Guide: Challenges by Specialization

[Simca]

Guide: Challenges by Specialization

What if you've already done the tank challenge for Guardian, but you're trying to do Protection Warrior now and you want to know what's different without reading the entire Protection Warrior guide that explains every single mechanic again? This is the question that drove me to write this. There isn't a good resource that focuses on a player who will do lots of challenges (doesn't even have to be all 36) and just wants to quickly know how to adapt the general strategy for the challenge type to the spec they're playing.

As such, this is a rough overview of the challenges on a spec by spec basis. You won't find Legendary or Tier recommendations or a detailed talent analysis (just a quick example build link), but know that no Legendary or Tier is even close to required for any challenge. In fact, I'll rarely mention Legendaries (and never mention Tier) and will assume for most challenges that you aren't wearing any at all besides the free legendary ring from the Argus quest. The whole point of this guide is as a resource for alts who have almost nothing, not for mains that have every legendary for every spec and can pick and choose (though they can benefit too).

I've tried to incorporate as much uncommon knowledge as possible in these little mini-guides. There are a -lot- of things that many people do not know that could help substantially. I encountered a lot of things when doing these challenges that made me go 'wait, why is this not mentioned more often?' To name a few of the bigger things:

• AoE healing cooldowns work on the ghosts in Stage 5 of the healing challenge, even if the tooltip specifically says it only hits raid members and not nearby allies (Paladin auras are the only exception, afaik). Divine Hymn, Revival, Healing Tide Totem, Tranquilty, and more will all hit the ghosts, even if they are out of line of sight. This allows you to begin healing the second they start moving on a given wave, where you'd normally have to wait for them to pass a fence to enter line of sight.
• Lightblood Elixirs, Sylvan Elixirs, Greater Blessed Bandages, and the Command Center zone buffs all apply to the Agatha challenge, greatly reducing the challenge's difficulty. Lightblood Elixir in particular will usually contribute 20%+ of your damage in an Agatha kill.
• The Shadow challenge can be made significantly easier by activating Surrender to Madness but not activating Void Form. As you only die when you fall out of Void Form or 3 minutes passes, this gives you significantly more time to enjoy the 'can cast all spells while moving' benefit from Surrender to Madness without the added pressure to perform that Void Form would force on you.
• The Affliction challenge can be broken so badly that it is completely trivial, which is fitting since I'd usually call it the hardest Twins challenge. You can actually -kill- Karam in Phase 2 while he's supposed to be untargetable and inactive. Note that Balance Druids can also apparently do this, but it is somewhat harder and requires at least a little gear.

Note that these entries are -very- roughly ranked by difficulty (most difficult being on top, least on the bottom), both in terms of the overall challenge (tank challenge being hardest, so it is first, etc) and in the specs making up the challenge category. Also, note that my difficulty rankings here are based on pre-AL126 buff difficulty, and as such, some of the ones that are trivialized by high damage may have shifted substantially. I am sure there will be wild disagreement about the accuracy of the difficulty ranking. I considered alphabetizing everything instead, but I think that despite how subjective difficulty is in general for these challenges (the specs you know well will be easier than they are and the specs you don't know well will feel harder than they are), relative difficulty is still a useful piece of information. If a player completes the Mistweaver Monk challenge and feels like it was excessively hard and is demoralized about doing the Restoration Druid challenge afterwards, it could help that player to know that many consider the Restoration Druid challenge to be the easiest.

I completed all of these challenges at around itemlevel 930 and AL 66, with three exceptions that I've accounted for. You should be able to obtain similar results at itemlevel 920 now (probably even lower, especially if you're a better player than I am), since the AL 126 buff is massive (more HP/damage/healing if you were below AL 75, strong concordance, and all Tier 3 Crucible traits). Obviously, make sure your Netherlight Crucible is filled out with useful traits. Tier 2 and Tier 3 trait picks should be tailored to the challenge ideally (i.e. don't take a trait for Wild Growth on a Restoration Druid, as the spell is useless in the 4-man healing scenario), assuming you don't intend to use the spec for anything more important in the next few weeks. A brief warning: do not pick the Tier 2 Crucible trait that applies a damage over time effect if you are doing the Sigryn challenge with that specialization. You may regret it.

If I have time and there is interest, I'll add a brief guide for each general challenge type covering the key points. I know it may seem like I made this guide very late (and I did, as I write this there are probably 10 days left to complete any challenges). For that, it was mainly a matter of willpower. I told myself that nobody needed a guide like this, I told myself that this would be a huge waste of time, and I told myself that I could not accurately cover every single specialization. I eventually broke myself out of this funk after many friends had a hugely renewed interest in challenges and had questions. I had answers, but I needed a better format to provide them. As for the inaccuracy part (doing 36 challenges tends to blend things together in your mind), I've done what I can to keep things as accurate as possible, but I am 100% sure that there will be things I missed. Strategies will be inferior to other versions elsewhere, as much as I have tried to cover multiple strategies when possible. So I welcome constructive feedback (even if it's to point out typos), and I will incorporate pretty much any suggested changes that make sense.


Kruul (Tank)
This challenge's difficulty varies wildly. It also changes the most between the various tank specializations, more than any other challenge. For some specs, the eyeball adds are immune to physical damage (Blood DK and Guardian Druid I think). Some specs have eyeball adds with no immunities. Half of the tank specializations have to deal with channeling adds, while other specs only have to deal with their trivial melee debuff. Additionally, the bosses' HP values fluctuate wildly based on specialization, especially for Protection Paladins. Also, for some strange reason, on the Protection Warrior challenge, Velen's healing orbs don't remove the Twisted Reflection debuff from the player, so you can't fall back on an orb in case you missed an interrupt/reflect.

Protection Warrior
Strengths: Incredible burst DPS if talented, decent defensive options against Kruul, amazing movement options including easy recovery from eyeball or infernal knockback, spell reflecting Twisted Reflection trivializes Phase 2

Weaknesses: Very limited self-healing, tendency to become rage starved in Phase 1

Example Talent Build: 2/1/3/2/1/3/1 (Heavy Repercussions can be useful to a build focused on zerging down the Inquisitor, but Anger Management is better in general and also may allow you to get a second Battle Cry for the Inquisitor)

Overall: This specialization's difficulties are somewhat unique. The Ignore Pain mechanic, while normally very effective for tanking, is of limited usefulness in this challenge. The Inquisitor will repeatedly blast the Warrior from range, quickly exhausting their absorb shield and remaining rage while they are trying to drop their debuff. This substantially increases the difficulty of the normal Phase 1 strategy, which is to play conservatively and take only 4-5 stacks of the debuff before jumping out.

I took every single DPS talent, macroed most of it together (don't forget your shout makes the Inquisitor take more damage too), and 'went ham' on the Inquisitor. Between Spell Reflection, Pummel, and Storm Bolt, you can counter most of the Inquisitor's casts (you can let a few go through when you are under 5 stacks). When I got to 9 stacks (Inquisitor was at 29% at this point for me), I jumped out right next to Velen's orb and triggered it to interrupt the next cast. The disorient from the orb covered all but under 2 seconds of my debuff dropping period, which wasn't enough time for the Inquisitor to cast a new spell on me before it dropped off. After it did, I charged back and finished the job, picking up the adds incidentally. If your stacks get high again before Kruul spawns in (more than 4 or 5), finish the Inquisitor, then pop Velen's new orb to disorient Kruul and prevent him from killing you instantly with his melee.

Once you beat Phase 1, congratulations, the encounter is mostly over. You can't get knocked off most of the time (Heroic Leap recovers even if fully off the cliff), and you can Spell Reflection Kruul's Twisted Reflection in order to make Kruul heal you for 5% every time you hit him. This makes the Annihilate hits much easier to handle without relying on orbs, since you can fully heal in between Annihilates just by hitting Kruul with his own debuff on him.

Guardian Druid
Strengths: Incredible defensive options against Kruul, decent self-healing, decent movement options including some finicky recovery from eyeball or infernal knockback

Weaknesses: Burst DPS is mediocre without specific legendaries, adds channel a spell that requires quick handling in order to not instantly fail the challenge

Example Talent Build: 3/1/1/1/3/2/1

Overall: With specific legendaries (Lady and the Child and Fury of Nature; Luffa Wrappings are a good backup choice) or trinkets (Prototype Personnel Decimator is very strong here), you do so much damage that Phase 1 is trivialized to a large extent. Do a zerg-based strategy if you have those legendary options, taking 9 stacks of the debuff, stunning the Inquisitor, and then using Velen's disorient orb when he gets unstunned and his new cast is nearly done. Then charge back in and finish him. Without specific legendaries, Guardian DPS is fairly limited, even when dumping rage into Maul (which is actually viable in Phase 1 because nobody does melee damage worth caring about besides Kruul). This makes Phase 1 more about survival than damage when you don't have the right legendaries.

The biggest change and the main reason that Guardian is such a pain is that the adds periodically stop and channel a very strong short-range AoE. While it can kill you fairly quickly, the main danger is actually that it can kill your NPCs very quickly. If Velen aggros them or they're right behind the boss and Korvas is attacking him, they will die in 3-5 seconds. As a tip, you can pull aggro off of Velen from anywhere in the room by casting Frenzied Rejuvenation, by the way. Velen's threat level is so low that literally any global threat will put you on top of the threat meters, even a small self-heal. Anyway, you need to hit Incapacitating Roar or use one of Velen's disorient orbs very quickly after the channel begins (don't interrupt the cast, interrupt the channel that happens after the cast - if you don't do this, the mobs will recast their spell). This is probably the biggest stumbling block to the fight because you have to be dodging Infernal attacks, interrupting, repositioning, and doing all the other fight mechanics while also being ready to interrupt this channel.

Also, note that Wild Charge can recover attempts lost to knockbacks. In Bear Form, it's a charge that will work only while you remain on the platform or in the air over the platform, but as a humanoid, it is a forward disengage that can help you recover even if you're off a cliff. When in doubt, the Bear Form charge is usually good enough.

Lastly, I've heard that there is an alternate Phase 1 strategy that involves staying in Moonkin Form to kill the Inquisitor. It's worth looking into it if you have significant problems with the normal Phase 1 Guardian strategy.

Protection Paladin
Strengths: Ranged interrupt, amazing defensive options against both the Inquisitor and Kruul, strong self-healing, multiple interrupts and stuns
Weaknesses: Bosses tuned to insanely high health levels relative to other tank challenges, limited movement options including no recovery mechanic for eyeball or infernal knockback

Example Talent Build: 2/1/1/2/1/2/2

Overall: Arguably (and very frequently argued) the most difficult Mage Tower challenge before the artifact weapon retirement buff, this challenge has most of the execution and mechanical complexity of the other tank challenges but also has a very steep DPS check. Whereas the other tank specializations can get away with actually trying to be a tank when they have a higher itemlevel, Protection Paladins are forced to take DPS talents in order to attempt to transition to Phase 2 with only 1 Infernal active. Transitioning with multiple Infernals active strongly increases the awareness requirements of Phase 2 and additionally restricts your potential movement. Using the rocks to prevent being knocked off works to some extent, but Kruul's fire patches are devastating and he will place them in front of the rocks just to be a jerk. Using Goblin Gliders as limited recovery works to a limited extent as well, but is not super reliable depending on where you were standing when you got knocked off and can only work once per fight at maximum.

