Mage Tower Artifact Scenario Guide (Affliction, Destruction, and Demonology)

[Radaney]

I just saw someone with the affliction one in worse gear than I have, without Sacrolash...

I'm salty.

[Lucrece]

I just saw someone with the affliction one in worse gear than I have, without Sacrolash...

I'm salty.

It's practice and luck on spawns/shards. Keep going at it. Had to blow 2k nether shards for my demo challenge because the traps RNG alongisde synchronized empowerment+spin+wall can really fuck you over.

[Radaney]

It's practice and luck on spawns/shards. Keep going at it. Had to blow 2k nether shards for my demo challenge because the traps RNG alongisde synchronized empowerment+spin+wall can really fuck you over.

Honestly I just did the Infernal tanking method and it makes retries much less... tedious? (when it works). I wouldn't be surprised if this gets fixed on the hotfixes going out right now on EU though. Feels bad man.

I'm actually mostly dying to the kite guy going through the floor so I can't see him poking his head out the ground in the mass of nameplates from the voidlings.

Also what can cause the hands to spawn all the way over at the end 'lake' side of the platform? When I'm on the opposite end of the platform.

[dsqdzd]

Having just finished the destro challenge, my advice is to treat it as an endurance fight.
1) The interrupt rotation will remain consistent through the fight.
Use command demon kick -> mortal coil -> command demon kick -> Unending Resolve -> Repeat
You can attempt to fear the 4th kick, but you have to be quick and it's more reliable to just soak it. With this in mind, make sure to keep yourself topped off throughout the fight by draining after the worm shouts, if you get hit by the burrowing worm, or after you soak the big hit (this generally dropped me to around 1.5mil with Unending Resolve up)
2) Fear the earthquake. If you fear every earthquake, the boss will never spawn worm adds. One less thing to worry about.

Once you've whittled Tugar down, the worm fight is simply a matter of draining life after each worm shout until it's dead. Just don't choke on the interrupt order and it's an easy kill.

Just to add a few things to this:
* I used Unending Resolve every other shout of the worm (you won't have it every time), it allows you to keep casting and it reduces the damage of the only ability that will damage you if you do the interrupts properly on Tugar.
* If you want to manage the interrupts, only use your coil when you are in a pinch and try to fear him when your kick is on CD. That way it'll allow you to have a panic button and that's often helpful when you get stunned by the worm at the worse possible time for example.
* If undergeared, you can fear/coil the worm too so if the shout is too much damage at the end (when Tugar is down), you can just coil->fear->coil the worm on every shout and you will take absolutely no damage from him.

[Deleted]

Just did the Demonology one. Took me around 18 attempts or so at 904 iLvL. When I started the fight I had no idea that the boss would fall over at 20% hp, neither did I know you didn't need to kill the adds. So, don't bother killing the adds^^
The hardest part was after 4 min or so when you start getting a chain of runes in conjuction with Sigryn's transformation and axe guy's spin to win. The best way to deal with that is when the runes start to spawn just prematurely fear Sigryn so you don't have to do everything at the same time. After that wombo combo has played its part the fight is pretty much over as all the other abilities that comes after are reasy to deal with and the boss should be near dead by that point.

[alexchaos]

yeah those runes are normal. Try having your stun up for those one if possible so you can get the first one, stun him and go get the last 2.

The first phase is really the hardest part, once you've mastered it... it should be easy !

Forgot to update! I beat it yesterday morning in 2 tries! I think I only needed a cool head hehe

[Rhonen]

Was doing great with the Affliction tanking method, and did okay kiting in Karam's second phase. However, I died to an invisible hand that effectively put an end to my night. Going to go put my head through a wall now.

[Deleted]

3 try with a pet despowing ( affliction scenario ), and so die n hands

can the pet be targeted by adds?

[Inshabel]

Finally got the Destro one, I found saying out loud which Interupt you'll be using really helped.

How do you get your pet to tank Karam?

[Shodan30]

Has blizzard confirmed that the twins are bugged with the pools not slowing the meele guy?

[Sheevah24]

Honestly I just did the Infernal tanking method and it makes retries much less... tedious? (when it works). I wouldn't be surprised if this gets fixed on the hotfixes going out right now on EU though. Feels bad man.

