A player coming back for a long time, please help.

[Mikasa Ackerman-Jaeger]

Hi, I stopped playing for about a year and there were so many changes in the game happened. I started playing again last ANB Silver and read here in the forums how much adjustments I must do. I still love playing mage, and I want to play cometitively in the upcoming ANB Gold (if I'm not mistaken it always start a week after the War Supplies event). I already purchased the Season Pass and did some purchases in WS and luckily I unlocked the necessary gear for an ELR mage — VotWS, ToS, BoM and Frostfire Sash.

My questions are, due to the AR nerf, how much is the ideal AR for exp farming and pushing? I play in mobile, so I am putting some Dodge Rating for more survival, but how much is that for final trial pushing? Is it good to put some EG in exp farming, say to 3-4 pieces so it'll help reduce gold farming in TSM and more gold to buy more basic crates (take note I'll be buying a legendary crate when I reach level 70)?

[kurtcabage]

AR sweet spot now is 1500.

and no don't put EG on your exp gear, due to the last update, our farming spot moved from TL80 to TL105 and 3-4 piece with EG will just ruin your exp build and won't give you much gold either.
better to just craft a cheap eg gear and farm on SM.

and usually people on mobile more prefer to use firelily build rather than crit

[Mikasa Ackerman-Jaeger]

Thanks, I'm just thinking of an optimal way of gaining some more gold while grinding exp, sacrificing some vitality because I'm still comfortable in pulling the whole map at around 150k HP before the final push. And another thing, since they also nerfed the GBoL drops, would it be a better investment if we'll unlock the third ability upgrade slot? I know it is 900 gems, but for ANB Gold would we benefit more from unlocking it? For the lily build I still haven't enough experience so I'll still use a crit build this gold, maybe in the next bronze, I'll practice that build first with my main.

[kurtcabage]

3rd ability upgrade slot sounds good for gold
and TL135 with 150k health is doable imo. but need more vit if you aim much higher than that

[bojck]

If you have the lily recipe, I'd suggest to use it for levelling and xp farming - it's so much easier It works really well with epic xp gear (legendary trinkets though), so xp/eg legendaries is also an option, but there a lot of things to consider - efficiency, wasting 76/77s on xp/eg gear, switching to push gear without reforging, etc.

[Mikasa Ackerman-Jaeger]

Ok, I'll try a lily build this time, and I am just reforging my 75-77 gear with exp when I am ready to the final push because those 75-77 gear has the highest exp% so better to benefit from them in grinding first. Just a question, is unlocking the 3rd ability upgrade slot on ANB Gold gem-worthy because we have just 3-4 hours exp farming and the GBoL drops were nerfed?

[bojck]

Sounds solid - reforging with Lily is quite cheap, as there are always a few suitable stats to choose from. The 3rd slot is worth it, if it's within your budget. Depends on what your goals are : ) For context - with 2 slots it's reasonable to expect 130-140 synergy, if you leave 2 hours for push (150 synergy is possible, but it will be damn hard).

[Mikasa Ackerman-Jaeger]

Top 100 at least is my goal, TL 135 is just enough to enter that