I haven't personally done this challenge since several months ago, but I've heard that the artifact weapon retirement buff has severely lowered the difficulty, putting it more in line with challenges like Guardian or Brewmaster.

Brewmaster Monk
Strengths: Stagger provides fairly strong base mitigation, great movement options but no real recovery from eyeball or infernal knockback

Weaknesses: Very limited self-healing, few overall defensive cooldowns

Example Talent Build: 2/1/2/3/2/2/2 (take Rushing Jade Wind if Niuzao doesn't work out for you; the choice between Blackout Combo and High Tolerance is a hard one as well)

Brewmaster has strong base mitigation through the Stagger mechanic (you should be keeping Ironskin Brew up with nearly 100% uptime). However, it has very limited self-healing. You will need to rely on Velen's disorient orbs for their full heal, especially in Phase 2. Phase 1 for Brewmaster is fairly normal. You have the tools to play it defensively, as staggered spells from the Inquisitor are not nearly as devastating as they are for other specs (assuming you have Mystic Vitality talented), and you have the tools to play it aggressively (a stun, rolls, and decent DPS). Add aggro can be easily obtained when taking the Eye of the Tiger talent, since it causes a small heal to constantly proc as you do your normal rotation. With that talent, the adds will never go for Velen unless you aren't attacking.

Phase 2 is where Brewmaster becomes a little difficult, or at least that was what I thought, until I heard that Invoke Niuzao, the Black Ox will cause Niuzao to tank Kruul for you for a full 45 seconds. This lets you whale on Kruul while Niuzao soaks two Annihilates for you. Activate it as soon as Kruul spawns. Just make sure you have Niuzao's back as you still need to get that Twisted Reflection interrupt and handle the adds. When Niuzao despawns, Kruul should be significantly lower on health, but it is now your turn to pick up the torch. While Stagger is very powerful, so is Kruul's Annihilate, and where other tanks have multiple cooldowns with very strong effects, Brewmaster has one relevant tanking cooldown (and their artifact ability which I'll get to in a moment). You can take the first and even the second post-Niuzao Annihilates with only Ironskin Brew (but save at least one charge of Brew to Purify the Stagger because it will be really high), but in both cases your HP will be devastated and you will be heavy Stagger range. You basically need to use one of Velen's orbs after every Annihilate, except the one where you use Fortifying Brew (because it is that powerful). An interesting strategy I heard about after completing the challenge relies on the artifact ability. It causes enemies to miss their next attack and supposedly can make Kruul miss an Annihilate. I would definitely try it out, especially on the first or second Annihilate, just keep your Ironskin Brew up just in case.

Blood Death Knight
Strengths: Strong defensive options against both the Inquisitor and Kruul, incredible self-healing

Weaknesses: Adds have a channeling ability that will wipe out allied NPCs quickly, no easy way to mass interrupt adds consistently, weakest movement options of any tank specialization

Example Talent Build: 3/1/1/2/1/2/1

Overall: This challenge is relatively straightforward. Death Knight cooldowns are very strong and cool down very quickly, and their self-healing is insane, which keeps them alive against both the Inquisitor and Kruul with ease. The only problem Death Knights face at all is the adds (well, and their waddle-speed movement). They've got their channeling ability again in this challenge, and this time, there's no Disorienting Roar to save your allies from their channeling. You have 3 options to deal with this:

• 1. Kill them. This is the most obvious option. Using Consumption or Bonestorm (talent) on the add packs will quickly destroy them, especially with a Blood Boil or Death and Decay thrown in.
• 2. Velen's orbs. As the self-healing you can provide for yourself is usually enough for the entire fight, you can opt to use Velen's orbs entirely as add interrupt orbs. When the adds spawn, pick them up and move near an orb, and after their channel starts (let them get 1 tick off), touch the orb and it will interrupt all of them. You will probably even kill them before the disorient ends.
• 3. Gorefiend's Grasp. This will interrupt all of the adds, assuming they have started the channel (wait for 1 tick to go off). However, its 2 minute cooldown means that you cannot do this consistently. Consider it a backup strategy if #1 or #2 fails.

Vengeance Demon Hunter
Strengths: Strong defensive options against both the Inquisitor and Kruul, exceptional self-healing, abilities to mass interrupt adds consistently, incredible mobility with easy recovery from knockbacks

Weaknesses: Adds have a channeling ability that will wipe out allied NPCs quickly

Example Talent Build: 3/2/2/2/3/3/1

Overall: Imagine the Blood Death Knight challenge except pretend your Death Knight had incredible mobility. Congratulations, you just imagined the Vengeance Demon Hunter challenge. The fight practically feels designed for them as every fight mechanic is countered by their abilities, except maybe the eyes in Phase 1 which you can just ignore because you can fly. Use defensives for Kruul like normal, starting with Demon Spikes and slowly adding in more defensives as the Annihilate stacks ramp up. You can use Infernal Strike to quickly escape the fire patches on the floor.

The only wrench thrown into the works is the channeling adds. Unlike Death Knights however, you can actually handle the adds by means other than quickly killing them or using Velen's orbs. Sigil of Misery and Sigil of Silence both work to interrupt their channeled cast, and while the cooldown on each is too long to use exclusively, you can alternate them in order to fully disrupt add channeling without using orbs. This all said, I still usually used an orb for them, mainly because the orbs were just sitting there with nothing better to do.

One final note is that the adds in the Vengeance scenario channel their spell while moving. In the Guardian and Blood challenges, the adds don't move while channeling. This really doesn't add any complexity to the fight. If anything, it makes it easier, since they can't get stuck on Velen's face and be unable to move.


Edris / Black Rook Hold (Healer)
This challenge is by far the longest and actually has literal pauses, where the scenario won't proceed to the next stage until you move forward (Stage 2 and Stage 4). If you really want to, this allows you to use 3 Bloodlusts (or Drums of Fury). In general, that's probably wildly overkill. I would recommend using Bloodlust/Heroism/Drums during Stage 5, when healing the ghosts. Stage 1 is more a test of crowd control and survivability rather than healing, and Stage 7 is not hard to heal (surviving yourself is harder). During the spec-specific overviews, I'll be mostly covering Stage 1 and Stage 5 only. The rest of the fight is relatively simple; you may wipe once or twice to silly mistakes (letting a ghost in Stage 3 reach 0% or bringing your own HP too low in Stage 7 so that Edris kills you with a leap attack), but you won't be 'stuck' anywhere except Stage 1 or Stage 5 usually.

In Stage 5, position yourself near Edris (so you are in AoE healing range of all of them) and have a plan for your cooldowns. Know that almost all AoE healing spells work on the ghosts. It doesn't matter that (for example) Divine Hymn says it hits 'raid or party members'; that's a lie. Go cast it in the streets of Dalaran, and it will hit everyone around you. Tooltip consistency is for squares. Even abilities like Revival, that normally don't hit targets outside your raid, seem to work on the ghosts. The only abilities that don't seem to work on the ghosts are the Holy Paladin auras, specifically Aura of Sacrifice enhanced by Aura Mastery. I don't have 100% confirmation of this, as I used Devotion Aura for the challenge at the time, but I believe it to be an accurate statement.

I'll quickly go over the cooldown plan I used for each specialization along with the rotation after cooldowns were used, but you can adjust this easily depending on how each wave feels for your character and your gear after an attempt in Stage 5. Note that there are many different strategies to use. Some people prefer to stack all of their cooldowns at the beginning, knocking out the first two waves completely, and then letting the third and fourth waves go without any cooldowns active, only getting one ghost in each wave. This can be described as a '3-3-1-1' strategy in terms of ghosts saved per wave. Others prefer to stagger their cooldowns, having something for every round. Those strategy variants are something like '3-2-2', '2-2-2-2', or '3-2-2-1'. This is generally safer and can allow you to skip Stage 6 entirely. This is a good thing generally, but there is a slight downside in that you cannot drink for more than a couple seconds if you skip Stage 6 by letting no ghosts reach Edris. Personally, I think Stage 7 is very easy to heal from a mana perspective (you'll probably gain mana relative to the amount you had starting the phase), so I feel that this is not required. Anyway, I tend to prefer these 'stagger CDs' strategies and will suggest ways to achieve this goal in my summaries below.

One of the biggest complaints many players have about this challenge is that you have to heal NPCs outside your party during Stage 5. This means that people who bind mouseover macros have a huge advantage over players using Vuhdo/Healbot/Clique, players clicking on targets, or players clicking on spells. Rather than tell you how you should be healing and why your life choices are wrong, I recommend just using a slightly different tactic for this single Stage of this one scenario. You don't have to change your entire healing style permanently just to do this challenge, but it will help you to change out 1 to 3 buttons on your action bar for a short time. Blizzard gives you an entire Stage to prepare for this part (Stage 4). During that part (or before the challenge), drag whatever spells you have on '1', '2', and '3' off of your spell bar. Go and create a few macros (using /macro), then drag the macro to your spell bar's newly open slots.

For example, to make a mouseover macro for Holy Shock, you would type the following text into the new macro body:
/cast [@mouseover] Holy Shock

During Stage 5, to use your new macros (which I'll pretend you have replaced your '1' through '3' skills with), just put your cursor over one of the ghosts in the game world and push the buttons of the heals you want to use. They should heal the ghost even without them being targeted. This minimizes downtime and can help players eek out a few more seconds of healing into the ghosts. (Note that the ghosts are blocked from being healed by any method except AoE spells for the first few seconds, before they pass through the fence blocking your line of sight.) It also facilitates quickly and seemlessly swapping between ghosts, which helps certain specs, such as Holy Priest. They get a talent that causes their last Flash Heal'd target to gain 40% of the benefit of a Flash Heal on a new target. Swapping back and forth rapidly between ghosts with Flash Heal is wildly more effective than healing them one by one and can only be effectively done using mouseover macros (or probably '/targetlasttarget' macros if they wanted to be tricky).

Lastly, a lot of people consider DPSing in this challenge to be very important. The points where a bit of extra DPS helps slightly is on the Risen Mages in Stage 1 or Stage 6 and on Edris himself in Stage 7. However, if you are new to the healing specialization or uncomfortable with DPSing as a healer in general, know that all of these challenges can be completed without using any damaging abilities outside Stage 3 (where it is required since you're on your own for that part, but you also don't need to do much healing at that point).

