If I want to dip my toes into those waters, do I have to learn every dungeon in the mythic set for the season before trying them out? That is, is it random which you get when you zone in, or do you get to pick which dungeon to do? I'd like to practice before just zoning in if a group takes me.
World of Warcraft - The War Within
- Thread starter crombie
- Start date
Each person gets a key. Thaat key is a specific level1 to a specific dungeon. So, in a group of 5 people, you have five keys2.
You decide which key you're going to do, zone into that dungeon, and stick the appropriate key in the slot (there's a little pedastal at the beginning of the Mythic dungeon). If you complete the key within the specified time, it increases by 1 level, and switches to a random dungeon3. If you complete the dungeon but not in time, it downgrades by 1 and switches to another dungeon. If you don't complete the dungeon at all, it downgrades by 1 but stays on the same dungeon. Since only one key can upgrade at once, if you're in a regular group, you'll probably pick whichever is the best key at the start of the week and just do whatever dungeons it turns into along the way (see also 3)
For higher levels, you definitely need to know what the boss mechanics are, and the main ability of more problematic trash mobs (often mechanics that you could flat out ignore at "base" mythic level). If you're tanking, you may also need to figure out specific routes, which trash packs to pull or skip etc, because each dungeon also has a "Trash percentage" quotient that must be completed. Some trash mobs are worth much more than others, and some are notoriously "not worth it" due to their difficulty4.
The m+ affixes can significantly change how certain mechanics interact, and I've not figured out all the permutations yet for this season, but some of them are... awkward, and hopefully sufficiently unintended to be fixed (e.g. crystals spawning on packs that will then instantly absorb several or all of them when later pulled)
1 The highest of (the highest level you completed in time last week) or (1 down from the highest level you completed by not in time), with an additional penalty of 1 per week if you didn't complete any at all.
2 So, in theory, you get up to 5 choices, but every week so far this season, our choices have been either Siege of Boralus or Necrotic Wake. RNG sucks sometimes.
3 And in our group, routinely, it switches to the other one of (Siege, Necrotic) that you didn't just do. We have yet to see a single instance of either of the Azh Kahet dungeon keys.
4 On weeks with the Fortified affix, there were trash packs we saved Bloodlust for, rather than bosses. Some of them are boss-level difficulty.
You decide which key you're going to do, zone into that dungeon, and stick the appropriate key in the slot (there's a little pedastal at the beginning of the Mythic dungeon). If you complete the key within the specified time, it increases by 1 level, and switches to a random dungeon3. If you complete the dungeon but not in time, it downgrades by 1 and switches to another dungeon. If you don't complete the dungeon at all, it downgrades by 1 but stays on the same dungeon. Since only one key can upgrade at once, if you're in a regular group, you'll probably pick whichever is the best key at the start of the week and just do whatever dungeons it turns into along the way (see also 3)
For higher levels, you definitely need to know what the boss mechanics are, and the main ability of more problematic trash mobs (often mechanics that you could flat out ignore at "base" mythic level). If you're tanking, you may also need to figure out specific routes, which trash packs to pull or skip etc, because each dungeon also has a "Trash percentage" quotient that must be completed. Some trash mobs are worth much more than others, and some are notoriously "not worth it" due to their difficulty4.
The m+ affixes can significantly change how certain mechanics interact, and I've not figured out all the permutations yet for this season, but some of them are... awkward, and hopefully sufficiently unintended to be fixed (e.g. crystals spawning on packs that will then instantly absorb several or all of them when later pulled)
1 The highest of (the highest level you completed in time last week) or (1 down from the highest level you completed by not in time), with an additional penalty of 1 per week if you didn't complete any at all.
2 So, in theory, you get up to 5 choices, but every week so far this season, our choices have been either Siege of Boralus or Necrotic Wake. RNG sucks sometimes.
3 And in our group, routinely, it switches to the other one of (Siege, Necrotic) that you didn't just do. We have yet to see a single instance of either of the Azh Kahet dungeon keys.
4 On weeks with the Fortified affix, there were trash packs we saved Bloodlust for, rather than bosses. Some of them are boss-level difficulty.
Note, it's Delves Week, so that's +25% Undercoin, Companion XP, and Season Progress*. Brann has a Pinnacle weekly for three delves, and there's another Weekly for 5 delves to get a Champion piece of gear. And the delves stack, of course.
