Mage Tower was a FLOP

[Derah]

It is clear to me that the mage tower was considered a flop by Blizzard. I would guess that the only reason for this would be if only a tiny, TINY percentage of 110 characters have either unlocked, or, attempted to unlock the xmog. Obviously whenever there is a poll on mmo-c, 180% of players have completed every single challenge for every single spec on every single class, but i suspect the truth is quite different.

Why would Blizzard not continue the Mage Tower, with new challenges in the next expansion? It could have been with armor sets this time.

This is a pretty stupid leap of logic on your end.

Blizzard removed the unique transmog sets from the challenge modes in MoP, and the unique weapon sets from the challenge modes in WoD. Clearly that must mean they considered them flops too.

/sarcasm.

Fact: They're removing the mage tower, to give those skins an air of exclusivity. To make them bragging rights rewards and thus make the players who were able to obtain them feel more special. This doesn't mean newer expansions wont have challenges that reward cosmetic stuff. We had them in MoP, we had them in WoD, we had them in Legion, and guess what genius? we'll still have them in BfA.

Good god, some people are stupid.

[Twistnectar]

The Mage Tower Challenges were great! I personally loved them even though I came late when most were just downing them. I do however think the healer mage tower chain *(minus disc priest)* was the hardest by far for some of my healers. They also should have made the challenges scale so you couldn't out gear them, someone else stated this, but I completely agree.

[valax]

It is clear to me that the mage tower was considered a flop by Blizzard. I would guess that the only reason for this would be if only a tiny, TINY percentage of 110 characters have either unlocked, or, attempted to unlock the xmog. Obviously whenever there is a poll on mmo-c, 180% of players have completed every single challenge for every single spec on every single class, but i suspect the truth is quite different.

Why would Blizzard not continue the Mage Tower, with new challenges in the next expansion? It could have been with armor sets this time.

I know a few people who intentionally waited for the artifact boost to go and make them the easy way .
Got my warrior appearances at around 920 which was already considered easy mode , these days everyone and their moms are at least 940 so it's not a surprise that by the end of mage tower pretty much everyone will have them completed

[Jastall]

It's not really a problem -- it's more about having some fights marginally easier than others.

If you're a DH, the fight is very easy. You get to... well actually, you get to skip 80% of the mechanics. The eyes are not a danger, the infernals either. You can silence/interrupt from afar, you have incredible heals, you can AoE pull from range, you can also leap anytime you need it to reach healing orbs and you've got powerful cleave. All you've got to watch are the stacks of health reduction and making sure velen stays alive. Last phase is also a joke in that regard with double jump+leap.

With a Warrior, you've got to always kill the eyes asap. You've got to kite the infernals or you'll be thrown down to your death. You've got to rush to Velen to grab aggro from the mobs - and you have no self-healing outside of victory rush, which is only available during the add phase. Ignore pain does little to mitigate the damage, plus you've got to interrupt the seeker from his lifesteal spell. That means having to physically go back into the debuff, which might very well mean getting one-shot in a few seconds. If you take the ranged stun, you lose the AoE stun, which is kind of a prerequisite to deal with adds.

It's definitely doable. I did it, so it's doable. But the spike in difficulty for Warriors is intense, versus the difficulty of Vengeance.

It's really not so bad as that. The key is to treat it as a DPS challenge more than a tanking one; the shorter you are in ph1, the better you life will be. And it so happens that Warriors have unmatched burst DPS among tanks. Hell, for someone who has low-ish gear I'd almost recommend trying to lust on the Inquisitor and burning down as much of his HP as possible, stay until you have 7-8 stacks since at the beginning of the fight few things can kill you. Shorter phase 1 means fewer changes at being gibbed by mechanical overlaps and fewer infernals. It IS made far easier with a survivability legendary (Mannoroth's or Prydaz being very useful) but these are hardly mandatory.

Phase 2 is easy as Warrior so long as you spell reflect the Twisted reflection cast to give yourself a massive heal, save a CD for Annihilation, and limit the number of infernals present which is the entire point of bursting through ph1.

It is true that Vengeance is faceroll, however. You basically have the perfect toolkit to counter the boss.

[Killmaim Deathbringer]

the max artifact helps so much holy shit, i was struggling hard before on my 919 no tier set warlock (Only legendary is 970 sephuz, i really dont play this character), I ended up rekking the challenge in 1 attempt with the max artifact.

