The '''The Dark Mage''' or "Book Mages" (to some of the community) is a ranged support [[Enemies|enemy]]. They are mainly known for spending most of their time which focuses on casting dark spells to support and help their enemy allies crumble defenses.
When spawned, Dark Mages will slowly float towards the core, potentially attacking [[Heroes|heroes]] and [[Defense|defenses]] that aggroes them. Their primary attack consists of firing magic bolts at their targets. Alongside that, Dark Mages also possesses three different abilities, which are casted from one of three spellbooks floating by the Dark Mage. Those abilities consists of -
* '''Healing spell (Yellow Book) -''' Whenever a Dark Mage or any nearby enemies are damaged, they will occasionally casts a heal spell that'll restore health to any nearby enemies in a small radius. The amount of health restored is not muchto worry for the majority of the game. However, from Onslaught floors 946 onwards this ability becomes dangerously potent as the amount restored is 5 times the number of their enemy level.
* '''Cursing spell (Purple Book) -''' Whenever a Dark Mage targets a tower or blockade, alongside firing magic bolts, they will also periodically cast a single-targeted curse bolt that will damage and debuff any tower/blockade the projectile hit as well, making the defense take 100% more damage for a short duration. (Any tower/blockade affected emits a very subtle dark smoke effect.) Curse Bolts ''will'' pass through Reflect Beams.
* '''Summoning Spell (Brown Book) -''' Summoning [[Skeletons|skeletons]] from fallen allies: if there is any nearby spots where enemies has been defeated, a Dark Mage will be able to summon Goblin and Orc Skeletons from those very spots.
If one happens to struggle to deal with Dark Mages, they can take more damage from defenses equipped with [[Mods|M.O.D.S.]] such as Anti-Ranged Servo or Anti-Support Servo. Heroes can have an easier time deal dealing with them if their weapons are equipped with M.O.D.S. such as Ranged Chip or Support Chip. The extra damages from each mods are additive with each other.
Furthermore, there are also M.O.D.S. such as Range-Boom/Support-Boom Servos and Rangesplosion/Suppslosion Chips that have Dark Mages detonate on death, damaging other enemies. However, while they might be a little useful early game, they are completely useless in late-game.
Malthius is the special enemy/miniboss version of the Dark Mage that has a chance to spawn in most gamemodes except campaign.
=== Maldonis the Dark ===''Main Article - '[[Maldonis the Dark]]'''
Maldonis is another special enemy/miniboss version of the Dark Mage that appears in Return of Maldonis Incursion. Aside from the incursion's gimmick, he is mostly similar to Malthius in general with a different visual.
The Ice Mage is the frosty variant of the Dark Mage, there is not much difference between both versions except the Ice Mage having an attack that chills their targets and being vulnerable to fire damage.
These Dark Mage variants originate from the Dragonfall Carnival event (Reintroduced as the Jester's Revenge Incursion). Their main gimmick is that their primary attacks are charged with elemental damage with crowd-controlling properties. Though bizarrely, the Elemental Mages can sometimes end up crowd-controlling themselves and nearby enemy allies, to their own detriment.
==== Dungeon Defenders II meets Terraria Crossover ====
[[File:Terraria Dark Mage.png|right|100px]]
''Main Article in Terraria's Official Wiki - [https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/Dark_Mage Dark Mage]''
|
<gallery>
File:Dark_Mage_Concept_ArtDark Mage Concept Art.jpg| <sub>''Concept art by Sebastian Cevallos''</sub></gallery>||<gallery>File:Terraria_Dark_Mage.png| <sub>''Terraria sprite''</sub>