Dark Mage
Hero Skill
Hero enters a Dark Trance that lasts for 5s. (Cooldown: 7s) *Dark Trance Deals a total of 400% ATK DMG to nearby enemy units every 0.5s (This damage can spread across a maximum of 3 nearby enemy units). Units that receive damage from this Hero's attack lose 17 Energy per hit, and have their MOV SPD and ATK SPD reduced by 38% for 2s. (When in Dark Trance, Hero cannot receive damage, move, attack, trigger skills, nor obtain boosts and conditions granted by Skills and Enchantments.) Passive Effects: 1. Immune to Silence, Demon Seal, Energy Reduction effects, and conditions from Calamity 2. All of Hero's DMG ignores DMG-to-HP Conversion effects
Best Build
Dark Mage build analysis
Dark Mage is a legendary crowd control hero. Compared with the other 17 legendary crowd control heroes in the database, Dark Mage sits in the middle of its class on raw stats. Among top players, the most settled part of the build is trait (Accuracy, 42.9%) and the least settled is pet (Grave Assault, only 3.9%), so the pet slot is where you have the most freedom to adapt.
How settled is each slot?
The pick rate of the most popular option shows how much top players agree. Dark Mage's top talent, Sacred Light, is picked 18.8% of the time, which is 5.7 points less settled than the typical hero (median 24.5%).
| Slot | Top pick | Runner-up | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Talent | Sacred Light (18.8%) | Flame Guard (15.2%) | contested |
| Insignia | Sacred Light Insignia (13.1%) | Wicked Armor Insignia (9.3%) | no consensus |
| Square Insignia | Tyranny Insignia (14.1%) | Inspire Insignia (11.3%) | no consensus |
| Equipment | Holy Conviction (11.2%) | Spectral Hold (6.5%) | no consensus |
| Trait | Accuracy (42.9%) | Dodge (19.1%) | clear favourite |
| Pet | Grave Assault (3.9%) | Grave Assault (M) (2.8%) | no consensus |
Near-universal is 50% or more, clear favourite 30–50%, contested 15–30%, no consensus under 15%. When a slot is contested, the runner-up is usually a reasonable substitute if you don't own the top pick.
Stats compared with other legendary crowd control heroes
| Stat | Dark Mage | Peer median | Rank vs peers | Rank overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base ATK | 215 | 220 | 14 / 18 | 155 / 208 |
| Base HP | 3,050 | 2,525 | 6 / 18 | 142 / 208 |
| ATK growth per level | 15 | 13 | 1 / 18 | 104 / 208 |
| HP growth per level | 190 | 120 | 5 / 18 | 130 / 208 |
| Attack interval (lower is faster) | 1,250 ms | 1,000 | 16 / 18 | 105 / 208 |
| Move speed | 250 | 178 | 6 / 18 | 143 / 208 |
Across all 208 heroes of every rarity, base ATK ranks 155th of 208 and base HP ranks 142nd of 208. Its skill has a 7s cooldown. It also has passive effects that work without using the skill, listed in the skill description above.
Heroes with similar builds
4 other heroes share Dark Mage's core pairing of Sacred Light + Sacred Light Insignia: Rosaleen, Royal Mummy, Water Priestess, Lavanica. If you're rebuilding one of them, the same talent and insignia usually carry over.
Looking at every slot, not just talent and insignia, these heroes' builds overlap most with Dark Mage's:
- Wordless Zealot (legendary, offensive): overlap score 204, same top talent (Sacred Light)
- Alphamech (legendary, defensive): overlap score 200
- Valiant Saintess (legendary, offensive): overlap score 199
- Zephyrica (legendary, multiclass): overlap score 196
Overlap score adds up the shared pick rate across all six slots. 0 means nothing in common, and 600 would mean identical builds.
Data source: base stats, skill text and pick rates come from IGG's official Castle Clash hero data, which reports what top players equip. The rankings, consensus ratings and similarity scores above are calculated by CastleClash Builds. See the methodology for details.