I have read so many of the guides and watched a ton of videos. I have over 300 attempts at the guardian druid mage tower. This is beyond broken. I am all for a challenge. I managed this in Legion. I dont usually take the time to write in the forums but this has been absolutely wrong on the part of Blizzard. The mobs are way over tuned. So much for Blizzards blue post saying you wont have to farm gear. Yes I know there are those elite players out there that always manage to do these challenges. Congrats to the .5% I never claimed to be in their league. I have spent over 200k in gold in mats and gear. My best attempt has been 9% in P2. This isnt fun. It isnt enjoyable. This has been soul crushing. We have been taunted with finally getting a new skin for the bears and now its damn near impossible. This feels like a big FU from Blizzard to us. I know I am not alone I have read the posts on here. This may be a breaking point for me from this game. At this point its hard to even care what Blizzard was thinking. Great job in wrecking this potentially great part of the game. When is Blizz going to get it. Players like to get loot and are willing to work for it, this is just an object lesson in frustration. Here is a thought why isnt this like LFR, first five attempts no changes, but stick with it and reward the player with a little help, give them the bonus damage and health they need to get through it. The point is to help people get through this not make it so damn tough most people wont put the effort in. There is enough eliteism with mythic raiding. Even if the bench marks for help were every 50 trys it would still be worth it. The players would appreciate it. Fix the gear issues. Dont make us farm gear for just one small piece of content, had enough of that in Vanilla. Please fix the mage tower, please get the coders working on this. If it stays the way it is more and more people are going to walk away.
Brother, well let me tell you my story real quick.
I messed around with mage tower back in Legion and I always regretted not doing any of the guardian druid forms. I quit the game after Legion, deleted all my characters and changed the email address to something I couldn’t remember so I wouldn’t be temped to come back.
Watching this game from a far the last 4 years I saw the mage tower was coming back and it finally dragged me in here two days ago. I created a brand new account, as you can see on the 21st. I bought Shadowlands and I Leveled a Hunter to 10 just to get the “feel” back. This morning I paid $60 to boost a druid to level 60 and get starter gear because the amount of time to level to 60 and the Tower would be over.
Over the last three days I have watched about 20 videos, read multiple sites and even watched some twitch people do it and asked questions after.
I completed the Guardian Druid mage tower four hours after my boost on pull number 18.
I am not saying this to tell you how great I am or that you need to be better or anything like that. I may have got lucky. Maybe the RNG was good to me. I survived at 1.5% health.
So I will just tell you, make sure you have every possible buff on you from food, augment, gear enchantments etc. Versatility is the KEY. Look at all my gear and replicate where you can. Make 100% sure you download the WA’s and setup macros. I wish I could join you and help you because I can tell how incredibly frustrated you are. So sorry for that. I hope you get something from my post that helps you succeed.
It is a pretty annoying fight but will say with all the nerfs that it has received nerfing it more would bee kinda ridiculous. I doo agree with the whole gearing part though I hate that old gear is allowed. I got the form in 68 tries will say though I was kinda just messing around with my friends watching for half of those pulls. I hate this but I recommend getting some old gear, no fault in using it if it’s allowed.
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you completed mage tower a full year and then some after it was released. You did the easiest version possible. A few months before BfA released. This is not that mage tower. This is the mage tower for the first 11 weeks it was released when you couldn’t out gear it and make it trivial
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I’m a casual. Nowhere near top .5% that you claim you need to be to complete this. I spent less than 20k for consumables (little for food and drums). Got it probably around 120 pulls in 90% SL gear/enchants/potions
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players like loot when it’s given to them at minimum effort. This content isn’t directed that those folks. This is meant to be a challenge. No more LFR level handouts.
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there’s no “needing” to farm old gear. A lot of us here posting on the forums are doing it in shadowlands gear. There’s no “needing to fix” the mage tower either. Get out of the entitlement era. Just because you can’t beat it doesn’t mean you need a participation trophy.
Just keep trying. Fix your mistakes from prior runs and viola. You’ve got it
Im not gonna lie, the first 20 had me questioning myself.
Like… I got up from the table, walked into the bathroom, looked into the mirror and asked, “Are you stupid?”
I honestly thought I was gonna walk in there, thrash a few mobs and be on my way.
lol WRONG
Once I buckled down though and took it seriously I got it with maybe a 6 hours of attempts.
Just keep at it!!!
I got it, and im like, REALLY stupid.
You made it to 9% in P2, you clearly are familiar with the mechanics of this encounter by now. I see that you optimized your gear already so the pregrind for it is already done. Fine tune P2 a few more times and I believe you can beat it.
