Avril is a powerful Crowd controller that can turn the tide of the battle with her spells which greatly affects the battlefield, she is a great asset to your army for player vs player duels and castle sieges. Her ice spells can freeze enemies stopping them from moving or attacking for a period which allows your army to completely steamroll your way to victory.

Ice Nova (costs 1 mana)
Avril summons a frost nova on the battlefield, dealing X points of freezing damage to enemies within a circular area of radius 5. Units that accumulate a set amount of freezing damage will be frozen. Freezing damage dealt is affected by Magic
This spell isn’t really worth your time it is basically a worse version of Avalon’s Arrow Volley ability.

Ice Vortex
Avril’s normal attack has a 25% chance to shoot an icicle, dealing X freezing damage to the target and a smaller amount of freezing damage to nearby enemies.
Get one point in this skill just to boost Avril’s damage and sometimes freeze a few enemy troops it adds up.

Ice Wall (costs 1 mana)
Avril casts an Ice Wall that enemies cannot pass through for X seconds. Giant units can shatter the wall.
Get one point in this ability just to use against human Calvary as it stops them from charging, you can also use this against heavy melee army comps to delay them from getting to your army.

Blizzard (costs 3 mana)
Avril summons 30 massive hailstones on the target area, each hailstone dealing X freezing damage to enemies stuck. Units that accumulate a set amount of freezing damage will be frozen. Freezing damage dealt is affected by Magic
This is Avril’s bread and butter max this skill as much as you can it is a great skill.

Gifted Mage
As a wise mage, Avril has incredible control over magic powers, and can receive an additional X magic.
Get this ability if you have ability points to spare it will help increase the damage output of blizzard.

Rapid Cast
Avril’s spells can be cast twice in battle, and all her spells cooldowns are reduced by X second
Get one point into Rapid Cast as it allows you to cast Blizzard twice in one battle, this map eat all your current mana on Avril but it will probably also win you the battle.

Building Avril

Avril is a support Mage and you should build her skills as such. So, you want to put one point into Rapid Cast so you can cast those critical spells twice in a battle which allows for a lot of variability.

I always get one point into Ice wall just to have it ready for use to block Cavalry charges or to delay enemy melee troops from getting to my melee troops or to clump the enemy up so my splash damage attacks hit more targets.
I would also get one point in Ice Vortex just to have it to increase Avrils damage during battle it also has the added effect of freezing enemies if it deals enough damage which can make all the difference.

After that I would focus on stacking as many points as you can into either Frost Nova or Blizzard. Depending on if you need instant freezing on a small group of units or freezing after a few seconds on most of the battlefield. Also take into consideration the mana costs of Frost Nova vs Blizzard, if you cast either twice in one battle that is 2 mana vs 6 mana spent in one battle, so if you except to use either a lot then I would suggest going with Frost Nova as it is better to save your limited mana potions for Vega to use Favor of the sun god. Unless you are using an undead or mech army than I would suggest using Blizzard.

Equipping Avril

Avril needs a lot of magic to shine, so you primarily want to have her equipped with 3/6 of the Cosmic set to gain that +8 magic. Why only 3/6 when the set gives +1 to blizzard and I said you want to have as many ranks in blizzard as possible? That is because the other 3 pieces will always be on Vega if you use a humanoid army as her favor of the sun god scales off magic and healing your army for 100% of its health every second for 10-30 seconds is better than any amount of damage blizzard can provide unless blizzard one shots an army, which it never will.

You will also have 3/6 on Gazul if you plan on using an undead or Mech army as he needs the +8 magic as well to increase his chances in reanimating corpses, or to boost the damage on soulless scourge which like blizzard deals large damage across a large portion of the battlefield.

Here is an example of items that would fit Avril well that isn’t all legendary items.

Weapon: Cosmic Scepter (+4 magic)
Cloak: Cosmic Mantle (+2 magic +2 command)
Helm: Conjurer’s Cap (+4 magic +1 to Ice Vortex)
Armor: Mantle of Wisdom (+1 magic +2 command +1 stamina)
Relic 1: Cosmic Ring (+3 magic +1 stamina)
Relic 2: Runic Manuscript (+3 magic +1 stamina)

If you choose Avril you will also get Rufio a few minutes later into game.