+2-3 Keys are a Rough

Community General Discussion
1

While I understand the Key squish and agree that some of what it did was necessary. However, the largest downside I am experiencing is the shortened runway for players.
I usually PuG KSM on a few toons and AoTC each tier. Not quite casual, but not an high end player by any measurement. That means having to scale the M+ ladder to get rating to get into better groups.

Currently the difference between a M0 and a +2 is a pretty wide gulf. And the runway from Heroics, which are extremely easy and forgiving to M0 is pretty acceptable. M0 are a jump, but the pressure isnt there to time it.

With delve loot, and other sources, it is really easy to get a 600+ ilvl. So you can quickly outgear heroic dungeons and M0. And in cases players can outgear M2-4 Keys without ever entering them.

Now we get to +2-3 which is the next step for most players. Their gear is at or above what is necessary to clear them. But, with these early key levels, many players are still figuring out how to do a M+. They dont know the route, or the pull count. They arent moving fast. And in a lot of cases, Heroic and M0 have not taught them how to use their toolkit. Defensives, Stops, Stuns, Snares, Roots, Interrupts… DEAR GOD INTERRUPTS. And unfortunately with the squish, even these low keys are not very forgiving.

So what you have in these +2-3 Keys are a lot of people trying to figure things out. And they are there, because they have out geared the learning content before they learned anything. And they cant do it.

This week I have been a part of so many PuG groups that just cant do mechanics. Like aggressively avoiding doing mechanics. Just standing in place and hitting buttons to do damage. And unfortunately they arent even playing their damage kit. Not using CDs or even their spells.

What follows is an example of how woefully unprepared players are funneled into content they cannot succeed in. There needs to be a better runway for players to learn their classes better. Than waiting for a kind person to direct them to WoWhead and to watch some youtube class guides.

There was a 603i Ele shaman yesterday in a +2 Stonevault. Took 5min at the start of the dungeon, to teach them where their group buff was and to click it. They were spec’d into storm bringer. Now very quickly we noticed they were doing very little DPS. Looking at what they were doing, they were just casting Flame Shock and then Waiting for LvB Procs. No spenders. No Lightning Bolt. We tried to tell them what to cast. Then they discovered Chain Lightning. Which they said was awesome. Then proceeded to Only cast that spell. After reaching the 2nd boss, the group just broke. The shaman was dead more than alive. And the DPS kept getting 1 shot by the mechanics of Dodging the box and the giant lava waves. After 5 pulls it was always just the healer and myself on my guardian druid alive. We had 32 deaths, long ran out the timer, and were at the 2nd boss.

2

You can literally pull one pack at a time and time a key until like 7-8’s. If you guys are dying to 2-3 mobs a pull idk what to tell you guys. Make sure to interrupt.

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3

This isn’t the game’s fault. This person clearly had zero clue how to play their class if you have to “introduce” them to spells like Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt. This is on the player who decided to jump into end-game content instead of doing M0 where there is no timer.

There is a huge disconnect with M+ and a large portion of the players. Just because you cleared the content on a certain key level doesn’t equate to being ready to move up. People keep trying to move up in difficulty as fast as they can and not picking up on the dungeon’s nuances.

4

its just like space marines 2 operations the ruthless difficulty players are having lvl 1-5 joining them for a “easy carry” and they have a warning pop up saying this is for 20 or 25 lvl players

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5

I think that’s fine. You can’t lower a +2 so it can be a good area for a practice key for players first jump into timed content.

I had two friends come back after they had done DF Season 1, was it an adjustment? Yes. Did they do just fine? Yep.

6

I’m so close to KSM but I don’t know if I can do it. Just short like 36 points but the only ones I can really improve on are Grim Batol which is a dumpster fire every time

7

If you make a comp for it, IMO two enrage dispells goes a long way (have timed +7 on my tonk!).

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8

Really the only solution is setting more realistic expectations.

You’ll never learn not to touch a hot stove if you never turn it on. And you don’t learn all those game mechanics until they kill you.

So learning those mechanic is going to be painful. No way around that. If you want to learn them, expect to get some hard lessons compared to the rest of the game.

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