Guardian druid mage tower made easy

Classes Druid
142

Congratulations! I didnt think to use the old pantheon trinkets; how much damage did they do?

Can you link the WA pack or dbm timers here? Im sure a lot of people would find that helpful!

143

Sure thing. I would recommend getting the audio queue pack linked in the description as well. Helps a lot. I did also duplicate the drain life and twisted reflection WAs and set an air horn queue for the cast times to double up and be safe.

https://wago.io/YBa2GlIu5

For DBM, itā€™s called DBM-Challenges. Install DBM proper and the Challenges plug-in and youā€™re good.

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144

Oh, and the trinket didnā€™t do a ton but the aoe proc did help clean up the adds a few times. I still think the RSP is much better. I was also trying to get the reflect trinket from the first boss in ToS and the riftworld codex from portal keeper in Antorus but they didnā€™t drop. I have a feeling that the codex may actually be great for the challenge as a whole. Itā€™s RNG but I recall back in the day it was a sleeper trinket and I loved it.

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145

Got it! About 100 attempts. Seemed like way too many, even despite never having played it in legion. Some tips Nas might want to add to his post:

  1. You can Pre-pot potions of prolonged power or unbridled fury right before TPing in. This nets you about 20s with extra stats/dps on variss.

  2. Mechagon cyclotronic card does about 10-15% of the bosses hp. Itā€™s up for variss and kruul and will shave a bunch of time off your attempts, sometimes even getting you the elusive 1 infernal attempt.

  3. Potion of unbridled fury is awesome for kruul, and will add a very hefty amount of damage to your attempt.

  4. Infernals are rootable if cast ~3s after they become active. This can help you really push kruul

  5. Many, MANY attempts were wasted not understanding how to time Nether Horrors with killing variss. Your attempt will be made light years easier transitioning at a good time. Not having horrors up as youā€™re prepping for annil and twisted and trying to position was the key to success for me.

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146

I get so many stacks having to charge interrupt and adds spawning back so fast I barely have time to hard cast starsurge after HOTW ends xP

147

is there a certain pathing? I donā€™t have a problem getting to phase 2, but I get overwhelmed by adds/annihilates or blow thru the Orbs a little too quickly.
Iā€™ve gotten pretty close though, down to 20k. Iā€™d say Iā€™ve done like 7-10 attempts so far.

148

Aight Iā€™m clearly doing something wrong. Iā€™ve got the mechanics for p1 more or less down. I just donā€™t do enough damage. To anything. I can keep adds of Velen, thatā€™s super easy. Interrupts are easy. I can avoid the infernals. The eyes are a little irritating but the worst that usually happens is I just get knocked across the platform and have to reposition, which rarely happens now. Best I got is like 20%ā€¦ on phase 1 Iā€™ve got a few socketed pieces and donā€™t currently have access to the trinkets that everyone is beating him with. The scaling just seemsā€¦ off. 60% off the first HotW doesnā€™t seem attainable for me. Star surge on cd, keeping up dots and using unbridled fury gets me to like 75%. Iā€™ve got 4 infernals by 30% and then Iā€™m dead.

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149

can you record your play? Iā€™m sure youā€™re missing some globals in more than a few places if thatā€™s the case!

150

ā€˜ā€˜Mechagon cyclotronic card does about 10-15% of the bosses hp.ā€™ā€™
What about people who didnt play in BFA and dont have 11 days to get revered to get a trinket that does TEN PERCENT boss hp. im so doneā€¦

2 Likes
151

I can try! I play on a laptop though. Itā€™s a beast comp for sure, but still a laptop lol.

152

OH. I use typhoon on the first, and then I orb the first set so I can just pump the damage.

I didnā€™t use it, so itā€™s definitely still doable. Itā€™ll also likely be nerfed, so dont stress too much. Just get your practice in and get as many moonkin casts as you can.

Sounds good! Keep it up!

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153

watching darkmech on Ytube do the challengeā€¦ his opener isā€¦
HOTW > wrath x 2 > starfire x 2 > star surge.
the bosses hp is around 80%ā€¦
when i follow this EXACT rotation the bosses hp above 90% by the end of the starsurgeā€¦!!!
its such a shame, im literally pulling my hair out i cannot do that damage.

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154

These wonā€™t work for long, Bliz is nerfing the crap out of items that make it easier, they just destroyed crusaders and a self heal trinket

155

omg they made it harder. I was getting to 5% on phase 2 and now i canā€™t even get to phase 2 with the dmg

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156

Now that Iā€™ve done it and had a moment to digest, I decided to give my version of the Mage Tower guide for Guardian Druids. Note that this is my personal experience and how I ended up getting the challenge completed, but there are many viable routes aside from what I list here. A lot of this has been covered by others, but I think it is about figuring out what works best for you and makes up for your weakest points.