Once you do your first delve one of the chests at the end will have another quest to turn in, main reward being 3k delvers journey progress.
Bumped my seasonal progress bar quite a bit
Bumped my seasonal progress bar quite a bit
@Getting Better
Personally, I despise M+. I hate the timers, I hate the reliance on them to gear for the raid OUTSIDE of the raid, I hate how toxic public groups are for them, and how if you're not the hot shit meta class FotM you might as well not even apply.
I love what they've done with Delves and hope they lean into them even more in the future. It's a fun time, I like that there are multiple versions of each delve that tell individual stories, and we can go at our own pace, letting real life poke it's head in if it needs to.
Personally, I despise M+. I hate the timers, I hate the reliance on them to gear for the raid OUTSIDE of the raid, I hate how toxic public groups are for them, and how if you're not the hot shit meta class FotM you might as well not even apply.
I love what they've done with Delves and hope they lean into them even more in the future. It's a fun time, I like that there are multiple versions of each delve that tell individual stories, and we can go at our own pace, letting real life poke it's head in if it needs to.
Yep, been digging the delves as well. Finally decided to try the 9s and 10s instead of farming the 8s for vault slots. It felt surprisingly good to actually hit my defensives and heals again.
I really like the delves, and the follower dungeons are a great option as well. I would actually like to see tiers of difficulty there as well. As someone who hasn't tanked instances in a long time and hasn't tanked at ABS raid level in far longer - it's good to be able to practice at my own pace.
Yeah, not having a great way to practice tanking and healing is why I have little interest in starting. If follower dungeons scaled up a lot more, seems like they’d be a nice practice method. As is, I run in as dps and pull several packs with no ill effects. So I can’t imagine it’s a realistic way to experience the non-dps roles.
orionquest
Ars Praefectus
I think follower dungeons would be a great way to train your class/spec. You can try stuff at your own pace and figure out the route most groups follow. I think that is fairly important. These dungeons are mostly run on rails, same path, same mobs, etc. There are 2 dungeons which I get completely lost, the one with the flying boats, and that spider city where you have to manoeuvre around the city. As you can tell I'm pretty casual.
Ah, yeah. My only advice to help here is "never ever pug anything difficult", which is, I acknowledge, thoroughly unhelpful if you do not already have a group of friends to try them with. The timer and the difficulty combine with the general toxicity of the modern MMO to produce a truly heady aroma of nope.
Bit of a rough weekend. In between some health issues (8 hour waiting time at the hospital, I get that triage is a critical part of hospital service but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable), ~3 hours wiping on Queen Ansurek phase 1, and so many failed +9 keys... phew.
Ansurek is hard. Really hard. We'll get there eventually, but it's a long road. I had to swap back to suicide Holy Priest spec because it's too hard for me to shotcall and play Lightweaver at the same time effectively. At least it's a pretty fun fight to be stuck on.
Key difficulty is wild. At the same key level you can go from Mists or Ara-Kara where two-chesting is quite likely, to Necrotic Wake or Stonevault where fuck me things can go sideways fast. We still haven't had a good +10 yet, but our Siege of Boralus wasn't too bad; we still weren't close to timing it, but at least it wasn't a horrible wipefest. All in all... I wouldn't say demoralising (I can take more than this!), but I wouldn't say our M+ is going particularly well either.
Side-note: I never want to touch SOB without a Warlock. The second dispel turns the last boss from a stress-fest into one of the easiest in the whole rotation.
I think if I had a primary gripe about M+, it's actually not the difficulty. It's the rewards. It feels pretty absurd that two weeks into the season as an AOTC raider who never touches Mythic, the only upgrades I can get are from +9 mythic crests and +10 vault. I have absolutely zero incentive to run lower keys to help guildies, because the tiny seasonal cap makes hero tokens worthless. +6 keys are around the same reward level as +8 delves which were available a week earlier.
I hope they revise the reward structure for next season (or hell, just hotfix it now), because M+ 2 to 8 will be a deadzone soon; and if my best M+ team is struggling with +10s then most of my guildies will not stand a chance.
