions, both with 100% loot?

[rogoth]

Again, how is running a 24h mission with 180% loot beneficial compared to running 2x 12h missions, both with 100% loot?

on almost every mission the "bonus loot" is significantly better than the primary loot, therefore increasing the chance to get a bonus roll over straight up single loot in the same time frame is more beneficial (see artifact power/follower armour packs etc).

[Nightfall]

I picked Kalec and Vargoth for Arcane, Modera and Meryl for Frost and Ravandwyr for Fire as I thought improved Apprentices would counter Spells (which they don't), so having only one Counterspell is really noticeable.

What do you think is less needed? To counter minions (Blizzard), spells (Counterspell) or obstacles (Blink)? I feel like minions/blizzard is usually a boss threat, so having 2 of them really helps.

[Swizzle]

Again, how is running a 24h mission with 180% loot beneficial compared to running 2x 12h missions, both with 100% loot?

See Rogoth's response. Most of the regular loot, in terms of AP, is low. Highest I've seen is 515. However, the bonus roll AP seems to scale with your AK, and is often at least twice as valuable as the base reward. So let's look at your example.

If I ran two groups at only 100% bonus chance for 515 AP each, I would end up with 1,030 AP after 24 hours.
If I ran one group with 180%+ bonus chance for 515 AP base and 1,200 (my current AP bonus), I would end up with 1,715 AP after 24 hours.

My way nets me 685 more AP, which would take you at LEAST one more mission to attain.

[Deleted]

See Rogoth's response. Most of the regular loot, in terms of AP, is low. Highest I've seen is 515. However, the bonus roll AP seems to scale with your AK, and is often at least twice as valuable as the base reward. So let's look at your example.

If I ran two groups at only 100% bonus chance for 515 AP each, I would end up with 1,030 AP after 24 hours.
If I ran one group with 180%+ bonus chance for 515 AP base and 1,200 (my current AP bonus), I would end up with 1,715 AP after 24 hours.

My way nets me 685 more AP, which would take you at LEAST one more mission to attain.

Thanks for the explanation! This makes it clear to me. Maybe once I geared up my champs a bit and got some AK rolling, I will swap to the longer more-bang-for-buck missions

[Deleted]

See Rogoth's response. Most of the regular loot, in terms of AP, is low. Highest I've seen is 515. However, the bonus roll AP seems to scale with your AK, and is often at least twice as valuable as the base reward. So let's look at your example.

If I ran two groups at only 100% bonus chance for 515 AP each, I would end up with 1,030 AP after 24 hours.
If I ran one group with 180%+ bonus chance for 515 AP base and 1,200 (my current AP bonus), I would end up with 1,715 AP after 24 hours.

My way nets me 685 more AP, which would take you at LEAST one more mission to attain.

You are right, but not entirely correct since you don't have a 100% chance to get the bonus.

515 + (1200 * 0.8) = 1475 AP

[Swizzle]

You are right, but not entirely correct since you don't have a 100% chance to get the bonus.

515 + (1200 * 0.8) = 1475 AP

The bonus percentage doesn't change the amount of AP gotten, so if the mission is successful you either get 515 or the full 1,715. But that was my point all along, you want to pick followers that max out that bonus, not ones that give you more mission time. With my set-up, I can get between 180-200% bonus, which is basically guaranteed free AP at the end of the day.

[genzic8787]

i use millhouse as well.. right now all my guys are epic and i chose missions that give armor or artifact points.. once aweek i get a mytic quest so what im sayin is that i dont care that he adds extra time cuz im never doin rep or gold missions so there are very few i do and his bonus is worth it.. i dont have unlimitied resources so im choosy

[Deleted]

The bonus percentage doesn't change the amount of AP gotten, so if the mission is successful you either get 515 or the full 1,715. But that was my point all along, you want to pick followers that max out that bonus, not ones that give you more mission time. With my set-up, I can get between 180-200% bonus, which is basically guaranteed free AP at the end of the day.

180% is not a guaranteed, i am talking about what you are getting overall, in the long term, because that was your main point.