So I came across a blue post and thought I would share it with you

And tell you a little about why the whole “It’s okay to have hard content that you cannot complete.” thing does not quite work. First I think if the devs have this mindset it is no wonder players are turning away from some content.

I read posts here and talk to players in game, and even when looking for groups I find a certain trait, when an M+ week does not fair well with a certain dungeon it is hard to find higher keys, no matter if you tank or heal, the groups are limited, and almost vice versa when it is an easy week, almost.

There are simply some dungeons are higher keys they unless you have a specific group of classes you can just forget it. Like my Priest, who cannot deal with Grievous unless I group with either a DK or Monk and have 3 ranged DPS. What about that is OK? It is not about me, yes I miss out on say Motherlode next week along with Freehold and if we don’t get past the start of UR I can skip that place also.

Than there is the Bosltering and Bursting weeks in the same dungeons no less. There is Tyrannical on the totem boss in Atal and the second boss in UR, it is the same problem we all face, either go in with a purpose built team or face not finishing the place.

I will give you a bit of information on all this, my guilds top tank (and has been since this guild was made), as a DK is currently raider ranked 1 on our server and 514 in the world (topped out best I seen top 200 worldwide) has had to dual heal the sisters boss in Waycrest on some weeks.

The other day my 370 DK had to dual heal the last 2 bosses in Temple, on Fort week. I also ran a +11 the other week when my DK was 362 iLVL with the 4th best DPS on our server going in as tank, so he definitely knows what is up and a DPS I have been playing with since MoP, first hand I can say he knows what is up, but I had to zone out and go into Blood spec for the second boss and than change back for the rest.

I just don’t think that is OK and kind of breaks the rules of M+ in that we can simply zone out, change spec, and zone back in.

All these examples above were solely guild runs and we can run heroic Uldir in a 20 man group with myself and one other healer for the first 4 or so bosses, skill is not the issue here, 2 healing heroic Uldir with that size group for half the raid and than struggle with equivalent iLVL content on the side?

You tell me what is wrong with that picture.

But yes, I am all for not being able to complete content, never been able to finish a mythic raid yet, even just one boss and that does not worry me one bit, it happens, maybe I am not good enough, maybe the group I got into did not gel and just couldn’t get it together, maybe someone made a mistake, it happens and not finishing some content is fine, if it did not take a very specific group of classes to finish some content.

In short it is quite easy to finish some content that rewards 370 gear, but quite impossible to finish others unless the stars align, now is this fair? Let’s have a look back at just one aspect of M+ that has had a major change due to being so hard that you cannot complete it, isn’t that what the dev said?

Explosives. I think it was the first week this came out, specifically in UR where the boss adds spawned the explosives, this was insta nerfed because it was not OK for everyone to not finish it.

A few more nerfs such as no more orbs from hard CC’d mobs and they are now AOE killable (as long as you target them) unlike previous where no matter what no AOE could hurt them.

These changes came in part due to such a small amount of people finishing, along with what I said above in that you must have a certain group of classes, or at least very specific role for each player, say the Rogue being the only melee being on orb duty, they use no CD’s until the orb shows.

But in doing that I find it may turn players away. Like recently when I done WM, I explained the sisters fight to the group on our way, half way through the explanation someone left, either something came up or they didn’t feel like being in a group who needed to strategise and I think it was the later, a minute later he requested to join my group again only to cancel his invite request, make what you want of that.

Personally I have found more pugs who want their DPS to be top rather than follow mechanics, and that is fine if you out level the place, but when you are pushing keys, it doesn’t quite work all the time.

Most recently it happened on my healer, a +8 TD group, got just past the second boss before the highest iLVL in our group starting giving crap to others about how low their DPS is, but we were doing fine, we had minimal deaths, no full wipes and were on target to meet the time, but the group fell apart after this even after repeated attempts to calm them down and let them know the DPS does not matter, it is more about mechanics and actually staying alive than just pushing your numbers, rookie numbers or not, they don’t need to be in the sky to matter.

One guy was looking at nothing but the numbers while I was watching players actually tackle the mechanics, like that big mob after the second boss and tanking him at the right place for LOS, and the small mobs before the third boss. As the key holder I was happy how we were progressing, it made it quite easy on the heals which meant good progression.

