With Moonkin becoming baseline for Balance only, how will that affect Guardian druids in the mage tower?
Every guide I’m reading says to pop Moonkin and go berserk on the 1st phase but with the removal of moonkin for guardians wouldn’t that make the mage tower even more difficult?
Possibly, we don’t know yet
I was under the impression most folks who wanted Mage Tower skins had already gotten them by now, you coming back from a break or something?
It will likely be overall easier not by a lot but hero talents will add a lot of strength plus there will likely be more “cheat” items
Yes, I had quit after HFC in Legion, played a little of S1 DF but came back in S4 of DF with plans to play all of TWW.
I completely skipped BFA and Shadowlands.
No, because Moonkin was just a faster way to phase 2. The actual issue with the fight was P2.
Ah gotcha, I regret not doing Mage Tower when I had the chance in legion. Seems like it was slightly easier when it was current content.
the current iteration of the mage tower is very very easy with the Dragonflight talents (and your amirdrassil helm enchant functions in there).
losing 10% spell dmg from boomkin form will not make a noticeable difference
well to be fair, the faster you get through phase 1, the less infernals you have in phase 2
Really? So it would be in my best interest to not use a timewalking helm with gem sockets and instead opt for current helms then?
uhh idk if a normal helm with your amirdrassil enchant is the BEST but i think you’ll be completely fine with whatever gear you use.
i did the shadowlands guardian druid mage tower when it was first released and it took me like 200 attempts or more.
but i did the others that i needed for the book mount quite recently and one shot most of them, even on classes that i never played like unholy dk (and i’m talking i never played this spec before, i was constantly looking at my bars because i hadn’t yet memorized my keybinds and i one shot it).
also a friend of mine who has never tanked ever just did the guardian mage tower and i think it took him 6 attempts or so - he used his normal DF gear
Yes
Basically any “twink” timewalking gear you can get your hands on helps, even if only a little bit… this may or may not involve going back and running “old” content/legacy raids/legacy dungeons to farm said gear, but some pieces can be bought straight off the AH
For the bear Druid challenge I stacked a bunch of +Vers, you’ll have to experiment and tinker with wipes/attempts to find out what works for you since everyone’s gameplay/playstyle is different
The good news is Mage Tower is “old news” so the prices are normal, when I was doing it in 2021 it cost me hundreds of thousands in gold to get myself twinked up… back then (during the hype) even a basic consumable/pot could sell for upwards of 1600 gold each! 
Shouldn’t be a big deal. I did it in season 4 without ever using moonkin form. P1 takes a little longer but P1 is easy anyway. (No special old gear just went and did it with casual DF gear)
I did it in like 5 tries was bearform entire time.
You can moonfire in bear form now. Nuke away.
The most impactful item for tank mage tower is an aoe trinket seedpod. It is from the first boss in emerald nightmare raid. Farm it and win.
The loss of bonus attack range is a bigger loss imho. You used to be able to stand on the outside of the bad and keep using Thrash and Swipe. And it also came in handy for kiting in 2nd phase.
I hate that they removed this, why???
i did it in 2023 before and i had to use all bear, feral and moonkin forms
managed to pass phase 1 with 1 infernal
managed to down kruul within 3 annihilate
this is the only way that i know to complete it because my bear form didnt do enough damage even with trinkets
so yeah i think losing moonkin form will reduce the dps for me (unless of course blizzard buff tank dps across the board in tww)
main if not only thing I hated about the tank mage tower challenge as guardian druid was how if you slip up once they fling you into space. I mean I recall grabbing the best stat food, overloading my claws of ursoc for bonus power, getting gear from the raid on Argus and still if not for my good timing on my dashes that fight would of drove me mad. Compared tot hat challenge killing the fel totem guy and his worm buddy was a cake walk once I understood that combo hit system windwalker monks had
I didn’t do any df content. would getting the bear form be possible for me? im just coming back as of this week
Yes it would, watch a guide on the guardian mage tower and start putting in some attempts.
Special socketed gear helps but it not needed to succeed.
If you are having trouble, you can go clear mythic siege of orgrimmar and should get a good amount of gear with sockets, then buy +4 agility gems on AH and use those.
If still having trouble, you can clear heroic siege of orgrimmar for more socketed gear.
Maybe normal as well? All gear scales down to 120 ilvl in mage tower, so you don’t want to use gear below 120 ilvl.
If normal siege of orgrimmar gear is 120 ilvl or higher you can use that too
I did it a few months ago without ever going into moonkin form. Just laser bear. And it was by far the easiest of the challenges, imo. Got to phase 2 with only 1 infernal up.
Note: I had a lot of experience with fight already having done it first with my blood dk in SL. So ymmv.