Ansurek is hard. Really hard. We'll get there eventually, but it's a long road. I had to swap back to suicide Holy Priest spec because it's too hard for me to shotcall and play Lightweaver at the same time effectively. At least it's a pretty fun fight to be stuck on.
Key difficulty is wild. At the same key level you can go from Mists or Ara-Kara where two-chesting is quite likely, to Necrotic Wake or Stonevault where fuck me things can go sideways fast. We still haven't had a good +10 yet, but our Siege of Boralus wasn't too bad; we still weren't close to timing it, but at least it wasn't a horrible wipefest. All in all... I wouldn't say demoralising (I can take more than this!), but I wouldn't say our M+ is going particularly well either.
Side-note: I never want to touch SOB without a Warlock. The second dispel turns the last boss from a stress-fest into one of the easiest in the whole rotation.
I think if I had a primary gripe about M+, it's actually not the difficulty. It's the rewards. It feels pretty absurd that two weeks into the season as an AOTC raider who never touches Mythic, the only upgrades I can get are from +9 mythic crests and +10 vault. I have absolutely zero incentive to run lower keys to help guildies, because the tiny seasonal cap makes hero tokens worthless. +6 keys are around the same reward level as +8 delves which were available a week earlier.
I hope they revise the reward structure for next season (or hell, just hotfix it now), because M+ 2 to 8 will be a deadzone soon; and if my best M+ team is struggling with +10s then most of my guildies will not stand a chance.
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If anyone's raid group is somewhere in heroic prog (roughly - more looking for a decent/chill group than any specific progression) and looking to pick up a melee DPS, US/Central-ish times, ideally weekend (Fri night or Sat/Sun afternoons or nights), would consider Tue/Wed, definitely not Thu/Mon, let me know! I have a ret pal and a fury warrior that are decently geared, would lean ret but also happy with fury if you're missing a warrior buff/etc.
Heh, if you were, like, in another continent and had opposite day preferences, I'd snap you up
Numbers have not been kind this expac. We started with 14, and we're already back down to 10 active raiders. I'll be pleasantly surprised if we can hold things together long enough to get Queen Ansurek, never mind further seasons.
Numbers have not been kind this expac. We started with 14, and we're already back down to 10 active raiders. I'll be pleasantly surprised if we can hold things together long enough to get Queen Ansurek, never mind further seasons.
infernal666
Ars Praefectus
Ars Brute Squad on Bleeding Hollow has a casual Friday raid, it starts @8:30pm EST, we also have a progression raid that runs on Tuesday and Sunday from 8:15 to 11:30pm EST and we are working on heroic Queen Ansurek right now.
Phew we finally got Queen Ansurek down; I think it was about 3 weeks and 80 attempts all up, and at least 50 before we started getting (somewhat) reliably through P1. We killed her the second time that we got into P3 with everyone alive. Thankfully we had the DPS to kill the acolytes and then burn her before we had to deal with the soul portal overlap (and in hindsight, the better call be to ignore acolytes entirely and burn).
Very tough fight, very chaotic and high personal responsibility; but it never feels unfair Deaths are always because someone messed up. Great encounter design.
Overall, I don't think Nerub'ar Palace was a standout either good or bad. There are a few great fights (Bloodbound Horror, Nexus Princess, Queen Ansurek), a bunch that are pretty meh, and I still don't like Silken Court at all. Story and characters fine but nothing special. Let's say 7/10 overall.
Very tough fight, very chaotic and high personal responsibility; but it never feels unfair Deaths are always because someone messed up. Great encounter design.
Overall, I don't think Nerub'ar Palace was a standout either good or bad. There are a few great fights (Bloodbound Horror, Nexus Princess, Queen Ansurek), a bunch that are pretty meh, and I still don't like Silken Court at all. Story and characters fine but nothing special. Let's say 7/10 overall.
Funnily enough I've had the opposite problem. We started with a big roster (maybe 35+ who would like to raid); and we had a pretty shitty experience with split raids in Dragonflight so I didn't want to do that again. Usually we see the same dropoff as everyone else and I wasn't expecting roster to be an issue after a week or so; but for everyone who goes AWOL, we've had two old players come back and resub.
Returning players is a great sign that TWW is a healthy expansion, but it makes managing farm nights pretty hectic.
