Mage Tower >>> Horrific Visions

[Teflon]

I did all mage towers on all specs/classes and I was soooo hyped for this Horrific Visions thing. You can all guess what happened to that hype. There is nothing to get there except one title and a bunch of really bland transmogs. The weapon enchant is lacking in visuals and the masks are just pieces of armor we could already get. Really low effort from Blizzard.

[kaminaris]

I did all mage towers on all specs/classes and I was soooo hyped for this Horrific Visions thing. You can all guess what happened to that hype. There is nothing to get there except one title and a bunch of really bland transmogs. The weapon enchant is lacking in visuals and the masks are just pieces of armor we could already get. Really low effort from Blizzard.

I did all mage towers too, couldn't care less about rewards.
Same goes with horrific visions. Tho horrific is harder so Im hyped more.

[ro9ue]

Mage Tower was definitely better, agreed.

[BeepBoo]

Tho horrific is harder so Im hyped more.

Tells me all I need to know about what you consider "harder" and also probably when you cleared MTCs. Should have done them when you couldn't brute-force mechanics and had to perform the dances perfectly.

Visions (from what I've seen) are only more difficult in that they have more damage and HP. Two of the dumbest, easiest ways to "increase" difficulty. Mechanics are the best way. Demanding more strenuous and precise control of a character while maintaining a minimum dmg output.

[Kehego]

Both of these are so very wrong.

The 6 tanks had the very same encounter, the only difference was how each tank handled the moves.

The mage tower was time gated behind world what's that gave you a currency that you had to use to build the mage tower which was also dependant on how many players would contributing to the tower. So let's brake it down then.
Mage Tower - World Quest for currency. Currency for building Tower. Other Players had to help as well. Currency to enter time limited event (Until you started all over again to rebuild).
Reward : Amazing looking tmog for your artefact.
Visions - Daily quests for currency. Currency for entering Visions. Don't need to wait for other people to contribute. It is always up if you have item for entering.
Reward : 5 crappy looking masks. 430 - 470 loot. Pets & Mounts.

Mage tower was more challenging maybe (I haven't tried to 5 masked yet). Mage tower had a better reward but once you got it there was no point going back. Mage tower and Visions are both very repetitive though.

no no no, you literally couldn't go back

there's a huge difference.

[Very Tired]

I fondly remember doing the healer mage tower when I didn't outgear it and it was a ton of fun. The only thing off about it was you basically beat it once then you are done. It's honestly one of the many things that has me scratching my head about what's going through Blizzard's minds.

Why not let people replay it? Maybe even buff the mobs in it so it gets harder each time. Don't need any special reward for it, I just would like the challenge. At the very least, they should have let people do it over again if they wanted, especially seeing the large positive reaction it had on many people. It's just flushing perfectly good content down the drain.

[Kehego]

Tells me all I need to know about what you consider "harder" and also probably when you cleared MTCs. Should have done them when you couldn't brute-force mechanics and had to perform the dances perfectly.

Visions (from what I've seen) are only more difficult in that they have more damage and HP. Two of the dumbest, easiest ways to "increase" difficulty. Mechanics are the best way. Demanding more strenuous and precise control of a character while maintaining a minimum dmg output.

Most of the mage tower encounters were dps checks. The only one where you didn't stand and dps was twins.

Agatha was priority damage
Valkyr lady was CC
Twins was kiting
Worm was hps
Focusing iris was priority damage.

Tank was a dps check and healing was a numbers check (if you dpsed during phase 1 and final phase you made it way easier)


None of the mage towers save twins had a hard oneshot either, cus you could survive most of the damage with defensives, with the exception of healer where if 1 npc dies it's a wipe.

long night+daredevil require more strategy than any mage tower, even if it's following a guide (and most people followed a guide for mage tower)

[Zmagoslav]

One was meant as a once-a-character-spec solo challenge, the other as a repeatable content, which can be ran with friends...

The only thing they have in common is that they are instanced content.

[Aesahaettr]

They are very different, but it's perfectly okay to enjoy one more than the other.

I much preferred Mage towers. No timer, more based on mechanics. And no need to repeat over and over again once done. Also entirely extraneous to core progression so I didn't feel obliged to run it several times a week.

They were not perfect by any means, but I actively dislike Horrific Visions and they feel more like work than my actual job at the moment.

[tangers58]

- Seven different versions which means less repetitive
- Not gated behind a crappy gated item, that you need to upgrade every week
- Unique cool skin weapon rewards

Pretty much anything is better than visions

- - - Updated - - -

Most of the mage tower encounters were dps checks. The only one where you didn't stand and dps was twins.

Agatha was priority damage
Valkyr lady was CC
Twins was kiting
Worm was hps
Focusing iris was priority damage.

