In this post, I make an argument for the return of the MoP and WoD challenge mode appearances using achievement attainment data. I personally only care for the return of the WoD appearances, and of them solely the Greatsword of the Inferno; no other sword model in the game comes close to the look of this item and it being locked behind an achievement from 7 years ago is lame.
I do not want the Greatsword of the Inferno transmog because it is “rare.” I want it because it is bar-none the best-looking sword model in the game. It being currently unobtainable has literally zero impact on my desire to have this transmog; the visual appearance of the item is the sole reason I want it.
All data taken from [dataforazeroth]
MoP Challenge Mode Achievement Data
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Challenge Conqueror - 7.4266%
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Challenge Conqueror: Bronze - 7.4220%
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Challenge Conqueror: Silver - 7.3887%
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Challenge Conqueror: Gold - 6.8832%
Challenge Conqueror required that a player simply completed all 9 challenge mode dungeons irrespective of the time it took to complete said dungeons. Challenge Conqueror: Gold required that a player complete all 8 challenge mode dungeons within the time allotted for a gold completion.
This indicates that 92.68% of players that even attempted to complete all 9 dungeons on challenge mode completed the dungeons within the most difficult time restriction.
WoD Challenge Mode Achievement Data
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Challenge Warlord - 5.6778%
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Challenge Warlord: Bronze - 5.5861%
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Challenge Warlord: Silver - 5.5072%
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Challenge Warlord: Gold - 5.2647%
Challenge Warlord required that a player simply completed all 8 challenge mode dungeons irrespective of the time it took to complete said dungeons. Challenge Warlord: Gold required that a player complete all 8 challenge mode dungeons within the time allotted for a gold completion.
This indicates that 92.72% of players that even attempted to complete all 8 dungeons on challenge mode completed the dungeons within the most difficult time restriction.
Significance
This data suggests that the challenge mode dungeon achievements, and the rewards offered for completing them on the “highest difficulty,” are not exclusive based on any requirement of skill but rather based on whether not a player ever attempted them. In other words, players who played during MoP and WoD, if they attempted to obtain them, were nearly guaranteed to get the challenge mode appearances.
If completing the dungeons within the gold completion time truly was difficult, you would expect to see a decent dropoff from bronze to silver to gold; in reality, we don’t see this as there is an extremely minimal dropoff from bronze to gold for both MoP and WoD. For reference, the bronze completion time for most of the CM dungeons was roughly an hour, while the gold completion time was roughly 18-20 minutes.
In my opinion, the argument that in order to bring these appearances back – or even recolors of them – Blizzard needs to make sure the content is as “difficult” as it was back then is without merit. If less than 8% of the players who even attempted to complete all the challenge mode dungeons didn’t do so on the hardest difficulty, I’m not sure they can even be described as difficult to begin with.
Comparison to M+ Completion
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Shadowlands Keystone Explorer: Season Three - 17.6121%
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Shadowlands Keystone Conqueror: Season Three - 13.6122%
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Shadowlands Keystone Master: Season Three - 10.1927%
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Shadowlands Keystone Hero: Season Three - 3.3220%
Keystone Explorer requires an M+ rating of 900, equivalent to completing all 10 dungeons at a +5 level. Keystone Hero requires an M+ rating of 3000, equivalent to completing all 10 dungeons at a +20 level.
This indicates that 18.86% of players that completed all dungeons at a +5 level completed all dungeons at a +20 level. 57.87% of players that completed all dungeons at a +5 level completed all dungeons at a +15 level.
In my opinion, an 81% decline in completion of content from its least challenging to most challenging can likely be described as difficult. Even using KSM numbers – the difficulty level at which most players stop – there is a 42% decline, which I would still argue is indicative of difficult content, at the very least more so than the MoP and WoD challenge modes.
Overall Point
The overall point of this post is to show that the MoP and WoD challenge mode appearances have no reason not to be brought back due to claims of difficulty. The only argument one could make for why they shouldn’t return is simply because Blizzard said so, which in of itself is a quite poor reason. Blizzard also said that players would not be able to easily swap covenants; look where we are now.
Videos of players completing the challenge mode dungeons are easily found on YouTube, most of which are speed runs in which the players beat the dungeon in roughly 25% of the gold completion time; some groups did not even bring a healer. For example, a group beat the Scarlet Halls in 2:49, while the gold completion time was 13:00.
Those who argue that these appearances should not come back because Blizzard has removed them: are you conscious of the fact that you are defending an older-than-dirt sales tactic meant to elicit a false sense of urgency from the consumer? Blizzard deserves zero defense for outright removing these appearances from the game just because they said they would; if anything, they deserve criticism for making them unobtainable in the first place.
Getting enjoyment from having something solely because other people do not have it is a very loser mentality. I obtained the Victorious skins from every single League of Legends season that I have played (rewarded for reaching at least gold in ranked); I could not care less if literally everyone that plays League was given those skins because they do not appeal to me or most other people that have them. If someone who did not play during those seasons did want one because of their visual appeal, I would be totally fine with them having it.
With Blizzard planning on adding MoP and WoD dungeons into the M+ rotation in Dragonflight, these appearances could easily be re-introduced as a reward for achieving KSM. I doubt this will be the case, but if season 1 has 4 MoP dungeons and season 2 has 4 WoD dungeons, they could make the appearances rewards for those respective seasons.
