An Impossible Foe: a Legion Timewalking Mage Tower Guide for DPS
This Mage Tower challenge is for the Elemental Shaman, Feral Druid, Fire Mage, Fury Warrior, Outlaw Rogue, and Unholy Death Knight DPS specializations. It is a long encounter where your focus is divided between the boss and plethora of adds.
You will be facing the Imp Mother, Agatha, on the Broken Shore along with her minions. This encounter will focus on your survivability and add management. If you stay on top of all of the conflicting priorities in this encounter you will guarantee your success.
This guide will explain the encounter in detail and strategies you can employ for success. These challenges are intended to be difficult so you may not succeed on your first attempt but keep practicing, get used to the enemy abilities, and eventually claim your much-deserved reward!
How to find the An Impossible Foe Mage Tower Challenge
Patch 10.0.5 has re-opened the Mage Tower Challenge, meaning you can once again complete and collect the various rewards offered! As it stands, the Mage Tower will remain open until the end of the expansion, so there should be plenty of time.
This challenge, An Impossible Foe is meant for the following DPS specializations: Elemental Shaman, Feral Druid, Fire Mage, Fury Warrior, Outlaw Rogue, and Unholy Death Knight. You can queue for the Mage Tower challenges with the Mage Tower NPC (War Councilor Victoria) in the Broken Shore hub area.
In order to reach this NPC, you can take a portal from Orgrimmar or Stormind's
portal room to Azsuna and then fly or take the flight path to the Broken Shore
hub, Deliverance Point, or use your 
Dalaran Hearthstone and fly.
An Impossible Foe (Agatha) Challenge Overview
In this challenge you will need to defeat Agatha the Imp Mother whilst not getting overwhelmed by the adds in all phases and meteors in Phase 2/3.
Everything on this encounter spawns on a set timer so cooldown management is a must for success. These will be detailed in the strategy section below.
Recommended Gear for the Challenge
Inside the Timewalking Mage Tower Challenge, you will be scaled down to Level 45 and have your gear scaled to item level 120. You should focus on items containing sockets, as these are still active (but scaled down) in the Mage Tower. Additionally, all challenges can be completed with current gear, but you can optimize gear sets to gain even more power. A complete list of Best in Slot gear for every class can be found on the Timewalking Discord.
Timewalking DiscordGear Restrictions
The effects below will not function within the Timewalking Mage Tower event:
- Dragonflight Embellishments
- Any Covenant-related effects (Covenant Ability, Signature Ability, Soulbinds, Conduits)
- Legendary Powers from Shadowlands or Legion (the items 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
Lightblood Elixir
With the current tuning of the Timewalking Challenges optimising your gear is not required by any means.
Legion Gear for Timewalking
A quick and easy way to obtain item level 50 gear is to run through Legion raids. These items can also randomly roll with a socket on them which can give you additional stats and are eligible for old enchants.
Chromie Time Gear for Timewalking
If you have a friend who is Level 44/45 or a second account with a character that is Level 44/45 you are able to make full use of Chromie Time to get even better gear for the Timewalking Mage Tower.
You will run dungeons with that Level 44/45 character and when they loot an item you need, they will trade it to you.
You will want to target items with a high amount of sockets as gems do not scale down and legacy gems from the TBC/Wrath era contain primary stats which significantly outweigh the value of item level in many cases.
Crafted Gear for Timewalking
Crafting Mists of Pandaria Dreadful gear with 
Relic of the Past IV or
Relic of the Past V is a very good alternate source of Timewalking gear as
it will have sockets and will be of a low enough item level to receive legacy
gems/enchants.
Enchants for Timewalking Gear
Disclaimer: The below table are for Timewalking gear pieces only. If you are using Dragonflight armor the enchants listed will not work and you should instead use your regular Dragonflight enchants; a majority of these enchants will not work if your gear is above item level 120.
To begin, please select an option below enable tips, enchants, and gem recommendations for your specialization:
- Elemental Shaman
- Feral Druid
- Fire Mage
- Fury Warrior
- Outlaw Rogue
- Unholy Death Knight
Gems for Timewalking Gear
An honorable mention for the above gems are that Queen's Garnets can be easily obtained via the Auction house and from the Dragon Soul raid which can be used to craft +4 Primary Stat gems.