GEAR:
I have hardly played this xpac so I didnā€™t have much in the way of ideal gear but I did go and farm a few items to give me the edge since I was struggling to get past the 3-4% on Kruul.

I used Heart of Azeroth gear in the head, shoulders, and chest. While the bonuses were disabled and they donā€™t have secondary stats, the stat budget for stam and agi was much higher than anything else I had after being scaled. I used a Prydaz in the neck with a +3 agi gem. I used the Dreamgrove bracers since they had a socket and I popped in a +7 agi gem. I also used the BoA legendary cloak for the stats. The rest of the gear I used, aside from trinkets, was my normal Shadowlands gear. For my weapon enchant I messed around with Celestial Guidance, Sinful Brand, and Lightless Force. I personally found LF to be the worst choice. The procs were super unreliable and rarely helped with add clean-up. I had much better luck with CG and SB. I used CG for my kill since I was averaging a 45% uptime on CG, while my SB uptime was averaging around 25%. Now for the elephant in the roomā€¦. trinkets.

There are tons of good options, most of which I didnā€™t have. I used a Ravaged Seed Pod (RSP) from EN as my main go-to. Itā€™s ridiculously good for add clean-up with the nether horrors and the leech was great to have, all on a 1 min CD. I tested out a Gilded Loa Figurine and found it had too low uptime. I used a Hymnal of the Path (HotP) which I found to be a fantastic choice. I had Golgannethā€™s Vitality equipped for my kill, but I wouldnā€™t recommend it. It wasnā€™t bad, but it doesnā€™t hold up to Hymnal and I made a mistake in forgetting to equip Hymnal as intended. I also used an Infallible Tracking Charm (ITC) BOA trinket since it gives a 10% bonus to demons on proc with decent uptime. I found the RSP, HotP, and ITC trinkets to be the best options that I had. I didnā€™t have the rep for the Mechagon blast trinket component but if I had that, I would have kept that instead for sure since itā€™s huge damage on Kruul.

My personal recommendations for trinkets are:

ITC, RSP, HotP, a Pocket-Sized Computation Device with the cyclotronic blast punchcard, and a Reactive Defense Matrix if you have it. I also tried to get a Riftworld Codex from Portal Keeper (Antorus) and a Feverish Carapace from Goroth (Tomb of Sargeras) but they didnā€™t drop. I remember having great results with both of those trinkets back in Legion in the Mage Tower. I would recommend giving those a go if you have access to them and reporting back with their performance since they may be great options for those who are still trying to find the edge they need. Other trinkets I wanted to try were the Idol from Uuā€™nat, Edict from Queenā€™s Court (EP), Phial from Radiance of Azshara (EP), Razorcoral from Ashvane (EP), Dragonscale from Wrathion (NYA) for the speed, and Torment in a Jar from Xanesh (NYA).

ENCHANTS:

  • Neck ā€“ Mark of the Hidden Satyr
  • Cloak ā€“ Stam+Leech
  • Chest ā€“ Eternal Skirmish
  • Bracers - +4 agi
  • Boots - +15 agi
  • Rings - +16 vers
  • Weapon ā€“ Celestial Guidance (though as stated prior, Sinful Brand would be a great alternative) I was unable to get any war-scrolls but I would recommend them if you can get them.

TALENTS:
I went with 1-3-1-3-2-2-1. I chose HotW over Mighty Bash because of the tuning differences and finding it was far more beneficial to save and burn orbs to stun Kruul and get through P1 with as few infernals as possible. In Legion, MB was the move, but in TW I think itā€™s the wrong move. I went with GG over Incarn because it helped push p1 and if youā€™re smart about orbs in p2, you donā€™t need the extra HP to survive an Annihilate since you can just delay #4 with orbs and burn before the 5th happens. I stuck with Survival because Barkskin for horror adds was a stronger choice than looking for EW for p2.

CONSUMABLES:

  • Greater flash off the currents
  • Sweet Silvergill Sausages or Stake a la Mode (whichever I had, though I used SSS for the kill)
  • Shadowcore Oil
  • Drums (Deathly Ferocity was cheapest)
  • Potion of Unbridled Fury (as must imo)
  • Spiritual Healing Potion (was what I had)
  • Heavy Desolate Armor kit
  • Lightforged Augment Rune (you can use it as soon as you zone in).

TIPS & TRICKS [in no particular order]

  • You can pre-pot before you zone in. Just open the window for the npc, hit your pot, then immediately zone. This will net you around 22-25 seconds of pot uptime after the RP starts and when you zone in it resets the pot CD so you will have your pot up for Kruul too.

  • Opener was boomkin form > Wrath > Wrath > HotW > Starsurge > MF/SF dots > Starfire until Starsurge was back. I used Typhoon to interrupt Drain Life every time I was in laser chicken form. I also kept on Variss until the first horror add set reach Velen, then I threw out a Sunfire on all horrors, popped into bear form, charged in, tossed down my RSP, and Thrash/Swiped them until dead.

