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

[Inshabel]

Got past the 4 minute mark on Demo, where all you have to worry about is the shield and Valks, but the shield came so fast I was not able to keep up, I'm going to gear up a bit more and level my Arti before trying again.

[Deleted]

Did all three, feel pretty good about it.

The Destro one was by far the easiest, then you have Affli, and Demo being the hardest. I can imagine Affli even being easier than Destro if you got Sacrolash (I didn't), as it trivializes everything that is hard with that fight.

[Lucrece]

Got past the 4 minute mark on Demo, where all you have to worry about is the shield and Valks, but the shield came so fast I was not able to keep up, I'm going to gear up a bit more and level my Arti before trying again.

With demo challenge you should park your doomguard on the shield guy at all times. As long as you have 4 imps and dreadstalkers alongside doomguard the shield should break in time even without thal kiel's consumption.

Also, the valkyr wall is hinted by the shield guy as well, he actually erupts the spirit bolts into the side that's gonna call the valkyr wall.

Save your shadowfury stun for the guy's spin, don't waste it on empowerment. Just use gateway and doomguard snare to kite him, and pop unending resolve to tank a hit or two if you need to grab a rune that's close to him.

Demo is most certainly easier than affliction if you don't have the affliction snare ring.

[Inshabel]

With demo challenge you should park your doomguard on the shield guy at all times. As long as you have 4 imps and dreadstalkers alongside doomguard the shield should break in time even without thal kiel's consumption.

Also, the valkyr wall is hinted by the shield guy as well, he actually erupts the spirit bolts into the side that's gonna call the valkyr wall.

Save your shadowfury stun for the guy's spin, don't waste it on empowerment. Just use gateway and doomguard snare to kite him, and pop unending resolve to tank a hit or two if you need to grab a rune that's close to him.

Demo is most certainly easier than affliction if you don't have the affliction snare ring.

I got past all that, but my haste is pretty low and by the time I passed the 4 min marker my mana and health were both quite low and the valkyrs stop dropping orbs to heal up, I didn't have time to lifedrain because the casts where coming too fast. Thanks for the tips though, but I think if I get the new gold trait I should be able to finish it.

[dsqdzd]

A few things for those still working on the affliction challenge without using the infernal tanking tactic or sacrolash :

* As I saw a few people mention, tailoring nets (wowhead.com/item=41509/frostweave-net) work on Karam and it keeps him still for 3 sec it's really huge when you don't have the ring.
* The engineering frag belt works too, it's nice to gain some room towards the end of the first phase.
* You can take a few hits and use a glider (engineering or the ones everyone can use) to gain more room during phase one. I chose to get hit once at the beginning without cooldowns and then another time when the boss had 7-8 stacks with unending resolve and I used my glider while in the air to get away from him. It allows you to stay in phase one longer if you don't have insane damage, the other two phases are a lot easier regarding the kiting and killing Karam.

For those still wondering why your doomguard dies sometime during phase 2 or 3, when Raest summons the voidlings, you can see shadows swirling on the ground before they spawn. If you or your pet stand there, it one shots you... I had my pet die once before realizing it and keeping it passive for most of those phases.

[dsqdzd]

double post

[Lucrece]

Affliction

I got him down without ring and what helped me:

1- Don't do the Raest rush unless you're 910+. You won't make the check without the ring and Karam will kill you before you kill Raest in the final phase.

2- Bear Tartare. The 70% sprint from the dying adds and hands is incredibly useful when you have neither sacrolash or sephuz rings. When you get that sprint and make distance you SHOULD be dumping UA's on karam if there are no hands. Don't was the distance running. Always sneak in UA casts when you can. He'll close the distance the longer you take to damage him. Time is against you.

3- On the second phase, if you're close to pushing Karam to 33% and last phase and a hand is up, Banish that hand. You can unbanish the hand when Karam is in purgatory as Raest phase is always a free phase. During Raest phase, put agony on a couple of the waves of adds and get out 4-5 seeds of corruptions out to have them low to expldoe on karam or the hands with soul flame.

Hands will continue to cast their Doom spell, but it will do nothing while banished. Do NOT unbanish a hand that's casting the spell or you will get 1-shot.

4- This fight is more fighting the UI than the bosses themselves.

To that end:

/cast [@boss1] Cripple
/cast [@boss1] Mortal Coil


Are simply necessary to maintain DPS on hand without fighting the sea of nameplates to slow Karam while you're loading up UA's on hands.

slap a /petattack macro onto your drain soul to make sure your doomguard attacks the hands when they come up instead of Karam.

5- For the hands, let them cast Doom while you set up agony, corruption, and SL on them and THEN interrupt at the last moment to buy yourself plenty of time to dump 2-3 UA's on the hand.

