There are a lot of guides on the best gear and enchantments etc for Mage Tower.
Is it all that necessary to be min/maxed?
Can I just go in with a character sitting at Shadowlands 233 ilevel and have a similar chance?
Yes.
No. 
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Yes and yes and 50/50.
If you’re a decent player that owns up to his own mistakes and have a willingness to do better, you’ll be fine in your gear.
Min/maxing will always increase your odds. Is it completely necessary? Nah.
Aside from a few Versatility pieces of gear, everything I used was made by my character (aside from 2 SL versatility gems).
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A lot of video guides have people completing their towers in all Shadowlands gear. I swapped back and forth for mine and had similar performance between the two. Yes, you can minmax, but it’s not going to make up for poor mechanics.
I’ve been struggling for days… Got the gear I have on now just yesterday and it makes a world of difference.
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There’s a sliding scale of leniency depending on how optimal your gear is.
The less optimized you are, the closer to perfect you have to play. The more optimized you are, the more room for error you have. No major errors ofc, but you are afforded a range of breathing room with gear.
I struggled the whole time in SL gear, getting the kruul in the tank challenge to 1.9% on my best attempt. Then a pally posted a thread on reddit where they only had 9 slots of gear and I saw that I had 100 less strength with every slot filled. So I went shopping on the AH, and that was it. I went back to the MT and waltzed through it in one go. Granted, I already knew the fight like the back of my hand, but I was pumping dps so I just didn’t have to worry about things as much.
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Most important part in this challenge is keeping a cool head to beat it. After trying for sometimes, it’s easy to become frustrated, as many mechanics are basically one shot. In my opinion, the big advantage on using an old set is the low repair cost. Enchants can be useful, but not a sure way to win. Focus must be on learning from mistakes and paying attention to resources and the boss patterns.
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Do certain old bits of gear help? Yes
Are they needed? No
Plenty of people are doing them in pure SL gear.
It is meant to be hard. That’s the whole point.
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Min/max gear is not required, it is just an option to give yourself a little edge but you’ll still have challenges to overcome. It is entirely possible to do it in current gear, many people have. Just depends on how you handle the mechanics.
I couldn’t meet the soft enrage damage check in Shadowlands gear, so I recommend getting some gimmick gear/spec/gems/enchants and (optional) consumables.
Gimmick gear costs less to repair and can help bridge the gap in personal ability.
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Might try both ways for myself as it seems pretty 50/50 maybe 40/60 towards not mattering.
Are people using legion greens and crafted items for the lower level gear? Or do I get it from dungeons?
If you get a full set of bis timewalking gear with gems and enchants, there is no guarantee that just hours later it will not be nerfed into the ground and made useless.
If any piece of gear above 50 item level is scaled to 50 item level so your gear doesn’t really matter. The only thing that will boost your power are sum enchants and if you are able to get sockets. None of this is necessary to beat the challenge. I beat it with all current season gear.
Nope. Eiter gotta utilize the timewalking system, or get gud.
Alot of people dont realize you can get a sweet pair of bracers from your Legion class hall that gets a socket and you can chant.
Otherwise, seems to depend how far people will go to gear for something they will finish and maybe never touch that gear again.
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I’d love to see someone do Arms in just SL gear. Good luck with that.
No, you’re going to need all of that gear to have a chance of beating it. At the very least 2 TRINKETS to help. Unless you want 1000 wipes before completion
I stand corrected, looks like you can do it easily with a Rank 5 Jaithys according to that uploader. Totally fair x_x
I’m sure being good enough to raid at a HoF level probably contributes a bit more, but like everything else in WoW, the better you are at the game the less gear you need.