Oh and fuck me, I'm pretty sure I could make a raid with about 20+ Ret Pallies. Ask any of them to offspec heal though... crickets
orionquest
Ars Praefectus
Curious what you all have done with previous expansion mats you have left over?
I mostly auction everything not soulbound. But since they introduced all these finishing soulbound mats in DF I still have ton's of those, thinking to just vendor all that stuff to clear out bags.
I don't really spend much time on professions, just enough before it becomes a times sink hunting for stuff.
I mostly auction everything not soulbound. But since they introduced all these finishing soulbound mats in DF I still have ton's of those, thinking to just vendor all that stuff to clear out bags.
I don't really spend much time on professions, just enough before it becomes a times sink hunting for stuff.
I got about 44k for the various herbs, minerals, and elemental thingies I had on my warrior. I probably should have sold them earlier (certainly like, say, about three-four months ago, instead of last week), but that was still a nice chunk of change.
orionquest
Ars Praefectus
Yup all the current mats I pick up which are not soulbound I sell on the AH usually nets me a few 1000 each time.
But I think all the soulbound DF stuff I can only vendor which might end up being very little, it's not for the gold just to clear bag space.
But I think all the soulbound DF stuff I can only vendor which might end up being very little, it's not for the gold just to clear bag space.
Fairly clean re-kill for Queen Ansurek (helped by our best player on a disgustingly OP Ele Shaman), managed to get another ~5 people in for AOTC. Still had to sit our hard carries, but the stacking buff should help a lot to push them through next week.
While I greatly appreciate the return of stacking raid buffs, 2% every two weeks is a bit meh? I think 2% per week would be a decent pace.
Finally putting a few +10s on the board. Turns out bringing good DPS instead of mediocre DPS helps.
We ran through BRD Normal after the raid, they did a pretty great job of turning it into a raid with some fun boss fights. Pretty overtuned for Normal (and I've heard tell Heroic is way over the top), definitely think of it as a challenge rather a loot pinata.
My next challenge - practice Disc for keys. I'm never going to play it seriously in raids, but since I'm healing 99% of the time in keys I might as well git good at the clearly better spec. Adding an extra 100k or so DPS to every kill will make a big difference.
While I greatly appreciate the return of stacking raid buffs, 2% every two weeks is a bit meh? I think 2% per week would be a decent pace.
Finally putting a few +10s on the board. Turns out bringing good DPS instead of mediocre DPS helps.
We ran through BRD Normal after the raid, they did a pretty great job of turning it into a raid with some fun boss fights. Pretty overtuned for Normal (and I've heard tell Heroic is way over the top), definitely think of it as a challenge rather a loot pinata.
My next challenge - practice Disc for keys. I'm never going to play it seriously in raids, but since I'm healing 99% of the time in keys I might as well git good at the clearly better spec. Adding an extra 100k or so DPS to every kill will make a big difference.
orionquest
Ars Praefectus
Curious what you all think about Hero Talents?
I started this expansion on my En Shammy, using the Stormbringer build, and it was a great fit, bringing some much needed pizzazz to the playstyle.
Now I've moved onto my main and another alt, and felt the Hero Talents didn't bring that much needed excitement.
My main is a holy priest, mostly right now I've been grinding quests as sPriest, with Voidweaver. Didn't have the same impact as my Shammy. I then decided to check out my Frost Mage, at first using Spellslinger, which was completely boring. Until I switched over to FrostFire, then I felt the character really unlocked. Might go back to my Priest and fiddle around with the other talents.
Wondering if you are finding the same with Hero talents. Maybe the boring hero talents might make you reach a higher maximum damage potential, but I'm looking at this from a fun point of view.
I started this expansion on my En Shammy, using the Stormbringer build, and it was a great fit, bringing some much needed pizzazz to the playstyle.
Now I've moved onto my main and another alt, and felt the Hero Talents didn't bring that much needed excitement.
My main is a holy priest, mostly right now I've been grinding quests as sPriest, with Voidweaver. Didn't have the same impact as my Shammy. I then decided to check out my Frost Mage, at first using Spellslinger, which was completely boring. Until I switched over to FrostFire, then I felt the character really unlocked. Might go back to my Priest and fiddle around with the other talents.
