End of the Risen Threat: a Legion Timewalking Mage Tower Guide for Healers (2024)

This challenge, End of the Risen Threat is meant for most of thehealer specializations:Holy Priest,Holy Paladin,Mistweaver Monk,Restoration Druid,and Restoration Shaman.It is currently available in the Broken Shore hub area at all times, and you nolonger need to wait for a Legion Timewalking event to be active.

In order to reach this area, you can take a portal from Orgrimmar / Stormwind'sportal room to Azsuna and then fly or take the flight path to the Broken Shorehub, Deliverance Point. You can also use the Dalaran Hearthstoneto quickly reach Dalaran and then fly to Deliverance Point.

In this challenge you will need to defeat all enemies and the final boss,Lord Erdris Thorn, in a 7-stage encounter.

If any of your allies dies in the process, you get booted out of thechallenge, so keeping everyone healthy is also fundamental.

Ultimately, many of the enemy abilities are designed to cause unhealable damageunless dealt with by your utility and / or strategy. We will explain below whatto watch out for and how to neutralize each ability.

Because inside the Mage Tower Challenge you have your gear scaled to itemlevel 120, the best gear you can use is gear above 120 that has multiplesockets available such as Legion's crafted legendaries ( Vigilance Perch),and enchants that scale well at 50 such as Enchant Neck - Mark of the Ancient Priestess.

Heart of Azeroth and Ashjra'kamas, Shroud of Resolve have extra statsrelative to comparable gear for the neck and cloak slot, making them great options.

You can also get some old trinkets which are very powerful when downscaled,but with the current tuning of the challenges, just using your regular gearshould be perfectly fine as long as you follow this guide and get a decentamount of practice with the challenge itself.

To allow these challenges to present a consistent level of difficulty over time,your various borrowed power systems will not function within the Mage Towerchallenges. This includes:

• Dragonflight Embellishments
• Any Covenant-related effects (Covenant Ability,Signature Ability, Soulbinds, Conduits)
• Legendary Powers from Shadowlands or Legion (theitems will still provide stats, their equip effects will not)
• Legendary items from Questlines ( Ashjra'kamas, Shroud of Resolve,Warlords of Draenor Legendary Rings, Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest, Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings)
• Any Shards of Domination
• Any Battle for Azeroth systems (Azerite Gear, Traits, Essences)
• Any tier set bonuses
• Mists of Pandaria Legendary Meta Gems

Disclaimer: the enchants listed below are meant for Timewalking gear pieces.If you are using current tier armor, most of the enchants listed will not workand you should instead use regular enchants, as many of these enchants only workon low item level gear.

Slot	Option 1	Option 2
Neck	Enchant Neck - Mark of the Ancient Priestess	Enchant Neck - Mark of the Claw / Enchant Neck - Mark of the Trained Soldier
Shoulder	Greater Crane Wing Inscription	Secret Crane Wing Inscription (if Scribe)
Cloak	Enchant Cloak - Minor Power	Enchant Cloak - Fortified Leech
Chest	Enchant Chest - Eternal Stats	Enchant Chest - Glorious Stats
Bracers	Enchant Bracers - Eternal Intellect
Gloves	Enchant Gloves - Major Spellpower
Belt	Living Steel Belt Buckle	Ebonsteel Belt Buckle / Eternal Belt Buckle
Legs	Brilliant Spellthread	Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
Boots	Enchant Boots - Greater Haste / Enchant Boots - Greater Versatility / Enchant Boots - Greater Precision	Enchant Boots - Pandaren's Step
Rings	Current ring enchants
Weapon	Enchant Weapon - Machinist's Brilliance	Enchant Weapon - Jade Spirit

While current gems are fine, we would recommend using primarystat gems whenever possible. For healers, these would be Burning Primal Diamondor Burning Shadowspirit Diamond on a helm meta gem socket and one Leviathan's Eye of Intellect, one Kraken's Eye of Intellect, one Saber's Eye of Intellect, and as many Timeless Tanzanites as you canget.

