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  1. #81
    I have only looked at 28 of the recommendations (because I am 28/36 and I refuse to look at guides before beating the respective artifact challenge, because where is the fun and accomplishment for me in that?), and I must say that I have far less objections to the guide in its current state as compared to when I saw it the first time.
    Also note that I did most of these challenges (except Havoc) months before the recent artifact power boost so my opinions or views may not be accurate either.

    Let's start with the healers; although the wording on AoE-spells has greatly changed, I still disagree with it in general. The main thing is to not use any spell where they are not efficient heals, which is a good one, but if you need to use them often enough that you start having mana troubles, this is never an issue.

    For instance, Monks definitely have good usage of Essence Font. If you are behind on multiple targets, using Essence Font is brilliant - otherwise you will have difficulties using your globals anyway. Why is Essence Font so good? The healing itself.. could be better. The buff it leavese on the target is fantastic, however. You have double mastery-triggers on targets. Meaning that (if you have a mastery-heavy gear set which you should unless you are a raider) your Effuses heal for 33-40% more on all targets, without having to apply Enveloping to them. Mastery heals more than the actual Effuse (in mastery gear).
    Shaman, you definitely should spend time on Chain Heal if it is effective enough on at least 3 targets. You also get Tidal Waves from it. I avoided Healing Surge as much as possible (obviously), so being able to have powered up Healing Waves saved me as much mana as compared to what I would have spent on individual Healing Surges in that time. You also listed Drums of the Mountains for Shaman, which I must think is a mistake since the class has built-in Bloodlust. I also don't recommend popping it that early since it was certainly not needed. All it did was make it more difficult for me to heal since I needed to spend more time healing the buffed-up party members - I saved BL until... stage 7? I needed all the DPS help against the boss as I could. Ancestral Vigor has never impressed me as a talent, and it didn't in this encounter either. Earthen Shield totem helped a lot on cooldown, especially during knife dance et al.
    I would also recommend far more spells on mouseover-macros as I can't see any benefit from not having them - why would I ever need to have a party member targetted? (no real input on the other targets)

    Xylem:
    This can be extremely random.
    My Frost DK (again without looking at guides and with like 910 gear and 880 weapons) managed to one-shot this encounter even though I forgot to spec out of my PVP talents. Without consumables.
    My Arms Warrior needed 6 attempts, and two of those deaths was trying to Leap out of ice shards (before I started Cleave->WW them instead). Once I got over that, I got confused about arcane phase twice, and I failed Stage 2 once.
    My Havoc Demon Hunter needed 3 months and 386 attempts (where at least 40 of them was post-artifact power buff). It is simply impossibly random. The strategy that gave me the most consistency was using KJ-trinket and Artifact Weapon alternately on the Ice shards, not picking up as many orbs as I could, so I could save them for multiple Eye Beams for each frost bolt phases (and also healing). Arcane phase randomly failed several hundred times for me because the mirror images were casting out of synch and kept slowing and pushbacking me.
    Several times my interrupt went off but he kept casting. I think I got to phase 2 four times total during these 386 attempts, and downed him on the fourth one. So I can't really offer any opinion on the tactics of Havoc :P By far the most difficult artifact challenge I've done (and by contrast, I two-shotted Vengeance). I did find Fel Eruption crucial in P1 though (boss is stunnable), enough so that I forewent Nemesis for P2.
    Survival, I had issues before I realised you had to Flare. That took me three failed arcane phases of literally standing on top of him. The issue with doing things guideless. :P Those three failed attempts were great otherwise, since it helped me learn Survival, a spec I had never played before and I got to phase 2 immediately after (and had to try and sort out slows and failed) and killed it the attempt after. Without relics in the weapon.
    I also realised here that my Nether Ray's debuff on Bloodlust-equivalent didn't reset between attempts so I had to lag behind with the DPS intentionally to be able to have a fresh BL for Phase 2. Another note here is to NOT have Growl on auto-cast on your Bloodlust pet here..

    This is just me complaining about how incredibly random Xylem can be and not critique against the guide.

    Tank:
    I strongly disagree with the rankings on these. Phase 1 is incredibly trivial for Warrior (I sometimes went through it without even getting an infernal, when I erroneously thought I needed to burst through in p1, having nothing left for Kruul :P).
    I admittedly have 2p tier-bonus (normal version) on my warrior, the only character with this luxury, but rage is simply not a concern at all in p1 - Battle Cry has a 20 sec CD with Anger Management! At most. I imagine it is even more ridiculous now post-artifact power boost.
    I personally detest both Storm Bolt and Shockwave, since Warbringer is infinitely better in all content where you can effectively use it. It deals the most damage, it has the least cooldown and it doesn't share DR with anything, even itself. It is super easy to use (mouse-over macro) and you are even given Friendly targets to Intercept in Melee range with it.
    I preferred Renewed Fury over Avatar since it has a 100% uptime.
    p2 was where I struggled. Since I do this guideless, I didn't know you could reflect the debuff and the orbs didn't clear the debuff with Pal or Warr (did on the others) and sometimes the draggy-lines pushed you off interrupt range. This should be trivial as well with Spell Reflection.
    Guardian was simple for me, but I literally got Luffa's between attempts on it. The only difficulty was that it was my second artifact challenge whatsoever (feral first) so the difficulty lay in learning the encounter in general. But after Luffa's it was trivial.
    Protection Paladin was so ridiculously easy (for me) that I don't see where the struggle lies. The only difficulty for me was learning how it was different to guardian (prot pal was the 3rd MT I got) and I could burst Kruul down easily in just going in twice in his circle. I hear that this is legendary specific, however.
    I just used my two normal leggos I always use for Prot (Legs/sephuz) and I didn't struggle the slightest.