Wondering if you are finding the same with Hero talents. Maybe the boring hero talents might make you reach a higher maximum damage potential, but I'm looking at this from a fun point of view.
Shado-pan on Windwalker and Brewmaster is, essentially, completely passive. Doesn't change anything at all - but after the button-rich madness that was Brewmaster in Dragonflight, that's been refreshing, if not necessarily exciting. I've barely played Conduit of the Celestials, and I can't even remember what the 3rd one (Brew/Mist) is called, never mind what it does.
Voidweaver on Shadowpriest adds a really nice quality-of-life perk - being able to move during Void Torrent is amazing, and I don't even want to try the Halo-y one for want of that movement perk. i've not really played Holy enough to appreciate the Oracle stuff beyond it just being there and effectively part of the spec that I haven't mastered yet.
Essentially, it's very much like normal talents: once I've picked something that works, I'm probably not going to mess with it very much until something pushes me strongly to change.
Voidweaver on Shadowpriest adds a really nice quality-of-life perk - being able to move during Void Torrent is amazing, and I don't even want to try the Halo-y one for want of that movement perk. i've not really played Holy enough to appreciate the Oracle stuff beyond it just being there and effectively part of the spec that I haven't mastered yet.
Essentially, it's very much like normal talents: once I've picked something that works, I'm probably not going to mess with it very much until something pushes me strongly to change.
They're okay. They're basically mixed spec talents so they don't have to add another row. I'm a little curious what they'll do for the next expansion.
This game continues to annoy the fuck out of me. Got back into it, finished Shadowlands (can't do the raids obviously), somehow level to 71 at the very start of DF and can no longer do the follower dungeons or group finder in DF. For fucks sake, can you just not scale me down and let me do this shit? Argh!
I just want to work my way through the story and complete the quests.
I just want to work my way through the story and complete the quests.
Yeah, the leveling experience is always going to be a little messy. Blizzard heavily prioritises getting new players into current content ASAP; at the expense of any story continuity. You can see FFIV taking the opposite approach, and both have their advantages and disadvantages.
It's not an ideal solution, but if you buy some cheap 71+ TWW gear at the AH I think most classes could just solo the Dragonflight dungeons on Normal. Failing that, any level 80 friend could carry you through easily.
If it helps, the TWW campaign is excellent so you have that to look forward to. Hallowfall in particular is outstanding.
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Supposedly Shadowlands raids are now soloable: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/bfa-and-shadowlands-raids-made-soloable/1986932
20th Anniversary events are kinda weird. They obviously put a lot of work into it and I quite like all the little mini-events, which makes it all the stranger that you don't have much incentive to do them more than once because the best source of bronze tokens is the TWW weeklies or spam LFR BRD on alts.
I think BRD is pretty fun on Normal, but sheesh it's so overtuned on Heroic. Went in with 15 reasonably competent raiders at maybe ~620 average, cleared the first two without too much drama, then spent half a dozen attempts wiping on the third (the big fire elemental) before calling it.
Also I have learned the hard way that Avenging Wrath, unlike Sentinel, does not protect you from magic nukes. This post brought to you by a couple of embarrassing wipes on first boss of Dawnbreaker +10.
I think BRD is pretty fun on Normal, but sheesh it's so overtuned on Heroic. Went in with 15 reasonably competent raiders at maybe ~620 average, cleared the first two without too much drama, then spent half a dozen attempts wiping on the third (the big fire elemental) before calling it.
Also I have learned the hard way that Avenging Wrath, unlike Sentinel, does not protect you from magic nukes. This post brought to you by a couple of embarrassing wipes on first boss of Dawnbreaker +10.
My understanding is that BRD isn't really worth it except for the achievement and tokens, and you can do that on LFR. No Mastery on the gear makes it kind of useless for a lot of classes.
You can get bronze tokens from BRD per toon and per difficulty, so the best options are;
1. Weekly TWW quests
2. Normal BRD run with a decent group
3. LFR final wing with as many alts as you can stomach
I'll have all the tier sets unlocked this week, and by the time the event ends I suspect I'll have more than enough tokens for every random item.
1. Weekly TWW quests
2. Normal BRD run with a decent group
3. LFR final wing with as many alts as you can stomach
I'll have all the tier sets unlocked this week, and by the time the event ends I suspect I'll have more than enough tokens for every random item.