I'm actually mostly dying to the kite guy going through the floor so I can't see him poking his head out the ground in the mass of nameplates from the voidlings.

Also what can cause the hands to spawn all the way over at the end 'lake' side of the platform? When I'm on the opposite end of the platform.

Apply a marker on him maybe? Should help keeping an eye on him. Also, those hands spawning way too far were the reason for me wiping for 4-5 out of the 15 tries it took me. What I noticed is that they spawn on the spot where Karem "dies" for phase 2. So you wouldn't want to transition to P2 with him on the edge of the room. Also those hands should be banishable. Though I did save my banish for the add spawning from the pool as i wiped 3-4 times to the pool spawning on a VERY bad spot and I didn't know back then that your pet CAN soak that pool (helpful perhaps)

[JJShadoe]

3 try with a pet despowing ( affliction scenario ), and so die n hands

can the pet be targeted by adds?

I'm not certain what killed my pet, but I had this problem on several attempts where I'd go to interrupt a hand at the last second only to find that my pet was dead. Read someone else suggest that you keep your pet on passive and control their targeting to prevent this, and it worked for me. I keybound pet assist and made a macro to target the hand and interrupt, and it was easy to add into my rotation without complicating things much. Maybe I lost a few dps here and there due to not getting my pet attacking my target ASAP, but better that than no pet to interrupt the hands.

- - - Updated - - -

Also what can cause the hands to spawn all the way over at the end 'lake' side of the platform? When I'm on the opposite end of the platform.

The hands spawn from Kaeram, so they will pop up somewhere not too far behind him from the path you have been kiting him on. I had this happen to me once or twice before I realized what was going on. Don't let him be too far away from you after phase 1, or you'll end up with hands you can't deal with.

- - - Updated - - -

Has blizzard confirmed that the twins are bugged with the pools not slowing the meele guy?

Nope. Nor have they fixed Cripple to not apply the PvP duration (as far as I'm aware). Perhaps both are intended.

[Zinstorm]

For those interested: the cloth crafted legendary effects do work on the affliction fight... so if you don't have the rings or pants you can use those. it's not much... but every little bit helps.

[wholol]

Completed the demonology one yesterday, it's only hard until you can start predicting their abilities. After that it's incredibly easy. I did it slightly differently than what a lot of people have suggested, trying the AoE route. Just make sure to take a lap around the runeseer to get him to stack with the others and the rest is RNG and execution.

Yeah I also did it like that, just stacks them and spam demonwrath with hand of doom, was much easier than regular try, u basically only have to move to dodge valkyr, use gate to move away from jarl if he enrages or just port to the middle if runes spawn then back to stacking.

[Belmorn]

For destro as others have said, fear before earthquake gets at 50% casttime and it will significantly reduce the difficulty of the scenario.
The one thing you really have to look out for is the point where you get totem + fel blast + worm shout which interrupts all happen at the same time.
Best thing to do is to make sure you have coil up as much as possible and use it in the above scenario then conflag the totem.
Keep in mind coil has travel time so dont wait too long with it.
Fearing a blast while worm is up might result your shadow school getting locked and then its a wipe.
Also make sure if you use servitude for the interrupt, you always bank one soulshard for this.
Stuns from infernals isnt reliable as interrupt as that has travel time too.
Prioritize being topped off with drain life over dps so you can use resolve to eat a blast if its really needed.

[Deleted]

The most reliable way I found to get your pet to tank in the first phase of the Affliction Challenge was to have both you and your pet stand right ontop of the boss. For safety reasons I had him hold his ground. As the boss activates you use Unending Resolve (when the boss sais "I Obey"). The boss hits you and you as soon as you can start spaming your pet to attack the boss.
You will drop to 50% hp, but as soon as your pet has the aggro (should be instant) the first phase becomes a cakewalk and you can safely just heal that health back up again.
Keep an eye on your pet though, sometimes the boss doesn't stack his damage increase, sometimes he does. When he does your pet will require some healing occasionally, just make sure he is above 40% hp.

[Zinstorm]

For those interested: the cloth crafted legendary effects do work on the affliction fight... so if you don't have the rings or pants you can use those. it's not much... but every little bit helps.

