Help! Mage Tower

[Zaganite]

Hi everyone,

I'm having massive difficulty with all three mage towers. I'm ilvl 920 and run shoulders and extra talent ring. I took anticipation as the second talent on that row. I main Sub and can't get past first phase. I've watched videos and followed guides but can't seem to get out of the icicles fast enough.

Any tips on what you found to get out faster?

My character is Warpath on Hellfire (can't paste link)

[Greylan]

Do you have the legendary cloak? that can get you out in one press of storm. If not, you can dance/storm/evis to break 'em pretty damn fast too, cloak of shadows will also work I believe.

Edit: I never tried it, but I read you can shadow step behind them (by targeting the correct one) to avoid them entirely. Caution though, the person I remember reading said it was a bit sketchy.

[WskyDK]

Was giving it some goes tonight (first night trying). Hitting last phase pretty consistently (no drums or food so I can learn it).
927ilvl equipped. Shoulders and Ravenholdt ring.

I cloak first razor ice, use umbral moonglaives on second (plus the vers is nice), then MFD tunnel on third. On first transition I hop from adds to sit in bubble. Cloak if it’s up.

For little adds I pop myself in front of them and trigger glaives again and MFD them as well. My positioning could be better as I’ve died a couple times to having to chase the adds into black shit.

Thinking I may call t for tonight and gonin fresh tomorrow and try and finish before it resets. Lordy do I wish I had the leggo pants though

[Plan A Has Failed]

I handled the ice shards using dance/storm/evis to bring down enough clusters to make a path out (usually only need to kill 2 or 3) as I did not have the legendary cloak either. For the intermission phase, I just popped cloak & sprint; the hardest part is spotting the real version of him but I found turning off nameplates helped to reduce the visual clutter. Arcane/Shadow phase is pretty easy, just dodge the bolts and interrupt/CC his Arcane Barrage casts while saving one for Draw Power. The legendary pants help a lot if you miss a few interrupts or if your damage is on the low side.

Second phase is all about dps and positioning, getting the boss to the edge of the arena and popping sprint to get as far away as I could before the adds popped. Tangled Shadows helped a lot, giving me enough time to dispatch the adds.

The big thing is stay calm and don't panic.

As for the other challenges, I found Sigrid to be very easy; just keep all three poisoned, garroted, and ruptured with leeching and handle the mechanics as they occur (run over runes, avoid the val'kyr charge, pop CDs on caster shield, blind on Sigrid when she starts channeling, avoid the melee dude when he spins or runs after you). It's all about not dying and once they get past 50% health, they stop doing half their mechanics and the fight just becomes slightly tedious.

Agatha was a bitch. Not much advice I can give except keep at it, save CotD for when she does big imp spawns (you want those to die FAST), and try to not get hit by boulders. That fight is all about raw damage and how fast you can pump it out to clear adds and kill her. The extra damage and healing from the Cinidaria belt helped a lot and I'm sure the Crucible buffs will also (I did this one before Argus).

[MaddyLif3]

Sub - for razor ice, I just dance then storm and take out two or three to leave. On intermission, on your mini map is a star for his image, just cloak and run to it. At your ilvl, you should have enough dps to only do that once. When he summons the big add, make sure you have talent to slow adds using Nightblade. Slow first add and burst, then repeat. Try and sprint as far away as possible to give you most time.

Sin - fairly simple. I kept the two other adds dotted and focused one, then kept sigryn blinded on cd. Use the healing spheres to stay healed up. Avoid vykrul wall.

Outlaw - Iron stomach is great on this one. Biggest thing is to make sure you can burst adds. Just blade furry them down. I don't worry that much about the ones that heal as they don't really heal much. Kill smoldering and umbral imps asap. Cary the add that leaves a pool to the outside of your path or burst it down. Make sure to focus Agatha when her shield come up as it does a lot of dmg linger it's up. Avoid the rocks flying at you. And just maintain adds. It's really not hard at all. Just kill adds when they are up and then pump as much dps into her when you can. It's not a race, it's definitely a maintenance fight.

[Deleted]

You need to play with the legendary pants. All fights become trivialized once every feint heals you for 20% hp, all you need to do afterwards is vaguely know the mechanics.

I am really sorry for the lack of constructivism, but that is what I did and it worked fine, took me around 10 tries for each in average once I dropped and equipped the legs, with a slighly better gear than you though.

I am sure it is doable without, but it must be a pain.

[Deleted]

Since I don't have the cloak - would Insignia be OK to compensate it in the last phase of the sub challenge?

Also, what's the problem with the auto-targeting of Shadow Step and MfD? It targets often randomly some razor ice blocks behind my character, instead of focusing the target(s) before the character. Shadow step ported me twice right into the ice behind me, while I was facing Xylem. Manually selecting targets is so annoying, but I would rather have no automatic targeting than this.

[Deleted]

As sub i struggled hard at 910 ilvl but i can give you some tips (didnt have t20 nor valeeras)
Use mfd and spam evis the ice so you Can recharge shd and regen with the talent from your shd
Thats how i finally got through phase 1 without praying not to die
Save all mobility for arcane phase
Interrupt frost Bolt when hes got 1 s left before TP , and After 5s KS him with 6 cp to buy Time on your vial cd

[WskyDK]

Since I don't have the cloak - would Insignia be OK to compensate it in the last phase of the sub challenge?

