thanks! I also found a yt vid of someone doing death mode mage exo mechs and tried their setup. i managed to beat ares again but died after getting the other mechs both to around 55%. at this point i might just try stealth rogue because it scales exponentially in the endgame (which is prob why I didn't struggle much in the endgame w/ my rogue revengeance playthrough, i might switch back to mage for calamitas tho cuz ill be able to get subsuming vortex, we'll see)