Mage Tower >>> Horrific Visions

[Amariw]

Visions actually have more replayability imo, in that they're longer and harder to figure out, but the gating is ludicrous and abusive. Blizz "buffed" it from barely 3 attempts a week to 4, 5 with excessive and inefficent grinding. For mage tower you could easily get dozen of attempts a day. Visions look cool, but i won't abuse myself to get them.

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Unless you are juggling a lot of alts, the visions really do not take that much of your time tbh. And if you are grinding them for gear and collectibles at the higher levels, they are no different than raids or dungeons; repeatable challenging content that is fairly rewarding on a form of weekly lockout.

The problem is not tha the rewards are gated, but that attempts are, and behind annoying grinds at that. In m+ the biggest rewards are gated but you can always run more keys. In raids you can always try the boss you didn't yet kill. In arena you can keep fighting for rating, and in mage tower you could easily do more attempts. Horrific visions is the only content meant to be fun that blocks you from actually trying it in significant numbers.

[tankbug]

I enjoyed Mage Towers a lot more as well. Mostly because of the rewards, but also they were quicker (before you failed), and you could do as many attempts as you want without grinding the entrance fee.

[Uthan]

Definitely the opposite for me. The Mage tower was a cool gimmick and fun for the 7-10 tries it took to beat it (Arms warrior), but as someone who doesn't care about alts or off-specs after that it might as well not exist, whereas the Horrific visions have whole other layers of exploration and reward to them, not to mention being harder imo when you push for 5 masks (completed SW so far). Then again I still raided mythic back then so was more overgeared going into the Tower than the Visions, so hard to do a direct comparison of difficulty, but enjoyment wise I've already gotten way more out of the Visions than I ever did the Mage tower.

[Kalcifur]

One system is a skills challenge that rewarded cosmetics. The other is a gearing path with built in catch up functions.

My favorite fruit is carrot!

[fathom81]

I mean to be fair you could oneshot unholy dk going in blind.
Same with bm if you had the healing pants.

Slow ring affliction and frost mage where laughable too.

Every mage tower was absurd with more gear, same way horrific visions will be in a few weeks.

[Kehego]

false...


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"


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.



Skill and control of your character > strategy.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Patch_7.3.0
https://prnt.sc/r7xrxp

Did it on my weakest character before patch 7.3 hit, a shaman, with roots of shaladrassasil.

Literally all you had to do was make sure that the chick was cced before she got her wings, and to run from the melee lad.

Mage tower was not hard, nice try though.

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Slow ring affliction and frost mage where laughable too.

Every mage tower was absurd with more gear, same way horrific visions will be in a few weeks.

I missed my full clear 5 mask stormwind because I didn't game my gift of the titans
5 masked orgrimmar the second i logged in, though.

FoS next week, I guess.

[kaminaris]

Pretty much anything is better than visions

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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.

No dude, I did all mage towers, most of them were brainless button mashers except for xylem. Just dps checks. Visions are harder if I can't do them by simply outgearing them.

[kamuimac]

both were equaly bad.

both were wasted resources which could have been allocated to additional raid or 3-4 new dungeons.

aka stuff that majority of people actually do an enjoy - not ignore completly

[Kehego]

false...


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"


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.



Skill and control of your character > strategy.

And just so you know right, the mobs had shared hp, so you didn't actually have to dps her. You couldve sat on the caster and tunneled him outside of the enrages by the melee lad and her wings casts.

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I'd say that some level of strategy is required in Horrific Visions as well. You still need to plan movement and cooldowns ahead of time to best counter mechanics. It's not to the same extent as Mage Tower because Horrific Visions are more reactive (largely due to Madness procs at the worst possible moment) while Mage Tower was easier to manage since everything happened at specific points (whether it was timestamps or healthpoints).

DBM could 100% play the mage tower encounters for you
things like gift procs and madness effects change the way you have to play from 1 run to the next.

but i do have to realise that not everyone is 36/36 or did a full clear with 5 masks yet

[Jastall]

Plus they were tailored and fine tuned to what your spec was capable of.

