Mage Tower Post Mortem

[Loveliest]

the only thing that mattered was the skill...

And class and gear. Soul capacitor trinket anyone? That was worth one extra dps.

[eduwneso]

Ugh, mage tower, don't get me started. Paladin tank here. You know how they could have made them better? By actually doing what they said - designing them as a mastery of your class & spec. I went in there and spellwarding didn't work. Bubble didn't work either, let's just make class specific abilities not work, that should prove you know your class!
And then I found out our boss had twice the health of what other tanks had to face (and druids cheesed it the start with the stealth pull bug). Skills! It was mostly how long you can bloody pay attention to not being thrown off your platform for 7+ minutes.
The healer one was FUN compared to this, even the long ass mob assault from the start.

Paladin Tank was easy for me :S

[Morgaith]

I hope they don't bring it back because i don't want to level 11 alts again and gear them up just to do it all for a time exlusive mog.

Now if it was something that wasn't time exclusive then yes i could see it be fine.

- - - Updated - - -

Paladin Tank was easy for me :S

Most challenges were nerfed massively over time from both changes to encounters and changes to classes and that's not even touching on gear and AP.

[Loveliest]

Paladin Tank was easy for me :S

That's nice. ilvl? I think I was about 906-908 at the time, not sure. Boss health was also reduced by 30% at some point, don't recall when.
I had the same discussion with my man back in Legion - how hard he found the retri one and how easy he found the tank one. The tank one isn't "hard", it just needs you to keep your eyes peeled the entire fight - gear only helped as much as it reduced the timer you had to keep focused on.
On the other hand the dps one was mostly a survival one so it was by far the easiest for someone main-ing a tank and the healer one seemed to be tailored for holy paladin (the end was the only surprise, when I wiped myself because I didn't know I'd explode if I was full health).

[UnluckyAmateur]

semi-casual here, mage tower is what actually made me learn more of my class than I had gone in with. I loved every second of it because even though I got my ass spanked quite a few times it was a challenge that made me appreciate my class even more and come out better for it.




Basically how all solo content felt for the rest of the expansion

[LMuhlen]

Mage tower was implemented at a later patch in the Legion cycle. Even if they like the concept of it and want to reapply it this expansion, they will probably do it in a similar position in BfA's cycle. Adding a single player challenge in the beginning of an expansion is a bad choice, since the gear race when reaching level cap is much more pronounced than after a solid tier. Also, it would be terribly irrelevant later on, since the power creep during an entire expansion is huge.

Regarding the idea of not letting ilvl naturally nerf the content, that was the case of the MoP version of this (forgot the name). From what I remember, it was poorly received back then. Also it only rewarded titles, which apparently are below transmogs in the cosmetic rewards hierarchy...

[Jamie081]

If they do it again I wonder how they'll handle rewards since we don't have artifacts anymore.

[Deleted]

I think we'll get something like Mage Towers in 8.2.5 or 8.3, but they don't want to announce it yet since 8.1 looks devoid of enough content as it is, and 8.2 already has Mechagon, Flying, and some sort of WQ revamp going for it. Gives people more incentive to say, yeah I'll be back in 8.2.

Nah. Brawler's will return but nothing like Mage Tower.

[Unlimited Power]

I had great fun getting 36/36 in Legion so I'd love another solo challenge like the Mage Tower. I'd prefer some interesting armor set rewards this time around though.

[ONCHEhap]

Some of them couldnt still be zerged at the end of Legion. I still couldnt Sub rogue or any of the other tanks other then bear/Pala and they had normal Anton gear. They were a success because I know when they were up each week, those days were when I was logged on the most and then the other days were gearing or leveling other characters (especially invasions) to be ready for the next window.