[Caaethil]

It is clear to me that the mage tower was considered a flop by Blizzard. I would guess that the only reason for this would be if only a tiny, TINY percentage of 110 characters have either unlocked, or, attempted to unlock the xmog. Obviously whenever there is a poll on mmo-c, 180% of players have completed every single challenge for every single spec on every single class, but i suspect the truth is quite different.

Why would Blizzard not continue the Mage Tower, with new challenges in the next expansion? It could have been with armor sets this time.

They can't make a new mage tower at launch because it'll be trivialised so soon. By releasing the mage tower when they did in Legion it has remained reasonably challenging for the entire duration (yes it's gotten easier, but not completely trivial, cue "I did every mage tower the day before they were released haha noob). If it had been released in 7.0, it would be even easier by now than it currently is because it would be tuned around 830 gear or something dumb like that.

So obviously they're not going to say they have a new mage tower planned. They're probably not even thinking about that until 8.2 or so is underway. They've got more important things to make. So no, it has nothing to do with the mage tower being a flop.

This is a pretty stupid leap of logic on your end.

Blizzard removed the unique transmog sets from the challenge modes in MoP, and the unique weapon sets from the challenge modes in WoD. Clearly that must mean they considered them flops too.

/sarcasm.

Fact: They're removing the mage tower, to give those skins an air of exclusivity. To make them bragging rights rewards and thus make the players who were able to obtain them feel more special. This doesn't mean newer expansions wont have challenges that reward cosmetic stuff. We had them in MoP, we had them in WoD, we had them in Legion, and guess what genius? we'll still have them in BfA.

Good god, some people are stupid.

Much as OP is completely, 100% wrong, you also completely misinterpreted his post. He's not talking about the current skins being made unavailable, he's talking about how they've not added a new version of the mage tower for BfA with new fights and new transmog.

[TickTickTick]

As a resto druid main, it was definitely an annoying piece of shit activity. With the same gear feral was a lot easier, balance was just laughable faceroll and guardian must have been so easy that i cant even remember what was there.

[felrager]

This post was more of a flop. Your opinion is irrelevant. Sorry OP snowflake. It was optional content that was challenging early on for xmogs. It's since been made easier by gear and knowledge.

Where's the like button?

[Derah]

Much as OP is completely, 100% wrong, you also completely misinterpreted his post. He's not talking about the current skins being made unavailable, he's talking about how they've not added a new version of the mage tower for BfA with new fights and new transmog.

Meh, my point still stands. Just because there's not one at launch doesn't mean there's not gonna be one at all period. Though I suppose you said that too already.

[Brocksley]

The mage tower was one of their best ideas by far. The only thing that sucked imho is not allowing people to replay those scenarios free of charge once they were complete. You could have tested out new ideas, builds and try to complete them with lower and lower gear.

Yeah, I think they were one of the best things added. I wish they'd do something similar for BFA except do it with replayability too.

[Nihilan]

Im 0/36 completed.

I like the notion, but not the execution. In my case, the skins were largely uninteresting to me. The one that i would like to have for all my twelve L110 characters is the sparkle kitty skin for my druid. But even then i do not want it enough to resub and actually get it. I will certainly be coming back to the game at some point for BfA, but i am 200% done with Legion.

Next time (and there will be a next time, lets not kid ourselves) I would much prefer some sexy armor set skins instead of ugly overdone weapons.

PS: IF balance actually had a real MT skin, i almost certainly would have gotten that one back when i was still playing. Unless it was retarded looking like Malfurion or something.

[arkanon]

They don't want to have to retune the challenges after the class overhauls. Pretty obvious if you think about it...

Brawlers guild, pvp, timewalking - all required retuning.

[Staboteur]

Big issue with the Mage Tower for me was it was mostly a gear check when it launched, if you weren't actively raiding and had 870-880ilvl most were hard to almost impossible and then could be completely trivialised with 920 ilvl doing world quests on argus a little later on. Should have been scaling gear from the start and a test of skill rather than gear.

[arkanon]

Im 0/36 completed.

