I agree nerf demon hunters
Do you need a priest, Aug, and holy paladin for higher level mythic keys?
No, you need a bar for all three to walk into.
You need an Aug at a minimum. 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 support are required for serious keys. There’s nothing like them and no other dps can fit into that spot and make the rest of the group tankier to boot.
Damage prevention healers are ideal. The tiny shields from glimmer, Aura mastery, Devi aura in general, etc. are worth more than the HPS that shows up on the meter. I think Resto Druid is actually the HPS king right now? Not that it matters. All the healing you can do over the course of a dungeon is not nearly as important as the once a minute throughput checks where you need to heal 5M damage in 9s. CD trading is in, steady rotations are out.
So off the healer field, you have 2 real options, Hpal and Disc priest. Disc is always subject to fickle tuning. HPal, in comparison, almost idiot proof. It’s just better designed. They would have to be under tuned to make up for their kit, which would be a travesty, a return to the “Hybrid tax”. And that’s bad too.
And then you have mass dispel. Magic debuffs are such a huge portion of damage profiles in this set of dungeons that it’s unrealistic to nerf them all. Mind soothe could be brought by a disc priest, but then you lose the extra kick (which you need in a tri-Wizard comp) but it’s just as important. I honestly can’t imagine timing BH without one. Ditto for Halls.
Shadow was so bad for so long, I believe they set out to make them desired on purpose and just went too heavy handed with it. Same for Aug, they wanted a support specialist and balance be damned.
A ham sandwich walks into a bar and asks for a drink…
The bartender says sorry we don’t serve food here.
Yes and it is just like SL S3/4 where you needed a BDK, Holy Priest, SV hunter, and Destro lock for higher M+ keys. The good news is that you get a lot of flexibility with that fifth person, it’s your choice of about 6 specs.
OP said high keys.
He runs 22s.
Not really high keys at this point. Meta starts to shine at 26 or so. You can fumble your way through low 20s.
I agree they do need to nerf hunters
A distinction to discuss with OP, then, I guess. “High” when talking about keys is pretty subjective. I’ve seen top key runners talk about specific builds that can be used on lower keys, with changes made to “higher keys, like 18-20.”
Tell me about it. I hate all the whispers I get asking for carries in 20s
Everything you described can be handled by monk really well…
Buff to shields → 1 min 16% HP absorb
Also monks do a TON of healing during celestial and it’s a good DPS Cooldown if using Invoker’s Delight
Life Cocoon absorb on ~1 min CD also very nice
Monk cc utility is unmatched — Ring Of Peace, Interrupt, Paralysis, Leg Sweep
Specifically, Paralysis and Ring of Peace can interrupt regular spells and non-interruptible casts too. You can get so many good interrupts as monk healer
Great survivability - Healing Elixir instant self heal, Dampen Harm and Stoneskin Brew DRs, Reverse Magic also pretty good
Again, 1 min party absorb and 1 min external absorb
Even if 3 min CD, monk healers still have mass dispel. Also can do Reverse Magic + Dispel regularly to do 2 effects such as bursting
I wouldnt think everyone NEEDS the exodia team. I would think a competent team of whatever could do higher keys. Maybe not as easily as the meta team but if they are good and work together they should do fine.
Folks that absolutely need the easy-mode team, well, its says something about your skill i suppose.
Depends on what high keys are
I’ve run enough 20-22 with all sorts of comps on my bear/feral to not struggle
When I make groups on my druid all I really look for is: CC, interrupts, lust.
What the party is hasn’t affected anything too much.
Maybe for 25+ if I ever get there it will but it is Definitely not NEEDED
Not needed at all, the issue was that this comp could push 2 key levels higher than any other before the nerfs and that tricked down into the rest of the keys. Even in 20s there’s a noticeable difference in run quality when you have 3 or 4 members of this comp vs yolo groups.
The only one of these that’s really REQUIRED, is Augvoker. The spec is too OP and blizz doesn’t know how to bring it in line. It makes tanks tankier and heals healier through ebon might, which no other dps can do. Having an augvoker means whatever key you’re doing, you probably could’ve done it 1-2 key levels higher. It’s the only spec anymore I see that pugs are demanding, and it’s from 15s+, mainly once 20s hit, every other key listed is NEED AUG. Aug needs huge HUGE nerfs to not be mandatory, but then they’ll be useless (I’m ok with that, i know others aren’t). The skill progression isn’t linear like all other dps it’s exponential, so the better you play and the better your friends play, the higher the output that if it were 2 normal dps playing well.
The second one thats nice to have, but not required is priest because of PI and MD. Their damage is still really good in keys, but it’s not the reason. PI needs to be self-cast, it’s caused so much turmoil since it became an external (another reason aug needs nerfed, it’s PI but a spec).
Fire mage is great, not required, but still just does more damage than anything in the game in a key, and it’s because they’re uncapped aoe essentially, aug prescience gives them crit which they love (not bis stat they go for but it’s always good for them) and they just scale very well having an aug and PI.
Bear is nice, but now about even with DH, pally not too far behind. Tanks are more fluid but they’ve always been 1 or 2 at the top anyway cause tanks just tend to play the meta.
Holy pally is the bis healer cause it’s fun to play and healing is dogwater in DF. Also Aug double dips with them because ebon might makes them do more damage and more healing.
TL;DR: nerf augvoker hard
Take this week as an example (Bursting). Do we NEED a priest for this affix? The answer is no we don’t. We need DPS to pay attention to the stacks and slow DPS until the stacks drop off. BUT can you get them to do that? I’ve yet to see it in a group this week. So, Nope, I won’t run a key this week without a priest and its completely a player created issue.
Curious as to why Mage was omitted from the title
Somewhat, but there are some large easy pulls that can shave a lot of time off your run if you have that MD ready and in higher keys are almost necessary because of the timer. Yes, dps need to pay attention, but if you can brrrt without abandon this week because you thought to bring MD, then all the better.