    Brewmaster was a nightmare, however since there is no healing at all in the class and I don't have any relevant trinkets that can help you. I definitely recommend using Chi Burst for this encounter though, since you can shoot down the eyes with it in one shot. I also had a much better experience with Gift of the Mists than Black Ox Brew. Brews were never an issue with angling Blackout Combo with Keg Smash (although I spent most of my combos on Tiger Palm and hope I got lucky Arti-weapon rolls for dps).

    Blood DK was difficult because the DPS was so lacking. The trick was just to whittle him down from outside the circle all game and not spend DRW until you could use it on Kruul, whilst picking up as many adds as possible.



    As for Outlaw, I liked it better when you said Blade Flurry was useless. Because it is only worth it to have it active for 2-3 seconds at most, and then those adds are dead. As for the spec of Outlaw, I would recommend Swordmaster in t1 since I very rarely had free GCDs to actually spend with Pistol Shot I much rather get the extra up-front damage and CP from Slash and you swap targets too much for Ghostly Strikes.
    Also, if you don't have the healing pants (I did), I would strongly recommend Iron Stomach over Cheat Death, since if Cheat Death ever is relevant in this fight, you are likely too far behind to recover.
    Acrobatic Strikes nearly made me able to disregard Fuming Imps however. It is not to be underestimated.
    Unholy, I don't see the point of Pestilent Pustules. Epidemic is actually useful in this encounter if you have more adds than you have Defile-CDs. I also preferred Sludge Belcher's 360° "claw" during Dark Transformation and I would imagine Debilitating Infestation to make the mobs harder to round up (different movement speeds depending on affected or not).
    Elemental was ridiculously easy; I did it with Elemental Blast so I could chunk an add away almost immediately with it alone. I saved Artifact Weapon for when all of them were together, and Lava Burst or Chain Lightning did quick work of those I didn't EleBlast.



    I didn't use any out-door buffs for Agatha (since I didn't know it was possible!), but a buff that you didn't mention anywhere in your guide is Bear Tartare. This speed buff is invaluable in any fight with adds, and I only found it somewhat useless in two of the challenges: Sigryn and the healer one.
    Otherwise it really can make or break a challenge. I would not say it alone trivialises anything, but it really is MVP in a lot of them.
    Today, I will pick up the Mage Tower challenge at 28/36. Havoc is the only one I've done post-artifact power boost (I really needed it), and the Havoc one was what alone made me take a two-month hiatus from Wow. :P
    3xMage, Balance, Resto-D, 2xHoly and Ret left.
    And now I also noticed I 'only' have until Wednesday left. I imagine it will go quicker than the 1-2 per week I had previously though..


    TL;DR - I make a useless rant with too little recommendations per text committed to the post about my experiences.
     

  2. #82
    Quote Originally Posted by Explicit Teemo Nudes View Post
    I've seen a video of someone using shadowstep to step out of the ice shards. It didn't work all the time, but most of the time :P
    This is a range issue - if you drag him to right in the middle and he ports left or right (not across), you can Shadowstep to him. I never had any issue at all with ice on Sub though, Shadow Dance and 2x Shuriken Storm kills every ice, every time.

  3. #83
    Quote Originally Posted by Zyrinx View Post
    This is a range issue - if you drag him to right in the middle and he ports left or right (not across), you can Shadowstep to him. I never had any issue at all with ice on Sub though, Shadow Dance and 2x Shuriken Storm kills every ice, every time.
    In the video I was watching, the guy shadowstepped to the ice so he didn't need to destroy it. Inside ring -> shadowstep to ice and end up outside ring.
    7:15 in this video. He says you can't do it for every ice ring though.
    https://youtu.be/hYg2i2cLxvM

    I didn't know it was that easy to destroy the ice. I've never played sub, and before researching the fight more I thought it was mainly the ice causing sub the trouble, but now I know it's the last phase with the 3 adds

  4. #84
    Quote Originally Posted by Explicit Teemo Nudes View Post
    In the video I was watching, the guy shadowstepped to the ice so he didn't need to destroy it. Inside ring -> shadowstep to ice and end up outside ring.
    7:15 in this video. He says you can't do it for every ice ring though.
    https://youtu.be/hYg2i2cLxvM

    I didn't know it was that easy to destroy the ice. I've never played sub, and before researching the fight more I thought it was mainly the ice causing sub the trouble, but now I know it's the last phase with the 3 adds
    Huh that's weird (stepping TO the ice). You can definitely Step FROM the ice to Xylem... sometimes, depending on positioning, but it really was/is a trivial part of the challenge; the only hard part is the stupid P2 adds.

