Highlord Kruul Tank Mage Tower Challenge Guide - The Highlord's Return

By Jaydaa Updated: 2025/12/02

Highlord Kruul - The Highlord's ReturnInquisitor VarissHighlord Kruul

Velen will periodically help you out by summoning Holy Ward. When you run into this orb, it will fully heal you and disorient all mobs for a short duration.

Kor'vas will not do anything special except some minor damage.

Available Classes for Highlord Kruul

Blood Death Knight

Vengeance Demon Hunter

Guardian Druid

Brewmaster Monk

Protection Paladin

Protection Warrior

Best Gear for Highlord Kruul Mage TowerCovenants, Legendaries,Azerite powers/gearQuick Tips and Tricks for the Tank Mage Tower Challenge

The key to this fight is maximizing your damage while surviving the mechanics.

You need to figure out how many stacks you can take in Phase 1, as the higher you can comfortably go without dying, the faster you can end the phase.

Be careful not to refresh your stacks in Phase 1 early by stepping back in.

Make sure that the Nether Horror die as quickly as possible or are interrupted, and keep them away from Velen!

Goblin Glider Kit can save your life! You may not need them, but having them available and on a comfortable keybind will salvage many attempts.

You can use Velen's orbs to interrupt any abilities if you don't have a proper answer to them, whether it be a Drain Life or an Annihilate.

Stay calm, as it is easy to make a mistake that instantly kills you, especially at lower percentages.

Killing Nether Horror should be a priority when they are out, but they should die relatively quickly so long as you are cleaving them.

How to Defeat Highlord Kruul in the Tank Mage TowerPhase 1Inquisitor Variss

Aura of Decay - The inquisitor is always surrounded by a Necrotic Aura, which stacks a debuff that reduces your max health.

Mind Rend - An interruptable cast that deals low damage to the player.

Drain Life - An interruptable cast that drains health from its target.

Tormenting Eye

Inquisitive Stare - If you are not looking at the eye when the channel finishes, you will be knocked back.

Tormenting Eyes in some specific challenges can only be affected by certain types of abilities (e.g., Non-Physical, Holy)

Smoldering Infernal

The Smoldering Infernal never truly dies and will reform after some time.
A new Smoldering Infernal is periodically added in Phase 1. The longer Phase 1 takes, the more Infernals you'll need to deal with in Phase 2.

Fel ResonationSmashGoblin Glider KitNether Horror

Nether Horrors will periodically every ~40 seconds.

Psytalons - The Nether Horror's melee attacks will apply Psytalons in some challenges.

Nether Storm - After a build-up cast, it begins a channel which will deal massive damage to anything nearby. Nether Horrors can move while channeling this ability in some versions of this challenge.

Phase 2

Annihilate - Kruul will use this on his primary target and increase all damage taken. This effect stacks. Interrupting Kruul's cast of Annihilate will make him cast it again.

Netherstomp - Kruul jumps on his target and leaves a fire puddle that deals massive damage to any creature standing in it.

Twisted Reflection - An interruptable spell that will place Twisted Reflection on the target. Melee attacks made against this debuffed player heal Kruul for 5% of his health.

Nether Horror

Psytalons - The Nether Horror's melee attacks will apply Psytalons.

Nether Storm - After a long cast, begins a channel which will deal massive damage to anything nearby. Nether Horrors can move while channeling this ability.

Smoldering Infernal

The Smoldering Infernal never truly dies and will reform after some time. No new Infernals will respawn in this phase.

Fel Resonation - The infernal periodically loses 10% health and deals minor damage to all enemies. This occurs until the Smoldering Infernal reaches 20% health, at which point the Smoldering Infernal will take bonus physical damage.

Smash - The infernal will smash in a straight line in front of it, knocking all enemies back, likely sending them off the platform. You can use Goblin Glider Kit if hit by this.

Velen

Holy Ward - Running into the orb will disorient all enemies for 5 seconds, while healing the player and cleansing them of any magic debuffs.

These orbs will last about 2 minutes on the ground before they despawn.

Detailed Class Strategy Guides

Blood DK

Vengeance DH

Guardian Druid

Brewmaster Monk
Protection Paladin

Protection Warrior

Comments

Comment by Palamanko

there is somethinig missing here...on PHASE 2 you get slow for some reason...I thought it was the "Hero landing" he does...then I thought it was the rays...I'm not quiet sure what.

