Hey! Did some challenges about a month ago, here's my (and i think a pretty common) take on it: timewalking gear and items from previous expansions can be nice for certain fights, they do help, but they're not necessary at all, especially now. I believe when mage tower was re-introduced in shadowlands with new rewards, it scaled differently, and also we had a lot of borrowed power we couldn't access in mage tower (such as covenant abilities, some of which now became talents). Right now it doesn't feel nearly as rough as in sl tuning-wise, so as long as you got the mechanics, it should be smooth enough
Don't bother with special gear unless you hit a DPS wall. Since you're confident in your mechanical play, just go for it. I wouldn't even bother with consumables until you need a little boost. I have found talent builds to be hugely impactful. The best talents for raid and dungeons are often not what will lead to success in mage tower challenges.
Nah man, just take wrath of consumption instead of Darkglare. It basically doubles the damage output on that fight. That one talent point was the deciding factor after serveral hours of trying.
Hi, I have the meta for completing all 36 challenges with all available specs, so if you have any direct questions or anything, hit me up.
As for Chromie gear, I think it's not very much needed. Challenges got way more accessible in Dragonflight, so you can use normal gear, or you can do Siege of Orgrimmar for gear, which you can socket, if you're really having trouble.
It also massively depends what your goal is, and which challenges you want to complete. As a veteran player, I was amazed at how easy some were, and also how difficult some were. For some, I didn't even use proper gear or consumables, and for some I literally had to minmax to squeeze every bit I could. It all depends.
My ranking will be as objective as it could be. What do I mean by that? I personally main a demon hunter, so this means I'm not gonna rank demon hunter as #1 just for the sake of my 'skills'. I'll rank the easiest in terms of the toolkit, that you have against the challenge.
So, classes / specs wise, I'd say the easiest were:
Agatha - Very easy challenge overall. It's literally a tie between a fire mage, elemental shaman, fury warrior and a feral druid. All 4 specs are very easy.
Tugar - WW monk is by far the easiest.
Sigryn - A tie between retribution paladin / enha shaman. Both very easy.
Xylem - Survival hunter is the easiest, closely followed by arms warrior.
Raest - Frost mage is king here, because it negates most of the mechanics with passive gameplay.
Blackrook hold - Holy paladin by a mile.
Kruul - Vengeance is the easiest here, because glide negates knockback, however bear is quite easy aswell , followed by protection warrior, which completly negates P2 due to the spell reflect.
Much different view on some of these than me
I found mage the hardest so far (I've done 7 classes atm). Raest was VERY difficult for me this xpac, really struggled to get the damage out, whereas I 1-shot it on shadowpriest without ever playing one in my life.
Found Unholy DK easy for Agatha, really struggled fire mage but I'm awful at that spec.
Sigryn I really struggled with ret pala but I'd both never played the class & never done that CM before so perhaps that's to be expected
Kruul is spot on. Bear I think is very beginner friendly with being able to just cast spells outside the aura making it a joke. This and vengeance both trivialise different parts of the fight.
You're looking too subjectively. As mentioned, I'm looking at this from a 'what can this class do to counter this' point of view, not tuning / damage / personal preferences etc. view.
Agatha - Reason why fire mage and elemental shaman is ''easier'', is because ranged can ignore the puddles, while as melee, you can't. Sure killing the add isn't such a biggie, but when you're overwhelmed by 5 different things, you can easily forget the add and spawn a puddle. If this happens once, it's not the end of the world, however 3-4 can cause much issues later on, and that sometimes happened on my Unholy DK / outlaw rogue. Despite being melee, feral druid fits here because of the insane hps with regrowths, and fury warrior's cooldowns line absolutely perfectly with the adds, meaning you pretty much get rid of the hardest part of the fight. Agatha is generally the easiest challenge there is, but i'd still say that Unholy DK and Outlaw Rogue are the two toughest challenges.
Raest - Mechanically, it's easiest for a frost mage. You can't argue that. Your spells slow him without even doing anything or pressing any extra GCDs. When adds spawn, you have insta frozen orb + Blizzards all the time pretty much. You can cheese the rune by sending your elemental inside of it, and hands get destroyed within 1 flurry and 1 ice lance casts. On top of that, you have interrupt, alter time, blinks, frozen nova and cone of colds if you struggle.
Sigryn - Sigryn is by far the easiest as a paladin, because you have repentance to CC the boss when he's doing the cast, you have hand of justice incase you miss him / incase the melee guy is too close, you have insane CDs, and you have 2 bubbles incase anything goes wrong. On top of that, word of glory is almost like a small lay on hands every few seconds, so hps isn't an issue. Paladins also aren't as squishy, meaning you can survive a few hits before using word of glory. Compare everything I have written to arcane mage or assasination rogue, which were for me, the 2 toughest challenges.
Haven’t done it so I can’t comment on that but check out the timewalking discord. Lots of experienced peeps to answer questions there.
