Unfortunately since pvp doesn’t normalize ilvl it has to reward mythic level gear otherwise it would be incredibly unfair to actual pvpers.
I don’t think the problem is M+ exists, the problem is that blizzard made terrible decisions when equating ilvl with difficulty.
Most people (not all) would agree that the difficulty rating in this game would be mythic raiding > highest key levels (15-20) > heroic raiding > medium key levels (10-15). If you throw in PvP, most people would argue that only the highest levels of 2400+ are as hard as mythic raids, and that heroic is about as hard (full clear) as maybe 2100 rating.
The problem now is that heroic raiding is very challenging (good) but it’s reward is not commensurate. It is equivalent to a rating of 1600 (a joke in RBGs) and only a hair better than M15 loot (and arguably M15 is harder in all cases except last boss of heroic, who gives 220 not 213).
perhaps M+ is hindering heroic raiding, but the end goal of raiding has / should always be mythic raiding. I just don’t like that, in order to be ready for mythic, you need to do M+. Raiding should provide enough iterative rewards that it is self-sustaining and you can JUST raid and gear up enough to do mythic raids. And really the only thing necessary for that is that heroic raids should give a 226 vault item.
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I agree and I think the issue for me is that dungeon loot doesn’t just supplement raid loot anymore, it outright replaces it. We are well past the days of SGC, HOJ farms in Blackrock depths. Now your entire gearing and progression comes from 5 mans.
Well that’s not ENTIRELY true. It’s true when comparing heroic to M+, but mythic (1) has higher ilvl on last two bosses than anything from M+ and (2) gives you more chances at loot than M+, which is a choice of 3 items at most. You also get 3 random items across the entire pool of M+ items.
Right now the vault and M+ are the best thing ever because you can use almost any 226 item you get, because mythic raiding is so much harder than +14 keys. This is the path to progression. I personally think M+ and heroic should award the same ilvl gear (last two bosses being higher) and should award same vault ilvl, all of which is equal to mythic raids and highest pvp rank. And last two mythic bosses offer highest possible gear in the game.
That’s assuming those items are upgrades though… so you’re looking for 1 or 2 slots at most to be filled… So you have to go 10/10 mythic to get MAYBE 1 or 2 pieces that serve as an upgrade over a 14 chest vault choice, and if it’s a leggo slot then GG. The disparity is real.
Using my Brewmaster as an example… Denathrius drops a poorly itemized helm, and a poorly itemized ring. So the helm could have value for main stat but not by much and the ring is pretty much trash for me.
SLG drops a great pair of shoulders… Too bad that’s my legendary slot at 235 with a socket so its out. The cloak isn’t ideal statwise like the Denathrius helm and the trinket is great but not a “must have.”
So for me, that would NEVER be on my radar even if I was good enough to raid mythic. Certainly not when I can get those 10-14s done in a week and get 4 decent choices from a targeted location. (Spires for Brewmaster, specifically, is super awesome) I know that’s only 1 specific case but when we are talking about 16 item slots, 1 or 2 for that much effort is CBA to the max.
lol some people just aren’t cut out for raiding
I agree. I do have some mythic experience in WOD and Legion and made it clear that he was being a little you-know-what.
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I don’t agree with that at all.
Most people who only raid heroic are struggling to time a +10 let alone a 15.
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M+ is just as likely to get someone interested in raiding as it is to make someone quit raiding to only M+.
The content is far too different to say it’s damaging the representation of raiding, it also has a large number of players due to the fact that it’s mandatory for raid progression to do at least some M+ early on ontop of the players who only play M+.
I would like to see them expand on it though, M+ is fun and needs a better gearing system.
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That isn’t how it works though. Your vault selection is drawn from the entire M+ loot pool regardless of what keys you completed. Your ability to target gear through M+ ends at ilvl 210, which is worse even than heroic raiding.
No, what kills raiding is having a guild of 50% or more carries that don’t contribute but get dragged along because of the arbitrary number of people required to raid. Once a group like this hits a DPS check boss like sledgefist, the fact they’re being carried becomes even more noticeable. This irritates people who actually invested into getting better at the game and do extra content for more gear because they see the gap in skill and effort.
It will always be a problem in guilds that don’t cut people quickly based on performance. Bad players that lack self awareness and put in no effort hurt raiding.
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You’ve got this way out of order.
Mythic raids >= keys higher than 15 > 10-15 keys > heroic raids > 7-9 keys > normal raids > all other pve content.
Most people doing heroic raids are garbage and completely unable to do any keys above a 7. Raiding is easier than M+ overall.
