To those struggling with or intimidated by the Mage Tower challenge.

[Shelly]

I'm not sure how many this will reach, by the very nature of this website anyone posting on it is most definitely NOT a casual player, but here goes.

Hi, so I'm a casually serious player. I put in a lot of hours but I don't belong to an established raiding guild, the highest M+ I've pushed was 9 and that was on the week of writing this when doing 4 mythic dungeons rewards a cache of Heroic Antorus raid loot. I mostly log in to maintain high levels of order resources to keep my order hall gold-farm running, collect transmog gear and to do LFR.

I like to think that I show that casual =/= bad. I don't really sim things out but I take my performance pretty seriously. I know from some PuGs that I can keep up with heroic level geared raiders even in LFR gear by playing smart (and in all likelihood those raiders not being very good.)

At this point I've completed the Mage Tower challenge for:
Blood DK
Unholy DK
Fury Warrior
Prot Warrior
Ret Paladin
Prot Paladin
Havoc DH
Veng DH
BrM Monk
Enhance Shaman

That's the main spec of 6 of my 8 level 110 alts.

Last night while trying to help someone get their quest started to unlock the mage tower challenges (You'll want to do the broken shore unlock, then kill mobs until you get a random quest item and that'll unlock the mage tower challenge quests for any spec with over 35 traits in a weapon.) I came across a thread on the official forums talking about how Blizz was once again catering to elitists and no-lifers.

It was pretty clear a lot of the posters were dejected. It was a recent post as well.

So a lot of folks are maybe looking around and seeing the mage tower skins and feeling like they'll never have them, that they are out of reach and that they can't even come back later when overgeared next expansion to come pick them up.

Don't think that way. You can do it!

We have all sorts of guides and tips up - and I'd encourage anyone that has completed the challenges to share them as well here - but I thought I'd give folks some practical advice.

You're not going to 1-shot it. I don't know of anyone that's one-shot the challenge, I'm sure someone will comment below and I'm happy for them, but these challenges are not easy and even if you overgear them (which is pretty simple in just LFR gear) they can still beat you.

When you first go in you'll probably be nervous, even if you watched a guide or read on the fight you'll discover that the timing is all over the damn place on these things. Mobs have cast priorities based on timers, life left and even random rolls of what ability they'll do when. You'll find weird BS and randomness in ever encounter.

They are all meant to get you to play with all the abilities of your spec including your "oh shit" buttons. So don't get intimidated, look for a solution or talk in your guild or post here about what happened and while I'm sure you'll find a bunch of e-peens ready to tell you how terrible you are you'll also find helpful folks willing to go over things that are happening in the fight and how best to counter them.

Mostly though don't be afraid to practice and fail. Until you're comfortable with the fight you'll make all sorts of mistakes - some will be buffered by gear and not be that big a deal, others are damn stupid instant death that make you want to throw your keyboard through your monitor.

Last night I got the Enhancement Shaman quest done. It took roughly 50-minutes of wiping to get it down, many times running into a problem of overlapping mechanics that were complete bullshit, but I worked through them and you can too.

So please, don't be intimidated or discouraged. I know a lot of you have lives outside that require a lot of attention - we all do and one of the reasons the Mage Tower isn't up 100% of the time is so that we don't spend all day every day grinding on it.

Get into LFR, pick up your tier, you'll be overgearing the challenges and you can do them.

But they won't be easy, you won't get them down right away. You're going to have to work for these appearances and earn them, but you can do it. We're all rooting for you.

[mychal]

Did the mistweaver one last night, took alot of effort, but in the end it felt great. Great post and I do hope other people will be able to get it!

[Spazlord]

I’ve done about 15 so far and I found a couple of them easy but only after I learned the encounter backwards on a different toon. For the most part you just need to throw yourself at them for a good number of attempts to get a feel for your kit and how much your gear can pad certain things. Everyone is different, sometimes you have great gear and sometimes you’re on a scrub alt with off spec legendaries. Maybe a strat works for you and maybe it doesn’t. Just work at it and you’ll figure out the best way for you.

[Loeve]

I recommend getting some good gear. I tried it at 900ilvl and failed, but at 940 ilvl I did it in 3 tries

And watch videos on youtube!

[Deleted]

Even if you said that you don't want to infer it, but you did it anyway.