If you can only get 2 UA's on the hand, you better drain soul it because if your shitty whispers of the dark chose to proc at the wrong time and you have the slow effect when those UA's go out, you're not gonna kill the hand in time. Making sure the hand dies is always priority.

Your goal should be to only kill first hand on phase 2, and if you can't push Karam until the 2nd hand comes out, banish that hand and continue pressuring Karam to transition and clean up the hand after.

6- Save your gateway and Drums for last phase. This is where you'll need it most.

7- Really easy in the sea of events to lose track of soul effigy or agony stacks. Anytime you're not casting UA, make sure you're renewing the dots on effigy and Karam. As soon as you kill Karam, it's basically gameover and you get a free phase where all you need to worry about is drain soul to keep yourself alive against an enraged Raest and tell your pet to walk in the center of runes.

8- Runes. Your pet needs to be right in the center of the rune, not on its edges or sides or the add will still spam. Make sure your pet always stands on a rune.


Other than that, good luck on the RNG with hand of doom spawn placements.


------

Of all the challenges, demo by far is the most frustrating/attrition based. All I can say is, fight for your life and keep doom on the targets and demonwrath in between. Saving shadowfury for the guy's spin is a must as is saving cripple for the guy's enrage empowerment. Pray runes spawn conveniently but pop unending resolve if you have to run through the enraged guy to get the rune. Keep an eye out for valkyries and always keep doomguard attacking the runeseer. Fear Sigryd before she completes her empowerment cast or you're gonna have a bad time. If she empowers before your fear lands, you'll eat 1 aoe pulse and have to make sure you re-fear her a second time for her empowerment to wear off or you'll eat another pulse at the end.

The affliction one is just shitty for warlock because they didn't take into account snares or the P1 infernal tanking exploit. With the ring it's probably easier than the demo one.

The destro challenge is a joke:

I took demonskin. As long as you do damage you're barely taking incidental damage outside life tap. Drain Life as necessary.

Save 1 conflagrate stack for totems. Alternate spell lock>fear>spell lock while keeping mortal coil as an emergency for when the cunt worm does the scream at the same time the boss does Fel Burst. Some people prefer grim of service but I went supremacy because the passive damage from supremacy is much better which means you suffer less when you focus on surviving mechanics.

Make sure you're healed up before the tauren boss dies because the worm enrages and his screech can do half your HP without soul leech. You'll be spending some time spamming drain life in between immolates, portals, and getting chaosbolts off when your health is topped off. Focus on healing yourself up as his enrage is oonly a single stack and does not ramp up.

Make sure to always move for when the worm is charging toward the stalactites. Human racial was useful because from time to time the boss chose to zap me and stun me.

[Inshabel]

Got Demo done, in total I spent 2 hours in there, only Affliction left! I'm considering just waiting for the 15% buff (and the new talent), but I'll keep trying until 7.2.5 is live.

[Fuze]

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.)

I used this exactly except i went Supremacy and contagion instead and i finally did it after about 10-15 attempts, I freakin love you. Ilvl 902 Warlock with 2 set bonus and Helm / Cloak legendaries

[Deleted]

I finally completed the challenge - 894 ilvl equipped with legendary helmet, no 2nd legendary or set bonus.
I'll admit that I used the infernal bug in P1 and coiled him at 34% to skip the phases.

The dps check was still rather tough with shitty gear.

[Sylar Hao]

I've just managed to do the Destro one with 886 ilvl... the fight per se it's not hard, but it requires to be completely focused... was fun to do

[Deleted]

Finally got the demo one down (897 ilevel) with belt and Prydaz. For me, the trick was having a macro that instantly fears Sigryn and one for cripple on the warrior. After that, it felt easier to get the macro perspective on all the mechanics happening, especially in p2, where you are getting everything at once.

[Chemii]

Did the Demo one last night at 898ilvl. Not really bothered about the other two. Only used Sephuz for the proc.

For anyone struggling - Mechanics aside the biggest thing for me was deciding to run very high crit/haste, near 33% with on proc crit (CoS) and a stat stick.

I also ran Impending Doom for the free imps on all 3 targets, plus faster shard generation.

[Inshabel]

Got Affli done as of last week, got all 3 now (895 ilvl)

[Chemii]

I've just managed to do the Destro one with 886 ilvl... the fight per se it's not hard, but it requires to be completely focused... was fun to do

I love your UI, can you tell me what the frames & bar art for the map/buttons are?

[Sylar Hao]

I love your UI, can you tell me what the frames & bar art for the map/buttons are?

Everything on the UI is a drawing I've made based on the old League of Legends UI. There are a lot of things to fix/finish in the UI, but lately I'm kind of busy and lazy as fuck XD. Glad you like it

[bigsuirlife]

anyone did affliction mage tower these days?
boss it's still tauntable with infernal?

940 ilv head/waist lego.