Not. The tank challenge for example was a joke as DH, easier as Warrior/DK, hard as Guardian if you didn't have the right leggies, and silly as Pally. At appropriate gear levels obviously, in full Antorus none of them were hard.

[Kehego]

Not. The tank challenge for example was a joke as DH, easier as Warrior/DK, hard as Guardian if you didn't have the right leggies, and silly as Pally. At appropriate gear levels obviously, in full Antorus none of them were hard.

Won't anyone think of the monks?

Lol it was so easy on monk/war/dh that i actually have 0 recollection of ever doing em. I should go check my achiev dates.

Oh, not to mention that a few healers actually didn't have the toolkit, and had wildly varying health numbers on the mobs during the encounter.

[Dommie530]

Visions are far more challenging, engaging, and fun.
They offer far greater cosmetics and tittle. Sad part is the acquisition.

Mage tower was a lazy and sloppy design at best. Sure some challenges were ok. But most were broken or to easy. The weapon appereances were realy not that big of a deal. Afther 1 week in that dumpster shit when it got released i never came back to it cause there was simply no reason for it. So for me a big fat no to mage tower.

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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.

Common, is lying realy the way to approach this? I 2 shotted it at release as balance druid which was my offspecc i barely played. That doesnt sound a test of skill to me,
The tank version was bugged to high heavens for over 1 week!!
Skill based, dont make me laugh

[BeepBoo]

Did it on my weakest character before patch 7.3 hit, a shaman, with roots of shaladrassasil.

A full fucking 4 months after it released? There is no way you weren't over 900, probably 915 by then. That's pathetic and a huge power boost.

Literally all you had to do was make sure that the chick was cced before she got her wings, and to run from the melee lad.

And dodge the plethora of crap that was constantly going out, and deal with things as phases started to overlap, such as valk lines trying to fuck you in melee as you attempted to burst down the shield.

Mage tower was not hard, nice try though.

Then I suppose absolutely no mythic fights are hard, either, because MTC had far more mechanics and demand for precision (more 1 shots) than anything mythic has ever offered. By your reasoning the hardest part of mythic would just be getting 19 other people on your level that don't fuck it up.

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And just so you know right, the mobs had shared hp, so you didn't actually have to dps her. You couldve sat on the caster and tunneled him outside of the enrages by the melee lad and her wings casts.

Well, considering I did it the first week before any guides came out on exactly how to handle it, I suppose strategy was lost on me. And yes, they shared HP.... Kinda... but you could still chose which one you wanted to murder first out of the two weaker ones.

The most difficult part for me was when she hit her 3rd DR and I had to break her shield. Also managing repentance on while ensuring I wasn't standing in any one of the things that would murder me, because repentance has a cast time.

[Rappy28]

Why do people mention the Mage Tower being a one-off challenge as a bad thing ?

I mean... I like being done with things, getting my reward and moving on to the next alt.

[Kehego]

A full fucking 4 months after it released? There is no way you weren't over 900, probably 915 by then. That's pathetic and a huge power boost.


And dodge the plethora of crap that was constantly going out, and deal with things as phases started to overlap, such as valk lines trying to fuck you in melee as you attempted to burst down the shield.


Then I suppose absolutely no mythic fights are hard, either, because MTC had far more mechanics and demand for precision (more 1 shots) than anything mythic has ever offered. By your reasoning the hardest part of mythic would just be getting 19 other people on your level that don't fuck it up.

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Well, considering I did it the first week before any guides came out on exactly how to handle it, I suppose strategy was lost on me. And yes, they shared HP.... Kinda... but you could still chose which one you wanted to murder first out of the two weaker ones.

The most difficult part for me was when she hit her 3rd DR and I had to break her shield. Also managing repentance on while ensuring I wasn't standing in any one of the things that would murder me, because repentance has a cast time.

There were no oneshots in any mage tower, save the healer challenge when a character (you had to heal) died.
4 months is pretty fine for a random alt, I'd think.

Overlaps in mechanics? lol wait till you got leaden foot+ split personality on magister umbric. that's far more difficult than anything any of the dps challenges threw at you.

