Why Sacrolash is NOT mandatory for the Mage Tower Affliction Challenge

[Moggie]

I completed the challenge yesterday morning at ilvl 900, using legendary helm and pants. I used infernal to tank P1, then I mortal coiled the first purgatory and killed Raest before the first hand to spawn even finished its first cast once purgatory finally happened and finished, didnt even interrupt it, I also nnly had 1 rune spawn that I couldnt even get to so an add spawned, which i had to kite as well but not for very long

its possible to do it without the ring for sure, the "easiest" way is to cheese the fight but even "cheesing" the fight brings new forms of difficulty to it because there is no room for error when doing it

Yup. Exactly how I ended up doing it since I don't have Corruption ring (used cloak but probably should've use Sephuz+Hood but OH WELL)and tbh without it is a freaking painful fight... too many attempts ~10%, too many times hands spawned off the side of the island and too many times that stupid Karam dude warped on top of me. Took 3 attempts total burning Raest. First wasn't expecting to make it so far and was fumbling for drums. Second time for some reason the fight didn't transition to p2 until 29% on Karam. Final attempt didn't get any hand spawns and when Karam came out of his coma, the boss was already at 1%. 903 ilvl. GG

[Inshabel]

I completed the challenge yesterday morning at ilvl 900, using legendary helm and pants. I used infernal to tank P1, then I mortal coiled the first purgatory and killed Raest before the first hand to spawn even finished its first cast once purgatory finally happened and finished, didnt even interrupt it, I also nnly had 1 rune spawn that I couldnt even get to so an add spawned, which i had to kite as well but not for very long

its possible to do it without the ring for sure, the "easiest" way is to cheese the fight but even "cheesing" the fight brings new forms of difficulty to it because there is no room for error when doing it

At what exact % do you coil? I kinda wanna try this even though I'm only 894, might get lucky with some Whisper proccs.

[Moggie]

At what exact % do you coil? I kinda wanna try this even though I'm only 894, might get lucky with some Whisper proccs.

Transition is 33% ish. You death coil when you see Raest start his really fast casting.

[Saralin]

I don't remember which video it was, but i saw a video of someone doing the fight without taking the first hit, and just used the infernal to taunt the guy. Pretty sure it even worked for me one attempt because i wasn't paying attention. I even had an attempt where i gained too much aggro, and my pet taunted it back.

[SpikeySquad]

I don't remember which video it was, but i saw a video of someone doing the fight without taking the first hit, and just used the infernal to taunt the guy. Pretty sure it even worked for me one attempt because i wasn't paying attention. I even had an attempt where i gained too much aggro, and my pet taunted it back.

Yeah I also had a couple of attempts were my Infernal did tank as well (without me starting at melee) so it's not actually totally off the cards.

[Tolian]

Beat this last night at 901, with Prydaz/Ring combo. Ran 2/2/2/2/2/1/1 using Doomguard. I'll say first off, I can't even imagine doing this without the ring. Hats off to those of you that did, lol. It was a fun/frustrating/addicting challenge. Ended up putting about 5 hours straight into it last night, and finally beat it about 3am this morning.

Advice I'd give based on my own personal experiences:
- Just leave SE on Karam full-time, and don't let your 20-stack WiA fall off while he's in purgatory. Damage on Raest during P2 is irrelevant; Karam is what makes this fight challenging, so getting him down ASAP during P4 is key.
- Make a macro to target, AC, and mark the Hands. These can be hard to see, especially when there's a bunch of stuff going on. Once you've got it marked and Corruption on it, hit it with Agony, and if possible get a couple UAs before the interrupt (don't interrupt until sub-2s). Then hit it with a couple more UAs, refresh Agony, and ignore it.
- Biggest thing IMO: Always, always, always refresh Agony on Karam and the SE while you are kiting. When you're running from place to place you've got nothing better to do, and this habit will save your butt later when it's hectic because you'll be less likely to have a 20-stack fall off, which really bones you.
- Banish works well for the "Things" if one of them gets through. Sometimes if a bunch of the little adds are swarming all over the rune and you don't have time to kite them off, there's just nothing you can do. (Thanks RNG). Only caveat, make sure you remember to keep Banish refreshed. You don't want to get to the very end, kill Karam, and be just basking in relief as you relax and burn down Raest only to have that Thing you forgot come out of Banish and kill you. (/cry, /wrists).
- Use good food, flask, drums (during P4 once Karam starts chasing you so you can clean up little adds and get stabilized), and double pot. If you pot between "I" and "obey" during the RP it's right before you go into combat.