Lots of announcements for the 30th anniversary!
https://www.mmo-champion.com/conten...aft-MoP-Classic-SoD-Updates-Undermine-Housing
Tonnes of stuff, but IMO the highlights are;
https://www.mmo-champion.com/conten...aft-MoP-Classic-SoD-Updates-Undermine-Housing
Tonnes of stuff, but IMO the highlights are;
- 11.1 patch (expected February/March?) is Undermined; goblins and mechs and casinos oh my! New delve, dungeon and raid with Gallywix as the big bad. Sounds like they're going for a "fun" patch ala Mechagon, I'm down for it.
- Confirmed TWW will have a very similar patch cadence to Dragonflight (3 tiers with two extra content patches each), leading to Midnight in Winter (so Jan/Feb 2026?)
- ... and speaking of Midnight, they're finally adding Player Housing!
- Mists of Pandaria Classic confirmed, and a new Remix (not confirmed but probably Legion)
- Oh and Warcraft has seen 254 million players across the franchise. That's like 3% of the world's population.
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For WoW's 23rd anniversary they should give an update on how the dance studio is coming along. The memes alone would be wonderful.
infernal666
Ars Praefectus
It would probably be a disaster trying to bolt it into the WoW engine (not to mention latency), but damn aerial jousting with Dragonriding would be badass.
The Malygos raid in Wrath and the underwater zone in Cataclysm broke people.
My m+ team managed to produce our first +10 key last night (with 1 second to spare on upgrading siege+8 by 2), and of course it had to become City of Threads. What else?
It was... messy. I think we finished with about 65 deaths and 55 minutes over time. Oddly, the pain points weren't at all where I expected them to be - the 3rd and 4th boss were almost anti-climactic, but the second boss, and some of the trash, was proper nightmare fuel. To be sure, that's about where we were the first time we made our own +7 key, but back then, we had a long runway of gear upgrades ahead of us to help. Now, not so much - we're pretty much all sitting on full 619 gear, and we don't raid Mythic (we can barely scrape enough warm bodies together for Heroic), so mythic track items will be very few and far between, and the Gilded crests don't exactly rain down from heaven either.
I doubt it'll be our last +10 key, and I'm sure we'll get better, but from this experience I don't think we'll be doing a clean sweep on unlocking portals as we have for the last few expansions.
It was... messy. I think we finished with about 65 deaths and 55 minutes over time. Oddly, the pain points weren't at all where I expected them to be - the 3rd and 4th boss were almost anti-climactic, but the second boss, and some of the trash, was proper nightmare fuel. To be sure, that's about where we were the first time we made our own +7 key, but back then, we had a long runway of gear upgrades ahead of us to help. Now, not so much - we're pretty much all sitting on full 619 gear, and we don't raid Mythic (we can barely scrape enough warm bodies together for Heroic), so mythic track items will be very few and far between, and the Gilded crests don't exactly rain down from heaven either.
I doubt it'll be our last +10 key, and I'm sure we'll get better, but from this experience I don't think we'll be doing a clean sweep on unlocking portals as we have for the last few expansions.
It's the biggest problem of this M+ season (amongst plenty others) : average players cannot outgear the difficulty of higher dungeon keys (9 and up). In retrospect, DF had a great balance of challenge and progression. Mythic gear and the highest rank crest came earlier in the M+ track. So with reasonable competence and dedication you could get better stuff, looted and crafted, to overcome the difficulty.
No more, even if gilded crest at rank 8 M+ has eased a little the pain but made all this even more grindy...
Even for the beginning of expansion / season, the M+ participation in my guilds is already very low.
No more, even if gilded crest at rank 8 M+ has eased a little the pain but made all this even more grindy...
Even for the beginning of expansion / season, the M+ participation in my guilds is already very low.
Vash’jir is the best zone in WoW (barring them breaking the quests in subsequent expansions). Fight me!
Spot the druid main.Vash’jir is the best zone in WoW (barring them breaking the quests in subsequent expansions). Fight me!
I agree - I liked it - the Malygos fight too.Vash’jir is the best zone in WoW (barring them breaking the quests in subsequent expansions). Fight me!
Others in the guild... not so much. Very not so much!