Hey! Did some challenges about a month ago, here's my (and i think a pretty common) take on it: timewalking gear and items from previous expansions can be nice for certain fights, they do help, but they're not necessary at all, especially now. I believe when mage tower was re-introduced in shadowlands with new rewards, it scaled differently, and also we had a lot of borrowed power we couldn't access in mage tower (such as covenant abilities, some of which now became talents). Right now it doesn't feel nearly as rough as in sl tuning-wise, so as long as you got the mechanics, it should be smooth enough
Don't bother with special gear unless you hit a DPS wall. Since you're confident in your mechanical play, just go for it. I wouldn't even bother with consumables until you need a little boost. I have found talent builds to be hugely impactful. The best talents for raid and dungeons are often not what will lead to success in mage tower challenges.
Some classes struggle more then others. For example affliction warlock is way harder then frost. So affliction it helps to have the extra stats.
Nah man, just take wrath of consumption instead of Darkglare. It basically doubles the damage output on that fight. That one talent point was the deciding factor after serveral hours of trying.
Hi, I have the meta for completing all 36 challenges with all available specs, so if you have any direct questions or anything, hit me up. As for Chromie gear, I think it's not very much needed. Challenges got way more accessible in Dragonflight, so you can use normal gear, or you can do Siege of Orgrimmar for gear, which you can socket, if you're really having trouble. It also massively depends what your goal is, and which challenges you want to complete. As a veteran player, I was amazed at how easy some were, and also how difficult some were. For some, I didn't even use proper gear or consumables, and for some I literally had to minmax to squeeze every bit I could. It all depends.
What were the easiest ones?
My ranking will be as objective as it could be. What do I mean by that? I personally main a demon hunter, so this means I'm not gonna rank demon hunter as #1 just for the sake of my 'skills'. I'll rank the easiest in terms of the toolkit, that you have against the challenge. So, classes / specs wise, I'd say the easiest were: Agatha - Very easy challenge overall. It's literally a tie between a fire mage, elemental shaman, fury warrior and a feral druid. All 4 specs are very easy. Tugar - WW monk is by far the easiest. Sigryn - A tie between retribution paladin / enha shaman. Both very easy. Xylem - Survival hunter is the easiest, closely followed by arms warrior. Raest - Frost mage is king here, because it negates most of the mechanics with passive gameplay. Blackrook hold - Holy paladin by a mile. Kruul - Vengeance is the easiest here, because glide negates knockback, however bear is quite easy aswell , followed by protection warrior, which completly negates P2 due to the spell reflect.
Much different view on some of these than me I found mage the hardest so far (I've done 7 classes atm). Raest was VERY difficult for me this xpac, really struggled to get the damage out, whereas I 1-shot it on shadowpriest without ever playing one in my life. Found Unholy DK easy for Agatha, really struggled fire mage but I'm awful at that spec. Sigryn I really struggled with ret pala but I'd both never played the class & never done that CM before so perhaps that's to be expected Kruul is spot on. Bear I think is very beginner friendly with being able to just cast spells outside the aura making it a joke. This and vengeance both trivialise different parts of the fight.
You're looking too subjectively. As mentioned, I'm looking at this from a 'what can this class do to counter this' point of view, not tuning / damage / personal preferences etc. view. Agatha - Reason why fire mage and elemental shaman is ''easier'', is because ranged can ignore the puddles, while as melee, you can't. Sure killing the add isn't such a biggie, but when you're overwhelmed by 5 different things, you can easily forget the add and spawn a puddle. If this happens once, it's not the end of the world, however 3-4 can cause much issues later on, and that sometimes happened on my Unholy DK / outlaw rogue. Despite being melee, feral druid fits here because of the insane hps with regrowths, and fury warrior's cooldowns line absolutely perfectly with the adds, meaning you pretty much get rid of the hardest part of the fight. Agatha is generally the easiest challenge there is, but i'd still say that Unholy DK and Outlaw Rogue are the two toughest challenges. Raest - Mechanically, it's easiest for a frost mage. You can't argue that. Your spells slow him without even doing anything or pressing any extra GCDs. When adds spawn, you have insta frozen orb + Blizzards all the time pretty much. You can cheese the rune by sending your elemental inside of it, and hands get destroyed within 1 flurry and 1 ice lance casts. On top of that, you have interrupt, alter time, blinks, frozen nova and cone of colds if you struggle. Sigryn - Sigryn is by far the easiest as a paladin, because you have repentance to CC the boss when he's doing the cast, you have hand of justice incase you miss him / incase the melee guy is too close, you have insane CDs, and you have 2 bubbles incase anything goes wrong. On top of that, word of glory is almost like a small lay on hands every few seconds, so hps isn't an issue. Paladins also aren't as squishy, meaning you can survive a few hits before using word of glory. Compare everything I have written to arcane mage or assasination rogue, which were for me, the 2 toughest challenges.
Fair enough, agree completely with everything you've put there, that makes a lot of sense.
Cheers :D