Casual does not refer to your skill level in any shape or form. Casual means you have very limited amount of hours to spend time on this game, nothing more.

[Deleted]

Yeah the phases i went through with havoc at Xylem were:
Learning the fight -> bored and disgusted (lots of stupid deaths) -> determined to kill, because i knew i could.
Took maybe 40-ish attempts due to the amount of fast death mechanics in that fight and careless attitude mid-progression.
ToS LFR gear level with nice legs (halfgiants, sephuz and bracers).

[DesoPL]

I did lately after few hours fire mage challenge and windwalker monk few attemps. Want get as many possible, but problem is.

With Xylem got issue every time when intermission happends, i kill his three clones on fury warrior and got slow, can't get to next. While on Frost DK got issue with his AoE block and can't move. But mainly when he third time use it.

On paladin however biggest issue i've got, is not actually Sigryn because i use on her repentance. The issue i've got is with her adds.

[sociald1077]

Ilvl 933, 200+ wipes. Got it last night. Dont care it took me this long.

[Shelly]

I did lately after few hours fire mage challenge and windwalker monk few attemps. Want get as many possible, but problem is.

With Xylem got issue every time when intermission happends, i kill his three clones on fury warrior and got slow, can't get to next. While on Frost DK got issue with his AoE block and can't move. But mainly when he third time use it.

On paladin however biggest issue i've got, is not actually Sigryn because i use on her repentance. The issue i've got is with her adds.

Presuming you mean Arms rather than Fury for Xylem.

A lot of it comes down to being fast from what I can tell. You need to move immediately on your target and trying to get to the shimmer. If you have them consider equiping the lego that gives you an extra charge of heroic leap. Also always make sure you're charging the furthest target you can get to. Also remember to heal yourself with your victory rushes.

With Frost DK and the ice wall remember that if he's close enough you can grip him to you. Also don't move at all from the ice until you've blown a hole through, a lot of folks save all of their AoE to pound it down. I've heard of good results with frostscythe to just clear out everything in front of you. Also heal up with death strike.

God queen I used my stun whenever the berserker tried to do anything. Ran away from him on the horse. I was always afraid of breaking the CC on Sygrin so I specc'd all single-target damage and much prefer the use of DP to Crusade. Mostly I'd park myself on the mage and go to town. Where I'd always run into problems is with overlaps of valkyr plus runes.

Oh and use Justicar's Vengeance, you can heal up with it very quickly while in the melee to increase your time on target. That said flash of light doesn't heal for too bad an amount - if you have the wings up it's even better and wings plus the lego belt a single flash will pop you to full.

Keep practicing, you can do it!

- - - Updated - - -

Even if you said that you don't want to infer it, but you did it anyway.

Casual does not refer to your skill level in any shape or form. Casual means you have very limited amount of hours to spend time on this game, nothing more.

I could have been more clear about it probably but I was very distinct in saying that casual doesn't equal bad.

[Lollis]

I genuinely cannot be bothered. With the exception of maybe Havoc and Prot Paladin (which I dont have a 110), none of the appearances look remotely interesting enough to be worth my time.

[Deleted]

I genuinely cannot be bothered. With the exception of maybe Havoc and Prot Paladin (which I dont have a 110), none of the appearances look remotely interesting enough to be worth my time.

Guardian druid and prot warrior are the only everlasting oneäs imo.

[Echocho]

I tried this on my druid yesterday. Lasted about 30 seconds. Something (I don't know what, maybe the eyes?) ate huge chunks of my health which I finally got overcome by.

[Wrathson]

Ilvl 933, 200+ wipes. Got it last night. Dont care it took me this long.

Totally worth it. That's one sick shield and flail.

[Doffer]

When they first came out I doubted I'd ever get one of the skins. I didn't even want to try.

After Argus dropped and so much better gear became available I though... ehh I might as well give it a go. I've only completed 5 so far but I am now dedicated to complete all main spec ones on my characters. I gotta say it feels like such a great achievement when you finally succeed!
Some were really easy though and the harder ones still scare me. I actually get insane anxiety every time I am about to attempt a challenge, even if I've completed it before.

I've yet to attempt the Tank challenge, which I want to complete on both my Paladin and my monk, and I've heard so many horror stories from that challenge that I get anxiety just thinking about it. just a few more ilvl and I'll try though.

