My First Mage Tower Session - Archmage Xylem

Community General Discussion
1

Hey. It’s me.

Anyway while I’ve been trying to get two more Challenge Points in Path of Exile of Scourge League (The Feared while the Maven releases 5 endgame bosses at once… lol…), I’d figured that I should try out the Mage Tower Challenge while it lasts and I picked up the Frost DK challenge before any other challenge because it’s my favorite spec in the game despite its flaws.

Despite all of that, I checked out the Mage Tower and found out that my opponent was Archmage Xylem… and I wiped to him 25 times with the furthest I’ve got was P2 when the boss had 25% health left…

… and OH BOY I can understand why some people are fuming over this. Some people say git gud while exploiting the Crusader enchant and to those people I say that they are probably the same people that would say that “Sylvanas will be redeemed” after seeing the video of the latest in-game cinematic without watching it. (DON’T YOU LIE TO ME)

My question about this guy is… Do you guys P2 of this one is overtuned or is it fine as it is? Because I think P1 of Archmage Xylem is kind of easy if you know how to juggle your sustain through his Razor Ice Prison as well as always reserving your kicks for Drain Power.

So far, my takeaway from his P1 is…

  • In Frost Phase, kick his Frostbolt. You’ll need all the sustain to combat the damage of Comet Storm. It’s not overwhelming amount of damage but it’s just enough to kill you if you don’t do anything. I’m a Death Knight: Death Strike and Rime are crucial for this along with BoS and FWF to help eliminate the razorice as well!
  • If you have abilities that gives you a massive amount of sustain when you kill something (Dark Succor, Victory Rush), killing the Razor Ice is actually very important. Don’t cleave them, actually prioritize on killing them. I tried to grip Xylem close to me and cleave off of him and the results are pretty poor. I died very often trying this.
  • In Arcane Phase, unless you have an excess amount of kicks, reserve your kick for Drain Power. Because the last thing you want is for him to deal more deeps than he already does.
  • In Intermission Phase, and this is probably the most important part for me to safely phase through this, TAKE YOUR TIME. You have 40 seconds to get to the other side of the quadrant of the Ley Line and all you gotta do is stand next to the shimmer. Kick the images in order to not get knock back, stand on the bubble for heals and cooldowns and make your way to the shimmer to stop him from one shotting you. The tick damage is pretty brutal so you can kill one or two copies of him to top yourself off.

… and now P2 is where I bang my head on the table when I failed the deeps check after popping Drums, Pot, Cooldowns and everything where the boss is like HUR DUR DUR RUN AWAY LITTLE GIRL wasting my Breath like a freaking idiot when the three adds are needed to be dealt with… and in hindsight, I should have just saved my cooldowns for this particular phase.

But the furthest I’ve got was 25% health… Which raised a question if my kiting was either not good enough, not doing enough dammies or the boss is overtuned as all heck as I executed all the mechanics properly in one pull without minding much damage minimally.

I don’t know, what do you guys think?

2 Likes
2

I think it might be ever so slightly over-tuned if it is at all.

I remember when doing this in Legion, I was always basically about to be out of room right before I could kill him. This time around, running into the same thing on my hunter–only barely missing it.

I think I am spending too much time slowing adds, not enough time nuking the moment they spawn. And with that in mind, it seems to be pretty much as it was.

3

I applaud you for making a good thread unlike 90% of the other threads here.

As a FDK, P1 is basically just spending RP on Deathstrike.

Intermission can be trivialized as long as you have AMS and DA. Kill the first mirror, locate xylem while healing in the bubble, then run directly through the center of the map with AMS/DA up.

After fixing my mistakes in P1, I think I cleared P2 on my fourth attempt; something along the lines of 30%, 24%, 16%, then success on the fourth pull in P2. Maximize your uptime with minimal movement, save FWF for first and fourth add spawn, stay as close to boss when possible after ads are dead (don’t waste anything but a cold heart proc, blinding sheet, and RW). Use AMS to generate extra RP when possible.

All the gear scales so best you can do is optimize what stats you have on said pieces. I used pure SL gear and consumables (what I’m wearing now), and a blue pvp wep for unending thirst in P1.

Pretty sure I forgot to str pot my last attempt and I still probably cleared with 10-15 secs of leeway.

2 Likes
4

Here’s a funny thing, I did not even bother getting Unending Thirst for P1. But then again, I can see it increases the success rate of dealing with the damage of Razor Ice.

So I just need to allocate my CDs better for P2. I should also probably bring more drums and consumables in my next session.

This session was purely for my own probing against this guy and the fact that I reached 25% on this guy AND reading this post makes me think that this guy is not impossible.

But it's not easy either so... There's that! xP
5

It sounds like you’re at the point where using consumables isn’t a waste of gold/resources. Sounds like you should be able to clear it soon.

1 Like
6

Awesome.

Will note that on my next session! :slight_smile:

7

Here’s a good strategy I came up with.

As soon as phase 2 starts. Drag the boss to the VERY MIDDLE of the room (on top of the iris) and drop 3 patches there. You run out when you get the add debuff (kill them of course) and then you slowly kite the boss around the border as normal.

The patches in the middle of the room barely miss taking up the entire platform because it actually has a grow distance cap. Thus you actually end up having more time to beat the boss.

Tried this once after my many failures and I got it first try.
Best of luck to you all.

8

How did you survived without it??? The ice murders me even with Unending thirst and crusader!