Holy Paladin
Strengths: Strong single-target healing, multiple crowd control options, a few powerful healing cooldowns to stagger throughout Stage 5, Beacons of Light and Faith can help keep the party alive during Stage 5

Weaknesses: Ghost HP in Stage 5 is tuned to be high, no strong AoE cooldown that affects the ghosts, reliant on RNG via critical strike to get Infusion of Light procs

Example Talent Build: 3/3/2/1/2/2/1

Mouseover Macro Spells: Holy Shock, Flash of Light

Overall: Holy Paladins only really have one normal AoE ability (Light of Dawn), and it isn't usually worth casting here. There may be some argument that the mana cost is still justified even if it only hits 4 targets, but if that is true, it is barely true (it's also hard to hit all four people with it here). I would focus on using Holy Shock, Holy Light, and Flash of Light. Light of the Martyr can help in an incredibly desparate and specific situation (HS on CD, ghost 0.5 seconds from boss with only a tiny amount needing to be healed), but generally I would avoid it, especially here.

During Stage 1, use your Hand of Justice to interrupt Risen Mages after they gain a couple stacks of their damage buff. Also, make sure to keep your Beacon of Light and Beacon of Faith on your allies. I liked to keep Light on Jarod and Faith on the grandma. You can use Repentance as a ranged psuedo-interrupt for the hunter mob. Getting in range to cast it in time is an issue though, so you'll need to start moving the second she teleports out. Optionally, you could instead get Blinding Light (talent), which is a slightly weaker option in my opinion but works as a mass interrupt. If you need to lose aggro from overzealous Risen Scouts who want to kill you, you can Divine Shield or Blessing of Protection yourself.

Stage 5 is the dangerous phase for Holy Paladins, and it is where most runs will die (or set the stage for their death in Stage 6). The biggest problem is their cooldown management here. I would recommend attempting a '3-3-1-1' or '3-3-2' strategy in terms of the number of ghosts saved per wave. For the first wave, use Avenging Wrath and Drums of the Mountain. These two cooldowns alone should be enough room to get each ghost to full. Use Holy Shock when it is off cooldown, then spam Flash of Light. Switch targets quickly (mouseover macros help Holy Paladins a lot here) because any lost time is critical when you don't have AoE cooldowns. For the second wave, activate Holy Avenger, a Potion of Prolonged Power, and Tyr's Deliverance (beware its limited range; try to get all the ghosts with it if possible). Do the same thing you did in the first wave in terms of healing and you should get all three again (or at least 2). On the third wave, immediately Lay on Hands one add if you still have it available (if you had to use it already on a party member or something, just let the two other ghosts go and get your last ghost in wave 4) and heal one other one up to full normally.

The other problem during Stage 5 is that your party is going to be slaughtering each other pretty effectively here. Unfortunately, this is purely random. You can compensate for every variable except how hard the NPCs will attack each other and how often they'll switch targets (and when they'll switch targets). What happens inevitably is that two NPCs team up on 1 NPC, and that NPC goes down fast, sometimes inside the time period of a wave. I would make sure you keep the two lowest health NPCs Beacon'd here (grandma and rogue lady). Utilize Blessing of Protection or Hand of Sacrifice if required in order to keep somebody alive while you focus on the ghosts. In a worst case scenario, you may have to adjust your cooldown plan on the fly in order to save an NPC.

Holy Priest
Strengths: Strong single-target healing, strong AoE cooldown that affects the ghosts (Divine Hymn), multiple crowd control options

Weaknesses: Cloth armor can cause life-threatening issues during Stage 1, Ghost HP in Stage 5 is tuned to be high

Example Talent Build: 1/1/2/1/2/1/1

Mouseover Macro Spells: Flash Heal, Holy Word: Serenity, Light of T'uure

Overall: Be careful using AoE abilities during this challenge. Holy Word: Sanctify and Prayer of Healing can have some use if you need a strong, fast group-wide heal, but beware of how they guzzle mana. Even Prayer of Mending often feels like it barely justifies itself, but it can still help, especially if cast during a moment of downtime. Focus on using spells like Flash Heal, Heal (or Binding Heal, which is very strong here), and Holy Word: Serenity to keep your party alive using low amounts of mana. Renew can be cast if you really have nothing better to do (i.e. waiting for RP, no mobs active during Stage 5, only 1 mob left during a pull in Stage 1, cast on yourself while you DPS during Stage 3, etc), but certainly don't cast it during moments of high stress or even medium stress as it is weaker than even 'Heal'.

During Stage 1, you have very strong CC abilities in Shackle Undead and Holy Word: Chastise (which I recommend talenting to be a stun, actually). The amazing part about Shackle Undead is that it has no cooldown. Note that it only last 5-10 seconds during this scenario instead of the usual duration. If you want to, you can abuse this ability heavily, moving the Shackle around between targets to interrupt nearly every ability from every mob. This will cause your party to derp around heavily though if you use it on their active DPS target, so I don't recommend doing it to their active target except in an emergency. When only one mob remains alive in a wave, I recommend spam casting Smite on them in order to refresh the cooldown on Holy Word: Chastise in time for the next wave of mobs.

During Stage 5, get the first wave of ghosts healed by channeling Divine Hymn from the center of the room as soon as Edris chooses 3 ghosts and has them start moving. Flash Heal each of them to full health. For the rest of the waves, activate Drums of the Mountain, your Potion of Prolonged Potion, and Apotheosis as soon as the second wave is about to become in line of sight by passing the fence. Cast Holy Word: Serenity on one ghost, then Flash Heal him once if he's not at full (if he's not at full after the Flash Heal also, don't worry about it, ignore him - his health will fill before he gets to Edris). After that, switch your focus to the last two ghosts in the wave. Begin a Flash Heal cast on one of the ghosts. The second your character starts casting, move your cursor to the next ghost and spam the button for Flash Heal again. Keep healing this ghost until it reaches full health. Quickly, move your cursor back to the previous ghost (the one you Flash Heal'd once) and hit Holy Word: Serenity, which should have cooled down by now (as long as Apotheosis is active - if it felt off, use Flash Heal spam instead). It should fill his health bar fully, even if it wasn't a critical strike.

This somewhat complex setup takes heavy advantage of the talents Apotheosis and Trail of Light in order to maximize the single-target healing powers of a Holy Priest. Note that the one thing I didn't mention here was Light of T'uure. It can be used on either the ghosts or your own party as needed. I spent one charge in the second ghost wave before I used Serenity in order to ensure it reached full health (or close enough). I left the other available as an 'oh shit' button for party damage.

Speaking of your party, throw a Holy Word: Sanctify on them if you need a quick burst heal for the three of them, but otherwise try to use an ability like Guardian Spirit. I tried to make sure I had Prayer of Mending bouncing around and a Renew up on each of them before each wave started. I know Renew is weak and Prayer of Mending probably won't bounce more than twice because it will land on an NPC who isn't taking damage, but every little bit helps. Also remember to try to cool down your Holy Words in between waves by spamming Heal or Binding Heal on your NPCs (even if they don't need it).

Mistweaver Monk
Strengths: Ghost HP in Stage 5 is tuned to be low, strong AoE cooldowns that affect the ghosts (Revival and more), moderate HoT effects can help keep the party alive

Weaknesses: Relatively weak single-target healing spells

Example Talent Build: 1/3/3/3/3/2/2

Mouseover Macro Spells: Enveloping Mist, Effuse, Sheilun's Gift

Overall: Avoid using Essence Font as a general rule here as its mana cost is very high and it hits more targets than exist in the scenario at one time. Focus on using spells like Enveloping Mist, Renewing Mist, Effuse, Vivify, and Sheilun's Gift to keep your party alive better using low amounts of mana.

During Stage 1, you have limited CC abilities. You have Paralysis and Leg Sweep. Note that Paralysis does not correctly disorient the mobs for a full minute. Instead, it only works for about 5-10 seconds. Nevertheless, it is a useful tool for interrupting mobs that aren't your allies' primary target. I usually used it to interrupt the Scouts or hunter mobs when they were mid-cast, and used Leg Sweep to stun the Risen Mage after he got a couple stacks of his buff. If both Scouts target you, have a defensive ability like Dampen Harm or Fortifying Brew ready (or both). In a pinch, I often Life Cocoon'd myself at this point as well.

In Stage 5, I used a Potion of Prolonged Power and Revival as soon as the ghosts began to move towards the boss. This took care of most of the healing in wave 1, and I finished off the remaining healing with a quick Effuse to each target. When the ghosts began moving in wave 2, I activated Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane and Drums of the Mountain. This will help quite a bit on the next two waves of ghosts, as Chi-Ji will be responsible for probably about 20% or more of the healing required for each ghost. I would recommend moving closer to Edris and away from your party for this Stage, as it felt like Chi-Ji prioritized closer targets, and you care about healing the ghosts more in general. To finish off the ghosts in waves 2 and 3, I focused the ghosts one at a time, starting with Enveloping Mist, then spamming Effuse until they reached full health or were -very- close. Remember to use Thunder Focus Tea to power up your Effuse casts when possible. Also know that you can also use Sheilun's Gift to heal a ghost very strongly if you have many clouds out, but I honestly forgot about it until after this Stage.

Many of your cooldowns in Stage 5 will also affect your party, lowering the need to take care of them independently during a ghost wave, but if it does happen, try to solve the issue with a Life Cocoon. Beyond that and keeping as many Renewing Mists up on your party as possible, there isn't a lot you can do to stop the NPCs from killing each other during ghost waves.

Restoration Shaman
Strengths: Strong single-target healing, strong AoE cooldown that affects the ghosts (Healing Tide Totem), many powerful healing cooldowns to stagger throughout Stage 5, moderate HoT effects and totems can help keep the party alive

Weaknesses: Ghost HP in Stage 5 is tuned to be high

Example Talent Build: 1/2/1/2/3/3/1

Mouseover Macro Spells: Healing Surge (Riptide is optional if you've taken Undulation talent)

Overall: Be careful using AoE abilities during this challenge. Healing Rain is pretty terrible here and is rarely ever worth casting. Chain Heal can have some use if you need a strong, fast group-wide heal (and your group is very close together), but beware of how it guzzles mana. Focus on using spells like Healing Surge, Healing Wave, and Riptide to keep your party alive using low amounts of mana.

During Stage 1, place down Lightning Surge Totem after the Risen Mage has cast a couple of spells. Ideally, try to time this with the Risen Scouts beginning their channeling (if there any alive) and hit all mobs at once. As a backup, you can interrupt the Risen Mages using Wind Shear. If you get focused by the Risen Scouts, you should honestly be fine with your mail armor, but you can opt to use Earthbind Totem or Spiritwalker's Grace to avoid them.

For the first wave of Stage 5, I activated Ascendence and my Potion of Prolonged Power, and went ham on the ghosts with Healing Surge. For the second wave of Stage 5, I activated Drums of the Mountain and placed down Healing Tide Totem, repeating the same Healing Surge spam on any ghosts that got close. For the third wave of Stage 5, I activated my remaining cooldowns, including Ancestral Guidance and my trinkets, and got the last 2 ghosts I needed. I feel like even if I had missed 1 or 2 ghosts, then getting them in the fourth wave of Stage 5 would not be a problem.

