Best way to improve at Mythics?

Community General Discussion
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Hello folks, ran my 4th mythic last night for the quest (and for everyone complaining about trinkets, yes I got a trinket from my box). I’d had 3 semi-rough runs and had been wondering how much of those were rough because of me and how much from dps standing in the bad (shaman healer). The 4th run was cake easy (I think one death that I might have been able to prevent) and I said “Thanks for the easy run guys!”. The tank shot back “No thanks to you bud”. After this, I thought maybe I could improve with some feedback and this was the conversation that ensued almost word for word via whisper:

me: Yikes, sorry. Can you tell me what I did wrong and how to improve for next time?
him: maybe brain surgery?
me: lol best of luck to you
him: don’t need it lad
me: meant you learning to talk like an adult
(he didn’t respond for a few after this and I blocked him to keep myself from escalating even more stupidly)

Now granted, I got a little childish there and his comment was a pretty good burn and made me laugh out loud while also frustrating me…it got me to wondering how to actually improve so that I wouldn’t frustrate folks like him. I thought I was at least a decent player but he was admittedly a REALLY solid DK tank that obviously knew what he was doing and I frustrated him to that level.

I’m just wondering…what would you guys say is the best way for those of us that want to dip our toes into Mythic+ without frustrating people like this? I know the best answer is a group of friends or joining guild runs but my friends have stopped playing this expansion and I don’t play consistently enough to try and get guild groups going since the times I play are all over the place.

Would you recommend just videos or reading more icy veins/wowhead guides? Would you recommend just setting up casual groups and hope for more helpful people?

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I can suggest a few things. I can’t speak from a healer standpoint because that’s just something I don’t do, but I can give some good overall advice.

-Read everything about your class. Talents especially. Anyone can copypasta a talent guide and read up a rotation. If you don’t understand what it means, you’re just going through the motions and that’s fine if everything goes well. Depending on what you’re running, though, things often do not go well and you must adapt.

Why were those talent choices made? What synergizes with things better? Why pick X when Y exists and seems better? Is there any way to prune these talent picks to be stronger in my preferred area, or do I want a more diverse build to handle different things?

Understanding what your class does, what it’s good and bad at, and adjusting to make up for those things can make a world of difference. Don’t just copy a guide.

-Beat up/Heal dummies. I spend a lot of time at training dummies. It’s a real bad idea to learn on the fly and hope everything works out. In a perfect world, that rotation guide works at all times and you can just follow it to a tee.

We’re not in a perfect world. Picture yourself in all kinds of scenarios: You have to be on the move, there’s people dotted up, tank is getting bursted down. Spend a healthy amount of time getting familiar with your abilities, how to use them in scenarios, learn what is optimal for Y situation.

It’s not perfect, but a healthy amount of time at a dummy can really save you some grief later down the road.

-Ask experienced players. Find someone who you know is good at your class and spec and ask them things. You can use the Shaman forums, or find someone on your server and ask if they have some tips in game.

I wouldn’t just ask random folks in a pug, especially if you’re not even sure if they play your class. Also the discussions often go south. I don’t think there’s a good way to tell DPS to focus bikes/fireworks/literally all the adds in almost any LoU fight if it’s not being done, and at that point it’s not really a class problem anyway.

Much more reliable to just seek out a player who seems like they know what they’re doing, and give them a poke. You may not get a response, but it’s at least worth a shot.

Best of luck in whatever you do in the future! Hopefully it’s a bit more fruitful.

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Its sounds like you need to git gud :+1: best of luck

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Both are fine solutions, and playing with a group of friends 100% makes everything better…

But the most important thing you can do is practice. Learning pull tempo, when to pop cooldowns, and figuring out interrupt priorities is something you master over time with practice

Reading or watching videos will only give you the knowledge but you have to implement it

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It’s a lot of practicing and reading guides. It’s iterative.

Getting good muscle memory on all your spells takes practice.

One of the biggest things for a healer (or anyone) is to, through repetition/intentional focus, learning the damage patterns of pulls/bosses so you can proactively know when you need to use healer cooldowns.

Another thing I’ve seen newer healers do is be very stingy with their healer cooldowns, saving them for a “rainy day”.

Their cooldowns are short, be liberal with them especially when you’re learning. With some practice you’ll come to understand boss phases that have high damage that you’ll already know you have an answer to with a healer cooldown.