If they come back, I dont know what reward would come with them

That's odd for the tank ones,while bear was considerably easier than the other tank challenges,Paladin was second hardest early on,and was the hardest one as gear inflation happened (on top of class differences,the bear one has 20% less health on all mobs compared to other tanks,while the paladin one had 130% more health than the other ones)

[Deleted]

That's odd for the tank ones,while bear was considerably easier than the other tank challenges,Paladin was second hardest early on,and was the hardest one as gear inflation happened (on top of class differences,the bear one has 20% less health on all mobs compared to other tanks,while the paladin one had 130% more health than the other ones)

Bear was easier when you had the right legendaries. I had to do without any of them because my druid was an alt, and I usually play resto and balance. Feral could be cheesed with Command Center and consumables, but Guardian was a bit harder. Though, after doing the tank challenge with a blood DK, all others have been easier. Monk was quite gimmicky with Niuzao.

Though I had to put quite an effort into some encounters, nothing beats the good feeling when you finally make it. Finished 103 encounters in total, on many alts. Did every spec on every character at least once. I would not mind getting something like Mage Tower again, though it would probably be better in the next expansion. Having to put all classes through mage tower and balance of power was quite a task and now I would like to relax a bit.

[eduwneso]

That's nice. ilvl? I think I was about 906-908 at the time, not sure. Boss health was also reduced by 30% at some point, don't recall when.
I had the same discussion with my man back in Legion - how hard he found the retri one and how easy he found the tank one. The tank one isn't "hard", it just needs you to keep your eyes peeled the entire fight - gear only helped as much as it reduced the timer you had to keep focused on.
On the other hand the dps one was mostly a survival one so it was by far the easiest for someone main-ing a tank and the healer one seemed to be tailored for holy paladin (the end was the only surprise, when I wiped myself because I didn't know I'd explode if I was full health).

I think my ilvl was 920 or so, so maybe I tried it when it was already nerfed, I don't know :S

yeah, I felt that the one for the healers was made for holy, and I also had a "hard" time at phase 3, had to go one by one and taking into account the times where holy shock was not a crit, that was hard.

[ONCHEhap]

Bear was easier when you had the right legendaries. I had to do without any of them because my druid was an alt, and I usually play resto and balance. Feral could be cheesed with Command Center and consumables, but feral was a bit harder. Though, after doing the tank challenge with a blood DK, all others have been easier.

yeah man,pre 7.2.5 Blood DK 15% damage buff,the tower as blood was really fucking intense lol,I got it by the skin of my teeth

[Deleted]

I think my ilvl was 920 or so, so maybe I tried it when it was already nerfed, I don't know :S

yeah, I felt that the one for the healers was made for holy, and I also had a "hard" time at phase 3, had to go one by one and taking into account the times where holy shock was not a crit, that was hard.

I did the encounters with lowest item level of about 905-910 or so - in this case with good / optimal legendaries, but without proper raid gear. Highest item levels for me have been somewhere around 935, often without good legendaries. Some encounters have been easier than others. When you got a grip of Sigryn or Tugar, you mostly just had to play the mechanics and get a bit of good luck. Agatha could be cheesed with consumables. Xylem is the one encounter I did on the least number of characters.

Beside that, after I learned the healing challenge on Holy Priest, I found Resto Shaman to be easier, also Resto Druid. Monk was hardest to get through P1, at least without things like Prydaz.

[Coldfrostzero]

Yeah, it's a little late but still worth talking about.

The mage tower was one of the best features of Legion. Single player content that was self-nerfing, enjoyable for almost everyone that did it that provided a challenge even once you "outgeared" them.

It's rather sad that it doesn't seem like they'll be bringing them forward in any way for BfA, but I figure we can at least talk about them some and talk about ways they can be improved.

Generally I'd say the healer challenge was considered the most difficult. A lot of this had to do with just how long it was versus every other challenge which was normally one or two fights and then done.

Also since I know that this will be brought up, yes. Having strong DPS was a huge benefit to the tanking challenge. That said it was still a tanking challenge because of positioning, mob control and spatial awareness.

Now how could they have been improved?

I can think of a few ways.

Infinitely repeatable after you've completed the challenge a first time. This one is big since many challenges were stealth nerfed or buffed after they were released.

