Trying to progress beyond 10s becomes ridiculous when most 11-12 groups are high IO crest farmers.
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→ Make groups with your own key
→ Invite those high IO farmers
→ ???
→ Profit!
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Yes, sadly it is so. I’ve seen a lot of groups in the finder where the leader has timed +20 of the dungeon he is advertising a +11 for lol. As a tank it’s easier to get in, but there is surely a mountain of other more geared dps applying for the key, so anyone actually at the level where they need stuff here is gonna be out of luck bigtime. 
That’s not really a solution for people who want to actually progress, and not get carried then hit a wall at 16 when the train ride stops
Worked for me.
And you can downgrade your key if it gets to be too much.
Feel free to take your awful advice back to Reddit.
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Are you actually trying to apply to these groups or just whining about them? I invite pretty much any score when I run these groups to help friends/guildies. 11s are a joke and it doesn’t matter who I invite, I’m just looking for a warm body. If you don’t die to mechanics I’ll even ask you if you want to stick around, regardless of what your DPS was.
Put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to apply to these groups.
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Hi,
You haven’t done most dungeons past 10. Some folks might be a tad picky when forming groups, when they have to choose between someone who has a best run for the dungeon over 11 vs someone only at 9’s. If they are crest farming, the choices we make when forming groups can be between a 12-crest run vs a 5-crest run.
Not saying the other people in queue are better than you, that’s why probably improving your own keys first. I rolled mine to 9 > 10 > 12 > 14’s I mean before I started queuing for 11’s to show I know what I’m doing even if my io isn’t legendary color.
Good luck! If it means anything, I’d take a 424 pally anytime of the day and twice on Sunday. You have brez!
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Aw, you’re nice.
i’ve not experienced this issue.
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This is kinda true but hear me out - wouldn’t you rather learn by winning and then just manually drop the key over and over instead of hitting walls with players that don’t know what’s going on? I think it’s nice to have experienced players in lower keys that you can learn from, as long as you are self aware and can play keys that you think you’re ready for. I’ve found that as long as the keys are being timed, people are generally in good spirits and very helpful if you just ask them! It’s free coaching in a sense. The best way to get better!
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But you don’t need to farm wyrm crests just get aspect crests and downgrade them. No one is hitting the cap now.
The way I see it, +16 is in a really weird spot where most people running it probably only care about the Aspect fragments because they already have Hero gear. +16 doesn’t drop Hero gear, but drops the fragments used in upgrading Hero gear, and that makes +16 a really big wall for people that are stuck with Champion gear because you can’t really gear too much at +16 without already having Hero gear, which you don’t get until you run +17s. You’re much better off jumping from +15 to +17, because +17 is where you get both Aspect fragments and gear that actually uses Aspect crests to upgrade them with, but if you’re in that bracket and you still need both Hero gear and Aspect crests, then +16’s no good for you and thus you stick to running +17s for the minimum keystone level that’ll get you those fragments and the gear that uses it, even if you have the gear by ilvl to run +20s.
So… now you have a gigantic wall in +16s and +17s that a lot of people trying to enter that bracket have to deal with, and thus, I think what happens is that a ton of people are stuck in the +11 to +15 range farming Wyrm crests out the wazoo to upgrade the Champion gear they have, all of it, to their maximum level, to make that jump into +17 possible. That has the side effect of flooding the +11 to +15 bracket with people that are technically overleveled for it because they’re farming hundreds of fragments to upgrade everything with to begin entering the conversation of getting an invite for +17s.
The mistakes Blizzard made here is that you get 12 fragments for a timed run, and 5 for an untimed run, regardless of what keystone level you’re doing, and +16 doesn’t drop Hero gear. If you’re strictly farming Wyrm fragments for upgrading, there’s no reason to do +15s when you can do +11s. Season score and the vault are a thing, but if you already have the score from running +15s and you’ve done your 8 +15s for the week for the vault to maximize your rewards, then the only thing you’re doing running a +15 instead of running a +11 is making it more likely that you won’t time the key because you won’t be able to carry the group as hard as you would running a +11, so you want to maximize the chances that the group will time the run so you can get your 12 Wyrm fragments.
If they had made it to where +11 dropped 7 fragments, +12 dropped 8 fragments, etc… now you give an incentive to crest farmers to still run +15s because of the higher yield for a timed run. Timed runs back to back at +15 would get you fragments at a faster rate. Instead, +11 is flooded with overgeared people looking for easy clears for 12 fragments once they’ve reached season score with +15 clears across the board and once they have their weekly 8 in for vault rewards.
