Summoners’ War: Mari vs Ley

Hey, folks! This is probably the first of many (I hope) character breakdowns in this website where we put two units against each other and compare them side by side. The intention of this face-off is to define which is stronger, best comp synergies and as well as how well they fair on PVP and PVE.

Most of the data derived here are from the actual skill descriptions in-game, some tests on practice mode and first-hand experience as I do own Mari and Ley, both used on PVP and dungeons.

I’m a lazy typer and it’s 1AM so I’ll keep it concise.

Expectations

To make a comparison, a few guidelines had to be set and I believe Mari and Ley fall under these:

• Similar playstyle
• Same rank
• Same class

I ain’t the best in math, won’t go too deep and make things complicated. Just think of this article as just ‘setting the table’ for ya’ll to eat. All my computations are done based from base stats and therefore buffs from equipment sets, party skills and possible synergy from other characters are not counted in the “Skillset” part of the article.

Skillset

To get a better perspective of how these two summoners work, we’ll have to take a look at each skill and compare!

Correction: Mari’s KORMETs have a 3 summon limit. Thanks to Gelo for pointing this out. Tried and tested on practice mode.

Ley – After summoning Jeeves, your first skill turns into a different ability that commands him to rush towards the enemy and do a continuous knockback CC. If you’re able to maximize the whole 30 secs, you can potentially deal 2,000%+ damage in 30 secs with Jeeves’ skill alone. This is also with the standard 3 sec cooldown. What more with cooldown reduction and attack speed to proc her passive(We’ll get to that later).

The computation does not include Jeeves’ basic attacks and his initial damage.

Mari – With KORMET able to be alive for 30 sec and on a 20 sec cooldown, you can potentially have 2 KORMETS available on a 10 sec window. Without attack speed buffs, let’s assume the missiles come out every 4-5 secs, dealing 432% m. dmg in 30 secs + 144% m.dmg in 10 seconds for when the second KORMET is summoned + 240% dmg (Initial dmg with 2 KORMETS) + 180% dmg (Upon the first summon’s death) = 996% m.dmg in 30 secs.

This does not include KORMET’s basic attacks as well and the possibility of overlapping 3 KORMETs with the right build for cdr, skill rotations and SP recovery.

Conclusion: Ley clearly wins this one damage-wise. But for PVE dungeons, Mari’s skill has a far greater reach for mobs and splash damage. Having 996% m.dmg per unit is pretty impressive.

Ley – Has a smaller range in comparison to Mari’s and this is another summon that has HP. Not sure if the debuff stacks ex. 3 Haunts = -150% HP Recovery. Great for PVP. Take note that 110% m.dmg/sec is actually pretty insane because it damages enemies around the summon. If you keep 3 Haunts alive, you’ll be dealing 7,260% m.dmg in a span of 30 secs. (As long as you summon every 8 secs).

This computation does not count the initial damage as Mari’s skill doesn’t have one.

Mari – Not entirely sure what “maximum magic damage per second” means but the way I understood it is that, a certain unit can only suffer up to 358.4% damage tops during the whole duration of the AoE. I’m assuming this is the case as you can summon unlimited amounts of the WDW and they can go on top of each other. Seems pretty OP if its 300%+ dmg per second and you can place as many as you want. It lasts for 15 secs and has a 12 sec cd, therefore, you have a good 3 sec DoT of 2x damage before it expires.

Conclusion: Ley wins again for both PVP and PVE for having an effective spread, heal debuff and a huge amount of damage. The effectiveness of Mari’s 2nd skill is dependent on KORMET summons. Still great because the AoE size is huge but its a rather slow dps skill compared to Ley’s Haunts.

Conclusion: I’m not even gonna break it down since it’s not that complicated. Ultimate skills that costs 40 SP are rarely used and the damage gap is just too much between the two. Ley wins again. The only good side for Mari’s skill is having a good 30 seconds with 4 KORMETS. Not entirely sure if that’s worth it for 40 SP but looking at Ley’s other skills, she can easily get more damage without spending that much.

Ley – Packed with a ton of buffs for summons and as well as a way of sustain to keep your little shits alive, this works great with atk speed buffs. Each basic atk will deal a  35% splash m.dmg from the targeted unit. Its just too good. Empowered autoattacks are always helpful.

Mari – her passive is very underwhelming. Not only that it doesn’t indicate how much damage the “Overloaded” debuff actually does, but it only has a 10% chance of proc-ing. Its not worth working around it. Its just a bonus and its definitely not what makes Mari great.

Conclusion: I don’t think I need to say anything here.

Overall Assessment

I’m obviously leaning heavily on Ley due to how effective she could be at both PVP and PVE for full-on damage. One thing to note on Ley is that her skill animations are quite slow so if you don’t correctly have your skill rotations right in-between controlling everyone, you’ll definitely either find yourself investing too much on Ley and ignoring the rest or the complete opposite and therefore, not maximizing her kit. Her Jeeves knockback skill has 0 cost + can potentially reach 1 sec cooldown. Extremely powerful at PVP.

On the other hand, Mari is very straightforward and doesn’t need too much attention. The bots do whatever they want and therefore, you can focus controlling other characters in the comp that has a lower CDR and the rest will do their job. Still works amazingly well on PVE with her bigger range and tick damage.

Ley

• Equipment: Green Set for the atk speed buffs and boost her atk dmg as well. In my opinion, I’d go for a combination of Green Set and Blue Set to get just the atk speed buff and cooldown reduction.
• Good with: Sofia for the atk speed buffs for your passive and your summons, Amy/Sage for more SP regeneration, Olivia for atk dmg increase for you and your summons, Ronan for magic dmg buffs and protection. Mages are super squishy.
• Bad against: Heavy CC divers. They can cancel your somewhat base slow skill animation. This includes Seighart, Elesis and Lass to name a few. Boar as he has a 10 sec skill that instantly kills off summons.
• PVP: She’s great with the heal reduction debuffs and as well as Jeeves’ knockback. Its a small space so if you can, you can pin them towards the door forever where the other units get summoned when you kill them. Perfect setup for AoE attacks.
• PVE: Damage will definitely not disappoint and your “Haunts” will have a fun time dealing tons of hurt out there but I feel like there are better options from other classes.

Mari

• Equipment: Feel free to go full blue set here for dmg redux + skill cdr redux(Be more tankier + more KORMETS and WDW). Or if you want to take advantage of the passive, go Green Set.
• Good with: Same with Ley
• Bad Against: Same with Ley
• PVP: The WDW is great as it takes up a huge area. And AI doesn’t normally dodge and re-position. Summons are also great at separating the squad so you can juggle aggro and focus 1-2 members at a time.
• PVE: I think Mari is way better on PVE. The fact that you don’t need to control her much but deals a significant amount of damage still is a plus since you can invest your SP and other resources on other units.

And that ends my Ley vs Mari face-off. I’m super tired already so I won’t say much. If you like what you’ve read, kindly share the article. If you see something wrong, feel free to leave a comment!

Want a face-off and a comparison like this for other characters? Hit me up at @RikuCasts and if I have time, I’ll make one! For now, hope you enjoyed!