Leaderboards of some sort, or just a record of how long it took you to complete the challenge.

Once you complete your challenge all other challenges become available - this includes your same challenge tuned for a different class. For example the health of everything in the tank challenge was almost double for paladins compared to everyone but monks with monks having a smaller health pool on the enemies to deal with than everyone else.

I think those three things would have made the content really top notch, though I don't expect them to be continuing the feature again since it appears that Artifact Weapons/Gear won't be done again as a post max-level character progression.

I did all 36 challenges and I can safely say depending on the class/spec certain challenges were either insanely hard or insanely easy. I hope they add something similar as it was fun to complete each challenge

For the tank challenge, paladin took me probably close to 50 or so tries in better gear than say my DH who had almost only EN/NH normal gear if not some M+2s around 7.0 epics and did it in 2 or 3 tries. I had no idea how to truly play a DH and have played a paladin since BC.

I would say generally the healing ones were the hardest, but usually only phase 1. Final phase on some classes was a joke because the healing the spirits phase could be cheesed on big AOE classes. Granted, I found out it was better to leave a spirit up so you could drink before the boss activated which wouldn't happen if you healed all the spirits.

The rogue challenges for DPS probably took me the longest. I must have wiped near 100 times on the Subtly spec challenge.

I did the warlock demonology one in mostly 110 boosted gear and actually hit the soft enrage timer at 15 minutes. It went from somewhat challenging to "OMFG" when he kept casting shield and she kept casting valkyrs. Came extremely close to not being able break the shield a number of times due to having to move and losing cast time.

Comparing the Frost Mage to the Shadow Priest one was night and day as well. Frost Mage it took forever (first class to attempt it tbf). While on my Shadow Priest, I realized I could just go HAM the entire time and did it in 3 tries. Hunter was in the middle, took a decent amount of tries before I just picked high damage talents and blew through the mechanics and arguably my hunter had the worst gear.

[eduwneso]

I did the encounters with lowest item level of about 905-910 or so - in this case with good / optimal legendaries, but without proper raid gear. Highest item levels for me have been somewhere around 935, often without good legendaries. Some encounters have been easier than others. When you got a grip of Sigryn or Tugar, you mostly just had to play the mechanics and get a bit of good luck. Agatha could be cheesed with consumables. Xylem is the one encounter I did on the least number of characters.

Beside that, after I learned the healing challenge on Holy Priest, I found Resto Shaman to be easier, also Resto Druid. Monk was hardest to get through P1, at least without things like Prydaz.

I actually had a lot of fun beating the challenge for the frost DK on 915ilvl no optimal legendaries, that was the best for me, and Ret, but this one I got it while the weapons where unstable at 935, so I kinda cheated on the ret paladin.

[Zyrinx]

There is so much revisionist history in here.

This was the best feature of Legion, IMO.

[Brubear]

I think my ilvl was 920 or so, so maybe I tried it when it was already nerfed, I don't know :S

yeah, I felt that the one for the healers was made for holy, and I also had a "hard" time at phase 3, had to go one by one and taking into account the times where holy shock was not a crit, that was hard.

Did you have the legendary legs? Those also made a huge difference I'm told.

The biggest problem was that, not only were the challenges far more difficult depending on your spec, but it could even depend on what legendary's you had as well. With some of the specs, if you had the right legendary's you could do the challenge fairly easy sub-900 ilvl, but with others only the very best players even had a shot of beating them with an ilvl under 900/910 range.

Plus, they really weren't very good at testing role skills. The tank one was just as much about availability and positioning as the other ones, and the DPS ones were no more of a DPS race than the tank one (I didn't do any of the healer ones so I can't really speak to them).

[muto]

Healing challenge was one of the easiest ones, and no they shouldn’t bring them back. They were out for more than a year.

[Daevied]

Oh god pls no, at the time it was a nightmare if you didnt have that one legendary for that encounter. Now it will be "oh you dont have that azerite trait? better come back next tier"