Mage Tower Challenge

[Katsumi]

Just did this as a 906 mage with 44 talent weapon. Went LW, Shimmer, IF, Splitting Ice, Frigid Winds, Artic Gale, Thermal Void. Legendaries were Lady Vashj gloves and Shard of Exodar. Took about 20-30 attempts where I realized my age was getting to me and I was having a tough time tracking all the mechanics, positioning, and cooldowns in phase 3 while trying to kill the kite brother. Decided to try killing the caster instead and got it within 5 pulls. In the first intermission I lusted, IV, and potted and just burned the caster as hard as I could while orbing and blizzarding adds on the far side from the kite guy. When kiting resumed, I tried to keep kiting in the vicinity of the hands so I could cleave him while hitting the hands. You have to get a little lucky here and go into second intermission with no hands up. Second intermission I turned to the caster and used drums and nuked him. IV wasn't up yet so I just popped it as soon as I was able. Soaked the first rune and killed the first hand, then just ignored killing hands and soaking, but still did the first interrupt on any hands that came up, used blood elf interrupt, and blocked a second cast. Ended up with a few hands up and adds from not soaking at the end, but I was able to push through.

That's very cool. So you never even had to deal with the Runes?

[kantasai]

I did this on my mage after like 30 tries.
First I used LW, Shimmer, IF, SI, Frigid Winds, Artic Gale, TV, and tried to kill the angry dude before downing the caster in P3 but mechanics were too much to handle plus the godly RNG could place rune in middle of the adds.
So I switch to LW, Shimmer, IF, FT, Frigid Winds, Artic Gale, TV with Gloves legend, Sephez and just focus burning Raest in P3 and finally got it in like 3 tries.
IMO I think killing the adds by hitting the angry dude and cleaving them with Splitting Ice is kinda counterproductive in P3 if you wanna burn Raest.
Having alot of adds up help you generate FoF by throw a bunch of Frozen Orbs and Blizzards.
I also only had had to soak 1 rune, killed 1 hand in P3, before beating down the caster.
Hope it help.

[novair]

I figure I'd chime in with my experience. I followed a lot of the advice I read on the boards but if you are having trouble following those you may need to determine where you can tweak things. For me I tried following the method of taking down Karam on each phase but either A) I would be too low and die in phase 5 or B) Drag out the fight too long and mess up a mechanic. Eventually I decided to try and focus Raest and wait on cooldowns to maximize IV up time. Even at lower ilvl's I feel this is very viable.

901 ilvl
Talents 2132131
Sephuz\LVG

Phase 1: Pre-pot but no IV. Not needed as long as you kite well. CoC is very useful.
Phase 2: Here is when I popped IV. With the amount of FoF you will proc you can almost indefinitely keep up IV. This is huge when you are on the lower end as it allows you to reliably down the hands without as much trouble. There also isnt a lot going on so you can focus a lot of damage into Raest.
Phase 3: If all went well I would still have IV up and could put some serious damage into Karam. CoC is very very good at keeping things bunched up in the blizzard. Use it as much as possible!
Phase 4/5: Again if you were good about orbs and blizzards IV should still be up. If its close to falling off I would hold 2nd pot and TW. If not I'd use them then and stay on Raest. At this point I feel as long as RNG doesn't screw you and you dont forget the hands you'll be fine. Save FN for emergencies (Karam close or when circle spawns near adds)

Hopefully this helps peeps who are struggling with the standard karam method but were unsure they had the dps to burn Raest. TLDR: Abuse the hell out of TV and IV from phase 2 on.

[Makz]

Is there any way to repeat the challenges after they have been completed? I brute forced it within a few tries, but never recorded and was hoping you can go back and do it. Maybe with an extra AP/NS reward? Even without, I would still re-do it.

[Reginald]

I just finished the challenge, ilevel 909, 44 traits, sephuz and shard. (talents LW, Shimmer, IF, SI, FW, AG, TV)

I always tried to kill Karam first, but despite my rather high ilevel, I wasn't able to burn him down quick enough without screwing up the mechanics.

