Mage Tower - All classes, all specs! Is this usual?

[Iflash]

I give up on the healing challenge. It's impossible to me. Even with 951 ilevel I can't do it, I can't keep calm when doing it, I get nervous and forget where my spells are.

Which class are you playing? And which phase are you having trouble with?

[Glowbear]

I give up on the healing challenge. It's impossible to me. Even with 951 ilevel I can't do it, I can't keep calm when doing it, I get nervous and forget where my spells are.

I sympathise; it took me probably over 100 attempts to complete resto druid. Most of my wipes were down to nerves; when you get really far and you know one mistake could make you have to do the whole thing again, it's not a great feeling. Wouldn't have persevered were it not for that staff being so cool. I prefer MW healing but honestly the transmog wasn't worth going through all that again for me.

[Arakakao]

Which class are you playing? And which phase are you having trouble with?

Paladin

Sometimes in the next-to-last phase, where you must heal your allies and floating adds. Other times, in the first phase, in the last two waves of adds.

[Kokolums]

Working on Survival now.

Link to the video of the survival mage tower kill:

https://nofile.io/f/TsDTM8HHFwO/survivalmagetower.mp4

talents are: 1121212

Using a tenacity pet.

Q: What does tenacity pet even mean?
A: Summon your pet, press N to bring up the talent pane, there's a NEW tab called pet where you choose between ferocity, tenacity, and cunning. Select Tenacity.

Drag your pet's Growl ability (this is a taunt) to your bar somewhere.

Q: Where do I find the Growl ability to drag it to my bar?
A: Press P to open your Spellbook, click the Pet tab, Growl is listed.

Right-click Growl to make sure it sparkles which means it is set to automatically go off every 8 seconds. MAKE SURE IT IS SPARKLING, SOMETIMES IT IS SWITCHED OFF.

Opening pattern:

1. Walk up and stand next to Xylem while he RPs.
2. When the fight starts, drop Caltrops but don't attack.
3. Let your pet get aggro and tank this phase. (you have little healing and can't afford to take shots from Xylem)
4. Walk away towards the Iris (the big glowy thing in the middle of the room). Position yourself facing Xylem and your back off center from the Iris so when you disengage, you jump back away and not slam your back into the Iris itself.
5. When the Ice Shards surround you, hit Butchery twice and then IMMEDIATELY disengage. (you need to get out of the AoE ASAP.)
6. Harpoon to Xylem.
7. Drop another Caltrops.
8. Walk back towards the Iris.
9. When Ice Shards #2 come, use Butchery 2x and IMMEDIATELY disengage.
10. Harpoon to Xylem.
11. Now DPS Xylem.
12. Use Exhiliration here to heal your pet if its close to death.
13. When Ice shards #3 come, use Butchery 2x and IMMEDIATELY disengage.
14. Harpoon to Xylem.
15. Use Exhiliration (cooldown should have reset).
16. DPS Xylem more.
17. Arcane phase starts.
18. Kill an image and stand in the bubble to heal up.
19. Wait for an image to finish its spell, THEN Harpoon to the next image, kill it, and stand in the bubble to heal up. If you don't wait for it to finish, the image may get a cast off and knock you out of the bubble.
20. Wait for the next image to finish a cast, Harpoon to it (you should be really close to Xylem by now), kill it and stand in the bubble.
21. Flare Xylem to end the phase.
22. Harpoon to Xylem and DPS him.
23. Cycle thru these mechanics for the rest of the Xylem phase. Exhiliration (your heal) resets each time you kill the ice shards so keep that in mind if you need to top up.

Those are all the mechanics of the Xylem phase so you should be able to handle it.

24. The Boss shows up
25. pop lust and prolonged power and DPS him
26. When he starts channeling you, disengage and run away, maybe use Aspect of the Cheetah as well.
27. When the 3 adds show up, use Caltrops then Butchery 3x, then DPS the adds dead from there.
28. Back to DPS boss.
29. Boss channels once more, again run away and kill adds, then kill boss.

I think that covers all of it!

[Kharum]

At last, 36/36. Counting the number of tries I did for each spec. Well, Shadow has the first that I got, and didn't have the challenge DBM mod at the time so can't track it, and DBM doesn't track the healing challenges. Also Havoc was my second, and installed DBM while I was progressing, so there were more tries.

Outlaw - 58
Blood - 52
Brewmaster - 49
Frost Mage - 43
Arcane - 32
Prot War - 27
Affliction - 26
Enhance - 22
Guardian - 19
Prot Pala - 19
Havoc - 16 (more)
Sublety - 13
Arms - 12
Elemental - 11
Windwalker - 11
Retribution - 11
Fire - 10
Survival - 9
Destro - 8
Assassination - 6
Feral - 6
Fury - 5
Vengeance - 5
MM - 4
Balance - 4
BM - 2
Frost DK - 2
Disc - 2
Demonology - 2
Unholy - 1

[Kokolums]

Outlaw down! 21/36!