  5. #85
    Deleted
    Thanks Simca, These tips have helped me out a lot, specifically on the healing ones. Only 2 more to go.

  6. #86
    Thank You Simca. These guides assisted me in getting the last few I needed. Got 36/36 just a few moments ago.

  7. #87
    Deleted
    Thank you kindly for this, I was having SO much trouble with Healing, but I can now officially state that I have joined the 36/36 club.

  8. #88
    @Simca Just found out that you can cheese the Frost Mage challenge (like AffLock, Bdruid, Spriest) by polymorphing Karam when he uses Purgatory and then Ice Lance him immediately after.
    '' Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall. ''

  9. #89
    Quote Originally Posted by Arcieth View Post
    @Simca Just found out that you can cheese the Frost Mage challenge (like AffLock, Bdruid, Spriest) by polymorphing Karam when he uses Purgatory and then Ice Lance him immediately after.
    Can you be a bit more specific?

    I cant find a video how to do this and more info would be very appreciated

    When do i do it? Phase 1?

  10. #90
    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    At the end of P1 when he is casting Purgatory. Somewhat harder to time than for the other three since you don't have dots ticking so you will need to push him to purgatory and immediately cast poly (unless you have him in a Blizzard at 34%)
    OK thanks i will give that a try tommorrow

  11. #91
    Huge thanks to Simca for this guide. Geared up a druid over the last two days to 917 (which I thought was way too low) to do the Guardian challenge. Had no legendaries but the Argus ring, and only took me about 20 tries (Half of those being sub 10% on Kruul and either getting knocked off, or the adds going for Velen and me getting pushed away by a bar and having no good way to get to them fast enough) This was the last thing I wanted to get done before the end of Legion, so I'm really happy now and feel a sense of completion for my own personal goals! Cya later Legion, fun xpac.

    P.S. (Try these challenges even if you think you can't do it; I thought I was never gonna get Guardian done at 917 but it happened, don't sell yourself short!)

  12. #92
    Deleted
    Here is video of polymorphing Karam:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORuXpDGOvOc
    Last edited by mmoc39773b3b55; 2018-07-16 at 01:28 PM.

  13. #93
    Hey my guy, just finished all the challenge modes today, thanks for the tips!

    Have some hugs!

  14. #94
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Toore View Post
    For plate tanks a trick that i used when i was quite low ilvl (should apply here too) was to use the heirloom str trinket (the dps one gronntooth-war-horn): everything in the scenario is the mob type that prolongs the procc so you have like >80% uptime on it which makes it better then most other trinkets (not 100% sure now with Antorus gear but if you want to do towers quick you might not have time to farm gear)
    I also used the Agi heirloom trinket for my agi-based tanks back then, but now with overloaded artifacts, you can go without these. Especially DH, this spec puts out incredible DPS in P1, so you can easily go into P2 with only 1 infernal. With other classes, I usually had 2. Also used summon Niuzao on Monk, which lined up quite well (starting with summon in P1 and then summoning it again after transition in P2). For the 2nd Guardian challenge, I thankfully had Ekowraith, so this was much easier than my 1st character without this or Luffa.

  15. #95
    Quote Originally Posted by scubistacy View Post
    I also used the Agi heirloom trinket for my agi-based tanks back then, but now with overloaded artifacts, you can go without these. Especially DH, this spec puts out incredible DPS in P1, so you can easily go into P2 with only 1 infernal. With other classes, I usually had 2. Also used summon Niuzao on Monk, which lined up quite well (starting with summon in P1 and then summoning it again after transition in P2). For the 2nd Guardian challenge, I thankfully had Ekowraith, so this was much easier than my 1st character without this or Luffa.
    Interestingly, both my Warrior and Paladin could go into P2 with 0 infernals. This was pre-artifact overload, too.
    Problem was that I was completely dry of offensive CDs for when Kruul landed and I was made mince-meat out of, so it wasn't a particularly good idea.. :P



    I also got my 36/36 done now! I chose a good time to get back into the game, sitting at 28/36 before I took a break and before artifact overload.
    Some of them... were a lot easier now, I can tell you that I doubt I would have handled Frost Mage as easily as I did without it.
    And the healers were really helped by the passive +% damage gained from having extra artifact traits.

    Since today is the last day of 7.3.5, I will spend some time playing Affliction warlock and Shadow Priest before the pre-patch wrecks them.
     

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