Trinkets for Timewalking
While you can get away with nearly any combination of trinkets for this challenge, there are a few noteworthy ones from content outside of the Shadowlands which may be worth acquiring for your specialization.
Flasks for Timewalking
Whilst it may be tempting to use Shadowlands flasks in the Timewalking Mage Tower, when you are scaled down to level 45 so are the effects of the flasks. For comparison, a flask from Battle for Azeroth will give you +31 Primary Stat, a flask from Legion will give you +21 Primary Stat, and a flask from Shadowlands will give you +20 Primary Stat. Because of this, it is recommended for you to use your specialization's primary stat flask from Battle for Azeroth.
Strategy for An Impossible Foe (Agatha)
Phase 1
During this phase the boss will remain stationary and spawn adds periodically. This is where you should just focus on DPS and not focus on getting used to the add patterns.
Agatha has four main mechanics during this phase:
Shadow Stab is a the main spell Agatha will cast. It cannot be
interrupted and will deal a small amount of Shadow damage.
Agatha's Fury. When an Imp dies Agatha will fire a projectile to this
location. Failing to avoid the impact point of the projectile will result in
a moderate burst of Shadow damage.
Dark Fury — Every 50 seconds Agatha will shield herself and
cast Dark Fury. Dark Fury will deal stacking damage over time and can only be
interrupted once the shield has broken.- Every time an imp is spawned Agatha will gain a stack of
Agatha's Vengeance
which increases her damage dealt by 3% per stack. Taking too long with this
encounter will lead to the damage becoming overwhelming and wiping.
Smoldering Imps will spawn every minute and die pretty quickly.
They will also cast 
Fire Bolt on you dealing a small amount of Fire
damage, however each successful cast increases the damage from the Smoldering
Imp by 50%. If too many casts go through it can be lethal.
Imp Servants will spawn 15 seconds into the encounter and every 45
seconds thereafter. They will run towards the boss and 
Funnel Energy,
healing her. You want to avoid allowing them to channel into the boss as this
will make the encounter significantly harder. If you stop their heal by means of
displacement or crowd control, they will not channel again immediately but
instead move around a bit and then rechannel, buying you some extra time and
preventing potential healing on Agatha.
Umbral Imps will spawn 1 minute into the encounter and each minute
thereafter. Whilst any Umbral Imps are alive Agatha will be immune to all damage
due to 
Shadow Shield. Kill these ASAP and be aware that they may move
around with 
Translocate.
A Fuming Imp will spawn 30 seconds into the encounter and every 55
seconds thereafter. They will cast 
Plague Zone which leaves a permanent
puddle on the ground which slows and deals damage to you if you are inside of it.
However they will only start this cast once you are in melee range of it. Once a
cast has started it can only be stopped with stuns/fears.
Phase 2
When Agatha reaches 50% she will teleport to the upper end of the room and Phase 2 will begin. During this phase Agatha gains two new abilities:
- Smoldering Boulders will spawn from the upper side of the room and
roll to the opposite side. If you are hit by one of these by either being in their
path or in their spawn location you will be stunned and take a large amount of damage.
- Fel Lava Blast is a new spell Agatha will repeatedly cast.
This will create a small pool of fire at the location targeted. Standing in it
will deal a moderate amount of Fire damage every second.
You will need to maintain your add dps priorities from Phase 1, however the Imp Servants will now spawn on the ramp and Smoldering Imps spawn near the boss and potentially under the Boulder spawn locations.
Phase 3
When Agatha reaches 33% she will teleport to the lower side of the room and this will be a repeat of Phase 2, however she will now teleport to the opposite side roughly every minute.
Rewards for An Impossible Foe Mage Tower Challenge
Your reward for completing the challenge is a transmog set of armor which is a recolored version of the Tomb of Sargeras set for your class.
If you can manage to do all of the 7 different challenges at least once, you will
obtain the 
Mage-Bound Spelltome mount and the 
A Tour of Towers
achievement. Completing every challenge across all classes and specializations
awards the 
Tower Overwhelming Feat of Strength.
You can learn more about this mount and all the others added in Patch 9.1/9.1.5 below.
Changelog
- 17 Feb. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight Patch 10.0.5.
- 01 Dec. 2021: Guide added.
This guide has been written by Panthea, who raids in Catalyst and is the author of TankNotes. He plays all tanks and is a Moderator for the Hammer of Wrath Paladin Discord. You can follow him on Twitter.
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