As for your party, try to keep a Riptide active on the two that seem to be taking the most damage. Additionally, throw down a Healing Stream Totem right before each wave to help out. With those measures and all of the huge splash healing that your many cooldowns will be doing, you should have no problems keeping them alive.

Restoration Druid
Strengths: Ghost HP in Stage 5 is tuned to be low, strong AoE cooldown that affects the ghosts (Tranquility), very strong HoT effects can help keep the party alive

Weaknesses: None

Example Talent Build: 3/2/3/3/2/3/2

Mouseover Macro Spells: Regrowth (nothing else needed)

Overall: Be careful using AoE abilities during this challenge. Efflorescence is pretty terrible here and is almost never worth casting. Wild Growth can have some use if you need a strong, fast group-wide heal, but beware of how it guzzles mana. Focus on using Rejuvenation and Healing Touch to handle sustained damage, with Regrowth or Swiftmend mixed in for a bit of burst healing.

In Stage 1, use Typhoon to interrupt the Risen Mage after he casts a few spells, this will cause him to lose his stacks of his damage buff before he starts obliterating your group. Try to time Typhoon on the waves that include the Risen Scouts so that they've just begun channeling their knife throwing attack, and you can kill two birds with one stone. Use a defensive like Barkskin if you get focused by multiple Risen Scouts. Consider using another ability like Incarnation: Tree of Life or Ironbark as well, as their focus can -really- hurt you. Alternatively, throw down Ursol's Vortex and run away from them, letting the vortex pull them back and slow them.

After the boss targets them with his spirit lines to begin pulling them towards him, activate a Potion of Prolonged Power and cast Tranquility. Even though they are still on the other side of the fence and not normally healable, they will be healed substantially. After finishing your Tranquility channel, top off any unhealed ghost with a Regrowth. You should be able to get all three. For the second set of ghosts, activate Incarnation: Tree of Life, your artifact ability, and Drums of the Mountain and go nuts with Regrowth. You can probably get all three ghosts here, but it isn't the end of the world if you can't. For the third set of adds, just spam Regrowth as your cooldowns from the previous wave should still be up (at least the tail end of Incarnation and some of the Bloodlust buff). This should finish everything up, giving you 8 ghosts. If not, having to do 1 or even 2 ghosts on the fourth wave is not a very big deal. At worst, you have to deal with three adds then (1 from each previous wave, as the ghosts on the current wave will despawn once you reach 8), which you already did successfully in Stage 1 or you wouldn't be here.

For Restoration Druids, keeping your party alive during Stage 5 is relatively simple. Apply double Rejuvenations on all three of them before a ghost wave starts, and they will keep your party alive without much hassle at all. Swiftmend and Ironbark can help if something goes horribly wrong, but it really shouldn't.


Twins
Now, we reach the DPS challenges. Twins is fairly similar amongst all of the classes, so this section will be at least a little smaller than the previous two. However, there are a couple of cheese strategies (for Affliction, potentially Balance, and Shadow) and some strange kiting requirements (Frost Mage). Just to clarify terminology quickly: Phase 1 means the first Karem phase, Phase 2 means the first Raest phase (Raest's adds are added), Phase 3 means the second Karem phase (Hand from Beyond is added), Phase 4 means the second Raest phase (Rune of Summoning is added), and Phase 5 means the final phase where both are active.

Frost Mage
Strengths: Many different slows and roots to restrict the movement of enemies, can at least do some DPS while moving even if somewhat limited

Weaknesses: Mobile burst is totally random for hands requiring you to potentially save procs, continuous kiting requires some actual skill to adjust the pattern for Karem's speed increases in Phases 3 and 4

Example Talent Build: 3/1/3/2/1/3/1 (if you hate the Water Elemental, Lonely Winter builds can work too)

Overall: Frost Mage is definitely one of the harder Twins challenges. Note that you can somewhat cheat the first phase of this fight by activating Mirror Images before hitting Karam. He will focus them, ignoring you until they despawn 30 seconds later. Other than that, just pew-pew into Karam; Blink away or Frost Nova and walk away when he gets close. While Phase 1 is relatively simple, Phase 2-5 get somewhat complicated. When Raest summons his first adds in Phase 2, throw a Frozen Orb into them and then spend the free Blizzard procs establishing a Blizzard field around them. Circle around Raest as required, trying to keep the adds clumped on top of Raest. Continue casting Frozen Orb every time it is off cooldown and Blizzard every time it is free to cast throughout the rest of the fight.

Handling Hands and Runes is the trickiest part of this challenge for Frost Mage. I recommend saving 1 or 2 Fingers of Frost procs for this purpose, throwing in some additional Ice Lances as required to finish it off. If you aren't going to kill it in time, you can use Counterspell, Ice Block, or Ice Barrier to mitigate the cast. Runes of Summoning are also fairly annoying to handle. If you choose to keep your Water Elemental for this fight, know that it can absorb Runes of Summoning in your place. You can direct it to stand on a rune using pet commands, and it will stand there forcing the add to not spawn. I couldn't get into the hang of doing this and abandoned my Water Elemental in favor of using Blink to reach runes in time, but the strategy is still good as it allows you to handle runes without disrupting your kiting pattern. Also note that you only have to be there at the final second to soak the rune. If you stood in it for 10 seconds and moved away on the last second, it will go off.

If Raest is at 30% or lower when Phase 5 starts and Karam reactivates, use everything you have and attempt to kill Raest quickly. You should be able to kill him before Karam becomes a serious threat to you. Otherwise, I believe that attacking Raest here is a mistake. I know almost all guides recommend to kill Raest at this point since his health will be lower than Karam's, but I think they're largely wrong and are increasing the skill requirements of the fight for players who may not be super familiar with crazy kiting. Here's my reasoning for this: the only challenging mechanic in this fight is the Hands. They are controlled by Karam. Additionally, Karam's speed continues to constantly increase throughout this phase, so if you can't end it quickly the kiting becomes increasingly difficult. Karam will repeatedly outpace the other adds inside the Blizzard/Frozen Orb zone and cause you to constantly adjust your kiting. The solution to the issue is just to focus Karam. By doing this, you will be applying a constant slow to him independent of your AoE effects, which will keep him in line. If you choose to do it this way, once Karam dies, the fight is basically over. The hands stop spawning and so do Raest's adds (strangely), so you're left with only Raest and the rune mechanic which is completely trivial when nothing else is going on.

Marksmanship Hunter
Strengths: Spammable consistent slow, AoE slow cooldown, almost all damage can be maintained while running (huge), good movement abilities

Weaknesses: Mobile burst damage is slightly weaker than stationary burst damage

Example Talent Build: 1/1/1/1/1/3/2 (builds without Lone Wolf are viable here since you can use pets to soak Runes)

Overall: While Karam is out, make sure to hit him with Concussive Shot every 5 seconds. In Phase 2, spam Multi-Shot on the adds, until you get a Marking Targets proc, then use Marked Shot to apply Vulnerable to all of them. Activate Piercing Shot on Raest and you should hit every add between you and Raest in a line, doing enormous damage. Additionally, Explosive Shot is great for killing adds. In Phase 3, you can opt to throw down Freezing Trap, Tar Trap, or Binding Shot to temporarily stall him while you handle a Hand From Beyond. Disengage and Aspect of the Cheetah can help substantially in Phase 4 with reaching Runes of Summoning in time.

Similar to Frost Mage, in Phase 5 you have a choice on who to kill. If Raest is sub-30%, the choice is fairly obvious, otherwise, you may want to consider killing Karam since you can keep Concussive Shot up on him that way. Alternatively, focus Karam (/focus) and create a Concussive Shot macro to fire on your focus target (/cast [@focus][] Concussive Shot). This would allow you to kill Raest and still slow Karam.

Balance Druid
Strengths: Powerful damage over time effects, can cast while moving if inside a Starfall field, good mobility, mobile burst via a talent, potential cheese strategy

Weaknesses: No consistent slows, resource management is tricky, Starfall placement is tricky

Example Talent Build: 2/2/1/3/1/1/2

Overall: Keep Sunfire and Moonfire active at all times, obviously. Throw out Starfall fields in front of you, then start casting stationary spells while moving through it. Kiting Karam along the very outside edge of the platform is what I did, and I found it worked best for Starfall since it gave me room to place it far in front of me. If he catches up to you, use Typhoon.

For Phase 2, cover the adds in DoTs and Starfall fields, and throw some damage into Raest. When Karam reactivates, the Hands from Beyond are introduced, and that is one of the harder aspects of Balance. You need to have a plan for handling them. For the first, third, fifth, etc numbered hands, I would use Warrior of Elune and then cast three Lunar Strikes at it, obliterating it. For the second, fourth, sixth, etc numbered hands, I would apply Sunfire and Moonfire, wait for the cast to nearly finish, and then apply Solar Beam. By the time it gets another chance to finish its cast, it will be dead, but you can throw in a Starsurge if it isn't somehow.

I've just learned that there is a cheese strategy that also works for this fight. It is very similar to the trick used for the Affliction challenge. When Karam hits 34% and goes to activate Purgatory, hit Typhoon and knock him back. This will cause him to break his cycle and chase you while being untargetable. Kite Karam in a very tight circle so that he remains in the center of the platform, right next to Raest. Keep Starfall fields active over the center of the platform, keep Sunfire applied to the nearest target to Karam (because it will splash the Sunfire application to Karam), and then nuke the nearest target to Karam down with Lunar Strikes (as those splash 35% of their damage on all enemies in 5 yards).

Shadow Priest
Strengths: Powerful damage over time effects, cheese strategy

Weaknesses: Slow must be channeled, limited mobile burst dependent on RNG, limited mobility

Example Talent Build: 1/2/1/2/3/1/3

Overall: Shadow is greatly simplified by Surrender to Madness. There are two different optimal Surrender to Madness strategies. Which one you pick to use will likely depend on your gear, your familiarity with the spec, and your comfort with Surrender to Madness. Both strategies are the same except they differ on when to activate Surrender to Madness and when to activate Void Form. This 'trick' relies on the fact that Surrender to Madness gives you the ability to cast while moving regardless of whether or not you are in Void Form. You die when your insanity reaches 0 in Void Form, but if you never enter Void Form, you get 3 minutes of Surrender to Madness, which is much greater than the amount of time you'd be able to spend in Void Form (probably about a minute and a half or so). The first strategy is faster and skips most of the fight, but the second strategy is safer.

The first strategy has you use Surrender to Madness when the fight starts. You can get Karam down and move to Phase 2 very quickly, and he has no chance of catching you since your slow (Mind Flay) can actually be used while moving now. The tricky part is the timing on when to activate Void Form. You don't want to wait until Phase 2 because that is too late; you want to move into Phase 2 with Void Form active and several stacks already gathered, so your damage is quite high. Try activating Void Form at around 60% on Karam. This should give you enough time to ramp up your damage before thrown into Raest's phase. If you die too early, wait a little longer before activating Void Form, and if Phase 3 starts, then activate Void Form a little earlier to ramp up your damage even more.

