Is the mage tower doable with an ilvl 866 mage?

[TLH]

I was away from legion for over a year, I came back recently and am astonishingly weak. My frost dps is right under a million dps, where an arcane mage next to me on the target dummies spiked at 4million dps with cooldowns and averaged 2 million dps.

Double damage seems like a big leap over where I am.


I have the legendary chest and shard of the exodar and that is about it aside from weapons (which are maxed for ap now with the free ap available now)


The only challenge I care about is the frost challenge (that weapon color/skin looks the best), and I think it might be doable where I am, I just need to get a couple of target macros due to me being terrible at selecting targets with lots of units on screen. But since my dps is lower, it does make it more likely that I can't burst down that hand of the grave before it explodes. More damage always helps.


so should I keep trying to work on mechanics, or get my ilvl up higher first?

[Vanhyali]

I'm fairly certain you will not have enough dps to kill the Hands from beyond with that ilvl. I would reccomend you to work on your gear untill you have atleast 900ilvl before you start working on the challenge. Good Luck.

[Deleted]

Well since you can equip your mage on argus really fast beyond 900 gs i would at least go for that, even with the empowered artifact 866 is really low, the mage tower was designed around 890gs with 4set and 2 legendarys after all.

[durrtygoodz]

You have lower ilvl than a boosted char. Just spend 1 day getting gear

[TLH]

Well since you can equip your mage on argus really fast beyond 900 gs i would at least go for that, even with the empowered artifact 866 is really low, the mage tower was designed around 890gs with 4set and 2 legendarys after all.

Is that the fastest way by not relying on raiding? I'll do that then.

[pay928]

Is that the fastest way by not relying on raiding? I'll do that then.

http://www.wowhead.com/legion-gearin...d-gear-885-935 for more information. It will probably be expensive. Doing that for 890 -> LFR then finish off with crafting gear is probably the most cost efficient.

[Ordaine]

Is that the fastest way by not relying on raiding? I'll do that then.

Google this "gear catch up argus" - click the wowhead link, "Catch Up Gear in Patch 7.3 - Relinquished Tokens and Veiled"
(I would directly post the link, but the spam filter won't allow me)

Doing a few laps around argus can easily net you 910-920 in a day or two.
The invasion points and the greater invasion point as well as each rare mob have a chance to drop a lego.
Don't forget to buy a few seals in dalaran for an extra loot roll on the greater invasion boss. (Easy 920 gear)

Once you get to 890, pick up the 'kill argus' quest and run lfr for a free 1000 ilvl lego ring.

Do the listed above and there is no reason you won't be at least 910 by the days end. Maybe with a bit of rng, 920-930.

[Boricha]

Yeah i would just take 3-4 hours to do Argus, maybe kill some world bosses/invasions for a lego, and then crush it with a 920-something ilvl. I think I was like 927 when I did the frost challenge and it was very easy.

[Alvito]

so should I keep trying to work on mechanics, or get my ilvl up higher first?

You can do both. If you are at 866 it is insanely easy to jump up over 900 in about an hour of game play if you go out to Argus. Try to kill the first boss in Antorus and see if you can get a PPD, that alone will help make it very easy, even if it is the LFR version.

[Redsoldier06]

Honestly, depends on the player. If I had a chance to level another mage alt to 110 and be a low item level I would gladly try it at 866. Weapons are maxed out, you have access to every nether crucible traits on the relics.

The frost challenge was extremely easy and I only had the shard of exodar on my mage. His other legendary was a fire one and at the time I forgot about the free argus legiondary. Believe he was 904 ilvl when I completed the frost. Arcane on the other hand was a little rough. Took me until 920ish ilvl to complete.

Granted all this was before the max artifact level stuff going on now making everything cheese. Honestly you could just farm argus for a few hours, get some nice upgrades and free 880 gear from rare elites and all the sorts.

[Deiae]

There is a guy who did the prot pala challenge at 852, so anything is possible I guess.

Was he really evenly at 852 ilvl in all slots or somehow misalocated like high ilvl weapons etc. and some practically empty slots? I find 852 really hard to believe.

[Socialhealer]

he had really nice gear but used a grey weapon and grey shield instead of the artifact, ill see if I can find the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjg_6j6_ua8

that's just even more impressive considering your weapon is easily the most powerful piece of gear, but not as important as a tank.

if he could do the dps at 852 with a grey weapon it would mean you could do it at ilvl 800 with a weapon.

[Deiae]

at 800 with a weapon he wouldn't have enough hp I think. misalocated gear is misleading.

[abtwosix]

its all skill based tbh

[Phookah]

its all skill based tbh

It's not though, gear is a factor.

OT: Go to Argus and get some cheap ilevel.

[Kluian05]

Get to 900 ilvl, and with the empowered artifact weapon it should be easily doable. Empowered Artifact will put your weapon to 140+ points.

[Archmage Alodi]

No , you will die from boss casts in last phase.

[Deleted]

You will surely need better gear. Clear Antorus LFR and see if you get some loot, probably some people are kind to gift you their items which they don't need. Take a look at all world quests, they sometimes have items which could be an upgrade for you, especially the ones from Argus (with relics) or Broken Shore. Farm argunite to get some decent 910 int stat stick trinkets. If you have devilsaur shock baton or unstable arcanocrystal, these are OK.

You should probably also run the challenge with the Water Elemental, because you can use this to soak runes with the move pet command, and have an additional frost nova to control adds / to proc 2 ice lance charges to finish off hands.

Thing is, you need enough gear to be able to kill one hand and to dps Karam a bit before another hand spawns. If you get an overlap with 1 hand alive and a 2nd one spawning, then you have not enough damage. On the other hand, if you have too much damage, then you will run out of small adds in Phase 3 which is also a problem. I was quite comfortable with an item level of 910-920 and 1 DPS legendary like bracers or hands. Though I don't know how much boost you would get now with the artifact overload. You can get out impressive burst dps when concordance is active, that's for sure.

[Yoshimiko]

There is a guy who did the prot pala challenge at 852, so anything is possible I guess.

The frost mage challenge is probably the hardest of the mage tower challenges.

Prot Pally is, imo, one of the easier ones.

I *destroyed* the boomkin challenge at ilvl 890 but it took me 25 tries to get down Frost Mage @916, and that win was 100% RNG.

He won't have the damage to kill the hands fast enough AND still burn the boss. I'm not going to say its impossible but you're going to be fishing for RNG in a lot of attempts to get it down.

[pay928]

The frost mage challenge is probably the hardest of the mage tower challenges.

Prot Pally is, imo, one of the easier ones.

I *destroyed* the boomkin challenge at ilvl 890 but it took me 25 tries to get down Frost Mage @916, and that win was 100% RNG.

He won't have the damage to kill the hands fast enough AND still burn the boss. I'm not going to say its impossible but you're going to be fishing for RNG in a lot of attempts to get it down.

Of the DPS I've done, frost mage seems to be giving me the most issues (outside of just overall sucking at arms so gave up). It doesn't help Karam seems to randomly teleport to me when he fixates me and uppercuts my face, or that he just ignores terrain and comes straight at me through terrain I walk around for kiting. He might've done it when I was on balance but I had t21 2pc, and druid was more mobile.