Good luck! Took me something like 80-90 tries I think. Lost count, but that's generally how many netheshards I went through. Now on to the resto shaman one next time the tower is up!

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Yeah I also had a couple of attempts were my Infernal did tank as well (without me starting at melee) so it's not actually totally off the cards.

I messed with this a little last night, and even if I sent the pet in as soon as Karam went active and didn't touch him, the pet couldn't aggro him or taunt. Better off just not relying on the infernal IMO.

[Lucrece]

Beat this last night at 901, with Prydaz/Ring combo. Ran 2/2/2/2/2/1/1 using Doomguard. I'll say first off, I can't even imagine doing this without the ring. Hats off to those of you that did, lol. It was a fun/frustrating/addicting challenge. Ended up putting about 5 hours straight into it last night, and finally beat it about 3am this morning.

Advice I'd give based on my own personal experiences:
- Just leave SE on Karam full-time, and don't let your 20-stack WiA fall off while he's in purgatory. Damage on Raest during P2 is irrelevant; Karam is what makes this fight challenging, so getting him down ASAP during P4 is key.
- Make a macro to target, AC, and mark the Hands. These can be hard to see, especially when there's a bunch of stuff going on. Once you've got it marked and Corruption on it, hit it with Agony, and if possible get a couple UAs before the interrupt (don't interrupt until sub-2s). Then hit it with a couple more UAs, refresh Agony, and ignore it.
- Biggest thing IMO: Always, always, always refresh Agony on Karam and the SE while you are kiting. When you're running from place to place you've got nothing better to do, and this habit will save your butt later when it's hectic because you'll be less likely to have a 20-stack fall off, which really bones you.
- Banish works well for the "Things" if one of them gets through. Sometimes if a bunch of the little adds are swarming all over the rune and you don't have time to kite them off, there's just nothing you can do. (Thanks RNG). Only caveat, make sure you remember to keep Banish refreshed. You don't want to get to the very end, kill Karam, and be just basking in relief as you relax and burn down Raest only to have that Thing you forgot come out of Banish and kill you. (/cry, /wrists).
- Use good food, flask, drums (during P4 once Karam starts chasing you so you can clean up little adds and get stabilized), and double pot. If you pot between "I" and "obey" during the RP it's right before you go into combat.

Good luck! Took me something like 80-90 tries I think. Lost count, but that's generally how many netheshards I went through. Now on to the resto shaman one next time the tower is up!

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I messed with this a little last night, and even if I sent the pet in as soon as Karam went active and didn't touch him, the pet couldn't aggro him or taunt. Better off just not relying on the infernal IMO.

You can command your doomguard to stand on the rune so it prevents the things from spawning. You never have to do so yourself.

[Tolian]

You can command your doomguard to stand on the rune so it prevents the things from spawning. You never have to do so yourself.

F my life...lol! You're serious? I guess I was just trying to up the challenge! Oh well. That's a solid tip though for anyone that hasn't done it.

[Lucrece]

F my life...lol! You're serious? I guess I was just trying to up the challenge! Oh well. That's a solid tip though for anyone that hasn't done it.

Yeah just make sure the pet stands in the center of the rune because if it's not close enough to the center of the rune the add will still spawn.

Frost mages can do the same with water elemental, so it's mainly moonkins and shadow priests that are kinda fucked by them.

[Tolian]

Well, I can say with certainty that having to physically stand on the runes won't stop the boomies and spriests from beating the challenge...heh.

Speaking of pet placement though, something that happened to me a bunch of times is the little adds would spawn under/near my pet, and if I wasn't quick enough exploding a seed on them they would aggro to my pet and not me and kill it. Bunch of dead pets that I had to resummon during P2/P4 because of this, which is basically the worst time to have to stop moving and summon a pet cuz of all the stuff going on. Would be nice if the little void adds didn't proximity aggro to the pet, but spawned aggro to the player instead.

[G3istly]

That particular Legendary may not be but it seems a high item level is. What a shame considering I don't raid.