Unfortuntely, the recording got corrupted somehow. I've never seen it happen before but when you look at mp4 in the directory, the length attribute is blank. It won't play in VLC. It was a hilarious recording too, as I killed Agatha and then immediately got plowed by a boulder and fell over dead. Then Agatha fell over dead on top of my corpse. Oh well. Wish you could have seen it.

Anyone know how to repair an MP4?

edit: I ran a repair utility and got the video playing, but the audio is not right. It sounds....hellish. At least you can see Agatha fall on my corpse lol.

Link to Outlaw kill video:

https://nofile.io/f/mD2wQVX9rEr/outlawmagetower.mp4

I swear the distorted audio is haunting. It sounds like demons sitting around having dinner with squishy fleshy sounds, steel on steel, gulping, potions uncorked and gulped, and demons roaring.

[Nathanyel]

Got Tanks done:
DH is stupidly easy with gear, two-shot after not getting to the first adds quickly enough, they were casting already Inferno Strike was 25% of my damage
Pala became about bursting Inquisitor down with Drums to only have one Infernal in P2, look out for that and adds, otherwise, stay on the move to counter the puddles, throwing shields and swirly hammers

Did Balance because Druid is my main, and I hope to clear that class - still got Resto ahead of me, though. Despite shitty relics, my overall iLvl was high, it was a two-shot, and that only because in the first try, I got stupid and too close to Karam, he kicked me away, I wildcharged back, right in front of him again.
Does Karam not get as fast for Balance as for other specs? Kiting him with the Stellar Drift talent felt a lot like Shadow's S2M tactic. It took until P4, but it was never really a challenge.

So that leaves:
Sub - might try again tonight, keeping Shadow Blades for the second wave, trying to do the first with other CDs (if I can't get that done, at least I can reset earlier)
Affli - tried last night, but apparently didn't understand the Cheese tactic well enough, might try again tonight. Should've gone to sleep early instead :P
Arcane - hmm, if there's time. Maybe it's similar enough to the Demo tactic.
Frost Mage - meh. Never liked the spec, maybe if I have time at the end (EU, so a little longer until 7.X ends, however, work today)
And all the Healer ones - will definitely try Druid for completion's sake, but I've never healed more than a levelling dungeon (well and some LFR bosses with Disc, without any targetted heal, just mouseover/targettarget PW:S)

[Kokolums]

I've really enjoyed this thread and enjoyed everyone's reports, questions and comments. From Simca and her guides to the most recent poster (Nathanyel). Best wishes!

[Deleted]

Got Tanks done:
DH is stupidly easy with gear, two-shot after not getting to the first adds quickly enough, they were casting already Inferno Strike was 25% of my damage
Pala became about bursting Inquisitor down with Drums to only have one Infernal in P2, look out for that and adds, otherwise, stay on the move to counter the puddles, throwing shields and swirly hammers

Did Balance because Druid is my main, and I hope to clear that class - still got Resto ahead of me, though. Despite shitty relics, my overall iLvl was high, it was a two-shot, and that only because in the first try, I got stupid and too close to Karam, he kicked me away, I wildcharged back, right in front of him again.
Does Karam not get as fast for Balance as for other specs? Kiting him with the Stellar Drift talent felt a lot like Shadow's S2M tactic. It took until P4, but it was never really a challenge.

So that leaves:
Sub - might try again tonight, keeping Shadow Blades for the second wave, trying to do the first with other CDs (if I can't get that done, at least I can reset earlier)
Affli - tried last night, but apparently didn't understand the Cheese tactic well enough, might try again tonight. Should've gone to sleep early instead :P
Arcane - hmm, if there's time. Maybe it's similar enough to the Demo tactic.
Frost Mage - meh. Never liked the spec, maybe if I have time at the end (EU, so a little longer until 7.X ends, however, work today)
And all the Healer ones - will definitely try Druid for completion's sake, but I've never healed more than a levelling dungeon (well and some LFR bosses with Disc, without any targetted heal, just mouseover/targettarget PW:S)

My solution to the affli cheese tactic: start casting fear when the 2nd phase is announced. Then your spell should hit Karam in the middle of his purgatory cast. After you get your timing right, just place your infernal somewhere near Raest and start spamming SoC. Karam will get down fast, and then it's "free loot".
Arcane - spec into mana shield if you don't have a survival legendary. Use Ice Block if all things come together in the transion from 1st part of the challenge to the 2nd part (less strain from mechanics, no healing orbs). In the 2nd phase, you can play it safe by keeping Sigryn sheeped most of the time. Your HP will drop, but the bosses should go down faster. In case of an emergency use an astral healing potion.

