8.3 looks damn sweet

[DemonDays]

As a skilled player who did mage tower on every spec in the game about 2 weeks after it launched, I've thought masked runs have been thoroughly harder than anything in Mage Tower ever was. "Some dude" doesn't make it easy. "Some dude" cleared Mythic N'Zoth already. Didn't know that because "some dude" did it that the boss must be easy.

Doing Mage Tower with around 900 iLevel was challenging and required perfect execution of your class.

Doing Visions doesn't require perfect execution of anything. You just rush through it at breakneck pace AoEing everything. You can cheese it with stuns and shit. You can cheese multiple parts with invis pots. You can use drums and food buffs. There is a whole research tree that makes it easier as time goes on.

[arkanon]

Doing Mage Tower with around 900 iLevel was challenging and required perfect execution of your class.

Doing Visions doesn't require perfect execution of anything. You just rush through it at breakneck pace AoEing everything. You can cheese it with stuns and shit. You can cheese multiple parts with invis pots. You can use drums and food buffs. There is a whole research tree that makes it easier as time goes on.

Not saying the rest is wrong, but drums and food buffs worked in MT right?

[Onikaroshi]

Not saying the rest is wrong, but drums and food buffs worked in MT right?

Yup, and one of them even let you use super OP falcosaur omelets.

[DemonDays]

Not saying the rest is wrong, but drums and food buffs worked in MT right?

Only certain buffs. Very specific. They fixed a few too.

[Powerogue]

The dailies are a bit boring but the raid is neat and I really love the horrific visions. Eager to get some tentacle themed gear for my characters.

[arkanon]

Only certain buffs. Very specific. They fixed a few too.

Food buffs, self buffs, and drums were all included though right?

[Zentail]

Doing Mage Tower with around 900 iLevel was challenging and required perfect execution of your class.

Doing Visions doesn't require perfect execution of anything. You just rush through it at breakneck pace AoEing everything. You can cheese it with stuns and shit. You can cheese multiple parts with invis pots. You can use drums and food buffs. There is a whole research tree that makes it easier as time goes on.

Sounds like you didn't (still don't?) know about things that made the Mage Tower super easy, even at lower item levels. I'm not trying to say Visions aren't easy, because they are, but it's not like Mage Tower was hard either and, comparatively speaking, if you're a good player, Mage Tower didn't have any restrictions from the get-go whereas Visions, at first, had a large amount of skill involved with how far you could push.

[melodramocracy]

I wonder if OP still thinks what he did when he made this thread.

[Nize]

BIG OOOF

turns out with masks it's actually 10 times harder than mage tower ever was even with low item level.

No worries - give it like a month or 2. With cloak sanity reduction at 80% with full upgrades, 5 mask runs will become a joke and we'll be getting freebie 470, 465, and 460 pieces every week.

[Aresk]

This isn't even remotely true. Some dude has already 5 cleared it, solo. Using a plethora of bullshit buffs.

The Vision has research, cloak upgrades, gear scaling and food buffs. Plus you could do it in a group

The Mage Tower only had iLevel.

Mage Tower also allowed plenty of buffs and, more importantly, legendaries. If you got the right legendary, a lot of the challenges became significantly easier. Not to mention a whole extra tier of gear that Visions don't have (7.3 Antorus gear for 7.2 content). Personally I find Visions harder than Mage Tower, but then I didn't even resub when Mage Towers were available until after Antorus came out. Maybe they were better at lower ilvl.

[Temp1on2]

No worries - give it like a month or 2. With cloak sanity reduction at 80% with full upgrades, 5 mask runs will become a joke and we'll be getting freebie 470, 465, and 460 pieces every week.

I mean....if that's your standard then anyone who can 'easily' clear 5 mask HV for 'freebie' gear will already have higher level gear. You only need a +11 for 460 drops and 465 chest (with guaranteed corruption) - much like the people who can 'easily' clear HV with 1/2 masks are getting useless (comparatively low) ilevel gear drops now.

[Ielenia]

This isn't even remotely true. Some dude has already 5 cleared it, solo. Using a plethora of bullshit buffs.

