The race is on! Here’s how to get your Mage Tower appearance before time runs out

Okay, so you want one of the Artifact appearances available from the Mage Tower single-player challenge — and though it was introduced in patch 7.2, it’s possible you’ve put it off until the last minute. This means you’re on the clock: the challenge is going away in patch 8.0, which is due out July 17. But there’s still time if you hurry, so let’s talk about how to get your Mage Tower Artifact appearances done before patch day.

In order for you to complete this challenge, you must do a quest chain that’s unlocked by completing your Class Order hall campaign on the Broken Shore. There are multiple DPS as well as tanking and healing versions of the challenge, so you’ll run through one of several different scenarios — though you’ll see some overlap if you attempt the scenario on multiple classes.

The last step is one of seven quests, which are:

• Closing the Eye for Survival Hunters, Subtlety Rogues, Havoc Demon Hunters, Frost Death Knights, and Arms Warriors.
• Thwarting the Twins for Frost Mages, Shadow Priests, Balance Druids, Marksmanship Hunters, and Affliction Warlocks
• The God-Queen’s Fury for Arcane Mages, Retribution Paladins, Enhancement Shaman, Assassination Rogues, and Demonology Warlocks.
• Felltotem’s Fall for Beast Mastery Hunters, Windwalker Monks, Destruction Warlocks, and Discipline Priests.
• The Highlord’s Return for all tanking specs.
• End of the Risen Threat for Holy Priests, Holy Paladins, Mistweaver Monks, Restoration Druids, and Restoration Shaman.
• An Impossible Foe for Fury Warriors. Oh, and some other guys. Not really important. Oh, wait, the editors are staring at me, so I’ll mention that Feral Druids, Outlaw Rogues, Unholy Death Knights, Fire Mages, and Elemental Shaman also do this quest.

So you’ve finished your Class Order Hall campaign and are ready to start working on these challenges. What do you do?

Do your research

First off, do some research. I’ve been checking out Reddit for suggestions, and one of the things I’d never considered doing was looking at spreadsheets from people who’ve done the challenge on all 36 specs in the game. You can get a feel for how the various classes compare and it’s useful for zeroing in on what you need for the classes you play. For example, I wasn’t aware that the Agatha challenge, while still instanced, is considered to be on the Broken Shore and thus, any buffs that work on the Broken Shore work during this challenge. This means you can use specific buffs that only work in the Broken Isles/Shore.

There’s also quite a lot of advice for specific classes out there, such as this Assassination Rogue video, of this comprehensive guide to how to do the challenge on a Guardian Druid. I find myself watching videos of these attempts fairly constantly. I’ve heard that the healing challenge is one of the hardest, although I wouldn’t know specifically, as I have no max level healers in Legion to try it out on.

Do the preparation

Remember, if you haven’t done the proper quest chains yet, you won’t even be able to start on the Mage Tower. Every spec has a specific quest it has to complete (listed above) that will have you traveling to various places and lead into the tower challenge. The quest was part of the further progression of Artifacts before the Argus patch, so if you leveled after that you may need to go back and complete that to make your Mage Tower attempts. Wowhead has a fairly complete guide to getting a fresh 110 ready for the Mage Tower, and it should be useful for you even if you’re not a fresh 110 — there are links to guides for every single spec in the game at the bottom of the article. For convenience, here they all are:

• Blood, Frost, and Unholy Death Knights
• Havoc and Vengeance Demon Hunters
• Balance, Feral, Guardian, and Restoration Druids
• Beast Mastery, Marksmanship, and Survival Hunters
• Arcane, Fire, and Frost Mages
• Brewmaster, Mistweaver, and Windwalker Monks
• Holy, Protection, and Retribution Paladins
• Discipline, Holy, and Shadow Priests
• Assassination, Outlaw, and Subtlety Rogues
• Elemental, Enhancement, and Restoration Shaman
• Affliction, Demonology, and Destruction Warlocks
• Arms, Fury, and Protection Warriors

Some general advice

Some tips to keep in mind:

• The challenge costs 100 Nethershards per attempt. Hit up a few invasions or do some of the Broken Shore to make sure you’ve got a stockpile, or check your Mission Table to see if you’ve got any Nethershard reward missions you can do.
• Most guides recommend an ilevel above 900 — this is pretty easily attainable just by doing Argus dailies and getting the Relinquished items from there, as well as doing Antorus LFR and/or the World Bosses available through Invasion Points on Argus. If you can get to ilevel 930 or above, do so. The fights are instanced (although the Agatha fight is considered on the Broken Shore for purposes of buffs and consumables) so you can use items that work inside an instance like a flask or food.
• There are also specific legendaries that are often recommended for Mage Tower attempts. Pretty much every Mage Tower fight has been completed by someone not using them, but it’s worth checking to see if you have them to make things easier for yourself. (And if you don’t have the perfect Legendary set up, but do have 1000 Wakening Essence, go buy a random Legendary from Arcanomancer Vridiel in Dalaran.)
• A quest chain in Silithus will boost your Artifact all the way up to 75 Concordance, which is a big buff for most players. You have to do all of the Magni quest chain before you can get the boost, but it’s worth doing before you tackle the challenge.
• Don’t forget consumables. Be ready to use spec-appropriate food, flasks, runes, drums, potions, and anything else to give you an edge in these fights.

Use your time wisely

Though Blizzard has made the challenge available all the time, there’s only so much time left. But you can’t grind away at the challenge 24/7 (probably).

Plan to spend the time working on things like farming up Nethershards, gathering consumables, and watching other people’s attempts to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. I liked Ridmark’s Prot Warrior guide quite a bit. He’s also done videos for Arcane Mages, Mistweaver Monks, Frost Mages, Restoration Druids, Shadow Priests, Retribution Paladins, Feral Druids, Discipline Priests, Elemental Shaman, and Havoc Demon Hunters, plus he’s covered every tank spec doing the Mage Tower challenge. Even if your spec isn’t listed, watching these videos will give you an idea of how other classes do the challenge as well as letting you watch the fights, since each Mage Tower boss appears for several specs. But look around YouTube for videos of your spec’s challenge: you’ll likely find plenty of advice.

Also, this should be said — don’t be afraid to wipe and try again and wipe again, many times. These fights are complex with a lot of moving parts and they’re designed to be hard. Getting up to 900 or better ilevel can certainly help, as can consumables and the right legendaries, but these fights will in many cases still require you to learn some mechanics and that may take you a few tries to get all the moving pieces down. That’s not something to get upset or discouraged by. In many ways, this is the end point of what you can solo in Legion content, so remember to keep cool and keep trying.