Also, Queen's Garnets can be easily obtained via the Auction House (farmed atthe Dragon Soul old raid) and are used to craft Brilliant Queen's Garnet.

While you can use your regular flasks in Timewalking content,they have a much lower effect due to the downscaling involved.

Thus, is is preferred to use flasks from Battle for Azeroth (31 Primary Stats)or flasks from Legion (21 Primary Stats).

Using a Pocket-Sized Computation Device (Mechagon) with the Cyclotronic Blast red card inside provides a high amount of burst damage,which can be useful in some of the stages where there are priority targets.

Unstable Arcanocrystal (Withered J'im Legion World Boss) and Chipped Soul Prism (Doom Lord Kazzak Warlords of Draenor World Boss)both provide a very high amount of stats.

While each stage has its own dangers, you will be required to performstrong single-target healing on friendly NPCs that do not appear on raid framesin the later stages. Make absolutely sure that you have your best single-targetheals on mouseover keybinds ready to go before starting, in order to avoidwasting precious attempts because of UI issues.

You will also need to dispel one NPC that is not on your party frames lateron, so make sure to have it ready and keybound ahead of time.

The first stage is also the most challenging, as you will face relentless wavesof three types of enemies, all of which have abilities that can end your run immediately:

• Corrupted Risen Mages chain cast Arcane Blitz,a high-damage single-target spell that boosts the damage of further casts by 50%for a short duration and stacks. Any sort of cast disruption you can land on aMage will make it lose all damage stacks, so stop them after they get off one ortwo casts before damage is too high and one shots you or your party members;
• Corrupted Risen Soldiers mostly melee, can critical strike, andcan enrage and fixate you or your teammates. They also periodically cast Knife Dance, which does a lot of AoE damage to all of your group;
• Corrupted Risen Arbalests shoot random targets and use Mana Sting, a dispellable debuff which drains Mana and deals significantdamage per tick. Have one of your allies take the shot for you and instantlydispel it to make this ability almost irrelevant.

You counter Corrupted Risen Mages by focusing damage on them anddisrupting them to reset stacks if they get more than one or two casts off.Corrupted Risen Soldiers should be disrupted on their Knife Dancesor, alternatively, you can use healing cooldowns to power through the damage.Also, either use a personal cooldown or run away from their fixates to reducedamage taken. Finally, make sure to position yourself behind an ally whenCorrupted Risen Arbalests cast Mana Sting and be ready to instantlydispel it as soon as it lands.

Because of the difficulty of this stage, we will cover each wave of enemiesthat you need to face individually:

1. 1 Arbalest — this is the easiest wave and you can justfocus on positioning for the Mana Sting while helping with DPS;
2. 1 Arbalest, 1 Mage — focus down the Mage as quickly as possiblewhile using any interrupts, stuns, or displacements to stop its Arcane Blitzcasts;
3. 1 Soldier, 1 Mage — similar to before, focus the Mage quicklywhile disrupting its casts. Remember to stun or displace the Knife Dancecast once it begins, which will give you more than enough time to kill theMage before another dance begins. Do not underestimate the damage of the Soldierfixates, as unlucky incoming crits can easily ruin your day;
4. 2 Soldiers, 1 Mage — this is the hardest wave, as having twosoldiers will make the double Knife Dance much more dangerous andyou will have to run away or use a personal immediately if you get double fixates.As always, interrupt and kill the Mage quickly using any area of effect crowdcontrol you have to interrupt all enemies when the first double dance startschanneling. Healing cooldowns and Bloodlust or Drums of Deathly Ferocityare very useful to kill the Mage fast and also help keep your group stable throughthe high incoming damage, while all enemies are up and also on any double knifedances you get later;
5. 1 Arbalest, 1 Soldier, 1 Mage — is similar to the 1 Soldier and1 Mage wave as long as you position yourself correctly and dispel the Mana Stingquickly. Interrupt and focus the Mage down first, disrupt Knife Danceonce it starts channeling and use a personal cooldown to survive the Soldier fixates,especially if it lines up with Mana Sting, since kiting could make youget hit;

As the hardest stage in this challenge, your full Healing, DPS, and utilitytoolkit will be thoroughly tested throughout the waves, especially in the finaltwo. Keep an eye out on who the Mages target while casting Arcane Blitz,as you will need to throw quick powerful single-target heals to prevent deaths,especially if Knife Dance is also happening simultaneously.