Comment by TargetPractice

This is not a Tank challenge, this is a challenge to see if you can play all three classes (Tank, Healer, & DPS) all at the same time. I commend anyone that has completed it, especially in the current massively over buffed state it is in (9.1.5 TW release), but for rest of the player base this is honestly just stupid and not realistic. Tank challenge should be nothing more than Managing stacks, Avoiding mechanics, Keeping aggro so the group stays alive, and keeping mobs grouped. Instead they create a challenge where you have to self manage your own healing, handing Elite and Boss level DPS and managing interrupts normally handled by a party of 5. Don't forget to keep the two NPC's alive that are for the most part useless and should be used for fodder anyway. Plus they strip away any current Expansion toolkits you have and pretty much force you to drop $10-30k in old world gear and consumables. And Blizzard wonders what decisions they make are causing the player base to grow thin.

Comment by tzar25

I have been trying this as well on guardian. It is absolutely not a tank challenge, but a solo player challenge, which the tank specs share. After doing it for a while in SL heroic raid gear, I found it kind of hard, but probably doable (at least I managed to do the first phase when I didn't make any mistakes). The slow really came as a surprise, I haven't read about it, nor did I remember it from Legion, but as Palamanko pointed it out, it is there for sure. The second phase as I heard is a serious DPS check, which I may or may not be able to pass.

From my tries, I am not sure if this is the right way to implement solo challenges, where the player's skill is intended to be tested. I am aware that doing 36 different encounters for every spec is unrealistic, and this grouping seems fine. What is not fine, is the path we are forced to take, if we want to improve our chances. Farming for old items which happen to scale best for a particular challenge? Not my cup of tea. After taking a flask and a weapon oil, the challenge already felt easier, so I figure if I farmed every BiS items for this, including enchants and consumables, I may be able to complete it (P1 I can do currently, and P2 is heavily dependent on damage done). Or if I put a few dozen more hours into it. Either way it takes a lot of time and/or money. Why not just scale every player down to a specific gear set, which gives no extras like cheat death, damage, cc or anything like that, and tune the encounters that way? Our level should be scaled down like now to something specific, all gear and borrowed powers ignored, consumables too, and then tune it from hard to easier until they are satisfied with the success rate. Then you can't take shortcuts and you either practice a lot (or not that lot, because you are a natural), or you don't complete it at all.

I am not a top player by any means, I would like to have the rewards even as a casual, but as of now I only get frustration from this. Sometimes I mess up, and that's fine. Sometimes I don't mess up and I go to phase 2 with 'only' 3 infernals (where I heard people doing it with one). Alright, maybe I did mess up there and didn't damage Variss enough, but the first thought is always 'I either need to practice a lot more and get luckier with overlaps, or get my hands on better scaling gear... I think the only better equipment compared to what I have should only be the mythic version of the same items. If the only way to improve was to improve as a player and play better, I think I was willing to put the time into it at least for this 1 challenge. I was hyped for this before it went live, now I am frustrated and stopped playing daily. I hardly go online.

And the best part is that pretty much every day the encounter felt different. The adds cast while moving, now they don't, now they do again, I did enough damage, I don't do enough, everything overlapped and I died a minute in, while the day before I did P1 relatively easily, and so on and so forth.

Sorry for the long rant, I just had to get it off of my chest, as from being the most waited content in a few years this went downhill really fast for me.

Good luck to everyone who is not bother by these, or want the rewards really bad. Don't give up like I did! It certainly is doable!

Comment by tsolas25

i play that F..ng game 1 year almost i dont understand why they make that mage tower so difficult i dont get the point i wipe on many characters 200 times + why u dont respect my time and make people spend time on old expansions to get gear and to spend so many golds for transmog i really want a answer i cant bilieve i have spend 2 weeks only play mage tower and get nothing. 200 WIPES U GUYS ARE CRAZY?

Comment by skyforce

To overcome de-syncs and get more control as an Engineer:

Frag Belt Frag Belt
1m Cooldown
Make a macro so its quick:
/use "belt item name'
Other grenades or bombs also work if you are not an engineer but they might use a longer cooldown.

Comment by TheBigDeeb

All Tank Mage Tower Challenge in One Video :)
https://youtu.be/8lTMj-LqMXw

Comment by ReXevD

Hello,
Anyone know why Inquisitor Variss has 154k Hp and why Highlord Kruul has 151k hp when you do the Tank mage tower as Monk? They only have 88k hp and 109k hp with the other tank classes...

Comment by Hallsonly99

So I tried this a bunch of times and I realized I will never be able to beat this. This is an all in your face run everywhere and do everything challenge. As a disabled player I have to use the point to click to move option. I have macros set to my gamer mouse to help. Why not make this like the training dungeon and give us a full 5 man group. Let this be a realistic tank challenge were we have to group mobs and keep aggro and use shields. I do not believe that spending 10-50K gold will help me. I wish Blizz would make some different colors of the werebear skin and put them on the traders post or make hours long quests to get them. There are so many different skins/colors that could be used. Make some easy to get.

The people that can pass this current set up challenge will still have the challenge appearance and/or mount to show proudly.

Highlord Kruul Tank Mage Tower Challenge Guide - The Highlord's Return

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