I don’t play a resto shaman so I can’t give any specific class tips, but the shaman forums may be helpful if you ask nicely for help.

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Probably going to be a couple ways to help. Checking sites like icy veins and wowhead and reading up will help you get the knowledge. Practicing it on training dummies will help you get into a routine and become comfortable using them. Practice will help you “get good” as trolls like to put it. Practice is really the key there. As for the players being jerks, ignore them. If you cant perform in the top 1% they think you suck. They need to visit the proctologist to find their heads.

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In my opinion this breaks down into two categories, with both categories being equal.

  1. Knowing your class, and spec. Most people would look at this and think they know their rotation, and that may even be true. But there is so much more to each class / spec than just a rotation. A rotation is just pressing abilities in an ordered manner which yields the highest dps possible. On training dummies you can prefect this. But the one area which training dummies fail is enviormental obsticles. You need to also learn about your class / specs defensives, interrupts, hard cc as well as movement options. Movement options are largely unused until late game and more specially very niche situations. For example the warlocks demonic circle ( I think ). While leveling this skill goes largely unused. However when you start running mythics or raid you could find ample situations where using this skill will allow you to continue dpsing without interruption. In real life the pvp boss in theater of pain if you drop your demonic circle on the outside of the arena when the boss does his Aoe 360 circle you can press one button to be teleported to safety. Again in the theater of pain, you could drop it where the group will stack for adds. The application of this one ability is super useful.

  2. Knowing the dungeons, possible pull paths, and the mobs. You can get this one on of two ways. Experience through running keys which usually nets a lot of toxicity. You are learning at others expense. Or through using as the tools people have created for us. Almost every pack of trash mobs has a single mob you need to look out for that has a spell which absolutely has to be either hard cced or interrupt. There are also targets which at times need to be focused down before other targets.

With all of that being said there are a plethora of tools at your finger tips which can help you if you choose to use them.

  1. Weak auras. These can change everything about the game for you. People have put together packets which can totally change your in game ui to make the “important spells which need some form of interruption light up a different color”
  2. Class discord. Every class in the game has a discord. Be it some are more friendly than other but if you are willing to sift through the lame people you will find there are people who generally like helping other people through these discords.
  3. Murloc io - will help you figure out your proper stat allocations, what the top 50 players are using for gear, enchants, crafts etc.
  4. Archongg - similar to Murloc io
  5. Wowhead - I don’t need to say more

In the end it is totally up to you and where you want to go. Mythic plus isn’t for everyone, and yes people can be toxic. Hell I would go on to say I am one of the more toxic people. Not that I openly insult people etc, though I am sure it happens, but I also admit I make mistakes, which sometimes cause people to be toxic to me as well. What I have realized is that people do not like their time being wasted, and because the only form of communication they have with you is through text so they let you know you caused their frustration. Should you venture deeper into mythic plus you are likely to become just as toxic as anyone else. You will start to push higher io and you will encounter people who Rick your key just because they want too

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So I was lucky to have been given a bit of guidance when i started from a guild that pushed pretty far. I still remember it cause it was a few years ago:

  • Have dual monitors and look at the cheat sheet for a dungeon. If you’re lucky you might have one vertical with the whole cheat sheet in front of you. If you’re a tank have your MDT route on here.
  • Practice your rotation
  • Have keybinds for all abilities you will press that are 3 minutes or less. Throughput once you master the rotation is pressing buttons fast.
  • Build your CC’s in a way that you can readily react to them (int next to a stun, maybe alt+ that same button for an AoE Stun etc).
  • Set expectations when you enter a dungeon. I am sucky at tanking anything higher than a +7 but i get to practice them with PuGs that are OK with it. I say so beforehand and when that results in me being removed before it starts - that’s good.

That’s pretty much it from me!

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I’m assuming you already know the basics of your spec, (what talents to run in what content, what buttons to push in which general situations, what gear and consumables you should use… etc) if not then you should look up some resources and figure that out. WoWhead guides are usually pretty reliable or you could use something like Archon to get a feel for what kinds of builds are typical for your class.

But onto more M+ specific-advice…

So running M+ as a healer tends to be all about encounter knowledge. This means both knowing which adds are dangerous and need to be controlled as well as where the damage spikes are expected to be so you can react to them appropriately. Every player should know which spells they want to interrupt and which mobs have a frontal or how where all instances of avoidable damage are (and how to avoid them). You should also have a general idea of where and when you will use your class defensives.