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You can gear to 437… You won’t have to resend crests so there’s no reason not to just commit to some items. 4 ilvls isn’t going to make or break anything.
You’re getting Aspect fragments out of +16, but not Hero gear… so you’re still stuck with Champion gear, and you’re getting fragments you can’t really use to upgrade that Champion gear with. Yes, you can downgrade your Aspect crest into a Wyrm crest to upgrade the Champion gear with, but if you’re going to do that then you might as well just run +11s for Wyrm fragments and save yourself the risk of not making the timer doing +16s. It’s more efficient to just do +11s if you want crests for Champion gear… which is crap design. The only situation you couldn’t do that in is if you’re somehow capped on Wyrm fragments… then you would be forced to run those +16s. I can’t imagine many people are in that situation because I’m not capped and I’ve already upgraded every piece of Champion gear that I have at this point.
So what I meant was, there’s not much gearing taking place within +16 to get yourself into +17s unless you already have Hero gear, which you aren’t getting outside of the Vault and outside of just different content like raids. The gearing for +17 is largely taking place in +11 to +15s, slanted towards +11 for efficiency, which is really goofy. The only thing +16 has going for it really if you’re stuck with Champion gear is season score and the Vault… I think +16 is an ilvl upgrade for Vault gear.
Except you only need 15-16 aspects crests total if not accounting for crafted items. The current cap is 600 frags or 40 aspects crests. So having access to 3 sparks atm, 12 + 13 is 25. You currently have 15 aspects you couldn’t spend no matter what.
Aspects crests aren’t precious, they’re the closest thing to useless in the whole system (until 10.1.5, but at that point well probably be capped at 1500 frags or 100 aspects crests.
“Stuck with champion gear” is stupid phrasing. If you are 437 and can’t do a 17, it really doesn’t matter. You’re rationale assumes there’s so use for the aspects crests and currently, there just isn’t. If you want 441s that you don’t have to use crests on at all, run 16s there’s a good chance those items will be upgradable in the future.
Your whole premise relies on the idea that the game incentivizes the thing you’re talking about, in this case +16, the issue is that all game incentives have an expiration date. The expiration date for caring about aspect downgrading was 2 weeks ago. The expiration date for caring about champion v hero was the moment you had enough to get the slot past 431 (+19-20+ end of dungeon loot). Those are crests you would spend either way.
The idea of “wasting crests” is completely fallacious.
Why are you arguing with me on a point I never made to start with? Are you on here just looking to start fights with people?
Nobody said anything about the fear of wasting Aspect crests on downgrading them to Wyrm crests. I said if upgrading Champion gear is where you’re at, you get 12 fragments per timed clear regardless of what keystone level you run, you don’t need the season score, and you’ve run whatever it is that you want to run for your Vault rewards and are strictly in it at this point for crests to upgrade the Champion gear that you have that still need upgrades… then what’s the point of running +16s to downgrade an Aspect crest into a Wyrm crest when you can just run +11s for the very same amount of fragments that amount to a Wyrm crest? It’s not hard.
Walking into a +16 for fragments in this scenario means you’re running a larger risk of not timing and ending up with 5 fragments at the end of the run instead of 12, it’s more of a pain to get an invite to a +16 than it is a +11 if you’re overgeared for a +11, and being overgeared in a +11 means you’re more in control of timing a +11 than you are a +16 because you’re in a position to carry… bonus points for multiple people doing this at the same time because you can stack overgeared people who are all looking to do the same thing and completely blow through +11s doing this. It’s more efficient to run the +11 in this situation and that’s why the congestion at +11 is what it is.
If you got less Wyrm fragments for timing a +11 than you would get for timing a +15, then less people would crest farm at +11 because +15 would become the most efficient way of doing that if you can guarantee timed clears… and to me that’s the way it should be.
try healing or tanking? i got into 3 crest farm groups tonight on this character as disc with no trouble at all. i didn’t have an HOI timed at all until just now. 
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We need new visible metrics besides how many runs or IO score, like: “Number of times hit by Avalanche in Neltharion’s Lair”
“Number of times locked down by Static Cling in Vortex Pinnacle”
Well, it’s a catch-22 scenario.
People doing +20s aren’t exactly thrilled they need to drop down to do +11s just to get crests to upgrade their gear, but then the iLvl 420 people gearing up alts or are new players get a ready source of free carries by people who outgear the dungeons. It’s kind of like how you get heroic and timewalking quests in order to get normal/heroic iLvl stuff.
They honestly don’t provide the same kind of incentive on higher keys. If I’m doing +23s I’m not going to drop down and do +20s.