Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Jade Wizard

Here are general tips for playing the Chaos Champaign in Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, on HARD Difficulty. A list of all our Warhammer: Mark of Chaos articles can be found here.

Jade Wizard Skills

• You get every skill at rank 0 as long as you fulfill the prerequisites.
• Any skill with no skill prerequisite deserves special attention because you can bank your points and get 5 ranks of it immediately when you reach the necessary level, instead of spending your points on low-level skills you may not want.
• Look for passive skills that require no mana, because one or two really good skills on a hero will monopolize use of the mana pool anyway.
• For the Jade Wizard, I recommend maximizing Father of Thorns, then Spell Focus as that lets you cast Father of Thorns more frequently.

Combat Skills

Armoured (Level 0)

• Increases the hero's armour by 0.4 per rank.

Herald of the Storm (Level 0)

• Lightning jumps from the target to 4 additional targets with 50% chance (+8% per rank) of damaging them. Each jump reduces the chance to hit by 10%.

Herald of the Storm > Stormlord (Level 5)

• The Herald of Storm spell affects 1 more target per rank.
• At 5/5, the chances to hit are 50% to 10% for the last 5 targets.

Herald of the Storm > Father of Thorns (Level 15)

• Stops the enemy for 10 seconds (+1 second per rank).
• An incredibly good skill. Great for focussing ranged fire against one tough melee target, such as an enemy hero. The Skaven Assassin can do it for a mere 5.5 seconds. Even 10 seconds is an extremely long time, especially if you have a lot of archer regiments.

Herald of the Storm > Father of Thorns > Earthlord (Level 25)

• Father of Thorns spell damages the affected units with 0.4% chance (+0.4% per rank) every second.
• At 15 seconds and rank 5/5 in Earthlord, this is 15 chances at 2.4%, or about a 70% chance that a model survives unharmed. Basically useless since you should be killing the paralyzed enemy with shooting regiments anyway.

(no prerequisite) > Magic Resistance (Level 5)

• Increases the hero's magic resistance by 1 per level.

Magic Resistance > Spell Focus (Level 15)

• Reduces the cooldown of all spells by 6% per rank.

Duel Skills

These skills are only available during a duel. All other skills that need to be activated are disabled. Therefore, any points put here may be unavailable most of the time, and specializes your hero into an anti-hero build. Even so, it is hard to say whether you will get enough mileage out of a duelist hero because after a bout, he may have low health and no be able to handle a second bout. Damage is typically done by attrition unless you have invested a lot of points.

Winds of Orburus (Level 0)

• Reduces the opponent's chance to hit by 40% (+10% per rank). Lasts 5 seconds (+0.5 seconds per rank).
• At 5/5, this is a 90% reduction, which is huge.

Winds of Orburus > Winter's Grip (Level 15)

• Interrupts the opponent and freezes it for 3 seconds. 20% chance per rank to inflict 2 damage.

Winds of Orburus > Winter's Grip > Lightning Fury (Level 25)

• 8 seconds casting time.
• Four successive lightning bolts slam into the opponent. Each bolt does 4 damage at 45% (+8% per rank) chance to it.
• At 5/5, this is about 52% chance to inflict the maximum of 16 damage.

Supernatural Resilience (Level 0)

• Decreases the attacker's chance to hit by 5% per rank.
• Not clear how this stacks with Winds of Orburus, but it could result in a nearly-zero chance to hit.

Supernatural Resilience > Baltan's Stormshield (Level 5)

• Gives 10 armour to the hero and has a 10% chance to damage the opponent. Last 10 seconds (+2 seconds per rank).

(no prerequisite) > Vortex of Magic (Level 5)

• The hero receives 2% power per rank from the power costs of the spells used by the enemy hero.

Vortex of Magic > Master of the Winds (Level 15)

• Decreases the cost of all spells by 2% per rank.

Command Skills

Passive Command skills work on the hero if they are not attached to a regiment.

Pathfinder (Level 0)

• The hero and the attached regiment suffer 15% less penalty per level when moving on hard terrain.

Pathfinder > Divine Inspiration (Level 5)

• The hero and the attached regiment get +5% bonus to experience points from each kill.

Howler Wind (Level 0)

• Accuracy of ranged attacks against friendly units in the target area is reduced by 25%. Lasts 20 seconds (+3 seconds per rank).
• An interesting skill because it affects an area rather than only the regiment attached to the hero. Great stacking potential and great for helping a unit that is drawing fire from the rest of the army.

Howler Wind > Freezing Mists (Level 15)

• The hero and the attached regiment gain the Freezing Mist effect. Each attacker's attack speed is slowed by 5% per rank.

(no prerequisite) > Magical Ward (Level 5)

• Increases the hero's and the attached regiment's magic resistance by 0.5 per rank.

(no prerequisite) > Inspired Leader (Level 15)

• The hero's and the attached regiment's maximum morale increases by 2% per level.

Armour of Stone (Level 25)

• Increases the target friendly unit's armour by 3 for 15 seconds (+3 seconds per rank).