> Missing Armor and AoE make Early Stages Cruel and Painful to get through (especially Bosses) > Pretty good Late Game Choice as Thunderbolt Scales with Both Crystal Magic Up and Wand Damage (Secondary less strong but noticable) > Long Range gives the Ability to get through Stages with NO Damage Taken (not all, some are just impossible to avoid Damage, especially Boss wise)

That being said, he still is the Long Range and in later Stages pretty Awesome. Although he has a charged Attack dealing Screenwide Damage like the Knight, he has no effective way to deal AoE Damage early one, even if you go for pure Magic Damage with Crystals.

The Mage being the Long Range Choice is, in my Eyes, for Starters the bad Choice, as he CAN Range attack, with Range exceeding the Screen, but does so against ONLY THE FRONT MONSTER. > Thunderbolt from Stage 6 pretty useless as it scales bad > Except charged Attack NO effective Long Range Attacks (The charging being the downpart to this as you can hit only 2 Times if you're > still decent Damage gain (though still quite slow) Dont underestimate the Range of you Sword, with enough Knockback you can easily outrange most Monsters) Most important is that you have no effective Long Range Damage except your charged Attack, cause your Thunderbolt won't Scale into the Late Game very well, which also brings the Downside that many Monsters will get close to you and hit you hard (obviously). He gets the most increase in Armor per Upgrade, while his Damage is, even though lesss per Upgrade, pretty decent. The Knight is most obviously the tanky one out of your starting Choices.

Buff knight advanced ascension