The second strategy has you use Surrender to Madness when Phase 3 starts (or as soon as you drop out of Void Form, since you don't want it active for this strategy yet). This trivializes the added difficulty of Phase 3: the hands. You can now unload your full burst potential on the hands while moving. Additionally, you can Mind Flay Karam while moving, which means he can never reach you. When Phase 4 starts, activate Drums of the Mountain, Void Form, a Potion of Prolonged Power, and anything else you have. Blow Raest up. You should be able to kill him before Phase 5, but if not, it's not a huge deal, you should kill him before Karam matters. If you don't, then Surrender to Madness probably killed you anyway.

Note that in any Shadow Priest strategy, the adds that Raest spawns are best ignored. Killing them just costs too much time to bother with. They move so slowly that they will never be a real threat.

Affliction Warlock
Strengths: Powerful damage over time effects, cheese strategy

Weaknesses: No consistent slows, no mobile burst, limited mobility unless you sacrifice a powerful survival talent

Example Talent Build: 2/2/1/2/2/1/1

Overall: This is one of the hardest challenges to do for Twins. It's like Balance without Typhoon and Warrior of Elune; why is it at the end of the list for Twins? Well, there's a cheese strategy, and it's very cheesy. There's actually multiple bugs at play here (three in total). Firstly, your pet can get threat on Karam in specific situations, such as when you're attacked or when he is the only viable close target. This shouldn't be possible. Additionally, casting Fear or Mortal Coil on Karam at 34%, right when he's going to transition to Purgatory phase, will cancel his regeneration phase, rendering him untargetable but still active. He will follow his current target (your Infernal in this case) around, wacking him. Lastly, you can kill him even though he can't be targeted and shouldn't be able to take damage at this point via AoE splash damage from Seed of Corruption.

Summon an Infernal and stand right next to Karam with your pet on defensive and your back towards Raest. When the fight starts, Karam will punt you backwards and the Infernal will aggro him. Wait like 10-20 seconds for the Infernal to establish full aggro, then go nuts. When Karam reaches 34%, use Fear or Mortal Coil. This will cancel his Purgatory cast. This is a little finicky as Mortal Coil has a travel time and Fear does not (personally I liked using Fear but others liked Mortal Coil), so this may take you a couple tries. If you did it successfully, Karam will start casting Purgatory, get Feared, then Raest will activate to begin Phase 2. Karam will be untargetable but will still be following your Infernal around, and, more importantly, Karam will be at 33% health.

Use the 'Move' pet command to tell your Infernal, which Karam should still be following, to move to Raest. Kite adds he spawns around in a circle to keep them on top of him, throwing up Seed of Corruption on all of the different adds. Activate your Reap Souls artifact ability at this point to greatly strengthen your damage. Karam should start taking huge amounts of damage at this point as the Seeds denotate (force them to denotate yourself using Drain Soul if needed). Soon, with the damage from all of those Seeds of Corruption exploding on top of his position, Karam will actually die even though he is untargetable. The fight is basically over at this point. It's you and your Infernal versus Raest and his one Rune of Summoning ability. When he summons a rune, go stand on it. There are no other mechanics left. Ignore the adds now (kite them in a circle slightly and they can never touch you) and just kill Raest.


Xylem
Note that, in terms of difficulty, I found it very hard to rank Arms, Survival, Havoc, and Frost DK relative to each other. They're all very strong choices for this challenge with good tools for it. I really don't think any one of them is particularly easier or harder than any of the others. If I could put all four of those specs on the same line, I would. Subtlety is the outlier: the actual challenge of Xylem.

In the Void Phase, know that Xylem always spawns on the opposite side of the room from you. If you imagine a circle split into four quadrants, you are always placed in the bottom-left quadrant, and Xylem always exists in the upper-right quadrant. He will be represented as a tall, translucent arcane pillar. It is hard to see when you're far away, so just start going towards that quadrant of the room using bubbles along the way for protection after killing the mages that occupy them, then you should see him.

There's three spec-specific issues to go over:

• How to handle the ice walls in the Frost phase
• How to reach Xylem in the Void phase (and if you can cheese it)
• How to handle the shadow adds in the final phase

Note that between Phases 1 and 2, you get a small break and can change gear and talents if you are quick about it. As a reminder about the shadow boss: don't interrupt his channeled ability as you will heal him to full immediately.

Subtlety Rogue
Strengths: Can cheese Void phase with immunity mechanics

Weaknesses: Only one good slow effect and it has a short duration and requires combo points, mediocre self-healing at best

Example Talent Build: 1/1/1/1/3/1/2

Overall: Subtlety can break through the ice wall fairly easily, though they need to burn a lot of energy to do it. Just mash Shuriken Storm until there is a giant hole in the wall and walk out.

Self-healing is not really an issue for any other spec, but it is for Subtlety Rogues. The Void Phase will fully restore your health, but you need to use Crimson Vial to survive to get to that point. Just make sure you're interrupting what you can and you should live long enough to get there and receive that full heal, though it may end up being pretty close if you are low itemlevel.

During the Void phase, you can cheese it by activating Sprint and Cloak of Shadows, going straight across the room to Xylem's position. If you don't, I recommend you Shadowstep from bubble to bubble. If you miss a bubble and overshoot or don't interrupt a mage in time and get knocked back, you may die. Walking back into a bubble normally is dangerous since you are heavily slowed.

The final phase is where Subtlety gets difficult. Use Sprint to get far away from the boss when he uses his channeled ability on you. When the shadow adds spawn, use Shuriken Storm and then Nightblade on one of them, then tab target and repeat the process on each of the other two. Activate Symbols of Death in between slowing the second and third adds to gain enough energy to finish the process quickly. Move back to the first one and use Marked for Death and Eviscerate and try to finish it off. If you do, you'll recover Marked for Death and can repeat the process on the other two. Use Goremaw's Bite at this point on an unslowed add and use the combo points you gained from it to slow the other. Remember that you have stuns to use and a Blind as well. Later waves of shadow adds will likely require strong cooldowns, so I recommend saving at least one charge of Shadow Dance in case something goes horribly wrong.

Arms Warrior
Strengths: Good movement abilities, good stuns (if talented) and slows, several strong cooldowns

Weaknesses: Limited self-healing

Example Talent Build: 3/1/3/2/3/1/1

Overall: Arms Warriors can skip the ice wall entirely. At the top of a jump, cast Heroic Leap and you should just barely clear the ice.

During the Void phase, cheesing it as Arms is a little dangerous. I recommend you jump from bubble to bubble using Charge. If you miss a bubble and overshoot or don't interrupt a mage in time and get knocked back, you can Heroic Leap back into the bubble. Walking back into a bubble normally is dangerous since you are heavily slowed.

During the final phase, Heroic Leap away from the boss and get as far away as possible when he targets you with his channeled ability. When the shadow adds spawn, I recommend activating Battle Cry, Devastation, and Bladestorm (in that order). This should slaughter all of them. You can use Hamstring on any that are left. Avatar can be used on the boss at will.

Survival Hunter
Strengths: Strong burst damage, incredible slows, can cheese Void phase with immunity mechanics

Weaknesses: Limited self-healing except when using ice to reset heal, Void Phase is altered for no logical reason and requires Flare to be cast on Xylem's position to exit

Example Talent Build: 1/3/2/1/1/1/1

Overall: Survival Hunters can obliterate the ice wall around them in a couple of casts of Butchery. You can also abuse the mass deaths of ice that you are causing to get free refreshes on Exhilaration. Cast it before Butchery, and push it every time it resets and you aren't at full health. You can generally get 2 uses of out it just destroying the ice.

During the Void phase, you can cheese it by Disengaging and then activating Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Turtle together, going straight across the room to Xylem's position. If you don't, I recommend you jump from bubble to bubble using Harpoon. If you miss a bubble and overshoot or don't interrupt a mage in time and get knocked back, you may die. Walking back into a bubble normally is dangerous since you are heavily slowed.

Note that during the transition before the final phase, you can switch pets. This allows you to take a tenacity pet for the first part of the challenge and swap to a pet with Bloodlust for the second part of the challenge.

In the final phase, Disengage away from the boss and get as far away as possible when he targets you with his channeled ability. When the shadow adds spawn, throw down Caltrops/Tar Trap, and go to town. Cast Butchery a couple times, then focus into single targeting them down. With Wing Clip and Sticky Bomb, you can stop them if any of them start to get away as well. You should be able to save all of your cooldowns here for the boss.

Havoc Demon Hunter
Strengths: Ice provides lots of free healing, good stuns and slows (if talented), lots of powerful cooldowns, can cheese Void phase with immunity mechanics

Weaknesses: If you are dumb like me then you can kill yourself repeatedly

Example Talent Build: 3/3/2/3/3/1/3 (if you have problems with Phase 2 boss damage, you can switch to Chaos Blades during the break and stack it with your other cooldowns for more burst damage)

Overall: I am placing this here largely after talking with others. I actually had a really bad time with the Havoc challenge, but a substantial part of this was my own impatience. After every time Xylem surrounds you with an ice wall, he stuns you briefly. As a Demon Hunter, you can double jump and then press Fel Rush at the top of your double jump to skip dealing with the ice mechanic without having to destroy it. Because I was so impatient, I got into the tendency to mash space bar during the stun to double jump. When the stun actually does fade, this makes your character jump twice then activate Glide and smash through the ice, killing themselves instantly. I died literally like six times doing this; I had to start taking my hands off the keyboard during the stun in order to stop.

Anyway, on to the challenge. When an ice wall forms around you, hit Blade Dance first. This will cleave off orbs to heal you from all of the different pieces of ice. After that, double jump and Fel Rush at the top of your jump in order to skip over the ice. As you do this, you'll pick up most of the healing orbs you just spawned on the ground below you, healing you to nearly full health.

During the Void phase, you can cheese it by using Vengeful Retreat backwards, then Fel Rushing twice, going straight across the room to Xylem's position (you could also use Metamorphosis here as a movement cooldown if you think Xylem's health is high enough that it will cool down before the final phase). If you don't, I recommend you jump from bubble to bubble using Fel Rush. If you miss a bubble and overshoot or don't interrupt a mage in time and get knocked back, use Felblade to correct the issue as it has a charge component and will save your life. Walking back into a bubble normally is dangerous since you are heavily slowed.

In the final phase, Fel Rush twice to get as far away from the boss as possible when he targets you with his channeled ability. When the shadow adds spawn, activate Eye Beam (to shift into Metamorphosis form) and Chaos Nova and go to town on them, using Blade Dance and your artifact ability if it is available. If any of them start to get away, use Throw Glaive to slow them and chase them down. You should be able to save all of your other cooldowns for the boss except maybe near the end when you don't have much room to kill the shadow adds.