Tank was a dps check and healing was a numbers check (if you dpsed during phase 1 and final phase you made it way easier)


None of the mage towers save twins had a hard oneshot either, cus you could survive most of the damage with defensives, with the exception of healer where if 1 npc dies it's a wipe.

long night+daredevil require more strategy than any mage tower, even if it's following a guide (and most people followed a guide for mage tower)

Are you joking? The only time the fights became "DPS checks" was if the player was too thick to understand the mechanics and just tried to burn while ignoring them. Predictably this ended with the thick players bashing their heads into a wall while complaining about how "hard" the mage tower was.

[Kokolums]

Mage tower for the majority in this thread was incredibly easy content that was massively nerfed over time. If you did it when it launched or shortly after, congratulations, you did it when it was difficult. If you did it towards the end of 7.2, or anytime during Argus, it wasn't challenging solo content, it was completely face roll trivial shit, and you know it.

The time investment alone was incredibly hard. You had to raise every class to 110, gear them up, learn the class, and then beat a skill test with them all and some were pretty difficult. Its a significant achievement to clear all 32. Its mostly a time thing but still that shows expertise. I only cleared like 21 i think. I was working *hard* on monk tank on the final day and kept failing and never got it. That annoyed me. I really didn't have enough gear on him and never tanked with him before. I didn't know what I was doing. The glowing kegball looked really nice and I knew I wanted it but never got it.

Just right off the bat, you are going to find very very few people with every class at 110.

[Darkeon]

I'm inclined to agree.

However these Horrific Visions are probably my favorite part so far this expansion.

[BeepBoo]

The only one where you didn't stand and dps was twins.

false...

Valkyr lady was CC

You CC'd her every once in a while m but she DR'd really fast and (at least on ret) you didn't have enough CC to perpetually keep her there. You would EVENTUALLY have to let her cast.

In addition, you had to DPS adds and her at the same time, while moving out of adds shit, while also dodgind the valkyr things that cross crossed you. WHILE also micro managing CCing the main boss lady. And then you had the DPS check of "can you break her shield amidst all this bullshit"

None of the mage towers save twins had a hard oneshot either, cus you could survive most of the damage with defensives, with the exception of healer where if 1 npc dies it's a wipe.

CRAZY amounts of false info. There were 3 one-shot mechanics on valkyr lady, and bubble only got you through one of those once every 5 minutes...


Again, the way you're boiling them down to being something so simple is hillarious. You clearly did them late argus. They were an incredible pain in the ass under 900.

long night+daredevil require more strategy than any mage tower, even if it's following a guide (and most people followed a guide for mage tower)

Skill and control of your character > strategy.

[THC BANDIT]

Mage tower was horrifically balanced with no opportunity for partial advancement... it was absolutely horrible.

Gave up on them as a complete joke within weeks.

Horrific visions has progress, you can partially improve as you go.

I moved up from 1/5 to now being at 5/5 and looking to go onto masks.

PS: Both mage tower and horrific visions are 'gated' behind collecting currency.

You sound bad at the game.

[BabyCatjuh]

I levelled and geared every clss just to get the mage tower skins, and eventually got them all and started to learn every spec there was. Legion gave me the inccentive to play everything. And some classes were bloody hard, I remember the healing/tank ones being a massive pain because it wasn't much tanking/healing per se but also damage dealing and one tiny mistake got a npc killed or got you thrown off as tank.

I like horrifiic visions (and will get the cloak to max and try mask runs once) but the rewards aren't that worth it to me. It's also ridiculous how much I'm struggling on my main caster (much better geared) vs an alt melee.

[KainneAbsolute]

I enjoyed the magic tower, I tried other classes of specs because I wanted all the skins

[Aesahaettr]

People say the fact that visions are repeatable is a good thing... And I kinda guess?

But I find the repetition off-putting. I liked the fact that once the tower was done, it was done. With visions your compelled to go back lest you "fall behind" with the cloak or sockets.

Frankly I'm already sick of it, and I'm likely to stop bothering in the very near future. Its the difference between completing something and ending it on a high note and completing something over and over and over until your sick of it.

[qobalt]

No reason to compare two systems which have different purposes.
Mage tower was a test of skill.
Horrific visions are not. They are needed to upgrade your cloak to enable removing of more violet shit from your corrupted gear.

[Kaver]

- Seven different versions which means less repetitive
- Not gated behind a crappy gated item, that you need to upgrade every week
- Unique cool skin weapon rewards

I really liked the Mage Towers. But you could only do it once on each character.

I think Horrific Visions are fun and best of all challenging. We also need to remember that this is the first edition of the Horrific Visions created in an expansion where Blizzard have used a lot of their time fixing things instead of creating new content. I see a great potential in these Visions.

[Beuargh]

I still get asked where I got my Flail and Laserscythe. You can't get them anymore.

lol I call bullshit on that!

1: no one cares
2: if anybody ever cared, he didn't ask you, he just googled/wowhead it