[dsqdzd]

Speaking of pet placement though, something that happened to me a bunch of times is the little adds would spawn under/near my pet, and if I wasn't quick enough exploding a seed on them they would aggro to my pet and not me and kill it. Bunch of dead pets that I had to resummon during P2/P4 because of this, which is basically the worst time to have to stop moving and summon a pet cuz of all the stuff going on. Would be nice if the little void adds didn't proximity aggro to the pet, but spawned aggro to the player instead.

Your pet did not die to proximity aggro, there is a little animation when then spawn and just before they appear if you are on top of the animation, you die. It does the same on your pet so always keep it on passive during those phases so it'll follow you and be available for interrupts.

[simonpegg]

Just got this on my 4th ever try without ring, was using the boots and a demo belt, i dont know if i got incredibly lucky with anything, i used 2/2/2/1/2/1/1 - used infernal to tank phase 1 then just ran in circles with burning rush up, popped a few ua's on the posessed dude whenever cripple was up, dotted the hands as soon as they came up and if they didnt die by the second cast i just mortal coiled the boss and finished them off, didnt even have to use a gateway at any point.

Character name is Simonpegg on EU Khadgar if anyone wants to see the gear i used, im 904 equipped.

[Lucrece]

Your pet did not die to proximity aggro, there is a little animation when then spawn and just before they appear if you are on top of the animation, you die. It does the same on your pet so always keep it on passive during those phases so it'll follow you and be available for interrupts.

Usually you can just park the pet on top of Raest or with Karam and it'll be fine and not hit by any of the swirlies.

[Malix Farwin]

That particular Legendary may not be but it seems a high item level is. What a shame considering I don't raid.

This is part of the reason there is a problem with this fight for Affliction. While it is do-able with the legendary ring theres this problem where if you do not have the ring it is a real channel that requires both ilvl and Skill but if you do have the ring then it is a joke and ive seen people as low as ilvl 880 do it with ease just because they had the ring.

[Lucrece]

This is part of the reason there is a problem with this fight for Affliction. While it is do-able with the legendary ring theres this problem where if you do not have the ring it is a real channel that requires both ilvl and Skill but if you do have the ring then it is a joke and ive seen people as low as ilvl 880 do it with ease just because they had the ring.

No different from many other challenges.


Prydaz makes fight like the demonhunter/frost death knight one trivial as much of what makes the fight challenging is both spec's low recovery outside long cooldowns so it's a DPS check before they die to chip damage. Prydaz trivializes that.

Prydaz also makes the tank challenge significantly easier.

The challenges are tuned to be really tight at 900ilv and they get easier as you get close to ilv910. It's intentional, they want to reward mythic raiders.

[G3istly]

This is part of the reason there is a problem with this fight for Affliction. While it is do-able with the legendary ring theres this problem where if you do not have the ring it is a real channel that requires both ilvl and Skill but if you do have the ring then it is a joke and ive seen people as low as ilvl 880 do it with ease just because they had the ring.

I don't know about the other challenges but they mostly seem like a gear check rather than anything skill-based. Not that it matters since Blizzard is hellbent on forcing players into content they do not care for considering the only way to unlock two of the color variants is to kill a certain boss on Heroic and win Rated Battlegrounds.

[Inshabel]

Got Karam to 8%(!) last night by skipping P2 with Coil, I definetly feel like I will get him down this rotation (894 equipped, Trinket and Hood, using Bear Tartare) I haven't put in any serious burst attempts, might do that tonight.

[Moggie]

Got Karam to 8%(!) last night by skipping P2 with Coil, I definetly feel like I will get him down this rotation (894 equipped, Trinket and Hood, using Bear Tartare) I haven't put in any serious burst attempts, might do that tonight.

Just replace your food, don a flask and can get it easily if you're down to 8%. DC and Fear Karam when he begins chasing you.

[Tolian]

Got Karam to 8%(!) last night by skipping P2 with Coil, I definetly feel like I will get him down this rotation (894 equipped, Trinket and Hood, using Bear Tartare) I haven't put in any serious burst attempts, might do that tonight.

Whereas I think it's reasonable to want/try to use the Infernal to tank for the challenge, this whole skipping purgatory by casting a mortal coil at just the right instant seems like an exploit. They obviously don't intend for you to be able to pretty much skip phase 3 and phase 4, which I would assume is what happens if you continue killing Karam instead of letting him go into purgatory and heal.