Frost Death Knight
Strengths: Challenge compensates for limited mobility, ice provides lots of free healing, strong burst damage, great slows, good stuns, Death Grip

Weaknesses: Actually has to break itself out of the ice, limited mobility

Example Talent Build: 1/2/1/3/2/1/1

Overall: Frost Death Knights actually have to break themselves out of the ice, but this not as bad as it sounds. Just carefully approach a piece of ice, staying at maximum melee range, and cut through it with your normal rotation (prioritizing Frostscythe). You will get a free Death Strike proc when you kill a piece, so spend that on the next piece of ice and keep making your way out one shard at a time.

During the Void Phase intermission, a mechanic of the fight is removed to compensate for Death Knights' pathetic mobility options: there is no longer a persistent slow effect while you are outside the 'safe bubbles'. This allows you to run from bubble to bubble. You want to clear out the next bubble first by killing the mage from range with Howling Blast or Frost Strike (if you stand on the edge of the bubble, you should be able to just barely hit the next mage with it).

In the final phase, run away as far as possible using Wraith Walk when the boss targets you with his channeled ability. Activate Pillar of Frost and Remorseless Winter when the shadow adds spawn. This should slow all of them and then freeze them in place. You should be able to burst them down one by one at this point; Frostscythe use will also help that by cleaving damage between the adds. Use Chains of Ice and Death Grip if any of them actually manage to escape. You can use Empower Rune Weapon and Obliteration on the boss himself.


Sigryn
Often declared to be the easiest challenge, Sigryn at least has some amount of mechanical complexity. You can and will die to mechanics like unsoaked runes, the enraged warrior (especially on a cloth character), Sigryn's Blood of the Father buff, or the Val'kyr walls that spawn in periodically. It is on a very similar difficulty level to both Feltotem and Agatha, but I think it is very slightly harder than the other two challenges. On a side note, moreso than other challenges, it is quite difficult to rank the specializations individually within the context of Sigryn as the fight changes very, very little between specs. It is mainly just based on the efficiency of their crowd control and their ability to recover health easily after making a mistake.

For this challenge, it is useful to understand how diminishing returns function for crowd control abilities, as chain crowd controlling Sigryn is a viable option for every specialization here if done correctly. If you cast a crowd control effect on a target who has that same effect on them any time in the last 15 seconds, the duration is halved. After being halved, if it happens again, it will be 1/4th of normal, and if it happens again, the target will be immune. The solution is simply to wait 15 seconds between your crowd control effect breaking and the application of the next one after 2 applications. So you apply your CC, then once it breaks, apply it again. After it breaks again, wait 15 seconds before applying your CC again in order to reset diminishing returns. You can repeat this process indefinitely.

Lastly, make sure you have not taken the Tier 2 Netherlight Cruicible trait called 'Torment the Weak' on any of your relics. If you have, you are going to have to watch the proc or have a potentially bad time. For God knows what reason, Torment the Weak can proc off the application of crowd control effects like Polymorph and Hex. It will then immediately break those effects. If you are using this to stop Sigryn's Blood of the Father debuff from ticking after it has already been applied, then this will often be fatal for you. You either need to make sure that you crowd control the Blood of the Father spell during the cast (easier said than done to never fail at this), before the buff is applied, or that you proc the debuff on something else first every time it is off its ICD.

Arcane Mage
Strengths: Decent mobility via Blink

Weaknesses: No self-healing abilities, self-shielding mechanic requires a talent to be consistent and drains mana

Example Talent Build: 2/3/3/3/1/2/1 (Warning: use of Shimmer talent can make you fail the challenge as it ignores the boundary walls)

Overall: This fight is slightly tricky as Arcane, mainly because Arcane is the only one of the five specializations offered this challenge to not have strong self-healing. In fact, it has no self-healing. You will need to rely on Prismatic Barrier (fueled by Evocation in a pinch) or a strong healing legendary like Prydax, Xavaric's Magnum Opus to survive. Thankfully, you have many tools to prevent Jarl Velbrand from reaching you at least: Frost Nova, Slow, and Arcane Barrage (if talented into Chrono Shift). Also, either keep Polymorph up on Sigryn or Polymorph her when she starts casting Blood of the Father (both options are valid). Don't worry about it healing her to full; that part of Polymorph is disabled during the challenge and it will not heal mobs.

Demonology Warlock
Strengths: Great recovery from mistakes via self-healing with Drain Life, can place damage over time effects on multiple bosses and focus on mechanical requirements

Weaknesses: Must pick between an incredibly powerful refreshing shield and a self-damaging form of movement, has no form of movement increase outside the talent choice

Example Talent Build: 3/1/2/3/1/1/3

Overall: Demonology can be slightly tricky as Warlocks have very limited mobility without Burning Rush (though, remember to throw up your Demonic Portal), which I don't recommend talenting unless you're running Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus or something like that. Demon Skin is just too good for this fight, as it provides a huge buffer for mistakes to be made. Also, you need to be running a Doomguard for this fight, and I recommend setting the melee guy as your focus target (/focus) and making a focus macro for your Doomguard's Cripple (/cast [@focus] Cripple). Warlocks have no other forms of slows in PvE content at the moment, so this is the only way to keep the melee guy from kicking your teeth in. Also, either keep Fear up on Sigryn or Mortal Coil her when she starts casting Blood of the Father (both options are valid).

The way I did this fight was really weird and awkward but actually highly effective. Basically, I put up Doom on all three NPCs and then ignored doing any other form of damage. I focused 100% on performing mechanics - hitting runes, breaking the shield and interrupting the spell cast by Runeseer Faljar, fearing Sigryn when she cast Blood of the Father, running from Jarl Velbrand when enraged, etc. After you reach 50% and substantial time has passed (it will have if you are using this strategy), all abilties are dropped from the fight except the shield/cast mechanic for Runeseer Faljar and the Val'kyr soldier waves that fly through the area. This is supposed to be the fight's 'soft enrage'. Fortunately, the enrage is so soft that it is actually easier than the rest of the fight (irony). The DPS requirement to break through Runeseer's shield in time is slightly over 300k. This is the point where I started to do real damage and actually focus on killing the NPCs. Obviously, dump all your damage into Runeseer Faljar, so that when he shields himself you'll already have some damage rolling from Dreadstalkers and the like. The interrupt timing can be a bit close as you'll need your Doomguard's interrupt ability nearly on cooldown every cooldown, but it should work out. If it doesn't, taking one hit is not the end of the world here thanks to your Demon Skin.

In general though, focusing on mechanics is a good idea, even if you don't do it to the somewhat ridiculous extent that I did.

Enhancement Shaman
Strengths: Decent self-healing, decent survivability, great movement options
Weaknesses: None
Example Talent Build: 3/2/2/2/1/1/1
Overall: The fight is very straightforward as Enhancement. Either keep Hex up on Sigryn or Hex her when she starts casting Blood of the Father (both options are valid). To stop Jarl Velbrand from stomping your face in, use Earthgrab Totem near him when he becomes enraged. Ghost Wolf and Feral Lunge can help you get the runes on the ground in time or reach a gap in the Val'kyr wall.

Retribution Paladin
Strengths: Good CC options, incredible survivability including immunity mechanics

Weaknesses: Mobility options could be better

Example Talent Build: 1/2/2/2/1/2/2

Overall: The fight is very straightforward as Retribution. Either keep Repentance up on Sigryn or Hammer of Justice her when she starts casting Blood of the Father (both options are valid). If she actually finishes her cast, you must follow up the Hammer of Justice with a Repentance as keeping her crowd controlled is the only way to suppress the devastating Blood of the Father buff. You should also use Hammer of Justice on Jarl Velbrand when he enrages. Divine Steed should be saved for grabbing runes or finding a gap in the Val'kyr wall. Be ready to use Divine Shield for the same purpose in a pinch.

Assassination Rogue
Strengths: Good CC options, great recovery from mistakes via self-healing with Leech Poison and Crimson Vial, immunity mechanics, has strong damage reduction against almost all mechanics in this fight via Feint, great mobility options via Sprint and Shadowstep

Weaknesses: None

Example Talent Build: 1/1/3/1/2/1/1

Overall: The fight is very straightforward as Assassination. Apply Leeching Poison and Deadly Poison. Either keep Blind up on Sigryn or Blind her when she starts casting Blood of the Father (both options are valid). Either Kidney Shot Jarl Velbrand when he enrages or just activate Evasion when he finally reaches you and pretend he doesn't exist. Sprint and Shadowstep are both useful movement tools to help you reach runes on the floor or gaps in the Val'kyr wall in time.


Feltotem
This is a relatively interesting scenario. Some of the other challenges could induce rage in me quite easily when I failed attempts, but Feltotem never felt unfair to me in its mechanics. I believe this is because the entire fight is scripted heavily with very limited random elements. Even the worm will take the same tunneling paths every single time if you stand in the same spot on the ground. The specializations offered this challenge also have no unifying theme, unlike every other challenge. This seems to be the challenge reserved for the specializations that didn't fit in elsewhere.

The primary two challenges in this fight are interrupting Tugar Bloodtotem consistently (especially since only one of the four specializations that can do this challenge has an interrupt ability with a cooldown equal to the cooldown on his spell cast: Windwalker) and watching the floor constantly to kite Jormag into rocks and avoid taking damage. Also, don't kill Tugar too fast so that Jormag has a huge amount of armor reduction stats. That didn't used to be a huge issue, but it can happen often now with high gear or good Concordance procs.

Note that the DBM Challenges addon is quite useful here, as you can watch the cooldown time on Fel Burst and Sonic Scream.

Beast Mastery Hunter
Strengths: Pet can soak some damage to help you recover from mistakes

Weaknesses: Pitiful self-healing leaving very little room for error, no consistent single interrupt ability, one of the interrupts is ground targeted and delayed so it requires practice to learn timing and positioning

Example Talent Build: 3/2/1/2/3/3/3 (if you aren't having problems with pet survivability, Killer Cobra is likely better than Aspect of the Beast)

Overall: This is one of the few challenges where a good legendary will change your life. Beast Mastery has a single healing ability (Exhilaration), and it is not very good, especially the Beast Mastery version which does not decrease its cooldown on kills like the Marksmanship version. It is just barely good enough to survive the constant chip damage occurring from the worm using his sonic scream repeatedly in Phase 1. If you have any of the legendaries that provide healing effects, either Roots of Shaladrassil, Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus, or The Shadow Hunter's Voodoo Mask, then you will be substantially better off in this fight. It will probably be very easy.

Anyway, if you don't have a free legendary like that, I strongly recommend the talent build above and the use of either a Spirit Beast or a Turtle (in either case, specced as Tenacity). Spirit Beasts can heal you slightly, which can help you stay alive. Turtles can shield the Fel Burst hits, helping themselves stay alive. The Tenacity specialization is because Kill Command will cause your pet to take 30% less damage, and that will help your pet survive and recover from missed interrupts, which will probably happen here. Your primary interrupt is on a 24 second cooldown, but Tugar can cast his Fel Burst every 12 seconds. This means you need other abilities, and this is where the fight becomes complicated. You're going to need to use Freezing Trap to interrupt his Fel Burst cast. This means you need to be watching his cast bar like a hawk, and throwing down a Freezing Trap in the first 1-1.5 seconds of his Fel Burst cast (since the trap needs time to fly through the air, land, and then deploy itself). Additionally complicating this process is the existence of adds that hatch from eggs. If they are alive when an interrupt via Freezing Trap needs to be done, they can burn your trap. You may want to consider using Intimidation instead in those cases.