Also, what's the problem with the auto-targeting of Shadow Step and MfD? It targets often randomly some razor ice blocks behind my character, instead of focusing the target(s) before the character. Shadow step ported me twice right into the ice behind me, while I was facing Xylem. Manually selecting targets is so annoying, but I would rather have no automatic targeting than this.

It's beyond worth it to shadowstep out of ice. Fast CD and you get two charges. Just manually target an ice on the backside from where you're facing.

[Deleted]

It's beyond worth it to shadowstep out of ice. Fast CD and you get two charges. Just manually target an ice on the backside from where you're facing.

Not if you dont have legendary plants , if I did that i would struggle to stay alive

[WskyDK]

Not if you dont have legendary plants , if I did that i would struggle to stay alive

I don’t have legendary pants and take nondamage when I do it.
Target the ice directly behind you, on the outside ring. Works literally every time.

[Deleted]

Yes but eventually the boss will wear you down , whereas if you spam mfd you get triple dance back and regen with the talent

[Deleted]

It's beyond worth it to shadowstep out of ice. Fast CD and you get two charges. Just manually target an ice on the backside from where you're facing.

Thanks for the info. I do fortunately have Will of Valeera and Prydaz, so I don't have that many problems with Frost/Arcane phases, only the transitions are sometimes unfortunate when CoS and sprint are on CD. Now I just have to get the stupid adds down in the last phase.

Sigryn ist by far my favorite encounter. Finished this with 3 classes already and work on the 4th. When you know the encounter you just have to get used to a different class toolkit. Had much more trouble with Agatha compared to that, and decided to go S&D because RtB RNG was just too much for me (learned both encounters on my mage first).

[Deleted]

I did the shadowstep, but its risky if you dont' take your time and watch what you're doing for 1-2 sec, after the shadowstep I just backpeddeld to not touch the ice

[Crispin]

I used the talent that makes the Sub dot snare aswell for the adds, makes it alot easier to wear them down, which is the only real challenge in the last phase imo, in the phase where he portals away and summon a bunch of replicas, you'll see where he portals to for about a second before the replicas spawn.

[Deleted]

I used the talent that makes the Sub dot snare aswell for the adds, makes it alot easier to wear them down, which is the only real challenge in the last phase imo, in the phase where he portals away and summon a bunch of replicas, you'll see where he portals to for about a second before the replicas spawn.

I should have paid more attention to that, thanks.

[Deleted]

take marked for death for the phase where he disappears and just eviscerate each add on the way to him without wasting cooldowns. That was the only troublesome mechanic for me without MfD. Otherwise the hardest part is the last phase handling the add splits. MfD is useful here also. Shoulders should make this easy.

[Battlebeard]

Sub:
Cloak make phase 1 easy but it's not mandatory. I cleared it with Shoulders+Waist, because you need insane DPS for the last phase's adds. That's the problem of the fight. If you save 1 shadow dance per ice-wall, you should have no problem at all getting out with shuriken storm. For the shadowphases, shadowstep between the mobs first time to reach Xylem. 2:nd shadowphase just sprint+cloak. That's pretty much it. The passive heal talent + vial should keep you alive.

Assa:
Quite easy one, make sure you Blind the main guy when it cast the big cast. And nuke the casters shield. Stun/kite the enrage from the third and move from bladestorm. Soak or cloak the runes on the ground and watch valkyrs. Alone its easy, but RNG can wipe you, if you have runes, valkyr and bladestorm same try. Use LEECHING poison and it's easier.

Outlaw:
By far the easiest one, just make sure you nuke the imps. I used Valeera legs, and then it's impossible to fail, but even without it's quite easy. Just nuke the imps and her shield asap. Use Mark for Death on imps!

[Deleted]

Is it worth to spec gloomblade for the sub challenge? I cannot attack either bosses from behind much, especially not the final one. Miss the mark by some single % before the 3rd wave of adds spawns.

[Deleted]

I did it in 5 tries without knowing much (i have just watched 1-2 yt videos like 1 month ago). Sub here, 930 equipped, having cloak+pants as legendaries (yes i know they are very good for the mage tower challenge). The only think i replaced in my talents (i usually run 1-1-1-3-1-1-3) was to spec in the heal when shadowdance is active instead of cheat death, for extra sustain. Some tips :
-Xylem dmg is kinda negligible, since you can stun/interupt him (yes i know feint heal with the pants helps a lot)
-save one shadowdance charge for icecles, so you can shadowdance-shurine-and if needed DfA
-Save sprint and cloak for teleport phase. You just need to keep your eyes open to see where he goes, so you can sprint-cloak to the position immediatelly. This is the only part that needs extra care (i died there 4 times, as i was going to the wrong spot)
-Phase 2, you need to avoid stepping on the blue stuff on the ground, as it hurts ALOT.
-Save again 1 shadowdance charge+dfa for the adds. When you get the debuff, go as far as possible from the boss, for extra room to dps the adds down.
-When they spawn, make sure you have some combos ready, so you can shadowdance-shuriken-dfa, and then slow the remaining 2 with nighblade and finish them off