I know there is a one time option at the end of a dungeon, but that means you have to run a dungeon you most likely cannot get just to RNG a new dungeon, which gives you a something like a 15% chance at getting the key you want.
And it’s not like I am not running my own keys, or running keys with my guild, but it’s all still RNG and who gets what key and the key I want to run is the last dungeon I need for my 2K rating.
It’s getting to that point already where there are minimal keys being offered, a lot less than I recall in 9.0, and being that I play feral, and yes we can hit harder than balance, I get the uninvite button quite often.
Everyone is always “Must be balance”, “Feral is crap”, “Why feral bro”, I honestly can’t remember the last time a balance druid beat me, but that doesn’t matter, everyone automatically thinks a feral druid is no good and there is nothing I can say or do to change their minds.
It’s a double predicament, I play a spec that everyone automatically assumes is the worse spec and never get the key I need.
This is where your game falls over Blizzard, you give players an achievement to chase, comes with a nice mount, than force players into an RNG situation coupled in with the community stigma that X class/spec combo (and there are multiple) is automatically bad.
I would be happy to run my own ToP, if I had one.
A) Make friends. If you have two friends, you have three keys to run per week. If you have four friends, you have five keys to run per week. This greatly increases your player agency in selecting which dungeon you want to run
B) Make friends. If you pump on a feral druid, your friends will be totally fine with you playing an off-meta spec.
C) Make friends. If you have a group of friends, you won’t have to have a long time queueing for multiple groups. Just wait until your tank and healer buddies are online and play with them.
Having friends isn’t exactly the answer. I had 33 online last night in my guild and we run a fair amount of M+, we have keys ranging from +14 - +22 and that is a slow night for us, we could have upwards of 50-60 online at times yet have trouble finding a key we want.
It could be that no one is online with the key we want, no one who has the key is available, no healers free, no tanks free and some days we can’t even get 3 DPS as they are all busy. Two friends, four friends, try an entire guild and some days it makes no difference.
With the changes Blizzard are making in 9.1.5 one of the last things that they are keeping RNG to slow us down is the inability to choose our own dungeons and for a good reason, but it doesn’t help when you start getting to that point in a season. It only means those who have their KSM or now 2K+ score on their mains are not going to be pushing as much and that limits your choices for those who don’t push in the first month.
It’s not an issue either of getting good, I am tanking and timing keys so not being carried, but I just don’t have the time to run my Nth key every single week to try and capitalise on the higher player population at the start of each season.