Healers specifically need to know where all of the unavoidable damage is. What pulls will your tank be slapped during? What pulls will have high group damage? Plan your cooldown usage around the damage profile of the dungeon.

Unfortunately, both these things require pretty specific dungeon knowledge. I would suggest doing some research on each dungeon ahead of time (usually in the form of YouTube guides) but there really is no substitute for experience. This is something you will learn as you run each dungeon. What’s important is making sure those runs aren’t wasted and you aren’t just running dungeons over and over without learning anything.

I have a couple tools I use to this. Controversial though it may be, I actually really like the addon ElitismHelper. Not because I love shaming people, but because it lets me know where the avoidable damage in a dungeon is. Whenever it triggers either for me or a group mate (you can set it to broadcast privately instead of publicly) I make a note of the mechanic and make sure I know to look out for it next time. I’ll also look at my logs after a dungeon and see what led up to every death. If I see a lot of unavoidable damage leading to a death, that’s a sign I should consider defensives or self-preservation tools there. If I see those tools used and still a death, time to consider either rerouting to avoid that problem area (an easier discussion if it’s not a PuG) or using heavier-duty healing cooldowns there.

Not every death will be your fault, plenty of people will die to avoidable damage. And you’re not expected to work miracles and pull a group from the brink of disaster by yourself. But the reality is that the healer is the primary role for covering for other people’s mistakes. Like I emphasized earlier, you need to have something of a script prepared, but you also need a limited ability to go off script and save people from unplanned situations. So I would also recommend becoming familiar with a few “panic options” so that when those situations arise, you don’t hesitate. Triage a bit though. Sometimes a death is better than wasting necessary resources and sometimes a health bar can wait a second before you fill it back up. (Knowledge of damage profiles helps with this). Healing is a role all about judgement and the more experience you get, the more refined that snap-judgement will become.

And finally, make sure to use your ENTIRE toolkit. If you have utility, find where you can use it. If you have any buttons that you’re never hitting ever for the whole dungeon, why not? And how can you use them better? If your cooldowns are being held for an emergency that never comes, don’t. Use useful tools when they’re useful and that emergency you’re dreading will be avoided entirely. (And in case you’re wondering, damage is part of your utility. Learn where it’s safe to do damage and do it.)

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Nothing is going to beat experience with the dungeons themselves, so that you intimately know when tough healing moments are coming up and which players are going to be in danger and can proactively prepare.

However, I’m going to make a suggestion that might be controversial and suggest that you also install weakauras and the S2 dungeons weakaura pack by Tarithal on Wago. It will give you visible and audible indicators for all important enemy abilities in each dungeon with enough warning that you can do something about it. It helps a lot for every role, especially when you have to pay attention to things like positioning or unit frames and can’t watch enemy nameplates like a hawk. For me, it makes it a lot easier to learn and memorize which abilities are coming up in every pack and what to do about them.

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this is a rough season for healers.

there is lots of pulsing aoe damage, stacking tank bleeds that shamans can’t really help, dispels that can be dispelled, and, of course, pug players insisting on standing in the bad

and m0 mechanics matter. m0 is not a small increase in difficulty over heroics. it is a very large increase in difficulty for those people not informed. and an uninformed healer will be painfully obvious to the rest of the group.

I would check out automaticjak and maddskillztv youtube channels.

if you really want to understand the dungeons, check out tactyks’ channel. he writes from a tank perspective, but he tells you about boss mechanics and covers important trash mobs.

in the end, the m+ healer is the goalie. by the time the ball gets to you, it has gotten past the rest of the team already. and if it goes into the goal, you get blamed.

but shammy has some great proactive and reactive tools. learn them and don’t get frustrated.

I primarily tank. and it is only now that I am at 21.k m+ score and running +7s that I am really getting a good feel for these dungeons and how to effectively play my toon in this content.

healers are needed.

watch videos. focus on m0 for a bit.

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Practice. Take your alts into 0s. after 10 or so runs in each dungeon you won’t be having problems.