The Vision has research, cloak upgrades, gear scaling and food buffs. Plus you could do it in a group

The Mage Tower only had iLevel.

So what? There were people who beat the Mage Tower challenge on the first day of release, i.e. before the raid was even opened, which meant they did so undergeared.

And Visions having research, cloak upgrades, gear scaling and food buffs doesn't really matter much, when the feature has the same premise as Mage Tower: a challenge with unique rewards. If anything, it's better than Mage Tower due to the two different maps, different corruption buffs/debuffs, different NPCs around that can buff you, all the masks you can mix-and-match, etc.

[DemonDays]

Sounds like you didn't (still don't?) know about things that made the Mage Tower super easy, even at lower item levels. I'm not trying to say Visions aren't easy, because they are, but it's not like Mage Tower was hard either and, comparatively speaking, if you're a good player, Mage Tower didn't have any restrictions from the get-go whereas Visions, at first, had a large amount of skill involved with how far you could push.

Here's the difference:

A skilled player at relatively low gear levels cannot solo clear a Vision in weeks 1-3. They are time-gated by cloak and research tree.

A skilled player through perfect play could complete the Mage Towers(on some specs) at relatively low gear levels VERY EARLY on.


Visions aren't hard. They're GATED by MULTIPLE factors.

The only thing gating the Mage Tower was whether you were an awful player and gearing up.


It was actually fun/challenging grabbing a few shitty Legendaries and some gear and trying to get all Mage Tower appearances on multiple specs you didn't really know how to play.

Doing a Vision on an alt in 8.3? No thanks. Multiple gates upon gates upon gates. Most of them being weekly.

- - - Updated - - -

Mage Tower also allowed plenty of buffs and, more importantly, legendaries. If you got the right legendary, a lot of the challenges became significantly easier. Not to mention a whole extra tier of gear that Visions don't have (7.3 Antorus gear for 7.2 content). Personally I find Visions harder than Mage Tower, but then I didn't even resub when Mage Towers were available until after Antorus came out. Maybe they were better at lower ilvl.

They were much better at lower iLevel. Plus it was much more fun(for me) to jump on an alt I had no idea how to play and learn it. Grab 2 shit legendaries and a few pieces of gear and dive in.


Visions aren't hard. They're gated. There is absolutely nothing challenging about speed running through an area, grabbing mobs in a clump and AoEing them down.

The boss mechanics inside are stupidly easy too.

- - - Updated - - -

So what? There were people who beat the Mage Tower challenge on the first day of release, i.e. before the raid was even opened, which meant they did so undergeared.

And Visions having research, cloak upgrades, gear scaling and food buffs doesn't really matter much, when the feature has the same premise as Mage Tower: a challenge with unique rewards. If anything, it's better than Mage Tower due to the two different maps, different corruption buffs/debuffs, different NPCs around that can buff you, all the masks you can mix-and-match, etc.

You're just further proving my point.

The only reason SKILLED players didn't complete the Vision on day one was because of gates on top of gates on top of gates.

It was literally not possible to complete them day one. Hard coded not possible.

[Nize]

I mean....if that's your standard then anyone who can 'easily' clear 5 mask HV for 'freebie' gear will already have higher level gear. You only need a +11 for 460 drops and 465 chest (with guaranteed corruption) - much like the people who can 'easily' clear HV with 1/2 masks are getting useless (comparatively low) ilevel gear drops now.

Low geared at those levels will have an easy time of it (meaning 440 or so). Keep in mind that 80% reduction is *nearly* double the amount of time we have now with 45-50%. Add in full upgrades and it could be a way to get alts (or people who can't get into the content you've noted due to community stop-gap factors) to get those gear upgrades and full solo 5-mask clears.

[Kalisandra]

Food buffs, self buffs, drums and things like falcosaur omelets, sylvan elixir, set bonuses -- and most importantly -- legendary item effects all worked in Mage Tower challenges. Some fights were broken or made completely piss easy depending on what legendary items you had. Imp Mother even allowed Lightblood Elixir, which could help quite a lot as well.

I remember having real trouble with Imp Mother, on my Elemental (which should've had little trouble). Turned out that I'd found a great combo of effects and placement that made her bug out. Ooops.