Finally beat it... was a fun fight to learn... defiantly helped having the cloth crafted legendary shoulders due to not having any of the movement legendaries... a must get if you want to do the fight without the rings or pants.

[Kozilik]

A few tips that really helped me finally complete this one at 896 earlier this evening. If you've got a decent ilvl krosus trinket use it. My strategy for p2 and P3 was to leave all the voidlings up, I slow them all with one seed, sacrolash and AC. I leave them up until karam starts chasing you again, drop seed and trinket and maybe 1-2 more seeds. This generates a ton of boss damage on karam via soul flame and ensures you're not wasting reap/woc damage on voidlings for no reason. I use 2nd pot and drums as soon as karam comes back for the last time. Cleaning up all the voidlings but 1-2 depending on spawns. I chose to tunnel karam now as he's the one that will eventually kill you, raeste doesn't do any thing besides spawn puddles to stand in. Also, just leave burning rush on, all the time. I spent a lot of attempts toggling it on and off, but at the end of the day everything here 1 shots you whether you're at 1% or 95%

[Rahmula]

There was another mage tower thread I had posted in, but just gonna copy-paste here same thing I wrote there, cuz it was a lot!

My Kill Video: [This my first post on this site, so I can't post links yet but...]
www youtube com /watch?v=M19dFWCf5Ak

Affliction Mage Tower Challenge
Boss: Raest Magespear
Date completed: 13April2017
Gear ilvl: 896
Total attempts: ~35
Talent Choices: Haunt/ Perma Corruption/ Mortal Coil/ Siphon Life/ Burning Rush/ Grimoire of Service/ Phantom

Gear of note: Sacrolash + Sephuz + Chrono Shard

Explanation for Talent Choices:

Haunt: Mostly taken for dealing with the Hands efficiently. Also, it was less reliant on me having to stand there and channel. I could drop all my dots and some CDs on any target and then throw a quick haunt in the mix and move on if I needed to. It gave great burst on the Hands due to dots + Haunt + Reap.

Absolute Corruption: To keep up a permanent slow debuff on the mobs. I did notice that I’d have to still recast corruption on Karam after each of his inactive phases in order to maintain the slow effect. (Seed makes corruption go back on him if he’s close to the explosion, even if he’s inactive. However, the slow itself didn’t take effect until I recast it.)

Mortal Coil: For use on Karam when I need to make distance/buy some time. Unlike fear, mortal coil lasted the full duration. Plus it gave me a free heal! [After the first several attempts, I didn’t bother casting regular fear at all… Regular fear had a cast time… Yet it always broke after only ~1-2 seconds. Sometimes it even broke instantly.]

Siphon Life: Healing + it’s another insta-cast dot when I’m on the move. This helped to counter the dmg taken by Burning Rush/Lifetap.

Burning Rush: On demand speed buff! As the fight progressed, I needed this in order to keep a safe distance or to get to a rune quickly.

Grimoire of Service: Emergency Hand interrupt / DPS CD. I only needed to use it as an emergency interrupt once at the very very last second of the fight. Contrary to what some others have said, you absolutely can interrupt every single hand’s first cast with your regular pet. [The hand must die before the 2nd cast, however.]

Phantom: Great aoe for the mini shadow adds and great healing. It is usable in all phases even though I took it for the shadow add phases.



SPECIAL NOTES:

--During all of my attempts, the Hands consistently spawned close to the puddles that Karam dropped on the ground. Therefore, my strategy centered on controlling where the Hands spawned by controlling where Karam pathed. Perhaps it’s just coincidence, but it happened for every single hand spawn I got and for every single attempt I did. I personally, kept Karam’s pathing inside the center ring, which made Hand spawns a breeze to reach. My pet and I were always in range of them.

--Keeping mobs in the center the whole time also increases the chance that both bosses take soulflame dmg from all the mini shadow adds.

--Regular pets’ 24-sec CD interrupt is good enough to interrupt the FIRST cast of every single Hand that spawns. (Every single one!)

--Pre-pot before Karam finishes his “I…obey…” line. (I think I screwed that up in my kill though. RIP. I pre-potted too late...)