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I don’t think that’s controversial at all. Information control is a HUGE part of WoW. The game loves to overwhelm you with information and the job of a good UI (WeakAuras and audio alerts included) is to emphasize critical information while not overloading you with superfluous information. Every player should spend some time going over their UI and addons to make sure that it works for them. You want no hesitation when the time comes which means you don’t want to waste brain processing time on things that don’t deserve it and you want to notice things that should be noticed immediately. Make sure your UI does both. On that topic, I like using a plater profile called Quazii when I run dungeons. Helps me immediately identify mobs with a frontal as well as mobs with an important cast to control or interrupt. A WA or DBM package to alert you to important mechanics is good too. (I use GTFO and DBM as well).

A few tips for good UI design:

  1. Your eyes should rest right below your character’s feet. The most important information goes there (you’ll see most people put their cooldowns and class resources there) with less important information radiating out from the center with truly minor stuff at the edges of your screen.
  2. Information should never be displayed more than once. If two addons are telling you the same thing, get rid of one. Any information that’s not important at all you should consider disabling entirely. (For instance, what are floating damage numbers telling you? Consider disabling them).
  3. There’s a hierarchy for alerts. Sound trumps movement trumps static images/text. An alert with an audio cue is your nuclear option. Use it sparingly so it doesn’t lose its impact and only for things that are ALWAYS priority 1. Any UI element that moves or flashes is one priority step below that.

And as a last piece of semi-related advice, give your keybinds a good hard look from time to time. Is everything comfortable? Is it easy to perform common ability sequences? Are your most used abilities on your most prime real estate buttons?

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  1. Know your class
  • Learn your rotation and practice on dummies. Make sure dealing damage is natural and not something youre thinking about and looking down at your abilities.
  • Understand your defensive toolkit. Healers cant be rolling emergency CDs on everyone. You need to be able to keep yourself alive during periods of high unavoidable damage. Some delve bosses like Waxface can help practice this.
  • Learn your utility. Get familiar with what utility you bring to your group. Dispels, battle Rez, add control etc.
  1. Learn the dungeons.
  • Method publishes pretty good guides that are nicely condensed to give you important info.
  • Don’t get overwhelmed. Focus on the big things first, like not dropping aoe on your group.
  • Learn when to preemptively roll defensives. If you know a boss is about to start AoEing everyone you can wall so your healer can focus on others. Or drop an AoE defensive etc.
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  1. Obtain 640 ilvl or higher (Achievable with Delves).
  2. Stay in M0 until it’s on the easier side.

Step 3 is move to +2/3/4/5/6 whenever you feel comfortable. Get enough runs under your belt and you’ll be M+ certified soon enough.

Also sorry you had to experience the “non-existent” toxicity. Folks can be crazy grouchy in M+ when it’s not the easiest/most carrying’est run in the world. Happens more often than some of us would like to admit.

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You can either be an adult and stop taking internet insults personally, or look into the vast amount of resources to try to improve at the game

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play with friends/guild

pugs in any game are usually toxic because they are just hiding behind the veil of anonymity and for the fact that you will most likely never see this people ever again.

find friends or join a m+ discord. like WME ( wow made easy )

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Calm down bud. From the looks of it he’s not taking the insults personally and is just using the opportunity to look into improving his play. And looking into the vast game resources is exactly what he’s TRYING to do. Politely asking the community for some guidance on which of those resources to start with is a fantastic first step. You’ll notice many of the posts are highlighting resources for the OP to look at.

I’m not sure what this post accomplishes. The OP is seeking advice the correct way with a good attitude and I don’t see the point in discouraging him.

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Watch some Vids on YouTube. Quazii does some really good master class videos on the dungeons.

Get the addons you need to be successful:

DBM or big whigs
Plater with Quazii’s mods

Know your rotation and what you should be interrupting. (Look your class up on Icey-veins or wowhead). There are also lots of class discords that can be a resource.

These dungeons on m+ have a lot to them and joining a random group hoping they will teach it to you really isn’t practical.

Look for groups who have “learning” or “casual” in the title.

Lastly, if you can’t build a group with friends and plan to only pug: have a really thick skin.

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Agree with both but I’d add GTFO to that list as well, plus something that lets you create a halfway decent information dashboard for things like cooldowns, class resources, important buffs/debuffs, and mechanics. (It’s not the only option for doing this but 99% of the time that will be WeakAuras. Blizzard is making some good steps in improving their default UI but it’s not quite there yet).

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