So I’ve just finished what is almost certainly my last Mage Tower, so it seems like now would be a good time to write this blog post. I ignored the Mage Tower for quite a while when it first came out and only really got around to seriously trying it after 7.3.5 when I had finished most of my alts (sorry Mage). In the end I really enjoyed most of them. I was quite under geared when I first tried my first challenge and it was really off putting. In fact I had intended to just do the one for my main spec and then ignore them but then I ended up doing a second one and then I really wanted to complete all three challenges on my Warlock. After that I decided I really wanted the bear form. Once I had that it was like the flood gates were opened.
To start with I decided I would try and do all the Druid challenges and also Enhancement Shaman and Shadow Priest. After a point I realised there was one challenge none of the characters I planned to complete the Mage Tower with would end up doing. So I added Survival Hunter to my planned list. In the end I completed 15 Mage Tower challenges. I typically would end up completing the other challenges (bar healing) for the classes that I geared. I also decided I would quite like to do Retribution right before the final weekly reset before the Tower closed forever.
Anyway here are my characters with their weapons in the order I did them, sadly I didn’t screenshot my Warlock’s weapons at the time.
1. Destruction
Item level: ~900 might have been a bit lower
Tries: ~20
I’ve grown to love the appearence but originally I really wasn’t keen especially with it being so different to the rest of the appearences. All I remember was trying to time my Infernals to land at the exact right moment to interrupt when all my other interrupts were on cooldown and then the next time they were on cooldown I had to use fear which was even harder to time. I ended up swapping it around and doing fear first as then I lost sooner if I mistimed it.
2. Affliction
Item Level: ~920
Tries: Not sure, I think I did 3-5 tries before I found the ring and then 5-8 tries once I had the ring.
I was really lucky to get the ring, had I have not got the ring I might never have completed it and then wouldn’t have done Demonology and everything else since.
3. Demonology
Item Level: ~930
Tries: 8-10
I had heard this was one of the hardest challenges, all of the 36/36 things I read put it as one of the hardest. So it was almost a pleasent surprise, I think it took me five goes at 930 and it wasn’t too bad, there was just that one section between 3:30 and 4:00 where everything happens at once. Once I got past that I completed the challenge.
4. Guardian
Item Level: 920
Tries: ~20
The first phase was way harder, I think I thought Kruul five or six times, three of which ended with him being on <5% HP. Which was infuriating at the time.
5. Feral
Item Level: 925
Tries: 6
I had intended to restoration next (I kept intended to do it next) but I wasn’t sure I would use the staff where as Feral gave a new transformation. So I decided to do Feral, a relic titan forged (which in hindsight I wish I’d used on the Restoration artifact) so it was a push to choose. After dying to boulders five times when I could have sworn I wasn’t in them I went and googled the fight again. The best advice I read was to treat them like they were twice their size and then I did it on my next attempt.
6. Balance
Item Level: 923
Tries: 3
This was my first repeated challenge, it felt like the Druid toolkit was much better for dealing with the challenge. It also helped I had two great legendaries for the challenge.
7. Enhancement
Item Level: ~920 (918 I think)
Tries: ~5
Another repeat and it was the same as Demonology in that once I got past 4 minutes I did it. Mostly I was motivated to do this one because it was the Doom Hammer.
8. Elemental
Item Level: 925
Tries: ~10
I only did this one because my Shaman was geared, I don’t like the weapon and can’t wait to not use a claw on my Shaman. The challenge was harder than Feral but once I got into the hang of when to use my lightning rod cooldown it wasn’t that hard.
9. Discipline
Item Level: 925
Tries: 3
I hadn’t intended to do any of the other Feltotem challenges but I was really strugling with my Shadow challenge and read online that Discipline was basically a free appearence, so I gave it a go. All I remembered before that was all the Priests complaining they had to do a DPS challenge on a healer.
10. Beast Mastery
Item Level: 911
Tries: 2
Emboldened by Discipline I decided to try Beast Mastery, I was really cross with myself when I died the first time because I hit the wrong button and wasted my heal when I meant to interrupt. Anyway second time around no problem.
11. Survival
Item Level: ~920
Tries: ~10
I really enjoyed this challenge, the way it was designed was really cool. My only issue was never having played Survival and not knowing what I was doing. Eventually I got there though. This was the first of the five challenges I completed in the last week, where I ended up doing one a day.
12. Marksmanship
Item Level: ~915
Tries: 5
I was having a terrible time trying to do the Shadow challenge, at some point I decided to try it on Marksmanship to see if it gave me any new insights. It didn’t other than the hands have too much HP for the Shadow version. I nearly did it in four tries but I ignored the rune because I thought I would finish it in time, I didn’t.
13. Shadow
Item Level: 928
Tries: 26
I know I had terrible haste but I simply couldn’t find gear with it. I tried the surrender to madness methord many times but could never get the boss down to less than 15%. In the end I changed tactic. I popped surrender to madness when I got to the hands but didn’t enter void form until the third hand, doing it this way took me four tries, one of which I was only one or two seconds off killing the boss – I ignored the rune and the demon got me.
14. Retribution
Item Level: ~915
Tries: 32
I decided very last minute to attempt this challenge. My Paladin was effectively a fresh 110 who had just gotten his class mount. I had two sets of weeklies to gear him. I did manage to get two legendaries one of which was from Velen for killing Argus. I never expected any trouble from this challenge having already completed it twice. Needless to say this was the challenge that took the most attempts. The other times I completed this challenge once I got past four minutes I completed it that attempt. I think I got past four minutes about fifteen times. Dying after 9,10 minutes was really soul crushing. I can’t honestly say why I had such trouble with it other than being melee and having to deal with shields in fel pools.
15. Restoration
Item Level: 935
Tries: ~25
I tried this challenge several times over a couple of months without ever really getting anywhere. I once got past phase one and then an ally died during the heal adds phase. So I decided to leave it until I was better geared. After an abysmal two attempts this morning I decided to install more mods. Every video I had seen of this challenge used addons which showed your allies buffs etc and better name plates. After doing that my experience improved massively, out of the seven remaining goes, four times I got past phase one, I lost once more on the add phase and then finally the final boss took me three goes. Kind of sad it just took a better interface to clear the challenge but I’m just glad I finally cleared it.
Fomar0153 