Seriously, I don’t care about the numbers, I care for seeing how well people can play and tackle what is given to them, the issue here in that “It’s okay to have hard content that you cannot complete.” is the issue, because some team comps, some weeks, some classes just cannot complete those dungeons unless they either OP the place or other people in the group do.

And with the fact we cannot kill our keys means we can either hope to get into other peoples runs or just miss out, is that fair? Some of us here choose to run M+ for various reasons, the main being it is repeatable and the other is that there is no real time needed for one run, you get a key, you put aside an hour whenever and find 4 other players and you are off.

TL;DR
I really think some runs on some weeks just isn’t quite right. We should be able to finish any run at any difficulty based more on what our skill can offer followed by what our iLVL is rather than the specific team comp we have and what our class can offer when you combine the modifiers with the dungeon.

I have completed +10’s as a healer and as a tank, this post has nothing to do with what I can or cannot complete, how good or how bad I am. I have been through enough content and have a high enough iLVL to be happy with on both my mains.

Years ago the game was about skill more than anything, now, not so much.

And now one for the road, Shamans. I just looked through all my last completed dungeons on my healer, not even one of them in a completed run, and I cannot even remember the last time I finished a run with one, think about that and look through your history to see what I mean, not specifically with Shamans, but overall what classes perform better than others on certain weeks.

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Im sorry, I stopped reading there. Some Melee are the strongest specs in M+, and the context of the blue post was essentially “L2P, eventually youll get there”, and not that its impossible to complete unless you had the exact right comp.

Edit: And to add, it was a Rastlin post the blue responded to, a known huge troll who likes to pick buzz words out to draw a huge reaction.

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The biggest issue with shamans, is community perception. People hear that shaman arent good for +15 keys, so therefor dont want them in their +10 keys. And right now, shaman are very good for m+.

I have yet to have a team comp that I can’t at least complete a m+ (not including the timer). For my guild runs, we just take anyone available. I don’t even remember the last time I ran with a blood DK, and I have completed enough keys to get a rating over 1k.

I probably run with a bear or monk tank most often at this point. Then Pally. Because I run primarily with my guild, I typically go with a holy pally, priest (he switches between holy and disc) and druid.

Are some affixes worse for specific dungeons? Definitely. But I have never had what would be considered a meta comp, and I get them done.

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The problem with your post is that you’re only looking at the 370 ilvl loot and not the end of the week cache. You’re getting 380 ilvl loot, almost mythic level loot, for doing a +10, and a +10 dungeon is significantly easier than almost all of the mythic bosses in Uldir, save the first two, on ANY week.

The other problem is that M+ is spammable, where raids and other content is not, so thus the base ilvl has to be relatively low at 370 with chance of titanforging otherwise gearing becomes too easy.

I will say that one problem with the game right now is how EASY it is to get 370 ilvl loot, from emissaries, incursions, and warfronts. That’s not a problem with M+, that’s a problem with rewarding a warfront which is a scenario you can’t lose, be the same as a M+10. It’s asinine.

On another topic relating to your post, I find +8s harder than +10s just because the player skill in those runs is significantly worse. Hard to find people that know what they’re doing since there’s no incentive to run anything less than a 10, so skilled players don’t.

Edit: I also agree that removing the deletion of keys is awful. Blizzard doesn’t get that some people want to push a specific dungeon for score, or at the very least doesn’t care about those people.

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You’re taking the blue post completely out of context.

The blue post was a specific reference to the legion mage tower challenge which everyone knew was supposed to be incredibly hard and only provided an xmog as it’s prize.

The rest of your post is as much a complaint about players themselves as it is mythic+ affixes being overtuned as it is about some group comps being viable for high level keys.

You come across as rambling and lack any coherence.

  1. insist on discord voice chat and people become less toxic, more relaxed, easier to manage and plan.
  2. Blizz has many times in bfa hotfixed m+ dungeons when certain affix combos were too difficult, like the dust balls on the final underrot boss with the explosive affix. It was hell at first, but then Blizz fixed it by Wed or Thurs that week.
  3. Group comps… the meta… whatever… even if all class specs in a certain role were within 0.001% of each other at some point people would still insist on the “better” specs in their group activity. Play what you like, run your own keys, comp will be what you want it to be.
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You see I disagree with this as some weeks you need to brute force your way through and honestly you will find sometimes it cannot be done.

