BrM Mage Tower challenge tips?

[Saverem]

So I have the other 2 weapons which were relatively easy to get. Took me about 20 attempts on healer and only like 4 on my WW.

I tried the tank one literally ONCE (before the nerfs) and failed with first boss at like 90% HP left. So yeah, never stepped foot back in there since. But now as the Mage Tower is about to be rebuilt again, I'm thinking about giving it a go. At least getting some practice attempts in there.


I'm guessing it's easier to do now that it's been nerfed? My BrM only has 3 legendaries he can use. Prydaz, Sephuz, and the feet. Guessing Prydaz and Sephuz will be the way to go since I'll need the DPS and survivability?

Right now he only has 42 traits, will that be enough? He has 906 ilvl in his tank gear and like 904 in his DPS gear.


What are some good tips for P1 and P2? Should I Paralyze his casts as much as possible? How should I handle his HP debuff thing? Which mobs have priority? etc.

[Syphonfilter64]

Few tips I can offer.

Bear Tartare for the movement speed buff when adds die

Legendaries I used were Chestpiece for 100% uptime on breath of fire debuff and Sephuz for constant interupts/haste on boss


Talents were Chi Burst, Celerity, Gift of the Mists, Summon Black ox Statue, Healing elixir, special delivery and High Tolerance


Generally I set up Black Ox Statue near Velen to pickup the horror adds, I'll start the fight going hard on the boss till about 4x stacks of debuff using melee interupt for his general cast.

Once he casts Siphon life, I use paralyze to interupt him/CC him from ranged picking up the 4 adds off Velen and AOE them down. Then back on the boss again.

With interupts I try use melee interupt as much as possible for his general cast and keeping Paralyze for ranged heal interupt.

Try to not use your healing runes if you can, sometimes you can build them up to save them for later. Also any leech gear you have will also help.

Otherwise never really let your boss debuff get above 4-5 stacks otherwise your health gets low enough a general cast could kill you.

I always let paralyze last its full duration of CC as its time you dont have to deal with the boss casting on you and you can focus eyes/horrors.

Otherwise, good luck. This challenge is painful and frustrating at best. Velen seems to heal randomly and not on a timer or percentage which can be insanely annoying. Kite and much as possible, especially when waiting for Velen to remember hes a healer.

Best of luck!

[Kylusen]

As the post said above Bear Tartare is nice for its movement it gives

The talents I ran were Chi Burst, Tiger's Lust, Black Ox Brew, Leg Sweep, Healing Elixir, Special Delivery, and Blackout Combo (don't have the legendary chest piece so combo was nice for lower CD on breath)

If you opt for leg sweep you'll want to use Chi Burst to pick up the 4 adds when they get to Velen, I rotated explosive keg and leg sweep for the add waves (pulled the adds on top of Varis to get all the aoe dmg on everything). I wouldn't recommend pulling the adds on top of Varis if leg sweep or explosive keg is down, since you'll get hit pretty hard while having the debuff stacking

As said above since you can paralyze Varis for all his drains interrupt him as much as possible (try to do it late into his cast since he'll start another one right after being interrupted)

Once you get to Kruul you'll want to interrupt reflections and interrupt Annihilate with paralysis and leg sweep to delay the cast as much as you can (a cc chain I did when CDs were up was Paralysis>Leg Sweep>Velen Orb>Paralysis). Make sure not to forget the Nether Horrors that will be making their way to Velen during this time.

The ilvl I completed this was 896 eq. with legendary Bracers/Belt and I have 3 Hot Blooded Relics, a big part of the challenge is generating your healing orbs by using obstinate determination as effectively as you can and figuring out a comfortable amount of stacks you can handle in phase 1.

It's a tough challenge, much harder than it was for my Warrior (I missed victory rush so much while doing this), so best of luck and dont give up!