[BeepBoo]

There were no oneshots in any mage tower, save the healer challenge when a character (you had to heal) died.
4 months is pretty fine for a random alt, I'd think.

Dude, again, I'm telling you you are wrong. The valk lines would one shot. I died like 10 times to them. Dude would 1 shot me when berserking. In addition, there was also healing you had to do and fuck using WoG, so I had to hard-cast my heals. I also just used my actual raid gear, and didn't cherry pick leggos for what I thought would actually be more helpful (this is on me, but fuck the idea of trying to compensate specifically for a type of content by changing my gear or talents tbh).

Overlaps in mechanics? lol wait till you got leaden foot+ split personality on magister umbric. that's far more difficult than anything any of the dps challenges threw at you.

Again, you probably never had to deal with these overlaps because your fight times were probably a lot shorter. My fight took damn near 15 minutes, thanks to my maximum theoretical DPS being so low, thanks to actually doing the challenge when it was... challenging.

Why do people mention the Mage Tower being a one-off challenge as a bad thing ?

I mean... I like being done with things, getting my reward and moving on to the next alt.

Exactly my thoughts.

I would have appreciated the ability to go back into a completed mage tower challenge, though, just to see the difference, or try to perfect my run, etc. However, having something that was finally one-and-done was a refreshing change.

[Aesahaettr]

Unless you are juggling a lot of alts, the visions really do not take that much of your time tbh. And if you are grinding them for gear and collectibles at the higher levels, they are no different than raids or dungeons; repeatable challenging content that is fairly rewarding on a form of weekly lockout.

Any time I spend in visions is time I could spend doing something I actually enjoy.

I'm basically done with them tbh, I'll get my cloak proc and fuck the rest off.

[Softbottom]

Any time I spend in visions is time I could spend doing something I actually enjoy.

I'm basically done with them tbh, I'll get my cloak proc and fuck the rest off.

Right there with you. I think I will do Rank 13-15 as I have 7 vessels sitting in my bag. After that I will do content I actually enjoy doing.

[Zyrinx]

Nothing inspires more revisionist history than the Mage Tower.

but anyways, these are hardly comparable. I wish visions had some more rewards, maybe spec or even class specific. In a way I'm glad they don't, as i don't wanna gear up 39 specs again (or whatever the number is...).

[Kehego]

Dude, again, I'm telling you you are wrong. The valk lines would one shot. I died like 10 times to them. Dude would 1 shot me when berserking. In addition, there was also healing you had to do and fuck using WoG, so I had to hard-cast my heals. I also just used my actual raid gear, and didn't cherry pick leggos for what I thought would actually be more helpful (this is on me, but fuck the idea of trying to compensate specifically for a type of content by changing my gear or talents tbh).


Again, you probably never had to deal with these overlaps because your fight times were probably a lot shorter. My fight took damn near 15 minutes, thanks to my maximum theoretical DPS being so low, thanks to actually doing the challenge when it was... challenging.


Exactly my thoughts.

I would have appreciated the ability to go back into a completed mage tower challenge, though, just to see the difference, or try to perfect my run, etc. However, having something that was finally one-and-done was a refreshing change.

I mean, I did it on shaman druid rogue paladin all in nh/tos gear and you could use a defensive, or just not get hit. The lines didn't kill you unless you were low.
I linked you when my last character did it. If you're doing it as a paladin, you could 100% spec the 5hp finisher that healed with the talent that gave you a chance to get a free finisher and boom, healing. (justicar's vengeance and divine purpose)

The overlaps happened regardless of gear, 1, 2, the valkyr was the 2nd easiest dps challenge. All of the overlaps were predictable, and none were anywhere as bad as what you could get on xylem or on the twins, for example.

If you took 15 mins, you were doing something egregiously wrong, because in nh gear it took <10 mins.

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Nothing inspires more revisionist history than the Mage Tower.

but anyways, these are hardly comparable. I wish visions had some more rewards, maybe spec or even class specific. In a way I'm glad they don't, as i don't wanna gear up 39 specs again (or whatever the number is...).

this kid im replying to above claims to have taken 15 minutes to do sigryn, lmao

Ya okay