So I tried to focus Raest first, and completed the challenge in my first attempt. I saved my TW, drums and pot for the last phase and double-lusted on him, burning him down while kiting Karam and the adds with blizzard.

Make sure that your blizzard always hits Karam, Raest (if he is vulnerable) and all the adds. This way, you'll almost always have an orb active, can cast blizzard instantly (if you have the Freezing Rain trait) and keep Karam slowed. If anything gets too close, CoC is super useful, especially if you have to soak a rune that's close to the adds or Karam himself. Also, I tried to utilize Sephuz by using frost nova if anything came in range.

I also only had two runes to soak iirc. The first one was while Karam is still caged, the second one when Raest was low on health.

The challenge ended immediately when Raest was killed. I was kinda surprised because I thought I'd have to kill Karam afterwards.

The tips in this thread helped me a lot (especially from novair), like not using IV in the first phase and pop it right after entering phase two, utilizing CoC and focussing Raest in the first place.

[Catalyst42]

I was able to do it last mage tower at 903 ilvl, with sephuz and ice lance bracers. went 2232131 for talents. I have the lust ring, but i found that sephuz made the encounter much easier, since you can proc sephuz on cd pretty much. frost nova at the beginning, and interrupting the hands later on.

[itchynose]

Well, that was "fun". 907ilvl frost mage, mags and prydaz, killed the Karam first.

If you're struggling, I suggest making sure you install DBM-challenges, Gives you a countdown for the runes, alerts you on when the hands are casting etc.

Also, I found the since the little adds are basically your resource pool, I switched to FT and UM to keep the adds up as long as possible. Much more Orbs and FoF that way.

[Ghastly]

I wanted to share how I managed to get it complete with 901 ilvl.
Leggos - prydaz, Shard of ex
Traits 45
Talents - LW - SHIM - IF - FT - AG - TV
PHASE 1
Kite him away from middle of room as much a possible, ( avoid purple pools in middle)
Used pre pot only on pull, and kite and utilaize shimmer as much as possible. CoC is your best friend.
once he is close to 33% kite him closer to centre of the room.

Phase 2
Karam will kneel down, turn and pop drums (if you have shard of ex, if not dont use TW)
pop IV and go ham on reast, I mean Ham, keep adds in blizzard, keep orb on them and reast at all times and spam that ICE LANCE, but be smart, try to to kill adds to much.
At this point reast should be around 50-60% and he will go immune again, turn to karam and continue your Ice lances and blizzard as much as possible.
Now you will be dealing with Hands now aswell.
I, as soon as hand is up, used orb into adds and karam to get procs of fingers to use on hands, be sure to interupt hands. then back to karam. do this 3 times over and karam will drop to 33 % again.

Now the fun part.
SUPER HAM
LUST, IV, POTION, BLIZZARD ALL ADDS SPAM ORB AND JUST PUMP THOOSE ICELANCES INTO REAST, DONT STOP GOGOGO. i got 1 rune to stand in, and 1 hand to kill and back to reast and bam he was dead.

It took A LOT of trys to get the positioning right, and a lot of rng with procs but it can be done with 898 - 901 ilvl.
but the best way to to put everything into the mage not the ass that follows you

[Xafi]

Please share your WA's.

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[...]

Thank you very much, this helped me alot! I died a couple of times due to missing the runes...
I did it at 903 ilvl equipped, was using NH 4set, Belo'vir, Sephuz (I have no frost legends). As for the talents, I used LW, Shimmer, IF, FT, FW, AG, TV. I did many tries with Bone Chilling, but I realized that I need more single target dmg. Pet nova is nice, but not necassary. I have also tried Splitting Ice, but again, FT yields more st damage, cleave is unnecessary. I killed Karam first, it was really tight, I have ignored the last hand that spawned. I have just interrupted the first cast, and was ready to block the second, but the hand despawned as Karam died. After that you just finish off Raest.