Fortunately, every class has at least one way to interrupt both the Mages andSoldiers at the same time, which you can use to cancel the first dance channels.Keep in mind that disrupting the cast itself just makes the Soldiers immediatelyuse it again, so try to interrupt it as soon as it goes off, instead. If you doit perfectly, you will gain more than enough time to finish the Mage off beforemore Knife Dances happen in every wave where this is a source ofdeaths.

Use Leg Sweep, Ring of Peace, Psychic Scream, Capacitor Totem, Typhoon, or Blinding Light for thispurpose, as well as any single-target crowd control you have, such as Hammer of Justice or Turn Evil.

Simply move ahead with your allies once you are ready and you will progressinto the next stage once you reach the locked gate.

You can use this time to fully recover from the previous battles, wait forcooldowns, change your gear, or change your talents with a tome, if needed.Usually you will have the relevant cooldowns ready when you need them later ifyou go immediately, regardless, as there are a few time-consuming obstacles inthe way.

This stage has a 5-minute timer, but you will have more than enoughtime to complete it before the timer is up as long as you keep pullingconsistently. The most important thing is to not die or panic, so make sureto keep a slow and steady pace!

Once you can move again, you will be surrounded by Flickering Eyeenemies which slowly move toward you. These are not hard to kill, but deal alot of damage if you are near them and also explode when killed. The idealstrategy is to focus the one in front of you down quickly, heal yourself, thenproceed to move into the space it occupied and that should afford you more thanenough time to kill some more, which opens up even more space to kite, and so on.

The next room has a Felspite Dominator and three Fel Bat Pupswhich enrage after a short period. Simply kill off the Bats quickly and finish offthe Dominator afterwards. Proceed to the next gate while using any damage abilitiesto temporarily deactivate the Unstable Fel Orbs before moving over them.

Past the gate, you will find a Panicked Soul and three Damaged Souls.Dispel the Panicked Soul to avoid being feared from its Incite Panic if it wanders near you while moving into range of theother souls — be careful not to aggro the hostileCorrupted Risen Arbalest at the top of the stairs, though — and healthem evenly, as they are taking damage over time and will turn into powerfulenemies if you let them die.

Once they are healed, kill the Arbalest standing between you and the gate,making sure to crowd control it when it uses Mana Sting, or simply standbehind one of the three healed adds, who will soak it for you, buying you morethan enough time to finish the Arbalest before you run out of adds to hide behind.These adds do not need to be dispelled from the sting effect, as they just run outwhen hit.

The next room is full of Unstable Fel Orbs. Deactivate any orbs in yourway with your damage spells while running to the gate on the top.Be especially careful with any orbs standing next to the gate at the top of the stairs,as it is possible that this orb will reactivate on top of you while you are stillopening the gate, so move inside immediately once it opens to avoid being hitfrom behind.

The final room of this stage has the Dread Corruptor responsible forthe capture of the rest of your group and three Flickering Eyes. TheCorruptor deals very low damage but has high health and creates rotating lasereyes on the floor which should be avoided as they increase your damage takenfrom all sources while you are touching them.

This is especially dangerous alongside the proximity attack and death explosionof a Flickering Eye, so we recommend killing the Eyes first to free upspace inside the room, as the main reason you will die in this room is because ofbeing caught by one of the Eyes while moving away from rotating lasers. As always,make sure to heal yourself to full after each Eye kill and reposition as needed.Once all eyes are dead, it is a simple matter to kill the Inquisitor while movingaway from the lasers whenever he throws them on the floor.