[Bearygood]

I used Eye of the Tiger, Celerity (to roll out of kruuls fel smashes), BOB, HE, Leg Sweep, Special Delivery, and Blackout Combo I used Prydaz/Archi

Be as aggressive as possible on variss, the longer the phase goes out the more likely you'll make a mistake on, stay in the DND as long as you can, as long as you dont get hit by mindrend the health loss is neglible. Use Fang of tichondrius on infernal if you have it when theyre low,
If you use the legendaries I use, Interrupt the first, take the second mind rend(which prydaz will absorb) then use archi to absorb the others until he uses drain life. Thats your cue to get out of the DND and kill an eye or two and wait for adds, the beginning burst helps you a lot

For Kruul, pop drums/potion/smash keys until he dies and keep moving in circles because if you dont you will probably fall off. Interrupt Twisted reflects and use Leg Sweep/Para on annihalate, roll out of every fel patch and provoke the boss to get out of it quickly.

Thats all I have basically, GL

[Will]

Why use Dave statue? Just use leg sweep. Stuns the boss just as well as it stuns the adds. You don't need statue. The adds pretty much ignore velen in p1. They sometimes go for him in p2 but really they're easy to pick up. One keg. Bam. Done. You're better off having leg sweep.

[fjura]

use niuzao and it's a joke. pop at start, go to high stacks (8) high boss uptime. wait for stacks to fall, heal self, kill adds in circle with stun.

niuzao will be up again during kruul. tank first annihilate and purify/purify. next annihilate, stall with leg sweep into para then summon niuzao. it will tank the next 2 annihilates and trivialize the entire encounter.

ur gear is fine. did it with 0 brm leggies. prydaz and mistweaver chest at 897 or so. buy some leech cloak/belt from AH BoE if you need.

face palm > hotblooded > any other relic trait

[Syphonfilter64]

Why use Dave statue? Just use leg sweep. Stuns the boss just as well as it stuns the adds. You don't need statue. The adds pretty much ignore velen in p1. They sometimes go for him in p2 but really they're easy to pick up. One keg. Bam. Done. You're better off having leg sweep.

Dave can hold Infernals from spawn till death quite often, especially if you avoid aggro on them intentionally you can basically ignore them sometimes.

Dave is definitely not useless.

[Saverem]

Anyone have a link to the actual mobs and the attacks and debuffs they do? I want to see what these abilities actually do so I can gauge priority. What does Annihilate do? What do the infernals, eyes, void creatures do? etc.

So far I only tried it about 6 times and I managed to get the first boss down to ~25%, so it feels doable. And that's with no flask/food because I was just practicing the actual mechanics. I still don't know what half of these mobs do.

Eye does a stacking debuff thing on me, didn't get to read what it does. No clue what infernals do and how I have to deal with them. The purple void creatures don't really seem to do anything, they appear just to be there to have a lot of HP and take a bit to kill.

Sometimes I get knocked back a long distance. I managed to live through all but one. Is there a way to know when it's coming?

[Bearygood]

Anyone have a link to the actual mobs and the attacks and debuffs they do? I want to see what these abilities actually do so I can gauge priority. What does Annihilate do? What do the infernals, eyes, void creatures do? etc.

So far I only tried it about 6 times and I managed to get the first boss down to ~25%, so it feels doable. And that's with no flask/food because I was just practicing the actual mechanics. I still don't know what half of these mobs do.

Eye does a stacking debuff thing on me, didn't get to read what it does. No clue what infernals do and how I have to deal with them. The purple void creatures don't really seem to do anything, they appear just to be there to have a lot of HP and take a bit to kill.

Sometimes I get knocked back a long distance. I managed to live through all but one. Is there a way to know when it's coming?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1SZMRZkGao is a good video, couldn't find a post about it.

The eyes only shoot a beam out and knock you back a short distance if you dont look directly at them. The stacking debuff youre getting is the death and decay debuff(Which is the patch you stand in to dps the boss) It decreases your health by 8% per stack. The purple mobs do a stacking dot called Psytalons which does damage and increases arcane damage by a %(Which psytalons is already) The large knockback youre getting is from the infernals crash which will be in front of them and show a ground pattern in a straight line under you. Weak auras exist to notify you if youre standing in its path.

[Saverem]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1SZMRZkGao is a good video, couldn't find a post about it.

The eyes only shoot a beam out and knock you back a short distance if you dont look directly at them. The stacking debuff youre getting is the death and decay debuff(Which is the patch you stand in to dps the boss) It decreases your health by 8% per stack. The purple mobs do a stacking dot called Psytalons which does damage and increases arcane damage by a %(Which psytalons is already) The large knockback youre getting is from the infernals crash which will be in front of them and show a ground pattern in a straight line under you. Weak auras exist to notify you if youre standing in its path.