The only other thing to note is that Jormag in Phase 2 has a Sonic Scream ability he does every 15 seconds or so that can only be interrupted by CC effects, so you need to stop him from finishing the cast with Freezing Trap the first time, Intimidation the second time, and Freezing Trap the third time. After that, you'll have to eat at least one Sonic Scream to the face (it's not fatal, it actually does less than Tugar's Fel Burst does) before either cooldown is up again.

Destruction Warlock
Strengths: Pet can soak some damage in case Tugar casts too quickly, Fear can break Earthquake and cancel the add spawns if cast early enough into the channel, great self-healing via Drain Life

Weaknesses: No consistent single interrupt ability, can be silenced via Sonic Scream at critical moments

Example Talent Build: 1/1/2/3/2/1/2

Overall: If you take Grimoire of Supremacy, you can use either the Infernal or the Doomguard here. If you take Grimoire of Service here, use a Felhunter pet and use Grimoire: Felhunter when needed (more on that in a bit). So, how can you interrupt Tugar, who has a 12 second cooldown on his devastating Fel Burst ability, when you only have interrupts on your pets and they have cooldowns far too long for consistent use?

The answer is Fear. Fel Burst has a 2.5 second cast time, and Fear has a 1.5 second cast time. If you cast Fear within less than a second after Fel Burst's cast begins, then you will be able to crowd control him, effectively interrupting his cast. Diminishing returns is not a super common issue here, despite what you might think. Fear duration is completely irrelevant since you'll be breaking your own Fear anyway - you're just using it as an interrupt. The problem would be if full diminishing returns for Fear kicked in, making him immune. The only way this would happen is if you Fear'd him 3 times in a row where one Fear was within 15 seconds of the last one (diminishing returns reset after a 15 second gap of no crowd control effects). This is fairly unlikely to occur, since Tugar uses his Earthquake ability every 30 seconds, which throws off the cast of his Fel Burst.

The main problem is actually the reaction time required to pull off a successful interrupt with Fear (the 1 second window). You probably will not always be able to get it perfectly. You want to save Mortal Coil for a situation where you have to move when the cast is happening as Tugar likes to cast it right after Earthquake when you're running from the worm, and you won't be able to stop moving in time to cast Fear. You have a few options to save yourself from missing the 1 second window. If using an Infernal, he will tank Tugar, taking any missed Fel Bursts to the face, and you can heal him through it afterwards. Alternatively, if using a Doomguard, he will be able to use his interrupt to save your mistake and interrupt the spell even after your 1 second window closes (as long as the cast isn't fully done yet). The last option is to use a Felhunter and do the same thing as the Doomguard. This also allows you to use Grimoire: Felhunter has an additional 1.5 minute interrupt. All three pet options are totally valid, but I think most players may prefer the Doomguard.

Windwalker Monk
Strengths: Has a consistent single interrupt ability which removes most of the challenge of this challenge

Weaknesses: Self-healing is mainly reliant on collecting orbs from slain adds or from Transcendence

Example Talent Build: 2/3/3/3/1/3/2

Overall: Windwalker is like the other specializations, except I don't have to spend two paragraphs telling you how to awkwardly chain CC cooldowns together to pretend like your specialization has a decent interrupt because Windwalker actually does have a decent interrupt. Isn't that nice? In a pinch, you can always throw out Paralysis or Leg Sweep if you are busy with something else and can't switch to Tugar in time, otherwise, save those for Jormag's Sonic Screams in Phase 2.

Discipline Priest
Strengths: Incredible self-healing almost like they are a healer or something

Weaknesses: Relatively low damage compared to other specs, very limited interrupt ability, can be silenced via Sonic Scream at critical moments

Example Talent Build: 1/3/2/2/1/1/1

Overall: Discipline Priests have by far the worst interrupt ability out of any of the four specializations, but to counter this, they are healers. They can take the Fel Burst to the face, and then heal themselves. Personally, I liked to cast Shadow Mend on myself once (in order to proc Attonement on myself) and then go back to damaging Tugar, since my damage was working to heal me at that point. Every 30 seconds, you can use Psychic Scream to interrupt a Fel Burst, which allows you to focus more on damaging Tugar down. Additionally, in Phase 2, you can use Psychic Scream to interrupt Jormag's Sonic Scream.


Agatha
This challenge has the lowest mechanical complexity of any scenario. In full, Agatha can cast 3 abilities, only one of which you have to care about (Dark Fury), and there are 4 types of imp adds, all of which you need to kill or kite (casters can largely ignore the Fuming Imps, while melee should either kill them quickly or lure their explosion to be about 10-15 yards away from the boss so it doesn't limit their own movement). Lastly, from 50% down, there are boulders to dodge, and Agatha teleports around a bit (which helps you more than it helps her since you get clear floor space and her imp friends don't move with her).

This all said, there is a slight disconnect between the harder three specializations (Fury, Elemental, and Outlaw) and the easier three specializations (Fire, Feral, and Unholy). The former actually require some strategy and thought. The latter are so easy that at a decent itemlevel, they're nearly free. Knowing how to play the specialization isn't even required, just start the challenge, activate a Lightblood Elixir (more on that in a minute), and smash some buttons that you think might do damage.

Agatha is bugged in a strange way in that many different items and buffs can be active during the challenge that should not be allowed. The most notable of these are:

• Lightblood Elixir - a damage buff that does huge amounts of burst damage procs against Demons and will be usually 20% or more of your damage in the fight
• Sylvan Elixir - an elixir that turns you into a tree, then provides you with 10% stats (note that you need to cancel the tree buff but not the 10% stats buff)
• Greater Blessed Bandage - a BoA item from the Army of Light emissary box that has a similar effect on your DPS as the Lightblood Elixir and also provides 5% HP in healing every 3 seconds, making it nearly impossible to die
• Court of Farondis Command Center Buff - when the Command Center is active on Broken Shore, you will randomly get: whelps that spawn that deal significant damage, blue circles on the ground that increase damage done by 50% and reduce damage taken by 50% while you stand in them, and random meteors that drop down and huge AoE damage to enemies hit.

Make sure to activate at least Lightblood Elixir when you do Agatha, as the DPS requirement will be substantially lower.

Fury Warrior
Strengths: Damage inside cooldown windows will wipe out every imp in nearly one attack

Weaknesses: Damage outside cooldown windows is extremely weak which complicates imp handling, self-healing varies based on usage of talents (and use of Charge if you take that talent)

Example Talent Build: 1/3/3/1/2/3/2 (Wrecking Ball is a very viable replacement for Avatar here if you plan to kill the imps more frequently and not let them build up)

Overall: Fury Warrior is a weird specialization, where their damage relies strongly on the health level of the mob and the status of their cooldowns. As the imps will never really be in an ideal Fury Warrior range, you're going to need to save cooldowns to wipe them out. I recommend using Avatar on cooldown on the boss, but saving everything else (Battle Cry and Odyn's Fury mainly) for imps. How you use them is that you let the groups of 3 imps build up on Agatha until 6 of them are alive by her, then activate Battle Cry and immediately follow it with Odyn's Fury. This will very effectively delete everything or bring it to very low HP, at which point you can finish it off with a whirlwind or two.

You will need to take care of the channeling imps manually with single target abilities. You can use Piercing Howl to slow them from reaching Agatha or Intimidating Shout to fear them off in order to buy more time if you have better things to do at the moment though.

Letting the imps build up can be relatively painful on a low itemlevel Fury Warrior, so it may be more beneficial to take Wrecking Ball and try to wipe out all adds as they spawn at lower gear levels. I recommend trying this only if you have issues with the strategy outlined above this.

Elemental Shaman
Strengths: Damage inside cooldown windows will wipe out every imp in only a few attacks

Weaknesses: AoE damage outside cooldown windows requires a lot of dedication and complicates the fight

Example Talent Build: 3/1/2/2/2/3/2 (Storm Elemental can be a good talent to swap for here if you need a more frequent elemental cooldown with half the duration)

Overall: So the difference between this fight and the other (non-Fury) specializations is that Elemental's AoE is very clunky for this fight. It's good, yes, but the setup time and amount of casts you have to throw in to kill just 3 imps is pretty absurd. I think the most reasonable way to do this fight is to let the groups of 3 imps build up on Agatha until 6 of them are alive by her, then activate Stormbringer and cast three Chain Lightnings. This will very effectively delete everything.

When the two imps come in to heal Agatha, you can disrupt their casts and group them with the other imps with a decent Thunderstorm. It's useful to do this if you were about to Stormbringer anyway. Otherwise, burst them down one by one with single target spells. In theory, you could ignore them, but the damage buff Agatha gains from them is a little too dangerous to ignore in my opinion. Note that unlike the melee specializations, you don't have to bother much with the Fuming Imps since you don't need floor space to have mobs in your range; just move out of each puddle that gets made at your feet.

Alternatively, you can try to take out every imp wave if you feel that waiting to let the imps build up is too painful. Throw down an Earthquake and nuke the imps with Chain Lightnings. Be sure to tab target to another imp if Lightning Rod procs on the main target of a Chain Lightning cast.

Outlaw Rogue
Strengths: Marked for Death is incredible at wiping out all of the imps

Weaknesses: Self-healing relies almost entirely on RNG via Roll the Bones to pull the Grand Melee buff, Marked for Death is easy to mess up by accidentally using it on Agatha, Blade Flurry's damage and range are too limited to be of any real use, melee range specializations have to kite or kill Fuming Imps or they will fill the area with poison

Example Talent Build: 3/2/1/3/3/2/2

Overall: The biggest mistake people make on this challenge when playing Outlaw is not realizing how strong Marked for Death is on this fight. Some people hate Roll the Bones more than anything else which is understandable, but if you take anything except Marked for Death in the Level 100 talent tier, you are making the fight wildly harder for no good reason. Use of Blade Flurry here is recommended when killing imps as long as you can remember to toggle it back off (if you can't, just leave it off). The way to handle imps in this fight is to always switch to them, then activate Marked for Death, giving you 5 combo points. Spend them on Run Through. If the imp is not dead (basically: if you did not critically strike), push Saber Strike to make it dead. Afterwards, push tab and repeat the process. Be careful to not spend Marked for Death on Agatha herself, or you will have to bear living without Marked for Death for 60 agonizing seconds.