--I saved hero drums for when Raest starts attacking again in the last phase. I could get some good damage on him before Karam started chasing me again.

--You get slightly more time to DPS Hands, if you don’t interrupt until they are ~midway finished with their first cast. You can use the time before the interrupt to put your dots up and haunt. Depending how much dmg you need, you can also have pet attack it and/or use more UAs. Draining is not important if you can’t safely fit it in. [Note: If you interrupt toooooo quickly, then the hand will just start casting again before you’ve had the time to properly ramp up.]



MY PERSONAL STRATEGY:

Main pet: Felhunter
Service pet: Felhunter

Part 1: Fighting Karam alone:

--Start fight directly opposite of Karam, on the other side of the center ring. When the fight begins, Karam will path down the middle. Fully dot him up + Haunt + Phantom + Doomguard + Service puppy. (The CDs can be cast on the run along with any dot refreshes.) When Karam gets too close, keep circling around the edge just outside the circle. This keeps all of his puddles inside the ring, which makes later phases easier for Hand spawns.

--For this phase, I used both Haunt and Phantom liberally. Ideally Phantom should always have haunt buffing it. Phantom still does decent dmg here, even though this isn't the best phase for it. Phantom shines more in the later phases. Besides... it's another instant cast!

--If Karam gets too fast to run normally, then make good use of burning rush/mortal coil. [If you use mortal coil, still try to aim it so that he won’t leave the center ring!]


Part 2: Karam becomes inactive and we fight Raest alone:

--Watch for where the shadow adds are spawning. Cast seed of corruption on every group that spawns to put perma-corruption-slow on all of them. Can throw out a few agonies too for shard procs (or even some siphon lifes if you need more passive healing)

--Continue hovering around the outer edge of the center ring, but when more groups of the shadow adds spawn, reposition yourself so that all groups end up clumping together.


Part 3: Raest goes inactive and Karam starts chasing again:

--Re-cast corruption on Karam to re-apply the slow effect. Continue keeping him in the center ring. (He still drops puddles and we want those to be in a controlled area, since Hands consistently spawn close to them.)

--When Karam is near the middle of the shadow add packs, cast Phantom on Karam, so that it hits everything around him. [Note: Do not use haunt on Karam anymore. For the remainder of the fight, all haunts are for Hands only.]

--DPS Karam as much as you can until the first Hand spawns.

--Whenever Hands spawn, be ready to start dotting it up + Reap + Haunt and interrupt when the Hand is ~midway through its first cast. If you positioned correctly, Hands should always be in range.

--The shadow adds can pretty much be ignored, unless you need more targets for agony/siphon. Corruption + Phantom were more than enough to finish them off. Just have to be mindful of their movements.


Part 4: Karam goes inactive again and we fight Raest:

--More shadow adds spawn: Like before, seed of corruption them so put the perma-slow on everyone. Try to keep the add groups clumped together.

--Pop hero + all the dots + phantom + Doomguard + Serviced felpuppy & 2nd pot on Raest. [Note: Haunt still saved for Hands only!]


Part 5: Karam activates for the last time and we fight both brothers same time:

--Runes will spawn on the ground and start shrinking in size. Stand in the middle of them to prevent large Faceless adds from spawning. [Pets can soak runes too! Take advantage of this by having pet soak if it is not safe for you to do it yourself.]

--Handle Hands in the same manner.

--Hands and Runes alternate the order in which they appear… but sometimes they’ll overlap. When that happens, you and your pet will have to split up a bit. One of you can head over to the hand and the other to soak the rune (or vice versa). It’s fine for you to soak rune if it’s safe to do so. The Hand should still be in range either way, based on how we positioned the puddles.

--Focus as much dps on Raest as you can spare while keeping safe distance from Karam and the shadow adds.

--Once Raest dies, you win the encounter! (You don't have to kill Karam at the end.)

[Grizelda]

Fun fight. I think it's probably a bit harder then the green fire was. If I did it without Sacrolash it would definitely be harder.

I did it in about 30 tries with 896 gear.

I really like this sort of thing. I'm glad when Blizz puts them out. My heart was pounding and I gave a big nerd cheer at the end