^. This
If you got that far you got it
It’s called a challenge for a reason. Not everything has to be a freebie
never said it should be a freebie
Are you… sure ? I know it’s frustrating. 99% of players thought “how the absolute f am I supposed to do this”, but you adapt, and you get better. Check out the trinkets that make it easier such as the seed pod from first boss of EN
Well you’ve bashed Blizzard in every way possible about the Mage Tower. You called it impossible. Said it was strictly for elitists. And want it to be like LFR (which is a freebie). And you’ve never once given a shred of constructive criticism.
Asking for it to buff you until you can walk in and do it blind is asking for a freebie sir.
Saving this 
Jk jk 
Everyone in here is right OP. I know it’s frustrating but I promise it can be done. I hope you all have a great holiday.
By the way OP you’re likely stuck in the aggressive run it back stage where you’re not putting true effort into fixing mistakes. Take a breather. Sleep on it. Focus on actually improving and not just running it back for a new try hoping rng helps or something. I’d be willing to let you watch my screen in discord to get an example. I’ve not run it since I got it forever ago but I’m certain I could show solid pulls.
Lol. Nah I’m kidding.
I definitely had some moments though where I just threw my hands up and walked away. Not because it was hard, but because I’m dumb and like to hug infernalz.
Not going to comment on difficulty or nerfs or anything like that, it’s clearly doable, but I will say this.
They really succeeded in making this event VERY not fun for a really big number of their remaining subscribers. For a lot of people it’s the only content until 9.2. Restoring Mage tower should have been an easy win for Blizzard (even if they ruined it with FOMO), and it’s had the following effect:
-People who are really good are maybe having a good time, and maybe not.
-People who are not really good are probably having a terrible time.
Players who have terrible times tend to not stick around long. WoW can’t really afford many more drops in population after the mass exodus.
Personally I know it’s doable and in a couple days I’m going to take the time to try it out seriously, but after that win or lose I think the Que times in FF will be back to normal and that’s that.
Any new progress? Here is a really good thread you might want to follow:
Legion took me 37 attempts
This version took me 176.
(The legion version was toxic because you needed to farm shards as a currency in order to even attempt it…) but legion version let you hit variss with thrash outside of the circle of decay with balance affinity.
Anyway. This version is hard because it tests cognitive repetition. It literally forces you to get the encounter into muscle memory and react accordingly. It gets easier the more you do it simply because it becomes 2nd nature.
Keep doing it. Learn from mistakes. You’ll eventually get it.
This^^
Legion was a couple of pulls because i was grossly overgeared. Havent touched guardian since until about 2 days ago. Took me 122 pulls. I definately had some regression, where I would get kruul to 5% several times in a row, then not even get past varis a couple times. The time I finished it, i ended up doing a bit more kiting of kruul ariund velen. The biggest thing was the use of your defensives. This is what worked for me:
1st annihilate: ironfur stacks
2nd annihilate: ironfur and Barkskin
3rd annihilate: Surv inst and ironfur
4th annihilate: surv inst Barkskin and ironfur if you can.
Tips: have a health pot and a health stone for p2 when youre out of frenzied regen. Dont touch an orb unless the adds are all together( I had issues if i orbed when they were spawning as they would start their cast at the gateways and then just cast and swarm velen for an instant fail). Always be thrashing for 3 stacks, and never stop smashing buttons. When in doubt or out of range, keep pressing moonfire.
One last thing I noticed was you can push to p2 at really bad times. I found that when i was trying to rush I pushed to kruul when adds had just come out or were just spawning making things much more difficult. It takes a bit of time to get the 3rd infernal so take a bit of time with varis last 5% and set up better for p2
The only thing wrong with the difficulty level of mage tower is that it isn’t in the game full-time.
Otherwise, I’ve had an absolute blast. Got my spelltome last week. Wish they kept all the solo content up-to-date with fun rewards.
Most of the “unfun” factor was just feeling like I had to keep pushing, or I’d miss the window. If they had removed that pressure, I’d have called this a huge success. As it is now, it’s still a pretty fun feature.
The only thing wrong with mage tower guardian, is that it seems to be required to do it as a chicken and not as guardian. Imagine the DPS one requiring you to be in bear form for 50% of it?
There’s a video or two of people doing it in 100% bear. All you have to do is pay attention to your stacks from Variss. Chicken just allows you to skip the debuff and do a bit more dps at higher risk of dying.
It’s a solid trade off