That tank I was talking about, last time we had Tyrannical and Grievous week we both ran an Atal at the same time, I was doing +8 and he was doing +12 or something, I could not get past the toten boss yet he finished the dungeon, why? Was it to do with our different skill or iLVL?

Skill, no, team comp, yes. This was before 8.1 too and I had a warrior tank and 3 pure DPS whereas he had himself as a DK, a Priest and a Paladin. I asked him how he done it and aside from a 380+ DK with no limits Bonestorm, the Paladin was also off healing, I had myself as the only healer, even my tank had no self heals.

And my run went a little something like this on the totem boss as a holy priest. Totems about to fall, 12 minute CD goes off, totems fall, 3 minute CD goes off, the 3 DPS die as I am casting, at 376 IVL, with everyone being over 370 iLVL.

It was simply mathematically impossible for us to finish the place with what we had, either the players were standing in the wrong spot or that initial hit from the boss on Tyrannical at that level just made it impossible to get back over the health limit to stop Grievous. Mind you, that being on a dungeon that offered less iLVL than all of us had overall in both the dungeon drop and the end of week cache.

Maybe, but I only found it linked to another post here recently that was talking about other content. The comment still does sort of ring true, we should not have all content that can be done by all players, some are just not skilled enough to do so, but some content, that has nothing to do with skill.

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No.
Having to do 10 times better than someone smashing the keyboard with another class to barely match the same performance isn’t being “very good”.

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I just went through some random 20-30 dungeons from that tank in my guild, I found ONE completed run that had a Shaman in the group and they all had the same range of classes. Overall He only ever uses 3 types of healers, a priest, monk and druid and 2 types of tanks, himself as a DK and a DH, all combos based around what modifiers there are.

There is the odd, very odd run here and there that has something out of the ordinary, but overall I can see a very clear strategy, and remember, this guy was about a month or two ago top 200 in the world based on raider ranks, I think that itself says something about the state of M+.

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Oh, you guys were talking about healer? No idea then.

Oh no, I am talking about ANY Shaman, I have never completed a run with one and that tank has only 1 could find in any aspect, and he has a ton of runs.

Not just score, a DH on my guild was looking for nothing but +9 or higher in FH specifically for a BiS item, to do that now is still the same, find other groups, but you cannot delete your key and hope it becomes an FH key later so you miss chances at getting another run you want.

I’ve never had any issues on the totem boss in Atal… you’re doing something wrong, the only relatively tough boss in that place is the last boss if you don’t group up the spiders effectively.

Also, stop comparing yourself to that tank. He’s almost 2k score, doing 17s and such, you haven’t done anything higher than a 10. He is more skilled than you, plain and simple. Before 8.1 disc priest was insanely strong so your lack of score isn’t because of class balance but lack of player skill.

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You acknowledging that you’re taking something out of context (which you are) is frankly a sleazy politician move.

The mage tower was intended to be incredibly hard. Many people complained about that in various ways (and that’s what the referenced thread was about) and Blizz was right in not budging in any significant way.

You holding that up as an example of Blizz being failing to address about current mythic + affix overtuning and bfa class balance and player toxicity (last isn’t Blizz’s fault but whatever)… as far as I am concerned you’re not even trying to make an honest argument.

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This is the kind of comment that makes me REALLY worried about classic and it’s lifespan and community.

When? Especially in the context of 5 mans, when was the game EVER more skillful than now? Look at the earliest iteration of competetive dungeon content and all the problems you are talking about here were FAR greater in mop and wod cms. Ironically, thanks to ele and enhance cms respectively.

There are always classes that will be best and worst, and outside of a few bosses and affix combos, there is nothing in mythic plus beyond your control.

If you want to elaborate on this quote, please do so, otherwise it reads as pure nostalgia and that makes me REALLY worry about the credibility of this thread, especially when coupled with the fact that you blatantly take that blue post out of context to try to make it sound like your point is worth making.