[Ielenia]

You're just further proving my point.

The fact you have to say "you're proving my point!" only shows how you don't understand the whole picture.

The original post you replied to said that Horrific Visions with 5 masks is harder than the Mage Tower challenge. Which it is, but let's continue.

Then you counter that with some "some dude already cleared "5 masks solo"" as if that invalidates the original claim. It doesn't, but let's continue.

Then I responded to you and pointed out how "some dude" cleared the Mage Tower challenge for their class on day one. But here's the kicker: my point is that very skilled players will of course clear the content before even the "above average" skilled players. Which is why your claim about someone already clearing "5 masks solo" doesn't work to invalidate the claim about the difficulty of Horrific Visions, even when you factor in the time it takes to upgrade the cloak.

Also, let's talk about this "you need to upgrade your cloak" thing. It doesn't give you the leverage you think it does, because, in essence, upgrading the cloak is really not much different than upgrading your gear and acquiring better legendaries back in Legion: they're all power boosts that would allow you to survive longer and fight better, making the fights easier... so they technically "cancel each other out".

[Tech614]

As a skilled player who did mage tower on every spec in the game about 2 weeks after it launched

Yea, gonna need to see receipts for a claim like this. I wouldn't doubt that you did a few but big doubt to any BS claim that you did it for every spec 2 weeks in, for some specs it wasn't even doable unless you had mythic NH ilvl at that point and ToS wasn't even released yet. Color me skeptical you had every class in the game fully geared enough to do it in all their specs at that point.

People that post bullshit like this likely did the harder ones in antorus gear a full 2 tiers worth of gear after they released lmao. Let me guess you did WW Monk or Ass Rogue one early and then try to claim "LOL THEY WHERE ALL EZ 2 WEEKS INTO PATCH GET GUD".

[DemonDays]

Also, let's talk about this "you need to upgrade your cloak" thing. It doesn't give you the leverage you think it does, because, in essence, upgrading the cloak is really not much different than upgrading your gear and acquiring better legendaries back in Legion: they're all power boosts that would allow you to survive longer and fight better, making the fights easier... so they technically "cancel each other out".

No. Not really.

Because upgrading both the cloak and research tech tree is time-gated. It doesn't require any skill. It requires weeks. I would say good try. But it wasn't really, was it?

I'll say again. The Vision cannot be completed day one by any measure of skill.

- - - Updated - - -

As a skilled player who did mage tower on every spec in the game about 2 weeks after it launched, I've thought masked runs have been thoroughly harder than anything in Mage Tower ever was. "Some dude" doesn't make it easy. "Some dude" cleared Mythic N'Zoth already. Didn't know that because "some dude" did it that the boss must be easy.

I too make ridiculous, baseless claims on the internet to try and impress my fellow forum goers. Oh wait, no I don't.

To clear every single specs Mage Tower within 2 weeks of it launching you'd have to be logged in 24 hours a day, every day. Not only is the claim ridiculous, it's just unhealthy.

[ercarp]

This thread didn't age well.

[Ielenia]

No. Not really.

Because upgrading both the cloak and research tech tree is time-gated. It doesn't require any skill. It requires weeks. I would say good try. But it wasn't really, was it?

Acquiring gear back during the Mage Tower challenges was also time-gated. The raid wouldn't open for another three months (patch dropped in March, raid opened in June) and then Mythic would not be open for another week.

And no, the Horrific Vision does not "only require weeks". Because you are not completing 5-masks solo at all if you don't have the skill. Especially at this point in time.

I'll say again. The Vision cannot be completed day one by any measure of skill.

And I'll say this again: you insisting on this argument only shows how you completely misunderstood the whole point. This isn't about "clearing it on the first day", it's about how skilled players will always finish the content much, much earlier than the average player. I pointed that out in the rest of post you responded but conveniently "forgot":

But here's the kicker: my point is that very skilled players will of course clear the content before even the "above average" skilled players. Which is why your claim about someone already clearing "5 masks solo" doesn't work to invalidate the claim about the difficulty of Horrific Visions, even when you factor in the time it takes to upgrade the cloak.