This is a preparation stage, similar to the second, where you can wait forhealing cooldowns, get full health and Mana, and adjust any gear or talentsneeded for the final stretch. You can go before the sated debuff from Bloodlustor drums expires, as you should save it for the final stage anyway.

Once you are prepared, open the last gate and go up the stairs to meetLord Erdris Thorn, the final boss of this challenge. You will not facehim just yet, however...

This stage serves to challenge your healing capabilities: you will have to keepyour allies healthy as they fight each other, while simultaneously healing wavesof 3 spread apart souls before they reach the boss and are converted into enemies.

Healing 8 souls will finish this part of the encounter instantly, whichmeans that you should use healing cooldowns and consumables on the first andsecond waves in order to maximize your odds of healing 6 souls, at which pointyou can just use your baseline single-target heals to heal 2 souls in the finalwave, with the third being automatically healed by the stage transition.

Under current tuning, the souls you have to heal have very little health,making them easily healed with just a few spells, or a single healing cooldown.

Regardless, always prioritize healing souls to full if you cannot heal themall in time, as any souls that reach the boss will convert into enemies in Stage6, even if they had 99% health. You can also consider letting one soul go throughon purpose on the first or second waves in order to get as much time as possibleto regenerate Mana before the final stage.

Immediately drink once this stage begins if not at full Mana.

In this stage you will fight all the souls you failed to heal in time in theprevious stage simultaneously. They convert into the same enemies you fought inStage 1 so the same strategies to deal with them apply. One or two enemies are noproblem, three is difficult as it was before and four or above is almost surelya wipe. If you did not let any souls get through, the final stage will beginalmost immediately.

You will finally face Lord Erdris Thorn himself. Be ready to start DPSinghim as soon as he becomes active! The soft enrage timer under current tuning isextremely tight, and you will have to DPS a lot to make it in time, at leastif you are not using any special gear or consumables.

Losing at this stage with just a few percent left on Erdris is quite painful,so make sure to use a DPS potion at the start of the phase and pop Bloodlust or Drums of Deathly Ferocity to make the most out ofthe initial part before the boss starts using his mechanics.

He will periodically jump on top of you, dealing damage and leaving a fel damagezone on the ground. Make sure to position these in the edges of the room andnear previous zones, and slowly circle around the room in order to maximizethe space you have available until the whole room is covered in fel, which isthe soft enrage you have to beat.

The jump and fel zones would be easy to deal with were it not for Ignite Soul, which is also periodically cast on you and both abilitiesare constantly overlapping.

You want to have enough health left to survive the jump damage and one tickof the fel zone, but not so much health that you oneshot your allies with Ignite Soul. Because this amount can vary a lot with your personalhealth pool, we recommend you to pay close attention to how much health you losewith the first jump and fel zone ticks while moving out. That is the amount ofhealth you will want to have whenever you are not about to explode.

Ignite Soul lasts for 9 seconds before exploding for damage equal toyour current life total to the rest of your party. You can use the fel zones toquickly lose health if needed in order to lower your health as much as you darebefore exploding. Just be careful that you can get jumped on when waiting toexplode, and if you are killed it will be down to whether your party can downthe boss before any of them dies. Using a personal cooldown while waiting forthe explosion to occur is a good way to ensure you will not be killed by abadly-timed jump while at low health.

Ultimately, this is a DPS race where you also need to heal your party andcarefully control your health. The most important things are positioning the felzones around the edges of the room to delay the enrage as much as possible andkeeping everyone healthy, except yourself when about to explode with Ignite Soul.

Once the boss dies, even if you are also dead, you win the challenge and receiveyour rewards!

Your reward for completing the challenge is a transmog set of armor that is arecolored version of the Tomb of Sargeras set for your class, which was in turninspired by TBC's Tier 6, which dropped in the Black Temple.

If you can manage to do all 7 challenges at least once, you will alsoobtain the Mage-Bound Spelltome mount and the A Tour of Towersachievement. Completing every challenge across all classes and specializationsalso awards the Tower Overwhelming Feat of Strength.

You can learn more about this mount in the guide below.