Anyway, you are wrong about shamans. They have one of the best utility kits in the video game for 5 mans, and now after half a dozen buffs they are no longer significantly behind in any way as any spec. I’d never consider enhance for my keys but they are good. Ele is just tons better.

The reason you don’t see them is because people in this game aren’t capable of thinking for themselves so when the meta formed early everyone sticks to it assuming they can’t compete otherwise.

You can complete 15s with any comp for sure. Some affixes are harder than others, but they are hotfixing and balancing them as best they can. There will never be perfect balance though, sadly.

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I compared myself to the tank so far in one aspect, which was that Atal boss, which was also some levels difference to give an example of how to vastly different composition groups could or could not finish a dungeon.

And score has nothing to do with skill, play as much. When I had enough time to play in the past I was this guilds R1 raid leader and top healer, something I don’t like to talk about since it looks like I am talking about “how I am so good and how the game should be easier”, which is not the case and never will be the case when I post stuff.

And as I said, I found that page because it was linked to a current post that had nothing to do with mage tower, like yesterday current talking about current content. You know, the links you see that are relevant to what is being posted.

No that is not what I mean. Look back at say PVP when a level 40 could take on a level 60 and survive, may not win depending on individual skill and gear, but could at least stand a chance at not dying instantly, that is not the case now where your iLVL is almost the standardised factor in a character. You could be 20 iLVL lower than someone now at the same level and stand zero chance in any aspect.

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Ok so the blue post is referring to the mage tower, which after it’s launch received very little changes, outside of the tank challenge getting nerfed as it was deemed much harder than the other ones. Outside of that, no matter how much people whined, blizzard did not nerf the mage tower.

Fast forward to BFA M+ and there are hot-fixes on an almost weekly basis, depending on affix combos. The fact that they are constantly tweaking and hot-fixing clearly demonstrates that they ARE trying to make the content do-able by the whole player-base and completely undermines your point.

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From my point of view they are changing content that has to be changed or face the real prospect of no one finishing the content at all. That is far from changing it to demonstrate they are trying to make it more do-able by everyone.

And that is not even the point of my post, no matter your skill level there are some dungeons that need specific class combinations to complete or face the real prospect of not being able to do them. I am sure players have seen their own share of dungeons where they out iLVL the rewards and just cannot get past it due to what classes they have.

Like that totem boss in Atal where I am clearly doing something wrong, isn’t that what you said? And it is nothing but my fault by the sounds of it when even my top heals meant absolutely nothing, the same dungeon where the tank had no self heals and the other 3 only had self heals.

I have had bosses where I have topped over 25K HPS as the only healer in the group and failed, even when players iLVL is higher than the rewards the dungeons offer. THAT is my point, when you out iLVL the dungeon, pull in the big numbers and cannot finish it, that is not skill, that is the wrong combination of classes for that dungeon on that week and it should not be a contributing factor as to whether you finish the place or not.

Like needing a mage or someone who has a slow or CC in bolstering week. That is not even skill, that is being smart and finding the right classes which makes some classes simply not viable no matter how good you are.

Now go into Motherlode on fort and bolstering or fort and necrotic week with no hard CC and no slows, tell me than how easy it is to finish.

Don’t bold your words or they will be edited

Im sorry, but this is what happens when Titanforging is a thing, and the reason Raider. io exists (as much as I hate it). Everything you’ve described here can be attributed to player skill being lackluster. You think your item level makes you super powerful, but that’s only if you if know how to play your classes fully.

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In what world are you having to do 10 times better than anyone else in m+?

You have run one total m+ on your ele sham.

How do you have any idea about ele sham in m+ if you literally don’t run m+ as ele?

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Just for the record: That rule was my post.

I am fine with you quoting it because it was one of my most excellent topics. I put a lot of work into crafting the “50%” rule. And it is a very good rule.

In the future, please at least give a tip of the hat to the author if you are going to quote my posts.

But to the issue at hand: If 50% (approximately) of the players are not able to complete some part of the content within one month (approximate) then that content is overtuned. Period.

Blizzard needs to understand that people will just give up on things to hard or that give out to low a reward for the effort it takes.

Thanks for quoting and bringing up my excellent rule.

Best Regards,
Rastlin

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