[Mutes_]

I beat the challenge a few days ago as a 901 frost mage.
I decided to try make a guide video for it, though I don't usually make this kind of thing so it's a little rough..
But it may help some of those struggling by actually seeing how I did it, as a very mediocre player.

https://youtu.be/OFxuLue7puE" target="_blank

[Beave]

I had probably 50 tries in with the approach used in most of the videos. Kite, kite, kite, kill karem late in p3, then Raest is a pushover when everything else despawns.

Then I tried the burn Raest starting with the second imprison on Karem, and I got it on the 2nd pull. 910ilvl. It was so easy to burn him at that point with all my experience the first 50 or so pulls learning the kiting and cc mechanics.

Here's my big secret.... Bear Tartare. No need to worry about sephuz or speed in the later phases, once the shadow guys start dying you've got speed to burn. I wore Prydaz and the Bracers on my successful pull just because I was ignoring the hands and had two out so I could absorb one of their casts.

Pot on pull, kite and freeze Karam. Keep blizzard up at all times on Raest and the adds in the middle and as soon as orb procs throw it in there. Use the IL procs to down the hands and Karam. Once Karam goes into his little imprison phase to heal up the 2nd time hit lust, 2nd pot, and burn Raest. Save Ebonbolt if one procs late for the start of your burn phase. Keep blizzard and orbs up at all times as the ice lances they'll proc you are why you can burn so fast. My casting in my burn phase was probably 80% ice lances. Lance, lance, lance. Throw in the occassional frostbolt and flurry proc. Interrupt the hand but don't kill it was my strat but you could I guess kill the first hand. When Karam comes back out keep kiting around the circle and freezing him for cc, then blink away while burning Raest. I barely had the 2nd hand come out. I don't think I even had time to miss a void soak thing. I found that approach much easier than the RNG of trying to go almost 8min kiting Karam around. You do need decent dps though. I ended the entire encounter over 1.5M on skada. Much of that was adds. Practice on throwing orb right into the middle helps too as it often seems to want to not go at your target if you're running/strafing around it will instead go where you were pointed.

On Legendaries - You actually don't want to increase your DPS on the shadow guys. If they die too fast you're in trouble because you're constantly using them to reduce frozen orb cooldown and proc ice lances. The belt and shoulders seem like a good idea, but they're not. Any aoe trinkets like ruby or fury are a bad idea. Gloves are a small help in the first Karam burn but once the shadow guys are up you're procing IL's like crazy so I went with survivability in prydaz. Feet or chest wouldn't be bad either for speed and stat stick if you don't have other options. Shard might be good but I was starting my burn well before the 5min cooldown was up.

[Falq]

On Legendaries - You actually don't want to increase your DPS on the shadow guys. If they die too fast you're in trouble because you're constantly using them to reduce frozen orb cooldown and proc ice lances. The belt and shoulders seem like a good idea, but they're not. Any aoe trinkets like ruby or fury are a bad idea. Gloves are a small help in the first Karam burn but once the shadow guys are up you're procing IL's like crazy so I went with survivability in prydaz. Feet or chest wouldn't be bad either for speed and stat stick if you don't have other options. Shard might be good but I was starting my burn well before the 5min cooldown was up.

That's how I got my challenge done aswell. I got 915 Burning Sky trinket and kept using it but wiped due to aoe guys dying to fast. After some tries I unequipped and reduced my AoE damage as much as possible and it was much easier this way due to constant Ice Lances and Orb procs

[Eyliria]

On Legendaries - You actually don't want to increase your DPS on the shadow guys. If they die too fast you're in trouble because you're constantly using them to reduce frozen orb cooldown and proc ice lances. The belt and shoulders seem like a good idea, but they're not. Any aoe trinkets like ruby or fury are a bad idea. Gloves are a small help in the first Karam burn but once the shadow guys are up you're procing IL's like crazy so I went with survivability in prydaz. Feet or chest wouldn't be bad either for speed and stat stick if you don't have other options. Shard might be good but I was starting my burn well before the 5min cooldown was up.

You can still buy and use Drums (25% haste for 40 seconds), uses up the heroism debuff slot.
So you can get TimeWarp and 75% as good TimeWarp.