If you proceed through the fight in this careful manner, executing all imps who dare enter the cave immediately, then very little will be able to harm you. The biggest challenge you will have will be dodging the boulders (and maybe dealing with poison puddles from exploding imps, but you can kill those too in the same manner if you're fast enough). If you take a hit from a boulder or mess up one of Agatha's channel cast interrupts, you may find yourself at very low health without a great recovery mechanism even after using Crimson Vial. This is another point where the choice of Marked for Death can save you, since it mandates you keep Roll the Bones, a hidden source of Rogue healing. Repeatedly Roll the Bones for the buff called Grand Melee (ironically, it is usually the least desirable buff). It provides a substantial amount of leech and attack speed and can put a near death Rogue on the road to recovery. For me at least, it literally saved my kill, bringing me from the brink of death back up to 60% or so after a refresh of it.

Fire Mage
Strengths: Incredibly strong burst AoE on demand

Weaknesses: Self-healing is conditional on using Blink/Shimmer frequently

Example Talent Build: 1/1/3/1/3/3/3

Overall: Fire has so many strong AoE burst abilities that I recommend taking down every imp pack as they spawn. The groups of 2 that spawn to heal Agatha you should interrupt with Dragon's Breath and then just burst down one after the other with single target. Note that Frost Nova works fairly well here to stop them in place before they reach Agatha. The groups of 3 that spawn around Agatha you should wipe out by throwing in a Phoenix's Flames or Dragon's Breath and follow it up with a Hot Streak proc'd Flamestrike or two.

Unlike the melee specializations, you don't have to bother much with the Fuming Imps since you don't need floor space to have mobs in your range; just move out of each puddle that gets made at your feet. If you don't have any legendaries that provide absorb or healing effects for yourself, I recommend using Shimmer or Blink often, as these provide a 20% heal over 6 seconds.

Feral Druid
Strengths: Incredibly strong burst AoE on demand, free self-heals after every finisher means they are nearly unkillable

Weaknesses: Melee range specializations have to kite or kill Fuming Imps or they will fill the area with poison

Example Talent Build: 2/2/1/1/1/2/1

Overall: Feral has a fairly easy time with Agatha thanks to the overpowered nature of Brutal Slash. When a group of 3 imps spawn in, spam Brutal Slash a few times until they are dead. Finish off any stragglers with normal attacks. As you're doing this, try to keep your bleeds, Rake and Rip, active on Agatha. A lot of these specializations suffer somewhat from the split focus between killing imps and damaging Agatha, but Feral is the exception where they can do both at the same time. I would not use Brutal Slash as part of your normal rotation for this fight, as you generally want to save the charges for the groups of 3 imps. For the groups of 2 channeling imps, take them down quickly with single target attacks.

Unholy Death Knight
Strengths: Incredibly strong burst AoE on demand, free self-heals after every imp death means they are nearly unkillable

Weaknesses: Melee range specializations have to kite or kill Fuming Imps or they will fill the area with poison

Example Talent Build: 3/2/3/3/1/3/2

Overall: Like Fire, Unholy has very strong AoE, which just crushes groups of imps. As soon as a group of 3 imps spawn near Agatha, throw down Defile/Death and Decay on top of them and cast Outbreak. After that, just throw a Festering Strike on an imp and follow it up with Scourge Strikes/Clawing Shadows into each imp one by one and everything should die a horrible death. Refresh Outbreak if it falls off. Do the same for the group of 2 imps that spawn in and run up to heal Agatha. You can self-heal to full very easily by spending every Dark Succor proc that you get after killing an imp on a free empowered Death Strike.

[Sanguinezor]

Isn't this a bit late?

[Simca]

Isn't this a bit late?

It sure is. See sixth paragraph for more details, but basically I decided I was better off finishing it now rather than never.

[Tziva]

To be fair, a lot of people are scrambling to finish these now that didn't bother months ago, so the guide actually might be of more use now than it was when the content was new.

[Somarlane]

^ Am one of those people. This should help me on the couple of toons that are at an appropriate gear level, thank you Simca.

[Deleted]

It sure is. See sixth paragraph for more details, but basically I decided I was better off finishing it now rather than never.

I found this to be helpful to re-run challenges on my 2nd account. For example, you have the Affliction cheese strategy here, which is extraordinary because chances are slim to get Sacrolash in the remaining days before Mage Tower retires.

So, thanks for writing this down.

[Voidwielder]

Both UH and Fire were a joke - I specced in to UH, read on Icy Veins about the rotation and 10 minutes later, on first pull - it was dead. Feral took 4 attempts.

Fury and Outlaw, now those actually took a couple dozen tries even at good ilvl.

And Aff cheese strategy still works - it's stupid that Blizzard didn't fix it so take advantage of that.

[Crowfeather]

Thanks a bunch for your guide Simca!

[hasslehoof]

Not running First Avenger or Anger management on Prot Pala/Warrior is just stupid, you don't need the on demand DR because you have ridiculous self healing on top of the fact that the only time you actually need the DR up is for the Annihilates. Anger Management is just flat out a better defensive and offensive option no matter how you spin it, esp when combined with Booming Voice.

[Simca]

Not running First Avenger or Anger management on Prot Pala/Warrior is just stupid, you don't need the on demand DR because you have ridiculous self healing on top of the fact that the only time you actually need the DR up is for the Annihilates. Anger Management is just flat out a better defensive and offensive option no matter how you spin it, esp when combined with Booming Voice.

You're totally right about Paladin. I am just a huge Bastion of Light fan and forgot that it was paired against a huge DPS increase vs Inquisitor. Will definitely change that.

As for Anger Management vs Heavy Reprocussions, it is mainly because HR increases opening burst DPS against the Inquisitor. It's part of my slightly insane strategy for that challenge to destroy the Inquisitor within about 40 seconds of fight start. Because the window of time to kill him is so small, AM is less important.

This all said, you're very right that AM is a wildly stronger option in general, especially for normal strategies. I'll make a note about it real quick.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

A couple of tips:
For affliction warlock cheese strategy I recommend turning your back to Raest at the start when you get knocked back and the infernal takes aggro. This will move Karam closer to Raest rather than away, so may not even need to tell your infernal to move closer to Raest.
On my first tries when I had my back turned to where you enter the place, Karam would move away from Raest towards me even though the infernal basically had aggro.
This was the case for me atleast.

As frost death knight, spec Frostscythe. This ability will help a lot with both the ice and the adds in the final phase.

For Agatha I recommend trying to kill the fuming imps(kite a bit while damaging them).

Holy priest and restoration shaman can purge/dispel the damage buff from the ghost mages in phase 1. You will only remove one stack at a time, so it isn't really worth it as it takes a global cooldown when you need that to heal, but if you for some reason mess up your cc you can use it as an emergency so they don't get too many stacks.

Last but not least I strongly disagree that holy paladin is the most difficult healing challenge; it's the easiest! I'm really, really surprised that people even consider it being the most difficult.

[Simca]

A couple of tips:
For affliction warlock cheese strategy I recommend turning your back to Raest at the start when you get knocked back and the infernal takes aggro. This will move Karam closer to Raest rather than away, so may not even need to tell your infernal to move closer to Raest.
On my first tries when I had my back turned to where you enter the place, Karam would move away from Raest towards me even though the infernal basically had aggro.
This was the case for me atleast.

As frost death knight, spec Frostscythe. This ability will help a lot with both the ice and the adds in the final phase.

For Agatha I recommend trying to kill the fuming imps(kite a bit while damaging them).

Holy priest and restoration shaman can purge/dispel the damage buff from the ghost mages in phase 1. You will only remove one stack at a time, so it isn't really worth it as it takes a global cooldown when you need that to heal, but if you for some reason mess up your cc you can use it as an emergency so they don't get too many stacks.

Last but not least I strongly disagree that holy paladin is the most difficult healing challenge; it's the easiest! I'm really, really surprised that people even consider it being the most difficult.

Will mention first three points. Purging probably still is never worth it - Holy Priest can cast Shackle Undead with no cooldown and Restoration Shaman have Wind Shear.

Dunno what to say about Holy Paladin challenge; the biggest reason it's harder than the others is that you're very limited in number of globals you can cast on the ghosts so they can't show off their superior single target as well as they should be able to. If they had an AoE that hit the ghosts outside line of sight, it would be different.

[Amaterasu65]

It's not mentioned by the op, but Balance druid can be cheesed.

What you gotta do is typhoon Karam's cast when he reaches 33% hp. He will keep following you and you won't be able to target him but you can kite him on Raest and have him die to Starfall and Lunar Strikes on Raest. After he dies, Raest won't cast hands anymore. And I'm pretty sure I didn't see any runes as well. Piece of cake.

[Simca]

It's not mentioned by the op, but Balance druid can be cheesed.

What you gotta do is typhoon Karam's cast when he reaches 33% hp. He will keep following you and you won't be able to target him but you can kite him on Raest and have him die to Starfall and Lunar Strikes on Raest. After he dies, Raest won't cast hands anymore. And I'm pretty sure I didn't see any runes as well. Piece of cake.

Smart! I will add that.

On a similar note, I tried to do the same cheese with Frost Mage with Polymorph myself, then I realized I was an idiot because Polymorph is a 100% heal. It did work; he skipped Purgatory, but it just made the fight wildly harder.

[Maxie]

Windwalker actually has a decent source of self healing outside of the orbs. The artifact makes it so that you heal a % of your hp after using transcendance, so you should use the teleport whenever you need healing. It was about 35-40% of my self healing on that challenge with 1 relic that gave a point in it.

[Tziva]

2) you did not mention the best command center proc for Agatha, the meteor that pretty much kills all imps by itself.

With only a week left, it's likely not relevant since there's no time to be choosey. We'll have one more CC up at best.

[melzas]

It would take longer to read some of those guides than to complete the scenario?

930 ilvl feltotem needs a guide? Seriously

[Simca]

Windwalker actually has a decent source of self healing outside of the orbs. The artifact makes it so that you heal a % of your hp after using transcendance, so you should use the teleport whenever you need healing. It was about 35-40% of my self healing on that challenge with 1 relic that gave a point in it.

Given the ease of grabbing orbs (and how it will probably be done accidentally), I wasn't sure about suggesting a Transcendence setup, but I did at least edit the line about their self-healing being limited to include a mention of Transcendence healing.

With only a week left, it's likely not relevant since there's no time to be choosey. We'll have one more CC up at best.

They're all active at the same time I think; it's just random which actually happen for you. I mentioned it in the most recent update.

It would take longer to read some of those guides than to complete the scenario?

930 ilvl feltotem needs a guide? Seriously

I have been accused of using excessive amounts of text to convey my point before, and, while I would rather say too much than too little, none of these specialization-specific guides exceed 4 paragraphs in length.

It would be relatively impressive if you could complete a challenge in the time it takes to read that.

[oldgeezer]

I've found that Mirror Images can also be used to taunt Karam during the frost mage challenge, at least during the first phase. You get around 30s of uninterrupted damage on him if you use this strategy. You don't even need to let Karam hit you first; pop Mirrors before Karam walks through your Blizzard on the pull.

A caveat; be careful with Mirror placement; if Karam knocks them off the 'island' with his attack he can bug and reset the scenario.

[dacoolist]

Great guide, and good luck to everyone pushing! Don't give up, you GOT it fam