Yes, one could say that
It also depends on play style you use in dueling.

I tend to not spam it up and instead use more defensive tactics. 125% seems to lean towards spamming to me, 75 you need to have some decent placement to hit more often. Both types are viable for a mage. Just depends on which you prefer.

Very nice guide and good balance between Hammers and Foh.

9K hammers is not low damage at all for pvp. This build might take one-two extra hammer to kill a high life build compared to a pure hammer, big whoopie...It adds a ton more flexiblity with the foh damage.

1440 pvp damage
15K hammers in a pure build, 2400

extreme life comparison
7K life bvc = 5 hammers on the 9k build. 2 hammers at 75 fcr = 20fpa , less then 1 second.
7K life bvc = 3 hammers on the 15.

Since most chars have much less life then 7K, its a difference of 1-2 hammers.
(really only barbs and shifters get up here)

This post was edited by Master_Zappy on Mar 17 2010 03:10pm

you sir are wrong. i have seen brian test his builds and adjust them for years. that mage is the best i have ever seen. he has no weakness to a particular character and that is highly unusual. is you take notice, there are other suggestions for higher hammer damage and lower FOH damage. congrats brian on this extraordinary guide. you continue to amaze me.

To add to this comment:
A long time ago back in Temple dueling, it was determined that 9k hammer was the magical number to reach for a hybrid. Why?
For the reason stated above in the quote.
It takes approx 1 additional hammer to kill a person

15k hammer = 2 hits to kill an average person (around 3-4k life)
9k hammer = 3 hits to kill an average person (around 3-4k life)

It's hard enough to hit anyone with 2 hammers already, but when you need to hit them 1-2 more it just gets ridicilous

and what do you gain in exchange? you lose a fcr breakpoint and are reduced to a shitty defwhore with foh that is useless vs anyone stacking their resists



no weakness? any good nec, druid, assa should have no problems whatsoever with this shitty excuse of mage



9k hammers=you need _4_ hammers to kill a person with over 4.5k life lol, good luck with that


No doubt this works fine in pubs vs horrible people, but it just doesnt cut it vs anyone good

This post was edited by tudey on Mar 17 2010 03:16pm

is this the professor from rpgforums?

Yes I am.

I forgot to mention about the Damage Reduce Setup

The hammer damage i get is 9180 still, but the foh drops to about 5.4k (was 6.7k with the Standard setup)

The 125% FCR setup i use gets me 9180 hammer / 6.5k foh

no weakness?

hm.....................

Guess i did forget that in the guide too

Characters that are hard for a mage to kill:

1. Wind Druid, with the wolves and the ability to recast really fast, makes them super hard for Mage.

2. Necros with good resist and know how to move/walk a hdin. The average necro doesn't have tons of resist, so foh usually kills them quick. If you get against a necro who has good stack, you are in for a long fight. Hammers don't often hit necros if they know what they are doing. If they know how to walk a hdin and use spirits properly then the mage has a difficult time dueling a pnb necro.


Somebody posted that trappers would be a problem. They are only a problem if you don't have your resist setup on and you try to tank them.
If Foh isn't killing them, or they are blocking it ( i think they can block foh with claw block iirc) I like to put on my 95% LR setup. Even with this setup on, lightning still hurts me a little because i'm not "absorbing". If i were to put dual whisps on then they wouldn't do anything to me. The Mind Blast would hurt more then the lightning.
Sometimes i charge them with grief and the resist setup.
Other times i can jump on them and cast a couple hammers and move away quick. Drive by hammers

But to recap, Wind druids and Good Necros are the most challenging for a Mage to duel.