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I think this is just a problem inherent to raiding. Someone’s always going to be the worst in the raid and raid progression is really not much more than waiting for the worst players in your raid to “get it” and then advance to the next boss.
It’s always been this way and I’m pretty sure it’s this way for all but the very top guilds who have hundreds of people lining up for a spot.
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I suppose I should clarify, when saying heroic I mean the entire dungeon, inclusive of the final boss who is harder than the first few mythic fights.
Heroic shriekwing, huntsman, and hungering are the equivalent of a Mists key at +14 on a relatively easy-affix tyrannical weak (post nerfs), while heroic sire denathrius is more like a +15 pre-nerf tyrannical necrotic wake (especially the second boss, after you’ve used up the spear and have no other weapons to use on him). Or like a prenerf tyrannical sanguine depths.
That’s why I said on the whole the +10-+15 is on average a bit easier than the heroic raid, even though I would agree most +13-14 keys are significantly harder than all but sire denathrius. M+ is also more selective - you can take better players and do well, while heroic requires at least twice as many and the problem in raiding is that even one person messing up one mechanic can wipe the raid. In M+ that’s not necessarily true, very few mechanics wipe the entire party except if tank dies, and most often the biggest problem with someone dying in M+ is losing damage - easily made up for with battle rez.
Lol, no they are not.
Looking at your own personal progression, you timed mists 14 on tyrannical for the first time 8 days ago. You killed Sire Denathrius heroic 17 days ago. Heroic Shriekwing over 2 months ago. And mists is the easiest of the 8 dungeons to time.
As I said earlier in the thead, KSM is about equivalent of being 3/10 in mythic Nathria progression in terms of how many people have done it. And your own progression is very close to that. You are overestimating how difficult heroic raiding is and underestimating how difficult +15 keys are.
You are in a mythic raid guild and haven’t yet got KSM. Imagine how difficult it is for people who are in heroic progression guilds with only that player pool to draw from.
the problem in raiding is that even one person messing up one mechanic can wipe the raid.
It’s no different in M+ boss fights either. 1 person missing the hook on stitchflesh = wipe. 1 person messing up arcane lightning = wipe. 1 person not running their ghost to the anima container in Halls = wipe. Etc, Etc.
You can have half your raid dead on Shriekwing and still kill it. I know this because I’ve been in such kills.
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I suppose we can argue over the exact levels, and I suppose the factor I missed was gearing. I timed mists recently mostly because my / my groups ilvl has been increasing at a quick clip, which has also allowed us to properly progress in the heroic raid. But I suppose this conversation is deviating from the original OP post of whether or not M+ is hurting raiding. And I’d say after discussion my current stance is that the current balance / rating IS hurting it, but conceptually and when properly balanced it should NOT hurt it. I think M+ is valuable and useful and enjoyable, and the problem is simply as we have been arguing, that the balance between the tiers is off.
The other big problem with raiding is that there are fixed, static levels, while in M+ it is a soft scale that varies week to week. Certain dungeons are hard one week and easier the next, and each increase in level of keystone can typically be compensated for by a jump in gear. While in the raid there is a massive jump in progression from normal to heroic to mythic, which can make people feel disheartened. Unlike in keystones, where if you can’t do a 12 you can do a 10, and you know that gear will get you to an 11, 12, 13 eventually.
It really won’t though.
You also have to playing your class well and know the dungeons and the routes and whatever else.
Learning M+ is no different than learning raid fights, the difference in M+ is that you can leave the green parsers from your raid team out of your 5 man M+ team.
And that is by and large what people do in every guild, just form cliques of the best 5-10 players from their 20-man raid roster to run M+ with.
As far as “M+ killing raiding”, if people enjoy M+ more than raiding then I don’t see the problem. Raiders should really count themselves lucky that Blizzard sees fit to give them a whole new raid tier in every single patch whereas dungeon fans get the same 8 dungeons for 2 years.
The issue is really the gearing system that makes people do M+ for extra gear even if they don’t want to. But this is a system that can easily be fixed with a currency that is shared amongst all forms of content (e.g. just let people earn conquest from all end game content with a shared cap).
What we have here are one of those people who I mentioned above being brought along for the ride. Even completely out gearing M+15 at 220ilvl they still aren’t KSM while clearly trying to get it, yet had no issues clearing heroic raid or doing 2/10 mythic raiding.
My guild is 8/10 heroic and my hunter alt has the highest io score in the guild at around 980.
Most of the people in our “number 1” raid team haven’t timed a single 10.
No loot and average raids hurt raiding.
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