[Autumn]

I found the most difficult aspect of the challenge actually getting enough tries in when:
(a) The mage tower is up
(b) I can be online for long enough to make a few attempts
(c) I will not be interrupted (eg needing to answer door/phone)

Had a few tries a couple months or more ago and literally couldn't find the time to try again until a couple days ago, when I did it reasonably easily. Of course by then, I also had better gear.

My recommendation to those trying it is to not only look at guides for your class/spec, but look at the guides for different classes as well, got a few additional tips that way.

[Sinitar]

Gear definitely helps trivialize the challenges. I tried the resto druid one back at 900 ilvl and, without the right legendary setup, it was a complete nightmare to deal with the last phase. I suppose only the very best of healers got it done at that gear level because of the insane healing requirements and precarious druid toolkit to burst heal.

Yesterday, I decided to do it for laughs and giggle at 943 ilvl, 6 months later, while barely remembering the tactics. Did it in my very first try because of the sheer strength of my HoTs. Back at 900 ilvl, you needed G'hanir essence, two rejuvs, and a wild growth to heal a wave of spirits. Now, I only put two rejuvs on each spirit, sat back and sipped my tea while my 3x stronger dots did their work. Curiously, the higher healthpool of my character made the soul burn mechanic in the last phase quite tricky, and it almost killed my party 3 times, also because I wore prydaz and that shield kicked in at the most silly of moments XD

On the other hand, you have challenges like the guardian druid one, which is absolutely disgusting from a mechanics point of view. Whoever thought it's fun to put that pool of purple goo under the first boss and let you spam thrash and swipe deserves the nomination of the worst mechanic ever. Phase 2, where you deal with Kruul, is also a complete clusterfuck. Suppose I could have done it back at 915 ilvl if I was persistent, but this one challenge disgusted me so much I just wanted to get the gear so that it ends asap.

Other challenges, like the Agatha and the Twins ones, should be completely trivial with the gear you have now. Any amount of dps past the 1 million mark will get you that artifact skin in no time.

[ZerFunk]

Anyone knows if these transmog are gonna be spec-locked on the next expansion? Or im i gonna be able to use assa skins as subtlety?

[bmjclark]

Anyone knows if these transmog are gonna be spec-locked on the next expansion? Or im i gonna be able to use assa skins as subtlety?

I'm fairly sure all artifact transmogs will be spec locked next expansion. There's a blizzard quote somewhere about it, can't dig for it right now though :s

[Kalcheus]

I'm fairly sure all artifact transmogs will be spec locked next expansion. There's a blizzard quote somewhere about it, can't dig for it right now though :s

This, the current plan is spec-locked.

[Deleted]

I can only support this. I don't raid at all, only do LFR now and then, don't have a mythic+ group (only did some in pugs up to +10 once), and only regularly run world bosses and emissary caches, also weekly quests for gear from timewalking and mythics. I have 12 classes at max level since WoD (heavy altoholic), and was primarily leveling and gearing all characters to get OH campaigns and class mounts.

I have been playing since mid Vanilla, raiding since end Vanilla with some successful ZA time runs in TBC and some heroic raiding in WotLK. Since Cata, I only play casually, but still like to tackle challenging content now and then. Did MoP CMs and WoD CMs on my main, and got me the Warlock green fire on an alt. Did my best in soloing old raids as soon as it became reasonable for my skills (Ashes of Al'ar is still one of my favorite mounts). So, I have some game experience, but not equally in all classes and specs.

Then, mage tower was introduced and I tried it out on my main. Took me quite a time to get the first challenge done, but it happened, then I did the other specs. Had to learn arcane from scratch, since I mostly have been playing frost and occasionally fire (fire main spec in Legion). Then I asked myself if I can do the same on other characters and I started to try. Now, I am at 27/35 challenges done (of these, 2 healer and 1 tank), and will probably finish the rest also.

You can compensate lack of good trinkets, set bonuses and to some extent lack of proper legendaries with a higher item level (which is not hard to reach anymore with Argunite gear and Antorus LFR / Great Invasion Points and such). And there are good guides out there to teach you the basics of the scenarios. Also, practice, and get consumables / enchants / gems for your gear.

It's possible to get these if you fokus and have the endurance, to learn the encounter and to master all relevant skills needed for the spec.