  • If youā€™re running Balance Affinity, you can be right on the edge of the decay zone in p1 and still hit Variss with thrash and swipe if youā€™re jumping. You need to jump otherwise you wonā€™t land the hit.

  • Always monitor your decay aura stacks. One of the worst things you can do is to push stacks, run out, and then have to interrupt and clip a new stack before it falls off. I would highly recommend getting both WAs and the DBM-Challenges plugin so you can monitor the timer for Drain Life and plan ahead.

  • If you are running a Ravaged Seed Pod, you can rotate between popping RSP and Barkskin for the horror adds. RSP should be up for every other spawn. You can still pop Barkskin with it if youā€™re low or if you have some infernals and/or higher aura stacks.

  • Something most people arenā€™t mentioning, is the stacking debuff from the horror adds melee hits. It increases your arcane damage taken with each stack. Their cast is arcane damage. You need to focus the horror adds asap, so donā€™t ignore them. Group them up, then burn. They are your priority every time they are up with exception of Kruulā€™s Twisted Reflections cast.

  • Another thing I havenā€™t seen anyone mention is that the eyes from p1 despawn as soon as Kruul pops down. You can ignore the eyes and push Variss if you are good at managing the beam/knock backs. This will save a few GCDā€™s that you could otherwise put into Variss to push p1 quicker.

  • In p2 pool your rage and only use it for frenzied regens after a stomp or an annihilate and for IFā€™s right before the Annihilate casts themselves. You donā€™t need to waste rage on IF for Kruulā€™s melee hits or the nether horror adds.

  • In p2, you should always be aware of where Velen is and the horror add spawn timers. You never want to run into a spot where you canā€™t get to an orb or the adds before they nuke Velen. You can, as a clutch move, use incap then either dash or roar to an orb. You can also use bull rush if youā€™re a HM tauren.

  • Try to push into p2 with no horror adds up. If you can manage pushing without infernals up as well that would be ideal.

  • Dot up the infernals so they die at different times. You want to avoid having all of them up at the same time if possible.

  • Once you get to Annihilate 3, you will want to start looking to abuse orbs. Try to be smart about it and line usage up with the horror adds if you can and donā€™t stray too far from the orbs but make sure you give yourself a path to get to orbs cleanly without baiting the stomp puddles in all the wrong spots.

  • Donā€™t forget to jump over the beams if you get caught. Donā€™t run through it since youā€™ll get pushed back further.

  • Use your pot, drums, and berserk as soon as Kruul comes down and is in melee range.

ANNIHILATE CD ROTATION:
1 = Nothing (or one stack of IF if youā€™re under 60% hp)
2 = IFx2
3 = SI+ IFx2
4 = SI+Bark+IFx2
5 = Orbs to delay and push before it hits. (you shouldnā€™t hit this one but if you do, as long as there are no nether horror adds up, Velen and Korā€™vas can push the last 1-2% you need. Itā€™s the nether horror adds that will end the fight.

If you can get to the 3-4% mark by the 4th Annihilate you have the dps to finish it out, itā€™s just a matter of mechanics and some RNG at that point.

Above I posted a link to the WeakAuras pack. I would recommend getting the audio queue pack linked in the description as well. Helps a lot. I did also duplicate the drain life and twisted reflection WAs and set an air horn queue for the cast times to double up and be safe.

For DBM, itā€™s called DBM-Challenges. Install DBM proper and the Challenges plug-in and youā€™re good to go.

Good luck everyone!

6 Likes
157

Iā€™ve decided to try this since all the hard talk is motivating me. Iā€™ll report back. I plan to use very minimal anything like with the boomy one. I did play bfa and do have access to that super blast punchcard thing buuuut I donā€™t have the trinket that it goes into nor the mats to craft another one and I certainly canā€™t be bothered to do old content to get another lol. Soā€¦ Iā€™ll report back.

3 Likes
158

Goodluck! LMKI how it goes:D

1 Like
159

How does that work out damage wise? I pop HotW, Starsurge > MF > SF > Wrath > Wrath > Wrath > until Starsurge is back up.

I usually get two Starsurges in my opener before having to focus on Nether Horrors. I may be missing out some DPS Iā€™m not aware of by not being in Eclipse for my first Starsurge

160

Nope! what youā€™re doing is correct. He is doing the boomy rotation in which case it IS important to go into eclipse first, because starsurge benefits from your mastery then. You dont have that mastery as guardian, so starsurge should do the same damage regardless of eclipse status :slight_smile:

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161

Let me correct that

Itā€™s SS > MF > SF > Starfire > Starfire > Wrath until SS is back up.

That way Iā€™m benefitting from the increase Crit and faster cast time from Eclipse state with Wrath

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