I like the notion, but not the execution. In my case, the skins were largely uninteresting to me. The one that i would like to have for all my twelve L110 characters is the sparkle kitty skin for my druid. But even then i do not want it enough to resub and actually get it. I will certainly be coming back to the game at some point for BfA, but i am 200% done with Legion.

Next time (and there will be a next time, lets not kid ourselves) I would much prefer some sexy armor set skins instead of ugly overdone weapons.

PS: IF balance actually had a real MT skin, i almost certainly would have gotten that one back when i was still playing. Unless it was retarded looking like Malfurion or something.

I personally really liked the Guardian druid, prot warrior, and yeah, i dont mind the feral one. Some were ok, some were, as you said, WAY overdone (yes, i include warrior in the 'overdone' group but in my head, thats part of the warrior fantasy)

I guess i am mostly surprised by 2 things 1) that they have said they are not going to be doing anything like the mage tower in BfA and 2) that people have not followed the development of BfA and seem surprised by this very common knowledge?! and instead, just scream 'derp derp citation needed!'

And again, i agree, armor would have made more sense to me personally.

[Sithalos]

Tower was only a flop to people that were too bad to finish it.

[arkanon]

Big issue with the Mage Tower for me was it was mostly a gear check when it launched, if you weren't actively raiding and had 870-880ilvl most were hard to almost impossible and then could be completely trivialised with 920 ilvl doing world quests on argus a little later on. Should have been scaling gear from the start and a test of skill rather than gear.

There are certainly thresholds in difficulty, and being 880 would have made it VERY tough. I realise some have completed it on 889 etc, and good on them. I would not have been able to complete them at that lvl. I think i was JUST pushing into p2 on my prot war at 895, and couldnt get through p2 (which is the easy phase imo, but i had burned too much in p1)

But as i have said before, there is certainly a skill component, and a gear component. I find that there are certain mechanics that are trivialized by gear, such as the void zones left by imps on Agatha, something i didnt even realise was an issue until i tried it on a 890 character and realized they kinda hurt at that ilvl. But dispite what some wannabe elitists try to say here, before the very recent changes there was no encounter that could simply be overpowered without at least partially doing the mechanics.

One exception i have found was disc priest, which i did lastnight (post boost obviously). I have done WW and Destro, and thought i would see what it was like on disc. i have not played disc since wrath. Ignored almost every single interupt, just bubbled / healed through it, and ran around like a spaz dpsing. the fact i could heal to full HP in 1 heal (not even including atonement) meant i could ignore the mechanic entirely. I almost died once right before starting on the worm, but overall, it was completely overgeared (i was 920) and far, FAR too easy when compared to some of the trickier ones.

[Deleted]

I really enjoyed it, I failed so many times with my prot pala when it showed up and i was so happy when i finally completed that. Yeah I really liked it.

[Dormie]

Tower was only a flop to people that were too bad to finish it.

Or to the half of the playerbase that doesn’t care about useless cosmetics.

[Alvito]

They are not removing BGs just like they are not removing the mage tower. They are not adding any new BGs just like they are not adding a new mage tower (*still unsourced and uncited claim). Therefore BGs are a flop just like the mage tower.

The difference is the mage tower challenge is actually going away in the next few weeks. While they might add a new version of them down the line you wont be able to do what is currently live again.

- - - Updated - - -

Or to the half of the playerbase that doesn’t care about useless cosmetics.

It is more than just that. You have some interesting encounters each spec dealing with things differently. You also get to see a little more of side stories played out. I am a big supporter of people trying out any and all of the content that is available to them to see how they like it or not.

[dacoolist]

As I don’t fully agree that MT was a flop, I will add in that everyone and their Mom will LIKELY have the MT skin for at least their main spec, and likely for their rest of their class they normally play due to the achievement that goes along with it.

The skill floor is gone now due to the concordance being so insane now compared to over 13 months ago when it was somewhat new, and the ability to get high level gear from myth+ chest, LFR, and AH - again not that I’m complaining, but honestly people, if you’re acting like this is anything like challenge mode difficulty you’re gravely mistaken.

Challenge modes had a lot of carries, I carried a lot of people - it’s not like they were hard either with an amazing group that had at least 3 people with the right setup: but I’m looking at these posts like (E X C L U S I V E gear that nobody else has...) just play the game to have fun..

Also, if you have the WoD CM weapons: I think most of them look better than almost any of the MT skins (just imo)