Cool, thanks. So the void things do the debuffs, not the eyes and infernals are unkillable and ground slams. Good to know.

[Skarzog]

Someone already mentioned it, but use Niuzao it trivializes the encounter completely; its ridiculous.

Going further in p2. If you eat the first annihilate, stall second and spawn Niuzao, he eats annihilates 2 and 3. By the time 4 comes around, if you do get that far, your debuff from the first one drops and you've basically reset P2. That means if you want to, you can actually play defensively/safe and still be fine even with shit gear.

[Syphonfilter64]

Can confirm that Niuzao does make it A LOT easier. Starting the fight with him gives you 45 seconds to beat on the boss before you actually have to start dealing with mechanics, hes usually up in time for phase 2 if you are doing it fast enough. I've had attempts getting phase 1 to 40-50% before Niuzao even finishes. Great for having 2-3 infernals up in phase 2. As stated eat the first Annihilate in phase 2, stall the 2nd then summon Niuzao and he will eat the rest.

Definitely will help a lot of people who were already getting it close

[Saverem]

Can confirm that Niuzao does make it A LOT easier. Starting the fight with him gives you 45 seconds to beat on the boss before you actually have to start dealing with mechanics, hes usually up in time for phase 2 if you are doing it fast enough. I've had attempts getting phase 1 to 40-50% before Niuzao even finishes. Great for having 2-3 infernals up in phase 2. As stated eat the first Annihilate in phase 2, stall the 2nd then summon Niuzao and he will eat the rest.

Definitely will help a lot of people who were already getting it close

Yep, when I tried it with the Ox pet, I got him down pretty low. But only managed to get 6 or so attempts in before the tower went down. When it comes back up, going to put in some actual attempts in.

I think the hardest part of my 6 or so attempts for me was those void creatures. Their debuff stacked up quickly and was what caused me to take a shit load of damage and die most of the times. Doesn't help that I always have the HP debuff from boss. Guessing I should save my Keg Explosion for when they come out?

[keqe]

Yep, when I tried it with the Ox pet, I got him down pretty low. But only managed to get 6 or so attempts in before the tower went down. When it comes back up, going to put in some actual attempts in.

I think the hardest part of my 6 or so attempts for me was those void creatures. Their debuff stacked up quickly and was what caused me to take a shit load of damage and die most of the times. Doesn't help that I always have the HP debuff from boss. Guessing I should save my Keg Explosion for when they come out?

This is why I found statue to be more useful than leg sweep. You can hold the adds on statue for long periods and "choose" when to kill them.

[Saverem]

This is why I found statue to be more useful than leg sweep. You can hold the adds on statue for long periods and "choose" when to kill them.

Define "long period" because the one time I tried it out, statue lasted maybe 10 or so seconds against the void dudes before it died and they switched over to Valen and murdered him. Then I went back to LS.

[keqe]

10-15 seconds gives you plenty of time to make a good window for killing them. Dropping stacks, kill eyes, take velen orb etc.

You can always taunt the statue when it is near death to avoid adds spreading. And if statue has lived for 5+ seconds it will still hold aggro from you when you start killing them taking "free hits" for you.

It makes p1 really chill to do.

[Syphonfilter64]

Define "long period" because the one time I tried it out, statue lasted maybe 10 or so seconds against the void dudes before it died and they switched over to Valen and murdered him. Then I went back to LS.

If the statue dies you can often resummon it and it will pick up aggro again. I usually AOE taunt off it just before it dies. The statue is also quite good at holding infernals if you ignore them too.

[Saverem]

If the statue dies you can often resummon it and it will pick up aggro again. I usually AOE taunt off it just before it dies. The statue is also quite good at holding infernals if you ignore them too.

Wouldn't the lack of stun be detrimental on Kruul though? Since it's a way to delay an Annihilate and buy you time?

[Syphonfilter64]

Wouldn't the lack of stun be detrimental on Kruul though? Since it's a way to delay an Annihilate and buy you time?

I normally just use Paralyze to stall debuffs off, Dave is just too valuable for adds. especially in final phase

[keqe]

I just used special delivery for it but especially with using the "niuzao tactic" leg sweep isn't needed in p2 at all.