Regarding healers: I found resto Shaman and restro Druid to be easier than the others. Monk was a bit painful without survival legendaries in Stage 1, but a walk in the park in the later stages. Mana should not be an issue anymore, just don't let a mana sting hit you. I recommend having CC for archers as a mouseover macro (shackle for priest, paralysis for monk, repentance for paladin).

[Sin Cara]

Just finished them all. I never play healer, so I saved those for last. I boosted a shaman yesterday and doing the resto shaman challenge at ilvl 896 was by far the hardest for me personally.

[Nathanyel]

My solution to the affli cheese tactic: start casting fear when the 2nd phase is announced. Then your spell should hit Karam in the middle of his purgatory cast. After you get your timing right, just place your infernal somewhere near Raest and start spamming SoC. Karam will get down fast, and then it's "free loot".

Yeah, the SoC was the part I didn't understand until afterwards :P although I did get some bad add spawns, directly below me, so casting Seed was problematic anyway.

[Kokolums]

My final mage tower was protection warrior.

link to prot warrior video:

https://streamable.com/y6157

I completely overgeared it, just tore down Varis without stopping, and trucked Kruul. I got both the Paladin and Warrior flails.

I end at 22/36.

[Smag]

I just looked at the transmogs I will most likely use and classes I atleast somewhat play and did them:

Paladin - 3/3
Warrior - 3/3
Druid - 3/4 (cos I don't play balance at all, maybe I'll do it today)
DK - 3/3
DH - 2/2 (both first try cos hurr durr dh)
Rogue - Outlaw only (I just can't with these "daggers")

I *might* do hunter today, but the BM gun is just blergh.

[mauserr]

Just did it on my UH DK as 873 equipped:
- No good trinkets (885 primal obliterum trinket + Windscar Whetstone that I didn't even know was an on use trinket until I looked up my 2nd trinket slot for this post)
- No set bonuses whatsoever
- 723/885/780 relics in artifact, nothing in crucible (didn't even unlock argus on this char yet, so no access to crucible)
- No legendaries (fuck you rng)

100 concordance levels trivialise everything. I'm 27,3k strength out of combat. In combat when everything is procced I'm sitting at a whopping 84,264 strength. A DK at 980 equipped has 48,9k str. When I'm procced I'm at x1,75 of that value, which puts me main stat wise at something like 1715 ilvl for about 15 seconds, assuming it would scale in that manner. That is INSANE. Granted, I don't have as much secondaries, but for classes where main stat is still king, that's just massive.

Talents:



Gear:



Get Lightblood Elixir, get Drums of Fury, get your 1200 main stat flask, get a rune and get whatever food. I used the cheap 375 mastery food & Prolonged Power potions.

Don't mess your interrupts, I died 4 times due to Agatha's Dark Fury not being interrupted because I missclicked the interrupt button on some fucking imp that didn't even need to be interrupted and wasted the usage for when I needed it. If that shit hits you hard, you will die, especially if you had 3,3m hp like I did. This shit drains you down FAST.

Shuffle death coil with clawing shadows for that sweet dps increase. Save Defile for the Umbral imps and go to town on these little cunts.

Man look at this hero in his glorious armor, holding that magnificent weapon, that death knight is to be feared, looking all stylish and shit like that.

[Zyrinx]

Grats to everyone from the thread!

I _do_ kinda wish I'd had a go at a DPS challenge at Concordance 100, just to see how that felt =P

[ntlntl]

is it still available after today?

[Coconut]

is it still available after today?

Nope! It ended on US, few hours to go on EU.

[LAspecs]

Thanks for the thread.

[Explicit Teemo Nudes]

I picked up on my BM monk with like 2 hours to go before realms went down, and kept wiping. Changed over to my DH and got it on the second try.
It's not even fair how much easier it was.

If they do similar challenges again they need to fucking balance them better.
Anyway; now I feel bad for not sticking with it and keep trying. There is a chance I would've gotten it on some of the other tanks and eventually even BM monk.

[Nathanyel]

Finished it at 30/36, missing Arcane and Frost Mage, and the Healer ones except Druid.

I guess I could've done the Mage ones eventually, as some other Healers, given the time, but I while I understood what to do, the relics I had were... suboptimal (Frost was even missing one until last night) so I eventually succumbed to tiny mistakes.
Arcane felt similar to Demo, and Frost to Balance, but it was noticeable they weren't my 'mainspec' for the alt, or even an offspec of my main.

Anyway; now I feel bad for not sticking with it and keep trying. There is a chance I would've gotten it on some of the other tanks and eventually even BM monk.

Absolutely, I should've at least attempted many challenges earlier, learned a lot during the last 10 days alone, I'd say half of the ones I hadn't done some months ago (did Agatha minus Unholy, Guardian) would've been doable even without the overloaded Artifacts.